Chapter V

Down by the river (which a more poetical writer might call "the River of Suicides," but which residents refer to as "Shit Creek"), a man with a cane strut down the docks like he owned them. Which he probably did. This man owned a lot of property in the City of the Dead; adult bookstores where the really saucy books come with dire warnings; new age crystal shops that sell crystals so sharp they can (and do) cut; Tarot card readers where the decks are stacked with Death. In fact, this man probably owned more than half of the buildings in the City of the Dead.

If you were to ask this man his name, he would tell you that it is Macheath, but that is not his name. That is only the name he chose in this time and in this place -- in other times and other places, he goes by other names, each name fitting him like a glove.

This man, Macheath, strut down the docks and sang a song:

"When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away."

Once his song was over, he slipped into a small building on the edge of the dock. This is one of the places where he met his operatives, of which he had many.

"Hello, my love," he whistled. "Hello, dear Jenny Diver."

The woman in the building had silver hair and wore a plain black kimono. "Good morning, Mr. Macheath."

"Call me Mack," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Macheath," Jenny with the silver hair said. "Do you wish to know the current situation?"

"You're quick on the uptick," he said, twirling his cane around him. "Sure, give me the rundown."

The woman he called Jenny Diver opened a folder and read, "The Preacher Man is still playing a game with the Lost Children, the City let someone get lost inside her, and there is a new inhabitant in the Icebound Temple."

"There always is," he smiled, his teeth as white as pearls.

"Oh," the woman said, "and Thomas the Rhymer called."

"That old sod? What did he say?"

The woman looked at the list again and cleared her throat. "The Ninth Hour approaches, the Nowhere Men are here. Watch them scurry like roaches, what have you to fear?"

The man called Macheath stopped swinging his cane. "The Nowhere Men, you say?" The woman nodded her head. "Hmm, that is intriguing. Old Thomas the Rhymer comes through." He raised the top of his cane to his chin and appeared to think deeply. "We'll have to make preparations. Let's hold a council meeting tonight, Jenny."

"Everyone, sir?"

"Everyone." Macheath spun around and walked to the door. "And perhaps after the meeting, we'll go to a bar and have a few laughs. After all, it'll be Saturday Night in the City of the Dead."

And as the man called Macheath strut down the docks again, he sang:

"When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,

'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty 

And sold for endless rue.'

And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true."

Chapter IV

This is an excerpt from A Short Walk Through the City of the Dead, a self-published guide:

People say the Mary has two faces.

The first face is a normal face. It could look like any face. It could look like your face. Actually, it will look like your face if you were to look at the Mary. It always looks like the person who is looking at her. People have said that it's like looking into a reflection, except there are subtle differences. Their cheekbones are slightly higher, their eyebrows a bit farther apart, their hair a shade lighter. When they look at the Mary in her first face, they are looking at a better version of themselves.

The second face is the red face. The second face is the face that nobody wants to encounter, that everyone who knows about the Mary, who really knows about her, wants to avoid. There are some who have only a vague idea of what the Mary is and want to see her red face out of curiosity, out of desire. They are nearly always disappointed. They expect it to be something scary, something gruesome. They expect the red face to be like if someone pulled the skin off of a person's face and exposed the muscle underneath - that's what they want it to be like.

The red face doesn't look like that. The red face isn't gruesome, not like that.

The reason why those who know about the Mary never want to encounter the red face is because it changes you.

The first face is like looking at a different version of yourself.

The second face, the red face, is like becoming a different version of yourself.

You can call up the Mary and ask to be changed. You can promise her everything you own, your life itself, and she will not show you her red face. To see her red face, you call upon her during a hunter's moon and the only thing you have to promise is your love. Promise to love her with all of your heart and she will show you her red face. Some people scoff at that idea, but it is true: love is all you need.

Those who see her red face wander the streets at night. Their faces are gaunt, their eyes are wild. The sniff the air, as if they can smell meat like bloodhounds, and they roam the red light district, their smiles always half hidden in the darkness.

There are some who say that the Mary has a third face, a face so secret that only one person has seen it. Those who say this are ignored and eventually disappear.

Chapter III

In the wee hours of the morning, a man sought the Icebound Temple. He sought it slowly, his shoeless feet dragging behind him, each one wrapped in toilet paper so ragged it could have been mistaken for the ancient garb of a mummy. His feet, long exposed to the dirty ground and cold air, had turned black. He could barely feel anything under them, not even when he stepped across the broken glass that littered the ground.

The Icebound Temple was an abandoned synagogue -- an earthquake had caused damage, too expensive to repair, much cheaper to just move on to another area. It had been home to squatters until the Brat showed up. That's when it became the Temple.

The night had been cold, but the area around the Temple was colder. The ground became slick with frost, the broken fence covered in rime.

Nobody went to the Temple anymore. Nobody slept there except for those who couldn't find anyplace else. Those who had no other choice but to give themselves to the Brat.

The man looked upon the Temple and lowered his eyes. He spent the past night wandering from place to place, trying to find just one spot to stay, but there was nowhere. Each place he found occupied, none willing to share with him. Not even the Lost Children wanted to share with him -- he was old and they were young. The lines of his face showed all the years of his life, like a tree that had been cut open. He was too old to be out here in the City of the Dead.

His choices now were among the Lonely Hunters. He could have searched for the Preacher Man, but he had heard tales of his...proclivities. He could have tried finding the Mary, but he had never heard of her taking anyone except girls. And he had never heard of the Cur taking anyone in -- it always left behind something, even if it was hardly recognizable.

So it was the Brat. As he transversed the area around the Temple, he could hear the singing. Night and day, anyone who stepped near the Temple could hear the singing. Sometimes it was just a gentle humming. Now it was something else:

"I'm Mister White Christmas, I'm Mister Snow. I'm Mister Icicle, I'm Mister Ten Below."

The man put his hands to his ears, but then slowly lowered them. It was no use to block out the song. He was going to the Temple. He was giving himself to the Brat.

It was either that or let the cold world kill him.

Chapter II

Two people, a man and a woman, sat in a motel room, the carpet marked with a thousand cigarette burns, the wallpaper faded with age. The motel was so cheap that it did not even have the usual faux classic paintings, instead opting for more laminated signs indicating where the fire exits were.

The man and woman kissed each other. They kissed with hunger, with passion. The man's name was Henry. He had never ventured out of the daylight city before, never wandered the streets at night, never entered the City of the Dead before tonight. This would be his first night among the Lost and the Lonely.

The woman said her name was Charlotte. Henry, having dared venture out of his apartment after the sun had set, met her at an all-night diner. He had been feeling peckish, but had forgotten to buy any food at the market, so he found the diner (which he described to himself as 'quaint') and subsequently met Charlotte.

Had he met her yesterday, she would have said her name was Sydney. The day before that, her name was Florence and before that Tula and before that Mérida.

When he saw her, he was starstruck. She was gorgeous, her dark skin contrasting against the pale florescent lights, her hair the color of cocoa beans. He wanted to kiss her right then, but was afraid. She wasn't. She knew that he wanted her and she wanted him. She took his hand and they decided to run away together.

The motel was a pit stop, Henry thought. They needed each other. They needed to make love. One night in the motel and then they would get married tomorrow.

She stood up in front of him and turned around. "Unzip me," she said in that breathy whisper he loved. He did so with trembling fingers.

With her back exposed, he saw the white lines, the raised scars. "Who did this?" he asked. "Who hurt you?" He wanted to kill whoever had done it.

"Feel," she whispered and he did, he felt the lines and moved across them with his fingertips. He traced them until he realized they were a map, a map of a city splayed across her back, across her entire skin. His fingers kept moving, searching for where the map ended, but it never did, the city never stopped.

She turned and looked at him. "Who-" he said, but she raised her finger to his lips to silence him.

She kissed him. The kiss was hungry and passionate, like everything about her. Henry felt himself slip away until at last he was lost inside the city.

Chapter I

Two children sat inside an old Datsun, nearly all the metal rusted and all the paint peeled. They did not talk -- instead, they took sips from of a cup of coffee that one of them swiped from a nearby Starbucks. Neither likes the taste of coffee, but they are not complaining. It is so rare to get something other than the rust-flavored water from the park water fountains.

Finally, the silence is broken.

"The Preacher Man almost got me today," one of them said. His name is Ken.

"Shit," the other one said. Her name is Patience. "What happened?"

"I've been checking out the churches," Ken said. "They're a good spot to ask for money, y'know? Lots of people feeling sad, they see a kid in dirt and rags, what're they gonna do? Not give him a dollar?"

"Stupid," Patience said. "You know the Preacher Man hangs around churches."

"I know," Ken said, "but I thought it was worth the risk. So I was askin'-"

"Beggin'," Patience interjected.

"Whatever," Ken said. "Same thing. I was there was an old 7-11 cup, asking for money, and even getting some, when suddenly, everyone seems to ignore me. I look 'em in the eye, but they just turn, like they don't wanna look at me. And then a feel a hand on my shoulder. So I turn around and-"

"Let me guess," Patience said, "a man in a gas mask?"

"Nope," Ken said. "He wasn't wearin' no gas mask this time. He just looked like a normal preacher, with the white collar and everything."

"Then how did you know he was the Preacher Man?" Patience asked.

"Well, first, his grip was hurtin' like hell itself," Ken said. "Then, I guess one of the church-goers didn't get the memo about looking away, because they come up all 'Father George, I thought you were dead!'"

"No!" Patience gasped.

"Yep," Ken said. "So the Preacher Man turns to the clueless church-goer, still with me in his grip, and smiles at the guy like he was gonna kill him right there."

"Did he?" Patience asked.

"I dunno," Ken said. "I pulled away from my jacket and ran. That's why I don't have my jacket anymore -- I mean, it was fallin' apart, but it kept me warm."

"Stupid," Patience said. "You were lucky you only lost that. You could've lost a lot more."

"I know," Ken said. "Don't worry, I won't be goin' back there anytime soon."

"You'll need to find another jacket, too," Patience said. "You don't want the Brat to get you."

They continue to sip their stolen coffee and shiver in the rusted Datsun. The night is cold and long and as they wait for the sun to rise, they share their stories, first- and second-hand accounts of the Lonely Hunters.

Prologue

The sun has fallen. The moon hangs in the night sky like the sickle of a giant reaper here to reap the city, the cut the wheat from the chaff. Night is here and the city sleeps.

Well, most of the city. There are, of course, the establishments that are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: the gas stations and convenience stores and motels. Then there are the places that only open when the sun goes down: the adult stores, the red light districts, the places where love can be bought for an hour at a time.

And there are the people that live there. They walk and talk, but most are not alive. They are the Dead, their eyes dull and unfocused, their staggering gait due to tiredness and alcohol.

And then there are the children. The Lost Children, the ones who ran away from their homes, from their parents or relatives or even from social services. The ones who thought it was better to be out on their own, squatting in abandoned cars and condemned buildings, then back wherever they came from.

This is the City of the Dead and these are the Lost Children.

And there are the Lonely Hunters.