Escape

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “Don’t step directly on the graves,” Connor warned. “Walk around them.”

  Amelia didn’t ask why like she wanted to, but obeyed, taking care to step over or around where she thought a body lay.

  As they went, Amelia read some of the grave markers, but there was something peculiar about them. They were unfinished. All the tombstones had the person’s name, a sentimental quote or comment, then the death date. But none listed a birth date.

  Amelia tried to overlook such a fact, knowing that everything in this world was a bit topsy-turvy anyway. She figured that no one was really born in this world. They just existed forever without any parents or family to speak of, so it would be obvious they had no birth date.

  Upon the thought that no one was born, Amelia wondered how everyone came to live there in the first place. Did they just appear? Were they really born but it had been so long that they have forgotten when? Esmeralda was able to give her an exact number for her age, meaning she must have been born or created some time. And what about families? If they were born, they must have had mothers and fathers. No one could have just been born from nothing except for Adam and Eve. Perhaps this world had their own version of Adam and Eve.

  Then she thought of Connor. Did he have a family? How old was he? Where did he come from? So many questions.

  The two travelers reached the very middle of the graveyard, mist still shrouded over their feet and the full moon high above, fixated forever at the witching hour. Amelia turned her head in every direction and the forest seemed so far off, like they were in a wasteland of graves. She could feel the hair stand up on the back of her neck as the eerie sense overwhelmed her. She may have felt alone, but they weren’t.

  Just then, snow began to fall down upon the cemetery in light flurries, being tossed and carried by the wind like little balls of fluff.

  Amelia looked up into the sky and marveled that there were no clouds to even create such snow. She held out her palm and let the snow collect in her hand. Her skin grew cold and slightly numb from the ice.

  She had never seen snow before except for in images and television footage. She never imagined it would feel like this. She wondered if the snow here was the same as in her world. The flakes seemed so fragile, so light. And she soon realized how cold it really was. Before, it was simply chilly and her clothes were appropriate for the weather. Now, the snow fell on her shoulders and melted quickly to drench the fabric. When it soaked through to Amelia’s skin, she shivered.

  “It’s snowing… It’s May. How can it be snowing?” she asked incredulously, tilting her hand so the snow would drift to the ground, joining the other flakes that were slowly accumulating. The snow crunched under their feet with every step that echoed through the graveyard. Clumps of snow were also gathering on the tops of the tombstones and crosses. The moon’s rays reflected against the snow, brightening their surroundings so much more than before. Amelia could finally distinguish sharper colors on herself and on Connor.

  “What’s May?” Connor asked, ruffling his hair to shake the snow flurries out.

  “It’s a month of the year. May is in the spring season. It’s supposed to be warm. It never snows in May where I come from.”

  “We don’t have seasons here. It’s always cold.” His voice was so flat, so barren of emotion.

  Amelia’s attention turned to Connor’s head where he was still frisking his hair to get the snow out. In this bright moonlight, she noticed something that didn’t seem as obvious before. There were thin, subtle streaks of silver coursing through his locks. She saw them before, but thought they were only an effect the moonlight had upon his ebony hair.

  Feeling chattier than she had before, she made the mistake of opening her mouth. “Did you always have those streaks in your hair?” she asked.

  Connor glanced over his shoulder. “They’re more prevalent some times than others, especially when my hair is wet.”

  Amelia was grateful for his sharing. She had hoped that perhaps they could learn to get along. Why she wanted that was beyond her understanding. “They look kind of cool,” she commented, briefly losing focus on the task of avoiding the graves.

  Connor didn’t reply. He stopped and his head swiveled around in every direction, a bizarre look in his eyes of hyper-awareness that alarmed her. Did he hear something that she didn’t? Was he sensing someone near? Amelia searched the field, and despite the light snow falling down, she could see that they were still the only living beings for what seemed like miles around.

  Amelia looked down and noticed his fingernails grew long and sharp as they did before when he had attacked her. She gulped and gripped the box tighter in her hand, ready to use it as a weapon if necessary, either against him or against an intruder.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as Connor sniffed the air like a predator tracking its prey.

  “We have company,” he muttered.

  “What do you mean? Who’s coming?” she asked.

  Suddenly, something grabbed at Amelia’s ankle. She screamed and leapt towards Connor, colliding into his strong body. It was an impulsive move, but a smart one.

  He caught her in his arms and his eyes turned down to what had spooked her. There, sprouting from one of the graves wiggled a withered hand that reached and groped for the disturber of its rest.

  Its skin was a mixed veiny blue and vomit green color, with the flesh shriveled and flaking off, revealing the aging bones and disconnected tendons underneath. Soon, an arm rose out of the soil, then an elbow, and then a shoulder. Another hand broke the surface. As more was revealed, they could see tattered clothes hanging from the decaying limbs.

  Amelia watched with horror as an animated corpse struggled from the ground. A mindless groan erupted from its toothless, gaping mouth with its jaw half hanging by a thin piece of rotting skin. One of its eyes dangled from its socket by a few pink strings of blood vessels and muscle while the other roamed aimlessly, unable to fix on anything. The zombie pulled itself out of the grave, but much of its torso and lower body were still trapped under the packed dirt.

  Connor seemed unfazed as he slowly placed the frightened Amelia behind him, walked up to the zombie and kicked its decomposing head like it were a football. The skull, eyeball and all, went soaring through the snowy air and landed somewhere out of sight. The rest of the body went limp and crumbled back down to its resting place.

  “Well, that was easy,” Connor quipped. How could he find such a thing humorous? Amelia couldn’t stop trembling, her knees knocking together.

  “That’s it? Can we keep going?” Amelia asked, her voice shaking.

  “Not exactly,” Connor said as his gaze settled past Amelia to something behind her. Amelia turned and met a zombie face-to-face. How could it have snuck up on her so quietly? She could smell the nauseating, putrid flesh as it reached out to grab her.

  She shrieked and, doing the only thing she knew to do, swung the box at the monster’s head.

  Just as before, the head fell off the zombie’s body with ease and tumbled to the ground, rolling for a little while and then stopping yards away. The rest of the body collapsed in a heap at her feet.

  Amelia felt oddly proud of herself for killing the zombie, but when she turned back to Connor, she discovered that he was now facing three more zombies, knocking heads off left and right with firm punches and flying kicks to their temples.

  With another glance around the graveyard, she saw they were slowly becoming surrounded. Her once happy smile for killing just one zombie now faded into a deep frown.

  She had no combat experience and she was never good at sports. How could she possibly defend herself against this hoard of undead monsters? Connor was busy with his own fight and unable to help her.

  As they drew closer, she knew there was only one thing she could do. She hoisted the box over her shoulder as if she were about to swing a baseball bat and began smashing in the skulls of any zombie that dared get near her. She could only guess that they were hungry for her
brains like all of the horror movies told her back home. They certainly didn’t seem interested in a hug. Amelia didn’t know why so many zombies chose now to come and attack them, instead of when they had first entered the cemetery.

  Connor and Amelia battled against the zombies together, sending heads flying in all directions. They slowly began making their way towards the other end of the field, hacking through the zombies as they went.

  “Did you step on a grave?” Connor asked angrily when there was a lull in the waves of zombies that were descending upon them.

  “I don’t know. I might have.”

  “I told you not to!”

  “I’m sorry!” Amelia felt his angry eyes glaring at her as she bashed another zombie head out of the park.

  She was angry with herself that she had let him down, but she couldn’t get wrapped up in emotions just yet. Adrenaline flooded her system and all she could think of was getting out of this graveyard with her head still attached.

  She looked out over the field and all she could see was an endless sea of rotting corpses marching towards her, hunger blazing in their eyes.

  “Come on, I see an opening.”

  Connor grabbed Amelia’s hand and ran towards the tree line, making her stumble at first, but once she gained her footing, she ran with him, passing zombies left and right that were just now emerging from their graves.

  “They can’t step foot out of the cemetery,” Connor informed her as they ran, jumping over and dodging headstones as they went.

  Amelia looked behind her at all the zombies they were leaving behind. Some had given up the chase and turned to retreat back to their graves. Others continued on even though it was impossible for them to catch up.

  As they ran, Amelia accidentally stumbled over some of the heads they had knocked off, but she kept up the pace. Connor trampled over emerging appendages that were reaching out from the unbroken graves, breaking the hands clean off at the wrists.

  The cold air made her throat raw as she ran behind Connor, their hands still clasped together. The snow under her feet was unusually slick and she slid occasionally, but Connor was strong enough to yank her forward so she could continue the escape. She had no idea how fast they were going, but it seemed like an ungodly kind of speed.

  After a while, no zombies appeared in their path and he slowed their pace to an easy jog before they reached the tree line and leapt from the hallow ground, back onto the damp soil of the forest.

  Connor let go of her hand and Amelia fell to the ground and stared dumbly back at the graveyard, marveling at what she just survived. This adventure was beginning to prove that she was out of shape, despite her fit figure. She regretted not taking physical education in school and opting to take it online instead.

  She sat there, trying desperately to catch her breath, the seat of her pants growing damp from the snow that was still falling and coated the forest path. Connor stood beside her, watching her. He wasn’t panting, he didn’t look tired; he didn’t even look glad that they survived. But he wasn’t angry either. Amelia was thankful for that. She was sure that it was her own fault that the zombies woke up in the first place, but he didn’t scold her and he didn’t yell.

  Instead, he offered his hand out to her. She stared at the hand, seeing how rough and calloused it was. How did they become that way? He had such thick, powerful hands. They were the same hands that attacked her before, but also the same hands that caught her when she had fallen and had guided her to safety. How could these hands do such harm and then so much healing?

  Amelia, still breathless, glanced between Connor’s imperturbable eyes and his outstretched hand. With a little hesitation, she took it and he smoothly pulled her to her feet.

  “We still have a long way to go,” he said. “Can you walk?”

  Amelia nodded and Connor’s hand released her. He led the way back onto the path and she followed.

  Chapter 6

  It wasn’t long after their run through the graveyard that Amelia began to feel the effects of the great strain she had put on her body. Every muscle cried out for rest, especially her feet.

  She tried to stay strong like Connor, but she just couldn’t go on. He may have been perfectly fine, but she was not.

  Connor continued walking, even after Amelia plopped herself down onto a rotten log on the edge of the path. “Wait!” she called out, her voice heavy with exhaustion.

  Connor stopped and turned around, as if surprised to see her so far behind him. He sighed and returned to her side and placed his hands on his hips, looking down at her. “What is it?” he asked, obviously a little frustrated. Could he really have had impossibly high standards for her that he would expect her to be totally fine after what they had just done?

  “I’m tired,” Amelia complained, rubbing her aching calf muscles.

  Connor’s eyes ran up and down her body, as if surveying the damage. Then, he squatted down by her legs, rubbed his hands together as if to warm them up, his eyes fixed on her calves. He swatted her hands away.

  “What?” she cried, growing irritated by his actions.

  Before she could get an answer, Connor had replaced her hands with his.

  Amelia’s eyes went wide as she watched him massage her calf muscles, pressing his thumb firmly along her shinbone and squeezing the meat beneath them between his fingers in soothing motions. He was gentle, but firm in his method. His hands roamed from just behind her knees all the way to the balls of her feet after he slipped her boots off.

  The longer he massaged her legs - first the left, then the right - his hands began to glow with an aura of gold. Her muscles and skin tingled beneath his touch. Amelia tried to yank her leg from his grasp, but his grip was too secure.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he worked his hands down from her ankles, all the way up to the tops of her knees once more. The sensation spread with his hands.

  Connor shushed her and continued his massage.

  Amelia watched Connor’s concentrated gaze and his kneading hands. She felt her heart pounding against her chest so rapidly she thought it would burst. Her hands became shaky and damp from nervousness while her head grew light. She felt she would faint if she didn’t pull herself together. Did he know what he was doing to her?

  After ten minutes of this constant rubbing and steadily applying pressure, Connor removed his glowing hands to give Amelia her legs back. Now, they were completely painless and felt stronger to endure the long walk ahead.

  Amelia quickly recoiled her legs and rubbed her palms against them, making sure that this was no trick. How could she scientifically explain what he just did to her?

  “Anything else hurting?” he asked, his palms up like he was a doctor waiting to perform more surgery. They were still glowing. Amelia’s confused eyes darted between her healed legs, his hands and his still face.

  “What did you just do?”

  “Don’t your legs feel better?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think that demons could heal. I thought they only caused pain.”

  Connor’s face fell and a shadow passed over his eyes. “Then you obviously don’t know enough.”

  That was the first time that Amelia had ever been accused of not knowing enough. She knew plenty of facts, formulas, dates and grammatical rules to make anyone believe she had an above average intelligence. But now, it seemed that all of that knowledge was useless in this world.

  “Does anything else hurt?” he repeated.

  Amelia’s first thought was her thighs, but she had no intention of letting him touch her there. She twisted herself around to turn her back towards him and pulled her hair over one of her shoulders. “My back,” she replied.

  Connor paused, torn in his mind if he should. He knew that if she weren’t in pain, she could move faster and this journey would be over with sooner. He had to take the chance.

  He placed his hands on her shoulder and pressed his thumbs just below the nap of her neck. He worked his way down her spine, mas
saging in rhythmic circles while his fingers curled around her sides. He could feel her muscles tense and her swift heartbeat just beneath his fingertips.

  Connor’s hands traveled back up to her shoulders and squeezed the muscles there. The tenseness melted away in his grasp and he heard her let out a sigh of relief. He felt a sensation rise within him, so much that his hands quivered.

  He shook his head sharply, grabbing a hold of his composure before continuing. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms and kneaded them briefly before returning to her back. He formed his hands into fists and torqued his knuckles down her sides.

  He could feel the pain transfer from her body to his, flowing from his hands and into his own back. He could carry the pain better than she could. As soon as the aches came, they dissolved just as quickly. He didn’t realize she hurt so much though. He felt the pain in her legs, in her back, but as he ran his palms over her shoulder blades again, he could feel the pain in her heart. It wasn’t a physical pain, but an emotional one. It was so great, so burdensome that not even his healing powers could take it away.

  He tried in vain to absorb it like the rest of the pain, but he simply couldn’t. A little did leak through and hit his stony heart, breaking into pieces on impact. But, some shrapnel became lodged in and he couldn’t stop the one tear from escaping down his cheek. A tendon jumped in his jaw and nose singed against the torrent of emotion.

  Connor cleared his throat and continued the massage until he was sure all the physical pain was gone. He withdrew his hands quickly and wiped away the evidence of the tear before standing up.

  Amelia turned back around to face Connor, feeling as good as new. She watched as he casually blew out the amber glow from his hands and readjusted the pack on his shoulders. There was something different in his eyes. They looked softer, clearer and not as cold as before. In fact, they were quite warm and for once, she saw some feeling glistening there. She grew hopeful.

  “Thank you.”