“What was your sin?” Lead asked.
“I am a traitor to the Church, same as all in the Pit. I assisted a couple of Marys in escaping Globe Parish. They were young and scared and were to be married to men of ill and violent temperament. I guided them to the New Mexico border. I was declared a traitor to the Church for this action. I was captured and bound outside of Globe. I do not regret what I done; but I don’t want to die like an animal.”
The emaciated man looked again to the shack.
“I need to sleep. I’ve been vigilant for days against the gray men. When I awaken, you must get sleep. I promise to keep watch over you and cry out if they stir.”
Lead nodded in agreement. The emaciated man crawled up against the dirt wall. Lead rubbed moist dirt onto his skin to try to ward off the sun. Both stared at the plank shack.
“I was a Preacher. I’m not anymore,” Lead whispered after the emaciated man had risen.
“One of the grays was a Preacher, too,” whispered the emaciated man. “So I heard.”
Lead woke to hoarse screams. His stomach was caved and empty. His skin was hot from the relentless sun.
“Say nothing, do nothing,” the emaciated man hissed.
Across the Pit, the gray men lifted a skeletal man by his arms and legs. He did not struggle, only let out a hoarse scream against the attackers. The gray men dragged the skeletal man into their shack. The creatures of the Pit squirmed to clear a path. Lead tightened the grip on his plank and stood up.
“Don’t!” The emaciated man said. He clutched Lead’s ankle but his grip was a weak reflection of his dying vitality. Lead pushed has hand down with the plank.
“I have to,” Lead said.
He walked away from the emaciated man’s whimpered protests. The skeletal man’s screams radiated from the shack. Lead walked slowly, imagining where the gray men would be in the shack. He wanted to form an attack plan, but found it almost impossible to think past the hunger in his stomach and the fear of the impending fight. The screams were suddenly cut off by a wet slap. Lead ran to the entrance.
Inside the shack two of the grey men held the skeletal man down while the third struck his face with a fist- sized rock. The rock was painted in blood. The skeletal man’s face was caved and not recognizable as human. The floor of the shack was strewn with the fleshless bones of men. The gray men looked at Lead.
“What do you want to do here, new man?” Asked the gray man holding the rock. “Care for a bite? The meat is terrible raw, but we have much.”
“You can’t eat that man,” Lead said, holding the plank in a fighter’s stance.
“He’s not a man,” The gray man said and stomped on the skeletal man’s face with a loud crunch. The man’s body shook with convulsions and just as suddenly stopped.
“He’s sin. I feed off sin. You feed off of sin, that’s our punishment.”
The gray man stepped over the corpse, the other two stood. Lead backed away from the entrance. Panic gripped his chest in a thousand cold needles; his breaths came out as shallow gasps. He backtracked slowly to the center of the Pit, plank raised over his head.
The gray men stood at the entrance of the shack.
“If you’re not a sin eater, you’re not allowed in our house,” the lead gray man said. “Only survivors are allowed in this house. You’re not one of us. Me and mine will feed on you soon enough.”
The gray men backed into shadows of the shack.
Tears streaked the dirt on Lead’s face. He relived the scene in his mind, replayed the foot snuffing the starving man’s life, imagined himself crushing the gray men’s heads; doing anything but retreating in fear and panic.
Lead yelled out in frustration. He screamed and shook his board at the shack, like an animal. Inside the gray men laughed and the Pit was soon filled with the wet sounds of tearing and gnashing.
“You will kill no one else!” Lead shouted at the shack. “Every man here is under my protection and the Lord’s protection and you shall eat no one else!”
There was a pause in the wet sounds. The leader of the gray men appeared at the entrance.
“You do that. Protect these men. We’ll just wait for you to wither and weaken and we will take what is ours.”
The gray man stepped back into the shadows. The sound of men eating man again filled the air.
“Get up! Get up!” The emaciated man croaked as he tugged on Lead’s arm.
Lead sprang awake, the plank in both hands. His eyes cleared in time spot the gray men approaching from across the pit.
“Aw,” the leader of the gray men said. “You have an alarm. How very cleaver, we’ll come back later.”
The gray men backed into the darkness of their shack. Lead looked around himself. He was surrounded by creatures of the Pit. Innumerable men, all on or near the verge of death, surrounded Lead with their bodies. Lead’s stomach clenched, the creatures reeked of sweat and decay and their proximity made Lead woozy. His last meal was days away. At mid afternoon, the guards had lowered water buckets into the Pit, but the liquid did nothing to dissuade his hunger. The plank shook in Lead’s hands.
“I feel weak,” Lead told the emaciated man. “Please tell me there’s something hidden away to eat, some bread or meat. I’ll protect you, but I need food.”
“We have nothing, though God has cursed me with dreams of banquets and rivers of liquor, I truly have nothing,” the emaciated man said. “Please hold strong, Preacher. I’ve been here so many days, maybe they’ll let me out. They have to release someone; otherwise what would be the point? Why punish for sin without a possible redemption?”
The emaciated man raised his hand to the waxing moonlight. His fingers were twigs, his arms were sticks and skin and veins. He wept shamelessly.
“Why punish me just to have me die? It does not make sense.”
Lead put his hand on the emaciated man’s shoulder. The man’s skin was loose and knurled like burlap.
“I don’t know why. I’ll protect you.” The words gave Lead strength though they felt like a lie. How could Lead protect any of them with the fading strength in his arms? How long did he have before the gray men came and consumed him like the rest of their cattle?
Two days passed with no stirring from the gray men’s shack. They remained in their protective hovel, gnawing on bones and letting time do work they wouldn’t have to.
The hunger in Lead’s body grew and whittled away at his reason. The afternoons were spent burning in the sunlight, staring at the shack that neither stirred nor gave noise. One of the creatures near Lead died; none of the creatures took action to move the body. All waited.
On the fourth day the gray men came out. Lead was still awake from the night before. Black-robed guards had descended in the night and removed the dead creature. Lead rose to his feet but was met with the muzzle of a rifle. He’d stood awake since.
Lead’s legs shook, he hefted the plank but its weight was almost unmanageable, like it was dipped in gold. It swayed with a life of its own.
The gray men were still, without hunger. They watched Lead stand on unsteady legs and swing an unsteady board.
“What say you, holy man? Do you have strength to protect yourself?”
The leader of the gray men strode forward with a fist-sized rock in his hand.
“Can you lift that wood to save yourself?” He asked.
Lead took a deep breath. He lifted the plank with both hands and held it in a fighter’s stance. His arms shook, but the plank finally stood steady. The hunger dimmed his fear.
“If you want me, come to me then,” Lead said.
The gray men separated and approached from three sides. The leader held his arms and rock outstretched to the sky. He twirled his wrists and the two others ran for Lead from the left and right. Lead closed his eyes and
