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lina_trinch) wrote2013-08-01 08:51 pm
lina_trinch) wrote2013-08-01 08:51 pm
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Thanatos: Grim Reaper
I had to write a short story for my horror class to get extra credit, so I took an old novel idea I had and adapted it into this. Enjoy it, internet.
Honest reviews/critics are helpful, especially before I send it in.
Thanatos: Grim Reaper
bySavannaha Wiley Lina Trinch hehehe
Franklin's father, the old dilapidated man that he was, knew much about herbal remedies and how to, in his words, keep the ticker ticking. He knew so much in this realm of study that he even adopted his son into the small and admittedly strange practice of bleeding or purging the sick with follow ups of herbal tea or crushed flowers and spices. Franklin grew into the study, beginning to surpass his father in the field, and he had even started to call himself doctor amongst the locals before either of them had known it. For as much as he knew, his father knew much more, so when word came from London of a plague sweeping through the city and taking every life within reach, Franklin looked to his father for guidance. For the first, he answered with the most surprising advice that neither of them really thought they would hear from his mouth. He told his boy to run.
It was now three months to the day that Franklin had obeyed his father's demand against his own judgment. He had treated random cases of the plague on his travels and, even though experience and evidence said otherwise, Franklin believed that it may have been possible for his father to have survived. Of course, he hadn't dared to retrace his steps just yet to find the last known member of his family while the plague continued sweeping through England.
No, not England. Europe.
Possibly the known world.
For the time being he had taken up shelter in the small town of Helmsport. While a river ran along the southeastern side of the town, no trade came about these days and travelers were met with scrutiny. As they should, Franklin thought. The township had been generally untouched by the disaster. Why should they take in anyone that could possibly be carrying the disease? The only reason he and the boy who traveled along with him these days were able to stay without too much trouble from the locals was simply because he had introduced himself as Doctor Franklin Camborne to the first passerby who would pay him any mind. They had quickly ushered him to one of the farmer's wives who had taken down with an illness in her old age. The symptoms were not like any of the plague that Franklin had seen thus far and he thought the town would join in celebration when he announced his discovery. He was thankful they didn't.
They had rented a room above the inn, but the price was so atrocious that he demanded free board for the duration of his stay or else he and the boy would leave and old Mrs. Miller would have to survive on her own. A risky move it may have been, but it had paid off and the lodging was free for the next month. Not that he intended to stay that long really. He was always on the run these days.
“Perhaps your leeches would help her.”
Franklin looked away from the outside world filmed through a murky window, his thoughts having been intruded by an outside force. “What?”
The boy, John, sat on a chair next to a very small table, his unclothed feet dangling a half inch from the floor. “Perhaps your leeches would help her,” he said again. “You were thinking about her, weren't you?”
The doctor cleared his throat and looked outside again. “The leeches aren't a cure-all, my boy. They only work for certain ailments. Considering how frail the old bat is, I think she could use all of the blood she could hold.”
The boy stayed quiet for a moment and Franklin waited patiently for him to find what he wanted to say next. After a moment, John spoke again, “Then what were you thinking about?”
Franklin looked back to him, a little smirk playing on his lips as he crossed the floor and sat in the chair across from the lad. “Nothing in particular,” he explained in small amusement, “Simply our good fortune, I suppose.”
This made John grimace and the man almost laughed at the face he made. Franklin first met the boy as John was trying to steal some coin from him that didn't even exist. Once inevitably caught, the doctor gained a story from him of how he had been orphaned because of the plague and thievery had become his source of daily—or perhaps weekly—bread. Franklin told himself he took the boy in because he needed an assistant and an extra hand, never mind the extra mouth to feed. Since then, the boy had been depressed and the doctor had been amused by the boy's depression and the dark wisdom it brought. Honestly, depression was a perfectly normal reaction to what was going on around them. It was an absolute possibility that it wasn't John that was affected by all of this the most but Franklin.
“How long are we to stay here?” he asked, as if purposely interrupting Franklin's train of thought once again.
“Not a month,” he answered, leaning back in his chair, “When the woman dies, we'll probably be thrown out. If she survives that long, perhaps we'll leave in the night.”
This brought about a horribly confused face that the doctor had to bite his cheek to prevent from laughing again. “You don't intend to help her.” The words fell on him as an incredulous statement rather than a question.
Even if the child was amusing, sometimes it was difficult to explain certain aspects of life and death to him. In these days, understanding the cycle was essential to one's own survival. “I would like to,” he explained with shinning eyes and a hint of a forlorn smile playing upon his lips, “but she is simply too old. Even if the death weren't sweeping through the country, she has little hope of survival now. I will do what I can and what I can do is to keep her comfortable to make the passing easier.” Silence suspended in the room once again as the boy stared at him with a hint of resentment and the doctor continued to hold his cool temperament. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” John answered, looking to the floor. “I just wish things didn't work that way, is all.”
“That's life, child.”
***
Franklin woke with a hiss as he almost fell out of bed from the shoving his young ward was doing against his shoulder. “Boy, what are-”
“Do you smell that?” John's voice was so low, so frightened, that the doctor forgot his agitation for a moment until he realized what the child had said.
“You were dreaming,” he answered back groggily, readjusting himself on his side. “Go back to sleep.”
Silence met him, as it usually did when he had any sort of conversation with John, yet this one was so long and tense that he could hear the air hum against his ears. Franklin dully noted that he was neglecting to hear to small feet moving back to bed along with that steady hum. He cracked his eyes open, though darkness permeated his vision aside from what moonlight the window allowed him, and he could just make out the small form giving a frightening stare to the door. “John,” the doctor tried again, in a calmer and more awake voice, “Whatever you smelled, you were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
The small, quiet voice spoke again, barely audible in the silence. “Do you not smell it?”
“All I smell are these unwashed bed clothes,” the doctor's gruff voice answered back, but he sniffed the air anyway. He did smell something. It was not any sort of bodily stench he was familiar with, nor was it smoke from timber or meat. It certainly wasn't a pleasant smell, that was for certain, but it didn't dominate his sense either even as it made his eyes want to water. The smell lingered in the air, not seeming to be leaving their space anytime soon, but what was it?
Now awake, the doctor leaned up on his elbows and looked to the boy. “A smell woke you?”
“I smelled it before,” he quietly answered, “Back home.” After a moment's hesitation, John began creeping over to the door of their rooms, as if something dreadful was going to be just around the nearest corner to kill them both as he did so and the act of leaving was a perilous choice.
“Then what is it?” the doctor asked, assuming that the child was familiar with such a stench, but his careful and frightened movements gave cause for alarm. John had never exhibited an overactive imagination, nor any sort of night terrors or sleep walking spells. If this was a hoax, it was becoming quite impressive. Now Franklin found his own voice had been lowered to a whisper in the tense atmosphere. “John.”
The boy had soundlessly pulled open the door and was now disappearing into the darkness beyond. Franklin stayed where he was, claiming that he was simply too tired rather than too scared to follow the young lad down the dark stairs as well. He waited to hear John rummaging around on the lower floor—in this silence, he felt he could hear anything—but no sounds came. The doctor took a deep breath, called himself foolish for being afraid in the first place, and pulled the bed sheets off to throw his legs over the side of his low bedding. Silently, telling himself that he stayed quiet to prevent waking any other residents in the inn, Franklin also walked out of the door.
Now on the balcony above the first floor he noted that the light from the windows was even less here than in his room, so the darkness won out for a moment. He wouldn't risk movement just yet or else someone would likely find the doctor's corpse at the base of the stairs in the morning. Once his eyes began to adjust, Franklin immediately started to seek out the boy that was causing all of this trouble for him. His search was rewarded with John's small figure already at the bottom of the stairs, creeping across the foyer towards one of the windows.
Franklin gave a low grumble deep in his throat as he also began to move down the stairs, not bothering to crouch like a frightened boy, but also not simply calling out either. Once he reached the landing, the doctor noted that the smell was stronger here. He started to walk over to the boy, who upon seeing that he was being followed began to wave in such a way as to indicate that the other needed to crouch down as well. This gave Franklin pause.
There was a knock at the main door. Two knocks. Not a rasp of knuckles, but rather like something was hitting against the door. John began to back away towards a corner.
Three knocks. This one came after the length of a pause. Franklin studied the door with curiosity and began to approach it to see what was making the racket before it became any louder. John let out a strained whimper and, once the doctor glanced to him, looked as if he may burst into hysterics and cry. Confused, Franklin made pause again. Once giving a near accusing glance to the door, he started to walk quietly towards the boy, crouching down as he was told to do earlier.
The fourth knock made Franklin jump as he wrapped an arm around the child. John hadn't shown any sort of extreme emotion at all since the two had found each other. His reactions tonight only made the doctor more upset than he ought to be given the situation. Idly, he wondered if all of this could be the product of a dream.
The doctor decided to risk a glimpse outside, though his position wouldn't allow him to see the thing thumping against the door. Through the natural murk of the glass and the thick fog that come in through the night, Franklin could make very little out in the way of shadows, yet the scene still raised hairs along his arms. The fog outside had more of a purple discoloration to it rather than the usual gray or blue. The shadows that bounced of its refracting light seem to be too many in number and those same shadows seemed to be moving slowly through the fog and the moonlight.
A fifth knock sounded on the door and the boy let out a whine deep in his chest as he pressed himself against the doctor's torso. He was beginning to shake from suppressing his own sobs. Franklin continued blinking dumbly out of the window, not even allowing himself to breathe. He was aware that the boy knew what was happening outside of these walls and he certainly planned to give the child many questions once this was over, but for now Franklin found himself also frightened.
A shadow passed over the window, commanding the doctor's attention immediately even as he crouched further into the floor. The figure on the other side stood taller and thinner than most men the doctor had seen in his life, though the proportions were difficult to make out as the black cloth shrouding the figure was distorted against the window pane. It walked with a staff made of some form of stone Franklin had never seen before at its side, but the figure halted in one of its slow, long strides. It seemed to have felt eyes on it, because the head slowly began to turn to meet them. Even through the distorted glass, Franklin could make out the pale—possibly white—hardened skin stuck straight against the stranger's bones as if muscles were not a factor in its making, only the strained veins of leather flesh. He caught a glimpse of an eye- No, a socket. It had to be a socket. Nothing was that black and endless and drawing and reflective and-
Franklin quickly ducked down below the window sill in a foolish act of fear with John pressed beneath him against the floor. The doctor was breathing hard now, his heart thrumming against his chest so loud that he knew the boy could feel it and that the stranger outside could even possibly hear it. He stayed that way, motionless and still, for a long while as he wished to stay until morning but something finally occurred to him after what seemed like a long hour. The smell was gone.
He allowed more time to pass, possibly double what he had previously waited, before gaining the courage to have one last peak out of the damned window. Slowly, Franklin began to lean up and he could feel his frightened charge stiffen beneath him. He was sweating, shaking, but after he licked his lips, Franklin dared another peak.
The window, still forever murky with dirt and filth, showed him a world outside lit by the moonlight. There was no fog, no figures moving about, and certainly nothing knocking against a door. Everything was quiet, normal, as if mocking him and proving that he truly was going insane. He let out a held breath, his whole body releasing a held tremor from the relief of seeing nothing there. Sensing that the world outside had returned to normalcy, the boy also allowed relief to take him as he fully let himself weep against the man holding him.
***
The next morning, Franklin found himself putting a cloth over Mrs. Miller's prone body. It was a good thing, too, as he had already packed their horse once he found enough nerve to travel out of the inn. This news of his leaving still brought a displeasure to the townspeople as many people had taken ill during the night and seemed to grow worse as the day progressed. Franklin had agreed to see to a few of them before checking on the now lifeless body and found them each with symptoms of the plague. He had told them, warned them really, of their ailment and he was very thankful that they were allowing him to be on his way without a sword to the throat. They probably thought that he was the one that had infected their town and he was perfectly fine with them believing that.
The boy had helped him tend to the body, patients, and packed a few things in quiet stoicism, but he hadn't so much as uttered a word to his caretaker since the night before. That was also perfectly fine with Franklin.
He gave his regards to Mr. Miller, helped the boy onto the horse that had taken them this far in their journey, took the reigns in his hand and began another slow trek out of another town that was going to be wiped away in a matter of days, weeks if they were lucky. A low, white mist swept through them that seemed rather comforting compared to the last fog he had experienced.
Once again, the boy's voice pulled the doctor from his thoughts. “Did you see them?”
Franklin, as much as he wanted to strike the boy now that he had grown to care for, kept walking through the mist, listening as his feet and the horse's hooves squished through the mud of the road. “Them?” he finally asked the boy, feigning ignorance.
John was not deterred in the least by the doctor's act, for he had felt the same way the night before the first member of his family succumbed to the plague. “The skeletons,” he pressed, “Did you see them?”
The doctor stopped moving, the horse shaking his head at the confusing actions his master was showing. Skeletons, Franklin thought. He knew skeletons well. He had seen enough uncovered graves and dead bodies to know the bones of the human anatomy well enough to attempt mends for many possible fractures. He knew how brown the bones became after the flesh decomposed around it and he knew the cracks, holes, and sockets that the bones were formed around.
Skeletons, he thought again. He knew them well. “Yes,” he answered, moving forward again, “I saw a skeleton.”
End
Honest reviews/critics are helpful, especially before I send it in.
Thanatos: Grim Reaper
by
Franklin's father, the old dilapidated man that he was, knew much about herbal remedies and how to, in his words, keep the ticker ticking. He knew so much in this realm of study that he even adopted his son into the small and admittedly strange practice of bleeding or purging the sick with follow ups of herbal tea or crushed flowers and spices. Franklin grew into the study, beginning to surpass his father in the field, and he had even started to call himself doctor amongst the locals before either of them had known it. For as much as he knew, his father knew much more, so when word came from London of a plague sweeping through the city and taking every life within reach, Franklin looked to his father for guidance. For the first, he answered with the most surprising advice that neither of them really thought they would hear from his mouth. He told his boy to run.
It was now three months to the day that Franklin had obeyed his father's demand against his own judgment. He had treated random cases of the plague on his travels and, even though experience and evidence said otherwise, Franklin believed that it may have been possible for his father to have survived. Of course, he hadn't dared to retrace his steps just yet to find the last known member of his family while the plague continued sweeping through England.
No, not England. Europe.
Possibly the known world.
For the time being he had taken up shelter in the small town of Helmsport. While a river ran along the southeastern side of the town, no trade came about these days and travelers were met with scrutiny. As they should, Franklin thought. The township had been generally untouched by the disaster. Why should they take in anyone that could possibly be carrying the disease? The only reason he and the boy who traveled along with him these days were able to stay without too much trouble from the locals was simply because he had introduced himself as Doctor Franklin Camborne to the first passerby who would pay him any mind. They had quickly ushered him to one of the farmer's wives who had taken down with an illness in her old age. The symptoms were not like any of the plague that Franklin had seen thus far and he thought the town would join in celebration when he announced his discovery. He was thankful they didn't.
They had rented a room above the inn, but the price was so atrocious that he demanded free board for the duration of his stay or else he and the boy would leave and old Mrs. Miller would have to survive on her own. A risky move it may have been, but it had paid off and the lodging was free for the next month. Not that he intended to stay that long really. He was always on the run these days.
“Perhaps your leeches would help her.”
Franklin looked away from the outside world filmed through a murky window, his thoughts having been intruded by an outside force. “What?”
The boy, John, sat on a chair next to a very small table, his unclothed feet dangling a half inch from the floor. “Perhaps your leeches would help her,” he said again. “You were thinking about her, weren't you?”
The doctor cleared his throat and looked outside again. “The leeches aren't a cure-all, my boy. They only work for certain ailments. Considering how frail the old bat is, I think she could use all of the blood she could hold.”
The boy stayed quiet for a moment and Franklin waited patiently for him to find what he wanted to say next. After a moment, John spoke again, “Then what were you thinking about?”
Franklin looked back to him, a little smirk playing on his lips as he crossed the floor and sat in the chair across from the lad. “Nothing in particular,” he explained in small amusement, “Simply our good fortune, I suppose.”
This made John grimace and the man almost laughed at the face he made. Franklin first met the boy as John was trying to steal some coin from him that didn't even exist. Once inevitably caught, the doctor gained a story from him of how he had been orphaned because of the plague and thievery had become his source of daily—or perhaps weekly—bread. Franklin told himself he took the boy in because he needed an assistant and an extra hand, never mind the extra mouth to feed. Since then, the boy had been depressed and the doctor had been amused by the boy's depression and the dark wisdom it brought. Honestly, depression was a perfectly normal reaction to what was going on around them. It was an absolute possibility that it wasn't John that was affected by all of this the most but Franklin.
“How long are we to stay here?” he asked, as if purposely interrupting Franklin's train of thought once again.
“Not a month,” he answered, leaning back in his chair, “When the woman dies, we'll probably be thrown out. If she survives that long, perhaps we'll leave in the night.”
This brought about a horribly confused face that the doctor had to bite his cheek to prevent from laughing again. “You don't intend to help her.” The words fell on him as an incredulous statement rather than a question.
Even if the child was amusing, sometimes it was difficult to explain certain aspects of life and death to him. In these days, understanding the cycle was essential to one's own survival. “I would like to,” he explained with shinning eyes and a hint of a forlorn smile playing upon his lips, “but she is simply too old. Even if the death weren't sweeping through the country, she has little hope of survival now. I will do what I can and what I can do is to keep her comfortable to make the passing easier.” Silence suspended in the room once again as the boy stared at him with a hint of resentment and the doctor continued to hold his cool temperament. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” John answered, looking to the floor. “I just wish things didn't work that way, is all.”
“That's life, child.”
Franklin woke with a hiss as he almost fell out of bed from the shoving his young ward was doing against his shoulder. “Boy, what are-”
“Do you smell that?” John's voice was so low, so frightened, that the doctor forgot his agitation for a moment until he realized what the child had said.
“You were dreaming,” he answered back groggily, readjusting himself on his side. “Go back to sleep.”
Silence met him, as it usually did when he had any sort of conversation with John, yet this one was so long and tense that he could hear the air hum against his ears. Franklin dully noted that he was neglecting to hear to small feet moving back to bed along with that steady hum. He cracked his eyes open, though darkness permeated his vision aside from what moonlight the window allowed him, and he could just make out the small form giving a frightening stare to the door. “John,” the doctor tried again, in a calmer and more awake voice, “Whatever you smelled, you were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
The small, quiet voice spoke again, barely audible in the silence. “Do you not smell it?”
“All I smell are these unwashed bed clothes,” the doctor's gruff voice answered back, but he sniffed the air anyway. He did smell something. It was not any sort of bodily stench he was familiar with, nor was it smoke from timber or meat. It certainly wasn't a pleasant smell, that was for certain, but it didn't dominate his sense either even as it made his eyes want to water. The smell lingered in the air, not seeming to be leaving their space anytime soon, but what was it?
Now awake, the doctor leaned up on his elbows and looked to the boy. “A smell woke you?”
“I smelled it before,” he quietly answered, “Back home.” After a moment's hesitation, John began creeping over to the door of their rooms, as if something dreadful was going to be just around the nearest corner to kill them both as he did so and the act of leaving was a perilous choice.
“Then what is it?” the doctor asked, assuming that the child was familiar with such a stench, but his careful and frightened movements gave cause for alarm. John had never exhibited an overactive imagination, nor any sort of night terrors or sleep walking spells. If this was a hoax, it was becoming quite impressive. Now Franklin found his own voice had been lowered to a whisper in the tense atmosphere. “John.”
The boy had soundlessly pulled open the door and was now disappearing into the darkness beyond. Franklin stayed where he was, claiming that he was simply too tired rather than too scared to follow the young lad down the dark stairs as well. He waited to hear John rummaging around on the lower floor—in this silence, he felt he could hear anything—but no sounds came. The doctor took a deep breath, called himself foolish for being afraid in the first place, and pulled the bed sheets off to throw his legs over the side of his low bedding. Silently, telling himself that he stayed quiet to prevent waking any other residents in the inn, Franklin also walked out of the door.
Now on the balcony above the first floor he noted that the light from the windows was even less here than in his room, so the darkness won out for a moment. He wouldn't risk movement just yet or else someone would likely find the doctor's corpse at the base of the stairs in the morning. Once his eyes began to adjust, Franklin immediately started to seek out the boy that was causing all of this trouble for him. His search was rewarded with John's small figure already at the bottom of the stairs, creeping across the foyer towards one of the windows.
Franklin gave a low grumble deep in his throat as he also began to move down the stairs, not bothering to crouch like a frightened boy, but also not simply calling out either. Once he reached the landing, the doctor noted that the smell was stronger here. He started to walk over to the boy, who upon seeing that he was being followed began to wave in such a way as to indicate that the other needed to crouch down as well. This gave Franklin pause.
There was a knock at the main door. Two knocks. Not a rasp of knuckles, but rather like something was hitting against the door. John began to back away towards a corner.
Three knocks. This one came after the length of a pause. Franklin studied the door with curiosity and began to approach it to see what was making the racket before it became any louder. John let out a strained whimper and, once the doctor glanced to him, looked as if he may burst into hysterics and cry. Confused, Franklin made pause again. Once giving a near accusing glance to the door, he started to walk quietly towards the boy, crouching down as he was told to do earlier.
The fourth knock made Franklin jump as he wrapped an arm around the child. John hadn't shown any sort of extreme emotion at all since the two had found each other. His reactions tonight only made the doctor more upset than he ought to be given the situation. Idly, he wondered if all of this could be the product of a dream.
The doctor decided to risk a glimpse outside, though his position wouldn't allow him to see the thing thumping against the door. Through the natural murk of the glass and the thick fog that come in through the night, Franklin could make very little out in the way of shadows, yet the scene still raised hairs along his arms. The fog outside had more of a purple discoloration to it rather than the usual gray or blue. The shadows that bounced of its refracting light seem to be too many in number and those same shadows seemed to be moving slowly through the fog and the moonlight.
A fifth knock sounded on the door and the boy let out a whine deep in his chest as he pressed himself against the doctor's torso. He was beginning to shake from suppressing his own sobs. Franklin continued blinking dumbly out of the window, not even allowing himself to breathe. He was aware that the boy knew what was happening outside of these walls and he certainly planned to give the child many questions once this was over, but for now Franklin found himself also frightened.
A shadow passed over the window, commanding the doctor's attention immediately even as he crouched further into the floor. The figure on the other side stood taller and thinner than most men the doctor had seen in his life, though the proportions were difficult to make out as the black cloth shrouding the figure was distorted against the window pane. It walked with a staff made of some form of stone Franklin had never seen before at its side, but the figure halted in one of its slow, long strides. It seemed to have felt eyes on it, because the head slowly began to turn to meet them. Even through the distorted glass, Franklin could make out the pale—possibly white—hardened skin stuck straight against the stranger's bones as if muscles were not a factor in its making, only the strained veins of leather flesh. He caught a glimpse of an eye- No, a socket. It had to be a socket. Nothing was that black and endless and drawing and reflective and-
Franklin quickly ducked down below the window sill in a foolish act of fear with John pressed beneath him against the floor. The doctor was breathing hard now, his heart thrumming against his chest so loud that he knew the boy could feel it and that the stranger outside could even possibly hear it. He stayed that way, motionless and still, for a long while as he wished to stay until morning but something finally occurred to him after what seemed like a long hour. The smell was gone.
He allowed more time to pass, possibly double what he had previously waited, before gaining the courage to have one last peak out of the damned window. Slowly, Franklin began to lean up and he could feel his frightened charge stiffen beneath him. He was sweating, shaking, but after he licked his lips, Franklin dared another peak.
The window, still forever murky with dirt and filth, showed him a world outside lit by the moonlight. There was no fog, no figures moving about, and certainly nothing knocking against a door. Everything was quiet, normal, as if mocking him and proving that he truly was going insane. He let out a held breath, his whole body releasing a held tremor from the relief of seeing nothing there. Sensing that the world outside had returned to normalcy, the boy also allowed relief to take him as he fully let himself weep against the man holding him.
The next morning, Franklin found himself putting a cloth over Mrs. Miller's prone body. It was a good thing, too, as he had already packed their horse once he found enough nerve to travel out of the inn. This news of his leaving still brought a displeasure to the townspeople as many people had taken ill during the night and seemed to grow worse as the day progressed. Franklin had agreed to see to a few of them before checking on the now lifeless body and found them each with symptoms of the plague. He had told them, warned them really, of their ailment and he was very thankful that they were allowing him to be on his way without a sword to the throat. They probably thought that he was the one that had infected their town and he was perfectly fine with them believing that.
The boy had helped him tend to the body, patients, and packed a few things in quiet stoicism, but he hadn't so much as uttered a word to his caretaker since the night before. That was also perfectly fine with Franklin.
He gave his regards to Mr. Miller, helped the boy onto the horse that had taken them this far in their journey, took the reigns in his hand and began another slow trek out of another town that was going to be wiped away in a matter of days, weeks if they were lucky. A low, white mist swept through them that seemed rather comforting compared to the last fog he had experienced.
Once again, the boy's voice pulled the doctor from his thoughts. “Did you see them?”
Franklin, as much as he wanted to strike the boy now that he had grown to care for, kept walking through the mist, listening as his feet and the horse's hooves squished through the mud of the road. “Them?” he finally asked the boy, feigning ignorance.
John was not deterred in the least by the doctor's act, for he had felt the same way the night before the first member of his family succumbed to the plague. “The skeletons,” he pressed, “Did you see them?”
The doctor stopped moving, the horse shaking his head at the confusing actions his master was showing. Skeletons, Franklin thought. He knew skeletons well. He had seen enough uncovered graves and dead bodies to know the bones of the human anatomy well enough to attempt mends for many possible fractures. He knew how brown the bones became after the flesh decomposed around it and he knew the cracks, holes, and sockets that the bones were formed around.
Skeletons, he thought again. He knew them well. “Yes,” he answered, moving forward again, “I saw a skeleton.”
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