The Cemetery Diaries
Chain Gang
We come down tearing strips from the clouds, the altitude blazing our trail like a comet. The hills race by, and my head is swimming. I can feel your fingers digging into me as we spiral down, the engine purring as we land silent and cat-like on the road below.
Why would I tell you a story when we’re fleeing and in mortal danger, you demand to know. I correct you immediately. Firstly, we were never in mortal danger. We were in immortal danger. It’s far worse, you see, for normally your soul would never know but a taste of death. I go on before you can ask the question that’s begging. You don’t want to know what would have happened to it if the Buried had caught up with us. They have their ways of making invulnerable skin prickle and dead hearts skip beats.
A flying motorbike is really something, you say. I’m glad. I don’t invest my efforts in a project for nothing, and this bike was my baby long before you. Then you ask me something else, something I wasn’t expecting. Are the dead really dead? I don’t know what your motive is, but I turn and see that in the commotion back at the cemetery you split your lip. You stretch it speaking, and a thin trickle of blood runs down your chin. The dead are not really dead, I reply. They’re just living in your head, that’s all. I blot your wound with my sleeve, feeling the cuff come away damp and crimson. The bush around us, where we’ve landed in the middle of an abandoned dirt road, is eerily quiet. I get off the bike and pace around a few times, scuffing at orange and ochre coloured dirt with my heels, disturbing armies of angry bull ants that swarm over my steel-capped toes. I conclude that we are safe, and help you down.
You push my arms away. You don’t want my assistance, but you’re crying. Some prey are really predators– I hear my old words echoing in my head. Some prey are really predators, and some predators are really prey. I wonder what lies beneath your patched warnings and bright white skin. Is it the heart of a killer, stopped and petrified? Hardly. For all the longing you had for death, killing was never on your agenda. You’re the kind of girl who uses words like murder, words that don’t belong in my world. I wipe your loose hair out of your face, tucking it back behind your ears. It is a gesture that says softness, that says I’m sorry. I hope you understand. Sorry isn’t a word I can say out loud.
We sit on the grass for a minute, leaning amongst the oil painting trees, their bark peeling in every shade of grey and brown like mouldy wallpaper, their foliage scant, thrown up in sprays of silver. Occasionally, long leaves curved like daggers glow blood-red, scarlet, plum or amber, hanging like decorations or wetted fangs. The bush is beautiful, in a dry, dead way. It’s a forest of skeletons, knives and sheathes, full of slithering and crawling poisonous things. We are like the spiders in this place, black and bristling. I brush my hair back, feeling the spikes that gel and sweat have made, and the spikes that are really metal hooks and nails. What are we doing here, you ask me, and there’s no satisfactory answer I can give. You want reassurance, and I can’t offer you that. Perhaps you were never built for this world.
You climb back onto the bike, and we make our way back to my churchyard, travelling at ordinary speed. Other leather-wearers nod their helmets as they pass us. They think we are kindred, the same. I sense warmth in your chest, where it presses against my back. You like the familiarity of people. We are halfway home when we run up against them, a fleet of chain wielders hooting and hollering as the wind steals their voices at a hundred and thirty kilometres an hour. Their women are harpies in shredded denim, riding the clouds of dust their wheels stir up. Their men are warriors in trash. Home-made weapons swing wildly through the air, and engines rev like growling dogs. They skid to a halt, blocking our way. They’re not human.
I recognise the ring-leader at once, because I made him. He was as you were, a failed experiment. He never learned the caution that is the other edge of the sword of being dangerous. He never learned to fear. He makes no secret of himself, dwelling apart from the living as the dead should. Instead, he roars around the country leaving destruction yawning in his wake, mouth-open in shock and denial. The police, who believe he is mortal, have stirred up all kinds of new bikie laws that don’t stop him. His gang, all vampires and aspiring humans, fan out behind him like an extension of his cape. I was a fool to ever feed on this abomination, to consider him a victim. Some prey are really predators in disguise, and this one only has eyes for you.
Why would I tell you a story when we’re fleeing and in mortal danger, you demand to know. I correct you immediately. Firstly, we were never in mortal danger. We were in immortal danger. It’s far worse, you see, for normally your soul would never know but a taste of death. I go on before you can ask the question that’s begging. You don’t want to know what would have happened to it if the Buried had caught up with us. They have their ways of making invulnerable skin prickle and dead hearts skip beats.
A flying motorbike is really something, you say. I’m glad. I don’t invest my efforts in a project for nothing, and this bike was my baby long before you. Then you ask me something else, something I wasn’t expecting. Are the dead really dead? I don’t know what your motive is, but I turn and see that in the commotion back at the cemetery you split your lip. You stretch it speaking, and a thin trickle of blood runs down your chin. The dead are not really dead, I reply. They’re just living in your head, that’s all. I blot your wound with my sleeve, feeling the cuff come away damp and crimson. The bush around us, where we’ve landed in the middle of an abandoned dirt road, is eerily quiet. I get off the bike and pace around a few times, scuffing at orange and ochre coloured dirt with my heels, disturbing armies of angry bull ants that swarm over my steel-capped toes. I conclude that we are safe, and help you down.
You push my arms away. You don’t want my assistance, but you’re crying. Some prey are really predators– I hear my old words echoing in my head. Some prey are really predators, and some predators are really prey. I wonder what lies beneath your patched warnings and bright white skin. Is it the heart of a killer, stopped and petrified? Hardly. For all the longing you had for death, killing was never on your agenda. You’re the kind of girl who uses words like murder, words that don’t belong in my world. I wipe your loose hair out of your face, tucking it back behind your ears. It is a gesture that says softness, that says I’m sorry. I hope you understand. Sorry isn’t a word I can say out loud.
We sit on the grass for a minute, leaning amongst the oil painting trees, their bark peeling in every shade of grey and brown like mouldy wallpaper, their foliage scant, thrown up in sprays of silver. Occasionally, long leaves curved like daggers glow blood-red, scarlet, plum or amber, hanging like decorations or wetted fangs. The bush is beautiful, in a dry, dead way. It’s a forest of skeletons, knives and sheathes, full of slithering and crawling poisonous things. We are like the spiders in this place, black and bristling. I brush my hair back, feeling the spikes that gel and sweat have made, and the spikes that are really metal hooks and nails. What are we doing here, you ask me, and there’s no satisfactory answer I can give. You want reassurance, and I can’t offer you that. Perhaps you were never built for this world.
You climb back onto the bike, and we make our way back to my churchyard, travelling at ordinary speed. Other leather-wearers nod their helmets as they pass us. They think we are kindred, the same. I sense warmth in your chest, where it presses against my back. You like the familiarity of people. We are halfway home when we run up against them, a fleet of chain wielders hooting and hollering as the wind steals their voices at a hundred and thirty kilometres an hour. Their women are harpies in shredded denim, riding the clouds of dust their wheels stir up. Their men are warriors in trash. Home-made weapons swing wildly through the air, and engines rev like growling dogs. They skid to a halt, blocking our way. They’re not human.
I recognise the ring-leader at once, because I made him. He was as you were, a failed experiment. He never learned the caution that is the other edge of the sword of being dangerous. He never learned to fear. He makes no secret of himself, dwelling apart from the living as the dead should. Instead, he roars around the country leaving destruction yawning in his wake, mouth-open in shock and denial. The police, who believe he is mortal, have stirred up all kinds of new bikie laws that don’t stop him. His gang, all vampires and aspiring humans, fan out behind him like an extension of his cape. I was a fool to ever feed on this abomination, to consider him a victim. Some prey are really predators in disguise, and this one only has eyes for you.