Gary's Trilogy (Book 3): Still Myself, Still Surviving (The Retaliation)

by Marlin Grail

“No,” I assure him, surprised to see Ominous at all. Lissie’s tight expression tells me she doesn’t know how to react.

  I can imagine she doesn’t know whether to feel happy that we’re welcomed in this log cabin, in his landfill, or angry that he never got—not yet anyways—chewed out for what he’s done within the last 48 hours.

  Ominous enters fully through the doorway, shortly distracted by the door’s looseness. He silently checks at its hinges, but then remarks to us, “They find what they can in the trash pile sectors. It looks like they’ve been able to make do with unorthodox resources.”

  I take his tone as an indication he meant it with the utmost admiration. “How different has it become since you’ve last been here?”

  My question, and my cohesive act of rising up, no matter the pain I have to grit my teeth against, seems to swipe all of it out of his mind. He changes the subject.

  “I think Claw and Grim will have a difficult time. The undead will just have to not be used against us. They could be ordered, as long as you and I…”

  I halt him from finishing when I drive my palm against the bed. The old coils inside the bed squeak from the full body effort that has come with the smack.

  It startles Lissie, and I fall under the feelings I had earlier for her. I feel unworthy to be seen as the same Gary she knew before I left the base.

  Ominous doesn’t understand my anger.

  “I’m not helping,” I assert. It’s bold to tell him this. Bold to try beating his stare back, but I’m not caving in. I rationalize where he’s going with his idea, but I can’t come out of my stubbornness in relation to utilizing my immune abilities. “You can surely do it yourself.”

  Lissie keeps twisting her head back and forth to catch every moment of our wrinkled frowns. She develops her own, because she finally seems fed up with not knowing exactly what we’re arguing about.

  “There are so many what-the-hell questions I have for both of you. I’ll just focus on the one I have right now.” Her head stops turning, and fixates straight on me. “Are you able to control the undead?”

  My eyes flicker. I’m unable to keep her steady stare. My face becomes flushed. I place both my palms against my cheeks, and bring my head down to hide it.

  The few signs here are already hinting the answer. Don’t give her a hard time.

  I have to tell her the truth. Of all the things I’ve faced since this apocalypse, this moment might be the hardest.

  “Yes, Lissie. I can control—”

  Her hand quickly comes up to my mouth to hush it. What I see is astonishment in her weary face. Her eyes go from how they normally are to suddenly looking like they want to bulge out of their sockets.

  Lissie and I are in this frozen state. Neither one of us is ready to proceed with the conversation, not until we’re ready to.

  That’s why my body jumps when the medicine capsule Ominous brought in instantly appears on my lap. “They said you can have that whole bottle if you need. They want you better—like I said we’d get you.”

  He and I lock eyes again. Except now I’m in no justifiable position to give him an antagonistic glare because I see his are vulnerable. Ominous is upset by my continuous hostility towards him.

  I’m sorry if the distance I’ve made between us is too consequential for you, but I’m not sorry at the same time. I may be working to forget what happened in Claw’s organization, but I’ll never forget the good people I met during that time. Josh took a good soul, and you ended him.

  I’ll never forget that.

  Ominous nudges that creaky door with its flimsy hinge, if even a real hinge, out of the way with a saddened shoulder. Before he makes it out of the cabin, I already turn away from him, but my ears pick up his voice. One never as ready to start crying as he is now.

  “I told them about you, and they accept you. I accept...”

  Lissie looks at him for me, while I look steady on her. She is my stress-reliever from him, from what I’ve become. My ears strain to listen to his feet slowly traipse out of the cabin, until I can’t hear them anymore.

  Silence ensues, the emptiness of sound blaring loudly for several following moments.

  Then, a soft murmur comes from Lissie. She says something I didn’t see coming, especially from her.

  “Maybe you should help.”

  Chapter LVI

  I exhale in great length, but she already seems prepared to reconcile our differences. With two hands, Lissie gently massages the one closest to her.

  “Just hear me out, Gary. I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he wants to have peace now.”

  “It’s just…so many people’s way of life have either been ruptured or ended. Whether he agreed with it or not, he did aid in Claw’s—”

  “Who’s that?” She chews her lip and then asks, “Do you mean C.?”

  How foolish of me to start assuming you’ve known all I’ve learned. I want us stuck by the hip from here on out, so are always on the same page.

  “Yeah, Claw’s the full name. His real name is—”

  Our soft-spoken discussion is ruptured by several pants. Mine and Lissie’s scared gasps. Suddenly, there’s a loud explosion heard in some region elsewhere.

  Oh no.

  “Lissie. Please, help me off the—”

  “I got you.” She darts up off of the bed, and immediately assists lifting me to my feet.

  I feel her arms flex every muscle she has as she takes on most of my weight. Lissie barely gives me an opportunity to assist in carrying my own.

  This is love. You strain yourself for the ones you love. Maybe I don’t care about Ominous, but, at the very least, because of his hospitality in welcoming me and my people to his own, I can tense a muscle in my brain to assist in herding the undead.

  When we reach the open doorway, where the outside afternoon orange sun brightens and shadows what’s ahead, we come to an understanding where exactly the commotion is unraveling.

  Figures to our left, ones of Ominous’ people, rather than hurrying over to the sounds, instead run directly to us. Not necessarily to us, more like the cabin. A woman, so frightened, shoves right through me, knocking me off balance.

  Lissie curses at them in reaction.

  I use my hand that’s wrapped around her back to stabilize myself, but also to steady our mission. “Lissie, if you want, you don’t have to go over there with me—”

  “Don’t try that,” she remarks in her usual dauntless tone. She then pecks my lips to sweeten her firmness. “I’m sticking by your side, even in the most dangerous parts of the world.”

  That’s love. After all she’s been through because of you, she’s still not going to run or hide from it anymore.

  I wish to indicate my love for her too, so I respect her choice to tag along. I limp heavily for the duration of several hundred feet. Lissie could’ve sprinted and reached the call of disastrous proportions quicker than me. She could’ve dived head first, letting her anxious nerves coming in second, but she has willingly let the trembling in her breathing calm.

  Lissie treads with caution. We’ve reached what looks to be a major trash pile, one of those “sectors” I believe Ominous was referring to earlier.

  Speaking of which, I hear his voice. No matter how loud and vicious his yelling is, the sound’s only able to travel on the sides of that monumental-looking pile he and I saw first when arriving here.

  Which means the threat is from where we came in.

  Chapter LVII

  Ominous is brave to stand by himself. I see that suited man, Hannibal, as Lissie told me his name is, along with several officers hiding along the back of tall trash piles.

  They’re shying away from the threat.

  Claw and Grim stand on a broken and jagged piece on one of the truck’s containers. Sliding down around their pedestal is their servants.

  Casey and his unit.

  They’re here for two people. Ominous and me. Lissie, you must be away from this particular danger
.

  She and I migrate over to the monumental trash pile, where Hannibal and several officers are taking cover. No mouth goes off from any of us, even as the numerous people on the opposite side bark at once.

  Ominous is brave, worthy of being seen by his people as a noble person. Even if I’m offended this very thought.

  Now’s not the time for thinking about the past. The past’s already wanting to repeat here with Claw and Grim. I guess it’s hard for me not to drag him along with it. After all, he makes up the “O” in C.F.O.G.

  I strain to focus intently on the words he’s yelling. It’s clear Ominous sounds afraid, but he’s still bold to muddle the truth. Telling a lie that will no doubt move him further up as their targets is a brave commitment on his part.

  “I have no idea where Feral’s at! He was watching Gary, then disappeared!”

  I can hear Claw’s pithy response travel all the way to us, as though he screamed it directly to our ears.

  “I KNOW YOU’RE FULL OF SHIT!!!”

  It sets Lissie into a tense paralysis. She’s unable to stop gripping my body with her hands, clamping and crushing my arms hard from anxiety. I look deep into her eyes. I watch as those eyes redden, as though a blink has long been overdue.

  “Blink, Lissie,” I whisper.

  It’s going to be okay. But you don’t need to let yourself end up under his thumb. Ever.

  I repurpose my senses to my hearing again, and notice a drop in volume from Ominous. It’s because it sounds like he’s moving in closer to their position, approaching them by the edge of this landfill.

  What are you planning, Ominous?

  I can’t further hear what his words are because Claw continues his loud, intentionally public, volume. But I can base off what Ominous is actually telling him and Grim.

  “Gee, so you’re telling me this whole dump has been empty? Gary isn’t going to get what he was sent out here for! Not going to be missing an arm or a leg?”

  A gunshot to my thigh wasn’t enough, I suppose. It still hurts, but that’s the last thing you’ll ever inflict on me again, Claw.

  Either a misfire, or deliberate pull of an automatic weapon, triggers and startles us all. I did a head count of all who were shaken up by it. I can happily know the remainder of mine and Lissie’s group, Will, Janice, and Ashton, are not present.

  Nor does it appear they’re going to be present, because, from this point onward, every sudden movement by one of our feet is immediately hushed.

  We need to be statues—even if that gun happens to decide to fire through this trash.

  Ominous wants everyone hidden. We’re just in battle position for the high percent chance Claw, Grim, and all of Casey and his unit start to advance. Besides that, all of Ominous’ people—a few of them being the ones that breezed right through me and Lissie—had the right idea in mind.

  Grim mocks whatever Ominous said, at first with laughter, then an insulting statement. “Aww, you care about our new inclusion to our family! You sneaky, sneaky you!”

  Oh no.

  “Never mind your insolence, Ominous,” she punctuates with a colder tone. “I know he has to be around here…and I bet you know where he’s at!”

  It is here Ominous escalates his volume, reflecting how much in the hole he’s thrown himself into. That alone is admirable, and I can understand why his people would commemorate him on it.

  Why to them he’s Odhran, and not Ominous.

  And maybe I need to understand that too.

  “He isn’t! I don’t know where, but he’s not here! He must’ve got to Feral!”

  His people likely would be nerve-racketed higher to know she indicates she’s aware of them too.

  “If you don’t give me Gary right now, then poof!”

  I imagine she’s gesturing what she means by that expressive phrase. It’s purposefully done to crank up Ominous’ fear, and to tug at his heart strings.

  “They will all die, and I will see them as the way you told me! You told your wife they tortured and treated you horribly!”

  Not being able to visually see what’s unfolding, and lacking any sense of what to do, I begin to understand why Lissie has gone into a paralysis state.

  We can be a formidable force against Casey and his unit—or so we think. How did that truck’s container get blown into large, deformed chunks of metal? A rocket launcher? C4? We have rifles and pistols. Will that be enough?

  I despise not knowing the answer.

  We have a scared immune person—Ominous—that defected from the very enemy he was, or played to be a part of. We also have another, but I’m in a weakened state…

  With what Grim’s here for, I’m perhaps the only one out of all of our resources that can prevent a bloody battle from coming underway.

  I say Lissie’s name. Its very brittleness betrays me, and she already knows her word to say to me.

  “No.”

  “I have to protect you.”

  “No, you don’t! We can die together.”

  I swiftly place an index finger against her lips. “No, we’re not. I made a promise to you, and that was to live. I’m going to ensure we live.”

  She breathes a small whimper. Lissie shuts her eyes tightly as she also grabs my one finger with her hands, bringing it to her mouth.

  I won’t live without you, but…

  My thoughts break. It becomes harder to breathe.

  If I have to live with them, it will be death that runs through me, because I won’t break the promise I made. I must protect you.

  “We’re going to be okay,” I breathe out brokenly. I relish the feel of her soft lips against my skin, but then it’s time. I break contact, and watch as her eyes water.

  I’m sucked back to the disturbing countdown I forgot Claw was giving during my exchange with Lissie. His countdown’s one which Ominous has been trying to interrupt, saying it’s ludicrous to think I’m here.

  All for my sake.

  I can’t ever forgive you for the aid you provided C.F.O.G., but at least it’s clear to me you don’t want to easily give me up. That I’ll never forget either.

  Knowing this might be the last time, I lean forward and kiss her. It’s a promise from my heart, of what she’ll always mean to me. I reluctantly slip away from Lissie’s hold, and every time I think our kiss is the last, I give another, but the countdown finally gets too close to one.

  I must break away even though it kills me.

  You win. You. Win.

  Chapter LVIII

  I limp into their line of sight. I appreciate to not be able to see their faces, due to the sun blinding my vision of them with its brightness. I let myself take all the slow, drawn-out, steps I want—make them suffer in little rebellious ways that I can.

  While I still can.

  “That’s it,” Grim coos, apparently appeased. “Come to me. Let’s have our wedding right here.”

  All of this for a wedding? It can’t be!

  Then again maybe it is. Maybe Grim is fixated on finding me because she really wants another wedding and “husband”.

  She’s insane. Utterly mad.

  I’m still unable to fully make out where she is. The sun keeps a ray of light beaming straight at my eyes, but I listen to the sound of her chuckles. They guide my reluctant movement.

  She irritates me by gloating at my injured state. “You must be in a lot of pain, Gar.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  My guttural threat is clear, and not surprisingly she picks up on it. Grim’s expression of shock is visible to me now that I’ve finally reached the shady spot those two have made their pedestal.

  “What? You don’t like cute names?”

  My eyes are like a reptile’s, and just as cold. They glare upwards while my head is angled down. My spirit rises, and my head follows. My gaze panders pleasure when watching Claw start up an argument regarding the topic.

  However, it doesn’t necessarily sound like it’s just because of it. To me it indeed soun
ds as though they’ve had a conflict ping-ponging back and forth between them for a while.

  “I would’ve done all right in his shoes.” Claw’s insecurity is as loud as his voice.

  “Do you think that matters to me?”

  “It does when you seem like you’ve not taken one minute to say how happy you are to have me back. Instead, you’ve been gawking at Gary.” His tone grows thick with rising anger. “I’m the one, the only husband you should really have. I was tired of sharing you before, freaking out thinking Feral was trying to make a woman out of you, and I’m not going to share you with him too.”

  I care little about his finger pointing straight at me. I give him full sincerity in that I’m not the least bit offended.

  Grim just scoffs before crossing her arms tightly, and slumping. “You tire me out, you know that? I only have fun with you. I thought you knew that. It was simply fun to get you on a pointless stupid mission to rescue me, and it’s that fun that gets you access to me.”

  Even I wince at the viciousness of her next words.

  “Now? Now, I’m growing tired of fun, and I want serious. He’s serious.” She turns her attention back towards me, with a lustful look, along with a lick of her lips. “I want a serious night, with serious results.”

  Repopulating. Because that’s what C.F.O.G.’s purpose mainly is…or so I thought it was.

  I look at Ominous. He’s shamefully keeping his head low. Then I look back up to Claw. He isn’t looking back at me. Instead, he’s glaring dead-straight at Grim.

  It’s not hard to guess it’s violence curling his fists.

  Was this all just fun for her? And is he finally fed up with all the hardships disregarded by her—mainly the troubles he’s endured? Months of setting up a force of people to “save” her supposedly from Casey? Killing his supposed close friend, the AWOL soldier?

  Is he finally seeing she doesn’t care about that?

  Grim doesn’t give Claw a second look. Instead, she takes off her high-heeled shoes, throws them elsewhere before then plunging straight to the surface below. Claw makes a perfect landing by practically getting right in front of me.