THEM (Season 1): Episode 1 Read Free

the purpose, and then tied him to the back of my pack mule. We were on the edge of the safe zone, but I wanted to take him out a ways and stake him up so the warning would come early for any strays who might decide to wander this way.
    It might seem like I was inviting trouble, but honestly, this far out most of the thinking monsters were looking for easy prey. If they suspected trouble from an experienced tracker or hunter, they would likely steer clear and try to find a lone settlement or wanderer instead. So I trekked a few extra miles out of my way and staked the carcass up Vlad the Impaler–style on an old speed-limit sign, a few miles outside of the safe-zone boundaries.
    Then, I unsheathed my bowie knife and carved “XCIV” in the dead thing’s chest. This was nasty work, and I sure didn’t enjoy it, but I did take pleasure in the fact that leaving little warnings like this might save a few lives down the road. The corpses actually lasted a good long while; something in the blood and fluids of the things seemed to preserve them, even in the hot Texas sun.
    Unfortunately, sunlight didn’t make them burst into flames like the ones on television and in the movies. However, all of the undead occult species were averse to sunlight, making it more or less safe for decent folk to work and live their lives during the day. After nightfall, though, you wouldn’t find many people out in the open like I’d been the night previous. Instead, people holed up in fortified homes and makeshift bunkers, even in densely populated settlements and safe zones. You were never completely “safe” these days; safety was always just a relative term.
    Once the grisly deed was done, I mounted my mule and pointed her toward the settlement to collect whatever pay in barter they could offer. On the ride back, I wondered again at what the nos’ had said to me the night previous, before I sent it to the Second Death. Talkers often spoke in half-truths and fabrications, using their powers of speech to mentally torture and toy with their prey before feeding. However, something about what the creature had said didn’t quite sit right with me, and I knew I wouldn’t rest easy until I took a scouting trip east and north to see for myself what was brewing, if anything.
    As I pulled into the settlement I could see the local residents moving about their daily lives, which amounted to either fending off monsters, scratching out a meager existence, or fighting for some sense of normalcy. This settlement had once been a small unnamed burg in the middle of nowhere, a pimple on the asshole of the Hill Country. It’d consisted of a bar, a combination post office and volunteer fire department, a small gas-station convenience store, and a scattering of homes dotting about a quarter mile of caliche . About fifty souls or so lived hereabouts, protected behind a makeshift fence-wall made from chain link, barbed wire, and the occasional shipping container salvaged from a big rig. I rode up to the building that served as the HQ for the local government, such as it was, hitching Donkey to a fence where she could graze while I took care of my business.
    The town constable, Donnie Sims, met me at the front step. Thumbs tucked into his gun belt beneath a prodigious gut, he spat from the side of his mouth at my feet and spoke. “Any luck?”
    “Nos’, sneaky bastard too. Here.” I tossed him a baggie with two bloody incisors, gum tissue still attached. Donnie looked like he was juggling a hornet’s nest as he fumbled with his fat fingers to catch the bag. Folks around here knew and trusted me, but I still kept up the formalities of proof before payment. “No worries; there’s not enough blood on those to infect you.”
    “Yeah, well... never can be too careful. Good work, Scratch, good work. People can sleep feeling safe now around here, and that’s something. We really appreciate you.” He tossed me an old poker chip from the prewar era. “Here’s a