Chapter 56
Remy
“No, no, no,” Daiyu cried out, her words getting more desperate. “How could this have happened?”
Trevor lifted his head and started pushing himself up, completely unmindful of the jagged bone sticking out of his arm. He looked over at us with glassy eyes bloodshot with veins gone green from the infection.
“He must’ve been bitten on his hunting trip,” Jordy reasoned, since he’d just returned with the prized mountain goat.
Daiyu shook her head frantically. “No, he wouldn’t have hid that. He never would’ve hidden something like that from me!”
How he was infected was really beside the point at the moment. Not long ago, Trevor had been a hulking man, but now he was a hulking zombie staggering back to his feet, and he posed a real threat to all of us.
All of the night’s earlier bliss had completely evaporated. I was a rigid livewire, and I wasn’t about to let any zombie take down anyone else I cared about.
My maul axe was at home, but it was just as well, because I shouldn’t really be swinging something that heavy yet. I grabbed the lighter poker from the nearby hearth.
As Trevor lumbered toward me and Daiyu, Jordy launched himself from the mid-point of the stairs, and he landed on Trevor’s back. His arms wrapped around the zombie’s neck, using them to clamp the gnashing jaws shut.
Daiyu darted around them, avoiding Trevor’s long arms as he flailed about. She ran to the kitchen, while I started swinging at Trevor’s thick legs and knees. I was afraid to aim the poker at his head, because if I missed, I could seriously hurt Jordy.
Each of my swings did nothing. I know I wasn’t as strong as I once was, but it was like fighting a brick wall. He staggered and lumbered, and I dodged his powerful arms, while Jordy held his head and kept him from biting anyone.
A moment later Daiyu came running back into the room carrying something long and sharp in her hand.
At first, I thought it was a unique stick or some kind of magic wand, with the pitch-black color and twisting ridges.
But when she raised it up, I realized it was one of the subtly curved long horns from the beautiful mountain goat.
“Get him to the ground, and I will finish him!” Daiyu commanded, as if that hadn’t been what we were trying to do.
I gritted my teeth, and with all my might, I swung the poker like a bat against the back of Trevor’s knees. They finally buckled forward, and Jordy used his weight on his back to knock Trevor face first into the floor.
Daiyu ran over, and Jordy moved out of the way as she raised her arms over her head. Trevor was already trying to push himself up again when she drove the goat horn straight into the back of his skull.
The zombiefied Trevor let out one final rattling death groan, and he collapsed onto the wood floor. Daiyu yanked the horn out of his head, and the brain matter stuck to it had already turned pistachio green.
Daiyu stood over the unmoving body of her boyfriend, his green-tinged blood spilling out all over the amber-colored floors. She let out a long primal scream, loud enough that I had to put my hands over my ears. Then she stopped, dropped the horn to the floor with a clatter, and that was it.
Jordy and I helped her wrap the body in an old blanket, and we moved it out to the shed behind the house. It was cold enough to help the body keep until Daiyu could organize a pyre in the daylight. The other townspeople needed a chance to say goodbye and grieve him, too.
She spoke very little, really only when we asked her a specific question, like where to find a tarp.
Jordy and I didn’t say much either. We soaked up the blood from her floorboards, we cleaned up her kitchen, and we helped her up into bed.
Jordy gave her another tab of grinleaf to help her sleep, and he promised he would check on her tomorrow.
And then, with dawn nearing the horizon, we finally left her cabin and walked across the town on quiet, frosty streets.
“Should I go?” I asked Jordy outside the front door of his house.
“I would prefer if you spent the night tonight.” He put his hand on my waist. “I mean, I’m too exhausted to do anything but sleep, but I’d really like having you near me.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” I clarified. “I meant… should I just pack up and get out of Xwechtáal?”
He leaned back, trying to get a better look at me. The lamp he’d left burning above the door cast us both in a warm amber glow. “Like right now?”
“Tomorrow, the next day.” I shrugged. “Whenever I get all ready.”
“But we have a plan. We’ve talked about this. We’re going together in May.” His brow furrowed. One hand was still around my waist, but the other went to my neck with his thumb caressing my jaw. “Nothing’s changed.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on.”
“No, I’m serious. Yeah, Trevor died and that was fucked up. But what does that have to do with you and me?” he insisted.
“It’s like I told you when I met you. I’m the harbinger of death.”
“Remy, stop being so damn fatalistic and acting like you’re some mythical deity of death,” Jordy replied, sounding far more weary than angry.
“You are one fucking person. What happened tonight with Trevor had absolutely nothing to do with you. And if you run now, it is not because of this. It’s because you like to run when you’re scared. ”
“Are you calling me a coward?” I asked incredulously.
“I only said you run when you’re scared. If you take that to mean that you’re a coward, that’s on you.”
“How dare you?” I shot back at him. “You have no idea what I’ve faced and what I’ve been through and what I am willing to do.”
“If you’re so damn brave, why don’t you stay until May?” His hand was still on my neck, and he stared straight through me with his eyes the color of mountain stone.
“Because I don’t want to watch you die,” I confessed, and I didn’t even realize that was the truth until it was out of my mouth.
Angry, embarrassed tears stung my eyes as I realized that he was right. I was a coward. The thought of losing another person, of losing more of myself when they died… I was absolutely terrified of going through that again.
“Remy.” His voice was soft and low, and when he wiped the tears on my cheek, I realized I was trembling. “I promise you that I’ll live as long as you do.”
“You can’t make that promise,” I argued.
“Watch me,” he said and kissed me deeply before pulling me into his arms.