But like a dream, knowing a thing was an illusion did not mean that a man could peer behind the curtain, that he could see exactly what—and who—it hid. So, he did the only thing he could do: he walked on, checking behind him from time to time to see the boy with his shoulders hunched, his head tucked down against the frigid wind that whistled through the trees. He knew they could not go much farther. The temperature had grown colder still, seemed to drop a degree for each step they took into the forest, and the boy would not survive much longer. Neither would he, for that matter, but he had long since come to grips with his own impending death, and it was not for himself that he still lingered.
The boy, though, had barely lived and was too young to face death. That was not the only reason why he wished him to live, but it was the only reason he was prepared to be honest with himself about. The other brought back too many memories, and memories brought back too much pain. It was enough that he would keep the boy alive, if he could. He knew what he was, knew that he was not the man to save children from monsters lurking under their beds or in their closets. Knew, in fact, that he was the monster. But while all monsters had their fangs, their claws, there was nothing that said they could not use those on other monsters.
He knew what he was—had known for over fifteen years, was haunted by the memory of that knowledge, the memory of his greatest crime. Better for everyone, perhaps, if he was dead, but he would not die yet, not until the boy was safe, though what that meant, the world being what it was, he had no idea.
He heard a shuffling sound behind him, a breathless gasp, and turned to see that the boy had fallen. “I-I can’t,” the youth gasped, his breath pluming in great clouds as he sat on his hands and knees, his head hanging low. “I can’t.”
Cutter could have lifted him—he’d lifted heavier, that was sure, and scraping out an existence in the wilderness, even in a town like Brighton, didn’t leave a man, or a boy, a lot of fat on him—but he knew that doing so would not be a favor. Instead, he stopped, frowning. “What do you intend to do, then?”
The boy raised his head, panting. “What?”
“You said you can’t go on. So I’m asking you—what do you intend to do? Will you lie there and die? Will you weep and moan like some whipped mongrel?”
The boy’s face twisted with grief, and for a moment, it looked as if he might cry, then his eyes flashed with anger, and it was a battle between the two to see which would win out. Cutter watched, curious, his blank stare doing nothing to reveal just how invested he was in the outcome. In the end, the boy chose anger as he had hoped he would. “Burn you,” he hissed. “You’re a bastard.”
“Yes. I’m a bastard, the air is cold, and you’re lying there whining about it.”
The boy let out a growl then rose to his feet with a strength he hadn’t looked to possess a moment before, drawing a small knife, the kind used for gutting small game, from his belt as he did. He tensed, as if he would come at Cutter, as if he meant to kill him, and Cutter waited, wondering whether or not he’d let him. In the end, though, the boy only slid the knife back into its sheath and stared at him, his face red with fury. “I hate you.”
“You’re not the first. You’re angry now, and that’s good—I can handle anger. The world bein’ what it is, I don’t understand a man who isn’t. Better that, better you hate me, than I have to listen to you whine and mope anymore. Now, are you finished? The storm’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and if we spend much more time out here, we won’t come out the other end of it.”
The boy’s mouth worked, thinking over some biting remarks to say, maybe, but in the end, he only nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Now, come on.”
***
As they walked, Cutter glanced around them, surveying the trees, their trunks far thicker around than any normal tree. Oddly, while there was snow covering the ground here as it had on the plain, none of it stuck to the trees, as if even the precipitation itself sensed the wrongness that seemed to emanate from them.
And emanate it did. Cutter was not a man known for his feelings or his sensitivity, but even he could feel the wrongness here, could feel it like pinpricks on his skin, taste it like ash in his mouth and smoke in his throat. It had been the same the last time, that feeling, of being watched, yes, but of being hated, too. Hated by the very trees which loomed overhead, by their roots, deep and old which snaked through the ground beneath their feet, like great veins pumping the blood in the heart of some malevolent beast.
“How about…there?”
The boy’s voice cut through the stillness, seeming somehow profane or perverse, but Cutter turned, following his pointing finger to a ledge of ground underneath which was