“What do you think of your new home?” Baity asked. They were on the same hill that Brad Jordan had arrived to when he first came to Deads Town, but so much time seemed to have passed that he lost track of it.
“Its alright, man,” Brad Jordan said dismissively. “It’s still hard to believe I died, but this is nice I guess. Still creepy, just ‘cause it’s the Deads’ Town don’t mean we would appreciate some sunlight. And this fog is everywhere all the time.”
“The mist of Divine Essence is what allows this place to exist,” Baity explained. “Deads’ Town looks as it does ‘cause the deads require specific things to exist. It is not so creepy, it is very cozy to me.”
Brad Jordan nodded slowly. He had gotten used to the backwards walking, and he questioned his attachment to daylight. As a dead, he didn’t need to sleep and it was cozy living in perpetual darkness that was illuminated by the glowing mist. Deads’ Town even allowed the dead to enjoy food even though they didn’t need it as sustenance and the deads had regular parties and ample time to raise crops and livestock, which is permitted because the livestock are bred to be slaughtered and the arcana of Deads Town is more tolerant to living animals than it is to living beings of a certain sapience. The only pets allowed in Deads Town were dead ones, and Owuo had fetched the soul of Brad Jordan’s dead pit bull so that he had a companion. Owuo hadn’t brought the dog personally to Deads Town, but Brad Jordan knew that it was his doing.
“You think my friend Zacchaeus in danger?” Brad Jordan asked after a silent moment that the most moved like faint clouds around them.
Baity laughed. “You ain’t figured it out by now? That man is Death walking. If he involved it can’t be good for no one living. He is very kind to us deads, though. He like to see what we can do with his power so he can use it out there.”
Brad Jordan shook his head as Baity talked. He’d watched Zacchaeus grow up and even though they weren’t related, he thought of him as a brother, he didn’t want Owuo cutting the man’s life short.
“But I don’t think Owuo wants him dead,” Baity said, sounding like he was thinking aloud. “If he did, your friend would be walking among us, not you. He obviously wants Zacchaeus alive and he must have mentioned you for him to think that he could use you to get at him. I would be wondering what your friend is up to that Owuo, the walking death, cares so much about him that he would bring you all the way here.”
“Where is here?” Brad Jordan asked. “If you take the paths out of town, you eventually end up right back here, walking a different road through town.”
“This is the Fonlands, the Disc of Lêgba, but it is an artificial environment created by Owuo.”
That didn’t mean anything to Brad Jordan but he nodded anyway.
“Baity, you cool people,” Brad Jordan said and looked at him. “Everybody I met here so far pretty cool, too, but I don’t like being trapped. And I don’t care of its us walking death that locked me up here, I’m already dead, what else could be do to me? You know how I can get out of here?”
“It ain’t wise to be defiant for defiance sake…”
“Ohh, but it is,” Brad Jordan said with a glint or life in his dead eyes. “Y’all love to tell stories here, every dead knows someone great who defied the powers that tries to keep them down. Heros who ascended to god status because they didn’t like to be told no. Defiant for defiance sake is how I live, and its what I ain’t like nobody else.”
“You are very unique,” Baity said with a laugh. “So you want to leave Deads’ Town, know that it is specifically designed to sustain our existence as deads? What if leaving here means you will send us back in the perpetual sleep.”
“Then so be it,” Brad Jordan said. “I just can’t stand the idea if being trapped here. And what it we ain’t trapped? What if we could exist outside of this town but Owuo for us thinking like we do so he always got people to cook for him and teach him new things about his black magic? I’ll risk the perpetual sleep to know. If you never see me again, then you’ll know you got it right, that there ain’t nothing better for deads out there.”
Baity shook his head. “If you say so, Brad Jordan. But it sounds to me like you are bored and looking for something more than what you have. I am content here.”
“Me getting out won’t change anything for you, it won’t hurt nobody else. So why not help me?”
“I don’t know if I can,” Baity said. “I don’t know that any dead here could. I don’t think anybody here wants to leave. But we can ask around, maybe there are others like you who haven’t talked about it openly.”
Brad Jordan rubbed his hands together and there was a look of excitement on his face.
“I’m about to escape Deads’ Town!” he said excitedly.
PRL Serials 