by Marlin Grail
I need to stop being the bitch I once was to everybody.
If you have to be one though, Lissie, then be the bitch who isn’t one to Gary and your people.
“Can you send some of your people to go reclaim his body?” I slowly speak out, having to take big gulps of sadness and shove it down my throat. This man, grabbing hold of his tie to loosen it, seems afraid I’ll just pounce at him the instant he denies my request. “It’s the mess outside that’s bothering you, isn’t it?”
“We’re not quite ready to open those doors.”
“Then start considering how to handle it. I want his body back here.”
“Miss Lissie—”
Here is where I rise up from the ground. The pins and needles I’ve feel all in my legs are ready to come out and spit at him through language and fire. But before any more chatter between us can occur, along with Janice trying to calm me down, one of his personnel grab his attention.
“There’s new intelligence about the—”
“Is it about Gary?” I ventilate the question in a high, hopeful, pitch.
The woman doesn’t know quite how to respond to me, stuttering until their “boss” gets the two of them back to their main center of operations. All of their hardware and test tubes mock me at a distance, describing a mystery that now has me stressing if Gary is alongside that mystery too.
I viciously rub my runny nose with my shirt.
I’m learning to practice a new division of interaction between the outside world, and my world. My world has a population of only five of us, and they are the ones I won’t bitch to like I will to any outsider.
“I’m sorry I fought with you, Janice,”
“Oh, sweetie, I know how rough you’ve had it.” She comforts first with her voice, and then with a thumb to wipe down my face.
I close my eyes as she does so, embracing the family my love, Gary, has given me. He gave me the family I always wanted.
I still just wish he could be here…
My eyes quickly flash open when Janice, I, and pretty sure everyone in the hangar, overhears the man lose his cool. He slams a fist on the table, visibly startling the woman he was talking to.
“Those lying sacks of shit!”
Chapter VI
(Gary)
5 Hours Earlier…
“Claw’s really doing this.” I can sense Ernie’s feeling as he watches my disbelief and sagging posture, even without having to look and see him.
“Did you know some of those people?” he asks gruffly.
“Not all of them. I knew one man. A really noble and sincere man. He helped me and my group believe there was good within Claw’s setup.” I take slow, stumpy, steps forward past the door I’ve been keeping watch by. “I think both of us got our hopes up about C.”
Jefald lets a little hiss of air slingshot out the side of his mouth. “That sucks, man.”
Holcomb agrees, though is not as reserved as Jefald is about it. “Gary, man. We gotta go hard in the paint on this, man! We gotta take him down!”
His adrenaline in defense of my dispirited attitude does throw a kick in my step. I straighten up. “That’s the next course of action.”
While Holcomb, Jefald, and I seem to boost one another up with determination, Ernie remains our coach that won’t get cocky during our big game. “We need to know how we’ll get to Casey first. I’d imagine C. and O. are nearby, already thinking the same as we are.”
“Fine. We now know this is the building,” Jefald elaborates. “I have the feeling they aren’t in that firefight. The Capitol is surrounded by the converted. Which means those followers won’t charge—”
“But those two could,” I finish off and begin with. “O. can control the undead, and Claw likely could too. Or at least O. protects him. They can sneak past Casey and his unit’s depth of perception, as long as they hide within the undead’s numbers.”
“Then let’s find our way over there,” Ernie advocates. “We’ll get to the building from the left side of the street, horizontal to the front.”
Our plan is set.
I stretch my wrists with by swirling them circularly. I then time them to end with a physical pound to my chest.
It’s time, Gary. It’s time to retaliate on Claw.
The four of us, though small in numbers, rally our hands to pat each other’s backs, before heading downstairs. In a movie, this is the part where dramatic music would begin playing. Only this is real life, and there’s no thumping orchestra drums and ambiance being heard.
All I hear is our stomping on the precarious floorboards…
Then there’s a noise from a closest door I didn’t hear beforehand.
Behind it shields and hides the recognizable scratchy and clogged throat of an undead. With only a few more feet until we reach the outside again, I’m ready to let this remain the haunting noises that’d be perfect for a haunted house.
This becomes truer when a word comes from behind that shut closet door. From the undead.
“Alllleeexx.”
Chapter VII
Without a doubt, its whispered pitch is performed by the same vocal cords of that undead. The sound it conveys is grotesque. It was far panned to the same side of the struggling and muffled ugly growls in the closet before stopping and projecting an actual word with its tongue.
The name Alex.
No. Not the Alex I’m thinking of.
“Gary. Why’d you stop?” Ernie questions from the outside front door.
“Wait. Just a moment,” I deflect, not quite ready to share what I heard.
I slip my sword out from its sheath. Its steel friction, with the little cling it makes from its legitimate durability sounds off when revealed, reassures my confidence to defend myself from whatever, even whoever, is behind this door.
It’s mortal like you, Gary. You know this. They can be killed too. Don’t be afraid.
No matter how many times I tell this to myself, the shakiness of the hand I extend to the closet door knob betrays me. I can’t get my mind to stop thinking the impossible.
You’re not Alex. You’re not Alex.
“You’re. Not. Alex!” This spills off my tongue as I rip open the door. With my sword hand, pulled to my side for a deadly plunge to this threat, I find myself not going in for the kill.
I can’t do it…
Not to Alex.
There’s no way to explain this. Alex’s young body, arms having not even the slightest flex of any muscle, only sways down by his sides. His head is angled in a way which does the bare minimum of carrying itself while glaring up at me. And his skin…
Oh god, no…
His small and higher-pitched yelps of gluttonous starvation made me believe the undead was a woman at first. The pitch was too high to be from a grown male’s body.
Now, I see why.
Alex’s undead body limps his way over to me. I partially lose track of where I am. I bump up to the wall behind me after taking several frightened steps away. The sight of him wounds me.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” I moan out in guilt.
You can’t be here! Yet, here you are!
“Gary!” Ernie yells out. He forcefully pulls me to his side, right as soon as Alex ruthlessly tries to lunge into my stomach. “What the hell, Gary!”
“Ernie, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean for this to happen—”
“For Christ’s sakes, man! Get it together!”
“How can I? Alex was under my protection!”
As I watch this youthful undead struggle its way back into the environment, looking in all directions before he finally notices where I went, it only tears off the scab of my misery of tonight.
Of all the guilt I have.
I was supposed to help protect Will’s friend. I couldn’t find him during Fort Washakie’s infestation, but I tried what I could to help him and his people!
“Gary, how do you know—”
“I just know, Ernie!”
I shrug his large
hand off my shoulder, puffing despair out of my lungs. Then, Ernie’s unwavering eyes reminds me of the order of things. Despair spins through its cycle of grief. That cycle is onto the next phase.
The next phase is revenge.
I’m going to kill you, Claw. I’m going to kill you!
Before I consider even looking outside, now unable to forget what happened in here, I can at least ensure all of Alex is put to rest. Ernie attempts to firmly keep me in place.
“Get that hand off of me this instant,” I coldly snap.
I recognize Ernie would normally take this opening to “retrain” me on how I’ve been behaving as a “soldier”. However, the thought of every moment from here on out being wasted, more seconds being added in favor for Claw and O., has him begrudgingly allowing me to do what I must. He tells me to simply hurry up.
I can’t gloss over listening to the sounds of Ernie’s feet slowly moving out, purposefully stalling from leaving.
“GO!”
I then turn my attention to the small body steadily limping towards me. My stomach clenches. Bile burns my throat. A little headshake in disbelief, and a snippet of begging Alex to stop heading towards me isn’t enough.
I have no choice at this point.
“Rest in peace,” I painfully croak. My voice is faint and far away.
The clean dug-in stab enters his temple, and my self-awareness of it is forgotten when his child’s body falls down. I lose control of my wrist’s strength, and it isn’t enough. I have to temporarily let go of my blade as it falls with him, so I don’t accidentally split open any more of his skin.
I was wrong. I’m not intrigued with death tonight. It’s all around this cursed city. This needs to be an in-and-out strategy.
“Ernie?” I call out loud.
There is no response. I figure he and the others are pushing upwards to the avenue perpendicular from this building. Without directly looking at him, I take the sword out of Alex’s body. I fail at avoiding his eyes.
They are blood-splatted. Not how his little boy irises were always meant to be. I have to remember these eyes once upon a time did give great and caring warmth.
They must be closed.
I hover over him, reaching down to those little folds of corrupted pigment of skin to close them tight. Suddenly, he snatches my wrist with a firm, savage hand.
There’s no way! There’s no way!
Chapter VIII
I wrestle against Alex’s strength. It seems more powerful than any single undead I’ve ever dealt with before. The eyes sync back awake, correlating with his mouth trying to chew my arm. Out of self-defense, I plunge my sword straight into his head, less caring as to whether it impales it too ferociously or not.
“You’re not real,” I declare in a thin pant.
I’m sitting on the hard floor, scooting backwards in instinctive fear to this unknown event. I keep repeating this over and over again when Alex’s snarls just won’t stop.
What is he? This can’t be real!
His back arches upward extensively off the floor, the way someone getting abducted by aliens in their bed might look at first. To my horror, Alex then rises to his feet, staring me down.
He’s apathetic to my hysterical gasps.
I get up as well, but this time I take the flight initiative, and sprint out of the building. That hellish invincibility I just witnessed has thoroughly made me panicked.
I’d better cut this out of mind.
I must pretend I was never there, in order to preserve my sanity.
“Ernie!” I call out to, forgetting the rationality that we’re intending to be stealth-like. I summon their presence by shouting all of their names, but there’s no response. Dashing in a zig-zag course from building front to building front, I clench my fists against my forehead as I feel the world close in on me more and more with the horrific feeling of isolation.
“Gary!” I finally hear back to my sagging relief.
Jefald signals a quick display of his hand swooshing to get me to their location. “On the roof! Quick!”
The building they’ve positioned themselves on top of has a peculiarity that might not catch most in my position off-guard in the heat of a moment like this. Except I’m too detailed-oriented to not see the problems.
Firstly, the door is closed, and we haven’t done that before to any of the other buildings we’ve entered. We’re not carrying mannerisms of shutting doors. Second, there are no windows, as though this would be the back-alley side of the building. Third and the final oddity, I hear footsteps pacing on the other side of this shut door, but I observed all three of our dispatch on the roof.
You have no choice, Gary. You must be ready for whatever abnormality you witness in there.
It’s no longer enough that I have my sword equipped to keep me sweating out bravery. I’m fully fearful for my life now. I let out a shuddering breath.
There’s no turning back now.
I pull out my Glock with my free hand. If I’m to be surprised, then I’ll initiate on the defense in a flash. I face my fears with a firm and precise kick to the door’s latch, busting the entrance wide open.
“Show yourself!” I demand, either to a living, or a living undead.
Those continuous footsteps march off in the other room, just to the left of me. My eyes glare sideways to whatever I’ll be exposed to. I’m not willing to deny to myself I’m afraid, but I’m doing so to deny them seeing me afraid.
“Well, Gary, you got me!” Those urbane hands in the air, his black facial hair curling a smile that mocks. And that awful laugh of his is the icing I want to melt with my fury.
“Claw!” I exclaim. “Your time is done!”
Without looking at his face, I see him casually shrugging his shoulders while tilting his neck to pop, all as though he sardonically agrees. It agitates me.
I want to see him realize he’s lost. I want him shaken up.
“On your knees!” I command. He draws out a long pause, but starts up a crescendo of laughter. My Glock’s frame sounds rickety when I squeeze firmer on its grip. “You get on your knees. Now.”
“Sure, big man,” he chuckles out. “You seem so distressed in your voice. I will say I pity you for everything you’ve lost.”
“Talk one more word, Claw.”
He’s within my sights, the back of his skull’s ready for a hatchling of bullets to pass through. Though, I can’t stop getting myself immersed in wanting to savor this moment.
Gary. This is not like you. You’re not someone who wants people, no matter how cruel they can be, to suffer. Finish him.
His fingers link together behind his head, a sure way to display himself as a hostage, but then he snaps his fingers, making a playful pop with his mouth at the same time.
Loud cracking of drywall and flooring above me begins, splitting straight down the middle, like icebergs coming apart.
This can’t be real!!! It’s not real!!!
I’m fairly positive now this is all a bizarre lucid dream of mine.
I think I’ll wake up in a matter of moments.
It doesn’t happen.
At least not until I see bits and pieces of the building come crashing down from above, shrouding me in darkness. My deafened ears can faintly pick out the words Claw’s striking me with. He can do it because he’s clearly not caught within this wreckage I’m.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, sweetcakes.”
What the hell?
A loud shrill of what only sounds like multiple screams in sync with each other raise ever more in volume. Then, nothing, but a hard slap to my face.
Chapter IX
Ernie’s hand makes contact with my face. It’s a hard and desperate slap. He doesn’t apologize for it, but I’m so thankful to the fact I can even feel it that he doesn’t even need to.
“Ernie!” I rush at him, along with firmly gripping his arm from fright. “What happened? What—”
“You tell us!”
We juggle our sho
ck back and forth. Ernie, and Holcomb, dig into me by explaining recent events first.
Events I thought we’ve already passed.
“The cloud, y-you just walked your merry way right into it. We couldn’t get to you in time, and we watched you head into this building.”
It was a dream then.
I vividly remember experiencing all of it, but I know that’s not possible for me to just fall asleep in a haze. Did my mind really conjure together such a nightmarish stage for me to waltz through, as though it felt as real as Ernie and Holcomb’s perplexed faces are right now?
The details were as vivid and as real as their emotions show now. They’re now starting to melt away into confused anger.
I’m not aware of all the details about this juncture to be fully apologetic over, but I make a beginning effort to by worrying about why I continuously count only three of us, and not four.
“Where’s Jefald?”
“We decided to come in here to free you. He got the idea to distract that polluted air in order to get it off, and is currently trying to lead it somewhere else,” Ernie answers first.
It’s a clear indicator to me that Ernie’s patience so far with what’s been happening to me is growing into a thin rope. I can see it in his eyes, firing up at me. I sense he could eviscerate that barrier between having and not having control at any moment.
“We told you not to go in it, and you did anyways!”
I tread carefully with my next few words, due to sensing he’ll flip if I so much even sound like I’m detouring off from being apologetic. I do and don’t.
“I’m sorry, Ernie. I shouldn’t have done that. Listen though. I had a surreal encounter in it. Some…hallucination. It made me believe we were already ahead than where we are at the moment.”
Holcomb delicately swings into the conversation over Ernie’s erupting groan. “Hold up. Are you telling us that you might have seen, like, a…premonition?”
“I don’t know. Some things fit what would be normal to tonight. Then other things were…completely unbelievable—if you can believe that.”