Mercygraft:

I knew M. before his discovery of the Device. Back when he was still a man among men, such as we are. Back when he was a walker - like me.

Like I used to be.

Of course, when M. found me, he and January were already a team, which by and large took M. out of the ranks of the true walkers. But that's another story.

I don't know where M. came from, but I have an idea. I think he came from the same place as them cloner girls. How else to explain all the maddening shit he do now? All his luck, all his abilities?

Of course, I might be wrong. I've been wrong before.

I'm old enough to remember the time before the cloner girls. The time of the moon. Since the moon went away, the world's gone wrong.

January asks me sometimes, in his fashion, about the old times, the days of sun and moon. He claims to remember them too, only vaguely, in pictures. Like remembering a dream.

He says he had another life then, one he can't rightly recall. Going around and around. And around and around. Pounding in the mud. Going. Going. Going around and around in the sunlight, and in the sounds of men cheering.

So many things gone wrong in this world. January and his kind, they seem never to age. They heal now, they run and they heal and they speak in the mind. Why not ever the same fate for men?

It would be question for God. Or the President. Same difference, I suppose.

I aint a walker no more. I had to give that up after the accident. After them truckers ran me down, like they like to do to our ilk. The other walkers, my selfsame brothers, oh, when it happened, they ran away. Lying there in the ditch, I saw them running. I don't know if they thought I was dead yet or if they could just see my shins and feet all twisted, broken, bloody. Bones sticking out. A broken arm, a bleeding face.

After the truckers pissed on me, after that formality, I just lay by the side of the highway, waiting to die.

And die I would have, except for M.

He came riding up the center of the southbound lanes going north, him and January, the two of them headed north. Now, as I said, that's another story. At the time, I didn't shit know about the horses, hadn't ever seen a horse up close, let alone a black behemoth like January, and I didn't know shit about going north.

January keeps telling me the time is coming soon when he's going to have go. God, I want to go with him, but I can't see how.

Except.

But never mind.

No. I won't hope.

I keep a tavern. Up here in the woods. I built it in the side of a hillside. M. helped me build it, him and January. They rode far and wide, days and nights, scavenging the boards, the shingles, the mirrors, the tables, the chairs, the jukebox, the generators, everything. January hauled the paving stones for the foundation from up to town, and M. and I placed them by hand. Oh, I can move around a little. I can hold my own, I can still stand. I always did have a strong back and strong arms.

I suppose now, since he found the Device, M. could just. But no.

Never mind.

No. I won't hope.

Farther back in the woods from the tavern, I mean way far back, back up over the rock hills and beyond the swamps, in fact, is where I maintain the distillery, and the crop. No one knows where this is, not even M., to the best of my knowledge. Shit, if I had to walk out there, I'm not sure if I could even find it. And if I could, I sure God couldn't make it over that terrain. Not with no feet and a half-busted back.

Only January really knows the way out there, and he aint telling.

The truckers don't know about the horses, you know. They don't have an idea in the world. January won't even address the issue. When the truckers go by, he goes just as dumb as a stone, deaf as a haddock, and it's like a great light being extinguished in the center of my mind.

The tavern, not everyone knows about it either. But plenty do. Walkers mostly. Some truckers. A select group. I don't like it, but it has to be that way. Without them, no juice for the generator. And no filthy lucre for an old man.

could get me some new bionic feet and maybe even legs, I could be a new man, and then I could go north with

You ever seen a horse laugh? It aint right. I like to deny these thoughts, but that fucking glue factory is all over my thoughts, all over them. It aint right.

You idiot, he says to me, Can't you see him? Aint you watching it?

Then I'll get a vision of M. He's with a white girl and they're standing in the middle of a river. The beasts of men are closing in on them, coming for them.

Then he's spinning the Device.

Then the sky's on fire, and the stars rain blood.

He'll heal you, says the horse. You idiot. Aint you watching it?

I'm afraid. I'm an old man, just an old broken down old walker.

Never mind.

I won't hope won't hope mustn't hope musn't I musn't hope