by Marlin Grail
Glancing back at Ominous, I see the murdering weapon is down by his side. He shows no sign of flinching, waiting to catch me off guard. Ominous has no means to betray me.
Like he did to Feral.
Were they friends? Is Ominous waiting until later to cry? I’ve seen he’s sensitive enough to feel such emotions. Will he do it after we get down to the landfill? Am I going to shed a tear for Feral, who clearly wanted my head torn open by an eight-inch knife?
“Ominous, I—”
“Don’t call me that. My name’s Odhran.” There’s a gaping span of silence. Then his hands, even the one with a gun held by his side, offer a slow and rolling gesture. “Annnd your name?”
He’s never said my name before. I figure it should make sense, seeing we met as nameless identities. At the time, I believed it should be kept that way.
I still do.
It doesn’t make sense now for me to give him my name. If I’m to keep the beam flat to respectfully align with him, while not pardoning what terrible actions he’s done in the past, the people he’s taken, I will keep it straight and narrow, just like our partnership.
“You’ve already heard it.”
“Yes, but I want you to tell me.”
Even without him explaining, I understand why he wants this from me. It’s more than just saying my name. It’s acknowledging who we really are. No nicknames to hide behind, no anonymity to protect ourselves with.
We become real with our names.
“You don’t need to know.”
His expression goes blank. There’s a flash of shock, then he closes his mouth. It’s a non-flattering expression of uncaring. “Fine, whatever. Let’s just get going.”
“By all means.”
He and I head for the ledge. I do one heavy exhale before I take the first step, knowing surely this will take a while for me.
Without this wound, I’d be as agile as Ominous, who is indirectly showing off his casual stair-stepping down this hilltop.
The sun blinds my visual of the landfill’s region. I’m, though emotionally invested on all cylinders, sluggish. Awkwardly, I head down this soft ground. The slightest slip of dirt keeps awakening my instincts for a fall.
I do this several times in less than a minute when Ominous, who’s making tremendous distance, apparently has a self-realizing indicator go off. He looks off to the infinite sky up above. He then turns straight towards me. “Come on,” he asserts, with his left arm reaching around behind me. “I’m eager to see how my people have grown.”
I’m holding him back. I’ll gladly agree I’d be holding myself back if I didn’t accept his help.
He’s on my left side. Because of it, I can hover my right leg off the ground whenever the pressure becomes too painful. Dirt continues to try and cause mayhem with trying to make me slip, but he ensures stability. Ominous bounces my shoulders, thereby me, back up when he throws me on my feet.
“Almost there.”
We start closing the distance with the herd of undead that have been hanging on the nearby slope of this hill. Some are on their stomachs, results of their failure to climb up. A few around them are unknowingly keeping those undead pinned to the ground. They start to trip on their masses while trying to mobilize towards the both of us.
It doesn’t even seem as though any immune powers blizzard on them. They just make a mess of themselves trying to make an independent choice to reach us.
I’m the one closest in proximity, the most injured, yet I don’t feel in immediate danger. I’m pleased to know my left hand, while bloodied and combined drying and fresh blood, doesn’t have to lift up.
That being said, Ominous doesn’t do it himself.
His face is close to mine. I can pick up more now under his breath from how close he is. He’s had the sound of wanting to make a witty remark, regarding the undead. Now we’re moving away from them, and he finally does say something.
“Life is so much easier when they aren’t a concern.”
I’m succinct in my response, mostly to divert an argument that would happen if I wasn’t aggressive in my tone. “Life’s meant to be difficult, so I’m okay with them staying untouchable.”
Just like that, he stops talking, gloating, or trying to convince me otherwise. He lets out an awkward cough, and focuses strictly on how to traverse these countless trees.
Though they’re leafless, they obstruct what was originally an easy visual on the landfill’s location. It looked closer when we observed it from above. We twist and turn through the complex forest, making sure not to lose sight of the water that I’ve considered a landmark.
Another factor I note is the undead surround the main perimeter of our destination. Though they were all insignificant in their numbers at a distance, and likely even to the landfill, the reality is different.
There are so many 18-wheeler trucks, hooked cargo containers behind the cabs, that only a handful would likely be able to bleed through the significantly enclosed barriers those trucks make.
The undead were insignificant to us when looking at them from above, at a distance. Now, as we close in on their conjoined symphony that stretches around this entire landfill, horribly singing away their wailing for flesh, we have to consider their numbers matter now.
Even to the two of us.
We stay on the outskirts of the forest-line. A few undead notice us, but their overall swarm that could resonate sound on a lake keep most of them unaware of our presence.
I secretively tell Ominous, through spitballing our way to get either left, or right of the perimeter, that I prefer us not cheating our way through…
Mostly, so I don’t have to help in controlling them. I’m hard-headed about this, resistant to ever doing it again.
My people are likely less than a hundred feet away from me. I don’t want them seeing a different Gary, one a million miles far from who they remember him being.
Ominous is merciless to understand my silent plea. He reels back his left arm to his side, all while giving a look of not being guided to do any differently.
To not control undead.
“That may not be you,” he acknowledges quietly. “But I am not you.”
He rolls up his sleeves, making a vigorous stretch to indicate he’s serious. Ominous lets out his right for a handshake. The arm with my red and green blend of colored blood is before me. His eyes already give the message that this isn’t to greet or say farewell.
Ominous intends for more of my blood to go on it.
Chapter LII
“This isn’t in me—”
“I don’t have a knife to get my own, and I need to be sure they see it.” He forcefully clasps my left, then vigorously squeezes, like getting orange juice out of an orange.
I blanch as I feel the reaction he wanted from my cut hand. It trembles, but by his doing, because he is trying to push out as much as he can with his tight clench.
If he wants to do this, then you shouldn’t control his desire. Like he won’t hold you back when you finally reunite with your family. I believe the undead are part of his family too.
Just before a pair of undead can touch their feet with ours, representing just how close they’ve come, Ominous places his bloodied palm to one’s forehead. It plops as the liquid on the inner palm touches its gnarly skin.
The one beside it doesn’t receive its own blessing of my mutating blood. I’ll never know how to not be taken aback by its vitreous eyes slowly shifting from me, like a reptile’s, to that undead’s forehead.
In turn, the other’s eyes look upward, even if it could never see the actual splatter soaking on its forehead. It’s all too clear, though, that our dominance over it is seeping into their purpose out here.
It’s first these two, then others within Ominous’ and my wingspan that fall under the spell catching on. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say my blood cells contaminate the environment like a toxic gas.
Maybe it does, and that’s why our access to the blockading truck
ahead of us is but a coasting walk through this chunk of undead surrounding the outer rim of the landfill.
I know I shouldn’t—but I do—flinch when the wild roar of an undead to my left seems proud to dribble and drool louder than its other brethren. It’s an anxiety Ominous doesn’t show. Instead, he gives me a look of confusion as to why I’d be having it at all.
I’m warmed by reaction all the same because I’m supporting what I told him recently. I’d rather fear them, knowing I can still rationalize danger, than risk losing what it means to have a distinction. To risk losing any common ground with the people I care for.
These undead are ear-splitting, but it doesn’t sway our steady bypassing through them. It really is a smooth transition. It’s just the dreadful sounds that want to overwhelm me.
From the tree line to the cold surface of the metal cargo container, there’s an opening by crouching under the couplet of the truck. We find ourselves gradually focusing our directives into different directions.
We each slide down on the loose gravel soil that slopes to the inner area of this large landfill. Ominous, again, has an agility to his sliding I envy. Especially when I slip, and begin to tumble somewhat—not hard enough to hurt, but not graceful in any way.
A mound of garbage is in front of us, like a monument statue, with a round-about pathway circling it. A few figures begin to creep around from the other side, unsure and not appearing to anticipate our arrival.
It matters very little, when these nameless identities’ voices take on an appearance. Men and women are in raggedy outfits, their appearance dirty. However, their respectful and kind voices turn into gasps, and then shouts. Shouts that become louder than the undead around, and speak more than their looks, rather their joy in seeing Ominous.
In fact, they call him out by his actual name.
I’m glad he’s receiving such a positive welcome, for it proves himself right to me. These aren’t the kind of people he made Grim, Claw, and all the others under C.F.O.G. believe they were.
He stylishly plants his feet to the flat ground, visibly being the hero they admire. I embarrassingly make my way down, practically skiing on my hands and knees.
My left palm has been stinging from the soil, likely infecting my cut hand with bacteria. It has an irresistible attention-pulling pain I focus entirely.
Still, it doesn’t eradicate the fuzzy feeling I have when overhearing Ominous…Odhran receive a satisfying greeting from his people that came to investigate our arrival.
Several more people then come to unify when encouraged by the positive clamor. I appreciate them all going straight to him, and not to me. It indicates he’s not an enemy, not a controversial figure to them…
I’m okay seeing all of these people flock to him, because they’re not my people.
My people…
I see a shuffling figure behind several nameless ones, in his familiar apparel, leading our flock, I’m sure of it, as I instructed him to.
Chapter LIII
Guys…
Something switches in my physical energy, the switch from auxiliary power to complete and inescapable fatigue.
My vision diminishes. Details become just large clumps of hazy blemishes. The only detail I can pinpoint is darkness consuming me.
As well as the fading yell of Will’s voice. Its call barely makes a peep to my ears.
Chapter LIV
I was gone. Then I wasn’t.
My vision has difficulty noticing, in crisp detail, where I’ve been placed, what I’m lying on, or if need to betray the panic of these questions verbally. My blurry eyes do, after initial concerns, know what the answer should be.
Not to worry.
After fading in and out, they focus on Lissie’s face, because she’s the closest, most beautiful sight to behold. Our noses are practically touching, tickling mine, and I firmly think to myself to not ruin this with a sneeze.
I’ve made it—
I only get a split moment to fully feel this relief, at least mentally, because Lissie physically embraces the sensation of our faces smoothing back and forth. Finally, I feel as though there’s nothing left for me to panic about.
My only need is to try and shush her grief-stricken tears.
Her hands cup my ears, but her sobbing isn’t muffled in my head whatsoever. This sadness tears me up inside. I lose contrast of what it means to be in pain, because, to me, her suffering sounds worse than my current physical state.
“Please forgive me,” I implore into a whimper.
She sniffs sharply, as sharp as her head raises away from my neck. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare be sorry, Gary.”
“I didn’t protect you. I wasn’t there to protect you.” When I hear my own words, they’re like little daggers plunging into my chest. They ache much worse than the actual one that barbaric aggressor threw at me yesterday.
Was it just yesterday? It feels like a lifetime ago.
Lissie hides her face against the ground, breathing heavily to sustain self-control. Probably so she doesn’t begin crying too hard to compose her upcoming sentences.
After rubbing her nose clean with her shirt’s sleeve, head remaining down still, those bewitching eyes of hers aim back up to me. They almost look a little mean.
“Gary, stop. I understand you want to blame yourself. I…if I was who I was when we first met, I would’ve agreed. But I’m not that Lissie anymore. The one who could live on her own, without the awareness of what it means to love someone else. You’ve changed me…but I won’t allow this to change you!”
I hear what she’s saying, but I have a dominant belief I don’t deserve to be forgiven for what happened at the base—what’s she’s certainly been through.
I turn my gaze away. I find a random spot on the wooden walls surrounding us. A pattern of logs run horizontally across, one long beam stretched on top of the same kind below it.
We are in a log cabin.
I have no present motivation to ask where we are specifically in reference to this landfill’s whole space. I don’t deserve the right to change the subject, but I also see the guiltiness mirroring back at me in this non-reflective wood.
The subjects intertwine.
It’s not just seeing where we’re at, but also why we’re here. It’s because of me and my failure that we’re at this landfill to begin with. I led you, Lissie, all of you in my group to this. I did it because I was too confident in the outcome I thought was going to happen.
I shake my head, disappointment being my main reason why I do so, and why I cough up more begging. “Please, Lissie. I’m sorry. Please.”
She shakes her head.
I’m fearful of this happening, but I shouldn’t be. She’s not telling me “No” to break my heart. On initial reaction though, my heart couldn’t tell what the head shake was for. Now it’s wanting to crack open.
Lissie does her best to fix my distraught self. “Gary, I love you. I’m not going to forgive you, because there’s nothing you did that needs forgiveness.”
I can’t dare look into her eyes anymore, not when she’s this close—no matter how thankful I am to have them looking at me again.
She exhales in stress. But she snuggles her face back into my neck, and is willing to breathe it through her. “I’m sorry I made such a big deal about leaving the shelter.” She softens her tone, giving me goosebumps because I feel her sincerity. “I was stupid to argue, because, until today, I still was afraid to show, even to myself, that I’ve clung to you. I am though, Gary. I need you by my side.”
You don’t know how wrong I think it is to call yourself stupid. I don’t believe that word should even exist.
A sweet kiss to my neck is her magic to instantly open my eyes. In different circumstances, I’d be embarrassed about my smell. I’m sure a combination of sweat, sewer, and dirt ensures I reek.
But Lissie makes me forget about that. All I feel is acceptance, love, and hurt.
I see how she must feel about me imply
ing that she should convict me. Me doing that to myself is equivalent to me thinking she shouldn’t ever say she was stupid.
I rise up on this fully-made bed I just realize I’ve been laying on, but then I lock in place. My sore and abused body screams at me, and I can’t ignore it. Just like I can’t ignore the hand she places on my sternum.
“No, Gary. You rest.”
I’ve finally grow confident enough to gaze into her eyes. They are gentle, loving, but are not about to be persuaded to let me up. Nor change the subject regarding the whereabouts of the rest of our group.
Lissie wants me to just focus entirely on her. After all she and I have been through, I believe that’s fair for us to take time for just ourselves.
If the rest of my group needed me, then they’d be in this cozy log cabin too.
“Okay, Lissie.” I let her practically pamper me, because every time I go to gesture otherwise, those beautiful eyes do the talking for her.
How can I say no to her? She’s here to begin with. She’s cried for me, looking like she’s been crying longer than I suspect.
She sits on the bed, continuously on edge and worriedly asking me what’s wrong if I ever make a slight groan or a discomforted expression.
I try to make light of my condition. “Well, I guess the stab, hits, and gunshot wound I endured is beginning to take its toll on me.”
It doesn’t have the effect I wanted.
Lissie doesn’t know how to reply in words. She stutters in shock, breathing fiercely through her nostrils, but calms herself by focusing on me.
I watch her gaze transcend from bubbling rage to instant sorrow. She goes for a hug and a kiss to sum up her reaction. It erases Grim’s vile kisses. I make it known that Lissie’s is the best medicine I can receive.
Then, during a long-held press of our lips, the door swings open. The first hand I see has a capsule of painkillers.
“Am I interrupting?” Ominous asks.
Chapter LV
