Hope you enjoy, have yourself a lovely day, and see you Friday for more.
Plague Watch III by Mackinley Clevinger, August 22, 2016
Present.
Schmidt held a torch aloft before him, eyes squinting past the greasy smoke that lined his throat and nose as he tried to peer into the alleyway and see what lay a mere few feet within. A sharp corner dug into his back as he drew in a deep breath, shocking him instead of calming his nerves; the corner of the bundle of papers he’d tucked into his waistband had twisted around again.
Sighing, he rolled his back to make himself more comfortable before stepping into the hazy darkness. What had once been a world of light illuminated from above was now a world of darkness illuminated by whatever could be burnt for a brief time, travelers on the barren streets forging a path through the permanent shadows that would close around them, claim them as its own, and often never release them back to their companions.
By all accounts, he should be safe. Schmidt knew better than most how well barricaded and fortified the few remaining ‘safe’ districts were, but he also knew that overturned carts and chairs wouldn’t stop the infected air, and an inattentive watchman could easily allow a few of the plague-ridden to pass him by. It didn’t take much to make a darkened alley dangerous, even more so during the plague.
Schmidt kicked at the scraps of rotting wood strewn across the alley’s entrance, sending them echoing against the cobblestone ground and brick walls, a short expanse of each all he could see in the flickering light of his torch. The city had never been pristine, but with disease spreading with every cough and inhale of breath, keeping the streets and alleys clean had fallen by the wayside.
Unless, of course, the trash could be useful, either as something to burn, something to throw on the barricades, or something to eat. Schmidt was heading towards the sewers, though; very few were desperate enough to come close to the vile waters that still ran out of it into the marsh where bodies had been dumped when the graveyards were full and the bonfires too slow.
Much of the scattered refuse near the sewers had remained untouched, rotting in the dark and the sickly air as houses were either torn down for desperate plans that had ultimately failed, or burnt down by the crazed that stopped caring. It didn’t matter how bad things became in the rest of the city, the sewers were never approached; that is, until there was nowhere else to go.
Now they were walled in with danger on their doorstep and their backs to the rotting sewers. If you didn’t mind the smell, it hadn’t been the worst place to have guard duty before the plague. Schmidt emerged from the alley to an unnerving sight in the eternal night they’d all been plunged into, so alien to his senses that he couldn’t quite take it in for a few moments.
Ahead of him lay a stone path that he descended carefully, on his left a wall rising higher as he sank lower and on his right empty space where the path disappeared, separated by a low iron fence. At first, he always thought there was something wrong with his eyes. After months of peering into the shadows, desperate to see into the inky darkness that was absolute, it was strange to be able to see anything more than a few feet away, even more so to see the entire marsh lit up.
It wasn’t sunlight, or the light given off by a torch, or anything so clean and trustworthy. The marsh glowed, a sickly green that drifted on the mists and fogs which rose and fell at the bequest of its new master: the plague. It had seemed a simple solution to keep disease from spreading; move the bodies away from the city. Throw them like so much trash into the sewer and watch them get flushed away.
It didn’t work as well as intended. The gates were shut, and people got desperate. Schmidt came to a stop and placed a hand on the railing, gripping it tightly as his eyes adjusted to the low-light and picked out the floating bodies, marsh-water bubbling besides them as they were carried along by the shifting currents of the growing marsh.
The Plague Watch had stopped half of them from going over the side, cut the damned rope and held a few of them from jumping over the side. They watched as the still bodies, the friends and family thought dead and passed on, leapt to life and dragged the unlucky few that had escaped the walls beneath the waters. They watched as the murky, green waters shone black as blood pooled to the surface.
Then Schmidt had watched as they hung the other half and threw their bodies into the marsh by the order of Queen Josephine. There was no time for dissent during the crisis, she’d said. Make an example of these few so that others wouldn’t repeat their mistakes. If they wanted to defy her, they were free to do so, but she would have the last laugh.
“We stood side by side in horror, thankful to be alive, mourning the fools for their deaths, and then Josephine… in her ivory tower, protected from this entire mess, thinking she can pass judgement on us. Make an example of us. Lead us by the nose with her eyes closed and ears deaf to our cries while we fight and we die and we survive despite her, not because of her... but what can I do? She’s…”
Schmidt trailed off, realizing his low muttering had been growing into shouting the injustices of the royalty, a short-lived prospect for anyone, regardless of their rank. Something turned in his head, though. What Officer Ling had suggested, her own ire towards the royalty, a feeling well shared by both the Plague Watch and the citizens they were ordered to protect.
No one had to show up tomorrow, if nobody knew. There was so much disorder, so little of the chain of command left… it’d be easy. Amick would only know what Amick was told, and if all he had was promotion papers, then he’d be reveling in his newfound position instead of leading the charge to retake the palace. Schmidt was the messenger. The only messenger. To Amick, at least; Ling had given another sheaf of papers to Private Cassandra. It could all go wrong if…
It was a chance he had to take.
Schmidt pulled the papers he’d tucked into his waistband out, placing his torch into a nearby sconce, and leafed through them until he found the pages ordering Amick to bring the Plague Watch to the palace. He read through them, heart trembling as he prepared himself to commit an act of treason.
Crumpling up the pages, he held the wad of paper near the torch until it caught fire and threw it into the marsh, watching as it drifted towards the water and landed lightly on the back of a floating corpse, burning quietly for a few seconds before the body suddenly thrashed violently and drowned the paper. No one was going to find it, and no one was going to know what he’d done.
“Nice throw, Lance-Corporal Schmidt. What was that?”
Lance-Corporal Amick stood further along the railing, peering into the marsh just as Schmidt had been. He was at the very edge of the torchlight, barely visible but for the faint glow of the marsh below that gave his stern face a vicious edge. Schmidt turned towards him, taking a quiet breath of the foul air to steady his nerves.
“Old love letters, Lance-Corporal Amick. Figured it was time to let go of them.”