Page 65 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
More and more of the dead started appearing in the clearing amongst the flowers and trees, sitting and standing and looking around in confusion. There were screams, as some of these people saw their own corpses lying nearby, and then more screams as Owen shot them again, picking out Waverly Weir first, and then a Chinese man he had killed in Australia eight years earlier. Then the man who had given him the flask, the man he had killed in Cairo. And then his own father, saying Owen’s name, pleading with him.
“Stay fucking dead!” he shouted, backing away, as many of the resurrected crowded towards him, seemingly now no longer scared of him. Why would they be scared, if every time he shot them, they woke up again like a character in a video game? He had limited bullets, and he couldn’t keep killing them all repeatedly.
He tried to maintain discipline as he retreated, firing only when he had to, preserving rounds. He saw some of the dead run in the opposite direction, choosing to flee, but others kept coming, advancing upon him, fired up by madness or memories of what he had done to them in life. Owen’s accuracy declined as his composure started to fail. He shrugged off the backpack and retrieved the two spare clips, replacing the second empty clip in the pistol. He back-stepped away from the crowd to give himself enough room, moving clumsily and without care. He shot those who continued to advance upon him, ignoring those who fled for now. Finally the last body fell, and the only other person still visible in the clearing was Lukas.
“Is this all you have?” Owen shouted at him, furious and relieved. “These party tricks?”
Lukas, of course, didn’t answer.
Owen exhaled heavily through his mouth and turned on the spot just in time to see the scrabbling branches of one of the awful saplings snap down over him.
Immediately he was crushed, great pressure across his chest, his arms folded over his head, and he felt himself being lifted, upended so that his feet were in the air. He released a strangled scream and as his stomach sucked in the branches tightened, constricting his breathing. He pulled the trigger on the gun in a blind panic, releasing two shots that thumped his hearing but otherwise seemed to have no effect.
Time stretched out and Owen was immobile, trapped, unable even to scream. All he knew was pain and pressure and horror. Then there was only the welcome escape of unconsciousness.
***
The buzzing of insects dragged him back from the darkness. He opened his eyes and stared at nothing, realising after a moment that he wasstaring at a sky that was losing the light. He was on his back, those awful flowers framing him, a mist of flies and mosquitoes above him. He could feel them on his face, crawling and biting. It made him think of days from many years earlier, when he had been training in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
He tried to sit up and his rib cage screamed in protest, the pain reassuring him that he was indeed still alive.
He saw that he was on the ground, a little distance away from the tree that had taken him. That tree was upright again, branches pointing to the sky. Somehow, he had been released from its grip.
He staggered to his feet, his whole torso screaming constantly in agony, a pain worse than he had ever felt before. He exhaled heavily, realising he was sweating despite the cool evening air.
He turned on the spot, slowly scanning his surroundings. Lukas was nowhere to be seen, but the chess piece and the backpack that Owen had been carrying, including the magical box within it, were gone. He patted himself down quickly, wincing again at the pain, and realised that the flask too had been taken from him. Again.
He shrieked to the sky in frustration. He’d had it, in his hand, before all the madness with the dead people coming back to life.
He realised then that Lukas must have freed him from the tree to retrieve the flask and the chess piece. And then he had left him unconscious on the ground, discarded like a piece of litter. That insulted Owen more than the loss of the items: Lukas had been so indifferent to any threat that Owen might pose, he hadn’t even bothered to kill him.
Owen coughed and tasted blood at the back of his throat, felt things inside him moving in ways they shouldn’t. He was broken. He would live, but he probably needed some sort of medical attention. He checked around the ground at his feet, but his gun was also missing.
He coughed again, this time the noise turning to a bitter laugh. What did he need a weapon for? Even if he knew where Lukas was the bullets wouldn’t stop him. He had lost, it was as simple as that. It was time to retreat, to heal. To plan again.
He hobbled off towards the woods, conscious that night was coming. He wanted to drag himself past the horrible flowers and the vines beforethe dark. He didn’t like to think about what the weird woods would be like after the sun had gone.
The cloud of insects grew thicker as he pressed into the gloom beneath the trees, buzzing and irritating him. He ignored it, concentrating on just moving, one foot in front of the other, pushing through branches that tried to scratch and hold him back.
A flash of something bright out of the corner of his eye stopped him. He turned his head and saw a woman, naked and sitting with her back to a tree. She stared back at him, her eyes huge saucers, her cheeks streaked with tears. She had long, dark hair on her shoulders and her knees pulled up to her chest. She was one of the dead resurrected, one ofhisdead who had escaped the slaughter.
She lifted shaking arms and he saw she was holding his gun, pointing it directly at him.
Owen sighed, realising the trouble he was in, but at the same time, a part of his brain relished this trouble. This was tangible danger. This was a woman with a gun, not magic and flowers and trees.
“I don’t even remember killing you,” he admitted with a sneer.
The gunshot punched the air and Owen spun backwards, his left shoulder on fire. He looked down and saw a ragged hole in his coat on the outside of his upper arm, near his shoulder, thick dark blood seeping out. The bullet had torn a chunk out of his arm, destroying muscle and bone.
Owen screamed, his body and his mind overflowing with pain. He swayed on his feet, his mind pulsing and dimming briefly, before snapping back into focus. The woman watched him, her mouth open, the gun shaking in front of her.
“You can’t even fucking do that right!” he shouted at her. “An idiot could kill me at this distance!”
Owen ran at her and rather than firing again the stupid woman yelped and covered her face with her arms, as if trying to protect herself from a beating. Owen yanked the gun from her fingers, relishing its cold metal, the reliable solidity of it in his hand.
“I don’t even know who you are!” he screamed.
The woman trembled behind her arms, not looking up. Owen shother through the top of the head, then shot her again, and the buzz of the insects increased in volume like a crowd at a football match cheering a goal.
