Free Dead Man's Rain by Frank Tuttle Page B

up a scream.”
    He turned his eyeless face upon me, and I am not ashamed to say I rose and ran stumbling away.
    Petey herded me with nips and yelps toward the safe-room hall. Rain and wind blew in behind me. That, and that awful thunder that meant Eded Merlat was one step closer to coming home at last.
    I bounced off the walls and left blood on every surface, but somehow I made it back to the door. I collapsed in front of it, heard the widow weeping and sobbing behind the iron.
    “It’s nearly over,” I said. “Not much longer.”
    I don’t know if she heard me. But she heard, as did I, the sound of heavy footsteps treading slowly down the hall.
    I tried to rise but couldn’t, and failed to crawl as well. The footsteps sounded louder, sounded nearer, no more accompanied by thunder, but with the loud crunch of grave-dirt upon the polished tiles.
    The voices about me rose up, then fell to whispers. Petey stood stiff beside me, wolf growling warning, dead man or no.
    A shadow fell over me, and the air—the air grew as cold as the heart of winter, or the bottom of a grave. I closed my eyes and jammed my hands, even my numb left hand, over my ears. I felt the iron door buckle where the dead man laid his hand upon it, but I heard no scream.
    Mama’s hex let me hear something else, though. Ebed Merlat stood above me, an iron door and a grave between him and his widow, but I was able to hear some of what passed between them.
    “I could not,” she said. “Forgive me, I could not.”
    “I know,” spoke the voice I’d heard earlier in the thunder. “It is I who must be forgiven, for asking such a thing.”
    “I loved you,” said the widow, and she sobbed and beat the door. “I always loved you.”
    “And I loved you,” said the voice. “Forgive me.”
    The widow cried. And then the door latch squeaked as it began to turn, as she opened the door to let him in.
    “No,” he said. He must have laid hold of the latch, because it groaned and broke. “Goodbye,” he said. And though the widow pushed against the door, it held fast and shut. “I will always love you.”
    As he spoke, I felt him turn away. Caught the edge of a sorrow so deep and so vast, it had bridged the gap between life and death. Then he stepped away, and the sorrow turned to rage. And as he walked down the hall his footfalls turned again to peals of thunder.
    Voices sounded, upon the stairs. The heirs had found the open doors. Did they hear the footfalls, too?
    “Daddy’s home,” I croaked. Petey licked my face. I heard screams down the hall, and felt the thunder swell, and then, though my hands were jammed tight against my ears, I heard Ebed Merlat scream.
    All that time in the ground, Mama had said. All that time watching his wife torture herself because she couldn’t kill the man she loved. Watching his sons and his daughter creep and plot and sharpen their blades against this night.
    He opened that dead mouth wide, and he screamed, and soon I did too, just to keep the awful wracking sound of it out of my dreams forever. I screamed and I screamed until my voice was gone and the last candle-flame guttered out and then, without warning, so did I.

Chapter Six

    Noon found me standing at the Sarge’s grave. Sunlight shone and set the birds to singing, and it felt good on my face and arms.
    I leaned with my back on a tall, sad marble angel and kept my eyes on the widow’s urn atop the Sarge’s stone. Orthodox tradition demanded that the Sarge’s widow pass each day for thirty days after the funeral. The Sarge’s friends and family were to keep the urn filled.
    It had been empty when I came. I’d picked it up, poured out rainwater and filled it to the brim with the Lady Merlat’s gold.
    And after, I stood and I watched. There were those who would rob widows urns, snatching coppers from the elderly, adding insult to grief and loss.
    They would do no robbery today.
    Twice a priest had passed, dipped his mask. I’d glared, and he’d gone