Page 51 of Any More Questions for the Corpse?

Kosh stopped. Frozen. Yu had gone off script and they both knew it. Yu could feel their own emotions bleeding into their words. This was clearly not what Walters would have said. Kosh’s eyes flashed. Another faint pop, but seemingly nothing moved. Kosh’s face was a stone wall, giving nothing away.

“That’s your issue with what I did?” Kosh said, taking a step forward. “No sanctimonious speech about life or signing up for this?”

Yu didn’t know what to say. Which was unfortunate, because their mouth continued to speak anyway.

“I mean, that as well, you did sign up—”

“He died with the rest of them, didn’t he?”

“What?”

“It’s Yu, right? Or are you Hala? Is that why I feel so emotional right now? Are you fucking with my mind?”

“Uh …”

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Kosh’s eyes flashed. A handgun appeared in his hand.

They flashed again. Yelling cried out from somewhere. A faint figure appeared in the sky above them. The yelling got louder, as they started to fall.

A final flash. But once more nothing happened.

Kosh pointed the gun at them. Yu shut their eyes and flinched.

BANG.

Mal never thought himself the forgetful type. He liked to think they’d covered all their bases: They’d brought Taran in case of Mazino’s escape; they’d brought gear to stop Kosh from blinking away; even Walters had thought their plan was reasonably foolproof. But sitting there, next to Des and Hala, watching Yu from a distance, Mal got the sense he’d forgotten something rather important. Then his world started to swirl, and the ground beneath his feet started to shake. He remembered the first time he met Kosh, how nervous he’d been, how desperate he was to meet someone else like him, how dumb it now seemed to have given a complete stranger a strand of his hair. As the ground disappeared around him, he managed just one word before being warped away in a mist: “Help.”

Yu opened their eyes. They didn’t feel any pain. Maybe they were in shock? Maybe they were numb from the cold of the rain? They looked down and found their clothes ill-fitted. They must have reverted back to themselves as they flinched. Kosh was in shock, his gun on the ground next to a beanbag, his hand limp and broken at the wrist. The figure in the sky got closer. Mal, plummeting and screaming.

Kosh stared at Yu in disbelief, then another beanbag crashed into his chest. Black sludge sprayed from his open wound. Yu ran at him. Crunching footsteps sounded behind them, half a dozen at least. A figure flew through the air, leaping up over the graveyard. The yelling stopped momentarily, then something crashed into the dirt nearby. Yu focused on Kosh. Trying desperately not to trip on their sopping-wet clothes. Walters appeared by the gate holding the mason jar. Kosh clutched at something around his neck as he fell. That’s what Yu needed. Walters had told them to look for a pendant. Yu reached the pale moving corpse and snatched at the pendant. They wrestled, Kosh with his one good hand, Yu fighting with both of theirs; clothing slapped and sloshed around them. Kosh’s eyes met Yu’s as an awful realization dawned on them both. He’s going to disappear. He’s going to teleport away. Yu knew it would only take a second—well, exactly one point three seconds, if their time poking around the teleporters guild was correct. Kosh took a deep breath. Yu struck him in the face. Kosh seemed undeterred. Yu watched as his eyes went calm and cold, and a soft grin crept onto his face. Yu had to stall him, but how?

CLASP.

Des’s hands forced a metal circlet shut around Kosh’s good arm. Kosh’s eyes flashed and nothing happened, but this time Kosh seemed taken aback by it. The soft smile on his face disappeared and a rushed panic set in. Kosh’s purple hand fiddled and clamored for the pendant, but Yu managed to grab it from him, ripping it free of his neck. The corpse groaned and fell back momentarily. The footsteps behind stopped for a moment, then started again with renewed vigor.

Walters was close now, one last step. Yu fumbled with the pendant, their hands slippery and numb from the rain. Tink. It fell into the jar. Walters slammed down the lid, screwing it on tight. Yu felt at ease for a moment.

Frenzied, crunching footsteps roared behind them. With no master, the animated corpses did as they wished; and they wished for flesh.

“AAHHHHHHH,” Mal screamed, covered in blood and dirt. A flash of black pulsed from his hands, and in an instant, the bodies fell back to the earth, crumbling into piles of bone. Hala came running over to them, an exhausted smile on her face, still gripping the beanbag gun for dear life. Mal stood in a small dirt crater surrounded by graves, looking battered but alive. Des, also covered in grit and dirt, put an assuring hand on Yu’s back. Yu even saw Elaine and Taran poke their heads around the gate entrance to see what all the fuss was about. Walters held up the jar with a sad satisfaction. Their terrible plan had worked. They’d done it. The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. Yu felt the stress of the moment bleed out of their shoulders. They’d actually done it.

Smash.

A jar shattered on the nearby earth. A jar containing a ruby.

21The Jar’s Fall

Some things fall better than others. Paper, for example, falls rather terribly; anyone with any practice at being annoying knows that you must first scrunch paper into a ball before you can throw it at someone with any real velocity. Glass jars, however, fall rather brilliantly; it is in fact a point of pride for most jars. They have stiff competition, of course; whales do a good job, and feathers are famous for their unique style, but jars always tend to give it their all.

One rainy day, such a jar was minding its own business when suddenly, it found itself among the clouds. It had no knowledge of murder plots or contingency plans, it just did what most objects do when they find themselves very high up, and that was to fall. It had very little say in the matter, what with it being inanimate, but then again it’d had very little say in most things in its life. It had been a normal jar once, filled with normal jar things: marbles, jellied beans, jams—you name it, this jar had been filled by it. That was, until some meddling fool put a spell on it; a dampening spell, they had said. This felt a bit unnecessary to the jar as it never had any problems with moisture; it felt it would’ve been much easier to just poke a few air holes in its lid. Anyway, after this meddling fool’s spell, the jar’s next inhabitant had been a rather lecherous new thing; no, it wasn’t pickles, it was a ruby. A ruby it still held as it started to fall.

Unsure as to the inevitable fate of falling objects, the jar felt rather excited about this new sensation. The wind rushed past its imaginary hair, its imaginary limbs flailed in the rain, it spun and tinked as the ruby within bounced off its walls. It was a lovely change of pace to its usual shelf life. It whistled with joy as it flew toward the wide expanse that seemed oh so eager to greet it. As it got close to this expanse, its whooshing fun was interrupted. Not, as you might imagine, by a smashing, but by a strange pop. This happened several times; it would get close to the ground, and then pop, the jar would find itself up in the clouds once again. After the third time this happened, the jar was rather bored with falling, and wished to be out of the rain and back inside. The ruby however, seemed quite excited about this descent. It kept saying things like, “Finally, finally I shall be free.” The jar thought this was rather strange behavior for a ruby, who up until now had been a rather dull conversationalist. It had screamed for a good chunk of their time together; that was annoying, but at least the jar could sing along to its screeching tone. Then of course came the lamenting. Lamenting the world, lamenting the “wizard” that put him there, lamenting the many people who refused to team up with him. The ruby even lamented the jar itself. Heavens knew what the jar had done; it hadn’t had a say in any of these matters. It was just a jar.

As the vast expanse got closer, the jar felt a sudden, very real sense of dread. This sense was not helped by the ruby’s constant maniacal laughter. There was something very solid about this ground that chipped away at the jar’s self-confidence. What would happen when they finally met? Why was the ruby so happy about it? Would they get alo—

Mal looked down at the broken jar at his feet. The triumph of the moment dissipated. What little sense of accomplishment he’d felt, after once again being only useful adjacent, vanished. His death sense sparked and rang through his brain like a shattering gong. Mazino was free. Before Mal could utter a word, a slithering blackness coated the ruby, then spread, forming a blackened pool in the already sodden earth.