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Dragging a body is supposed to be an act of respect, but the Resurrector doesn't care about respect. It cares about volume. My hands were slick with Eriche's blood, the kind of heat that stays under your fingernails long after the body goes cold.
"No, no..." I pleaded. To whom, was unknown, even to me. "We'll bring you back. I promise. You'll be back... You'll come back..." Even as I reassured, it sounded more directed at me than my friend, who was currently getting tracked through the mud.
The mud didn't just coat him, it tried to swallow him whole, making him twice as heavy, twice as much of a chore.
A chore. That's what we were, I realized. But I'd go through this chore a thousand times, just to see him again. Alive.
The pine needles of the forest floor weren't soft, they were like needles, pricking at the exposed skin of Eriche's neck as I hauled him backward. It felt wrong. Everything about the forest felt wrong now, the way the wind whistled through the branches, the sound of leaves rustling- It was so peaceful compared to what I was doing. The universe is mocking me.
The base was only a mile out. A mile of trying to save his very little dignity. A mile of trying to make sure mud doesn't get into his eyes. A mile of pretending he could still feel the bumps.
I stopped once, just to look down at the body, just to see that mop of a hair shrivel and mix with the black sludge. It was a stupid, human reflex. In 20 minutes, they'd be hosing him down with industrial chemicals anyway, peeling the skin back to see what was worth keeping. But right now, under the canopy of those indifferent pine trees, he was still Eriche. He was the man who'd shared his tobacco and bitched about the rations.
"Almost there," I whispered, my voice cracking like dry wood. "Just gotta get you to the intake. They'll fix you up. New skin, new teeth... you'll be good as new."
The lie tasted like copper in my mouth.
I didn't tell him the rest of the lie. I didn't tell him that "good as new" usually meant "missing the parts that made you you."
The forest began to thin, the natural silence of the pines being eaten away by a low-frequency hum that vibrated my teeth. It was the sound of the base.
The transition was sharp. One moment, I was dragging him over roots and moss; the next, the ground turned to gravel, then hard-packed dirty stained a permanent, oily grey. The trees didn't just stop, they looked like they'd been pushed back by some invisible force, leaving a perimeter of stumps that looked like jagged teeth.
"Intake! We've got a fresh one!" I yelled, though my lungs felt like they were full of wet sand.
Two men in rubberized aprons, the night crew, approached with a wooden pallet. They didn't look at Eriche's face. They looked at his limbs, checking for integrity.
"Wolff, Eriche?" One asked, his voice flat, muffled by a heavy canvas mask.
"Yeah," I spat, wiping the hands on my trousers, only to realize I was just smearing the blood around. "I... I found him laying down. We were in the 4th."
They didn't answer. They hooked their hands under his armpits and heaved him onto the pallet. I watched his head loll back, that mop of hair, the only part of him that still looked like him, trailing against the rough wood.
"Wait," I stepped forward, reaching out as if I could catch the dignity I'd spent the last mile trying to preserve. "His tobacco is still in his left pocket. Don't... Don't let them toss the jacket before I can-"
"Stand back, soldier," the other one said, his eyes cold through his goggles.
"But-"
"You can get him a new one when he wakes up." He interrupted before I could even start.
They wheeled the pallet away, the wheels squeaking in a high-pitched rhythm that sounded like a dying animal. I stood there on the edge of the gravel, my arms feeling unnaturally light now that I wasn't hauling a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight. My muscles twitched, still holding the tension of the drag.
I didn't turn away. I should have. I should have gone to the mess or found a corner to scrub the copper smell off my skin, but I watched.
Through the flapping plastic curtains of the intake tent, the light was a pale, ivory white. I saw the silhouettes of the night crew moving with a terrifying, practiced efficiency. There was a sound, the heavy, wet thud of a cleaver meeting a table.
"He'll be back." I muttered, my fingers curling into a fist. "He'll be back..."