Eden Green

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Eden Green Page 20

by Fiona van Dahl


  Something slams down feet behind us, and the roof tiles explode into a cloud of dust. I cry out weakly, clinging to his neck.

  “Like the one in the forest,” he mutters through gritted teeth. We land on another roof; he runs along it for a moment, then launches himself over an alley. Wind rushes over us.

  There’s another concussion behind us, loud enough to ring in my ears. He stops on a roof edge to gasp for a few breaths, and over his shoulder I catch a glimpse of a shimmering monster that whirls through the air like a Chinese dragon made of broomsticks. And it’s so wrong, twisting across a horizon of office buildings.

  Then we’re off again, and I can feel the man’s body shuddering as he jumps from roof to roof. Suddenly I’m terrified that he won’t be able to keep this up. He lands on the corner of a roof and looks around desperately. He tries to shout, but there’s no spare breath left in him. Then he’s running again, and leaping.

  I try to scream for him, but panic has taken a tight grip of my chest; all that comes out is a strangled cry.

  We land on an industrial-looking roof and he dashes into a mess of A/C units and ductwork, still carrying me. Then he stops, pressing his back against a huge metal pipe, and stands gasping.

  “We need, to find, Veronica,” he gasps.

  I cling to him and say nothing, staring out at the bit of sky and city I can see between ducts.

  He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “Can’t. Breathe. You need. To shout.”

  “C-Can’t.”

  He sucks in a few more breaths, then turns to face our escape route. “You have. Control. Challenge your fear. I won’t. Let you. Get hurt. You’re safe.”

  I blink up at him, but he’s looking around warily at the sky.

  “Had a. Question.”

  “Ok-kay.”

  He starts jogging toward our exit. “Answer, honestly, okay?” He sucks in a few breaths. “If we survive, want to, have a, threesome?”

  And we burst out into the light, and the dragon is spiraling down at us, and I’m shrieking at the top of my lungs, “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?”

  A second later, we hear BLAM two blocks to the north. He turns on his heel at the edge of the roof and dashes that way, launching himself at the last moment, sailing out over open air.

  In a tiny voice, I mumble, “I don’t evuh— evil—” I squeeze my eyes shut for a second. “—even know you!”

  He continues to run and leap and fly through the air in wheezing silence.

  There’s a building ahead, and a female figure is standing on the roof, shotgun leveled at us. We take a great jump over breathtaking heights, flying straight toward her, and at the last possible moment, just as I’m able to count the rounds left in the stock ammo holder, my carrier’s feet touch the roof. He jukes to the right hard enough to rattle my teeth.

  BLAM

  The dragon, lured into close range by our flying bodies, is hit point-blank and shatters. Broomstick-sized needles fly in all directions, a few bouncing off the man’s back as he stumbles to a stop on the rooftop. At long last, he sets me down, and I wobble away. There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m about to vomit. The gun barrel looms in my mind’s eye, pointed at my forehead, and the rest of the world becomes white noise.

  The woman must be the ‘Veronica’ he mentioned. She crows, startling me from my fugue, and raises the shotgun above her head with both hands. “That was fucking awesome!” she screams, turning to us and jumping up and down giddily. “Let’s find another one, Kazuma!”

  Slowly, swallowing saliva, I keep my stomach down and turn to face them. Kazuma has collapsed in the cool shade of an A/C duct and is alternately gasping for breath and laughing like a madman.

  She begins eagerly recapping the battle as if we hadn’t been there to witness it. Kazuma eventually sits up, hand pressed to his pounding heart, grinning back and forth between us, and occasionally interjects, “Yeah,” or, “I know,” or, “Right?”

  She finally peters to a stop and stands smiling at him. I sit down on a duct and watch as she settles into his lap, wraps her arms around his neck, and clings to him. He hugs her to his chest, and his expression grows peaceful.

  “She said ‘yes’, by the way,” he murmurs, nodding toward me. “To making a Kazuma/Veronica sandwich.”

  I flinch bodily, and my stomach suddenly feels greasy.

  For the first time she looks up at me, and her eyes are startled. “She woke up?” Then she glares at him. “And that’s the first thing you say to her?”

  I look down at the concrete at my feet, and for the first time in several hectic minutes, I remember bits of the nightmares that flooded me before. Part of me wants to curl up in a ball and cry for a few therapeutic weeks in a mental hospital, but I force myself to remain calm. I’m shaking like a kitten.

  We’re on the flat roof of an office building. A knee-high wall runs around the outside; the space is empty but for a few A/C units. It’s mid-afternoon, and the city is relatively quiet. We still hear gunfire and explosions from all around, but it feels less like a battle and more like an ongoing war. During half-seconds when none of us is making a sound, I hear a rustle from a block away, or an echoing snort from the alley a block over, or a helicopter to the north—

  Veronica smiles gently at me and whispers, “You okay?”

  I check myself over. I’m apparently undamaged. My hands are whole and all ten fingers wiggle. For the first time, they strike me as unattractive — too detailed, too many creases and lines. Still, “Y-yeah.”

  Veronica leaves his lap and moves to sit on the edge of the roof. He follows, sits down next to her, produces a pack of cigarettes. It occurs to me that he’s wearing brand-new clothes — there’s a sticker-tag still attached to his right shoulder blade. He looted them. His cigarettes, his shoes, all looted.

  I look down at my clothes and they look very clean and new. There’s a sticker over my heart, ‘MADE IN THE USA’.

  Kazuma looks over his shoulder at me, and he looks oddly sad. “Want a smoke?”

  I move to sit at his side, accept a cigarette, allow him to light it. Veronica sits down on his other side and shakes her head when offered the pack. We sit like that for a while, him chain-smoking, me slowly burning through mine. My mouth and throat feel cold, like menthol. We don’t look at each other. We just watch the city.

  Blocks away, gunfire rattles the air in short bursts and then stops. Far to the west, near the city center, a tornado siren starts up, then coughs into silence a moment later. Its wail echoes for a full minute, coming at us from all directions—

  The stone. I remember the blue stone, built of pure power and safety, conferring a magic cloak of cool relief across my neck and back. I’m keenly aware that it’s gone. I feel at my pockets and search the rooftop around us, but there’s no sign of it.

  “Where’s the sone?” I mumble, frightened. “The bone— cone— nngh!”

  “Not sure where it ended up,” Kazuma says, suddenly uneasy.

  Veronica points to the south. “Somewhere over there.”

  “We need to find it!” Hysteria is roaring to life in my chest and I’m not even completely sure why.

  Kazuma takes my hand, squeezes it. “What did I say? You’re safe, for now. Calm down and we’ll think through it.”

  I nod, fighting back tears, and slowly manage to arrange my thoughts. “Okay.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Don’t ask her that,” Veronica objects quietly.

  I’m already searching back, but there’s a lot of empty space. “There was rain and darkness. Monsters everywhere.”

  “Last night,” he fills in. “Well, the small hours of this morning. You took a bump to the head and were out for most of the day.” He ashes his cigarette. He’s still holding my hand.

  “That’s why we lost track of the stone,” Veronica adds. “Neither of us can carry it.”

  I nod, accepting this. There’s an orange glow to the west. As we smoke and watch, it be
comes a roof-engulfing fire.

  “No sirens,” Veronica realizes in a whisper. “Like, no fire engines or cops. No ambulances.”

  Kazuma flicks his cigarette butt out into the air and lights another as we watch it drop. “Pretty apocalyptic.”

  She shakes her head. “I always pictured the end having more horsemen and evil world leaders. Maybe a UFO or two.”

  He smirks. “And we need an Antichrist.”

  She shoots him a sarcastic look. “We’re going to stop this.”

  “Back there, in that other world, I thought so. Now, I’m not sure. Maybe we’re not meant to stop this.” He shifts his weight a little. “I said ‘apocalypse’ for a reason. All these movies about stopping the end of the world . . . But if its ordained, pre-determined, then isn’t fighting it the real evil?” He drags on his cigarette.

  Veronica slaps his shoulder. “Come on, we just got you de-crazied.”

  “Oh, I’ll still fight, but I’m beginning to recognize the futility in it.” He murmurs to her, “You alright?”

  She takes a few deep breaths, nods. “Just shaken.” Silence. “I forgot to thank you.”

  “For . . . ?”

  “For coming back.”

  “Of course. Why else . . .” He trails off, then squeezes my hand again. “I have to protect my girls.”

  She rolls her eyes. “We’re not ‘your girls’.”

  “Yeah,” I agree nervously. “Like I said, I barely know you.”

  Kazuma’s mouth is open to say something, but he pauses, staring out over the city, and there’s hurt in his eyes, like he wants to cry out in pain. At last, he coughs and mumbles, “I’m the reason you two are involved. You are my reason for staying human.”

  “Don’t do that to us,” she whispers. “I’ve done the codependent thing. Don’t stay human for us. Do it for yourself, and to set a good example.”

  “Alright. And in return, can you . . . if I lose myself, will you be by my side?”

  I’m taken aback. It’s a surprisingly romantic line, coming from a guy who introduced himself by asking me for a threesome. I’m opening my mouth to tell him so when Veronica snorts and mutters, “Quoting song lyrics?”

  I knew that.

  Kazuma chuckles and puts an arm around her shoulder, squeezes. I keep my eyes trained on the horizon, but I hear them making a soft, wet clicking noise. They’re kissing. Kazuma pulls his hand out of mine so he can hold her. I focus on my cigarette.

  At last, when that’s been going on far too long — it occurs to me that they might forget I’m here and start stripping off clothes — I clear my throat. “We have to find the stone.”

  They reluctantly separate. “You should name it,” Veronica points out. “All epic weapons have names.”

  My first impulse is to say that naming a rock is a stupid idea, but then I think of other beautiful, fantastic weapons — Sting, Excalibur, the Masamune . . . Why shouldn’t my reassuring little rock also have a name?

  I picture myself swinging it up in a high arc and then slamming it into the ground, releasing its energy. I think of its gentle glow and overwhelming power, able to fit in my palm, and I’m suddenly sure of its rightful name.

  Kazuma and Veronica are watching me expectantly.

  “I will call it . . . Mjolnir.”

  They both burst out laughing. That hurts. My cheeks start to burn a little.

  After a moment, Veronica forces herself to stop. “Ahem. So. How do we get down from here?”

  Kazuma, snickering, gets to his feet on the ledge and then jumps down onto the roof. “I’ll carry each of you down on my back. Who’s first?”

  She stands up on the little wall, then clumsily figures out how to situate her knees over his hips. Once she’s secure, with her arms around his neck, he grasps her legs and steps back up onto the wall.

  I recoil a little. “Ah, you’re not really goeeee—!”

  He jumps. Veronica hangs on to his back and yelps as they disappear below. I cover my eyes, and hear a sound like a rock striking another rock, and then silence.

  A moment later, he reappears on the ledge, dusting himself off. “Your turn.”

  I grimace nervously as I climb onto his back. Even through his shirt, he’s almost uncomfortably hot, like a load of laundry fresh out of the dryer. I cling a little too tight, maybe trying to warm my clothes with his heat.

  He pauses for a moment, then bows his head, maybe to look at something. Without thinking, I press my cheek to the back of his bare neck, and his hot skin feels amazing.

  His grip tightens a little on my thighs. “This is weird,” he mumbles.

  I abruptly realize that it is, and pull my cheek away. “Sorry.” There’s a lot of abject shame crammed into that single word.

  “I mean,” he adds hurriedly, “it’s good, but it’s kind of . . .”

  There are warm signals spreading through my body and I don’t know how to interpret or act on them.

  “We’re going to have to talk about it,” he decides, stepping up onto the ledge. “Eventually.”

  “I don’t even know y—”

  He steps off the edge.

  Air rushes past us, shoving my stomach up into my thr—

  We hit the ground so hard, I’m sure I hear cracks spreading through the asphalt. Kazuma absorbs most of the impact, but enough slams up to rattle my teeth. I dismount with wobbly legs, to his faint amusement.

  Veronica, standing a few yards away, approaches with a grin. “You okay?”

  “Y-Yeah.” I look down at my noodle-knees. “I’m h-okay.”

  We head down the empty street, watching the shadows for lurking danger. Distant sounds of chaos bloom in every direction. Veronica occasionally reaches up to touch the butt of her shotgun; the sight of her wearing it fills me with unease that I can’t place.

  There’s a woman lying on the sidewalk, her flowery skirt moving a little in the breeze. I start toward her, wanting to help, but Veronica catches my sleeve and pulls me away. We keep walking, and there are more people lying down. Some of them are spread across the street, and others are missing parts. I can’t stop staring; their eyes draw mine like magnets—

  “I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving,” Kazuma says casually, hands in his pockets.

  At the first intersection, which is littered with smashed cars and people and piles of black needles, we notice a corner deli. The door hangs open, so we invite ourselves in. There’s still food on the tables, and my stomach rumbles.

  “Thank God,” Veronica mumbles, letting go of my sleeve. “If there were bodies in here, I’d lose my appetite.”

  Reluctantly at first, but more hurriedly as we realize how hungry we are, we rifle through the cases. Most of the cheeses and meats are sweaty and unappealing, but I help myself to a slice of cherry pie and a few bites of fried chicken.

  As I’m eating and listening to those two sort around in the back, movement in the street draws my attention. A fox makes her way ponderously down the sidewalk, her thin black limbs dodging nimbly around bodies and wreckage. Her face, like a lamprey’s, swings back and forth, tasting the air. She stops for a moment at the door and stares in at me, thousand-toothed mouth flexing, then decides she’d rather not enter such an enclosed space. She continues out into the intersection, and a moment later, she’s gone.

  Veronica appears, crowing about how there’s a freezer in the back that has managed to retain some cold. In her arms is a beautiful sky-blue wedding cake, complete with figurine on top. She tears into it with a plastic fork, comforting herself out loud. “The wedding’s probably off, anyway. Snarf. Oh man, this is good. Anyway, I hope they get their deposit back. Gulp! Wait, don’t they make wedding insurance? I hope they had that.”

  She also grabs a bite of my fried chicken. She has blue frosting on her top lip. We pass a jug of water back and forth, each taking huge gulps. I don’t even realize my throat has been on fire until the water courses down through it and dulls the sharpest of the pain.


  I swallow. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this mun— hun-gry in my wife.” I hiss angrily. “Why can’t I words?”

  Veronica glances at me with alarm, then quickly focuses on the cake. “You hit your head really hard,” she mumbles. “It’ll probably go away. Not like we can take you to the ER.”

  As she cuts me a slice of cake, we hear a clatter from the back. Kazuma emerges, lugging an industrial-sized bucket marked ‘PEANUT BUTTER’. Today, I learned that you can buy peanut butter by the bucket.

  Veronica looks amused. “What’s that for?”

  He pulls the bucket up to us, sits down on the floor next to it, and reaches in to retrieve his plastic spoon. “I’m craving protein.” He nods toward my fried chicken. “That shit will kill you.”

  “Says the smoker,” I mutter, pulling off a chunk of breaded skin to eat whole.

  “Seafood would be best,” he lectures, eyes dancing and a smirk tugging at his lips as he waves his spoon in mock authority. “We Japanese figured that out a long time ago: Seafood is the best source of protein—”

  “These cravings,” Veronica speaks up, looking solemn. “Is this one of the things we should expect?”

  He sobers in a heartbeat and shrugs uncomfortably. After an indecisive moment, he starts shoveling peanut butter into his face like a stoner locked in a Reese’s factory. When he speaks, his words mush together and he rolls his eyes in frustration.

  Veronica disappears into the back and returns with a jug of milk from the still-cold freezer. He accepts it with a grateful noise and drinks some, then picks up the spoon again. “The cravings come and go. Your body temperatures will start rising, though. Pretty soon, we’ll be basing our lifestyles around getting plenty of water — remind me to check a sporting goods store for a few of those hydration backpack things. And then there’s the nightmares.”

  Veronica shudders. I say nothing, just chase the mental images away with cake.

  He doesn’t take the hint. “You’ve had them; you just didn’t know it at the time.” Big gulp of peanut butter, swallow of milk. “Come to think of it, the first few times, I just woke up sick to my stomach with no memory of it. Coping mechanism, maybe.”

 

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