Page 84 of The Same Flesh
Metal chimed as Jem stepped onto the cattle guard, and Tean moved to join him.Jem hauled himself up the gate’s tubular frame, and the gate swung and clanged as the chain pulled tight and the gate rocked back again.Tean steadied it as Jem finished his climb and hopped over, and then Jem held it for Tean as he followed.
They raised puffs of dirt as they followed the road toward the cottonwood.The wind was louder.A crack rang out—
Gun.
—and Jem grabbed Tean’s arm, laughed, and Tean muttered, “Branch.”Because there, in front of him, it tumbled out of the cottonwoods, snapped off by the wind.
The sound of the trees was louder when they moved under the canopy, swallowing up the tread of their steps.Dead leaves thrashed overhead, and their frantic movements sounded somewhere between a vibration and a rattle.The water smell was stronger.The underbrush was thin and bare.
The first roof came into view.And then another.
Jem put a hand on Tean’s chest, holding him back while Jem moved forward.He still had his hands in his pockets, but Tean recognized how Jem was holding himself: ready to fight.Ready to kill, if it came to that.And the wind was only getting louder.
In a clearing on the other side of the trees, they found the ranch.To Tean’s surprise, it looked much as it had in the videos: a cluster of frame buildings slowly toppling under the weight of the years.There were differences, yes.One of the cottonwoods had fallen, landing across the path that led between two of the buildings.And the sun-bleached shiplap looked silver in the midday light.But the roofs were still balding, and the porches sagged with dry rot, and the windows gaped like empty sockets.
No one was here.
“They’re not here,” Jem said.
Even though Tean had thought the same thing only a moment before, he asked, “How do you know?”
Jem shrugged.“I don’t know, I—” He paused.His face was blank, like his mind was somewhere else—somewhere out there, searching.Finally he said, “I don’tthinkthey’re here.”For another moment, a long one, he said nothing.And then gave a tight laugh.“This place is fucking with my head.”
Tean opened his mouth to say something—something reassuring, something trite, something about how there was no reason to be afraid and all the stuff about paranormal activity was just bunk.But the words wouldn’t come.He couldn’t bring himself to believe that aliens—or space wolves—visited this place.But therewassomething strange about it.The words for it, as old-fashioned as they sounded, were simple: it made his skin crawl.Or as Jem had put it, it was fucking with his head.
They weren’t here.They weren’t.Nobody could live like this; there’d be some sign, tents, something.
But—
Butwhat?
Jem roused himself first, shaking his head like he was clearing something away, and then beckoning for Tean to follow.They circled the fallen cottonwood and worked their way past the buildings.One had clearly been the farmhouse, a two-story structure.One corner of the building was gone—Tean suspected another deadfall, long years ago—and empty window frames and a missing door gave plenty of lines of sight inside.Not that there was much to see: the interior had been stripped down to the boards, and aside from moldy plaster and a rotting floor, there was nothing left.The next building was smaller, barely more than a shed with rusting machinery inside it.
When Jem glanced at Tean, he whispered, “Pump house.For the well.”
And he wasn’t sure why he whispered.
They passed two more sheds.One still had the doors on it, but both were empty, and the only thing they found was a rat that squeaked at Jem.Jem shouted, “Oh fuck,” and jumped about six inches straight up, and when Tean laughed, it was too much laughter, and it felt off.Because he wasn’t laughing, not really.It was the skin-crawling.The mindfuck.It was all of that, trying to get out in a laugh.
Beyond that central cluster of structures, the ranch spread out into the basin.There was a barn with Indiangrass growing up around it.There was a building that Tean suspected had been some sort of metal shop, maybe even originally a blacksmith’s forge.Other buildings.A wash hut.A fruit packing shed.He was guessing, because they all had that same worn look, walls falling, shutters torn away to expose empty interiors, the wood shining like it’d been sanded down to glossy bone.
They saved the barn for last.
“They fall down,” Tean said.
“What?”
“Barns.Old barns.They collapse.They weren’t built to the same standards, and the structure is wood.”
“Tean, everything is falling down.”
“I know.But this one will probably fall down on top of us.Because we’re going to have to go inside.”
The look Jem shot over his shoulder wasnothappy.
“I think,” Tean amended.“You’ll see what I mean.”
“Fuck me,” Jem muttered, but he started toward the barn.
