I wake with a groan. My head feels like it has its own heartbeat.

I try to reach up to touch my temple, but my wrists are secured behind my back. My legs, too, are bound at the ankles, pinning me in place. I blink away the last of my confusion.

Someone’s propped me up against a tagged building, the paint weathered away. A few people linger next to me, but most are gathered around a nearby telephone pole.

I squint at them, trying to figure out what’s going on. It takes me several seconds, but I finally make out the bloody body they’re all staring at.

Pestilence.

A burly man is tying him to the base of the telephone pole, the rope wrapped a dizzying number of times around the horseman’s ruined form. At Pestilence’s feet are piles of firewood.

Pestilence’s face is nearly gone and most of his back must be burned away from the explosion. If he were mortal, the horseman would be dead five times over, and tying him up would be pointless. The fact that these people are restraining him means they know he can’t die.

Someone besides me finally learned the terrible truth.

And now these people are using it against him.

I let out a hopeless cry.

Once the man finishes securing Pestilence to the telephone pole, the nails and hammers come out.

Even as they bring the items up to his body, I can’t comprehend what they’re going to do; my mind won’t let me. It’s only when they hammer the first nail into Pestilence’s skin that I understand.

They mean to crucify him.

Pestilence’s body gives a jerk from the pain. A second nail quickly follows the first and then a third and a fourth. His body shudders again and again.

I begin to scream, and once I start, I find I can’t stop.

In my line of business, I’m used to seeing compassion, sacrifice. I’ve seen men hospitalized because they ran into a burning house to rescue a dog. I’ve seen neighbors empty their pantries and open their homes to victims because they wanted to help people in need. I’ve seen so much goodness. My job always showed me that even in the worst of circumstances, humans can be their very best. We as a people are good. We are.

So it’s all the more shocking to me to see this side of human nature. The cold, cruel side of it. So shocking that the only word that comes to mind is inhuman.

Several people assist in crucifying Pestilence while the others stand by, content to watch their comrades torture my horseman.

I scream myself hoarse, begging for them to stop.

“This cunt actually cries for the bastard,” someone nearby me says, nodding in my direction.

One of the men comes up to me, a shotgun slung over his shoulder. Crouching in front of me, he peers at my face for a second, then backhands me.

I hear Pestilence’s garbled roar as my head whips to the side.

“Fuck me, Jesus, this thing really doesn’t die.”

I roll my head back to face the man in front of me, my cheek throbbing from the hit. It’s just one more pain to add to the rest.

“Stop hurting him,” I whisper. My face is wet, and that’s the first I realize that this entire time, I’ve been crying.

The man in front of me squints, taking in my tears. “I think we got ourselves here a couple. The horseman and his human whore.”

I stare miserably at him. It’s a terrifying sight, looking into the eyes of someone who thrives off of violence and hate. For all of his carnage, Pestilence never enjoyed himself.

“Tell me girl, how many times did you have to fuck that thing before he decided to keep you?”

Someone else calls out. “Maybe we should have a taste—see what’s so special about her pussy.”

A woman shouts, “I’m not going to stand here while you all fuck her. Keep to the plan, Mac.”

Mac, the man in front of me, looks over his shoulder at the woman with annoyance.

Sliding his shotgun off his shoulder, Mac pulls out a wicked looking knife from his belt. He grabs the bindings at my ankles and begins to saw through them.

“Try kick me girl,” he says under his breath, “and I’ll make sure everyone here enjoys that cunt of yours.”

Kicking him is tempting, but my legs are far too weak to do any real damage.

Once he’s cut away the ties, he grabs his gun and rises to his feet.

“Move,” he commands, giving my calves a kick. He jerks the barrel of his shotgun to a vague section of the road about fifteen meters away.

Forcing my injured legs under me, I rise to my feet, then limp down the street, Mac at my back.

I’ve only taken ten or so steps when he kicks me to the ground. In the distance, I hear laughter, and beyond that, an agonized moan.

Pestilence. Apparently he has enough line of sight and good enough vision that he can see what’s going on.

“Get up,” Mac orders, amused.

I bite back a moan at the pain as I push myself to my feet, then resume walking. A few steps later, he kicks me back down.

Again people cackle and Pestilence cries out. And again Mac orders me up only to kick me down soon after. The whole scenario happens a few more times, until the laughter dies off and the horseman’s moans become one continuous wail. Then I simply hobble down the road, my heart sitting like an anvil in my chest.

I think this is what it feels like when your spirit breaks. When there’s nothing left to believe in anymore. The unconquerable Pestilence has been conquered, these humans have lost their humanity, and I’m going to die on the most beautiful winter day.

When I reach my destination, Mac orders, “Stand there. Just so.”

I turn and face him as he backs away from me, his shotgun held loosely in his hands. He’s almost to his comrades, some of whom are now staring at us, when Mac trains his gun at my midsection. The group of them have arranged themselves so that, even tied up, the horseman can clearly see me.

Pestilence cries out weakly, and my eyes meet what’s left of his.

“Don’t forget your mercy,” I tell him as Mac pumps his gun, loading a cartridge into place. “Or what you mean to me. I would’ve given everything up for you—”

“Hey!” Mac calls. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, skank? Oh—” he adds, “and say hi to Satan for me.”

BOOM!

I don’t hear Pestilence’s roar over the sound of the gun blast.

My body jerks as a spray of pellets tear through my torso. The pain is sudden and everywhere, blinding me and stealing my breath away. It blooms from a dozen different places.

I fall to my knees.

Can’t catch my breath.

I hear the horseman’s bellow as I put my hand to my chest and watch my blood slip between my fingers.

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

It’s that senseless line that runs on repeat in my mind. And I know it’s senseless and that my life is bleeding its way out of me and these final seconds are more precious than whatever it is any of us hold dear anymore, but I can’t shut my brain up from that ridiculous nursery rhyme.

Mac doesn’t bother shooting me again. Instead he laughs with his comrades over his witty last line as he slings the shotgun over his shoulder. Someone begins to pour lighter fluid over dried wood piled at the horseman’s feet.

They’re going to burn Pestilence. Just like I did.

The last thing I smell is smoke.

I don’t know how long I linger on the very edge of life.

The pellets must’ve missed the important bits, part of me thinks. Another part of me thinks that maybe I have already died. I mean, how do any of us really know what death is like?

“Sara …”

“Sara …”

“Sara …”

Someone keeps calling my name. I try to peel open my eyes, but what I see makes no sense.

The gang is gone. All that’s left of their memory is a smoldering pile of ash. That, and the stump of a man who’s blindly dragging himself away from the remains of the fire.

Pestilence …

“Sara,” he croaks. His body is blackened and his face … it can’t be called that. I can’t make out any recognizable features, though obviously there’s a mouth somewhere amongst it all since he’s the one who’s been calling out to me with the mangled remains of his throat.

I make some small sound. I don’t have enough life in me to be sad or surprised or horrified.

My surroundings fade.

When they come into focus again, Pestilence has managed to drag what’s left of himself to my side. He curls his charred body around mine, almost protectively.

“Sara, Sara, Sara …” This time his voice is stronger. Still hoarse, but now he sounds like he has a bad case of laryngitis rather than a charbroiled voice box. “Say something.”

Speaking should be easier for me than it is for him, and yet all I manage is a low moan.

I feel the weight of an arm fit around my torso. I feel it tug me close. And then Pestilence’s body begins to shake.

I never knew the horsemen could cry. Not until I hear his sobs. The sound is awful, even more awful than his screams.

“Forgive me, Sara.”

What’s there to forgive?

That’s what I want to say, but I can’t seem to form the words. My mouth won’t work properly; I’m pretty sure it’s only my mind clinging to life. Even the pain isn’t so bad anymore. It’s just there, like a pulse.

And then I’m relieved I can’t voice my thoughts because there’s really so much that does need forgiving. His cruelty, mine, all that death and violence.

These violent delights have violent ends …

Before it was nursery rhymes; now it’s Shakespeare running through my mind.

But Pestilence wasn’t all that violent in the end, was he? He was sad and strange, and he came to earth with a purpose that I caught him questioning a time or two.

God, please don’t let me die.

Otherwise, Pestilence will be all alone, and that thought cuts deeper than my bullet wounds.

We lay there together, our limbs entwined. A peaceful sort of darkness licks at the edges of my vision. I rally against it.

But eventually I lose the fight against the darkness, and I slip softly into it.