by Mikayla Lane
“I’m OK,” Emily said, startling Koda out of his thoughts. She didn’t want to tell him that the noise they’d been making outside had awakened her.
Koda led her back to her pallet beside his body, then covered her back up when she laid down.
“You need to get some rest,” Koda whispered as he sat beside her.
As if to prove his point, she smothered a yawn and grinned at him.
“I think I could probably go back to sleep again. Don’t forget, you guys need your rest too. We couldn’t have made it this far without all of you. Please take care of you for a while. And thanks, guys. All of you. For helping us,” Emily said, trying to keep the tears misting her eyes from spilling down her cheeks.
Elmer and Tom muttered their thanks, embarrassed over Emily’s heartfelt words, then popped outside while Gibly walked over to her.
“Rest well, predunaya richita, I will protect you and yours while you sleep,” Gibly said, then nodded his head and bowed at her in respect.
“Gibly, that was beautiful. What does it mean?” Emily asked, curious about the lyrical words.
“My people call you a soul warrior,” the cat explained with a grin.
“Soul warrior? How does that apply to me?” Emily wondered aloud, looking at Koda to see if he knew.
“You fight for the lost,” Gibly explained. “Without the warriors like you, there would be no hope for any of them.”
“Sounds pretty damn applicable to me,” Koda agreed.
“Sleep now, soul warrior,” Gibly added, laid a paw on her arm, and within moments she was sound asleep.
The sleek cat quietly stepped away from her and looked around the room with narrowed eyes.
“You shut up and let her sleep now,” he warned with a low growl.
The three men popped outside immediately, although they didn’t wander far from the cabin.
Chapter Thirteen
Another two days passed, and Emily had given Koda’s body the last of the antibiotics the day before. The atmosphere in the cabin had suddenly become one of quiet resignation. The ideas had run out, and their hope had slipped away with it.
More tired than ever, Emily had taken to sleeping almost as long as Joey was.
“Waken, Emily,” Gibly said, his tone urgent as his paw tapped gently but insistently on her arm.
“What is it?” Emily was tired and really didn’t want to wake up yet.
“You must get up,” the cat insisted.
Emily opened her eyes and peeked out from the covers she’d been hiding under to stay warm. It was then that an unusual smell hit her.
“What is that?” she asked as she sniffed the air.
“What is it?” Koda’s specter asked, wishing he could smell whatever it was she was.
Gibly pawed at the bandage around Koda’s missing leg.
“It is rotting and causing the blood to die. I have to go and hunt for something to help; you must get up and clean his wounds as well as you can before I return and force him to drink more tea,” Gibly replied, his own panic now beginning to set in.
“Oh my God!” Emily screamed as she tried to get her heavy legs underneath her, and she crawled to Koda’s body.
She quickly unwrapped the stump she’d cleaned so well the day before and choked on her breath at the smell emanating from the angry red, oozing flesh remaining around the jagged bone. She covered it quickly and put a hand to her mouth to stop herself from gagging.
“Go Gibly. Hurry,” Emily said as she stood so she could start boiling water.
Elmer opened the door for the cat and Emily shuffled weakly to the cabinet and opened it, but she couldn’t get the smell of Koda’s rotting flesh out of her nose now that the wound had been uncovered.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Koda asked, needing her to verify it for him.
Emily nodded her head and went to crack a window. She could handle the cold better than she could the smell of death in the small cabin.
She leaned down to the small crack and breathed deeply of the frigid late afternoon air. After a few more breaths, she turned back to gather what she needed to clean his wounds when Koda stopped her with his hand up.
“Emily . . .” he began before he looked away, shaking his head.
Emily grew angry and walked right through his spectral form, causing him to gasp in surprise.
“Hey!”
Emily turned blazing eyes to him.
“Don’t you ‘hey’ me! You may think it’s easy to consider giving up, but I don’t! You don’t get it do you? Are you that stupid?” she asked, not even noticing the tears slipping down her face.
She shook her head and turned away from him, grabbing what little remained of the medical supplies, which was mostly the herbal concoctions she made per Gibly’s instructions.
Emily sat down beside his body and unwrapped the stump again. She held her breath as long as she could while she cleaned it. Tears silently slipped down her face as she saw the extent of the greenish/black flesh.
“Emily, what am I not understanding?” Koda softly asked, unwilling to upset her further, but needing to know what she’d meant.
“How can you even consider giving up after spending the last weeks together? I thought we were . . .” Emily wiped the tears from her face. “Friends. We’ve fought so hard. Together. How can you do that to Joey? She’s barely begun to live.”
Elmer and Tom saw the pained look on Koda’s face and disappeared from the cabin as Koda sat down opposite from her on the floor.
“How can you even think I want to give up? But Emily, this . . . this is getting to be too much. You’re breaking down. Joey is never awake anymore; we have to fight her to stay awake long enough to get her to eat, and you’re both losing too much weight,” he said as he ran a frustrated hand through his spectral hair.
“You’re willing to let go that easily?” Emily whispered quietly as the tears poured down her face.
Koda was on the other side and holding her as best he could with his energy depleting rapidly every day. It was enough for her to feel him there.
“I would never let go if I thought you and Joey wouldn’t suffer. But I love you both . . . and it’s destroying me to know that I’m killing you both so slowly and cruelly,” Koda whispered, tears flowing down his own cheeks.
“I love you too . . . so I’ll fight for the three of us and the future I never thought I’d have until a crazy space man came to my door,” Emily whispered, then stood up and went outside leaving Koda sitting inside the cabin.
She shuffled through the fluffy snow to her special spot and sat heavily, ignoring the tears that felt frozen to her cheeks as she closed her eyes.
“Beast, I really need your help to get there. I’m so tired . . .” she whispered.
Just as she centered her energy she felt a flicker of light and opened her eyes to see the ancient architecture. As if a switch was flipped, everything went dark. She whimpered as she held her hands out in front of her to try and see where she was or if she’d gone blind.
She heard what she thought were footsteps and turned towards the sound.
“Emily . . . What happened to you? What’s wrong?” a muffled voice said as if through a tunnel.
“Indrid?” Emily whispered, her tear stained face looking around to see who was speaking.
“Emily, it’s Mikey. What’s wrong?” She heard more clearly this time and sighed.
“Mikey? Is Indrid with you?” Emily asked as her head swung around to try and see where he was.
She never saw Mikey step closer and wave his hand in front of her unseeing eyes.
“Emily? What happened to you?” Mikey whispered, terrified of what had caused her to deteriorate so quickly.
“Mikey, I need you to find Indrid. It’s important, please. If you don’t find him . . . we all might die. Please, I’m begging you,” Emily whispered brokenly.
Suddenly, she felt the change in the air and opened her eyes to see the forest and snow, and laid her head in he
r hands and cried.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out there until she felt a furry tail flick under her nose, and she looked into the sparkling eyes of Gibly.
He gently butted his head against one cheek and wiped her tears away before doing the same to the other cheek.
“You not cry. Be strong. It is when all appears lost, that the best in you is usually found,” he said, then backed away so she could stand up.
Emily drew in a shuddering breath.
“I already found the best when Koda walked up to my door. Now I’m going to lose him and Joey,” she whispered sadly.
Gibly laughed, surprising Emily.
“Silly warrior, you can’t lose something that belongs to you; you can only misplace it. The precious things always find their way back to you and you to them,” Gibly said as he butted his head against her legs to get her to go back to the cabin.
Emily took Gibly’s cue and began walking back to the cabin when she stepped into the clearing and covered her mouth as she gagged at the sight that met her.
“What the hell? We can’t eat that!” Emily said, trying to avoid looking at the mutilated and decaying carcass in front of the porch.
“You not eat them, you feed them!” Gibly said proudly.
“What?” Emily asked, her mouth hanging open in shock.
“He’s right,” Granala interjected. “The maggots will eat the rotting flesh and prevent the infection from getting worse. You must scoop them out and put them on the infected wounds.”
“Oh, you can’t be serious!” Emily said, screaming in her head at the thought of putting those things anywhere near Koda, much less on his horrible injuries.
Gibly pointed proudly at the rotting carcass.
“The bug things will eat only the infection and death making Koda sick.”
Emily just nodded her head, having already heard it from Granala. It didn’t stop her stomach from trying to heave though.
“Oh—maggots!” Elmer said, popping into the clearing. “Damn, I wish I’d thought of that sooner.”
Tom popped up beside him.
“We weren’t really at a point of needing them until now, but they’re a darn good choice. I’ll grab a bowl so we can clean them first,” Tom added before he disappeared again.
I can do this, Emily thought. It’s just some worms.
She moved closer to the carcass and quickly covered her nose and mouth as the horrific smell of death and decay hit her. It smelled so much like it did in the cabin—only stronger—and she had to fight to keep from thinking of the carcass as Koda.
She was so intent on keeping her stomach from heaving she didn’t see Elmer and Tom scoop up the maggots and put them in a bowl for her until Elmer spoke.
“Just add some clean water, gently swirl it around in the bowl until the worms are free of debris and what not, then they’re good to just shake onto that leg. I’d put some on that arm too,” Elmer suggested, trying to keep a smile of encouragement on his face.
Tom smiled into the bowl of worms and looked up at Emily.
“These babies have been used for this for thousands of years,” he said, obviously interested in the subject. “Every major civilization had records of using these things, and that was back in my day. They probably know a lot more now.”
Emily looked at Tom in surprise. She hadn’t expected the baseball-loving spirit to be the one interested in such a gruesome topic.
“How do you know so much about it?” she asked.
Tom held the bowl reverently as he smiled at her.
“My great grandpa was in the Civil War,” Tom said, pride clear in his voice. “He was one of those unlucky bastards to be stuck in Andersonville where the prisoners of war were basically left to suffer and die. He’d been shot in the leg, and with no medical care, proper food, or even sanitary conditions, he was dying. Until someone put these babies on his leg.”
“They really work?” Emily asked hopefully even as she scrunched her face in disgust.
“Of course they work!” Gibly muttered indignantly. “I try to help him, not kill him!”
Emily could tell that she’d hurt the cat’s feelings and she felt terrible.
“Gibly, I believe you, I really do. You’ve worn yourself out to care for us and I know you wouldn’t hurt us. They’re just . . . so . . . gross,” she said as she looked in the bowl again and shivered in revulsion.
“You got one in your head! How gross can they be?” Elmer scoffed.
“No!” Emily said immediately, unwilling to believe that’s what her beast looked like. “My beast is nothing like that!”
“Thank you, Emily,” her beast responded.
“I’ll do it,” Tom said with a grin, more than willing to be the one to scatter the creatures where they were needed the most.
“No,” Emily said, squaring her tired shoulders. “I’ll do it.”
Ignoring the pit of nerves in her stomach that were threatening to make her lose the little she’d eaten that day, she gingerly took the bowl from Tom and headed into the cabin.
“You can do this, Emily,” Gran said with an encouraging smile. “You’re much stronger than you think you are.”
Emily nodded her head, keeping her eyes glued to Koda’s body as she walked towards him so she wouldn’t look in the bowl at the small, squirming bodies wriggling inside.
Within 10 minutes, the bowl was empty, and Emily was listening to Granala and Gibly about how she could only cover Koda with the sheet and blankets now because the worms needed to breath. After covering the sight of the worms crawling on Koda’s body, she stood and stepped away from him.
“How long do we leave them on him?” she whispered as she shivered and crossed her arms over her chest.
“They tell you when they stop eating the bad things,” Gibly said with a furry grin.
“Gibly is right. They will only eat dead or diseased flesh, they don’t touch the good at all. As they eat the dead though, it helps the good to heal. They are amazing little creatures,” Tom explained excitedly as he stared at Koda’s covered body.
Emily smothered another yawn and shivered as a cool wind swept through the crack in the window she’d made earlier. Unwilling to close the window and allow the smell to overtake her again, she went to the sheet covered door to make sure it was keeping the chill away from Joey.
Luckily, the small alcove appeared to have been made specifically to avoid just such a thing from happening, and Joey was nice and warm. She recovered the doorway with the sheet and shuffled wearily back into the main area.
“You need to go to sleep,” Koda said as he popped into the cabin.
He’d been walking in the woods trying to wrack his brain for something—anything—he could do to help get to Grai or even Tristan. He’d heard all about the maggots, and as much as the thought disgusted him, he really didn’t care anymore. All he wanted was for someone to find Joey and Emily and sever the connection between them.
Koda was tired of watching the baby he loved like his own and the woman he wished he deserved die a slow, cruel death because of him. He was tired of causing the people he loved so deeply so much pain.
Emily just nodded at him, avoiding his gaze. She couldn’t take his attitude of defeat, not when her emotions were so raw and her fear so overwhelming. Instead, she moved to her pallet beside his body and sunk down on it wearily.
She lay down on her side, facing Koda’s body and pulled the covers over herself. She felt Koda behind her and closed her eyes.
“Emily,” he said hoarsely. “I am so sorry. I can’t—”
“Don’t!” Emily barked, cutting him off. “If you can’t say something positive, don’t talk to me. You can quit all you want, but I won’t. Joey won’t.”
Koda closed his eyes as if in agony and popped out of the cabin. When Emily no longer felt him around her, she allowed herself to drift off into an exhausted sleep, the little activity she’d had in the last few hours finally taking their toll on her dwindling ene
rgy.
Elmer, Tom, and Gibly checked on Joey, then Emily, and Koda’s body before Elmer opened the door for Gibly and closed it after the cat bounded outside. The three unerringly found Koda sitting in the same spot that Emily went to in order to get away from them.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Elmer demanded in a low, angry voice.
“I got a lot of sympathy for you,” Tom added. “But not when it comes to those girls!”
“If you not fight, then you will kill them,” Gibly said as he looked around.
He could feel Koda’s diminishing energy, but not exactly where his spirit was standing. When there wasn’t even a flicker in the energy around him, Gibly made a sound of disgust and walked back to the cabin to guard the porch until someone let him back inside.
“You can’t give up. I know how bad this looks. I know what the odds are, but if that girl has taught me anything, it’s that there is always hope. Don’t take that from her,” Elmer said hoarsely, his concern for Emily and Joey making him desperate to make Koda listen.
“Hope for what?” Koda asked in anger. “That body is so bad there isn’t much left to save! I don’t even think our technology could help me now! I’m not ever going to be the same again even if they do come now!”
Elmer balled up his fist, concentrated all of his energy, and hit Koda with everything he had. The impact to Koda’s cheek caused his spectral body to waver and fade, and he dropped to his knees. While he was still on the ground, Tom drew back his leg, mustered his own energy, and kicked him in the side. Koda’s image only shimmered slightly, but Tom still felt better.
Koda looked up at both men with fury in his eyes.
“What the hell?”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Elmer demanded, his fists clenched and itching to strike Koda again. “You’re so fucking worried about how you’re going to look after this. Did you ever think that at least Emily and Joey would be alive? At least they might have a chance?”
“I think,” Tom began, then shook his head. “No, it needs to be said. I think this is probably the first time your mom is ashamed of you.”
Tom didn’t bother to disguise the look of disgust on his face as he looked at Koda, shook his head, and then walked back to the cabin where he let Gibly back inside before shutting the door.