by Marlin Grail
But it’s clearly a disappointment on my end.
I’m not enamored, smitten, or anywhere close to infatuated by this woman. Ultimately, she’s responsible for causing Claw to start up an organization, which the residue of being in it will stick forever on me.
On Ominous. The loss of Jacob and Mitchell. Josh. Alex and his people. Trey, and all the others that followed him and lost their lives. Even that AWOL soldier.
It’s all because of her.
Grim wraps herself around me, hugging the same cold, stone statue she kissed back in Cheyenne. This must be the “seriousness” she was referring too, because she won’t stop rubbing against me.
“So, Gary, why not just confess your love for me here?”
I cock my head slightly as my vision goes fuzzy from light-headedness. It’s an anger so visceral from the idea of me ever having any love for her…
Yet, she’s waiting for me to say something. And, need I remind myself, she has Casey and all of these soldiers at her command?
Just say anything, Gary. Say anything false, yet convincing, to get her demonic breath to stop breathing down your neck.
I can’t think about what Lissie will think hearing me. I have to block out the imagination of her hurt, and just pray she’ll understand why I’m doing this.
“Let me look at you.”
Grim gives that request a pulse, before following it exactly. Her face looks cold. It’s the palest, most gaunt features I’ve seen on a person, but she’s so happy in her mad smile, as though everything’s right.
Maybe for her.
Not for long.
“You…you are what I’ve been searching for.” I say these words on the fly, as though I’m writing lyrics. “There…um…there isn’t anybody I would want to see have your unique attitude.”
I’m out of practice because this is much harder than any writer’s block I had before.
“Mmm,” she hums, apparently interested in what I’m saying.
Good. As I look all around while brewing these damned words up, it gives me time to imagine what openings there might be to flee. Flee as I scream for Hannibal and his officers to attack.
“I…it…pains me to see you need all this protection around you, when you can protect yourself…especially now that I’m here.” My eyes focus in on Casey, and she curiously turns to see exactly who I was pinpointing.
She gives me a high-energy nod in agreement. “You’re right, love! Now that I have you, I don’t need anyone else around.”
It is here she gives an order. One of her hands leaves my waist, freeing me for a brief, joyful moment. With only a second delay to process the order, Casey and his unit appear to fully understand her command. They seem to be okay knowing this is the last possible one she gives them.
I’m certain, that once I give the word, they’ll swing their way back from the echoing of a few pulled triggers. We’ll deal with you, Casey, later.
I manage to take this opportunity to glance over at Claw, who’s still remaining on the broken container platform. He’s visibly enraged, and probably ready to have an “I object!” moment fairly soon.
“Never mind that fool.” Grim discards him in a brisk tone, a sign she’s moved on from Claw, and likely moved on from all those remaining three that make up C.F.O.G.
She said this intentionally loud enough for him to overhear. At this point, I expect a jealous and wounded man to storm his way to us, or rather me, from indignation.
The surprise is the direction of his movement. Claw strides long and angrily up the slope of the landfill, pushing several of Casey’s unit out of his path.
Giving up? That’s not the C. he presented himself as.
I watch as he moves out of sight, watch as he has to wait for several of Casey’s unit to mow down the undead wrapping around the area that now has a blown-opened container. I observe how ridiculous the undead are when trying to vault over the jagged gaping spots of the container’s barrier, at least the part that’s somewhat intact still.
Grim isn’t standing for it any further. In fact, she stops standing entirely. Grim lifts off the ground, expecting me to catch her and hold her up by her thighs.
Good. This makes her descent when I drop her more of a stun.
“Tell me more before I seal our marriage with a kiss,” she pleas. Grim’s eyes have narrowed into maddened slits.
She can’t hold on anymore from desire.
Too bad for her, I’m starting to feel I can’t hold onto her bare thighs a moment longer. It’s horrifying for me to imagine how wrong this would look for Lissie.
If she hasn’t already seen what’s been happening, and already cursed my name a million times over.
Trust me, Lissie. I don’t want anything to do with Grim. I have no chemistry, and no relations with her. The only common quality is our immunity, and I have trouble believing we’re even the same on that playing field.
“Well…I…I believe…” My attention keeps wandering over to make certain Claw, Casey, and all the soldiers are out of sight.
I know, in the back of my mind, that I’ll have to further wait beyond just visual. I’ll have to give time for them to disperse so they won’t be able to hear anything that comes from this landfill.
“Hey,” she curtly breaks into my thoughts. “Don’t mind Odhran. He’s out of the picture from me. For good.”
Calling him by his real name? Is that to signify you really don’t want to be C.F.O.G. anymore?
I exhale in relief that she hasn’t caught on. I offer a fake apology with a faker smile. “Forgive me, Grim. Actually, my sweet, can I be given your real name?”
She bites her lower lip and smiles. “It’s Gada.”
“Do you like that name? Would that be the name you’d want to be identified with until your death?”
“I’m never going to die.”
That arrogance will be your downfall.
“Well, then, Gada…”
Her lips pucker to my unspoken, but misleading command.
I tease Grim by having her hold that face for a minute. Her eyes are closed. Her moans are breathy, presumably yearning for my contact.
I told her this is how to finish our “ceremony” here. We wait for a long time, in frozen expression, as proof we really want to be here.
I welcome this moment to stay as long as it can, and I welcome Ominous’ malevolent smirk at me.
I come close to her lips, whispering against them, “This is what you get.”
Thump!
Chapter LIX
What started as a surrender to her despotism has ended in a sprinting getaway.
Grim is screaming for Claw. It’s the whip for me to hobble faster. Ominous assists me by yelling out over her to our aid. We call out our strike force to do what they were secretly ready to do.
Strike.
Obviously, as they curl around the monumental trash pile, all except for Lissie, they aim at nothingness. It seems they’re unsure exactly where the assault should be. It’s likely from expecting guns to be trained on us, but I made sure Grim has fallen to her lowest point.
I provided the nudge, but she made it happen all on her own.
She’s knocked on the ground. Alone, and desperately demanding for Claw and the others to return to her. She’s even entreating Ominous, who now stands before her.
“I never cared for you, or Clouse, or Fidel. I left the base for my own expedition. The three of you just assumed I’d be a part of it because of what have in common.”
Being the giant he is apparently intimidates her. She cowers somewhat when he comes closer to her face.
Still, she defiantly spits, “But you know what? Even with that, I’m nowhere near as much a disgrace as you are.”
I yell at him to leave the firing zone. I purposely mention the very words “firing zone” in that statement, so she’s also aware this is the end of her.
She’ll be terrified, but it’s the justice we’re responsible for seeing. Especially considering
there was none she gave to so many during her reign of terror.
“Fine. Farewell, Gada—”
I should’ve known better than to think it would end like this.
Chapter LX
A zip of a merciless and tiny object changes everything. Only a gun could make it reach that kind of speed and velocity.
I can hear it cut Ominous off.
None of us could catch sight of the bullet itself, but we can see what it’s done. The bullet penetrates his back and goes through to his front. Both of his hands shake as they touch his chest and realize what damage has been done.
Time. If only I let time bleed through a little longer. If only I held out about keeping my hands on her thighs for several more minutes. If only I’d given her a damned kiss to keep her content…
Grim, who’d been cowering on the ground, gets back up. She does this by leveraging Ominous’ incapacitated shoulders, which makes him collapse to his knees as they trade positions.
The sounds of tumbling gravel echoes in the thick silence. It’s Claw coming back down the slope, skillfully sliding. It’s apparent he has three distinctive weapons in both hands.
There’s a brown and rusted-looking glove on his right. It curves sharply inward at the edge of each fingertip. He’s also gripping my sword within that hand. He’s equipped with a revolver in his left, which still takes aim directly at Ominous.
He’s taken another of us. They’ll plan to take us all.
Part of me wants Hannibal and his officers open fire on Claw. He’s currently outnumbered, but Ominous remains alive, and in the crossfire.
He’s on our side. I can’t abuse this moment to rid of them all, including Ominous.
Odhran helped—
I watch it happen before I can finish my thought.
Claw makes ground between him and Odhran without hesitation, on a mission to save Grim. I see Claw twist back his right arm, the one with my sword, to his side.
He unwinds that coiled-up arm.
It thrusts slowly through Odhran.
It isn’t a sorrowful, put-him-out-of-his-misery act. Claw manages to laugh when Odhran can only gurgle in pain. He twists the sword inside his body with as much force as he can.
End his pain, Hannibal. Give the order no matter what happens to us.
Nothing.
Even if Hannibal’s soldiers would take orders from me, it’s too late to even get my hand in the air as a signal to open fire. We’re being opened fired upon faster than I can acknowledge it.
Rather than head-on from the entrance they all originally breached open, Casey and his unit seem to be working with the element of being ghosts.
Ghosts who can definitely kill us.
We can’t spot their figures anywhere. Only the sounds of their fire crackles popping from above the landfill helps us figure out exactly where they could be.
In the tree-lines! They mean to get us from the sides! Start at the front, and circle us in the back!
It’s surreal to feel like fish in a barrel. I almost deny the bullets hitting the gravel soil as being deadly, but that’s due to being scared stiff. Hannibal and practically all of his officers have retreated back behind the monumental trash piles.
But I can only watch their retreat for so long. I have something more pressing to worry about.
Odhran.
I want to help him, but it’s already too late. I watch in sorrow as the life fades from his eyes.
I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you my name. It was a peace offering and I didn’t take it. Forgive me, Odhran.
Rage pumps through me, but my body is frozen. What doesn’t help my paralysis is Claw’s ferocious glare. It stays on me while he slips the sword back out of Odhran’s body.
Grim twists to look behind her, scanning to find me. When she does, she shows how elated she is from this turn of events. “You’ve just caused more death to come than I ever have!” she taunts with a smile.
I started this, and I’m going to finish it. I’m killing you.
There is one officer left that hasn’t fallen back entirely with Hannibal and the others, but is still on the move to safety. I look over, fixated to the weapon in his hands.
I’m greedy for the kill. Give me this. Please.
I shout in his direction. He’s not confused. “Take them out!” he encourages as he avoids a spray of bullets from above while he tosses over his only weapon.
I won’t forget this. I won’t forget the deed that’s about to be done, nor the sacrifice you have just made. Odhran.
I thought I had flawless eye-hand coordination, but I miss the catch.
The moment I scramble to grab it, that is the moment where the lone officer successfully gets away from Claw’s warning shots. The madman barks out my name.
Without looking, I know he already has the draw on me.
Chapter LXI
My life is undoubtedly threatened at this distance. His iron sights wouldn’t necessarily require full concentration for a precise shot. I’m uncertain how to not have the imprinting question circle through my mind.
What will happen to me?
It’s a little fortuitous on my end when Claw makes his cocky ways known—just like I expect. “To kill you now wouldn’t be savory. No.”
I figure he’ll allow me to look at him, obviously with confusion as to why he wouldn’t bag his nemesis here.
He has a crooked smirk. It fits his next proposal.
“Gary, you’re going to battle me. In the ways of men who had to truly show their worthiness and compatibility.”
It’s perplexing how he thinks. This is happening at the end of a widespread concert of gunfire, one which conveniently had Hannibal and all of his officers answer the call to fall back.
The window to take out Claw or Grim is firmly closed. To shoot at them now would be to expose themselves to the ghosts above.
They continue to stay down as suppressing firepower traps them further in the back of this landfill.
They can’t help me. They have to protect what Odhran wanted protected. His people. And they can’t do that if they’re not alive.
All of this disorganized chaos is clearly in Claw’s advantage. Yet he expects me to not rebel against it, to not take this gun I have, and do what we’re all rooting for—end this insane war.
But it comes back to the same thing.
Claw has the draw on me first, and I don’t.
Play along. Play with him like you did Grim. Except this time, discard any other cares in the world. Take this opportunity to finally finish it all. To make him pay.
“How do I know you won’t just have Casey and his men shoot me down?”
Claw laughs. “They can do it now.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. It’s not just a threat. It’s a fact.
He lets his words hang in the air for a bit, sadistic as always. Without looking away from me, he raises his voice. “This is between me and him. Nobody shoot, you hear? Not unless I or Grim tell you to. Disobedience will not be tolerated.”
Claw is pretty confident they’ll obey him implicitly. I guess he has every reason to. I won’t say the same to Hannibal and his men. Apparently, Claw doesn’t expect it because he knows he has the upper hand in all things.
Just like always.
The injustice burns me. If this is how he wants it, then I’ll give him all the drama he can take.
“I will battle you!”
It’s my war cry for today, and for all the tomorrows Claw and Grim have stolen not just from me, but every person who was converted, killed, and betrayed.
Claw smirks, but won’t let off the high aim he has on me. He jerks his head in a gesture for me to lose my gun.
He’s smart. If he did it first, I’d finish it here. Gladiator honor? No such thing.
I do what he wants. Keeping in mind, as I relentlessly stare at him, of where my thrown gun ended up.
The wheels of events he created don’t abruptly stop turning in motion. He sinister
ly grins as his looks at his revolver, then back at me. Just when I’m not sure if he’s changed his mind, Claw abruptly throws it a distance away.
To him, that revolver could’ve landed into infinite space. Not me. I make a mental note where those two guns, those two way outs, are.
I’ll play along. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll play fair.
“Take back your steel, Gary.”
My sword is carelessly flung in my direction. It clanks and rattles when landing at my feet. Grim is giddy and her hands clap in admiration for Claw.
Insane. Utterly insane.
It’s…frustrating…to think everything we’ve suffered in the last day is a result of this creature’s whims.
Grim makes some quiet remark by his ear. It appears to be a seductive way to bewitch his affection. I’m sure it’s meant to keep him tied down to this foolish commitment he’s made for us to fight like gladiators.
Grim hurries back up to her perch. It’s a container chunk that protrudes out by the landfill’s edge. As she moves up it, he shouts, “I’ll free us!”
They’re always so close, yet they always know how to move just a little away when necessary. All of which makes a big overall difference.
It’s never easy with them.
I won’t be easy myself.
I bend down and grunt in response to the stiffness from my injuries. A mild sweat breaks out just from picking up my sword.
“What’s the matter, Gary?” Claw mockingly asks.
I’d rather not spew any hatred for him. I know my blade will explain exactly how I feel about him.
Focus. Resist letting this man get to you.
Once I rise back up to my full height, with customary perfect posture, and our eyes level to each other, that’s when we’re done flirting with our homicidal tendencies.
We start a circular and predatory walk within our fighting arena.
The gloved weapon on his right hand is bizarre. It’s hard not to focus on it intensely. Each individual finger looks sharp and deadly. The whole outer casing is patterned with spikes, not to forget the protective shelling of the hand itself. No doubt, this looks to be something of a past era.