Mark Tufo - The End Has Come and Gone

“What have I done?” Severed Hand lamented as he clutched the amulet tied around his neck.

The women, children and infirm gathered around the main fire at the center of their encampment like they were wont to do when the men went on their hunts. Severed Hand spent the day asking all of the spirit guides for as much protection as could be afforded for his people.

“Chief Screaming Hawk, we need to get the people to a safer location,” Severed Hand implored the former leader of the clan.

“I am old, Shaman, the people no longer follow my rule,” Screaming Hawk said as he stared deep into the fire, remembering a time when he was as fast as the animal he was named for.

“You are not so old that they do not listen to your words. Do not pretend to have gone soft in the head, your people need you,” Severed Hand said forcibly.

“What would you have me do?” Screaming Hawk asked, angry that he had been disturbed from his reverie.

“I do not know, but I feel that this land that we stand on now is not safe.”

“The spirits have said this?” Screaming Hawk asked curiously. Severed Hand had always been a trusted advisor while he had been the chief.

“Not in signs that I can divine, Chief, but that we should leave immediately I do not doubt.”

“Leaping Frog,” the old Chief said to a young boy that was running around the fire. “Get your mother.”

The boy stopped immediately. As the son of Chief Running Bear he was afforded special privileges. But to not do as an elder, and a former chief at that, asked was more trouble than he cared to find himself immersed in. Leaping Frog nodded and ran off.

Leaping Frog’s mother, White Fawn, was headed towards where Screaming Hawk and Severed Hand were sitting by the fire. She shivered as the warm touch of the sun slid from her shoulders and behind the mountains. A preternatural chill rippled up her spine. She sped her step up but it was too late as she felt her flesh rip from her side to the bottom of her shoulder blade. She fell to her knees as her spine became exposed to the cool twilight air.

Severed Hand turned to watch as she fell face first into the soft dirt. The black abomination that straddled her prone body had the same flat black eyes as the crow he had seen in his vision. Severed Hand rose, quickly grabbing his staff and running towards the fallen woman. Screaming Hawk was just turning around as screams of fear and pain issued forth from around the camp.

The blackness had moved from White Fawn; blood poured forth from her wound. Severed Hand reached into his pouch, grabbing a handful of blended herbs that were proficient in stopping bleeding. He looked into White Fawn’s eyes but they had already clouded over. He saved the herbs. Just then Leaping Frog sailed over his head. Severed Hand tried to jump and grab him, but it was too late as the young boy landed in the middle of the fire. His screams pierced the night as the flesh melted from his bones. His small charred body crawled a few feet, almost coming completely clear from the fire before collapsing.

Screaming Hawk took his small flint knife from his leg sheath and ran towards where the most intense screaming was coming from. His war cry stirred the air, it was the last sound he would ever make. Severed Hand found him the next day nailed through the throat to a tree with that same knife.

No matter where Severed Hand went that long night, it was always moments behind the plague that was tearing his people apart. He came across a little girl, he thought her name might have been Wading Brook. She had been torn in two, the ragged halves spread twenty feet apart. Deep Water, her mother, was lying in a pool of blood. Her head and spinal column had been detached from the rest of her body, her mouth still twitching.

When the dying had completed their destiny, a shadowy image appeared from beyond the fire.

“I see you demon!” Severed Hand shouted.

“As I see you, Medicine Man,” Eliza said as she appeared to walk through the fire.

Fear clutched Severed Hand’s heart as she approached.

“Why?” Severed Hand asked as he looked upon the blood soaked apparition before him.

“I was bored,” she said with a small laugh.

“What are you?” Severed Hand asked in horror. Anger was beginning to take hold.

“I am Death,” she replied proudly.

“You are not death. Death does not sow, it reaps.”

“Clever Shaman, but I will give you no further information. I know how powerful names can be to those who know how to use them.”

“Why not tell me who you are and then let me join those you have taken?”

“Very well, I had hoped to leave you alive so that you could tell others about me. I grow weary of always being in the shadows. It is time that people are afraid of me and not my legend. But I will grant your request. Perhaps it will be fun to take my time with you. Come, you and I will sit by the fire as I tell you my tale.”

“No one will fear a demon that destroys women, children and the old,” Severed Hand said defiantly.

“FOOL!” Eliza said, hitting Severed Hand with the back of her hand. He slid effortless across the ground. “Did you not understand the visions I sent to you?” Eliza was fairly shaking with rage.

The insult did as he had hoped. While he struggled to get up, he ripped free a deerskin pouch he had wrapped around his waist. “Your pride will be your end,” Severed Hand murmured before standing up completely.

“Now, come sit by the fire. I have a story to tell you before you die,” Eliza said, all of her earlier hostility seemingly dissipated.

Severed Hand rubbed his jaw. If he ever got to eat again, it would not be without some significant discomfort.

“My name is Eliza and this is my tale.” For several hours, Eliza related her story to Severed Hand about cruelties interlaced with atrocities piled high atop destruction.

“The world has no need for the likes of you,” the Medicine Man said gravely.

“It was this same world that produced me,” Eliza said. “I am merely returning the favor.”

“I could end your suffering,” Severed Hand offered sincerely.

Eliza laughed, “I enjoy the turmoil I cause, sorcerer. I fear our time together grows short,” she said as the eastern sky began to lighten.

“Do you fear seeing what devastation you have wrought?” Severed Hand asked as he glanced at the horizon Eliza was watching.

Eliza turned to him without saying anything. She gripped him around the neck and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. “Pity, I would have so enjoyed a few hours more of your time,” Eliza said as she slowly closed her grip.

Severed Hand threw the contents of his right hand up into the air. As it rained down, wherever it made contact with Eliza, tiny wisps of smoke arose. Severed Hand grabbed a hold of a lock of Eliza’s hair as her grip around his neck released. She reared back in pain.

“What have you done, witch doctor?” Eliza screamed.

“I know you for what you are, soulless one,” Severed Hand rasped, his throat on fire. “You will bother the Lakota no more. Every surviving member of my people will wear our skins infused with Hawthorn and Rowan.”

Eliza’s eyes gleamed at Severed Hand, “Our time now is done, but we have unfinished business,” she warned as she left.

Severed Hand fell to his knees, dragging in breaths that seemed to ignite the coals placed in his throat. “You are right demon, we do have unfinished business,” he said, looking at the strands of hair he had pried loose from her head.

For seven days and seven nights Severed Hand alternated between performing burial rituals, burying the dead of the tribe, and hunting for one particular type of gem stone. He only stopped long enough to gather more Hawthorn and Rowan and to take small drinks of water. The demon did not return. On the morning of the eighth day, Chief Running Bear and his braves returned triumphantly with five bison, confident in the fact that his people would make it through the winter, warm and fat.