That Risen Snow: A Scary Tale of Snow White and Zombies (Wattys 2014 Award Winner)

Chapter Eight

Merry

MERRY GASPS FOR AIR as Grouchy rolls off of him. He trembles to his core, heart galloping behind his ribs. His lungs starve for air. Every limb aches to the bone. Finally, he’s able to take a breath. He gulps at the air, grateful to be alive.

Nearby, Grouchy pounds on the broken table.

“Damn it to hells. Shit nuggets.”

Tsk. Always such needless vulgarity. He sits up, stares at Grouchy’s leg, now covered in tomato sauce and broken dishes—the remains of their meal left on the table.

“It’s okay,” Merry says. “It won’t stain.”

“What?”

“Lemon juice should get it out.”

“What?” Grouchy stares at his leg, shakes his head, and grunts. A laugh erupts from his round belly. “Har!"

Merry jumps, but then starts laughing, too. The two dwarfs exchange looks and laugh some more. Warmth snuggles in Merry’s belly. Before he joined the Collective, he never had moments like this. The other young dwarfs in his township shunned him because his father was the mayor. Even here, he’s always been different than the others.

They continue laughing until Grouchy notices Coughy kneeling over Snoozy, who’s apparently lifeless.

“Snooze,” Grouchy says, scrambling over to see his fallen friend. “Is he dead?”

Coughy shakes his head. “Just unconscious. Hard to say how long before he wakes up. If ever. Look here.” He uses a napkin to open Snoozy’s lips, which are now neatly split down the middle. Blood seeps from the wounds. Snoozy’s teeth and tongue are stained piss yellow.

“What the hells?”

“Can’t say about the split lip. That’s too clean to have come from the fall. But the yellow stains are from raylee root. He must have chewed quite a lot.”

“Balls. Search his pockets. See if there’s any left.”

In one pocket, Merry finds a handful of gnarled roots, each as long as his hand. They feel like shriveled strips of leather and smell like sour dirt.

“Are either of you hurt?” Coughy asks.

“My knee,” Grouchy says. “Feels like someone’s mining for gems inside my leg.”

Merry smiles. “You rest. I’ll make the raylee root tea for Blushful.”

Grouchy squints at Merry.

“It’s the least I can do.”

Finally, Grouchy nods.

Merry retreats to the kitchen, puts on the tea water, and pulls out his worry stone. Smooth and flat, it sits in his palm looking for all the world like a hole.

Bones gave Merry the worry stone early in the days of the Collective. At the time, Bones said,  “You must be stronger than the darkness inside you, Merry. It is pliable. But with enduring effort, it can be beaten. Think of the river that cuts a canyon. The ant that builds a hill.” He held out a rough black stone, its edges jagged and twisted. “Rub this.”

And so Merry did. The edges bit into his thumb.

“It hurts, yes?” Bones said. “Don’t let that stop you. Don’t let pain or fear stop you. Keep rubbing, and you will mold that stone—that darkness—to your will.”

He rubs the stone now, its surface smoothed over the years by Merry’s tireless rubbing. And maybe a little sand-parchment. He studies Grouchy and Coughy from a distance. Coughy applies grapeseed ointment to Grouchy’s knee and wraps it with cloth soaked in witchleaf oil. Which of them is strong enough to help him beat the darkness?

Coughy was ready to kill Blushful without hesitation. He’s always been prone to worry, fearing that even the slightest cut would result in amputation, that every sneeze would blossom into an all-consuming fever. And now? To what lengths will Coughy go to protect himself from Snow’s curse? No doubt about it. Coughy may be Merry’s greatest ally—even if Coughy did concoct this foolish plan.

Assuming Snoozy wakes up, Merry still needs a third dwarf for a majority. That means he must enlist Grouchy. Or get rid of Blushful. His belly aches at the thought. He clenches his worry stone and listens to Grouchy and Coughy’s discussion.

“Cough,” Grouchy says, “about our plan, how do we know that Snow, Bones, Dim, and the Prince won’t tear each other apart in here?”

“Good point.” Coughy considers. “We gas them. Just like the bear.”

Years ago, a bear wandered into the mine overnight. Not wanting to force a confrontation, Bones mixed a potion that induced temporary slumber. The dwarfs wheeled the bear out of the mine on a mining cart. After that, the dwarfs erected a gate over the mine’s entrance.

“Yes.” Coughy nods. “That’s perfect.”

“Perfect hells. This is far from perfect. But can you make the sleep potion?”

Coughy pats Grouchy’s belly. “I believe I can.”

Grouchy raises his voice. “Merr, when the tea’s done, pack up our supplies. Cough, you work on the sleeping potion. I’ll rig the front and back doors so that we can open them from upstairs with a cord. I’ll make some crossbars to reinforce the loft door. And we’ll need rope to climb down and lock the Horrors in from outside.”

Coughy joins Merry in the kitchen.

When Grouchy is out of earshot, Merry whispers to Coughy, “Are you sure about this? We’re taking an awful risk by letting them in here.”

Coughy rummages through the lower cabinets. “It’s a much worse risk leaving those things out there.”

“This cottage is our greatest asset, Cough.” He forces himself to drop the final syllable off Coughy’s name. “I’m worried that we’re throwing that away. We don’t know what’ll happen if we just wait this thing out.”

Coughy rises, eyes unflinching. “My whole family tried waiting out the Plague. We went into the swamps. We thought we could wait it out. We didn’t know that it was already right there with us. You know who got sick first?”

Merry shakes his head.

“I did. It started with vomiting, followed by fevers and chills. They could have abandoned me there in the swamp, but they didn’t. Soon, the sickness took all of them. Everyone I ever cared for puked up the contents of their stomachs, then blood, then whatever was left inside. Their muscles twisted and contorted into unforgivable postures. Many bit off their own tongues. They went blind. Eardrums ruptured. Mother first. Then my sisters. Brother. Father. All reduced to screaming, bleeding, sweating, drooling masses of diseased flesh.”

“I’m sorry.” He tries patting Coughy’s belly, but he jerks away.

The teakettle whistles harshly. Outside, the pounding on the doors intensifies in response. Merry sighs, removes the teakettle to a trivet, and grabs the tea pouch. Clearly, Coughy isn’t on his side. It’s possible he can sway Snoozy, maybe even Grouchy, but not if Blushful is still around.

He remembers his father’s words. “Sometimes you have to do terrible things for the greater good. That’s what being a leader is all about.”

Merry tucks the raylee root into this pocket next to his worry stone and stuffs the tea pouch with other herbs. For the greater good.

For the Collective.