by J. D. Monroe
The thing is human, or was, at least. It’s not an angry spirit like Tommy Crane. It is solid, smelly, and pissed off. Its slimy skin is gray and mottled. One eye is missing, with a blue flame burning in the empty socket. Almost definitely a revenant. If she had to guess, she’d say it was Gabriel Mullins or Mikey Wagner, but it’s impossible to tell with the mud and the dark and the being undead.
Cold mud slides under her back, and water nips at her thighs, then her butt and higher. It’s dragging her down into the water while she’s wasting time figuring out what it is. She manages to get one leg cocked back between them and shoves as hard as she can. It loses its grip on her face, letting her gasp for breath and scream. “Pat—”
Her head goes under the water, and she’s blind. Muddy water all around, strong hands clamped over her mouth and her throat. She can still see the faint silvery glow of moonlight through the murky water. She digs her fingers into the swollen gray flesh, but the revenant just clamps down tighter. Her head pounds as it cuts off the blood flow.
She’s always been shitty at close combat. She gives up trying to fight the revenant and instead goes for her weapons. Silver knife in one hand, gun in the other.
Muck and water suck at her arm, but she manages to get some muscle into her first swing with the knife. The revenant recoils. She yanks her knife free to stab it again. With it holding her down in the water, she can’t reach its throat or head, and she’s starting to lose her vision. The thing is smart, waiting for her to be alone before it attacked.
God, I need some help here, she thinks frantically.
Two can be smart.
She thrusts her gun arm clear of the water and feels the bite of the breeze on her wet hand. She aims for the sky and squeezes the trigger twice in rapid succession. One of her two idiot partners has to have heard the shots.
Come on, Patience.
Her head throbs, and she’s so desperate for air that her body is trying to convince her it’ll be fine if she opens up and sucks down a chest full of swampy water. Her chest burns and aches. Come on, someone.
She jams the gun barrel into the revenant’s fleshy side and fires. Its roar is muffled underwater, and a splatter of black lands on the surface, oozing down like oil as it blocks out the moonlight.
But nothing happens.
So this is how it ends, huh? Not bitten or stabbed or something equally glorious. Drowned by a damned zombie in two feet of water.
Her vision is dimming, but she’s not going without a fight. She grabs the hand covering her face and drives her blade deep into the fleshy arm. The revenant jerks as the blade hits bone, grinding and sawing. She bites down on its hand as hard as she can and tries not to think about the taste of the hot chunk of meat rolling around in her mouth. Sharp nails dig into her cheek, and it presses her face down into the muddy bottom of the pond. Dirt fills her mouth and nostrils, and she has to fight not to breathe it in.
Then the revenant jerks. The pressure is gone, and someone grabs her by the collar and hauls her up the edge of the bank. A hand whacks her on the back. “Breathe, Charity!”
She spews up a mouthful of mystery meat and muddy water onto her sister’s bare feet. “Holy shit,” she chokes. As soon as she gets a breath of clean air, she can taste the foul rot all over her. Her entire body wants to vomit at once. Later. Instead, she spits violently and lurches to her feet.
The revenant staggers in the shallow water, black oozing from a deep gash in its neck. Patience plunges into the water after it and swings a silver machete in a perfect arc. The silver blade parts its flesh like a hot knife in butter. Another swing, and the revenant’s head flies clean off its shoulders. The decapitated melon lands on the bank and stares up at Charity, the blue flame still flickering in its hollow eye socket.
“We got another one coming up,” Patience shouts. “Get a knife, for fuck’s sake!”
She doesn’t bother arguing with Patience and searches the muddy bank for her knife, discarded in her underwater tussle. Son of a bitch. It’s dark, and her vision is still swimming with black spots. There’s a glint of something in the murky water that could be the moon’s reflection or the sharp edge of her daddy’s knife.
She’s about to go for it when she hears the sound of shattering glass and whirls to see the RV rocking on its wheels. The lights are flickering and emitting a low electrical buzz. Suddenly, Georgia flies out of the door in a cloud of red hair and flailing limbs. She yelps as she lands in a heap on the hood of Patience’s car. Georgia’s knife flies out of her hand and clatters to the ground as she groans in pain.
Another revenant emerges from the darkened doorway of the RV. A handful of silky red, Georgia-colored hair is tangled around its dirty fingers. The blue flame in its eye burns white-hot for a second, and it turns its gaze on Charity. A long, blackened gash across its chest smokes.
“Oh, hell no,” Charity mutters. She dives for Georgia’s knife and comes up swinging. There are dinner knives bigger than this. She could barely behead a mouse with this, but if she runs inside then Georgia is this thing’s main course.
The revenant hesitates, and she swings wildly to slice down to the bone of its meaty arm. Smoke curls up as the silver contacts undead flesh. It roars and swipes at her. Ragged nails rake across her face. Charity immediately tastes the metallic heat of blood streaming over her lips. Searing pain stuns her for a split second.
She growls and swings the blade again, but it catches her wrist and squeezes, grinding the bones together. Its face is inches from hers, mouth gaping. The stench is unbelievable, like a corpse left to rot in the bottom of a sun-baked Dumpster.
“Hey, you ever heard of Tic-Tacs, asshole?” she grunts.
She drives her knee up into its groin, and it pitches forward onto her like a sack of rotten meat, driving the breath out of her lungs. Crushed under its weight, her spine grinds painfully against the concrete. She curls her arm around and drives the knife deep into its back and twists. It roars in pain and snaps its dark-stained teeth an inch from her face.
The blue light in its eyes flares, bright and blinding. Its head snaps up like it hears a faraway sound, and it suddenly releases her, shuffling away with her knife still buried in its back. She scrambles to her feet and heads after the creature, but it’s already wading into the water. Patience is following it, swinging the blade in wide arcs and punctuating each with a variation on motherfucker.
“Where did yours go?” Charity asks as her sister trudges out of the water with a knot of blackish pond weeds tangled around her leg.
“Just got a wild hair up its ass and left,” Patience growls. “Dammit!”
“Georgia,” Charity calls over her shoulder.
“Urgh.”
“You alive?”
“Think so,” Georgia says.
Patience kicks the grass off her legs violently. “What the fuck was that?”
“Revenant. Or a ghoul, maybe,” Charity replies. How did they know to come here? If the revenants are Adam’s victims, then this is way too far from the sites of their deaths. Something—or someone—has to be controlling them. Fantastic.
“No, I mean you,” Patience says. “Rule number one, you never lose your weapon.”
“Guys?”
“I knew where it was. I just chose to not let the damn revenant eat Georgia. Next time, I’ll go for the knife,” Charity retorts. “And hopefully it’ll eat you instead.”
“Guys!”
“If she wants to be a hunter, she needs to learn to handle herself,” Patience replies. “We did.”
“Hey!” Georgia yells. Her shout echoes over the now still pond. “You hear that?”
As they fall quiet, the silence is slowly overtaken by the grinding crunch of tires on gravel. Charity hears the unmistakable whoop whoop of a police siren, which is up on there on her list of least favorite sounds. Red and blue lights reflect off the rearview mirror of the RV.
“Shit,” Patience mutters. She tosses Georgia her machete. “You get in the RV.
We’ll handle this.”
“Why do I—”
“Georgia!” Charity snaps, in a rare moment of agreement with her sister.
The redhead sighs and storms up the stairs. The door slams behind her. A few seconds later, the blinds twitch a little and she sees a flash of white eyes between them.
“Skinny dipping?” Patience says.
“So unnecessary,” Charity mutters.
“You have a better plan? I’m guessing we’ve got about fifteen seconds.”
“Fine,” Charity complains. She peels off her muddy, drenched top and flings it under Patience’s car. She splashes into the shallow water, close on her sister’s heels. As they wade out a few feet, she scans the pond for the eerie blue glow of the revenants’ eyes.
“Your face looks like shit,” Patience says. “Stay low and try to wash it off.”
“Thanks a lot,” Charity replies. She unhooks her bra and flings it over the edge of the pond. Patience’s follows, and she catches a glimpse of a fresh scar in the hollow of her sister’s collarbone. It’s still bizarre to think of Patience off living a life somewhere that doesn’t involve her. It makes Charity wonder exactly what she’s been doing for these six months, and if there’s been anyone to watch her back.
Not that it’s her business.
Two police officers come running around the side of the RV with flashlights bouncing. Charity ducks into the water to wash her face clean. The cold water stings, and she can feel the raw edge of a deep cut in one cheek, hot to the touch. She squeezes the water out of her hair and lets it flop over the side of her face.
“Ladies, did you report a disturbance?”
A harsh flashlight beam falls on Patience, turning her tanned skin silvery white. She lets out a throaty laugh and tosses her hair. The fine muscles in her back twitch as she maneuvers underwater, and a pair of jeans suddenly emerges from the water. She passes them back to Charity without looking away from the cops. “Don’t think so, officers.”
“We got a call about reported gunshots in this area,” one of them says. “You sure?”
“Definitely sure,” Charity says. “Didn’t hear any gunshots. Although we were a little occupied.”
“Would you mind coming out of the water so we can ask you a few questions?”
Patience sighs and stands up in the shallow water, naked as Eve with a shiny red apple in her hand. One of the cops actually drops his flashlight, and Charity can’t suppress the laugh that bubbles up. “I kind of do,” she says, standing there like she’s not bare-ass naked in front of two cops and her own sister. “Listen, we’ve been out here a while and haven’t heard anything. Ain’t that right, Amber?”
Charity nods. “Not a thing. You know, someone probably just had their TV up way too loud and spooked the neighbors.”
“Miss,” the cop says, trying to look anywhere but the naked woman. “Can you—”
Patience grins and drops back down into the water. “Hey, you interrupted us, not the other way around.”
“This water ain’t safe for swimming,” the other cop manages.
“Oh sweetie,” Charity says. “Does it look like we’re doing laps?”
The cop coughs. “Well, if you hear anything or see anything strange, give us a call.”
“Will do, officers.”
The cops beat a hasty retreat, and when they hear the car pulling away, Patience lurches out of the water with her arms crossed over her chest. It’s a move for warmth, not modesty, considering everything else is hanging out for the world to see. She extends a hand for Charity, who has to squeeze her eyes shut. “Jesus, Patience.”
“What, like you haven’t seen it before.” She hauls Charity out of the water, then grabs her chin and turns her face. “Christ, that’s bad.”
The nostalgia of “old times” is shot. She slaps Patience’s hand away. “Let’s get inside.”
31. REPAIR
“WHAT THE HELL?” Georgia gapes as Patience walks into the RV, dripping and naked as the day she was born. Shattered ceramic litters the kitchen; it looks like someone swept every dish in the place onto the floor. Georgia’s cheeks flush scarlet, and Charity can’t help but laugh. If Georgia thought Charity was immodest, it was only because she hadn’t met Patience.
“Towels?” Patience says calmly. “And does this thing have heat?”
Charity presses her ruined shirt to her bare chest and reaches over her sister’s head for a clean towel.
“Okay, first things first, who’s bleeding?” Patience says. She takes the towel without acknowledging Charity.
“Georgia, you—” Charity starts.
“Georgia, did you hit your head?” Patience interrupts. She twists the thick green towel around herself and approaches the redhead.
“I’m fine,” Georgia says, putting up her hands in defense. The side of her face is red and wet, and the front locks of her hair are dripping. “Just a scalp wound.”
“Let me—” Charity tries.
“Charity, sit your ass down,” Patience snaps. “You’ve done enough.”
“I’ve done enough? Are you fucking kidding?”
“You were completely useless,” Patience says.
“Explain to me how yours got away, then.”
“Of the three of us in this room, who is the only one who actually killed one of them?” Patience snaps.
“You know, I’ve had about—”
“Enough!” Georgia shouts. She slams her hand on the counter. “Can you two please…” Her eyes roll back, exposing slivers of white, and she pitches forward onto the counter. Her hands fumble at the edge, but she stumbles back and hits the floor with a thump that shakes the RV.
Patience hurries around the counter, and when she looks up the anger is gone from her eyes, replaced by guilt. “Shit,” she murmurs. “Get towels and a first aid kit.”
Patience scoops Georgia up in her arms like a baby and staggers toward the bedroom with her. Charity yanks open cabinet after cabinet until she finally finds the first aid kit, stowed in a drawer under the microwave. As she takes down more towels, red drips down her chin and onto the pristine white towel on top of her stack. She scrubs her face with her ruined shirt and hurries back to the bedroom.
Georgia is out cold, face ashen against Patience’s shoulder. Charity shakes out a towel, and Patience deposits Georgia on her side. The back of her green shirt is torn open, soaked through with blood. It’s hard to tell how bad it is.
“Are you going to listen to me?” Patience asks.
“Dammit, Patience, can you just stop?” Charity says. She snaps the latch off the plastic box in frustration as she tries to open the first aid kit.
“Scissors.”
Charity bites her tongue and passes over the scissors. “She’s barely slept since we started. She was gonna crash eventually. Not to mention, she doesn’t really know what she’s doing,” Charity says quietly, watching as her sister cuts up the back of the shirt.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Patience says. “Book smart, good ideas, but no instincts. That’s gonna get both of you killed.”
Georgia stirs and makes a weak attempt at moving away from Patience.
“Chill, Georgia,” Charity says. “You lost a lot of blood without realizing it.”
“I’m fine,” she murmurs.
“All those books and notes you’ve got, you’d be well-advised to take a moment to research what ‘fine’ means,” Patience says. She lays open the flaps of the shirt and unhooks the back of Georgia’s bra.
For a moment, no one speaks. The cut isn’t all that bad, just a six-inch gash running across the ribs on her right side. Can’t even see the bone. But under a thin wash of blood is a tattoo that looks about as appropriate on Georgia as nipple tassels and a g-string.
A huge square cross in a circular shield covers most of her slender back. A nonsense string of letters surround it. The design looks vaguely familiar, but Charity’s brain can’t move past the ink being there in the first place. As Patience gently wip
es away a streak of blood, a word becomes clear. Charity leans in and squints to read the elaborate Gothic script around the shield design.
Virginia Anne Masters, April 15, 1963—March 15, 2010
Caroline Marie Masters, September 16, 1996—March 15, 2010
Dakota Leigh Masters, October 12, 2000—March 15, 2010
“Holy shit,” Charity murmurs. It’s a damn tombstone on her back, and the names are familiar somehow. Why? Did Charity read it in the news? A case? “Georgia?”
Patience is silent for possibly the first time in her life. She finally holds her hand out. “Gauze.”
Georgia doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even whimper as Patience cleans the wound and dresses it. To her credit, Patience says nothing more than commands for medical supplies, and Charity complies. When they finish, Georgia puts her arm over her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Do you need anything?” Patience asks.
“I need you to leave me alone,” Georgia says. “Please.”
Her sister wants to argue so badly it’s practically oozing out of her pores, but she simply tucks the first aid kit under her arm and walks right out the door without protesting. Charity spares one last glance at Georgia, whose face is buried in the pillow. She slides the door closed silently.
When they get back into the living room, Patience switches on the TV and turns up the volume. “Uh, what the hell, Charity?”
“I had no idea, I swear,” Charity says. “I know those names, but I don’t know why.”
“Same here,” Patience says. She cocks her head and adds with a motherly air, “Go sit down.”
They crowd into the same side of the dinette, close enough that their knees are fighting for space. Patience doesn’t warn her before pressing an alcohol pad to her cheek, and Charity sucks in a sharp breath.
“Don’t be a baby.”
“How about you jam one up your ass?” Charity says as the fire turns to a cool sting.
“You wanna do it?” Patience asks, holding up the pink-stained pad.