Alone And Afraid - SCP Foundation

+ Content Warning

- Hide whatever

This article deals with crimes committed in war, violence against the young (16-18), and slavery apologism. Reader discretion is advised.

The passenger car buckled around them as the train passed the country outside. Fields of corn and wheat blew in the wind. Occasionally, a man on horseback galloping would pop up and disappear just as quickly. Agent Tanner felt the coolness of the glass against his forehead as he watched the world re-arrange itself outside. He wondered what it looked like during the war. He could see it: broken houses, fallow fields, men in blue on the hunt for gray-clad demons with terrible grimace-smiles. The world outside had little resemblance to the images in his head.

"He's here. We'll get him in no time."

Tanner looked over to the other man. Agent Howard was twiddling with the blond whiskers on his face, thinking. He always did that when he was thinking, Tanner noticed.

"I'm surprised about that," Tanner responded, pulling out a cigarette. He offered one to Howard. He declined. "You'd think he'd go further. New Mexico or Nevada. Like the rest of the rebel trash."

Howard smiled. "Men like him get a certain psychological thrill from being in 'enemy territory'."

"Even after ten years, he hasn't stopped fighting."

A pause. Howard spun his pen around in his hand again and again, as he stared at Agent Tanner.

"Returning to the beginning of it all. Where blood was first spilled, where the savages overran civilization - Kansans, of course, being little better than so-called 'uncivilized tribes' in the eyes of the southerner."

"Southern trash are the last people on God's Earth to judge another's moral virtue," Tanner replied, blowing rings in the air. "Especially unreconstructed bastards like Lincoln MacDonald."

Howard laughed. "You would say that."

Tanner waved his hand dismissively, as he looked through the window. "You didn't fight them."

"And thank God I didn't," Howard said, smiling. "I'd have rather not ended up like you."

"Your boss?"

"Yep."

Tanner grinned. "I could get you canned for insubordination."

Howard replied with a smile of his own. "But then you'd have to file paperwork."

"I would, wouldn't I?"

Tanner blew more smoke. He coughed, pounding his chest. His gaze moved from the window back to Howard. Tanner had met him two days before, back in D.C. He had been called into the Chief's office, and he had been there, sitting and smiling like an idiot as their job had been explained in detail. In that time, Tanner had come to discover a couple things about Howard: that his father was a a Senator from some north-eastern state; that his experience was limited to the classroom and the limited Initiative work he was allowed to have at Central; and, finally, that he had never fired his gun before. All of these things endeared him to Tanner.

In the silence, Howard spoke first.

"Do you think he did it?"

Tanner shrugged. "It ain't our job to judge."

Howard spun his pen around. "I read the reports. The Governor is still looking for him. The families are still grieving. And, the Initiative thinks it will clear up that little paranormal mess they have down in the mountains."

"The Initiative thinks a lot of things. And, I must add, that Governor's a Confederate son of a bitch."

"Yes, but he's a Republican son of a bitch. Not many of those down south, these days."

"Politics, Mr. Howard, has nothing to do with our mission. Officially, of course."

Howard snorted.

"Of course, Mr. Tanner."

Tanner looked at his cigarette, and stared at the tobacco ash. He remembered reading the documents, and the way it made his stomach churn. Little images flashed by as he stared: a cave, a boy, a man in uniform. He blinked. They were gone.

"I think he did it."

"Thought you would."

"And even if he didn't the bastard's done something to deserve it."

"Agents Howard and Tanner, going to get the bad guys," Howard said, smiling like an idiot.

Tanner smashed the cigarette into a small ash-tray. Cheap, ornamental trash. Tanner imagined it was MacDonald's face.

As one traveled west through Kansas, you found the world flatten out and stretch endlessly. The hills, so plentiful out east, disappeared, and were replaced by wild, empty vistas. The few towns that existed were cattle towns. Wild towns. Places that withered and died as soon as they were born. A few lucky ones survived.

They checked those places first, asking if they saw a man with scraggly, unkempt hair and a penchant for gambling, drinking and shooting. He may or may not have also been wearing trinkets of the Lost Cause: an engraving of Bobby Lee on Traveller; old rifle shells fired at Bull's Run, made into a little necklace; an officer's sword with engravings of the eleven stars of the Confederacy along the handle. Usually wore a half dozen colts on his side, clicking together as he walked.

They went to each of the towns along the old cattle trail. Wichita, Dodge, Baxter Springs, Caldwell - they went across the prairie, asking, watching, studying. The trail would hot or cold depending on the day and town in question.

But he was here. His trail was there, unmistakable. The tales were all there.

In November 1872, a man named 'Lincoln Star' in Dodge City was brought in after shooting two Union veterans during a bar fight. It was just after the election. The Union boys had been wearing their old uniforms. They had raised their drinks in celebration of Grant's re-election when 'Star' raised his pistol and shot both of them. Seeing the sacred blue stained with red, most thought the noose too humane an end. He escaped in the scuffle, somehow, as the sheriff tried to maintain order. Someone claimed he was heading south, to join his kind.

In June 1873, a bank in eastern Kansas was robbed. The four men were southern. Their leader was a man wearing an officers sword who called himself 'Colonel Mac'. Commissioned by the Confederate government in exile (which, seemingly, only this Colonel Mac belonged to), he had been forced, by dire circumstances, to commandeer the capital of the "yankee invader." They stole ten thousand dollars, left two guards shot. No deaths.

In February 1874, a carriage holding valuable silks and clothing, belonging to the county's senior Senator, was being transported to his home when it was hit. The drivers and horses were shot, and everything had been taken, even the dead men's clothing. "THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN" was written in their blood along the top of the overturned coach.

In May 1875, after a year of nothing but whispers about the 'MacDonald gang', a railroad was robbed. Something went wrong. The crew, three in total, were shot one by one, the entrance to the engine room blocked. The cash was left. The train was abandoned, it's safety functions turned off, sent running down the tracks with passengers still on. A lucky engineer, the bullet barely missing his heart, was able to get to the emergency break in time before it crashed.

That was the last big story. It was June now, and there had been news of sightings of men on horseback and covered in Confederate gray throughout western Kansas. The gang didn't wear the gray, but such things didn't stop people from thinking they did, and seeing in every passer by a bushwhacker in waiting, scouting his next victim.

Howard and Tanner had been scouring for a week before they had found their first lead.

In early June - a day or two after they had arrived in Kansas, in fact - a Mr. Williams was traveling home when a came running out of the woods in south-western Kansas. He looked wild, terrified - hunted. When Mr. Williams called out to him, asking if he was okay, the man pulled out his pistol, and aimed it at him. He ordered him off the horse, and to step away. He was a man on the run, he said. That he had no ill will. 'The Colonel' was after him.

Somehow, in the exchange, Mr. Williams got close enough to the man - a boy, really, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen at the oldest - to disarm him. He went scurrying, running on foot. When Williams checked the pistol, he discovered it had been empty.

And so they turned around from their previous destination - Wichita, which had, once again, had reports claiming a thousand man guerilla force was ready to sack the city, lead by MacDonald himself - and back to the south-western corner of the state.

Throughout late June, they combed through the woods. They checked in with locals. They cross-referenced it against the locations of previous incidents. It didn't take long for it to produce foot prints, ones that looked eerily similar to the one pair of footprints left in the bank heist.

And so they followed down the trail, waiting to find their lead.

John had been running for days when the federals found him.

His feet were raw. He was sure they were bleeding. He couldn't feel them anymore, but he could feel something warm pouring into his shredded boots. The pain was hell. Almost as bad as getting shot. He'd prefer anything else over this. Sometimes he'd regret leaving. But then he'd remember the screeching of metal and the smell of gunpowder and cold, blue eyes staring into him, snarling in fury, and he'd quickly remember that, no, he didn't regret it at all.

He did regret getting caught, though.

He wasn't sure if they were still following.

He didn't want to find out.

And so he kept walking. Sticking off to the woods, near the main roads. Moving by night if need be to avoid being seen.

But even so, his progress was slowing down. The pain in his soles was burning. Sometimes, he'd trip, and a sharp, terrible agony shot through his foot, and he'd try to scream. He did, the first time it happened. Subsequent times, he'd bite on his finger or hand or lower lip until the pain evaporated. He'd scream in his skull, and try not to cry from the pain on both ends of his body.

He ate what he found. He'd wander into small gardens in the early morning hours, sneaking as best he could with the terrible swelling in his ankles that made moving into a crouch hellish, and pilfer carrots and potatoes and whatever else he could get, what few scraps he could find. Once the pain in his stomach had abated, for just a moment, he'd go to the well, draw what water he could - and, if he had time, search for a horse, a mule, anything.

Usually, by then, someone would notice. People stuck out here in the prairie. The woods were his only camouflage, his only shield.

One morning, they almost caught him. He had wandered into a town - he didn't know the name, not after so long. His throat was burning dry. He was sure he was dying. He stumbled to his knees and crawled to the watering trough, and stuck his face under the water, gulping, chocking, and coming up gasping. He laid there for a minute, breathing, thinking.

He got up on his feet, and stared ahead down the street. And then he heard the shuffling of feet behind him, and he turned, then, to stare at him - the demon that skirted in the darkness of his vision, the one that had been stalking him for what felt like eternity.

MacDonald smiled, waving his hand. The other was on his hip, finger tips on the handle of one of his Colts.

"Howdy there, John."

He ran, then. He knew he shouldn't have. He couldn't have known if there was a sniper somewhere, or if George/Theo were flanking him from the sides, or any other potential dangers. But he wasn't thinking, only running, running from the smile, and the eyes and the train, far, far away.

So John ran. And ran. And ran. He didn't know when he lost them, only that by the time he had stopped running, he had long since left the town, had left, in fact, any sign of civilization, and deep into those wild woods that one could disappear into. And be forgotten.

He didn't go to towns after that. Only the country, thank you very much.

One night, Tanner woke up in the middle of the night, plagued by nightmares. Plagued by him.

The light was low but still there, threatening to die. He threw a log onto it, shoved it in, blew, waited for the flames to come back and the soothing sound of crackling logs. Then, as the light grew, he pulled out the documents and began to read.

Lincoln MacDonald. Officer of the 43rd North Carolina Infantry regiment. What was left of it, anyway. Shattered and broken by their time in the Eastern theater, brought back to heal, to rest. Most of them had been filled with former deserters or draft dodgers. The few that weren't made up the officers, at the top, being one Colonel Lincoln MacDonald.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Tanner looked around. Howard was stretching his arms, yawning.

"Yeah," Tanner replied, flipping through the pages.

"Bad dream?"

"Yeah."

Tanner stopped on the image of a younger MacDonald, in his Confederate uniform. He couldn't have been older than thirty-five. Colonel bars lined the top of his shirt, along with his others - a Sergeants, Captain, on and on. In front of him, in a chair, a woman was staring back at the camera. She seemed happy.

Howard was beside him now, looking over the photos. "You think they were happy?"

Tanner shrugged. "He happily volunteered when they first called for them. Men like him don't do that unless they got nothing at home. At least nothing good."

"Was it that way with you?"

Tanner looked at Howard. His eyes narrowed.

"Sorry," Howard said, looking off into the darkness.

Tanner looked back at the photograph. He touched it, fingers above MacDonald's face.

"It was," Tanner said, finally. "It was either the army or owning and running daddy's farm. I decided taking a rifle and fighting for the Constitution was easier than telling him no."

"What did you say when you got back home?"

"I didn't say anything, because there wasn't a farm to run anymore."

"What do you mean?"

Tanner crumpled up the paper. "It was in General Lee's path when he went rampaging in Pennsylvania in '63, before he got to Gettysburg. Rebs burned it to the ground."

He threw the photo in the fire. He imagined MacDonald burning in hell.

"That could have helped us," Howard said, back to smiling.

"We have copies."

"You always do."

Silence.

"You think the man we're tracking can help us?"

"Yes. Or he'll regret ever being alive."

That morning - on the day that it all ended - John woke up to the sound of crunching leaves and whispering men.

He wasn't sure he wasn't dreaming, at first. He blinked, looked up, saw the harsh rays of morning light beating down on him through the leaves above. Once he registered the pain in his eyes, his heart stopped, and his stomach churned, as he realized the noises were still there.

He threw himself up in terror. He knew he shouldn't have. He had no idea where they were. But just the knowledge they were close, terrified him. He didn't know where he was, just knew he was somewhere close to the Santa Fe trail. If he died here, no one would bury him. No one would find him.

But he shouldn't have gotten up. He could have maybe blended into nature. But ahead of him, through the trees and greenery, were two men on horseback. He didn't recognize them. That should have set him at ease. It only terrified him.

So he turned, and tried to get up. As he dragged himself to his feet, he felt his foot throb, and, instinctively, he grasped for it. Suddenly he felt himself fall, his knee upheld and aimed at the ground, and then, all at once, an explosion of agony pierced him there, and he screamed.

It was Howard who patched up his leg. Nothing had been broken. He said this while sewing up a wide gash in the boy's knee, blood still trickling down.

"He'll need medical attention soon, though," Howard added, concern threatening to bleed into his voice.

"Patch him up well enough to talk and no further," Tanner replied,.

While Howard worked, Tanner began rifling through his pockets. He had nothing, not even a bowie knife. His jacket was so tattered that all the pockets had holes, some so large you could fit your entire hand through them.

After Howard was done, the both of them sat around the fire of their camp and waited. Neither of them said anything. Howard looked around, shifting a bit, occasionally walking in a small circle around the camp.

"He'll be fine," Tanner said.

"It's not the wound I worry about," Howard replied.

"He'll lead us."

Howard looked back at the unconscious boy.

"Are you sure?" Howard said.

"I'm sure. We'll find him -"

"No, I do not mean that. I mean, are you sure he was part of their gang?"

Tanner shrugged. "He's our best lead."

"He's too young. Can't be much older than eighteen."

"Some the boys out of Missouri were also pretty young. Little Archie was 17 when he scalped his first yankee."

"He doesn't seem like a bushwhacker type by inclination."

Tanner took out a cigarette and lit it. Howard had stopped pacing and sat himself next to the boy. Tanner rolled a rock he was sitting on a little further, and sat on it, leaning back onto a fallen tree's stump for comfort. They sat in silence until he woke up.

When he did, he stirred slowly at first - and then, all at once, his eyes widened, afraid, wild. He looked to Howard, who sat in front of him, crisscrossed, to his left, and then to Tanner, who was bouncing his revolver on his lap.

The boy said nothing, only staring, slack-jawed.

"Can you talk, boy?" Tanner spoke.

The boy nodded.

"What's your name?" Howard asked.

"John," he said, breathlessly. "John -"

"I don't care," spoke Tanner. He had sat himself upright, now, and was leaning in to John. "I only care about what you can do for us."

Tanner threw his cigarette to the ground. He crushed it beneath his boot.

"You ran with a bad man. A very bad man. Am I right?"

John nodded, shaking slightly as he moved his head up and down.

"His name wouldn't happen to be Lincoln MacDonald, would it?"

John nodded again, this time faster.

Tanner grinned, savagely. "That's wonderful. Because me and my associate, Mr. Howard, we work for people who are just desperate to contact him. Unfortunately, he is quiet elusive to federals such as ourselves - but you, I feel, can bring him to us. Isn't that right?"

John said nothing at first. When he did begin to speak, it was with a voice that barely reached above a squeak.

"We're….not on good terms…."

"We know," Howard said.

John stopped talking, his head whipping to face Howard. "What?"

"Eye-witnesses in Dodge and Caldwell say he only has two other's following him. There's supposed to be three."

"And," Tanner added," "any time you roll through some place, men on horseback inevitably follow. We were lucky we got to you first. It helps when you don't stop to get drunk at every saloon this side of the state."

He laughed.

John struggled against his binds.

"You're going to help us, John," Tanner said.

"No."

Tanner didn't react. "You will."

"No," he repeated, closing his eyes. "I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll fail."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because when he wants you, he's got you."

"Except for the train."

John said nothing.

"What happened with the train, John?"

"He….I don't know."

"You were there. There were four people, John. There were three after it. Something happened. Something that made you change. Am I right?"

John closed his eyes. He took a deep breathe. When he opened his eyes, he looked tired. He seemed, oddly enough, relaxed. More than he had when he woken up.

"It was Theo's idea."

"One of the other boys?"

John nodded. "He had a cousin in the Pacific. Knew when some rich folks were going to be transporting stuff, alongside a few passengers. He slipped us a tip and MacDonald came up with the plan. Theo's cousin got George into the train's engine compartment, hiding in the coal. When it was time to strike, George held the train men up, and slowed the train enough to let us on."

"But something went wrong."

"We stopped it. George had been sticking up the employees in the engine car. Me and Theo were going to enter the train proper for the money when I heard gunshots from the front. I went out, to check, and I saw George fumble out of the engine car looking pale. MacDonald was still in the engine car. He had blood on his face. He ordered us off the train. So I went back and got Theo. He hadn't even gotten to the loot yet. Then we felt the train lurch forward -"

"Did you know?"

"I didn't. If I had I would've -"

"Done what?"

"I don't know. Something."

Tanner laughed. When he was done, he said, "Keep talking."

"Theo was going to chew them out until he saw George's face. MacDonald wouldn't say anything. Just kept…just kept talking to himself. When I saw the papers, and I realized what happened, I…I couldn't stay."

"Why?"

"I just couldn't. He just….he just shot them. George told me that. When I cornered him about it. He just…lined them up and shot them. Like it was last Thursday. I thought what he did to the drivers for the carriage job was one off. He didn't even take anything. He always does that with people he kills. But that time he just….stared. So I told him that, if that was how he was going to run a gang, I was out."

"He didn't like that, did he?"

"He said I'd better run. Or else he'd show me what the yankees taught him in North Carolina. That's why I'm not going to help you."

They sat in silence for a moment. Tanner stared. He raised his pistol, the barrel aimed at John's head. He pulled the hammer back.

"I didn't say anything about giving you a choice, boy."

Howard positioned John near the fork in the road, leaned up a great tree directly between the parallel paths. His torso was tied there, but you wouldn't have seen that at first, at least from afar.

Howard quickly rejoined Tanner, who was in some bushes fifty feet or so away from the road. Tanner himself was loading another revolver. He had always made sure to bring two for special cases such as these.

"He'll suspect a trap," Howard whispered. "Why would John position himself there?"

"It's just to draw them out," Tanner replied. "Any additional planning is a waste of time. We have spent enough of that on this mission to begin with."

"It could get him killed."

Tanner shrugged.

Howard cracked his index finger, nervously.

"He's just a boy."

"Your sensitive yankee sensibilities are coming through, Mr. Howard. Don't forget what he participated in. Holding people at gun point, oh yes, Mr. Howard, that's honorable - but shooting them, well, that's just a step too far."

"You make it sound like you would have preferred it if he had."

"He knew who he was signing up with. If he thought this was going to end any other way, he's an idiot. He simply regrets having to participate in it."

"Are you sure? He doesn't seem to know about what happened at Melton."

"There's always a Melton with men like him. Somewhere, someplace. For most of them, that's the only thing they can do."

Howard said nothing. Instead he reached into his pocket for a little sack, filled with peanuts. He tried to hand some to Tanner. After two rejections, Tanner accepted, cracking one open and shoving it into his mouth. He didn't chew.

"You're going to choke doing that doing that one day."

"Haven't yet."

"Probability, Mr. Tanner. Inevitably…"

"Inevitably, we all die."

"Sometimes from choking."

Tanner grunted, waving his hand dismissively.

Tanner put the second colt right beside him, and took a deep breathe. He squinted his eyes, looking to the sky.

The sun was starting to set in the distance. It would be dark soon. Good for an ambush. Not great for time. There was no reason for MacDonald to put any more effort into what had been up to this point a leisurely chase.

Time passed slowly. Tanner cleaned his pistols once, twice, thrice. Howard would flip through the reports again, rereading the lines, trying to read between the lines for the truth. Tanner used to do that. Always struggling for a grander purpose. He dreaded that feeling now, years later. He envied Howard.

They watched as the sun disappeared.

John struggled to stay awake. At first, he feared it was from the loss of blood. That was the one thing MacDonald had taught all of them about losing a lot of blood. "You start to get all whoozy," he'd say around the fire, like he was telling a story, "and you begin to want to sleep. Most of the boys in the war thought it was just a little shut-eye. Little did they know, it was their last."

He wasn't a medic. John was sure of that. He was too incompetent with stitching to do something like that. It was always one of them who had to do it. Maybe he spoke from experience. He imagined MacDonald bleeding to death. He enjoyed the warm feeling that image gave him.

But he quickly realized it wasn't from blood loss. The federals had stitched him up good. No - he was just tired. He hadn't really ever let his body rest in the time on the run. There wasn't any time to think, any time to plan. Just constant movement, constant vigilance. This was the longest time he had spent in one place that hadn't been unconscious. And he was starting to feel it.

But through it all, the pain in his body was what kept him awake and alert. His legs - especially the one he landed on - were in agony. Felt like they were on fire. He was sweating too, sweating and desperate for water. He had been too rattled to ask, then. Now he was kicking himself (metaphorically) over not getting some when he had had the chance.

He was ready to fall asleep off for real when the sun was almost set, and he was beginning to have a hard time seeing, when he first heard the pounding of hooves and men talking.

Everything slowed. Fear consumed his mind. One thought - GET AWAY. He struggled against the rope. He would have screamed if he had remembered too.

They had come into view, now, through the leaves that blocked the farthest point in the road. Three figures on horseback galped ahead, one in the middle bigger than the rest.

It was them.

He tried, desperately, to get out. But it was no use. The ropes were too strong. Besides, he realized, he couldn't get away anyway. He'd die if he tried standing. Crawling was too slow.

He didn't have his gun. Always, in the back of his mind, that had calmed him. Even when he didn't have it, always, on some level, he had it in the back pocket, always available, in the last ditch, to save him. There was nothing now. Nothing but his broken, shattered body.

They got closer, then slowed. One pointed ahead, at John, said something. "The hell's that," it may have been.

Then they stopped at the fork. John had stopped moving by this point. His eyes just stared at the man who lead them. He was the first who came into view, at the edge of the tree, only a couple feet away. He was smiling, as he always did. His sword was at this side, clacking a little bit against two colts that dangled off his belt.

"My, my," MacDonald said, scratching his beard. His hair was down to his shoulders in little curls. "Whatcha doing there, John?"

John starred, jaw open. He tried to breathe. He couldn't.

"Hello? Johnny-boyyyyy?"

He tried to do something. Say something. He couldn't. He could only see the bodies, and the smell of gunpowder, and his own body, riddled with bullet-holes, unrecognizable, forgotten -

George and Theo joined MacDonald, standing to his side. They looked like they hadn't been sleeping well. It felt good to know they were as miserable as John himself.

"Johnny - if you don't say something, I'll just shoot you. And I wouldn't want to do that. Because you're family."

At the edge of his vision, he saw some rustling, towards some distant bushes. In the darkness, John couldn't make out who was slithering out. The figures crawled along the ground, inching, ever so slightly.

"Look, you ain't the only one who's been…struggling….with what happened," MacDonald, continued, stepping into the grass itself. "You didn't even give me a chance to explain myself."

The figures from the bushes got closer. It was the federals. They had their guns drawn, even as they crawled.

MacDonald sighed, turned around. He put his hands on his hips, annoyed. "I know you wanna ask the question. Go ahead."

"Last time I asked, you threatened to scalp me."

MacDonald cleared his throat, and turned to face John. "Just ask the question, John. I won't bite." He smiled wide. A couple teeth were missing. Old battle scars, he called them. Bar fight trophies were closer to the truth.

"Why?"

"Why? Why what?"

"Why did you kill them?"

MacDonald shrugged. "Like I said last time, they saw my face. I didn't want them knowing my face."

"The papers said they were turned around. They were shot from behind."

"They saw it when I got in. I made them turn around. I thought it more humane."

"The survivor said he -"

"He's a goddamn yankee. You can't trust a thing they say. George," he called out, pulling the man into a shoulder hug, "he agrees with me. Don't you?"

George, even at this distance, looked gaunt. He had lost some weight. He coughed. "Yes," he said. "Yes." He looked at John, but not really at him. He seemed to be staring through him, into some other dimension, far, far away from here.

"Now John," MacDonald continued, letting go of George, and stepping in front of John. They were only a couple feet apart now. Behind, the federals were splitting up, getting into some position outside John's line of sight. "John, look. I get it. I made a mistake -"

"Mistake?"

MacDonald blinked. He reeled, slightly, almost unnoticeable. He hadn't expected the strident tone from John.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You didn't make a mistake. You murdered them."

MacDonald stepped back a bit, huffing. He broke into a smile - a strange, uncomfortable one, as if it pained him - and laughed. "Murdered? John, I'm not a murderer."

"You killed the carriage drivers. You killed the train crew. You almost killed everyone on the train. You've probably killed more."

"It's war. People die in war."

"War?! I didn't sign up for a goddamn war!"

MacDonald paced forward, raising his foot and bring it down on John's leg. He screamed. Tears, already forming at the edge of his ducts, came streaming out. He was sure he was dying, in that moment.

"We've been fighting the goddamn rebellion for ten years, before. Ever since you were born you'd been fighting. You just didn't know it, did you? Did you?!"

MacDonald brought his foot down again. John didn't scream this time, the pain so excruciating that he could only scream inside his own mind. Everything took a dream like quality to it, as if it was distant, not really happening to him. He heard the words, but couldn't understand them, like he had forgotten English.

"They came here and took our goddamn land. We civilized this place first. It was the yankee who came and took it. Took it all. Then, when we fought back - your fathers, forefathers, your goddamn brothers - they said we were destroying Kansas." He laughed, spat. "They unleashed John Brown on your people. Then they unleashed the army. Then, when your people were battered and broken, they unleashed the railroads, the banks, the corporations, the carpetbaggers. This — "

He spun around, his eyes completing missing the federals crawling in the grass behind him, arms outstretched.

" — is their goddamn temple. Their monument to their Satan. Look and weep, John. Look and weep, goddamn you. You want to know why I killed those yankees? You want to know why?"

MacDonald turned to face George and Theo. They were staring, their eyes hollow and empty.

"You want to know why?"

They didn't move. John was crying now, whimpering from the pain, still screaming inside. He was imagining MacDonald in hell, burning, his flesh being peeled off him like a potato. It was the only thing that kept him from passing out.

"Because they're all hypocrites. Every last goddamn one of them. I saw what they do in New York. I saw what they do in Boston. I saw what they did to the women and children in those factories. Putting them near those machines. And they had the goddamn nerve to call us cruel. We treated our servants well, boys. Fed them. Clothed them. Treated them decently. How many capitalists can say that, eh?"

He turned back to John. The tears were streaming down his face. He was biting on his lower lip, trying to keep the pain inside, to not let him know how badly it hurt. MacDonald leaned in, and was about to say something, until, his eyes narrowed, confused.

"What the - why the hell is there a rope around your…"

John looked up to those cold, blue eyes. They were wide now. In all the years they had ridden together, John had seen a lot of emotions in those eyes, all except one. He had always wondered what it looked like. When he was on the run, his hope to see it in the flesh drove him to survive. The look on his face now was unmistakable.

It was fear.

"Mr. MacDonald," said a voice in the darkness behind him, "turn around and put your hands in the air."

MacDonald whipped around, hands not raised. John looked, and saw George and Theo on their hands and knees, guns to their side. MacDonald stared, confused, afraid.

"Sorry, Mac," Theo said, coldly. "They got the jump on us." He didn't seem upset at this fact.

"Get on the ground, Mac," Howard said. "It's over."

MacDonald, suddenly, laughed. "I'm going to hang, aren't I?"

To John's surprise, it was Tanner who broke the silence first, this one also with a laugh.

"Oh, MacDonald. I'm afraid that's not the end God had in store for you," he said. He moved forward, his pistol aimed directly at MacDonald. "Melton calls for you, friend."

MacDonald smile - the same grimaced, half stunned smile he gave before, when John cut him off - was etched in his flesh. He giggled. "No," he said, laughing. "No!"

"Yes," Tanner said. "Get on the ground."

"NO!"

He made a move as if to run. Before he could, Tanner brought the pistol down directly onto his head. He recoiled, falling down. Tanner kicked him repeatedly until he was sure he wouldn't move again. He groaned in agony.

"Kill him," John said, cheering him on. "Kill him!"

Tanner looked at John, indifferent. Then, he looked to Howard. "Get him untied."

Howard did so after making sure George and Theo were tied together. They didn't struggle, seemingly giving in to the situation. They didn't bother tying MacDonald up, as he had lost consciousness soon after Tanner's treatment.

Tanner spoke as Howard untied.

"You know how to count to 100, John?"

John nodded, indifferent to the insulting nature of the question. Pain had a way of doing that.

"When we leave your line of sight, start counting. When you reach it, untie them. There's a knife with their stuff, over there." He pulled out up a bowie knife and threw it a couple feet away. "You can free them. Or leave them. Or kill them. It's not any of my business. After that, go up the right path of this road until you see some lights. Then you reached Blackveil. Tell Dr. Bellview that Mr. Washington sends his regard. He'll patch you up, free of charge. Presuming you can find him."

Tanner turned around, to face George and Theo. They tensed up, hearing the words 'kill'.

"Presuming he doesn't kill you, consider this your first and only warning. Just know we have people all across the country. Some of them don't even know they work for us. All it takes is a single word from me, and I'll make it impossible for you to hide. Prussia has nothing on us. You understand that?"

They nodded.

"Good."

And with that, after one a couple moments of struggling to put MacDonald on Tanner's horse, they were off. While they traveled along at a slow, agonizing pace, John pulled himself along the ground to the knife, and debated on what course to take. When he finally got it, he turned to face George and Theo, tied together, stuck, immobile.

He took a deep breathe. He debated. He looked down the road. He missed them, just as they turned the corner, a horse's tail wiping in the air, and then, with that, they were gone.

He began to count.

Howard was the first to speak as they turned the corner.

"I knew you had a heart in there, somewhere," he said.

Tanner shrugged. "It's not our jurisdiction. States rights, as you know."

Howard smirked. "Sure, sure. You make that one up or have you used it before?"

"Made it up."

"Be serious with me, Tanner. You weren't actually going to…?"

Tanner didn't respond. Howard's horse neighed, unaware of it's owner's discomfort.

"You were, weren't you?"

Tanner shrugged.

"Why'd we let them go, then?"

"When you get older, you start getting romantic notions about the young and their capacity to change."

"You think they will?"

Tanner shrugged. He turned around to look at MacDonald's tied up body. He bounced up and down as the horse trotted along.

"I sure know he didn't."

MacDonald knew he wasn't dead when he first stirred. He resented God for not granting him that one wish. He didn't want to die. Not really. But he'd rather die than think about Melton again.

But he wasn't dead, to his dismay.

Instead, he was tied up on horseback, helpless. He stared at the ground and moaned in pain. His ribs were on fire. He tried to reach for something to drink from his pocket before remembering he was bound. And that they most likely threw it away anyway.

"Awake?" one of them called. MacDonald responded with a moan. They laughed.

"How are you feeling?" said the one he was riding with. He was the older of the two. "I'd hate for you to be at your worst when you finally see Melton again."

"Melton," MacDonald said.

"Yes," the man said. "Melton."

"Please don't," MacDonald said. "I'm begging you -"

"Like you made them beg?"

"Please, I'll do whatever you want, just -"

"No, Mr. MacDonald. I'm afraid that isn't in the cards."

"Please don't make me go."

"It ain't about you."

"Please. I beg you. Please."

The man stopped speaking. He flicked the reigns, the horse increasing its pace. Looking up, MacDonald realized they were surrounded by mountains. Appalachian mountains.

"Please," he repeated.

"You've been out for two or so days. Slept like a baby on the ride to Chicago, then down south. We're about to get into North Carolina now from Tennessee. When we get to the place, it'll all be over."

"Please, it's inhumane, to let mob justice like this run wild -"

"It ain't about justice, Mr. MacDonald. We're nearly there."

"Please, I -"

"Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. MacDonald?"

MacDonald said nothing. Confusion temporarily replaced the fear, mixing with it. He felt like he was losing his mind.

"Do you, Mr. MacDonald?"

MacDonald said nothing.

"I do, Mr. MacDonald. I believe in ghosts. Seen more of them than I'd like to admit."

The clanking of a lighter opening and closing was followed by an inhale, exhale.

"They're still there, Mr. MacDonald. They're where you left them."

MacDonald could only stare as the man turned around. His face had a terrible grin plastered on it.

"And they're eager to see you again."

"You're insane," MacDonald replied. "You're not with the federals. You're just a bunch of insane men, trying to scare me."

"You're right," the man said, turning back around. "I am trying to scare you. Am I working?"

The man laughed. MacDonald tried to move, tried to fall off the horse. Maybe, he thought wildly, he could find a hill, roll down it. Lose them, somehow. He didn't know how he'd get out of his binds, but he'd find a way. He always did.

"Don't bother," the man said. "It'll only delay the inevitable."

MacDonald ignored him. He kept twisting, turning. Once he realized he couldn't escape, he stopped. He began to cry.

They arrived at their destination thirty minutes later.

MacDonald had stopped crying, quickly replacing his whimpering with stoic silence. His eyes were wide, especially as they kept moving deeper into the mountains. At first, Tanner thought it was from fear, but, in those pupils, he saw recognition.

He was remembering.

"Starting to get it?" Tanner said, breaking up the monotony of hooves crunching leaves or clacking hooves against rock.

"They're not real ghosts, are they? You're being…"

"Metaphorical? Afraid not, Mac."

"Ghosts don't exist," he said. "Ghosts don't exist."

"I thought that too. Then I saw them."

"Them?"

"You'll see."

They said nothing when they came up the top of a small hill. Shrubbery was minimal. Rocks and stone covered everywhere aside from one or two trees off in the distance. Further ahead, near some dramatic drop that led to endless darkness beneath them - caves, endless caves - were two men on horseback together. One waved, the other nodded.

"Ah, they're here!" Tanner yelled.

They trotted up to them. The two other men were exercises in contrasts: one was short and pudgy, the other skinny and tall. They would have made interesting partners, if one of them hadn't been a Confederate.

The tall one spoke first. "Agents Tanner and Howard?"

"Yes, sir," Howard said. "And you are Agent Stone?"

He nodded. He pointed his finger at the pudgy ,man, said, "This is Mr. Matthews. He's our witness. You got him?"

"We do, sir," said Tanner. He turned the horse around a bit, showing MacDonald off. As he did this, he got off, got behind his horse and grasped MacDonald's hair. Tanner pulled upwards, forcing MacDonald to look at the two newcomers.

Stone looked at Matthews. "This him?"

Matthews got off his horse, walked up to MacDonald. He looked him up and down. Suddenly, Matthews spat at him. MacDonald didn't react, simply closing his eyes. "It's him," Matthews said, stepping away.

"Well," Stone said, stretching in the saddle, "that settles it. You want to do the honors, Mr. Matthew?"

Matthew shook his head.

"You sure? Could do you some good," Stone said.

Matthew looked at MacDonald atop his horse. MacDonald was looking at him now. Tanner thought it was anger at first, but it wasn't. Not entirely.

"You're trying to remember me, aren't you?" asked Matthews.

"You were here for it," MacDonald said.

"I was. I was there for all of it. Do you remember? Do you?"

MacDonald said nothing.

"Tell me," Matthews said. "Tell me you do."

"Sometimes I do. I don't like remembering."

"Neither do I. Neither do I."

He galloped off. He didn't turn around. Once he exited their sight, Stone sighed. "Alright," he said, getting off the horse and onto the ground. "Let's throw him in."

"Please," MacDonald said, "please don't! Please! Someone tell me what's going on! There aren't ghosts! There aren't ghosts!"

He screamed it out, screamed it as Tanner picked him off, and threw him to the ground. He landed with a thud. It knocked the wind out of him.

"Oh, Colonel, I'm afraid there are," Stone said, moving to the drop off nearby. "They're down there. Have been ever since you did what you did."

"It was war!" MacDonald screamed. Howard moved next to him and, with Tanner, picked him up by his shoulders. They began to drag him to the cliff.

"It wasn't war, it was a slaughter," Stone replied. "Tanner, remind me, how many died? Eleven?

"Four shot execution style," Tanner said, emotionless. "All unarmed. All surrendered."

Stone clicked his tongue. "Tsk, tsk. That's a violation of the articles of war, Colonel MacDonald. If you had been under my command, I would have had you shot."

"They weren't fighting fair," he choked out. "They wouldn't fight us like men! Shooting at us from bushes, harassing us! They never gave us a good and proper battle!"

Tanner and Howard stopped a couple feet away from the drop off. The drop off was down into a cave system below. Darkness beckoned from above, groaning in anticipation. They let go of MacDonald, letting him go limp.

"Starving mountain boys with no training against two companies? Does not sound fair to me, Colonel."

MacDonald groaned, moving, trying to right himself off the ground. He struggled, staring up at Stone.

"Half of my own men," he said, through heaving breathes, "were deserters, not less than a month before. I needed too….I needed to make them understand."

"Understand what?" Tanner said, voice filled with venom. "That you loved murdering children?"

"Don't moralize to me," MacDonald spat out, his voice strained. "They killed people too. That boy, Alexander? I know he was one of the bastards shooting at us. I lost two men from him."

"He was seventeen," Stone said, coldly.

"I saved lives by killing him."

Tanner kicked him. He groaned in pain.

"You couldn't know that," Stone said.

"The Hell I did. I knew those boys. I lived here. This was my home. They were attacking our families, our womenfolk, our children."

"What about Frankie?"

MacDonald squinted his eyes, looking up at Stone. He seemed confused. "Pardon?"

"Frankie. You should remember him. He was the one who begged."

MacDonald said nothing.

"You don't, do you?"

"Please," he said, "just kill me."

"He was twelve. Was he one of the children you were protecting?"

"Please -"

"Didn't you see him? The boy? He had been hungry, you see. Him and his entire family. They hadn't eaten in days. The little raid was his only choice. Unless he wanted to look into the eyes of his mother and sisters and tell them that the man of the house couldn't feed them. So -"

" - stop -"

" - So you found them, and then you saw all the food they had. All that salt. You were going to take them to prison, where they could rot until their teeth fell out, but a couple escaped, didn't they? That enraged you, didn't it? Like you were less of a man? So -"

" - shut up -"

" - so you marched them up the hill, and put them up against the cave walls over there. Four, five at a time. Remember what they sounded like, MacDonald?"

He did. He did, despite how much he kept telling him to shut up, to stop reminding him, to stop bringing the strange pain that closed around his brain every time he had to remember it, every time he had to consider himself as part of it. It felt like an event, a natural disaster he was just participating in. Even as he orchestrated it, even as he made pieces fall into place, even as he raised his arm and told them to aim and fire and fire again until the corpses were unrecognizable, until there was nothing left to dismember and disfigure and violate with lead or bayonet, until there was only the yawning void, an echo, that went into infinity, one that went on, and on, and on, and on, one that consumed his very soul, his personage, until there was nothing left inside but the knowledge of emptiness -

" - and then the boy. Tell me about the boy."

He remembered. Allowed himself to remember. It was then. The sun was overhead. It was hot. He was sweating. He was shivering. The blood. So much blood. Mixed in with dirt, crusted by the sun. Whimpering: You're not going to shoot us, are you? Please let us pray, let us say goodbye.

No. No. Too little time. Put them up, boys. Put them up. Yes, the boy. Bring the boy up. Don't hesitate. Stop crying. Just another traitor. Future waste. I'm saving lives by killing you. Don't. Matthews. Listen Matthews. I don't care. When I give the order, do it. Unless you want to join them. Good soldiers follow orders. Can you follow orders? It's just one little trigger pull. You can close your eyes if you want. As long as that Minie ball goes into that little bastard's body, I don't care. Alright.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire!

Ah. Yes. Good. Next group.

Hm?

What?

The boy? Huh.

Put him back up.

Did I stutter, soldier?! I said, put him back up.

Can someone deal with the boy? His cries discomfort me.

MacDonald was staring now, as he replayed it, over and over again, his thoughts drowning him in black bile. He hated the federals who brought him here. He hated them for having to make him remember it, to make him remember the terrible sensations that pealed away all the ornaments he plastered on himself, tiny little signals to the world he was a real human being and not just a soulless husk. It terrified him. He wanted to be away. He wanted to be far away. Anywhere but here, with these people, in the terrible hell that awaited him.

"What are you going to do to me?" MacDonald finally said, emotionless.

Stone shrugged. "Nothing. It's not us that wanted to bring you here."

"Ghosts," MacDonald said.

"That's right. They're down there, still."

"How long?"

"Ever since that day. They didn't find the corpses until long after. But when burying the corpses didn't work, and all the other old tricks didn't work, we realized, there was only one thing in the world they could possibly want."

"Me," he said, defeated.

"Precisely."

"And they're going to kill me."

"Or worse."

"What could be worse?"

"They get to leave and you have to stay."

"Does that mean there's a heaven?" MacDonald asked, whimpering.

"Not for people like you, there ain't," Tanner said.

"All peoples are welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven," Howard said, under his breathe.

If Tanner, Stone or MacDonald heard him, they didn't say anything.

"Fact is, if we don't do this, they'll start getting restless. It's rage, you see. Rage at knowing that they'll never get to leave. That makes them do things most people wouldn't even think of doing. Your old neighbors will be caught in the cross fire."

"And it's just my corpse," MacDonald said, toneless.

"Yes," Stone said. "Do you want anything before we send you on your way?"

"Can you kill me?"

"Gladly," Tanner interjected, laughing.

"Afraid that's off the table," Stone replied, ignoring Tanner. "They'll…want you alive. Just in case."

"Got any whiskey?"

Surprisingly, between the three of them, it was Howard who had some medicinal drink. "Father said you'll never know when you'll need to make a social call," he explained, laughing. He put the small bottle to the damned man's lips, and let him drink it down in one gulp. New tears replaced the old dried ones. When the bottle was done, Howard pocketed it.

"Ready?" Stone said.

"I -"

Before he could say anything, Tanner grabbed him by his arm and quickly threw him over the ledge. Howard and Stone, surprised, did not stop him, didn't even flinch, even when he collided with a side of the wall, and he started screaming, and falling down, down, down.

They waited for the thud.

They didn't hear one.

They found him three days later near the entrance to the Melton Caves, his head stuck on a makeshift pike made out of human bone and sinews. Bits and pieces of his body were found throughout the rest of the cave system, although most could not be recovered.

Near the entrance to the cave, written in MacDonald's blood, were written the words "THANK YOU".