We hold each other’s eyes for a moment as I lean away from him. I watch his eyes swirl from anger to sadness with the thoughts trampling through his memories. I wonder if they wear the same flags. I wonder if he can smell the deaths of those he left behind. I wonder if Karma and Fate provide for him the same lessons those twisted sisters ingrained in me, but mostly, I wonder what he sees in my eyes. As I now stand over him in a kitchen just as grand as the one that was lemon-scented and gleaming white, at this moment, what does he see in my very green eyes?
I wish I could play him the chorus of his children’s deaths. I wish I could explain where they are with so much more than just empty words retelling a tale resembling one so many have told. Instead, I walk away letting him wonder with nothing more than past events gluing together possible collages of explanations. Meanwhile, I know nothing he pictures, from even the deepest of his fears, could really prepare him for the truth.
Even in my moment of self-obtained glory, there’s always the double-edged knife. Genny stands a mere few steps away from the whole show. She no doubt has heard the references I made towards the woman whose death has carved a hole in her own soul. As suddenly as the fire was flamed inside me, I’m completely cold now. I let that chill climb to my eyes, meeting hers with a glance of a warning. When the first tear glides down her cheek, I buckle and storm from the room like the defeated villain I have become.
Walking on to the back porch, I let what’s left of the morning sun warm my face as the door slams behind me. No one follows me out. No one is either brave enough or interested enough in another one of my moments. Truthfully, I don’t blame them. Even I’m growing tired of my constant bullshit.
Try as it might, the sun does nothing to remove the chill from my soul. That ice is too thick for such a simple warmth to melt it. The ice is like scar tissue, holding the many cracks and fissures of my wounded heart together. Not even the fire fanned from my self-destruction could touch that ice. Like a plague of its own making, it is spreading more every day. It eats slowly away at the flame which spurs me towards each new day, giving me the courage to constantly keep fighting beyond my own measure of exhaustion.
I had told Aimes I would never give up or give in, but we both know my seat in the waiting room is inevitable. No one can hold on forever. Closing my eyes with a sigh, I know I would welcome the chance to cave under it all.
I was asked if I was going to leave anyone else behind to die. A few moments ago, when I was among the rusted horses of my personal apocalypse, I had said no. The growls now coming from my left, they hint at a different answer, but that ice, that spreading numbness, it does more than just hint that I just might.
Chapter 17
Near me, I hear the footsteps on the wooden porch. I hear the boards creaking, singing like a slow song of a chorus holding a warning. It doesn’t stir me. I don’t respond to the waltz which once fluttered my mind with panic. I don’t even uncross my arms or open my closed eyes. I don’t brace for the dance. I have no plan of defense against the attack. This should worry me, but I’m not worried. I’m exhausted. I can almost hear the intercom in that imagined waiting room.
The smell is the classic roll of death and rot. A smell only layers of gruesome acts can accumulate with such a depth. I welcome it around me like the familiar must of an old room.
It walks with the Shadow of Death and all the Deities of Destruction following closely in its trail. It has become the end-all, the last sight so many have seen, but it has yet to meet me. I’m not sure if Deities still walk with me but I’m certain Destruction does and she’s stronger than any prayer I could offer up for protection.
It’s halted near me. What’s left of its voice is making soft growling sounds, yet there is no move to attack. Instead, it licks a slow line of sludge from the concave crevices of my neck to my temple. A cold slime is left behind from its sandpaper-like tongue. The sludge chills where it's left, causing an almost hardening effect like a candy coating now that it has finished its tasting tour of my flesh.
My mind starts to weigh the pros and cons of what should happen next. I should never have let it get this close. I can hear the imagined doors of the waiting room swishing open, challenging me to change my fate. My repeated attempts to constantly prove I don’t care may just be the fatal flaw that escorts me past those doors, deeper than its lobby and somewhere even Paula can’t save me. Finally, my heart skips its first beat. The ice feels its first thaw.
I hadn’t heard the other set of footsteps. I was so lost in my own attempt of suicide; I hadn’t heard Irony throw her dice into the lot. The chambering of the gun, that I heard.
The impact was instant. The force of the explosion of vile fluids flew across the left side of my body in a shower of frigid shards. It didn’t drip the way fresh blood does after it smears you; something, as of late, I never thought I would know. This is sliding down my face and arms with a heavy gravity, clinging to me in thick patches making me thankful my eyes are still closed.
Turning my head with the feeling of the slime-like juices slithering deeper into my shirt, I slowly open my eyes to see whom I will thank or curse. I hadn’t expected to see Leigh, nor the barrel of her gun still pointed directly at my head. I don’t waste words to ask her what she’s doing, or of what her plans hold. I wait with calmer eyes than my heart portrays.
We stare at one another in a locked gaze of eye contact. She’s wearing her perfect bored mask of a face with her pink lips almost curving over the power she thinks she’s holding over me. Her eyes aren’t doing their panic dance. They are flat and level with mine with no hints of the shy creature we rescued.
“You’re welcome,” Leigh says, slowly lowering the gun a moment after her eyes dart behind me.
The screen door does a slow creak. Lawless and Marxx are slipping their way onto the shared porch. Their posture portrays their confusion over which role to slide into, having obviously walked into female drama. More so since one of those potential land mines is holding a gun.
“Who gave her a fucking gun?” Marxx asks.
Having reapplied her veneer of delicate and distraught, Leigh’s eyes are back to their dancing, but the gun is steady in her hand.
“She did,” I reply, keeping my gaze on the woman who keeps presenting more questions than answers about herself. “You’re welcome to try to take it from her.”
Marxx, sliding down the same suicidal slope as I am, actually takes a step towards her to my amusement. To my disappointment, the burst of screams from overhead stops us all in mid-drama.
“There are more upstairs,” Leigh says, using her facts as grenades, again.
Lawless and Marxx are already running back into the house. Leigh and I, we are still standing on the porch, and I watch as her façade melts back to boredom with it just being us, again. The screams don’t unnerve her. She doesn’t flinch as the many tones of voices join into one shriek of panic. She doesn’t head into the house to help or run into the yard to escape. She turns, wearing the same bored face, and strolls along the edge of the wrap around porch to the side of the house. Sharing one last glance, she keeps walking in her slow pace around the corner, blocking my view of her.
Rhett is running across the side lawn from the opposite side. His jeans are stained with more patterns than I remember them owning. In his arms, April is almost impossible to see as they make their way to the line of vehicles. Risen may not stop my heart, but the sight of Rhett running from danger, that does. The only reason our dark monster would run, leaving so many behind to the real monsters, is if there weren’t that many left to save.
I wait a spare second to see who else from our family will soon follow his path. When none do, I do what I do best. I run the opposite direction from those who are fleeing.
I don’t follow Rhett to safety. I follow the screams. The same screams which follow us time-after-time. Screams which have become a bird song to our soundtrack, constant, and always flowing in the background. When I reach the side door Rhett m
ust have exited from, I welcome the numbness I was moments ago worried over. I revel in the white noise, blocking my thoughts and worries. I welcome it like an embrace from a lost friend. I let it settle over my mind and racing heart, in a way I can use instead of being used, because sitting just past the door is a slumped blonde pixie. She’s draped over the bottom stairs with something more than just biting exchanges flowing from her.
J.D. murmurs from the back of my mind. I can smell his whiskey-laced breath as if he’s standing beside me, taunting me.
“Do you know what day it is?” he asks me, without shame or remorse. Pulling me mentally back to a death-filled hallway, he smiles at me.
“Helena, move!”
This time it's Peyton’s voice pulling me along. He is closely followed by Genny and Ginjer. Their wide eyes express what they are running from better than any verbal exclamation.
I push past them to reach Aimes, Peyton grabs my arm.
“Don’t,” he simply states. “Come with us.” His eyes aren’t wide, but they are just as expressive.
“Is this your idea of coming together?” I hiss, jerking my arm free from his grasp. “I’m not leaving anyone behind.”
I ignore the repeated shouts of my name as his group exits the house. My eyes are only for my friend who Peyton so easily just stepped over. Her body has collapsed, alone and broken, draped across the steps in front of me. In denial, I call her name over the shouting surrounding us, but it’s not my arms that reach her first.
Rhett reaches around me, scooping her lifeless body from the ground. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t utter a single sound, as he too dwells in his denial about who he holds. Securing my arm in his other hand, he drags both of us from what was a moment of respite. These walls provided a small lull to the endless cycle we are in now, allowing us to secure our mishandled treasure.
I stall, straining to catch a sight of who is still left upstairs, but Rhett doesn’t allow any disobedience to his plan of action. His fingers become almost talons, driving the strength of the man into the flesh of my arm.
“Don’t,” he says, repeating the same word command Peyton had used before.
Rhett should know better than to expect me to simply walk away. He should know I always look. Even when everything inside me pleads to just once listen to the advice I gave, I don’t. I’m not about to start now, either.
Risking the loss of my arm, I pull from him using all my strength and the downward pull of gravity to free myself. He doesn’t fight twice. His fingers waver for a moment, but we have both made our choices. Like a cherished goodbye, he lets me slip from his grasp. With one more look to the other, we go our separate paths, our eyes saying to the other what our voices cannot.
He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t waver to see if I will change my mind. Rhett knows better than that. He knows I have to look. The grinning skull upon his back fades through the sunlight. For a moment, I can’t help but wonder if that grin is of a warning or mockery of the decision I have made.
Chapter 18
I climb the stairs one slow step at a time. There are no tell-tale signs of what is ahead. No proverbial writing on the wall, unless you count the many running streaks of red clashing with the crisp white paint. The screaming has long stopped, and the silence before me has a different taste of dread.
It’s easy to mentally put together the moments I’ve missed. The stairwell is littered with claw marks and various signs of abuse from a goal-centered mob. I can almost piece together the puzzle, interlocking the many jagged edges to become a whole picture of how the Risen were able to sneak past us. When I see the open window on the first ledge, the pieces become glued together, framed like an outline of bad decisions. The creatures heard the laughter and sounds of food from the yard below. The soft sounds were too tempting to not accept the unsent invitation. Where are those sounds, now?
The first corpse stares at me as I come around the winding ledge. I freeze from taught lessons of the past, waiting for it to move or acknowledge me. Even my breath is held in irregular patterns to hide my discovery from him, but he doesn’t see me. His glazed eyes finally see nothing. He is in such a state of decay, I can’t tell how he found his final death, providing no further clues as to where I may find the others.
I step over the next three bodies. My small feet suddenly feel large as I strategically find spots on the gore encrusted carpet to place them between the broken, discarded dead. The vile scent of rot seeps along the path I take. Every step releases it further into the air around me. It used to gag me, coil my stomach into knots. It’s almost a comfort, now. The Risen can’t lose this much fluid if they are still alive.
The further I creep into the area, the more evidence I see of Lawless and Marxx. What began as simple disposal has now dissolved into pure slaughter from the many gashes placed upon the bodies. In typical G.R.I.T. fashion, they don’t just do the job, they enjoy it. Yet, still no sign of those who did this.
A noise from behind the door of the room ahead paralyzes me. Every muscle in my body comes to an abrupt halt. Except for my brain. This muscle is suddenly in full tilt, flooding my mind with images of possibilities watching me through the thin slit of the doorway. My ears strain to hear any clues as to what it came from, or who, but it’s just a soft sound; a sound which could be many things and nothing at all.
She’s daring me again. Truth is pushing to see if I’m still the same reckless girl I was when she first started teaching me the ways of this new reality. She’s just a few inches away, waiting for me to peek at what she holds for me. She attempted to take Lawless from me once before. Has she finally fulfilled that threat?
She spared Marxx once already when he put his life on the line. Will she do it, again?
Paula has invited her, almost begged her, to take her. Has her wish been granted?
Do I look? I could just head back down, chase after the ones who begged me to come with them, but where would be the fun in that? Removing my knife from the holster in my very well-worn brown boots, I answer Truth’s dare.
My fingers tremble as I extend my hand to push the door wider. The white wood is cold, lifeless as those laying around me. Yet, it isn’t silent. It whines with its reluctant weight. As it shatters the silence around me, it might as well have been screaming in duress with the slow swing it provides.
It’s a teasing look into the room. My heart beats in time with the slow pace. Sliding my back against the door molding, I prevent any more mute footsteps from slipping up behind me.
The handle of the knife in my hand is causing it to cramp with how I’m clenching it, raised and ready to defend myself. My eyes stare into a room that should be bright with sunlight. It’s shrouded in shadows from the backyard’s tall trees, keepings its secrets well hidden. This does nothing to settle my heart into some form of a normal pattern. It’s beating against my ribs. The walls of my chest feel battered by its abuse. Yet, I keep going. I have to look.
Unwilling to put my hand into the dark room, I use my foot to nudge the door open wider, but it swings back, removing any progress made. I nudge it again, harder this time. Mockingly it swings back but with the same slow rhythm as before.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
I use the word to steel my resolve. It’s not eloquent, but it eloquently describes my thoughts of the door in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I kick the door to remove all doubts of my sincere efforts to open it.
I should have listened to the door’s hints. I should have given up with its protests. I should have walked away. I should have done a great many things since this all started. This, right here, this will just be another one to add to the list. Sitting in the corner of the room, half-hidden in the secret abiding shadows, is something covered in its latest victory and it’s looking right at me like I’m about to be the next conquest.
It’s what it is kneeling over which has my eyes locked and throat closed. I’ve interrupted enough of their meals to be shake
n, but not damaged by the sight. I’ve been their meals enough times to not be devastated by it, either. Despite all of this, the one thing I will never grow used to seeing is their hands, wrists deep, in the body cavity of someone I know.
With his face turned away from me. His caramel-brown hair is loose, free from the small ponytail these last months have resulted in. The shade is slightly off from what I know it to be, but there are a thousand reasons for that to happen. The subtle shading from his facial hair has caught chunks of the gore the demon-possessed creature sprayed with the attack. It shades his face like a death shroud, dark and heavy with its meaning.
Marxx lies before me, spread wide like a Thanksgiving dinner for the damned, but I’m the one sliding into Hell. The descent rips my sanity. It suffocates my breath, catching it in loud, locked patterns burning my lungs only to repeat the torture over and over again.
I can’t look away from the carnage in front of me. I cannot see anything else in the room. My mind fights against the whispers Truth hisses in my ear. She’s gleeful in her vindication. She rolls my mind with memories of a crowded back room, stacked deep with death. It rolls back to the day Marxx risked everything just to reach me and how he kept reaching for me every day after that. It rolls to a house haunted with the ghosts of a birthday party and the man who followed me into those walls of purgatory. Even as our leader fell to his knees, Marxx was reaching for me. Again and again, he was reaching for me and I wasn’t here to reach back.
I don’t know how much time has passed as Truth and I danced down memory lane. I was living only in those lost moments. Time belonged to a dead man’s watch and the ticking was the sound of my heart breaking.
The Risen Series | Book 5 | Defiance Page 12
