Chapter Twenty-Six
K al guided us up to the main floor, my eyes sore and red from the tears that had flowed down my face. The night air was surprisingly calm, despite the constant heatwave the city seemed to be held prisoner by. And that, for some reason, put Kal on edge. His hand tightened around my fingers before he pulled me to the side of the entrance, watching nervously over his shoulder.
The wind began to pick up, the temperature dropping with each passing second as we stood pressed against the stone wall. The thought of summer faded into the chilling air, stealing the warmth away and raising goosebumps on my arms. My heart pounded, and the sound pulsated in my eardrums, blocking out the noise from the outside world.
“This can’t be right,” he whispered, panic twisting his beautiful face.
“What? What can’t be—” Kal covered my mouth with his big hand, hushing my panicked voice.
Then the smell hit. It smelt nothing like the typical trash on New York City streets or the stale aroma of cigarette smoke and fried food from food carts. It was a rotting corpse smell, traveling with the way of the wind, suffocating whatever air lingered in the small space I shared with Kal. The familiarity of the aroma had my mind reeling from one previous encounter, one where lucid drugs had obstructed my senses. A giant knot began to twist and tighten in my stomach, a wave of nausea threatening to escape from my mouth. Kal held me tight against the side entrance, a trickle of sweat dripping down his temple.
He moved his mouth close to my ear, breathing heavily and shakily against my skin. “Don’t move. Okay?”
A nervous bubble in my stomach tightened as he released me, disappearing before I could stop him. Silence replaced his absence, hanging over me like a dark cloud, ready to cause catastrophic damage. Every part of me wanted to go after Kal, but would going against his order cause more harm than good? Would I just get in the way when I didn’t even know what was out there? After all, I’d become a part of his world now, I had every right to step in and help. But my type of ‘help’ required me to watch from the sidelines to witness what everyone kept trying to convince me existed.
My chance arrived unexpectedly, and it would steal a peek before Kal noticed anything out of order.
Bracing myself for what lurked around the corner, I breathed in and out for a couple of seconds to calm myself and stepped around, facing whatever danger lay head-on.
The contrast from the front of the building, where the shrubs and trees were a vivid green, did not compare to the dead, charcoal branches hanging limp in the backyard. But that wasn’t what brought me to my knees. It was Kal jumping, bow and arrow drawn toward a grueling creature, swiping furiously at his head. Long claws swiped back and forth, missing his head by an inch while he drew his bow with one swift motion, firing directly at his long, twisted body. The gruesome creature dodged the pointed arrow and soared through the air, landing on top of the cathedral.
It was a fucking Magidoz demon.
I shrieked from its proximity, which made Kal flip in the air, landing on the perfect spot to fire another arrow. It zoomed past, and instead of focusing back on Kal, the creature turned to me, its crooked teeth bared in anger, with a black substance dripping down its mouth.
“Remi! Use the pager!” Kal called from the opposite side of where I stood in the small courtyard. His movements were so quick I didn’t realize another arrow was shot from his bow.
It hit the bullseye.
The creature screamed in a demonic tone, piercing my ears. Then it fell to the ground, creating a loud thud, shaking the earth.
I slid down the brick wall, overwhelmed by the sound, the smell, everything. How could I be the only one seeing this? Why hadn’t other students come to witness the obscenity?
I can’t do this. I can’t.
“REMI! NOW!” shouted Kal, tossing the small device at my feet.
His voice disrupted the self-doubt replaying in my head. Kal was now pinned to the ground, fighting off the thick claws of the creature swiping aggressively at his face.
I scrambled toward the pager, trying as fast as I could to signal for help, all while hearing Kal grunt in despair.
“REMI!”
I slammed my thumb down on the alert button just as his scream vanished with the wind. I counted down the minutes, which seemed to drag, not prepared to fight the creature alone, when another arrow went flying through the air, piercing the creature’s side. A black substance sprayed all over the ground, tainting the already dead shrubs and brown grass. It screamed in agony, swiping left and right in anger as a flash of scarlet cape soared past, landing on the back of the creature.
Just then, Anna’s face came into view as she stabbed it directly in the heart with a short dagger, jumping off just in time for it to melt on the ground, bubbling until it evaporated completely. The smell began to turn my stomach, and I clenched it as I slowly collapsed to the ground, trying to breathe.
Josh suddenly came into view, gripping my shoulders. “Remi, are you okay?”
My throat was dry, my voice nonexistent. I could only stare past his head, watching Anna help Kal up from the ground, assessing him to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
“Remi, I need you to answer me,” Josh said as he waved a frantic hand in front of my face.
I shook my head in disbelief, afraid to even utter a word.
The night of the club replayed in my mind. The dark alley, the slick sludge dripping off the buildings from the gruesome creature that haunted just beyond 85 th street, the same type of creature that had entered campus grounds.
My body shook; I couldn’t control my emotions any longer.
“Remi, please,” begged Josh. He got down to eye level, but I just kept shaking my head.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?”
“Shut up, Anna. Go back to Kal.”
She joined Josh, kneeling next to him. “Snap the fuck out of it.” Her hand connected with my cheek, creating a sharp sting.
I yelped and pushed them away, stumbling backward. “Stay the fuck away from me!” Not caring about making a scene, I ran as hard as I could, dashing through traffic, where loud, angry shouts and aggressive honking were directed at me.
I didn’t care. Pumping my legs to go faster, the burning sensation of trying to breathe through my erratic sprint across campus was enough to push harder to feel something, anything rather than death. The night air clung to my skin the further I got from the stench of death.
Realizing I must have dropped my bag back at the cathedral, I was lucky to slip right inside Carman Hall as one of the students clicked the door open. Shouts of protest came from the guy at the front desk but were forgotten when I climbed the stairs two at a time.
Pushing other students aside, I barreled down the hall, skidding to a halt and shouldering my dorm door, breaking one of the hinges off along with the lock.
There was no way to process what I just did, not while I searched for my flask. I tossed my pillows and blankets aside, realizing then that I never put it back under the pillow.
“Ugh! Where the fuck is it?” I shouted, stomping over all my belongings.
“Remi!” Josh’s voice could be heard down the hall, but nothing mattered until I found my flask, until that alcohol touched my tongue and coated my bloodstream.
“Remi, stop!” he demanded at the doorway, or what was left of it. He stepped inside, trying to move the half-assembled door aside.
I whipped around, ready to tell him off, when I noticed something off on Heather’s side. All her belongings, even the weird art on the walls, were absent. Her desk, which had showcased her variety of perfumes, gone.
My breathing became ragged as I took inventory of everything missing, right down to her closet, where her impressive shoe collection had been emptied out.
“No… no,” I whispered.
Josh stepped closer; his hands raised. “Remi.”
“No…” I kept shaking my head, backing up until my ass hit my desk, rattling whatever contents were inside the drawers. And it sounded like my flask resided inside one of them.
Throwing shit left and right out of the drawers, the flask appeared under some notebooks. I snatched it, untwisting the cap in haste, when strong hands grabbed me by the arms, stopping my attempt to get a sip.
“Let me go!” I screamed, throwing my head back, hitting a very chiseled chin.
“Ow! Remi, what the fuck are you doing?” We struggled against one another, fighting for the flask in my hands.
“I need it. Please, I need it!” I cried, trying to twist out of his hold, which only resulted in the flask being knocked from my hand, crashing to the floor, staining the cream-colored rug.
I collapsed to my knees, trying to scoop whatever alcohol I could with the palm of my hands, sipping it.
“Rem—” Josh knelt in front of me, sniffing what was in my hands. “Oh.”
I drank what I could, which were little droplets of my father’s whiskey, then I licked my hands clean like the fucking addict that I was, begging for any of it to run through my bloodstream, hoping to soothe the pain that made it hard to breathe.
Josh put his hands on my shoulders. “How long, Remi? How long have you been like this?”
Shaking my head, I fell into his arms, letting my emotions boil over, sobbing until tears could no longer form and fall. “All her stuff is gone.”
He stroked my hair, a tender touch I wasn’t expecting. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please, get it back,” I choked through my tired sobs, shaking in his arms. “Please, it’s all she had left.”
He continued to stroke my hair, rocking us back and forth. Whatever spat we had prior didn’t matter as he tried to soothe my sorrow.
I welcomed the sudden silence. I welcomed the emotions that were sure to drown me. There was nothing left of her stuff, nothing left of her and how she lived and breathed, right down to the shitty color scheme of her bedspread. The smell of whiskey in the air, along with the sounds of my cries against Josh’s chest, couldn’t snuff out the agony that began to build within my heart. Breathing became harder with each passing second, my chest rising and falling as I sobbed without restraint. The Magidoz demon stood at the corners of my mind, the smell of decaying flesh invading my senses. Everything became too real too fast.
I was going to be sick.
I turned, breaking free from Josh, and found my waste basket, dumping all the contents of my stomach inside the small bucket, choking back gasps.
He held my hair, rubbing my back, whispering calming words, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Because all that was left was her body, stone-cold and immobile. And I could do nothing about it.