Titles by Chris Tullbane
The Murder of Crows
SEE THESE BONES
RED RIGHT HAND *
ONE TIN SOLDIER *
STORIES FROM A POST-BREAK WORLD *
The Many Travails of John Smith
INVESTIGATION, MEDIATION, VINDICATION *
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN LOTS OF STUFF *
GHOST OF A CHANCE *
THE ITALIAN SCREWJOB *
A DEAD MAN'S FAVOR *
GODSWAR *
JOHN SMITH DOESN'T WORK HERE ANYMORE *
* Forthcoming
See These Bones
Chris Tullbane
First published by Ghost Falls Press 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Chris Tullbane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data
provided by Five Rainbows Cataloging Services
Names: Tullbane, Chris, author.
Title: See these bones / Chris Tullbane.
Description: Henderson, NV : Ghost Falls Press, 2019. | Series: Murder of crows, bk. 1.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-7334824-1-7 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-7334824-0-0 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Superheroes--Fiction. | Heroes--Fiction. | Self-actualization (Psychology)--Fiction. | Fathers and sons--Fiction. | Bildungsromans. | Fantasy fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Superheroes. | FICTION / Coming of Age. | FICTION / Fantasy / General. | FICTION / Science Fiction / General. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Science fiction. | Bildungsromans.
Classification: LCC PS3620.U45 S44 2019 (print) | LCC PS3620.U45 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23.
Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in it are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition
For Nami,
the reason for everything
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is a solitary process, but I’ve found that everything after the initial draft is a hell of a lot easier when you have amazing people to rely on. I'd like to thank the following for their many contributions:
Nami, who reads everything I write, no matter how terrible. She is my wife, editor, agent, best friend, and narrative compass, all rolled into one.
Johanna, whose friendship keeps me going even when the words run dry. This book's not a romance, I swear!
Jamie, who has been nudging me to get this book published since the first draft arrived in his inbox and who is both the best and the only brother I’ve ever had.
Shawn and Keith, my partners-in-crime during the eight month sabbatical that kick-started my writing career, who are quick to remind me that I should already be done with the sequel.
And last but not least, my parents, who didn’t blink when I opted to pursue a degree in writing, (even if they did breathe a sigh of relief when I instead found a career in software development).
Thank you all.
Table of Contents
Titles by Chris Tullbane
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Interlude
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Interlude
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Epilogue
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
My mom was murdered when I was five.
The good news is they caught her killer. The bad news? It was my dad. Any shrink will tell you that’s the sort of thing that can fuck a kid up.
By the time my sixth birthday rolled around, both parents were in the ground; Mom in a quiet cemetery on the other side of town and Dad in the considerably less quiet prison the Free States built for people like him.
And people like me, I guess.
Turns out dark hair and grey eyes aren’t the only things that asshole and I have in common.
My mom was murdered when I was five. I didn’t see her again until I turned nine, but ever since then, she’s made a habit of following me around. Losing your virginity to the girl who works the slushy counter down the block is stressful enough without the ghost of your dead mother bearing witness.
Now, there was a time when even talking about ghosts earned someone a padded cell and a lifetime supply of medication. But that was before things went bad. Before Dr. Nowhere broke the world. These days, stories like mine divide neatly into two camps; the people who see the dead because they’re batshit crazy and the people who are batshit crazy because they see the dead.
That second group? We call them Crows and they don’t just see the dead. You’ve heard the stories. Lord Bone and his skeletal army. Gravedigger’s circle of elementary school sacrifices. The Crimson Death’s march through the blood-soaked heart of Reno. And Sally Cemetery… well, everyone knows about Sally.
But those are just the big names. There are a dozen others that nobody has ever heard of, people whose body counts weren’t high enough to merit a vid, whose atrocities failed to catch the nation’s eye. Necromancers who only snuffed out a handful of souls. Or maybe even just one.
Crows like my dad.
Crows like me.
We all go mad. That’s just how it is. The weaker among us—the Ones, the Twos—end up in asylums with the everyday lunatics, one more flavor of crazy for the nuthouse. But the true Crows, the
Threes and Fours who somehow survive to adulthood?
Villains. Black Hats. Murderers.
Every. Damn. One of us.
Which is what made my admittance to the Academy of Heroes so unexpected.
But my expulsion from that same institution?
Everyone saw that coming.
CHAPTER 2
I bounced between foster homes for a few years after Mom died, never staying with any family more than a couple of months. Not until the Jacobsens—Norm and Sue, because apparently it’s a cosmic law that ordinary people have really stupid names.
For some reason, these two God-worshipping hero-vid junkies actually gave a damn. Wasn’t like it had been with my real parents, but Norm didn’t seem likely to up and murder Sue either, so I wasn’t going to complain. Norm, Sue, and little Damian… the perfect pretend family.
Yeah, Damian. It’s like Dad wanted to screw me over from the start.
Anyway, the Jacobsens spent six months tearing down my walls, six months sitting through night terrors and angry spells. Convincing me that they cared. That they’d be there for me through anything.
Then I turned nine.
Then Mom showed back up.
Then we all learned that Dad wasn’t the only Crow in the family.
Just like that, I was back at Mama Rawlins’ House of Unwanted Brats. Sue watched me go, peeking through her living room window from behind white, frilly curtains. I think she even cried. Which might have meant something if she and Norm hadn’t been the ones who called the orphanage in the first place, the ones who decided I wasn’t the son they’d been looking for after all.
I don’t blame them. Not really.
I blame myself. Should have known better than to get attached.
The Jacobsens were my last ride on the foster family merry-go-round. Word gets around, I guess. I spent the next eight years as the orphanage’s unofficial mascot, watching delighted little shits disappear into the arms of delighted older shits. And yeah, I bumped uglies with the slushy girl a couple times, so it wasn’t all bad. Say what you will about her—or don’t, unless you want an army of zombie rats crawling up your asshole—but she was warm, smelled better than I did, and didn’t care what I might one day become.
Also? Free slushies! Compared to the synth-food the orphanage fed us, a cup of flavored ice was almost as good as sex.
She’s dead now, of course. The slushy girl. I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t do it. A year or so after we started seeing each other, she and her parents left Bakersfield. Went north to Palo Alto, to a sweet new job for her dad and an economy that hadn’t spent the last four decades in the shitter.
That was five months before Scarlet’s battle with the Capes from the North Star. In one afternoon, the Black Hat Pyromancer killed six hundred people and burned down half of Palo Alto. Everyone remembers the heroes Scarlet killed that day. Everyone remembers that Dominion responded by dropping a satellite on her head. Nobody remembers the people of Palo Alto.
I remember the slushy girl.
Alicia. That was her name.
•—•—•
I was seventeen when Alicia left town. I was seventeen when she and six hundred other people died. I was still seventeen—if only barely—when my life changed yet again. Three days from my eighteenth birthday, when I’d become an adult in the eyes of the Free States and my free ride at the orphanage would end. To say I was worried about where I’d be sleeping, what I’d be eating, and how I’d pay for either was the understatement of the decade. There are a lot of words to describe Crows but employable isn’t one of them.
I was trying to distract myself from impending doom by showing little Nyah—five years old, and a shoo-in to be adopted the next time a pair of needy parents wandered by—how to throw a punch, when the common room went dead quiet.
Mama Rawlins was standing at the orphanage door with a man.
He wasn’t much to look at. Average height, average appearance, and average-length hair that was—you guessed it—a thoroughly average shade of brown. A grey suit hung loosely on a frame as remarkable as a clothes hanger. He was the sort of person that would fade into a crowd, who seemed to fade into the background even as the only stranger in the room.
That all changed when I saw his eyes. They were flat and cold, like pennies that had been worn down by time, leaving only smooth metal behind. They glittered in the common room’s dim lighting.
Nyah shivered as those eyes focused on me.
Mama Rawlins escorted the penny-eyed man in my direction, a path through the common room appearing like it had been wished into existence. Ten of my fellow orphans, from Nyah all the way up to fifteen-year-old John, turned to watch the drama unfold.
The man’s voice was quiet and empty of emotion. “This is he?”
“Yup.” Mama Rawlins’ voice, by contrast, was a scratchy baritone, courtesy of the two-pack habit her state salary and some truly creative bookkeeping afforded her. “Damian,” she nodded to me, “meet Mr.—”
“Grey,” the man filled in smoothly.
“Mr. Grey. From the government.” Her eyes widened comically, as she added the words that would seal my fate. “He’s a Finder.”
I should have run. Young legs, not much meat on my bones… maybe I could have made it.
Instead, I let curiosity get the best of me.
Fucking moron.
CHAPTER 3
There aren’t a lot of cars on the roads. I’m told they were everywhere before Dr. Nowhere broke the world, but these days, most people recognize them for the rolling death traps they are. Never know when another Pyro like Scarlet might show up or when that psycho Pele is going to surf in from the Pacific on a tidal wave of shit-you-not lava.
And that’s before you even get to the Shifters or the Titans. Know what King Rex used to call cars? Meals on wheels. Dude had acres of style to go along with that skin condition and seventy-foot shadow.
Mr. Grey opened the passenger door of the rust-covered death trap parked at the curb, and waved me in.
After a moment’s hesitation, I shrugged. Truth was, I’d always kind of wanted to ride in a car. I tossed my bag into the back seat, and climbed in.
The engine coughed and wheezed like an asthmatic choking on a bone. In a series of lurches, our car pulled into the empty street, noxious black smoke wafting out behind us.
The other reason nobody drives cars—especially in a town like Bakersfield—is that the roads are terrible; more pothole than surface. Or maybe the roads are terrible because nobody drives anymore. Hard to say which was the cause and which was the effect.
Anyway, it turns out that riding in a car really sucks. I’m talking having-a-spring-shoved-up-your-ass-every-couple-seconds-while-the-whole-vehicle-shudders-around-you sucks. And once we got up to top speed—slightly faster than your average non-Jitterbug could run—every scrape of metal against asphalt made me think the world was going to end in fire.
It will, of course… and sooner than anyone wants it to. But that’s a story for another day.
Point is, in almost eighteen years of life, I’d done some stupid things, but nothing quite made my balls want to crawl up into my body like that car ride.
•—•—•
We’d traveled maybe a mile before I pulled myself together. I hugged my knees to my chest, shifted my ass so the damn spring—did you think I was being metaphorical?— poked something less delicate, and turned to the man who’d come for me.
“Are you really a Finder?”
Mr. Grey didn’t give any sign that he’d heard me.
“Where are we going?”
Still nothing.
“Hello?”
Nothing. Guy made a stone wall seem talkative.
Yeah, I know some stone walls talk. You’ll hear about one of those, if you stick around that long. But you get what I’m saying, right?
“I don’t care what Mama Rawlins thinks,” I finally said, “this is the Free States an
d you’re not allowed to just kidnap me. Tell me where we’re going or I’m sticking my head out this window and screaming bloody murder. I know all about stranger danger.”
For those of you who don’t know, that’s pre-Break literature, something I’d found digging through the boxes of crap Mama Rawlins kept at the orphanage. They used to give these pamphlets to kids to teach them not to head off to strange places with people they didn’t know.
Apparently, children were just as dumb back then as they are now. Seems hard to believe.
Not sure if it was the words, the threat, or my stunning display of pre-Break knowledge, but Mr. Grey finally responded. He pulled to the side of the empty road, killed the engine, and turned to me.
“I have a use for you, Mr. Banach, but you are not indispensable. Keep a civil tongue.”
“Or what?” I challenged.
“Or you will be replaced.” Those blank coins slipped just a tad, and behind them was something like white noise and hunger.
I know what you’re thinking. Damian Banach? Seriously? That’s your name? Well, you can fuck right off. Banach was Mom’s maiden name. Think her side of the family came from Poland, way back when there was a Poland. I sure as hell wasn’t keeping my dad’s last name, on top of all the other shit he’d given me.
Could’ve been worse. I could’ve been Norm Jacobsen, Jr.
Or maybe you’re thinking that Mama Rawlins’ doublewide ass should be arrested for letting some psycho take her oldest orphan? Please. It’s not like she was going to say no to the same government that kept her in cigarettes and synth-rations.
And I had even less choice in the matter. Nowhere to go, no skills to offer, no way to eat. Whatever the government wanted would beat starving in the street, right?
I swallowed my anger and shut the hell up.
He restarted the car and eased back out into the empty road.
CHAPTER 4
There’s nothing to like about Bakersfield. Pretty sure that was true pre-Break, and it’s sure as hell true now. Balls-hot in the summer, foggy and moist in the winter, boring as shit year-round. The city’s a long way from the ocean, from L.A. or the Bay. It just sits in the middle of nowhere like a middle finger to the tumbleweeds.