The Fourth Horseman

Part one: 

There’s a stretch of ground near my hometown that everyone says is cursed. Past the lamppost that only flickers between midnight and 1 AM — past the gutted remains of the house which has burned down four times, never to be rebuilt again — through the lingonberry bushes that are ripe all year; there you’ll find it. A patch of fine powdered dirt hidden in a copse of birch trees. The same rich earth that the rest of the verdant wilderness thrives on, although no grass or flowers or even the hardiest weed can be seen struggling through this blighted space.

My grandfather says they used to burn witches there. Mom says that’s silly and we’ve never had a witch, although she still warned me to keep my distance. My little brother Tommy was convinced somehow that its a chemical spill from when the old railroad was still being used. He said he bets we could get superpowers from hanging around there, but I told mom and she yelled at him until he promised to stay clear. Tommy was mad at me for a long time after that, even though I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble. You’ve got to look out for your brother and keep him safe, that’s what mom always said.

I had no way of knowing the truth for certain, but here’s what I do know:

In 1995 two high-school boys brought switchblades to the place and ripped each other to shreds. By all accounts they were inseparably close friends before the incident, and no-one in either family had the faintest understanding of the altercation. There was speculation regarding a girl they both had eyes on, but it was impossible to confirm as neither boy survived. Again in 2001 a newly married couple were found dead on the same spot. Double-suicide.

I wrote a paper on the subject when I was in school, uncovering a few more inexplicable occurrences. 1971 was the driest year on record, and to make matters worse, the local farmlands were devastated by a swarm of locusts. This was the only locust sighting anywhere within a hundred miles, and after that year they were never seen again. Then there was an account of four men being hung in the woods in 1934 (although the specific location wasn’t divulged). The article said that the executioners left them up overnight, returning the next morning to discover the dead men missing. Others dismissed the event at the time as the work of wild animals, but the executioners insisted otherwise. They’d said there were four sets of footprints leaving the scene, clearly distinguishable since the party rode in and out of the woods on horseback.

The whole strange history was nothing but an idle curiosity for me though, soon forgotten as I was swept up in the practical matters of school drama and preparations for college. Graduation was a rather bitter-sweet time for me due to my grandfather’s declining health, but I’m grateful that we kept talking until the end. After I’d left for college, Tommy is the one who got really close to him. I guess they were both lonely and needed a friend, and I think Grandpa’s passing was harder on him than anyone.

His death didn’t come as a surprise, but the circumstances of his death were truly bizarre. His autopsy revealed that he was riddled with maggots which had been feasting on him while he was still alive. The condition known as myiasis sometimes afflicts livestock in hot tropical weather, but grandfather hadn’t traveled anywhere in years and the doctor was baffled as to their origin.

There was a certain evasiveness in mom’s voice when she told me over the phone, and I knew there had to be something she was leaving out. The next week when I came home for the funeral, Tommy confirmed that Grandpa had been taking long walks alone in the woods the last few weeks of his life.

“He had this mad idea that something in the woods was going to cure him,” Tommy told me. “I didn’t encourage it. I never said a word about it, one way or the other. It didn’t feel like my place to rip his last hope out from under him, you know?”

“Did he go to the cursed place?” I asked.

“He didn’t talk about it. I asked to go with him, but he said it was something he had to find out for himself…” Tommy’s voice trailed off there. He kept blinking and half-turning away from me. I could see how much it hurt him to talk about, but I still had to ask:

“What was he trying to find out?”

He shrugged helplessly, still not looking at me when he replied. “He said he met Death between the trees. Thought that as long as he kept an eye on Death, then it couldn’t sneak up on him.” He tried to laugh it off, but it sounded more like a sob, so he forced a thin smile instead. “Maybe he was right though. Maybe he looked Death full in the face when it took him. If it’s your time to go, then I suppose there’s some dignity in that, right? That’s what a real man would do.”

I don’t know if the idea brought him any comfort, but it certainly didn’t sit well with me. Worse still, I got a worried phone call from mom a few days later after I’d already returned to campus.

“I don’t want to alarm you or anything and I’m not saying you have to make another trip back home…” she started the conversation with, as if that was supposed to reassure me, “but you should know that we’re having trouble finding your brother.”

“Finding? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You lost him?”

“We didn’t lose him. We know he’s been taking these walks, but it’s starting to get dark and no-one has heard from him in a few hours…”

“What kind of walks? In the woods?”

“Not far. He usually just goes down to the end of the street where that burned-out house is. I wouldn’t even mention it, but Tommy has been acting really weird since your grandfather’s funeral and we’re all a little worried…”

“Strange things like seeing Death in the woods?” The words sounded so foreign and ridiculous in my mouth.

“So he’s told you too? It’s not like him to say things like that, but he sounded so insistent —”

“I can be there in a few hours,” I told her. “Just keep me updated if you hear anything, okay?”

But they didn’t hear anything the whole time I was driving back. Even though the sun had long set and the air was taking on a ghastly chill, no-one had seen him anywhere. They’d even called the police by the time I arrived, sending a squad car to start sweeping the woods. That was a lot of ground to cover for two officers though, and I had a hunch that could narrow it down.

I didn’t even stop long enough to greet my parents — I pulled straight up to the burned house and parked, dashing through the familiar trails. The wind was singing in the trees that night, swelling and ebbing like a well-practiced chorus. It bit through my thin school windbreaker, sharp enough for me to feel the prickling sting on my skin. Curse or no curse, I couldn’t imagine a middle-schooler faring well alone on a night like this. I kept seeing the glimmer of far-off flashlights flickering through the woods, but they were searching in the wrong place. When the lights caught the gnarled tree bark from the right angle the shadows would splash across the ground in more twisted and nightmarish shapes than my imagination could supply, but I didn’t let that distract me.

“Tommy! Get your ass back here!” I shouted as loud as I could, fresh and invigorated from the thrill of my break-neck drive. The moment the words left my mouth I felt an unnatural hush fall over the woods though. The wind died so suddenly that it felt like I was in the presence of some colossal creature which was holding its breath to listen. I kept shouting, although not as loudly as before, my words feeling suddenly intrusive and unwelcome in the heavy stillness.

Those carrying the flashlights must have heard me though, because they were moving in the opposite direction now — doubtlessly splitting up the search to cover more ground. I kept shouting, as much to disrupt the terrifying silence as it was for Tommy’s sake. Stories and rumors that I hadn’t thought about in years were flooding my mind, even the most absurd explanations seeming plausible in the eldritch atmosphere. I suppose that’s why I was barely even shocked when I too saw Death stalking through the trees beside me.

The scythe gave it away. The blade was so thin that I could see the meager moonlight glowing through its metal, although the light didn’t seem to pierce the blade as much as it was trapped along its edge. My lungs were already full and I had been about to shout again, but upon seeing it the words strangled in my throat. There was nothing particularly significant about the man holding the scythe: balding but for a few tufts of hair, grubby fingers clutching the ebon shaft, the harassed features of a man unqualified for his responsibilities. It was the weapon itself that held such fascination for me, ethereal as a morning mist yet enduring as an axiom of the universe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so beautiful in my life.

I froze as the man stooped suddenly, thinking myself spotted. He rose again a moment later with a fistful of ripe lingonberries. Inspecting them critically for a moment, he discarded the bunch only to stoop and harvest more. This was repeated several times while I remained perfectly still, until at last he seemed satisfied and turned to leave. I kept my distance as I followed, barely daring to breathe lest I give myself away. Any rational person would have asked him whether he’d seen my brother or try to recruit him in the search, but all it took was glimpsing that magnificent blade to understand traditional reason was impotent in such extraordinary circumstances.

“I’ve got the berries. The best ones I could find. Best ones in the whole forest, in the whole world.”

His words startled me and I immediately cowered behind a tree, wondering whether I had been spotted or he had an unseen accomplice.

“Master, please. I’m hurrying.”

False alarm, it seemed. He was only talking to himself. I allowed myself to cautiously follow once more…

“I got him already,” the man rambled on, “right where you instructed me to leave him. I promised you it would be done tonight, didn’t I? You can trust me. I’m a good boy. I’m a good boy, master, the best boy you ever had.”

Got him? Tommy? The man seemed so oblivious that I was able to quite easily close the distance without raising his alarm. I suppose I was oblivious too though, so intent upon the pursuit that I didn’t notice the cover of trees suddenly vanishing around me. Barren dirt saturated in moonlight — there could be no doubt that I had stumbled across the cursed place. I scrambled to dive back to the tree-line and maintain my concealment, but in my haste I failed to avoid the dry branches underfoot. The crack was as loud as a snapping spine in the frozen air.

“Get away!” the man shouted, more warning than a threat. “Not on the hallowed ground. Don’t step on the —”

But I wasn’t going anywhere. Tommy lay prone in the dirt, crumpled unceremoniously as though he’d been thrown. Great heaps of dry kindling surrounded him, perforated with herbs and berries, as well as other bundled objects I couldn’t recognize. This could be nothing but the work of a madman.

The lunatic I’d mistaken for Death gave me no time to analyze the situation further, and by the rising of that baleful scythe, I was forced into action. The first swipe fell well short of me, testing his range. His wild eyes reflected the light which seemed to emanate directly from the blade, gleeful and terrified at the same time.

“Hey Tommy! You okay? Do something!” I shouted, not taking my eyes from my adversary. No response.

The second blow almost clipped me in the stomach, but I managed to back-peddle away just in time. He’d swung too hard and was over-extended, so I charged inside his range to grab the ebon handle. I was shocked when he relinquished his grip so easily, tumbling to the ground to leave the scythe in my hands.

“Take it then! See what good it does you!” the man howled, practically giggling to himself in his madness.

The weapon was so light that I couldn’t even feel its weight. The texture of the shaft was smooth to the point of sliminess, like it was nothing but a viscous liquid slowly dripping down my fingers. Still clutching the weapon in case the man attacked again, I rushed to where my brother lay amid the piled kindling. His eyes were open, but his skin was ice to the touch. I felt for a pulse at his neck, recoiling as my fingers brushed the maggots which squirmed densely beneath his t-shirt.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…” I kept repeating. I tried to lift my brother, but the maggots swarmed from hidden crevices in his clothing and body. It was so nauseating that I had to drop him again.

“He’s dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a dead donkey, as a dead man — dead man — dead lucky. Lucky one, that’s what he is.”

I turned on the madman savagely, still clutching the scythe. His fingers tentatively reached out for it before he pulled himself back: a starving man reaching for forbidden food.

“Not me — not my fault,” the man howled, burying his face in the dead earth. He peered through his fingers at me as I approached, glancing fretfully around him before continuing in a whisper: “Master told me so. The way is here. Open the way. Open open like a box of candy and out they pop — precious candy.”

“I swear to God…” I hissed, not sure what to threaten or even what I was capable of in that moment. There was no-one to judge me for what I did next, and even if there were, they would understand after what he did to my brother.

“Going to kill me? Okay okay.” The man knelt before me, extending his neck, his rambling muffled as he spoke into the dirt. “Death would like that. He needs a champion — an avatar — and he doesn’t like me. He hates me, but I’m the best he’s got. War has better. Famine has better. Pestilence — ooh pestilence is going to rock the world — rock it like a baby. But I’m the best Death’s got.”

What could I possibly ask to penetrate that cloud of nonsense? All I could do was listen and pray for some clue hidden in his slurred speech.

“Four worlds — one, two, three, four, stacked like pancakes. Not pancakes — more like a jawbreaker. Not a jawbreaker either — more like a star, with Earth at the center. This holy ground is the bridge the four horsemen must ride. Death wants my help, but Death doesn’t want me. Master says —” he paused, lifting his head to the wind as though listening to something only he can hear. His eyes sparkled with the eureka of his discovery. “Master says you must kill me. Master says I’m all used up, and you will be the horseman of Death.”

What came after was nothing but a blur. The madman leapt from the ground and charged at me with such ferocity that I had to dive to the ground to avoid him. Not at me though — he was barreling toward my brother and the pile of kindling. I chased after him — too slow to stop the fire. I didn’t see how it started, but it moved fast, soaring into the air to consume my brother’s body. Thick clouds of noxious fumes rose from the herbs and the burning flesh, and the popping of a thousand maggots encompassed me like fireworks.

“You like that, Master?” the madman shrieked. “You didn’t believe in me, but I did it. I opened the door. I had the key to your own house, Master, and I opened the door.” Then turning on me, the maniacal fire filling his eyes — “What are you waiting for? Go to him. Go to your brother. To him and through — to Death’s true Kingdom — the boy is waiting. Or kill me if you’re too afraid. Give Death what he wants and kill me, take the scythe for yourself. The choice is yours.”

For a split second I considered braving the fire to reach my brother’s body, but more than heat repelled me that night. His skin trembled from head to foot — which I first took to be the death throes of the cooking maggots — but it was his bones that were moving on their own accord. Starting with his fingers, then his wrist and up his arm, his bones were ripping free of the skin, discarding the husk of his body to pile into a blasphemous structure of their own design. Long bones from his legs and arms stood vertically atop each other, and as the flame purged the rest of his flesh, the bones were left untouched. In a matter of seconds they had assembled a low archway, through which a black mist promised an alien world no mortal eyes should ever look upon.

Going to the house of Death or wielding this divine weapon to get revenge on my brother’s killer though it meant serving Death himself? What kind of choice was that?

Part Two:

My name is Daniel Hearthrow, and I have seen Death. I’m not speaking of the individual death of my brother, or even the spectral forms which are bound to this timeless place. God or Devil or something else entirely, I have seen the face which has watched over humanity since the first mewling of our most venerable ancestors. And though the unstoppable march of eons may tamper all spirit to sorrow, all civilization to dust, and all life to ash, I know he will still be watching from his eternal throne. Could anyone blame me for being afraid?

“Woosh they go by so fast. Woosh like an bird — like a big bird — big like a tiger, soft like a kitten.”

I wanted to hate the madman who used Tommy’s body to make that abominable portal, but watching his childlike play through the pooling mist, I knew he lacked the capacity for any deliberate evil. I can’t imagine that Death would have chosen such a champion, so I can only assume he was reduced to this pitiful state from carrying the gossamer scythe which I brought with me into Death’s Kingdom.

Though it was weightless in my hand, I could feel the burden of its presence in my mind. It felt like carrying the guilt of betraying everything I loved, while lacking the specific memory of what I did. Holding the scythe, it seemed I was constantly pursued without knowing my pursuer, constantly afraid without a source, constantly mourning over something I never had, all bubbling just below my conscious awareness into a great sea of nameless foreboding anxiety. Even so, I dared not discard it for the greater dread of what was yet to come.

“They’re still alive. Did you know?” My companion leapt through another pool of black mist, briefly dispersing the vaguely humanoid shape which then reformed a little farther away.

I scanned the desolate landscape around me, dead lifeless ground to match the cursed place back on Earth, only now it was flooded so thickly with the shades that I could barely see a dozen feet in any direction. Some were so translucent I didn’t notice them until they were an inch from my face, while others were so dense and solid that they could have been a real person on a dark night.

“I thought they were ghosts or something,” I said, passing my hand through one as I went. It felt like sticking my fingers in ice-water.

“Not dead — corpse and rotting bits, none of that. They’re all dying though. These are the shades of the living. Every day they die a little more on Earth, every day a little more real here, until one day POP!” He leaned close to my ear to make the ’POP’ with his mouth, and I flinched. “POP they’re dead, and here they are.”

The madman scampered away from me to leap through the faint shade of a child. Indeed most of the children and infants were the faintest, while the old men and women seemed most tangible. Of course there were exceptions, and I gingerly stepped over a squirming baby which seemed so real I thought I could hear it cry. Its time must be soon. I shuddered off the chill and hurried to keep pace with the prancing fool.

“Come along, come along,” he rambled. “We won’t find your brother here. He’s already popped. POP! Like a zit. POP like a weasel like a —”

“Why are you helping me?” I interrupted.

He paused, miming a dance with one of the shadows which seemed oblivious to his presence.

“Is it even possible to bring Tommy back from this place?”

He turned and beamed at me — a strained, forced grin. “Seven years,” he said through his clenched teeth.

“What?”

“Seven years I carried that scythe. I seen things you wouldn’t believe — like a toad the size of an elephant — well not that specifically, that’s just an example of something you wouldn’t believe. Seven years though, and Death just threw me away. If you want to stick it to him, that’s okay with me.”

“Tommy can come back to life then?”

The grin widened. So did his eyes. “Look look over there!” A wild hand pointing behind me.

My jittery muscles responded in an instant. Spinning, crouching, readying my blade all in one movement — only to face the barren dirt. Glancing back at the madman, I saw him dashing up a rocky hillside.

“Careful careful with the blade. It can chop a carrot like a knife, but it can also chop the spirit like a carrot. Snip snip — even the dead can die.”

How desperate I must have been to follow this man, but how much more desperate I would be to find myself alone on this alien shore. I hurried in pursuit, quickly scaling the outcropping. The mist dispersed as I climbed, and joining him at the top I finally got a clear view of my destination.

Black obsidian slabs, each a mountain onto itself, leaned against one another piling toward the precarious summit of the gargantuan tower. Lesser spires circled its base, so raw and jagged that they looked like they’d been carved out of the Earth with an ax, yet each taller than any building I had ever seen. Something in the architecture reminded me of a gothic cathedral on a massive scale, and every minuscule facet of the structure was intricately carved with untold billions of faces. Eyes watched me from each perfectly chiseled face — real, wet, blinking human eyes, catching the dull twilight as they stared at me.

“KNOCK KNOCK! Are you home, Death?” My companion yelled, louder than I thought possible in this muted atmosphere. “KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK —”

“Shut up — I swear to God —”

“God’s not home right now. Please leave a message —”

“Stop talking! Please. Stop. Talking,” I begged.

“KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK —”

The tension in my body overflowed, and without even realizing what I was doing, I lashed out to strike him on the side of his head. A flicker of surprise twisted his features, and then without making any attempt to catch himself, he crumpled into a heap. Seeing Tommy burn, the anxious dread from the scythe, the horror of this place, and this rambling idiot — I couldn’t take it. I stood above him panting, my head reeling, helplessly turning in circles to see if anything heard us.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I hissed. “I shouldn’t have done that. I mean, God knows you deserved it, but I know you were trying to help and I’m sorry. Just get up, okay? Tell me what I have to do now.”

Knock. Knock. Knock. I breathed a sigh of relief. Knock knock — the breath caught halfway. The madman wasn’t moving. Wasn’t speaking. The knocking was coming from somewhere inside the tower. Knock knock — no louder than footsteps at first, but swelling with every beat. Knock — the whole blasphemous pinnacle was reverberating, beckoning and repulsing me with its mystery.

“What is that? Hey hey wake up! Should I be running?”

The knocking abruptly stopped, and the silence was deafening. I’m sure I’d been in the presence of utter silence before, but something felt different about this. Even the stillest moment in the dead of night was louder than this.

“It’s your heartbeat.” Directly behind me, a voice like two sheets of silk brushing against each other. My muscles tensed again, but I was so rigid that I couldn’t even turn. “You’ve grown so accustomed to hearing your own heartbeat that you don’t even notice it anymore. Now that it’s stopped, you can hear the difference.”

I had to make a conscious effort to control every minuscule movement, laboring to convince each muscle fiber to pivot and face what I dared not look upon. It was nothing but another shade though, so real and close that I could almost make out its features. I tried to speak, but my throat was so tight that nothing but a thin croak escaped me.

“Your shade is almost ripe.”

The voice was behind me again, apparently unrelated to the specter I found. I felt like I was re-learning how to use my own body, and my next turn came swifter — just in time to see a figure turn and begin striding toward the tower. I didn’t get a proper look at his face, but watching him depart, I observed something far more unbelievable than a ‘toad the size of an elephant’. I couldn’t tell whether it was wearing a long white gown, or whether that was its skin hanging in loose folds, the two being so seamlessly interwoven together. Around the hem of its arms and legs, open mouths were embedded within the material from all manner of animals and humans, smacking and licking their lips as though alive. The shoulders and head gradually became a deep purple, perfectly merging with the hood which had another mouth at the base of its skull, altogether forming one continuous piece of multi-hued flesh which hung as a robe might.

“Don’t forget my scythe,” he added. “You’ll be needing it.”

A last glance at the fallen madman — did he just wink? — but no time to wonder. All my fears and all my questions converged on the figure I can only call Death. As surely as I was bound and dragged, I was swept up in his direction toward the tower. In the brief silence I was conscious of the awful silence and the stillness of my heart — broken moments later by footsteps behind me. It was my shade, matching me as a shadow might step-for-step.

“Do try to relax. You aren’t any good to me as a wooden board,” Death said without turning. “As long as your shade is still indistinct, it means that there is some life in you yet. When you can see its features as clearly as your own though, you will know that your end is near.”

“Is my brother’s shade here?”

“Could be. I saw one of them scampering around me recently — I’ve never been able to distinguish them very well.”

“I’m taking him home with me,” I said. Silence. Footsteps. It was unnerving having that thing walk right behind me all the time.

“That’s impossible. I’m using him in the portal. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a reliable gateway? My horseman was my only hand over there, and you saw for yourself how worthless he is.” Death halted abruptly, turning to stare at me. No eyes — no mouth — no features at all. Just blank skin, almost like a naked mole rat, stretched so tight it might rip from the pressure. I stopped abruptly too, feeling a chill on my back. My shade had been following so close that it bumped into me. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

As we descended the rocky hilltop, the black shades were growing thick again. “Tommy?” I shouted indiscriminately at the crowd. “Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?”

Some of the more corporal ones turned to watch us go, while the faint forms were oblivious to our presence.

“Pestilence’s horseman has been alive for 350 years. Can you believe that? He can stir up potions that would turn all of humanity into one great bloody boil. War’s avatar: 200 years, despite the profession. And here I am going through champions like they’re cigarettes. The scythe drives them all mad, I’m afraid, but I —”

“What the hell are you talking —”

“But I refuse,” Death hissed over my interruption with extra vehemence, “I REFUSE to water down the truth of my essence for the mere sake of man’s sanity. Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking.”

“Are you offering me a job? Did you forget that you killed my brother?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Death huffed, the tone flirting with offended. “Not on a cosmological scale at least. He’s been dead since before he was born. I just hurried him along his time-line a bit. The fact is that Earth is our battleground, but I can’t get there without a door. The other Grotesques — as one charming poet chose to call us — all have own doors too, but I’ll need your help in closing those.”

“So you can, what? Take over the world?”

“Typical, conceited question from a human. You only think you’re fighting us, just like an ant believes its fighting a horse who doesn’t even notice stepping on it. The fact is that any of the Grotesques could obliterate the human race without raising a sweat, but we spend so much time trying to destroy each other that we hardly have any time.”

“Sounds like you’re the conceited one.” I didn’t have any fight in me, but I still had to say something. I was representing the human race here.

“1346,” Death shot back. “Pestilence had trapped the rest of us in one of those vile cesspits of his. 50 million dead by the time we swam out. 1960, famine in China. I was redecorating my house instead of keeping an eye on Famine, and 43 million people starved to death. You really don’t know how lucky you are to have us.”

My shade wasn’t the only one following me. There was another, and he looked so solid that he must have left Earth entirely. Shorter than me, the silhouette of shaggy hair, that distinctive loping jog — it was Tommy. He’d heard me. He knew I was here for him. I pretended not to notice, doing my best not to let my excitement show. I don’t think Death had been lying. He really couldn’t tell them apart.

“I think we’d be luckier if all four portals were closed,” I prompted to keep him occupied.

Death stopped abruptly again, now standing directly before the obsidians monolith. “Do you really think eternal life is such a blessing to bear?”

I stared at that faceless mask and shuddered. My brother was close now — almost as close as my own shade, which I only now realized was changing before my eyes. It was getting denser. More defined. Its black eyes were even starting to open.

“Ah good, you’ve noticed,” Death said. “I want you to listen very carefully. Your end is growing closer with every moment you resist me. Take the scythe, and kill the man on the hill. Go back to Earth, and close the other portals. Do this, and you have my word I will co-exist with humanity in a much more peaceful arrangement. Succeed your task, and they will never again suffer from Famine, Pestilence, or War.”

What was his word worth to me? Although true in one regard, the longer I hesitated, the more real my shade was becoming before my eyes. Its black eyes were staring into my own, and it looked so close to lunging at me that I unconsciously braced myself.

As though sensing my uncertainty, a thin wisp of a voice snuck through the silence of my approaching death.

“Cut me now! I’ll be free from here, and the portal will close.” It was Tommy, standing right by my side just like he always did. “We never needed anyone else but us.”