Why in the world did the horseman come to this place?

Pestilence strides right up to the front door and, lifting a foot, kicks it inward. That’s one way to open a door. The other way is trying the fucking knob like a normal person.

He drags me inside by the rope, as though I’m a naughty dog he must keep leashed.

From the silence of the house, it’s obvious the owners aren’t around, and they probably haven’t been since the evacuation warnings went out—thank God. Anywhere is better than here at the moment.

Pestilence crosses the living room, pulling me along by this damnable rope. Now that I’m not running for my life, all my other aches and pains are waking up. My wrists are beginning to throb and the sweat that coats me is rapidly cooling against my body. I’m not even going to think about how sore my legs will be in the morning.

The horseman ties the rope to the stairway railing one, two, three times over.

“You do know the moment I’m out of your sight, I’m going to try to escape,” I say.

“Do I look worried, human?” he asks, giving the knot a final yank.

“I can’t tell, too many bits are missing.”

Not true, but he hasn’t seen his reflection yet, so he wouldn’t know.

Pestilence stares at me for a long second, his dislike for me nearly palpable, then heads upstairs, his footsteps echoing throughout the house.

I wasn’t kidding about the escape thing. The moment he’s gone, I attack the maze of knots like my life depends on it, which it does.

I’m desperately picking at the ties that bind me to the railing (When the fuck did this horseman learn to tie a proper knot?), when he comes back down carrying a fresh set of clothes. Clothes and duct tape.

All we need are some assless chaps and a paddle to round this party out. But I doubt Pestilence has that sort of suffering in mind. Probably for the best. I don’t think it’s appropriate to hate-bang the guy you tried to kill. At least not on the first night.

Pestilence tosses the clothes onto the couch, keeping an eye on me as he does so. He removes his armor piece by piece. Beneath it, the last remnants of the shirt he once wore now disintegrate, revealing his naked torso.

Even injured, he’s a pinnacle of the male specimen. He has muscles for days, his arms both thick and cut, his pecs nicely rounded out, and his abs ridiculously defined.

The skin of his chest still looks raw and red in places. It must have been terribly painful riding through the freezing day in nothing but a blanket while his armor scraped against his burned flesh.

It takes a second for my eyes to register that his wounds aren’t the only thing marring Pestilence’s skin. Ringing his chest like a collar are a series of strange letters that glow. A second set of them start at his hipbones, curving beneath the edge of the blanket; they glitter like amber in the dim light.

I stare, transfixed. I’ve seen tattoos before, but none that glow. If his undying nature weren’t proof enough of his otherworldly origins, this would be.

His biceps bulge as he reaches for the edge of his toga-loincloth blanket, and I look away before I can see anything else.

A minute later, Pestilence returns to my side, duct tape in hand. The outfit he wears now—jeans and a flannel top—is a far cry from the outfit he wore when I first saw him, but it does fit him surprisingly well, considering that most men aren’t nearly as tall or as broad shouldered as the horseman.

He levels those piercing blue eyes on me as he begins to unroll the tape. “Because you were so kind as to lay out your intentions—” He wraps the duct tape around the rope he’s tied to the railing, then around my wrist bindings, sabotaging any hope of me escaping. “I think this should keep you immobile for now.”

Pestilence rips the last of the tape off, then tosses the roll aside.

I glare at him, but the look is wasted. He’s no longer even paying attention to me.

The horseman heads to the wood burning stove and begins to build a fire.

“So what now?” I ask. “You’re just going to keep me captive until I die of plague?”

Plague that I most definitely haven’t been feeling—or maybe I have. It’s hard to say when you feel like three-day-old roadkill anyway.

Pestilence turns his head just slightly in my direction, then continues to tend to his fire. It takes mere minutes to get the flames roaring, and another few minutes to really feel the heat.

Pestilence sits down in front of the fire, his back to me, and he rubs a hand over his face.

“I begged,” he finally says. “Broken and bleeding, I beseeched you for mercy, and you gave me none.”

My gut twists.

“You can’t make me feel sorry,” I lie, because he can. He already has. I was sorry before I even pulled the trigger, and sorry again when I dropped the match. It doesn’t change anything, but still—I was sorry. I am sorry. And it leaves a bitter, brackish taste in my mouth.

“I dare not hope for so much from the likes of your kind,” he says, still not bothering to turn around.

“It was you who came to destroy us,” I remind him.

Like I even need to defend myself. I don’t know why I’m bothering.

“Humans have done a perfectly fine job of destroying themselves without my help. I am just here to finish the job.”

“And you wonder why I showed you no mercy.”

“Mercy.” He spits the word out like an oath. “If only you knew the irony of your predicament, human …”

He turns his attention to the fire and rests his chin on his fist and I guess the conversation’s over. He stares and stares into those flames, and at some point, I think he forgets I exist altogether.

My mind drifts to my family. More than anything, I hope they’re far enough away from the horseman to avoid his plague.

Unlike normal viruses, Messianic Fever doesn’t follow the laws of science. You can be kilometers away from Pestilence, quarantined in your own home and somehow still catch it. It’s not clear how far away one needs to be to avoid the plague altogether, only that if you linger in a city Pestilence passes through, you’ll die. It’s as simple as that.

You haven’t died yet, my mind whispers.

It’s been over a day since I first came face to face with the horseman. Surely I should be feeling something by now.

Speaking of feeling something …

I shift my weight. It’s not just my wrists and legs that are hurting. My stomach has been growling for who knows how long and my bladder is about ready to explode.

I clear my throat. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Then go where you stand.” Pestilence continues to stare into those flames like he can read the future from them.

He’s making it easier and easier for me to not feel guilty about shooting and burning him.

“If you’re hoping to keep me alive,” I say, “I’ll need to eat and drink and sleep and shit and piss.”

Any regrets yet, buddy?

He sighs, then gets up. Pestilence strides over to me, his stature commanding; he’s hardly the monster who woke me this morning, and that bothers me like no other.

Wearing the flannel shirt, jeans and boots, he looks painfully human. Even his eyes, which had seemed so alien when I first caught sight of him, now look full of life. Life and agony.