Page 82 of War

I want it all, and I’m not supposed to, which makes me want it all the more.

“Why haven’t you been with any other women since we met?” The question just slips out, but as soon as it does, I want to die.

People who are into each other ask these sorts of questions. I’m flagrantly making him believe that this matters to me. And it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. I’m just curious. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to know about a horseman’s sex life?

No? Just me?

Shit.

War glances over. “Who told you I’d been with other women?”

“People talk.”

I remember when I first came to camp the women made it sound like War had a revolving door of women entering and exiting his tent.

“Ah,” the horseman says. “Humans and their foibles.” There’s a long stretch of silence.

“So?” I press. I’ve already embarrassed myself. I might as well see this question through. “Why haven’t you?”

War fully turns to me, his brown eyes glittering in the sun. “I am committed to you, wife, and you alone.”

I want to shrug the statement off. I might’ve even a few days ago. But for whatever reason, today, that explanation hits me low in the gut.

“Wow, I’m flattered.” I try to sound mocking and irreverent, but I don’t quite pull it off.

War gives me a pained smile, like the effort of abstinence hasn’t been without its challenges. The poor wittle horseman and his neglected dick. Whateverwill he do?

“What if I never sleep with you?” I ask.

“I have been inhuman for a long time, Miriam. I can manage my body well enough until I am inhuman once more.”

Shivers. I knew he wasn’t truly human, but hearing him say it is a whole lot more sobering than just generally being aware of it.

“You, on the other hand,” he continues, “have only ever been human, and you are bound to your most basic nature. We will see how longyoulast, wife.”

Today of all days, that statement finds its mark.

Out on theopen road, there’s no mistaking that I am living in a terrible time. The most obvious sign of it are the bodies. Just like the first time I traveled with War, we pass by several of them. They’re bloated and stinking, and scavengers have already mutilated them. They lay out in the street, or half in, half out of residences. I’m sure there are more dead cooped up in houses, rotting away amongst all their worldly possessions.

Scattered near the bodies are piles of bones, and I know that War’s zombies are responsible for this.

But it’s not just the bodies.

We pass by Ashkelon, the city south of Ashdod. This place, too, has been sacked. Some of the buildings still smolder in the distance, and there’s a stillness to the air that feels utterly devoid of human life.

Even once we pass by the city, there are still strange sights that I would never have seen a decade ago. Out here, in between towns, our surroundings are speckled with junkyards and scrap metal. The carcasses of old cars and electronics and other useless technology sit abandoned along the side of the road.

I don’t know if the sight of all this old decadence and waste will ever stop being jarring to me. I’ve sifted through so many junkyards over the years, but even after visitinghundredsof times, I am still not immune to the prickling sensation up my back, like there are old ghosts about.

“Can you tell me about your brothers?” I ask, my eyes lingering on a rusted out dryer and a stained fridge we pass by.

“They are lethal and terrible just like me,” War says.

Even in the sweltering midday heat, the hairs on my arms rise.

“Where are they?” I ask.

“Where they need to be,” he replies cryptically.

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