There was a sign on a pole that read Andiron Sachet- Erosion Artist. It hung from two lengths of rusted chain and creaked in the hot western wind. The outside of the house was painted with murals of lush rain forests filled with exotic birds and brightly colored frogs. Sam had barely glanced at the murals when he'd come to apply for a job, but now he lingered to look. The paintings were filled with life- monkeys, insects, flowering plants- but no people.
The artist opened the door on the second knock. He wore low-slung jeans that seemed to be held together by dried paint and a plaid shirt with his sleeves cut off. His feet were bare and he had a steaming cup of coffee hooked on one multicolored finger. He peered down at Sam.
"You're the kid," he said.
Sam nodded.
"I thought I told you that I couldn't use you."
"I'm not here about the job."
"Okay. Why are you...?" The artist's voice trailed off as Sam held out the card. Sachet looked at the image and then at Sam.
"How did you meet her?"
Shutters dropped behind the artist's eyes. "It's just a card, kid. They're sold in every settlement in the Eleven Towns."
"I've come to you about her as a Chase Card and now I see her as a Bounty Hunter, alive."
The artist studied him, stalking but taking a long sip of his coffee.
"I don't remember you coming to me for a person to find. I just found her in the Tradepost and talked to her. Why?"
"Because she was my friend long before. She went missing when Lucius destroyed the zone and Tom tried many times to find her but nothing. I need to know if you met her and where she is."
"D'you drink coffee, kid?"
"Sure."
"I'll brew another pot. This might take awhile." He wasn't smiling when he said it, but he stepped back to let Sam enter. The artist paused to look at something that caused his whole body to tense, and Sam turned to see Motor Hammer, crossing the street towards the lorry stable. However, the Hammer was looking directly at Sachet, and he wore a peculiar smile on his face.
The artist's house was clean but not neat. Sketches were thumbtacked to the walls; partially finished paintings stood on half a dozen easels. A wheeled wooden table held hand-mixed pots of paint. They passed through into a tiny kitchen. Sachet waved Sam to a chair while he went to fill the coffee pot. Every house in Fairview had an elevated cistern that drew upon the reservoir and rainwater to feed the faucets and toilets. Because of some quirk of luck during the influx of the Black Night survivors, Fairview had twenty-three plumbers and only one electrician. In terms of electricians they were a half step out of the Stone Age, but there was always water to flush the John and fill the kettle. Sam was cool with that.
"Tom, huh," Sachet murmured. "I can see it now, but not when you were here the first time. I knew Tom had a kid with him, I always assumed you look like him."
Sam nodded. He had the straight brown hair. His skin was pale, but he took a good tan, blue eyes that were darker than Tom's. However, where's Tom's body was toned to a muscular leanness, Sam was merely lean.
"People say I'm the son of Tom, but that isn't true." He explained.
The artist digested that. "And he takes you out into the Ruins."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To practice on defending myself. I'm not like the rest of the kids in Fairview, I fought against Infected, Runners, and such."
"Tom always tries to encourage people to defend themselves, have Bounty Hunter carry out the trade wagons from the Tradepost, Sanctuary and other communities." He said, taking two clean mugs from the cupboard. Before Sam could press him on it, the artist said, "But Gregory brash him off. You think Tom is right about this?"
"Yeah, he's right. People are too afraid to even look out the walls. Things have to change or something could happen."
"Like what happened to the both of you in the quarantine zone. About that girl. Tell me what you know about Mal."
The smell of brewing coffee filled the little kitchen. The artist leaned back against the sink, arms folded across his chest, and waited.
"Okay," said Sam, and he told the artist about Mal everything. It was the same story he told his friends. The artist was a good listener. Interrupting only to clarify a point and to press him for more precise descriptions of the three bounty hunter who had attacked Mal and defended herself. Sachet was on his second cup of coffee by the time Sam finished. The coffee in Sam's cup was untouched and cold.
When Sam was finished, the artist sat back in his chair and studied Sam with pursed lips.
"I think you're telling me the truth," he said.
"You think? Why would I lie about that stuff?"
"Oh hell, kid. People lie to me all the time. Even when they don't have a reason to. Folks that want an erosion portrait but don't have a photo of their loved ones tend to exaggerate so much, that the picture comes out looking like either Brad and Angelina."
"Who?"
"Doesn't matter. Point is, people lie a lot. Sometimes out of habit. Not many people are good at telling the truth."
Benny thought of it. "It's true. But why would I lie about a girl that I've met before, went up to you and gave you a picture to help us find her."
"You met my twin brother, Andrew."
"I know you had a twin, but he said your exact name."
"Because we want ourselves hidden and no one can tell the difference. He was in Fairview for a few years until he went over to the Tradepost and worked on some paints. He died two years later from a disease. You probably met him and suggested the card."
Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked down at the card. "Tell me she's alive."
"That I can't say for sure," Said Sachet, but when Sam looked up at him, his eyes filling with dread and fury, the artist shook his head. "No, I mean that I can't say for sure how she is today, this minute. She's in war with the Claimers, you know them?"
Sam nodded. Tom had been once awhile bumped into them and they are vicious vile men.
"But she is alive and well a couple of months ago. I met her in the Tradepost where she currently lived."
"You... saw her?"
"Once, for several minutes to talk to her. But yeah, I saw her, talked to her who she is, and I came back and painted her. One of her friends helped me on her description, but that card there... That's her now. A teenager."
"Tell me how you met her."
Sachet paused, his fingers beating a tattoo in the tabletop. "I promise to tell you about her, even what she had done in quite some time with the Tradepost and the Saviors."
The artist poured himself a third cup of coffee, thought about it, then for up and fetched a bottle of bourbon from a cupboard and poured a healthy shot into his cup. He didn't offer the bottle to Sam, who was fine with that. The stuff smelled like old socks.
"I was born in Canada," Sachet said. "Toronto. I came to the States when I was fresh out of art school, and for a while I made money doing quick portraits of tourists. The boardwalk in Venice Beach. Then I took a couple of courses in forensic art, and landed a job working for the Los Angeles Police Department. You know, doing sketches of runaways, right questions, so I could get inside the was of a witness to a crime or a family member who was looking for someone. And I never forget a face. My brother was a police officer with me, we were a duo, he went to a case while I draw and write conclusions on the suspect. We were in a police station on the Black Night. Lots of cops around me, lots of guns. It's how we survived."
Sam didn't think it would relate to Mal, but the artist was in gear now, and he didn't want to be rude and say get to the point. He placed the card on the table between them, and sat back to listen his experience. Sachet sipped his spiked coffee, hissed, and plunged back in.
"You grew up after, kid, so all you know about it this world. The world after. And I know you've probably learned a lot about the world before the Fall in school or from hearing people talk. So probably have a sense of it, but that's really not the same thing as having belonged to that world. You love here in town, with a slice of what's left of the population. What's our head count at the New Year's census? Eight thousand? When I working on the boardwalk, I'd see three times that many people just sprawled in the sand, soaking up the sun. The freeways were packed with tens of thousands of cars, horns blaring, people yelling. I used to hate the crowd, hate the noise. But... man, once it was all gone- I've missed it every day since. The world is too quiet now."
Sam nodded, agreed. But he liked the quietness. There was always something happening in town, always some noise or chatter.
"When the dead rose... The noise changed from the sound of life in constant motion to the sound of the dying in panicked flight. I heard the first screams just as the sun was setting. A guy in the drunk tank died from a beating he's gotten when he'd been mugged. They thought he was asleep on the bunk, didn't know he was bitten. Then he woke up, if that's the right word. 'Resurrected' is closer, I guess. Or maybe there should have been new words for it. If there'd been time, if the world had lasted longer, I'm sure there would have been all sorts of new words, new slang. Thing is, the walkers- they weren't really 'back' from the dead, you know? They were the dead. It's been twenty-eight years, and the ideas still won't fit into my head." He closed his eyes for a moment, looking inward- or backward- at images that even his artist's imagination could not reconcile.
"God, the guy in the cell started biting the other drunks. Everyone was creaming. The cops thought they had a nutcase on their hands, so they did way they were trained to do: They unlocked the cell to try and break up the fight. But by then at least one or two of the other drunks were dead from bites to their throats or arteries. It was a mess- blood all over the walls and floors, grown men screaming, cops shouting, my brother yelling and protecting over me. But I stood there, staring. All of the colours, you know? The bright red. The pale white of bloodless skin. The grey lips and black eyes. The blue of the police uniforms. The blue-white arcs of electrocute as they used Tasers. In a weird, sick way it was beautiful. Yeah, I can see the look in your eyes. I guess were all a little crazy. I see things the way I see them. Besides, I was around death and dying all the time. I was around pain and loss all the time. I'd never been there at the moment a crime was committed... and here it was. Murder and mayhem being played out in all the colours in my paint box. I was transfixed. I couldn't move. And then the dead drunks woke up, and they started biting the cops. After that... The colours blurred, and I don't remember much except that there was screaming and gunfire. The younger cops and all of the support staff- the people who weren't street cops- they went crazy. Screaming, running, crashing into one another.
"It made it easier for the dead to catch them, and the more people they bit, the more the situation went all to hell. A cop I knew- a woman named Terri- grabbed my sleeve and pulled me away a second before one of the walkers could take a bite out of me. She shoved me down a side hall- the hall that led in the parking lot. She told me and my brother to get into my car and get the motor running. Then she turned and went back down the hall to get some other people out." He sighed. "I never saw her again. All I heard was gunfire and the moans of the dead."
"Is that where it all started?" Sam asked.
The artist shrugged. "I don't think so. Over the years you talk to people, and you hear a hundred stories about how it all started. You know what I really think?"
Sam shook his head.
"I think that it doesn't matter one little bit. It happened. The dead rose, we fell. We lost the war and we lost the world. End of story. How it happened doesn't matter much to anyone anymore. We're living next door to the apocalypse, kid. It's right on the other side of that big fence. The Ruins is the real world. Our town isn't anything more than the last bits of mankind's dream, and we're tuck here until we die off."
Sam shook his head. "You always this depressed or is that the crap your drinking off?"
Sachet titled his head to one side and stared at Sam for a ten count before a slow smile formed on his mouth. "Subtlety's not your bag, is it, kid?"
"I can be," he said, "It's a crazy idea, but I might actually have a life in front of me. I don't see how it's going to do me much good to believe that the world is over and this is just an epilogue."
Sachet chuckled. "You're smarter than I thought you were. Maybe I should have given you the job."
"I don't want it anymore. Is there anything else before we talk about Mal? Something to get off your chest?"
After a few moments Sachet continued his story. "My brother stayed on the radio, I stayed glued to the Internet all day, watching news feeds of these huge battles in New York and Philadelphia, in Chicago and San Francisco, our home Ontario and Saskatchewan. And overseas. London, Manchester, Paris. Everywhere. Then the power went out, and we got no need after that. The TV... It never came back in, so we lost power, it was useless anyway."
Then he sniffed like he was about to cry. "I ran for my life so long. My brother tried to help many people, but I always ran to save my own sorry ass. I ran and ran and ran. On good nights, when I can find a little scrap of self-respect. I tell myself that I ran so far because we couldn't find anyone alive. There was a cottage full of good people and when the walkers roamed around the place. There were kids and a guy named George stayed back there with the two kids. I tore up a throw rug and wrapped strips of it around my arms, and put on a thick winter coat I found in the closet. I wound five scarves around my brothers face and his whole body. I found a bag of old clubs in a closet and took metal putters, one for head hand. Andrew and George went through the same ritual, banging on the front door. Walkers are as dumb as they are dangerous. They came lumbering around to the front of the house, and I went out the back. I heard one of children, a baby crying and George yelling, but me and Andrew didn't look back. I ran. Kid... We ran for our life, and that's what chews me up every day and night since."
He stopped and sighed again.
"We slept in barns or drainage ditches. Then one morning we heard voices. I saw a party of armed men, Flyer Frontiers, walking down the road. I rushed at them, screaming incoherently as my brother tried to pull me away. They nearly shot me, but I managed to get out a few words in time. They gathered around me, have us some food and water, and grilled us on where we'd been and what we'd seen. I don't think I made a whole lot of sense, but when I was finally able to get myself together enough to tell them about the cottage, I realised that I had no idea where it was. I wasn't familiar with this part of California, and I sure as hell hasn't paid attention to the crazy path I took. They had a map and my brother found the place, but it was hopeless."
"What happened?"
He shook his head. "They found the cottage. They were all gone. So much blood everywhere, body parts and limbs spread across the floor, and the kids... Oh, God."
Sam tried to reach a hand for him but didn't, not knowing how he would react. "The men took us to Fairview. The reason my brother left to the Tradepost was because he hated what I've done, running for myself, and believe me, I hate myself so many times. I wish I didn't run, wish I was the one who would of died countless of times. After many years, I went to the Tradepost, trading supplies. And there were four teens, about your age, and they remind me the children in the cottage. One girl, Mal, was different than the others. Her eyes had the look of seeing things that no kid should ever experience. I went up to them, they were called the Rotten Kids, the RK's. What a name, right?" He chuckled and Sam as well. "I talk mostly to Mal, found her story interesting. She told me the battle with Glory, a group who had their own language, Shakespearian and about Charlie Marion- Charlie Pink-Eye if you have that card?"
Sam nodded. He had him, never heard him a lot but he was the one who kind of built the Tradepost and the Eleven Towns.
"Charlie was convicted with crimes of stealing children into a pit where they were betted for rations to fight off walkers, alone and defenceless. They were called the KillGames."
"They happened in Fairview. Kids were taken as well; Negan told me and Tom about that and wasn't very happy with Gregory."
"I was too, letting a bunch of bounty hunters you can trust very well. Anyway, Mal was with the group, the Saviors, met the actually Negan in a "quite a funny and long story" she said to me. She helped the Saviors to destroy the KillGames and been a Saviors for about a year."
"So where is she?"
Sachet sat back. "Well, she would be Sanctaury at Jackson Country with Negan or off to Pittsburgh where they have to fight against the Claimers, by the minute."
Sam got up and fetched the coffee pot. He poured the artist a fresh cup and set the bottle of whiskey down next to it. The artist stared at the bottle for a while, then poured some into his coffee, sipped it, then got up and poured the coffee out in the sink.
"Thanks for telling me all of this," said Sam. "Most people don't want to talk about the Black Night or what happened after. And those that do... They always make it sound like they were the heroes."
"Yeah, I sure as hell didn't do that."
"You didn't do anything wrong," said Sam.
The artist sneered. "I ran away and left an infant and two children in a house surrounded by the living dead. I sure as fuck didn't do anything right."
"Could you have carried them out? Both of them?"
Sachet gave a single wretched shake of his head.
Sam smiled at him. "At least you tried something to do."
"Kid, I appreciated the effort, but that thought doesn't even get me through the night." He closed his eyes. "Not one single night. Talk to Tom," he said as he walked Sam to the door. "And you find her."
"I will."
Sachet opened the door to a bright spill of April sunlight. The light was clean and dry and seemed to belong to a totally different world than the one Sachet had talked about. They lingered in a moment of awkwardness, neither of them sure if this was the whole of their relationship or the first chapter of an acquaintanceship that might last for years. "Sorry it didn't work out with the jobs," Sachet said with a crooked smile.
"Well, it's not like I'm invested in killing Infected. If you're hiring, I'm still avail-"
"No," Sachet interrupted. "I mean, I'm sorry your art kinda sucks. You're a nice kid. Easy to talk to. Easier to talk to than Tom or anyone."
"My art sucks?"
"You can draw," conceded the artist.
"I..."
"Just not very well."
"Um... thanks?"
"Would you rather I lie to you, kid?"
"Probably."
"Then you're Rembrandt, and having you around would make me feel inferior."
"Better."
They grinned at each other. The artist held out a paint-stained hand, and Sam shook it. "I hope you both find her."
"I will," said Sam.
That got a strange look from the artist, but before Sam could say anything, a voice behind them said, "Well, well, well, what's that you got there."