Bones

by VintageVulpes

Night. Always a time to be alive. The stars twinkling. The crickets chirping. Every man, woman and child tucked away in bed, fast asleep.

The perfect time to work the boneyards.

She had a system. It was efficient. Perfect, really. Because no one expected a woman to go pilfering through piles of bones. A man, maybe—men were sick; it was expected of them. But women? No. And if they caught her, she could easily play all innocent. Bat her eyelashes and shoot them a smile. It always worked. She'd done it before. She'd do it again.

Her bag was full of femurs, skulls, shoulder blades. And all kinds of little ones, too: full toes and fingers, individual knuckles.

If someone were to take a peek inside they'd be horrified by what they saw. Because there was something else in there. Something nobody would want to see.

And she'd have to take care of them if they caught on. She'd done that before, too.

She was digging out a sweet-looking pelvis when a spotlight lit her up. She hissed through her teeth and turned to see someone headed her way—couldn't tell much, because the light had them backlit. They were just a shadow.

She realized what had happened here. She'd gotten too cocky. "Fuck you, Mad Mike Marsbergen," she muttered to herself and prepared for war.

"Drop the bone!" one of the cops demanded.

She squinted against the light behind them, trying to make out what she was up against. It looked to her like they were fully outfitted in bone armor and were armed with lances- most likely poisoned.

"I said drop it, woman!" the same voice shouted, his voice cracking with force.

Her jaw clenched involuntarily, but her eye roll was deliberate as she dropped the precious bone and raised her hands over her head. "I can explain," she shouted back. She could feel the weight of the knife at her side, and her fingers itched to wrap around the carved inlay of bone.Her adrenaline rushed as she pictured the sharp edge being plunged into at least one of the ghouls walking towards her.

They were halfway towards her now as the one she imagined being the chief continued to shout demands. What was in her bag was too precious to let fall into the wrong hands should she be arrested.

"State your name!" the leader again shouted from afar.

"Shit," she muttered. She recognized that voice. There was no 'batting of the eyelashes' and 'playing innocent'. Not with this one. "Fuck you, Mad Mike Marsbergen!" she shouted back.

"Woman, I will not ask again!"

She squinted her eyes against the light once more before lowering her right arm to show him her middle finger; however, as she'd been caught at this before it was nothing but a half nub of what her slender finger once was.

The leader, Mad Mike, stopped in his tracks, not more than twelve strides away. Those alongside Mike also ceased and stood at the ready. "Kestra," he said, recognizing the mutilated hand that he had done himself.

Kestra smirked, knowing that he could see her face even if she couldn't see his.

"I warned you, Kestra."

"Get fucked!"

With little effort she spun out of range of the lances, hearing them whistle through the air and embed themselves in the piles of bones around her. She dodged and weaved through the pyres of corpses and decaying bodies that were slowly fading away to nothing but tattered clothing and bones.

She could hear Mike screaming not to let her get away before adding, "I want her alive!"

The crumbling cement and crunching of bone dust gave way to the rotting wood as she sprinted across a former boardwalk. She bounded over lines of decaying benches and over toppled hotdog stands from a world long passed. The sound of the cops right behind her spurred her to run faster. Only the fear of tripping kept her from looking over her shoulder. She had to protect the bag.

The walkway was coming to an end and soon she'd be out of ground to traverse. Under the boardwalk she could hear the water lap against the pillar and the beach. The layer of garbage on the surface clattered against the wood. She knew what she had to do, but her stomach flopped and her feet staggered in resistance.

"Kestra, you've run out of ground! Stop or be stopped!" Mike shouted, his voice muted against the pounding of her heart in her ears and a dozen boots landing on wood.

The bones rattled inside her backpack which slapped against her back with each step. As she prepared for her dive, she made sure the straps were tight against her shoulders. The guard rail made it difficult but she didn't have time to climb over- she needed to vault. In the velvet black of night, she scanned the edge of the boardwalk and saw one last opportunity, one last toppled carney cart. She sidestepped a hole in the boardwalk and diverted her direction towards the cart at the end of the boardwalk.

"Shoot her! Someone shoot her!"

Lances whistled through the air. She could imagine them piercing through her just as well as she could see herself diving into the polluted ocean of water, salt, oil, garbage, and bodies of creatures both of land and sea. In one swift motion, mid-stride, she lifted her right leg onto the cart and used it to vault herself through the air in the direction of the water.

"Kestra!" Mike shouted as he reached for her.

She dove, her arms outstretched above her head and her body stiff and straight as a board, into the water.

Out of sight of the guards, she swam under water, directly under the layer of filth and death. Mike pounded both of his fists on the railing before kicking the side of the cart. "Dammit-fuck-shit!" he screamed as he kicked the cart repeatedly with his bone toed boots.

O.o.O.o

That don't impress-a me much, uh oh oh oooh...

"Eilo! Will you turn that off?!"

Eilo looked up from his books with a sour look. "It helps me think!"

The voice of the plaintiff echoed through the bunker, coming from around the corner. "It's annoying!"

"It's the only music I have left." Eilo looked over to the record player made up of bones, the record turning on a table of tibias and feet while the needle was a whittled finger bone. "Besides," he continued, "the music might do you some good, Dax."

He jumped slightly when he turned back to his books only to find a dirty, calloused hand resting on the pages. Eilo's eyes followed the hand up the toned arm to find the face of Dax looking down at him with a bitter scowl.

"I said turn it off."

Eilo huffed. "Fine." He stood from his seat, the bone that made up the legs of the chair screeched against the steel flooring of the bunker.

Dax walked to the wall and leaned up against it, grime and all. He used a fine bone knife to cut into an unrecognizable piece of yellow fruit, slicing into it like one would an apple hundreds of years ago. As he ate the slice off the side of the blade, he started to talk around the mouth full of food. "You really think this'll work?"

"Why wouldn't it?" Eilo asked and pulled the needle away from the record, making an irritating scratching sound across the surface of the vinyl.

"I'd think someone would have figured this out- or at least tried it by now," Dax mumbled around the cheek full of fruit. "You're not the only witch in the world."

Eilo looked back at Dax whose dirty, light-gray tee matched his complexion. Dax wiped the side of his blade on the front of his ratty jeans before sheathing the knife and looked at him expectantly with his one good eye- the other covered by a patella eye patch.

"Warlock-" he started to correct.

The bunker door opened with the waning of old metal. Both men looked up and listened to heavy boots clomp across the metal grating that made up the walkway down into the bunker- the sound of water followed her footsteps. As Kestra descended the stairs - some made of metal, others makeshift bone steps - water sploshed under her and dripped off the ends of her clothes, hair, and nose.

"What the hell happened to you?!" Eilo stepped around the table comprised of bone and wood, to meet her at the bottom of the stairs alongside Dax.

"Mad fucking Mike," she muttered, "that's what happened."

"That guy has been a thorn in your side as long as Survivor has been a reality show." Dax stepped forward and put a supportive hand under her forearm as she leveled off the stairs and stood before them drenched. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She stooped her right shoulder and let her backpack slide off her arm and then shoved it into Eilo's chest.

Eilo stumbled back, his arms enveloping the soaking backpack that rattled with its contents. "You got it?"

Without a word, she picked a small, dead fish out of from her cleavage to drop on the floor. Dax looked to Eilo for the answer. As Kestra walked down one of the many corridors in the bunker, Eilo threw the backpack on the table. He pulled it open and dumped its contents, dozens of bones, onto the surface of the wood. Amongst the femurs, shoulder blades, and metacarpals were several skulls, but one stood out from all the rest. Smaller than the rest,it was a crispy black.

With shaking fingers, Eilo reached for it, his breath leaving him and his lip quivering. "My God, she found it. This is it."

O.o.O.o

When Kestra rejoined with the two men, she found them in Eilo's lab rather than the main room.

The two of them were standing over the corpse of a woman in the late stages of decomposition. Eilo had stated COD was blunt trauma to the head. Part of her lower skull had been so damaged it was the first to fall away and now left a gaping hole in the front of her skull. The corpse was Eilo's cadaver. I was unsettling but necessary to their mission. He was in the middle of removing her right arm when Kestra cleared her throat.

"Kes," Dax greeted and offered a grin. His eye looked her up and down, and the grin transformed into a smirk.

Trying not to blush as she straightened out her clean but tattered clothing, Kestra spoke up, "Eilo, are we good? Can we start the spell?"

Eilo looked up at her, the corpse's removed arm held in both of his hands. "Yes," he said, "I believe we can."

"And it'll reverse The Sickness?" Dax asked. He looked down to her left when Kestra stepped up to stand beside the lean man.

"I believe so, yes." Eilo replied, his voice gravelly and thicker than usual.

Kestra narrowed her eyes as she watched him go back towards the table of the small skull and varying other ingredients. She thought of her brother, lost somewhere in the Dark Zone. This is why she did it, why she'd worked so hard to be the best. The Sickness plagued men everywhere, and when her brother had succumbed her life mission became fixing it. To get him back.

Eilo, a powerful warlock, claimed that he could do such a feat. He'd told many people the same thing, people like Dax and the other Seekers who all reported back to Eilo at the Bunker. Kestra looked up at Dax as they watched him work, pouring different liquids from vile vials. "If this works... we'll go to the Dark Zone together?"

Dax lowered his hand and gripped her hand, intertwining their fingers. "I wouldn't have it any other way. Our brothers need us and we'll need each other to bring them home."

She nodded once. "Mad Mike has my blood in a reliquary. He's using it to track me... he'll follow us into the Dark Zone. The only place I'm safe is here and only because of Eilo's warding around the Bunker."

"If we explain why we've been doing what we've been doing... maybe he'll understand. He's just trying to do his job."

She revealed her missing finger on her hand.

Dax pursed his lips and diverted his gaze from her hand to look into her eyes, "-- most of the time?"

With a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth she went to say something when Eilo spoke up, "I need a blade."

Kestra pulled out her blade. The handle was made of sanded tibia while the blade was of an animal's upper jaw. The long jaw bone still had the teeth in place which she had honed into the likeness of a shark's tooth, sharp and deadly. She presented it to Eilo who took it as though he was taking up an artifact of God. She made a face and stepped back to let him finish the ritual without interruption.

Dax shared a confused look with her before leaning down and whispering, "what is the significance of the skull anyway?"

"I have no idea what he's going to do with it." she admitted.

"No, like, what is it?"

Her lips thinned and she bated her breath a moment. "The skull of a newborn baby, born of a nun in the 21st century, burned in holy fire."

Dax's eye went wide and he pouted his lower lip. "Damn." he muttered as he watched Eilo turn said skull upside down.

Eilo poured the concoction into the base of the newborn's skull and turned to face the two waiting Seekers. The skull held in both of his hands, he addressed them. "It is completed."

"How do we- what do we- how does it work?" Kestra struggled to ask.

"I am sorry."

"For what?" both Dax and Kestra asked in unison.

"There is no cure for The Sickness to mortals. Only a god can fix this world, bring back the sun and life."

Kestra frowned and indicated to the bunker around them, filled and built with bones of those who had died before them. "There is no God!"

Eilo smiled, "I will be God."

"What!?" the two Seekers exclaimed, again in unison.

"Malus aliquid de morte et vitam et potentiam ca et transformation is in Deum!" Eilo shouted, and the liquid seemingly spontaneously combusted, a poof of smoke emanated from the base of the skull. Before either of them could say or ask anything, Eilo drank from the skull, through the base of it.

The Seekers watched on in disgust and when Eilo finished his drink from the blackened skull, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

"It is done," he stated proudly.

"What the hell did you just do?" Dax asked.

Eilo smiled and went to reply when he doubled over in pain. The holy skull dropped and shattered on the ground as he wrapped his arms around his chest. "It's working!" he shouted. He dropped to his knees and spread his arms out at his sides, embracing the pain.

Dax and Kestra both backed away when light started to emanate from his mouth and eyes. "What has he done?" Dax asked as they backed closer and closer to the exit.

Seemingly without control over his actions, Eilo was brought to his feet by an unseen force and his skin started to melt away- burned by an invisible fire. He started to scream for help but it lasted mere seconds and he was burned away to nothing more than bones. Still animated and held on his feet, the bones then dried and turned to fine dust- floating up and out of the lab through the ventilation system.

"What the fuck?!" they screamed together before running out of the bunker to try and see the bone dust fly into the sky.

"I can't see it, I can't see anything!" she shouted, the dark of night masking it.

"Hold on." Dax replied, pulled out a flashlight, and aimed it at the air above the bunker. The bone dust ignited into the air, like sparks turned into stars then fell back to the ground and distinguished suddenly.

They both blinked.

"Well... did he just sell his soul to the devil or did it work?" Dax asked, looking down at Kestra.

"I don't know."