Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) Read online

  Liar’s Harvest

  Michael Langlois

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  CHAPTERS

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

  10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

  20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

  30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39

  40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

  50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59

  60 | 61 | 62 | 63

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Mike Langlois

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my friends, past and present.

  I never did have to walk alone.

  Actions are the seed of fate, deeds grow into destiny.

  —Harry S. Truman

  “Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born.”

  —Homer, The Iliad

  It’s a tall order, but we’re taller.

  —The Streets

  1

  The last time I ate cold beans out of a can I was twenty-five years old, sitting under a tarp in the mud in Poland and pissed off about it. I wasn’t much happier now. The frigid pre-dawn air made the congealed lump on the end of my plastic spoon extra stiff, turning the sauce into a kind of bean-filled pudding. I ate it quickly, mechanically scooping and chewing as fast as I could until the can was empty.

  I dropped it next to the empty one between my feet. Two were all I allowed myself. It would hold me until breakfast, and any more per night would deplete my meager stockpile before my next trip to town.

  I hid the empties in the big plastic can on the side of the house because I didn’t want anyone finding them in the kitchen trash. The can was next to Henry’s bedroom window, so I had to close the lid slowly and softly before sneaking back inside.

  The couch in the living room was mine for the duration, which suited me fine. It had easy access to the front door and the kitchen, and besides, it would hardly have been fair for me to take one of the bedrooms. Since Belmont, I no longer slept.

  Instead, I settled back on the couch, closed my eyes, and practiced meditating. It was something that Henry was trying to teach me. He thought that if I learned to meditate, it would keep me from going crazy from a lack of REM sleep.

  Personally, I thought it was a waste of time, but if he was going to let me stay in his house then humoring him about the meditation was the least I could do.

  I waited like that while the pale winter sunlight coming through the living room windows crept across the floor. When it finally fell across me, I made a big show of waking up to the smells coming out of the kitchen.

  Only Henry knew that I no longer slept, and I wasn’t keen to share the information with anyone else just yet. No reason to get people all worked up about the possibility that I might not be the same Abe I’ve always been, just because my new body might be a little different.

  Once I had things under control, it would be a lot easier to prove that no matter what, I was still as human as they were. On the inside, anyway.

  I brushed my teeth and got dressed in the hall bathroom, then went into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of Leon’s coffee. The paper was already on the table, so I sat down next to it.

  Before I could pick it up, Leon slapped a plate of eggs down in front of me. “I found another corpse on the porch this morning.”

  I wolfed down half the plate before replying. “Nice. What kind?”

  Leon was Henry’s nephew. He was living with Henry because he had recently been paralyzed from the waist down. I was living with Henry because otherwise I’d be homeless.

  “Squirrel. A whole one this time.”

  “That’s a first. I guess we’re moving up in the world. Now you can stop gluing all those heads and asses together.”

  Anne came in, fresh from her morning shower. She was living here as well, despite having an apartment to go back to. Every day she said she was going to head back home, and every day she failed to do so. And every day I was happy about it.

  She sat down in the seat next to me and made a face. “Just one time, can we eat breakfast without the gross out comedy routine? It’s like you’re both ten. If that.”

  “Hey,” I said. “At least we’re not chasing you around the kitchen with it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I give you five minutes, tops.”

  Leon scooped eggs onto a plate for Anne, and then deftly served it to her with one hand, while the other spun his wheelchair in place.

  When he was first released from the hospital, he’d been in a pretty bad way. He didn’t speak, didn’t come out of his room, and barely ate.

  It lasted a couple of weeks, and then one day he just rolled out of his bedroom at the crack of dawn, dressed and shaved like nothing had ever happened. He was trying to prove that losing his legs didn’t matter to him, and I worried about what was going to happen when he couldn’t keep pretending any more.

  Each morning he got up before everyone else and made breakfast, something he never did before he was paralyzed. Today it was scrambled eggs mixed with crispy bits of bacon, toast and spicy sausage on the side, and his trademark military grade coffee. This from a man whose idea of breakfast used to be microwave burritos and a Coke.

  Henry shuffled into the kitchen and received his plate from Leon as well. “It’s getting close to three weeks now,” he said in his gravely morning voice, “and we still don’t know where they’re coming from.”

  We waited while Henry got situated at the table. At 86 years old, he moved slowly in the mornings because his hips hurt after being in one position all night. The only part of him that didn’t look old and faded were his hands. Those were as smooth and supple as ever, an unexpected gift from fate.

  “Cats,” said Leon, pulling up to the side of the table without a chair, plate balanced in his lap as he maneuvered with both hands. “You know, just sharing the wealth.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance. All these little corpses are long dead and dried up. Cats only share fresh kills. And then only with people they like.”

  “Man, you don’t know what cats think. I’m telling you, those are little dead presents. That’s all.”

  “Whatever you say, Leon. I’ll throw it out by the woodpile after we eat.”

  “I already got it. You think I’m just going roll on by and leave it for someone else to pick up? I tossed it on my way to the end of the driveway this morning to get the paper.”

  That made Henry’s jaw set. He jabbed his fork at Leon. “What did the doctor tell you? Did he tell you to get up at sunrise, trek a quarter-mile down a gravel driveway to get the paper, and then make breakfast for four people? Every morning? Is that what you heard?”

  “This chair don’t mean I can’t pull my weight around here.”

  “There’s a difference between pulling your weight and what you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine, Uncle Henry. Let it go.”

  “Why? So you can hurt yourself even worse? You want to go back to the hospital?”

  “What difference does it make? It ain’t like I’m about to get any more crippled. Doesn’t really matter if I’m here or in a hospital bed, that’s not gonna change.”

  Anne met my eyes, but didn’t say anything. This was a family argument that we heard in some variation at least once a day, and we tried to stay out of it. We ate the rest of our breakfast in awkward silence.

  As soon as I was done, I go
t up and started washing the dishes. Living in Henry’s house made me feel uncomfortable, like I was a burden. Henry wouldn’t take any money from me, so it turned into a race between me and Leon to see who could do the most chores.

  I had also started buying the groceries and picking up Henry and Leon’s prescriptions in town every chance I got. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel better. Besides, it was the only way I could buy the extra food for my stash without anyone knowing.

  I was putting away the last of the dishes when I heard a car crunching across the gravel drive. Looking out the window, I saw a familiar beat up green sedan pull up in front of the house. “He’s here.”

  Anne cracked a smile. “God help me, but I think I’m actually glad to see him.”

  I watched Chuck get out of his car and sling a bag over his shoulder. He looked pretty much like I remembered him. Tall, and in good shape as you would expect, being in his late twenties and having worked the last ten in a granite quarry. Maybe his blonde beard was a little less obsessively trimmed, but otherwise he looked the same.

  He slammed the car door with a hollow clunk and stomped his way to the front porch. Then he stopped and stared.

  Anne pressed against me at the sink as she leaned over to look out the same window. “What’s he doing?”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. Anne’s phone rang. She answered it and put it on speaker. Chuck’s voice came out of the phone a second after I watched his lips move.

  “Hey.”

  She answered. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Did you know there’s a human foot out here on your porch?”

  2

  Naturally, Leon had to beat everyone to the door. We let him pass for the sake of our toes and followed him out onto the porch, forming a circle around the dried up skeletal foot.

  Henry leaned in close and pointed. “You can see here where the fibula and tibia have been broken off. The ends are cracked and splintered, but not dirty like the rest, indicating that this foot was recently removed. My guess is that it was snapped off of the original corpse in order to bring it here.”

  “Hello there, Chuck,” said Chuck loudly. “Boy, it sure is nice to see you again.”

  I stood up and shook his hand with a grin. “Hi Chuck. Sorry, but it’s hard to compete with a severed foot, you know?”

  “I guess. Why is there a foot on your porch?”

  Leon wheeled around and stuck his hand out. “Don’t know. It’s weird, normally it’s just a dead animal. Or a piece of one.”

  “Yes,” said Chuck, shaking Leon’s hand. “Normally.”

  Anne gave Chuck a quick hug. “He means that we’ve been finding bits and pieces of dead animals on the porch for a couple of weeks now. Birds, rabbits, squirrels, that kind of thing. This is the first time we’ve ever found part of a person. Henry, do you think this is some kind of message? Like a threat?”

  Henry pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and gingerly picked up the desiccated body part. “If that were the case, I would expect fresh corpses, something that suggested recent violence. Long dead and dried up things really aren’t very threatening. Still, I’d like to take a closer look at it in the workshop.”

  “You go ahead, we’ll catch up after we get Chuck settled in.” I took Chuck’s bag from him and led him into the kitchen. Anne came with us while Leon followed Henry out to the shop.

  I paused at the table. “Want some breakfast?”

  “No thanks, I ate on the way. Also, severed foot.”

  “Right, sorry. Couch okay? All the bedrooms are full at the moment.”

  “Yeah, no problem. Thanks for putting me up while I figure out what to do. The rest of my stuff can stay in the car until I find my own place.”

  We walked down the hall and into the living room, where I tossed his bag onto the couch. It was going to make sneaking around at night a little harder, but I’d figure something out.

  “Don’t thank me, thank Henry. He’s pretty much running a flop house these days. I’m staying here until I decide if I’m going to rebuild my old place on the farm or not. The bags burned it to the ground before we met. I have the insurance money already, but I don’t know how I feel about rebuilding.”

  “I’m just here to help out with Leon, I guess,” said Anne. “I wasn’t doing anything before all this started, anyway. I seriously doubt there’s going to be a waitressing emergency that I need to get back to.”

  Pretty much the same line she gave me when I asked why she was sticking around. I wanted to press her about it, but there never seemed to be a good time.

  I turned back to Chuck. “So what’s your plan?”

  “No idea. I’m pretty much starting from scratch here. I got no money, no job, and no place to live. Technically my apartment in Belmont is still there, and I guess there’s no rent now, but that’s because it’s in an abandoned building with no goddamn water or electricity. Also, it’s located in a food-free zone, since all the stores are shut down. I mean fuck, the whole town is just gone.”

  “The town is gone?” asked Anne. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that everyone who survived that night left. Bailed out. There’s not even any looters, if you can believe that. It’s because the whole place just feels wrong. Even I couldn’t wait to light out, and you know that touchy feely shit don’t mean jack to me.”

  “Overnight ghost town? You’re right, that’s pretty weird.”

  “You want to hear something even more crazy? When the state finally showed up with the cops, all the bodies were gone. You remember all those dead people that Piotr set up like hostages in the Nail Barrel? All those bags that cut each other into chunks at the quarry? Remember Valerie tied up at Greg’s house? Gone. The cops showed up, helped the last survivors evacuate, and that was it. They declared it a disaster area, but they never said what kind of disaster kills all the people and leaves the town standing.”

  Chuck ground his beard against his cheek and took a deep breath. “Nothing’s been right since that night. You know that every place I stopped at on my way here, somebody told me to be careful or to stay indoors at night? Can you believe that shit? People are spooked from Wyoming to fucking North Carolina. It’s like an epidemic of the heebie-jeebies or something.”

  I nodded. “We know. It’s not showing up in the news much yet, but something is going on. Leon has been helping Henry go through his books with a fine tooth comb to figure out what’s happening, but so far they haven’t had much luck.”

  Chuck closed his eyes and sagged into the couch. “I thought we won, you know? Saved the world and all that.”

  “We did. Problem is, ever since that night, things have been changing. Who knows how much longer the world we saved is going to look like the one we started out with.”

  “That’s fucking great.”

  Anne pulled him up off the couch. “Come on, I know what’ll cheer you up. Let’s go look at a severed foot.”

  3

  The workshop out back was made entirely of sheet metal nailed onto a wooden frame the size of a barn. It had been built as a shed for equipment, but these days it was used to store Henry’s books and vast occult knick-knack collection.

  Some unwelcome visitors had nearly burned it down a few weeks ago, but after putting on a new door and hosing out all the gasoline and broken glass it was as good as new. Which is to say, still a big tin square with no heat that smelled like damp concrete, old books, and engine grease from the tractor that had been stored in here for decades. The tractor was long gone, but the smell would live on forever.

  Homemade pine shelves lined the left and right walls, and two garage sale dining tables sat in the center of the big space. Henry and Leon had cleared off the end of one of the tables for the foot, and were frowning at it. In that moment, I could clearly see the family resemblance in the shape of their faces and the set of their mouths. It made me smile.

  “Gentlemen, what do you see?”

  Leon slapped one hand
down on the table in disgust. “A dried up old foot, what do you think? We’ve been staring at it for ten minutes, like it was going to start talking all of a sudden.”

  We gathered around, five adults standing shoulder to shoulder staring at a chunk of bone and gristle. There were no bits of clothing, no marks, and no significant details of any kind that I could see. It was clearly old. And clearly a foot.

  “Well, I’m stumped.”

  Leon narrowed his eyes at me. “Hilarious.”

  Chuck leaned down and squinted at it. “You guys are really getting dead stuff piled up on the porch every day? Where’s it all coming from?”

  “Cats,” said Leon.

  “We don’t know,” I said, as though I hadn’t heard. “But once it started, it kept on like clockwork. I stayed up the other night to see if I could catch whoever it was, but I didn’t see anything. I left, just for a minute, and when I came back, there was a squirrel tail, right in front of the door.”

  “So,” said Chuck, “whoever it was waited for you to leave?”

  “I guess.”

  What I didn’t say was that I was watching the porch from the living room with the lights off, both inside and outside of the house. To anyone else, it would have been pitch black. Even to me it would have been too dark to see before I had the final immersion in Piotr’s blood pit a few weeks ago, a gory baptism that Piotr claimed had completed my conversion into the avatar of the godlike being called the Devourer. Now the darkest it ever got for me was a dusky gloom.

  Leon picked up the foot. “Well, that was a waste of time. I’m going to throw it in the pile with the rest of the pet cemetery collection out back.”

  Henry smiled. “I may not be able to tell you who that foot belonged to, or how it ended up on my porch, but I hardly think this was a waste of time.”

  I loved playing the straight man for Henry. “Why not?”

  “Because I know where the rest of the body is.”

  4