Cullen Bunn's Blog, page 37

Weekend Update – 8/21/2011

Here's the stuff you might have missed if you blinked this week!

Scaring Up Success With Cullen Bunn – I sat down with the folks from Panels on Pages to talk about The Sixth Gun, The Tooth, The Fearless, and more!

Spider-Man: Season Premiere – Marvel has posted some new details on the upcoming Spider-Man: Season One, including some sweet preview art.

Casting Speculation: The Sixth Gun TV Series – iFanboy indulges in the Internet's favorite pastime–cast speculation, in this case regarding the upcoming adaptation of The Sixth Gun. I think it's a pretty good dream cast.

Writer of Wrongs

I will be writing a new weekly column titled Writer of Wrongs for Broken Frontier. Here's the scoop!

A few weeks following the start of Joe Keatinge's One You Want, Broken Frontier adds another weekly creator column to its lineup: Writer of Wrongs, by rising star Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun, The Tooth, Fear Itself: The Deep). New installments will go online on Tuesdays.

Writer of Wrongs marks a return to Broken Frontier for Bunn. Five years ago, back when his career was just getting started, he wrote a short-lived column about the big moments in his comics reading history. Many of the site's readers have been keeping track of Bunn ever since, underscored earlier last January when they selected The Sixth Gun as the winner of the 2010 Broken Frontier Award for Best Debut Book.

Says Bunn, "Writer of Wrongs will cover a wide range of topics: from process stuff, to discussions of my favorite comics, movies, and television shows, to treasures found in quarter boxes, to random thoughts dredged up from the darkest corners of my mind.

"For the most part, it's going to be column about the things that influence and inspire me. Heck, if I eat a hamburger that I find inspirational, there's a good chance I'll write about it.

His reasons for writing a regular feature again are simple: it's all about reaching out to the fans. "This is a great opportunity to tell readers (or would-be readers) a little more about what makes me tick as a creator. I've always felt that it's important to connect to readers–not just through the writing, but on a more personal level." 


The first two columns have been posted:

Everything Old is New Again

A Sick, Sick Man

Countless Haints, Pt. 6

She ran.

She didn't know what else to do, and she didn't have much time to think about it.  Even as she pulled herself away from the window, she saw the congregation of torchbearers disbanding.  They scattered in every direction, the light of their fires snapping in the night's gusts, shadows shrinking away from them as if afraid.  The thing crouching in the tree watched them with baleful, glimmering eyes.  Pa—at least she assumed it was her father—loped towards the farmhouse, his steps hesitant and labored.

He's going to kill me, Madi thought.

Maybe she was letting her imagination get the best of her, but she didn't plan on waiting around to find out.  She grabbed a musty duffel bag from under her bed.  With a snap of her wrist, she sent the dust-bunnies that had been nesting on the bag flying.  Throwing open the dresser drawers, Madi packed several untidy handfuls of clothes.

"You're coming with me, too," she said as she bunched up the boy's skin and shoved it into the satchel along with the garments.

Madi took one last look around.  She didn't know if she'd ever see her room—let alone the house or the farm or her father—again.  She drew in a shuddering breath to steel her courage.  She wasn't afraid Pa might catch her.  She knew she could duck out into the night before he so much as suspected she was gone.  But she was afraid of what else might be waiting for her … out there in the dark.  More than that, she feared leaving the only home she had ever known behind.

It dawned on her that the boy's skin might have been lying.  It might have been trying to trick her into leaving the safety of her house and rushing into danger, like fool's fire dancing over a bog.  The raw flesh and bloody bones of the boy's body might have been waiting in the darkness to pounce on her and eat her alive.

And maybe Pa was on his way to choke the breath from her lungs right this very moment.

She couldn't trust anything or anyone except herself, and she didn't put much faith in her own mind any more.  The dark thoughts surfacing in her head didn't feel right.  It felt as though she was losing touch with the person she had always been.

Old Man 'Riah said something about me changing, she thought.  Maybe he was right.  Maybe this is what he was talking about.  Maybe whoever it is I'm becoming doesn't deserve to live.

But it didn't matter what she deserved.  She didn't want to die.  At least, not tonight.  Not by her father's hand.

She barely remembered racing through the house, crashing out the front door and jumping from the porch without so much as touching a single step.  Once second, she stood trembling in her room.  The next, the night air was whipping past her.  She dashed through the yard, past the animal pens, and into the wood.  She stopped and crouched in the brush, watching the house.

Pa rounded the corner.  He tossed the torch to the ground and stomped upon it until it went out.  Wisps of smoke rose around him in tangles.  His eyes scanned the woods, and Madi flinched and hunkered down, even though there was no way his old eyes could have picked her out in the darkness.  He climbed the steps and went inside.

If he stays inside, Madi thought, that means he didn't mean me any harm.  It means he went straight to bed without so much as looking in on me.  But if he comes back out—

The front door couldn't have been closed more than a minute before it swung open again.  Pa strode onto the porch.  He leaned against the railing.  His hands were clenched into fists.  His knuckles were pale white.

"Madi!" he called.  "Where are you, girl?"  

Madi crept backwards, trying not to make a sound.  When the branches obscured her view of her father, she turned and scrambled through the thickets.

Countless Haints, Pt. 5

Pa opened the door just a crack.  The creaking hinges, the light spilling into the darkened room, roused Madi.  Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn't move.  She didn't speak.

"You awake?" Pa asked.  His voice, barely a whisper, trembled.

Madi's back was to the doorway, but she imagined Pa standing there, watching silently, chewing the inside of his mouth the way he did when nagging thoughts worried him.  Madi pretended to sleep, and after several minutes Pa pushed the door closed and retreated down the hall.  Still, Madi didn't move a muscle until she heard the whine and snap of the screen door, the heavy tread of Pa's boots on the front porch steps.  Only then did she sit up in bed.

She couldn't be sure what time it was, but she guessed it was late, maybe close to midnight or later.  The house was still and quiet, and the darkness was deep and thick, not the tentative shadows of the early hours, but a rich blackness that only came as evening matured into night.

Madi's eyes burned and the skin of her cheeks felt stiff from dried tears.  She still felt sleepy, but she didn't want to close her eyes again.  When she had awakened, the most awful thought had popped into her head—that her father and Old Man 'Riah and a half dozen faceless men were stealing into her room to spirit her away.  Her heart still raced, and she drew the sheets up and squeezed the blankets in her fists.  Her stomach flipped and turned.  She felt weak and lightheaded, and she thought she might throw up.

"What's the point of that?" she muttered.  "Ain't nothing in my belly anyway."

The bottom drawer of her dresser rattled.

"You have something to say?" Madi asked.

The drawer shook as if unseen hands were struggling to yank it open.

Madi hopped out of bed.  A wave of dizziness swept over her.  She closed her eyes and took in a couple of gulps of air to steady herself, then crossed the room.  Kneeling, she pulled the drawer open.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Within the drawer, the boy's skin squirmed and crawled, like an enourmous, fleshy flatworm.  She reached in—the skin was warm to the touch once more—and pulled the haint out.  The skin unrolled before her, and she laid it out across her chair.  It looked almost as if the boy sat across from her now, only he was flat as a board, and the eyes that stared back at her were gaping holes.  A tremor passed over the boy's lips.

"Window," he hissed.

"What about it?"  Madi looked at the window beside her bed.  The shade was drawn.  "Something out there I'm supposed to see?"

"Tree …"

"Hate to disappoint you, but I've seen that old tree darn near a million times."

"Hhhhhh …"

The skin breathed in frustration, then said:

"Tree …  Lies …"

"What's that?"  Madi took a step away from the haint.  "What's that about lies?"

"Window …"

"All right.  All right."  Madi turned to the window and pulled the shade.  "Don't know what's so fascinating for you, anyway.  You can't see a thing—"

Several figures stood beneath the branches of the old tree.  Madi couldn't see them very well, but she counted at least eight, men and women alike.  They carried torches that flared and guttered in the wind.

"That's them," she whispered.  "The Gathering."

Another figure climbed the hill towards the tree.  From the way his shoulders slumped and feet dragged in the dirt, the torch he carried might have weighed a couple of hundred pounds.  Despite the darkness and the distance between the house and the figure, Madi recognized the man.

"Pa."  She glanced at the boy's skin.  'How'd you know?  How'd you know they were out there?"

Thunderheads crawled across the night sky, blanketing the stars.  The muted glow of the moon struggled to pierce the haze.  On warm afternoons, Madi could wile away hours watching the sky, picking out the shapes of unicorns and castles and butterflies in the clouds.  But she didn't like the shapes she saw looming out of the vapors tonight—and the old oak tree reached out to them like a beckoning hand.

As Pa reached the top of the hill and joined the other torchbearers, Madi couldn't help but think she might never see him again.

"Avrum Creed …" the boy's hide wheezed.

Madi snapped her head towards the speaking skin.  "How do you know my Pa's name?"

"The pact …"  The haint ignored here, but continued to hiss.  " … Years … Seventeen years …"

"What are you talking about?"

"No signs …  Just a child …"

Madi couldn't make any sense of the haint's gibbering.  She leaned close to the window, her breath fogging the glass.  She couldn't tell Pa from any of the other people crowding around the trunk of the tree.

"Time has come … terms of the pact … killed her … killed the witch …"

"Would you just pipe down?" Madi said.  "I'm trying to think."

"Not her … Raised her … I'm her father …"

Madi gasped.

"Are you trying to tell me you can hear what they're saying way out there?" she asked the skin.  "How can that be?"

And then she knew.

Something dark and spindly was crawling in the branches of the old tree.  The people gathering upon the hill didn't see the creature, even as it clambered through the tangled limbs towards them, leaning in close, listening.  In the light of the torches, its naked flesh glistened.  Madi remembered the bloody footprints trailing through the brush, leading away from the spot where she had found the boy's skin.  She remembered the eerie feeling of being followed and spied upon.

"The … rest of you is out there, isn't it?" Madi said.  "Your body, your eyes, your ears.  It's out there, in the tree, and whatever it sees and hears, so do you."

"Witch," the haint continued.  "Witch."

Madi couldn't help but smile as she gazed upon the hill.  She had her own personal spy, onewho could tell her anything—

Her smile faltered when the boy's skin next spoke.

"Decided …  It's decided."

Her throat grew dry.  Her blood ran cold.

"The girl … must die …"

Countless Haints, Pt. 4

'Riah was right.  And wrong.

Madi was curious, probably too much so for her own good, and she'd gotten herself into trouble more than once by snooping where she didn't belong.  But she wasn't stupid, and—contrary to what 'Riah might have said—the threat of death was plenty to keep her from following her father to the Gathering.

Whatever that might be.

For the rest of the day, Madi avoided Pa, partly because she didn't want him to suspect anything (he could read her expressions and tone of voice the way he read that Bible of his) and partly because she knew she'd never be able to look him in the eye.  His words echoed in her brain.

"Maybe it's easier for you," Pa had said, "because you ain't her father."

And 'Riah had answered, "Neither are you."

What could that have meant?  Madi wanted to believe she hadn't heard the men clearly.  She wanted to believe 'Riah was "talking on," as her father might say, spinning a wild yarn with about as much weight in the real world as any one of his haints.  Only, his voice had sounded differently—more serious somehow—and Madi knew that he was speaking what he believed to be the truth.  And, after all, haints were a little more real than she had believed when she crawled out of bed that morning.  She felt as if the whole world was unraveling around her, and sooner or later it would all come undone and spill into … nothingness.

Around supper time, Pa knocked on the door to her room.

"Madi, your supper's gonna get cold, girl."

She sat on the edge of her bed, quietly.  He still sounded the same, but at the same time, she barely recognized his voice.  Tears blurred her vision.  She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Madi?"  The doorknob turned.  The door started to creak open.  "Supper's—"

"I'm not hungry," Madi snapped.  She jumped to her feet and took a step away from the door.  If she could have kept walking, through the wall, into the shadows, into the nothingness, she might have done so.  Instead, she faced the corner, not looking towards the door.  If Pa entered the room, she wouldn't look at him.  She couldn't.  Even though she wanted to beg him to explain what she'd overheard, she knew the words would never crawl from her throat, and she didn't know if she'd ever be able to face him again.

The door did not open.  Pa's footsteps, as he walked down the hall, were slow and shuffling.

Madi's stomach growled.  No matter what she said, she was starving.  She hadn't eaten a bite since breakfast, but it hadn't crossed her mind until she smelled pan-fried potatoes, okra, and cornbread.  Pa almost never cooked a meal, but tonight he was either cooking in honor of his daughter's birthday, or he was feeling guilty.  Either way, the food smelled delicious.  Madi's mouth watered, but she refused to set foot outside her room.  If she was lucky, there'd be something left over, and she could sneak to the kitchen for a bite after Pa was …

Gone.

The thought settled on her like an early frost across the grass.  She wanted Pa to be gone.  Gone.  Because she couldn't face him.  Gone.  Because of his secrets and his lies.  Gone.  Because he wasn't her father anyway, and she didn't care if he ever returned.

The frost turned to darkness, and Madi's thoughts became bloody.

And surely there's a way to get rid of him and make sure he stays gone.  Forever.

Her breath caught in her throat.

No, she thought.  No.  No.

She spoke the word—"No!"—to give it form, to make it real.

The frost—the darkness—receded, leaving an emptiness in its wake.  Shock and shame and sadness filled the void, and when it overflowed, Madi started crying.

That isn't me, she thought, as she threw herself onto the bed and buried her face in the pillows.  That isn't who I want to be.  And yet the thought had come so naturally to her.  In the moment she began to wish her father harm, it felt right.  It terrified her that she could even think such thoughts—let alone relish them.  She wept into the pillow, her sobs wracking her body.  She cried until there were no tears left.  At last, she slept.

And she did not dream.

Countless Haints, Pt. 3

A pair of tire tracks wound around the edge of the forest, leading in one direction towards the highway, and in the other towards the farm.  Wiry grass grew tall and wild between the ruts, and a half-dozen grasshoppers sprang through the brush, leaping ahead of Madi as she made her way home.

The bottoms of her feet felt swollen from briar sticks, and tiny cuts covered her ankles and calves, like a swarm of angry wasps knitted into a pair of stinging socks.  She'd stopped at the creek to clean up as best she could, but her now-tattered dress was covered in mud … and tiny splashes of blood where the thorns had stabbed through the fabric and into her flesh.  She didn't like the way the sodden cloth stuck to her legs.  Her face was hot, and sweat burned her eyes and dribbled down the bridge of her nose.  She mopped damp hair from her face with the back of her left forearm.  Under her right arm, she carried the boy's skin, folded up neat as Sunday wash.

"Be still," she hissed.

The skin felt feverish.  Madi could have sworn it was sweating, too.  It squirmed under the crook of her arm as if trying to shimmy free.

"I said be still, or I swear I'll wrap you round a stone and chuck you in the creek."

The boy's hide stopped moving and, within seconds, grew cool as old leather.

She could hardly believe what she'd found in the woods.

A haint.

And on her birthday, too.

She knew plenty about haints.  The hollows and the salt marshes crawled with them, deathly pale and gravely silent.  Pa didn't like to talk about such things, but 'Riah told stories about the restless ghosts of pirates protecting long-buried treasures … or the wandering specters of confederate soldiers who searched by moonlight for body parts severed by saber or cannonball … or older, darker spirits that had never been alive at all, at least not as people recognized the difference between life or death.

He said nearby Ahmen's Landing was infested with ghosts, sometimes two or three to a house, and no matter where you went in town, spectral eyes followed you.

"And on certain nights," the old man had whispered, "the mists roll in from offshore, thick as cotton, creeping into every crevice and corner, reeking like dead things washed in with the tide.  The breath of drowned men, grown restless in the deeps.  Phantom's breath."

Madi liked the stories.  She liked being scared.  But deep down she'd always known the yarns about ghouls and goblins and phantom's breath were nothing more than buncombe.  But now—

She'd found a haint.  A real, live haint.

She chuckled at herself.  A live haint.  Wasn't that a silly thing to think?

"Wouldn't be much of a ghost," Madi said, "if you were still alive."

The boy's skin did not answer.

As she walked along, she heard something following her in the forest scrub, like a bobcat stalking her, waiting to pounce.  She pretended to ignore the sound, but every now and again she risked a glance at the trees.  She saw nothing, but the sound stopped every time she peered into the brush.  She knew something watched her from the woods.  She could feel wild eyes upon her.  She quickened her pace.

Rounding the bend, she saw her house.  Chickens milled about the yard, pecking up bugs, and Madi felt a hint of guilt for driving the grasshoppers in their direction.  The cows, including the new calf, stood in their fenced pasture, chewing vacantly at grass and weeds.  The vineyard's wire trellises climbed the hill, already heavy with leaves and drooping grape clusters, and the sharp scent of the scuppernongs was thick in the air.  At the summit of the hill stood the old tree in dark silhouette.

Madi saw no sign of her father, but she guessed he was a-wandering through the trellises, inspecting the vines.

She dashed across the yard and up the sagging front porch steps.   When she reached the top step, she paused to watch the tree line.  She discerned no sign of whatever had been shadowing her through the woods, but she figured it was out there even now.  Watching.  She rewarded the watcher's vigilance with a shrug, and she went inside.

The screen door creaked open and snapped shut.  The house was gloomy and stuffy, and dust motes danced in the weak beams of sunlight streaming in from the open windows.  The warm, still air smelled faintly of Pa's pipe smoke, with maybe a hint of the morning's breakfast—pork steaks and scrambled eggs—lingering about for good measure.  The heat and the smells seemed to paw at Madi, and her skin felt greasy and sticky.  During the winter months, she couldn't wait for warmer days, but now that summer was settling down upon the farm, autumn couldn't get here fast enough for Madi's tastes.  The here and now was never good enough for the girl, and she would have been the first to admit it.

Madi went straight to her room, pulled the door closed, and drew the window shade down.  She gently unfolded the skin and spread it out upon the bed.  The skin looked like something out of the funny papers, like a comic strip character who'd been smashed flat by a falling boulder or piano.  Only, in the funny papers, there was never blood.

"I don't know if you can see or not since you don't have eyes."  Madi tugged the covers back from the bed and threw them over the haint's flattened face.   "But I know enough about boys to know that even without eyes, you'd find a way to peek at me if you could."

She quickly changed out of her sweaty, muddied dress and hid the garment under the bed until she could try to wash it proper.  She opened her dresser drawers and chose a fresh, clean pair of denim cut-offs and a tee shirt.  The garments were old, well-worn, and soft, and they hugged her body with a familiarity that only comes from being worn over and over again throughout the years.  Madi pouted a little.  She knew it was a ridiculous idea, but she'd halfway believed the clothes wouldn't wear the same now that she was "all grown up".

As she dressed, she heard the heavy tread of her father's boots on the front porch.  The screen door whined as he wrenched it open.  She quickly grabbed the castoff skin, crumpled it up, and threw it into the dresser.  She closed the drawer and quickly straightened her bedclothes.

Pa was talking to someone.  His voice sounded muffled and hushed, but Madi had a knack for hearing the subtlest sigh or whisper.  She held her breath and listened.

"…of course, I know what it means," he said.  "You think I haven't been expecting this day for the past seventeen years?"

"Well, then you know what has to be done."  Madi recognized the second voice.  Old Man 'Riah.  "You've known since the day you took up in this house."

Madi tiptoed to the door for a better listen.

"But I'm telling you, it ain't like that," Pa said.  "I've been watching her."

"She's growing up."

"But she ain't showing any signs."  Pa raised his voice.  "Not like you and the others said she would."

"She will, though.  That's the way of it."

"Don't act as though you don't care."  Madi could tell from Pa's tone of voice his face was growing red.  "You've watched her grow up, same as me."

"But I still remember the pact," 'Riah said.

"Maybe it's easier for you, because you ain't her father."

Madi nearly squeaked in shock at what 'Riah said next.

"Neither are you."

Madi's heart thudded in her chest.  She couldn't breathe.  The rush of blood in her ears nearly drowned out the conversation between the men.  Madi thought she heard her father snap back at the trader man, but she couldn't make out the words.  What did 'Riah mean?  Surely she had misunderstood him.  The men were arguing, and she caught only a few words here and there—pact and grave and birthing and …

She gasped as if splashed with a bucket of ice water.

Witch.

On the Shelves This Week

A couple of books hit the comic shops this week! Rush out and get them. Your wallet will thank you.

Fear Itself: the Deep #2

Art by Lee Garbett

FEAR ITSELF TIE-IN! The Sub-Mariner's kingdom has fallen! Namor and his allies–Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Savage She-Hulk, and Loa–must invade New Atlantis and wrest control from the sinister forces that have claimed the city. With Namor still shaken by the crushing defeat he has suffered, our heroes may be no match for the frightening opposition they're set to encounter as the Worthy's lieutenants summon dark forces that spill into the oceans…and one team member may be forever changed as fear takes over.

The Sixth Gun #13

Art by Brian Hurtt

Colors by Bill Crabtree

As if a group of undead robbers wasn't bad enough—there's a mummy loose on the train! Drake and Becky fight their way through revenants, necromancers, and—yes—mummies as they barrel towards a shocking fate. This robbery ends in a way no one will be expecting!

Big News Weekend!

San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone. It was a wild, busy convention, and I had a great time. This was the first year that I've gone to the show and not felt like I had to beg for work. It painted the entire event in a different light for me. A bunch of announcements came out during the convention, and I want to share a few of them here.

First up, The Sixth Gun has been picked up by the Syfy Channel for development as a six-hour TV mini-series. I don't have a lot of details on this just yet, but I'm guessing the series will cover the events of the first trade paperback. If reception is positive, it will likely go directly to an ongoing TV series. If you haven't read the book yet, now's a good time to start! You can purchase the first volume (and the second volume) or (if you need a little more convincing) you can read the entire first issue for free on ComiXology!

In other news, I have signed an exclusive agreement to write for Marvel. Basically, this means you'll see my name on a lot more Marvel titles in the coming months. It does not mean, however, that I'll have to stop writing The Sixth Gun (or the other creator-owned projects I have in the works). Marvel has been awesome to work with, and they have been very supportive of my creator-owned projects.

Speaking of Marvel, I'll be writing a new 12-issue limited series titled The Fearless. This beast launches in October. The title spins out of the events of Fear Itself. Matt Fraction, Chris Yost, and I sat down with our editors and started discussing what would be going on in the Marvel Universe after Fear Itself. The result was The Fearless and Fear Itself Aftermath: Battle Scars. I'm not going to say much about either of these series, but I can tell you that The Fearless is a non-stop action extravaganza that tours the Marvel Universe in the most exciting way I could imagine. Valkyrie plays a huge role in the book, and I think readers will look at her differently once the title is done. It will be shipping twice a month, and it will be illustrated by Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier.

And I don't want to be a tease, but there will be some more big announcements coming soon! Keep your eyes peeled!

For now, I better get to work!

 

Marvel Launches "Season One" Graphic Novels!

Check out this announcement on USA Today. Next year, Marvel launches a series of "Season One" books, including Spider-Man: Season One by Neil Edwards and myself.

Gotta tell ya, I think it's funny being referred to as a "young" writer.

 

Countless Haints, Pt. 2

The woods stretched away from the farm and into forever.

Madi grabbed a crooked switch from the ground and swatted at weeds and spider webs as she followed the pine straw-carpeted trail.  Trees—mostly pines, but oaks and black walnut and white ash, too—loomed on either side of the path, taller even than the silent, lightning-scarred sentinel upon the hill.  She wondered if the blighted oak had once been part of the forest, separated from its ilk when the farm was raised.  If the oak had not been struck by lightning, would it have grown as large and strong as the rest of the woods?  The trees here were healthy and proud, not twisted and mean-spirited and cruel.  They needed not whisper secrets and were silent save for the rush of breeze through the leaves.

Soon, she heard the gurgling of the creek, and she quickened her pace.  The worn footpath cut towards the cold, rushing creek and a rickety wooden bridge from which she sometimes fished or tossed skipping stones.  For as long as she could remember, Pa promised he was going to repair the old, rotting bridge.  "Sooner or later," he said, "someone's gonna fall straight through, down into the creek, I don't take hammer and nail to that bridge soon."  But the creek water was so shallow in places that Madi imagined it could be crossed on foot without worry, and few people ever crossed the bridge, anyway, except maybe the grizzled trader man who brought canned food and tools and clothing loaded onto his mule-drawn wagon.

'Riah.

Pa didn't like the old man much, even though he bartered with him from time to time when he came 'round.  It was a way of doing business most folk didn't believe in any more, Pa said, especially when they could just hop in the truck and drive to Wal-Mart for the supplies they needed.  Pa said 'Riah followed other old customs—old beliefs–and he didn't want the trader man talking to Madi.  On more than one occasion, Pa had run 'Riah off when he tried to share a few whispered words with the girl, but the old man always returned a few weeks later, leading his hobbled wagon out of the woods.

Madi stepped upon the bridge and crossed to mid-point.  The feel of the splintered wood beneath her bare feet was comforting in a way.  Familiar.  Between the planks of the bridge she saw the water below.  She leaned upon the rail and looked over the edge.  The creek wound past heavy stones and the roots of trees exposed by the washing away of soil.  The water was so clear she could see a few skinny fish darting back and forth, and if she had set her mind on the task she could have counted the smooth creek bed pebbles.  Water striders sliced lines across the surface, and dragonflies danced in the air.

Dragonflies—snake doctors, Pa called them.  Whenever you saw one, you could be sure a copperhead or water moccasin lurked nearby.

But she didn't see a snake as she peered over the edge of the bridge.

Instead, she saw a boy.

"Hey, down there," Madi called.

Was he ever handsome!  Madi gasped at the sight of him and felt both ashamed and excited by the feeling.  The boy looked to be around her age, maybe a year older or younger, but no more than that.  His jeans and tee shirt were wash worn and faded and threadbare, but he had refined, delicate features—the unkempt blonde hair and large blue eyes like a fairytale prince.

He stood just inside the treeline, and shadow dappled his smooth, pale skin like shifting bruises.  He watched the creek water run past, staring intently, as if he expected to see something of great value sweep through the cold current at any moment.

"Hey, down there," Madi called again.  Her cheeks and the back of her neck felt warm, and she felt the corners of her mouth raise into a smile she just couldn't help.  "Didn't you hear me?"

The boy looked up, squinting and raising a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.  A smile played upon his lips for just a moment, then slipped away, as if washed away by the rushing of the water.  He took a step back, letting the shadows fold around him.

"What's your name?" Madi asked.  "I'm—"

He whirled around and scurried into the woods.

"Wait!" Madi shouted.  "Where you going?"

She rushed to the other side of the bridge and down the sloping bank.

"Why are you running?  Please wait."

She slipped in the damp earth and skidded down the muddy bank, her feet slipping into the creek.  The water felt cold as ice.  She scrambled in the mud, clawing her way up the bank.  Dark mud spattered the hem and painted an outline of her legs and behind on the dress.  Pa would tan her hide for sure when she got back home, but it was too late to worry about that now.

She reached the top of the bank, and saw the boy duck beneath a tangle of brush.  He didn't follow the path, and branches slapped at him as he pushed through.

"Wait!" she cried.  "You ruined my dress.  Least you can do is talk to me."

If he heard her, he didn't react.  Twigs and brush crunched beneath his feet.  He dipped his head and vanished into a wall of tangled thorns.

"Careful!"  Madi raised her voice.  She no longer saw him, but could hear him struggling through the thickets up ahead.  She didn't know why he was running, and she didn't reckon she'd ever see him again to ask. "That ways overrun with thorn bushes."

Dozens of thick, thorny vines crisscrossed before her.  Not impassable, but growing thicker every inch of the way.  She'd never follow the boy's path without at least a few cuts and scrapes.

Old Man 'Riah once told her a tale of a young boy who had been chased through the briars by a pack of wild dogs.  Nearly scared to death by the ravenous, nipping animals, the boy had plunged into the briars, ignoring the pain of hundreds of needle-sharp stabs.  The dogs didn't dare follow, but by the time he emerged on the other side, he was nearly ripped to shreds, blood oozing from hundreds–if not thousands–of tiny cuts over his hands, neck, and face.  He collapsed to the ground, weeping, his tears burning in his open wounds.  And then he heard something padding up through the brush ahead of him.  Weak from losing so much blood, he looked up to see the dogs loping through the brush.  They'd circled around the briar patch and tracked the scent of his blood.  He was too weak to run, and as they fell upon him, he couldn't even muster a scream.

Madi didn't believe the old man's story, of course.  'Riah was always spinning one story or another, almost all with gruesome ends.  But she couldn't help but think of the frightened boy racing through the vines as they ripped and tore into his flesh.

I can make it if I'm careful, she thought.  She cautiously crawled beneath the first of the overhanging briars.

She saw no sign of the boy, but she heard him, moving up ahead, slowly now to avoid the briars as best he could.

"Can you hear me?" she called.

No answer.

"What's wrong with you?  You got beans in your ears?"

She pressed forward–carefully–avoiding the slicing thorns.  The briars snagged her dress, ripping at the fabric.  Tears burned in her eyes as a jagged thorn drew a dotted line of red across the back of her hand.  She looked away.  More than anything, she hated the sight of—

Blood.

Everywhere.  Spattered across the thick carpet of pine straw and dead leaves.  Glistening upon a gray-barked tree trunk.  Dripping from a dozen or more thorns.

The boy left a spattered trail of his own blood through the briars.

"You all right?" Madi cried.

She followed, her eyes tracing the bloody track.  She moved even more slowly.  She no longer heard the boy, but something rustled up ahead.  She wondered if the thickets in this place were moving of their own accord and dark thoughts, like the old tree, whispering secrets in her dreams.

A half dozen thorns tore at her flesh, and tears ran freely down her cheeks.  She looked back the way she had come, and saw the path of blood behind her.  How much of it was the boy's blood?  And how much of it was her own?  Her stomach turned.

A copper pot stink flooded her nostrils, and she covered her nose as she took another step.  The forest floor was wet and warm and sticky beneath her feet.

Another step.

So much blood.

Another, and a briar stabbed into her cheek.  She flinched away, and her hair became tangled in the grasp of one of the vines.  She winced free.

There, lying in a crumpled heap, was the boy's threadbare clothes.  The cloth was stained glistening red.

Another step.

And she saw the boy again.

Except, it wasn't him.

"Only the skin," Madi whispered.

All that was left of the boy was strung up between several barbed vines like wet clothes from the wash.  His arms dangled loosely, the fingers flapping.  His legs and feet trailed the ground, stretched out and twisted like old socks.  His eyes and mouth sagged and gaped, empty.

Madi felt ashamed as her eyes strayed below the boy's waist, where the skin was ripped and shredded.  Her face flushed, and she quickly looked away.

Her breath caught in her throat.

A trail of glistening, bloody footsteps continued through the forest, vanishing into the brush.

"Hhhhhh …"

Madi jumped and stepped away from the tattered skin dangling before her like a sheet phantom.

"Hhhhhh …"

The boy's torn lips twitched and the empty mouth tried to form words.

His breath reeked like a slaughterhouse.