by A. Giacomi
As we walk toward the woods, Eve is silent.
When we find a clearing in the trees I decide to have us sit and talk this through. We needed a plan, and the one we had clearly wasn’t going to work without Cameron remembering her. I understood this was painful for her. To find someone you care about is only a shell of themselves is devastating, but we had to stay focused. There was much at stake.
“Eve, talk to me, we need to figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Vincent. We wait.”
“Wait for what exactly?” I ask impatiently.
“We stick around here, watch him and make sure he’s safe. Marcus will show up at some point and we will be ready for him,” she says as she glares at the sky.
She was right about one thing, Marcus would come for him. He needed his heart to complete some dark magic. No one knew what the full purpose was, probably not even Marcus. Now that the Dark King possessed his body, there was no Marcus. Only the Dark King knew his intentions, and surely he wouldn’t be sharing them with us. We were things to be disposed of, simply beasts in his way. He was more powerful, and more dangerous, yet something about all this felt incomplete. Like there was a larger part of this puzzle I was missing. Unfortunately, I was an Egyptologist, and not a demonologist. I had no idea what sort of dark forces we were dealing with. Science seemed like a bit of a joke at the moment, the Azrael Virus was much more than I could have ever anticipated, it was not a genetic mutation that occurred when our blood met with the infected. It was poison, it was a curse; it was Satan’s bile. A curse placed upon humanity because of one stupid man’s desire for power. If it wasn’t the Dark King of Hierakonpolis it would have been another man. It seems the devil preys on our weaknesses, we as human beings hate to be weak, but I find it so absurd that we would give up our souls just so our weaknesses could be hidden, just so our goals can be reached.
I would give up anything to be weak again, to be a frail human, to be with my family. Perhaps what has happened to me was a great lesson. I used to pride myself on finding the next great artifact, and it cost me my life. If only I had listened to Augustus, why had I stupidly entered that tomb? Why had I taken the red stone? I should have known it was drenched in blood and would haunt me all the days of my life.
Eve shakes me from my self-pity. “Vincent, are you alright? You seem to be sweating more than usual!”
Overheating was part of us now, an unexplainable fever that forced us out of our human state, or tried. I was quite impressed with how Eve had been handling it as well. She fought as hard as I did.
“I’m fine, Eve, Just lost in my thoughts. Wondering how all this will end and when it will end. I have been living with this virus longer than you have, and I’m sure you can appreciate how exhausting the fight is.”
She nods. “Yes, agreed. You want to know something sad? I just want this all to be over so I can just put a bullet in my head. You know? Just be free of it. The voices get louder everyday Vincent; it’s enough to drive you mad. I just want to be free of it all. This body, this skin, these infected veins. I’m over it.”
I find it hard to reply to this. I much desired the same. How could I offer her hope when I had none? The only person who might have an idea for a cure was Dr. Augustus, and who knew where he was. He was the sort of man who was strangely brilliant, sure he had found some astonishing artifacts over the years, but his true brilliance came with understanding what others could not. His mind was always open to the impossible. Perhaps that wall had to be broken down in order to achieve true brilliance. I missed the bastard, he might have broken his promise to me, but perhaps he had known that I would be needed somehow, he was always one step ahead of everyone. Eve needed me now, and I would not fail her.
“So what now, Eve? Do we sit here, or do we continue our observations tonight?”
“I think we need to stay away for a little while. They’ll be looking for an escaped zombie,” she says as she winks at me.
“Very well, what about feeding? Aren’t’ you hungry?”
“Starving actually, I wish it had been me tearing into that Jim guy. I can’t believe they were going to hurt Cameron. He’s been such an asset around town, there must be more to the story than we know.”
“Should we question Rachel?” I ask gently, I knew that was a sore spot.
“Perhaps, but maybe after I’ve fed on something.”
That was fair enough, sure Cameron didn’t remember her, but it still hurt to see him with someone new. Emotions like anger and sorrow led us to feed. It was as if the virus itself latched onto our human emotions and used them against us. I hear a hiss within my head clearly saying, “That’s right.” The virus knew my thoughts and laughter builds in my head. It’s so loud it becomes painful. I try not to show my discomfort when I tell Eve I’m going for a walk. I didn’t want to frighten her. The voices in my head were getting stronger, and she might soon have to continue on without me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVE
In a few days, the hunt for Vincent subsides and the town resumes its’ normal routine, allowing us to continue our observations from afar. Seeing Cam put me at ease, if he was alive, then I hadn’t failed yet. He was accompanied by Rachel often. How could I be mad at him for finding happiness? It made me feel guilty, but I couldn’t help myself, especially since she looked like a knock-off version of me. Close, but not close enough.
I knew he remembered me, when he looked at Rachel it was as if he was looking at someone else. That familiar face, it was mine, he just didn’t know it yet.
It hurt to watch them kiss, so whenever they did I had to walk away and observe other parts of the town. Things seemed different now that Jim was gone, it almost seemed like the town was glad to see him go. That worried me. Was he simply cruel or was there more to it?
As I’m watching some of the farmers work the fields I have this strange feeling of being watched. “Vincent! It’s not nice to sneak up on me!” I whisper, but he doesn’t reply or appear.
“Vincent?” I call out again. Some bushes rustle at the sound of my voice. This wasn’t funny, most things were getting on my last nerve these days.
Annoyed, I stomp over to the bushes, but before I can peel them back and discover what’s behind them a piercing sound enters my head. It’s like a scream and a screeching. This was very different from the soft, but unnerving voices I had been hearing lately. The sound is painful and it brings me to my knees.
A figure rises from the bushes, it’s not Vincent, but it is rotten. A zombie glares at me bearing his teeth, not that he had a choice in that, his lips and most of his cheek meat is gone. I thought of the humans working the fields, I had to protect them! Awkwardly rising to my feet, I muster all the concentration I have to block out the sounds in my head and face the hungry looking zombie. You would think he’d bypass me and head straight to the humans, but he continues to approach me. What could he want with me?
I back away curiously, but he grows impatient and lunges at me with a growl. His hands reach my shoulders and he pushes me to the ground with all his force. He pins me to the ground quite securely for a bag of bones and opens its’ mouth so wide it reminds me of an Alien movie. His rotting saliva drips onto my face as I try to hold its teeth away from me. It looks as though this zombie liked its own kind, a cannibalistic zombie of sorts.
I can feel his hunger growing as his strength and desperation increases. He tries to chomp at my nose, but I turn my face to the side just in time. It was absolutely ridiculous that this thing was overpowering me, what gives? I feel around the grass for a rock for anything, but I come up with just more grass.
Just as I’m about to give in and let it feed, the voices start up again, “Yes, let us in, Eve. We knew you were weak.”
The voices charge my anger. “Weak? I’m not weak! You can suck it!” I say as I wrap my legs around the zombie’s torso and squeez
e. I hear the bones shattering and with a twist the zombie is only half the man he used to me. Taking the rest of it by the throat I lift it into the air and smash its head into a nearby tree. The skull bursts into a cloud of dust. I drop the remains and wave away the waft of dust hitting me in the face.
Vincent arrives just in time to see the mess I’ve made.
“Oh, hey Vincey,” I say playfully as relief sets in.
“I thought I smelt more like us. Guess this was what I smelt.”
“Yup, that’s it. The rotting dead thing you sniffed out, but want to hear something weird? It attacked me! It didn’t just ignore me and head for the humans. What is that all about?” I say shrugging.
“It attacked you?” Vincent says surprised. “That’s not possible.”
“Well that’s what I thought too, Vincey poo, but it looks like we’re back on the lunch menu.”
“This is very odd, Eve. Something’s not right. I’ve had this feeling ever since leaving the CSIS facility that we were being watched, that something was following us. I don’t know if it’s possible, but can Marcus control these things?”
My mind searches the possibilities. Marcus did tell me that once the Eye of Ra was intact the stone could control the dead, but hadn’t Dr. August hidden a piece? How could Marcus have retrieved it? Rather than explain all this to Vincent, I simply say, “I think this just means Marcus is close.”
Vincent nods. “Then we need to keep a closer eye on Cameron.”
As much as I dreaded watching more smoochie time between him and Rachel, I knew Vincent was right. We couldn’t let Cam out of our sight right now.
***
We find Cam sitting with Rachel on the front stoop of their house. They had been spending more time together now that Jim was dead. I found this odd, had Jim been trying to keep them apart? I didn’t know the full story, but I knew I didn’t trust Rachel, might have been the jealously speaking, but something rubbed me the wrong way.
Cam brushes her hair back gently as they kiss under the blue moonlight. It was very romantic, and come to think of it, Cam had never kissed me that way. Our kisses had always been rushed, or desperate, or violent, I guess that was the only way to describe it. We never shared a kiss that looked quite that pretty, and I couldn’t help but wonder, why not? I guess I must have been grunting as my anger built up because Vincent kicks me and tells me to, “Shut up.”
Cam breaks away from the kiss and looks deeply into Rachel’s eyes. I knew what was coming and it took everything I had not to jump out of the bushes and slash both their throats. When the words “I love you,” pour out of his mouth, I expect Rachel to turn to putty. Instead, she stiffens and remains silent.
The hurt look on Cam’s face is enough to make me hate her more. When he asks her what’s wrong, she nearly sobs. Cam tries to embrace her, but she pushes him away and asks him to leave her alone. I’m sure my face held an expression much like Cam’s as he heads into the house looking bewildered.
“What the hell was that about?” I whisper to Vincent.
He shrugs and asks me to shut up again, pointing at our latest arrival, James.
James stops a moment right in front of our hiding space; he must have heard something, but luckily not enough for him to think us anything more than a bunch of squirrels. When he spies Rachel on the stoop, he forgets all about us and heads toward her.
“Rachel? What’s wrong, sugar?” he asks while getting much too close to her for comfort, well mine, maybe not hers.
“I need to tell him, James. I can’t lie anymore. You and Jim are horrible to have done it in the first place, and if he hadn’t lost his memory, he’d be dead. How am I supposed to look at him every day and hide that huh? I can’t do it anymore!” she says through sobs.
James’ face changes, it’s crueler as he takes her small chin into his gruff hands and violently moves her face closer to his. “Listen, you tell him, you’re dead. He’s been a big help around here, and when he stops being useful, then he’s dead anyway. Besides, if you tell him the truth what’s he going to think about you? Hiding the truth all this time, while kissing him with your lying dirty mouth.” He licks his lips as he says this and then places his mouth all over Rachel’s forcefully. She tries to fight him off of her as he places his hands all over her, groping her and nearly resembling a zombie with the way he kissed her so brutally. I’m about to charge out and stop this shit show, but the porch light comes on and who’s standing in the doorway? None other than Cam.
The look on his face screamed murder. James steps away from Rachel, who looks frazzled and terrified as she looks up at Cam.
He punches through the door, letting it slam behind him. The rage was visible on his reddened cheeks. “What the fuck you doing touching her like that?” Cam screams at James.
James just laughs. “What? You think she’s yours? Why don’t you just ask her where her loyalties lie…go ahead ask her,” he continues to prod, but perhaps it would have been wise to shut his mouth, because Cam walks right up to him and shuts it for him. He punches him so hard the man not only falls to the ground, but he does one full spin first.
Rachel runs to check on him, which infuriates Cam further as he asks them both to get the hell out of his sight. James holds his bloodied mouth as Rachel helps him flee the scene. This was all sorts of messed up, and I was tired of hiding. Vincent tries to hold me back, but I snap my arm away from him. No one would keep me from Cam.
When he spots me, his anger only rages harder. “So now you’re watching me? Listen, I don’t fucking know you, and clearly I don’t fucking know anyone, so get lost!” he yells at me.
“Yes, you do! You do know me! You’re just afraid to remember and I don’t blame you. What we’ve been through hasn’t exactly been a fun ride, but I will tell you this. I love you. Rachel might not be able to say it, but I can, and it’s damn easy for me to say because I’ll say it again. I love you, you idiot, and whether you like it or not I’m here to save you one last time. So just come with me okay? That girl Rachel, she’s hiding a lot from you, I don’t know exactly what, but from what I heard, she’s like Jim and James’ puppy, she does what they say and that’s it!”
Cameron looks at me strangely. “You’re right, I do know you. I’ve seen you in my dreams. We’re happy, but you know what’s not in my dreams, the fact that you’re dead. I’m not sure I want to know what happened to you, or us for that matter. Why would I want to remember something that probably hurt?”
I couldn’t disagree with him there. There was so much of his past I wish I could erase for him, but not me, selfishly I still wanted to be there, with Alex too. He had to remember us, somehow I would make him. Goodbye just wouldn’t work unless he knew me again. We both needed closure.
As much as I wanted to continue the conversation and dig up some memories for Cam to munch on and digest, screams filled the air and I find my boots hitting the dirt in their direction leaving Cam and Vincent in the dust behind me. I bolt toward the crowd of screaming townspeople. Something terrifies them, but they aren’t moving away from whatever it is, or perhaps they can’t? A sickly feeling rises in my throat, “Marcus…”
Slowly pushing past the frozen crowd, I see someone standing at the center of them all in dark clothing. His face was mostly covered by a surgical mask, making his glowing red eyes dance in front of you like flares. Not much of him reminded me of Marcus anymore, he was some sort of evil monster now with more power heaving through his body then he knew what to do with. It seems the legend of the Dark King of Hierakonpolis, was more fact than fiction, and he was now living inside of Marcus, using him to do his bidding.
Marcus’ hands are held up to the sky with some exertion, he was indeed controlling the crowd. They stared at the sky while screaming into the night air. Marcus laughs through their screams, but stops momentarily, he senses something. That’s when his hands move from sky to ground, forcing
the townspeople to their knees and exposing me hiding amongst them. If I had been smart I would have knelt too, but I haven’t been wise a day in my life, instead I lived with a lot of balls and a big mouth. This moment wasn’t going to change that.
“Eve, now this is something I expected, but not quite in this manner. I thought you might have taken some time to come up with a plan to save your little boyfriend. Instead, you bring him straight to me,” he says as he grins and points to something behind me.
When I turn to look, Vincent and Cam are standing about ten feet behind me. I want to slap my forehead. I really wish they hadn’t followed me and stayed hidden. I can see Cam mouthing the words, “Who is this guy?” to Vincent. Perhaps it was better he didn’t know, Marcus was a man of nightmares, and the only way to end the nightmares was to have him end your life.
“I suppose I should thank you, Eve. You brought me exactly what I was looking for, and I didn’t even have to fight you for him.” He points a finger toward Cam and calls him forward with it. It’s as if a string is attached to Cam’s chest, pulling him toward Marcus.
Seeing the fear in Cam’s eyes makes my anger surge, without thinking I bolt toward Marcus, taking him down to the ground and breaking whatever spell he held on the townspeople and on Cam. The townspeople run off in all directions as far from Marcus as they can.
As I struggle to take control of Marcus, he laughs a muffled laugh through his surgical mask. I was strong, but he was stronger. Attempting to pin him to the ground is futile, he grabs my wrists and lifts me into the air as he rises. He floated upward, if that wasn’t a testament to his new powers I didn’t know what was. He could have killed me then and there, or at least snapped me in half, but instead he eyes me carefully. I wasn’t sure if it was the Dark King or Marcus staring back at me, but something told me there was some battle going on inside of him, much like I had been experiencing. I figure it’s worth a try appealing to the Marcus I knew, perhaps he was still in there somewhere?
