Come Alive (Experiment in Terror #7)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was the noise above me that woke me up. My consciousness came on like a dimmer switch, slowly introducing my brain to the new reality.

I was happy to recognize that it was my own brain. It didn’t mean I felt 100%. In fact, my thoughts felt slow and stunted and I felt the drugs coursing through me, trying to bring my vitals down to a dangerous level. But I was still Dex.

And I was being buried alive.

It was black as tar and the noise that had woke me was the sound of dirt being thrown on top of the narrow coffin I was in. I could also hear Ambrosia chanting to herself, sounding faraway and muffled.

And now’s when you panic, I told myself. I tried to move, but my limbs weren’t having any of it, the poison still in control of that part of my system, reluctant to let go.

The dirt kept coming, quicker and quicker. I had a feeling that Ambrosia was having her minions do the burial services, and even though she said she was only burying me three feet underneath the ground, that three feet was enough to eventually asphyxiate a person. I could tell they were getting close to being done too. The fresh dirt that was being thrown on top wasn’t as loud as before.

I started breathing harder in my panic and tried to slow my breath. I needed to conserve air in here and I needed to think. The minute she dug me out would be the minute she’d try and administer the datura, the mind-control drugs. The stuff that turned you into a mindless slave, or a batshit crazy lunatic. I’d seen enough in the mental hospital to know that a batshit crazy lunatic wasn’t as fun as it seemed, even if it meant I’d try and take a bite out of her. When I saw her, there’d be little to stop me from ripping her f*cking head off and pissing on it.

Aside from her slaves, of course. I didn’t know how strong I was, I just knew that I was conscious when I wasn’t supposed to be. I was supposed to be in a state of near-death until after she’d administered the mind-control drug. She was expecting to open the coffin, hoping to find me alive but helpless, and that would be that. I finally had something on her—my own f*cking free will again, and I knew she wouldn’t see it coming.

The dirt and chanting continued until I couldn’t hear either anymore. The ground vibrated slightly with short bursts—they must have been pounding their shovels into the dirt. So much elaboration for a silly ritual, as if anything she was doing would appease the Voodoo Gods.

I needed a plan and I needed one fast. Her devotion to tradition was the only thing that was buying me time and saving me from my imminent slavery. But it was hard to make plans when you were trapped in a musty-smelling box, no bigger than your body, with the air slowly running out. My only plan was to get out of the f*cking ground, but I could barely move my arms. If it were any other circumstance, I could have probably pulled a Hulk Dex maneuver and punched my way out of the grave. It actually would have been pretty awesome. But I was still weak, and I was losing time.

And maybe a little bit of my sanity. It was one thing to find yourself buried underground—fully alive and conscious with three feet of hard-packed dirt between the surface and you. It was another thing to realize you weren’t alone in the coffin.

The area beneath my bare feet, what I thought was the damp, gross sides of the box, just moved.

There was something beneath my feet, moving very slowly, like it was just waking up. Scales brushing against my soles.

Oh f*ckity f*ck f*ck.

I knew exactly who I’d been buried alive with.

Her partner in crime, Li Grand Zombi.

The python continued to coil around at my feet, seeming to go in circles. I cursed myself for being 5’9” and having the extra space at the end of the coffin, although I suppose the alternative would have been to have the snake packed on top of me like sardines.

Now I had to think faster but the presence of the great serpent did nothing to get me into gear. All it did was put my already strained heart into overdrive, turn my tired brain into mush. I thought I’d run out of things to fear already, but it turns out there was a lot more.

I could only hope that it didn’t have the head of my mother this time.

Ignore the snake, it’s just sleeping, ignore the snake, I thought to myself. I hoped Rose was faring better than I was. I had been so happy to be myself again, to be alive, but now the alternative didn’t seem so bad.

The snake didn’t care what I was thinking. Perhaps it was feeding on my fear. I could feel it pressing its body up against my feet, pushing at them until my knees shot up a few inches and rammed into the top of the coffin. I’m sure I would have noticed it hurt, but all I could feel was the snake’s tongue skittering along the cut on my inner thigh, perhaps licking where the blood was. It headed up my legs and I immediately put my hands down over my junk, remembering what Ambrosia had said.

The python paid my hands no attention. It came up over them, over my pelvis, heading for my stomach. It paused there momentarily and I could hear it breathing, the sounds amplified in the darkness. It was watching me, sensing me, deciding what to do next. I wondered how much of the snake was just an animal acting on animal instincts and how much was someone else, a demonic spirit from the other world.

I was still trying to wonder that when the giant serpent resumed its movement. It came up all the way to my head and started coiling itself around my head and throat, forcing its body underneath me and the box, and looping back around again. It did this, winding around me, until it held me from head to toe.

And then it began to slowly, systematically, squeeze me to death.

My hands flailed, trying to pry it off of me, but there was no use. It was far too strong, its body made to choke the life out of its prey, to break their bones. My ribs began to crack.

Dex! I heard Perry’s voice in my head. Dex! I’m here, I’m here!

At least I thought it was in my head. It was hard to tell when I was losing consciousness again.

The snake stopped squeezing for a few moments, as if it had heard Perry as well. Then came the scraping sound of a shovel going into dirt, muffled and distant, but it was there.

“Dex!” I heard her voice again, this time it wasn’t in my head. Oh god, please let that be her, please let that be her.

I opened my mouth to yell. As if on cue, the snake began constricting again, choking the words from me.

The sound above the coffin intensified. I knew she was there, I knew she was coming to save me. I didn’t know how, but there she was. I just hoped I could hold on long enough. I could feel myself turning blue, my lungs burning for air they couldn’t get.

I also hoped that Ambrosia wasn’t within earshot, because things would get ugly for Perry, very fast. Unless my baby had the upper hand and already kicked that bitch’s ass.

Suddenly the coffin lid was hit, struck by the shovel and I heard Perry gasp, clear as day. The top of the box began to move, cracks of dim light coming in followed by dirt that fell on my body.

I looked straight up at her as she removed the lid. Though it was probably the middle of the night and dark as sin, I could see the glow of a flashlight nearby. After being in that box, everything outside of it was much clearer.

I saw her beautiful, sweet eyes staring at me, threatening to spill over with tears, so much longing in them, her dark, wet hair spilling around her. Then her eyes flashed with horror once she realized what she was staring at: a giant black python wrapped around me, trying to take my last breath.

“Oh God, Dex, no!” she cried out. Her tiny hands flew to the snake, trying to pull it off of me to no avail. The snake squeezed harder. If I could have gasped, I would have at the pain of my lower rib breaking.

This couldn’t be the way I was going to go, after all of this, to die in front of Perry’s eyes. I tried hard to hold on, to stay awake, to stay alive but everything was in her hands. I was helpless. Only she had the ability to save me, to save me from death, from myself, from everything.

I love you, I thought.

She smiled as if she heard it, tears streaming down her face and falling onto me. Then she straightened up, grabbed the shovel, and said, “If this hurts you, I’m really, really sorry.”

She raised the shovel in the air, looking like a divine warrior princess, perhaps of the gardening variety, and brought it down.

I shut my eyes and the edge of the shovel pummeled into the snake, pressing hard into me but not breaking my skin. I opened my eyes to see her bringing the shovel back out of the snake, guts and blood dripping from the edge of it, raining down on me. The snake was still holding on, not fully severed, but it had loosened enough that I could get a small amount of air into my lungs.

Perry raised the shovel again, and from the crazy determination in her eyes, that kind of determination I only ever saw in her, I knew she was going to finish him. I just hoped she could do it without making me a part of the snake kabob.

She brought the shovel down sharply, and with a sick squelching sound the snake suddenly released me. I gasped loudly for air, trying to pull it off my neck. Perry stared at the severed snaked for a few triumphant moments before she dropped to her knees and reached down into my grave to pull the upper half of the snake off of my neck. Then she reached beneath my shoulders, as far as her fingers could go, and slowly pulled me so I was sitting up. The python’s dead body dropped to my waist, freeing me.

“Dex,” she whimpered, taking my face in her hands and peering into my eyes. I wanted to tell her so many things, but air wasn’t my friend yet. My throat and lungs were too bruised and raw. The only thing I could do was lean up as far as I could and kiss her, just a brush of our lips, but enough. Just to remind me that this was why I was alive.

It also reminded me that she was kneeling on the ground, soaking wet somehow, and I was sitting upright in a coffin, half-naked, a severed black python wrapped around me. It was then that she looked down at me and gasped. Her frightened eyes went from the markings on my chest, legs and feet, to the gash on my jaw, to the place where the top tip of my ear used to be.

“What the f*ck happened to you?” she whispered, terrified. “Where is your ear?”

“I’ll explain once we get out of here,” I said hoarsely, finally finding my words. With her help, I got unsteadily to my feet and climbed out of the box. I knew I looked quite the sight, now covered in dirt and snake guts. At least the mix was deterring the mosquitos for the time being. “How did you find me?”

“It’s a long story,” she said. “I came with Maximus but I…I don’t know what happened. I lost him. The zombies, they’re out there. They tipped our boat. I swam…I don’t know what happened to him. I…I think maybe I heard him drowning. I’m sorry.” She was near tears again and I put my arms around her and held her to me, grunting quietly through the pain of the cuts and my broken rib.

“You did good, kiddo,” I told her, whispering into the top of her head. “You did good.”

She sniffled and then pulled away. “I just had a feeling I knew where you were. I could sense you.”

“What about Rose?”

She shook her head. “I don’t sense her. What happened?”

I chewed on my lip. “She’s buried somewhere here too.”

“Then we have to dig her up, she might die we if we don’t.”

“I think she’s already dead.”

“No,” she said determinedly. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. If I gave up hope on you, I wouldn’t be here now.” >

I looked over her shoulder, at the shape of Ambrosia’s small cabin in the distance. There was a light flickering in one of the windows, but I couldn’t see or hear anything else. Perry was right. We had to try.

“Okay,” I said. I tried to bend over to pick up the flashlight, but the pain was too great. She quickly got it for me and I shot her a grateful smile as I took her hand in mine. It definitely wasn’t the time to get sappy and we definitely had a lot to talk about and we definitely didn’t know where we stood as a couple, but I wanted to take the moment and hang on to it. At this point, I wasn’t sure if it would be our last.

She nodded at the flashlight. “Come on, let’s get Rose. Then we’ll find Maximus and get out of here.”

For once I wished the big red giant really was immortal. I hoped Ambrosia’s minions hadn’t found him, though the bayou was still quiet aside from the occasional splash or bird cry. No gnashing of the teeth to be heard.

I shone the light into the area around my shallow grave. It did look like it had been an ant hill at one point, and then had probably been turned into a compost heap. Though it was maybe only twenty square feet and wildly uneven, it looked like it was the only land around. Everything else that my flashlight caught beyond the mound shimmered like water.

“Over there,” Perry whispered, pointing to her left. I shone the light over and we quickly crept forward. The ground had been disturbed recently, but it looked more like something had been dug up rather than buried. We looked over. It was a grave alright, but it was empty.

“She must have buried her way before me,” I said. “She already has her.”

“Well what can we do?”

I looked back at the cabin. Rose was in there. But was it too late? And was it worth the risk of trying? The two of us versus a heap of mind-controlled zombies wasn’t exactly a fair fight.

Suddenly there was movement from the water and I knew the undead were rising slowly out of the swamp, as if they’d been there all along, waiting like alligators. I hoped that at least a few lucky gators got a meal out of them.

Perry whirled around toward the sluicing noise and I shone the flashlight on them, their eyes shining with madness. Yup. The undead.

I was about to tell Perry to run, to take us back to her boat, when I felt a presence behind me. Automatically, I made my body go slack, as if Perry had just dug me out and I was a bit brain-dead still.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ambrosia said, her hand resting on my shoulder. “I figured the poison would wear off faster with you.” She looked over at Perry, who was frozen in a mix of hate and fear as the zombies came closer and closer. “So you thought you’d come and try to save him. Well, I’m sorry dawlin’, he can’t be saved. And now, neither can you.”

I was grabbed from behind by six strong hands and ripped backward just in time to see a bunch of Ambrosia’s slaves lay their hands on Perry.

I yelled out for her before I was yanked forward and dragged through the dirt to her cabin. The ground disappeared and we had to slog through water to get to the entrance. They threw me up the stairs and up onto the rickety porch. No wonder Ambrosia practiced her magic out here, no one would ever suspect a thing. No one would even hear you scream.

I was shoved back into the cabin where I fell onto the floor covered with feathers, candle wax, and blood. The chicken’s body was gone, nailed to the wall with a knife. They immediately picked me up again and hauled me to one end of the main sacrificial room, whirling me around to face the door. Perry was brought in after me, Ambrosia holding onto one arm, her nails digging in, while another slave held the other. I fought to get free while she fought to get free, trying to get to each other. Our eyes said it all.

There was a groan coming from another small room and we both craned our necks to look. Rose was stumbling out of it, covered in dirt and blood, long, white hair in her face. It was obvious that we were too late. Rose had already lost her mind and free will. She was already under Ambrosia’s control. There was no more Rose.

“I haven’t tried anything on her yet,” Ambrosia explained, watching with clinical amusement as Rose staggered across the room, seeming to have no clear place to go. “You can both witness the dawning of the new Rose, the extent of my power.”

She started chanting loudly in her Voodoo speak, Perry wincing since it was right in her ear. She then yelled, “Rose, this man means you harm.”

For a minute, I thought Ambrosia was pointing at me, but it was a lean, handsome zombie-man to my right. Well, he would have been handsome if he hadn’t looked stoned out of his gourd.

“Rose,” Ambrosia continued, “I am your master, I am your protector. Destroy this man. Bite him, kill him. Tear him from limb to limb.” Then she started chanting again, her eyes rolling back in her head, as if she was calling some dark force to do her bidding.

I eyed a few oily candles in the corner of the room, all burning brightly. I wondered if Rose’s name was on one of them and if hers was the only name. I wondered if this zombie shit was actually going to work. To see them as the walking, yet recently deceased, was one thing. To see one become a zombie, someone that you knew, was another.

Rose had paused in the middle of the cabin, in between Perry and me, in the circle of candles that had melted down to wax. It was almost like she was listening.

Then she turned very slowly to face the man, the man who still had a firm grip on my right arm. This could go nowhere or this could get ugly. I didn’t want to see Rose this way, this hardened girl with her aching heart for her lost love. This wasn’t her.

But this Rose started to come forward, walking jerkily like the drugs were creating spasms. She kept coming and between the strands of her blonde hair, I could see her eyes. Blue-grey and crazed.

Rose stopped a couple of feet away, swaying back and forth as if she needed an extra push. Ambrosia yelled something at her, fire in her evil eyes, and Rose moved again.

She reached out for the man, wrapping both of her hands around his forearm, and bit him. She took a literal bite out of him, her mouth coming away dripping with blood and muscles and tendons. I nearly shit myself and had to look away from the sight, from this Rose that was no longer human. Across the room, Perry sounded like she was about to vomit.

Ambrosia clapped gleefully. “I knew it.”

Rose still stood there, like a robot, the man’s stringy flesh handing from her mouth until Ambrosia screeched another word and Rose lunged at the man again, this time her mouth going for his chest.

All this time, I was wondering if the zombie was just going to stand there and take it. He was still holding onto me. Didn’t he understand pain? What was happening?

He answered that fairly quickly. With one huge swipe of his mutilated arm, he grunted with rage and threw Rose backward until she slammed against the nearest wall. The candelabras shook overhead. Rose collapsed like a rag doll to the floor.

I watched her for a few moments until I saw she was breathing, then I glanced at Ambrosia. A look of surprise was on her face. Apparently, this was something she hadn’t planned for.

“Well, that was interesting,” she noted. “I should pit them against each other more often. Their basic instinct to survive…survives.”

“You are a sick f*cking bitch,” I snarled at her. “It’s not your choice to play God.”

She smiled coldly, her eyes narrowing. I saw her nails dig further into Perry’s pale arm and I immediately regretted saying anything. “If I don’t play God with the power I am given, than why am I given the power?”

“You stole their power,” Perry sneered.

Ambrosia immediately elbowed her in the face, Perry dropping to her knees as she screamed out in pain. I tried to get to her, to break free, but the men around me were fast.

Ambrosia kicked at Perry’s side and said to the slaves nearest her, “Take her over there, hold her open.”

I did not know what the f*ck that meant but I had a feeling I was going to find out. The men took Perry to the farthest wall and held her back against it, one man pulling one way with her arm, the other man pulling the other. Blood trickled out from her nose, but her attention was just on me, only on me. Her blue eyes cut me deep.

“Now it’s your turn, Declan,” Ambrosia said. My nostrils flared. I made a move to run, to jerk out of their grasp, but they held me in place, even the man with a chunk of his arm missing.

Ambrosia picked up a candle from the floor, lit it, and started coming toward me with it. She began to chant, low and gravely sounds. Everything she said sounded like death.

She paused right in front of me, the candlelight flickering in her face. For once, I saw how ugly she really was. Her smile was crooked, her hair was rough and split, her skin light, but ashy. Her eyes danced with wicked joy, glinted with the absence of her soul. All her beauty was masked by the fact that I knew who she really was.

“Even though Perry dug you up, the ritual is still in process,” she told me. “You were dead and now you’ve risen. Now you will become my own.”

From behind the candle, she lifted a syringe. Before I knew what was happening, she stabbed it into my neck, plunging the drug deep into my veins.

Perry screamed, the sound immediately amplified by whatever new drugs were surging through my body. The room swirled and twisted on itself, the candles turned into a kaleidoscope of lights.

Perry was still across the room, terrified, a lamb to be slaughtered. I was supposed to slaughter her.

But I couldn’t. Because the datura or whatever Ambrosia injected into me, didn’t work. I was high as f*ck, and tripping out hardcore, but I was still me.

And I could tell the witch was watching me carefully. She probably even gave me an extra dose of it since the original paralysis poison didn’t stay in my system long enough. If she caught on that it didn’t work as well as she’d hoped, she’d either pump me full of drugs until I was brain-dead, or she’d flat-out kill me. And Perry too.

I couldn’t let that happen. So I did what I attempted to do earlier. I let my mind go slack. I let my muscles droop. I played up the fact that I was on some wild and scary drug trip. I channeled my inner teenager, on those nights I did too many mushrooms and smoked too much pot.

I pretended to be a zombie. I pretended to be hers.

“Declan, can you hear me?” Ambrosia asked, peering at me. I ignored the annoying use of my full name, and stared straight ahead at an imaginary spot on the wall. She waved her hand in front of my face and I had to think whether I should respond to it or not. What did zombies do? I took a risk and slowly, jaggedly, turned my head her way. My eyes looked to a spot on her forehead.

I could see her expression changing, frowning, suspicious.

“Declan are you ready to do my bidding?”

I decided to not show anything. I kept staring, dumb-faced, swaying slightly. It was only then that I heard Perry whimpering. She was believing it, all of it. She had no idea.

I had to ignore that. I couldn’t screw up now. I had to play this up for as long as I could, until I was sure that Perry and I could escape. While I stared dully at Ambrosia, my mind tried to recall what the room looked like and if there were any weapons anywhere. There was just the knife, I remembered seeing it sticking out of the wall when I came in, skewering the dead chicken to it.

Ambrosia studied me for a bit longer and then started her chanting, her commanding words vibrating off the walls. She waved the candle around then delicately placed it on the floor. She walked over to a bookshelf and pulled off a large jar of oil, bringing it over to me. It smelt disgustingly sweet, just like her—baby powder and bitch.

She placed that on the ground too, and started dipping her hands in it. Then she rubbed the oil all over my face and neck, down my chest, arms, and legs. Even my crotch. She rubbed that area a little too long, but what I’d said earlier held true. I’d only be hard for Perry.

When she was done, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. From what I could tell, all she did was rub me in a vat of stinky almond oil. To her, it was probably the finishing touches in her ritual for mind-control, and though I had no doubt that she did have power, that she could bend dark forces to her will, it wasn’t working with me.

I should have been relieved at that. But then she came closer, a cloy smile on her lips, and I knew it wasn’t over yet. My allegiance wasn’t sealed.

“Declan,” she said seductively, putting her arms around my neck. Suddenly I had images of the stereotypical Voodoo ceremonies: blood orgies and naked, dancing, writhing bodies and animal sacrifices. If she was asking me to f*ck her, right here, right now, I didn’t know if I could do it.

She leaned into my ear, the one that was still whole, and whispered, “Kiss me like you mean it.”

And so I did. I had to. I kissed her hard, kissed her long. Her tongue snaked against mine, hard and greedy. She was absent of everything I loved about Perry—her warmth, her softness, her vulnerability.

I heard Perry gasp, knowing she was watching this, but I had to keep going as long as Ambrosia commanded me to.

Finally she pulled away, her breath heavy, and I had to hold back a grimace. My face had to be blank, neutral, stupid. I felt like I’d just kissed a snake.

“Now,” she said slowly, “we’ll see what else you can do.” She started to undo her blouse until her bare breasts were showing. She shrugged off her cloak to the ground, the blouse falling away afterward. She was completely nude from the waist up.

Oh shit. Oh no. No, no. No, this wasn’t good. This I couldn’t do, I couldn’t do this to her, with her, and I couldn’t do this to Perry. I was trying to save our lives, but I had my limits. This was it. This would be something neither of us could walk away from. But if I didn’t comply, we wouldn’t be walking anyway. >

She came forward and brushed her nipples against my chest. “If you’re truly my follower, you will do as I say, when I say it.”

I steadied my breath, trying not to freak out. I could feel the pain radiating off of Perry as she prepared for what she knew was going to happen. Ambrosia was going to make screw her, a display of her control.

“Stop it!” Perry cried out in agony. It broke my heart, but it made Ambrosia turn her head. “Stop it! If you’re going to kill me, then just kill me. I don’t need to see him like this, not like this.”

Ambrosia cocked her head and then eyed me up and down. “Perhaps I am being a little too cruel to your girlfriend, Declan. I can always use you later, when she’s gone. And speaking of…”

She flashed her smile at Perry. “I think your wish is my command this time. I will kill you. Well, Declan will. Won’t you?”

Though I wanted to breathe out the biggest sigh of relief over the fact that we just dodged a naked bullet, I stared forward, trying not to blink, to think, to give any sign of myself. Ambrosia stepped away, still shirtless, and picked up her candle. She began chanting.

I knew it was time. I had to think fast.

“Declan, go kill Perry. Eat her, finish her, destroy her.”

This was it.

I brought my eyes over to Perry who shook there, still held between the two slaves. She really thought this was it, that I was going to eat her alive, and not I the way she liked.

I staggered toward her, walking unsteadily but full of faked menace. Once I was out of the range of Ambrosia, once I knew she couldn’t read my eyes, I made sure that Perry could.

I was just feet away, coming toward her with my mouth open, hands bared, trying to convey to her everything I could with just a look. Everything I held, everything that was me was in my eyes. I hoped she knew who she was looking at.

I didn’t have to worry for long. Perry immediately recognized me, the terror disappearing from her face, her shoulders relaxing.

But that wasn’t good.

I heard Ambrosia make an irritated sound behind me. She saw Perry’s reaction. She already knew.

“Get him! Kill them!” She screamed.

I quickly lunged past Perry, to the knife stuck on the wall, and ripped it out of the chicken. Without even thinking, without even looking, I spun around and flung the knife across the room.

It landed square in Ambrosia’s bare chest.

The whole room seemed to dim with power, the lights and candles all flickering. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened, that I threw a f*cking knife at her and that I actually hit the target. The knifed bobbed out of her chest like she was a piece of meat at a butcher. She wheezed again, sputtering blood, put her hand around the handle, and feebly tried to pull it out.

She couldn’t. She gasped her last dying breath then collapsed to the floor, blood pooling around her.

There wasn’t much time to think about it. We could only act. I grabbed Perry and pulled her out of the zombies’ grasp. I guess Ambrosia’s death had stunned them and I hoped they were stunned enough that they’d be totally harmless.

But Perry and I only got as far as the door when we realized that they were still following her very last order.

To kill us.

The eight or so men in the room started running for us just as we leaped down the stairs, landing in the murky water. We didn’t have flashlights, we didn’t have weapons, we had nothing.

“Where did you park the boat?” I yelled as we slogged through the water, colder now than it had been before.

“I don’t know, I can’t see!” she cried out. It was pitch black everywhere, the moon hidden by passing grey clouds.

We didn’t have time to stand around and spot it. I could hear them following us, the porch creaking under their weight, the steps breaking beneath them. I didn’t want to turn around and look. I grabbed Perry’s hand and pulled her forward, deep into the bayou.

The water pulled back at us, thick with roots and weeds. Trees leaned over, trying to catch us by surprise. But we kept going, even though we could see the foliage coming further and further apart, the waterways taking over the landscape. As we splashed through, the water rose, first to our mid-thighs, then to our asses, then to our waists.

“You okay, baby?” I asked her, my grip tight around her forearm now.

She made a grunt, her way of telling me to shut up and just keep going. I knew that about her now, how we communicated when we were trying to escape from certain death. What Rose, dear Rose, had told me earlier came into my head again. She’d rather choose a life of more ghosts and demons than one without Maximus by her side. I’d have to say the same. The dead, the evil, the wicked, they would come after Perry and me whether we were together or not. But if we were together, f*ck, at least we had each other.

I wanted to tell her that, but the middle of the swamp wasn’t the best place to do it. Or was it?

“Listen, Perry,” I said. Then the bottom beneath her feet dropped and her head went under. My head went under next.

We flopped to the surface in surprise, the brackish water coming into my throat. I coughed it out and looked around trying to keep her close to me. We could swim, but I had a feeling they could too. And if it wasn’t the zombies who’d get us, whom we could still hear splashing, hot on our trail, it would be the alligators. I was already imagining their rough tails brushing against my feet.

“The trees,” Perry said, jerking her head in their direction. The action made her go under again and I pulled her to me.

“Stay with me. Stay with me,” I said, spitting out the water, keeping my arm tight around her waist. “Remember what we had to do on D’Arcy Island?”

She coughed, but managed to nod. Over her shoulder, in the distance, I could see dark shapes coming closer.

“Grab hold of my neck and hold on tight,” I said. “I’ll bring us to that tree. We can at least get out of the water.”

She brought her arms around me, her legs wrapped around my waist, like she was piggybacking. I swam forward as quickly as I could.

“Are you sure you can handle me?” she asked.

I nodded. “No problem, baby.”

But there was a problem. Back in D’Arcy Island I struggled but I got the job done. I wasn’t much better now. My strength was still subdued thanks to the drugs Ambrosia gave me. My imagination was getting the better of me, the psychoactives kicking into high gear, and my limbs felt like lead. I couldn’t let her know that though, I’d just have to push through the strain.

We had almost made it to the nearest tree when my heart and lungs just decided to give up. It happened suddenly, both organs seizing up and putting me in a stranglehold. I don’t know if it was the strain of the events, the brutality my body had already endured, or the psychosis, but it was like I decided I’d died one too many times today.

My head went under, then Perry’s, my toes straining to find ground but finding none. She let go and swam to the surface. I kept sinking until she pulled me up enough to get air.

“Please, Dex,” she sputtered through the water. “Please, we’re almost there.”

I tried to use my arms, to doggy paddle forward, if not just tread water, and keep afloat. But they failed after a few attempts. Soon I was sinking under again.

Perry yanked me up one more time and I swore it would be our last. The zombies were closer now, I could hear their grunts, the water churning beneath their limbs. They obviously weren’t affected, but I was.

“I won’t let you die on me!” she yelled, her face coming up to mine. The moon chose that moment to poke its head out from behind the clouds. It illuminated the darkness of the water, the milky paleness of her skin, the fragility of her eyes. Oh God, I was lucky to have loved her. So, so lucky.

“Dex!” she yelled again, my eyes closing. “You are not leaving me! I cannot go on without you. You are my future, you are my everything!” She started crying and kissing my face. My head sunk under.

But she wouldn’t give up. She linked her arm under mine and pulled me along as far as she could.

My head fought for surface, fought for air, but every last strength in me was gone. I took in water. She stopped pulling me. The water churned beneath my feet, and I could see hungry eyes glowing in the dark.

In the distance, the roar of the zombies became greater. It shook the water, muddy vibrations, until I knew that even if I wasn’t drowning, she would die here with me. Together. It should have made me feel better not to have to go alone. But all I wanted was for both of us to live. With each other. Until we were old and grey.

The world was turning black and my lungs were now all water. My life flashed before my eyes, and most of it was of Perry. For her short duration in my life, she changed the way I knew how to live. And love.

We’re saved, her voice cut in. We’re going to be okay.

I didn’t know if that was her parting goodbye or what that was. In a way I did feel saved. I felt peace for knowing her.

Then the water got choppier, my limbs bobbing around, and the roar of the zombies filled my ears to the core. Something hard grazed the top of my head. The current tried to pull me away, but big, strong hands came down and planted a firm grip under my armpits.

I was yanked to the surface, my lungs gasping hard for air, but only taking in more water. I was still drowning.

“Shit,” someone murmured and I was pulled backward, my spine being scraped along something hard. I barely felt a thing.

Suddenly I was on my back, staring up at the moon and the two people peering over me.

“You’re going to have to give him CPR,” Maximus said to Perry as I continued to sputter.

Even in the moonlight, I could see her glare at him. She brought me upright and started pounding on my back, a rather crude version of mouth to mouth but it worked. The water flowed out of my lungs and onto the metallic flooring. I moved my head to look around. We were on a air boat driven by Maximus and in the opposite corner from me was a white-haired mound of limbs: Rose. Nearby the zombies were swimming for us, almost within reaching distance.

I couldn’t speak so I just pointed.

“I’m on it,” Maximus said. Just as the closest zombie latched his hand onto the side of the boat, we lurched forward and zoomed out of the way, leaving the zombie, the death, and the bayou behind.

We whirred away into the night.

“Are you missing part of your ear?” Maximus asked incredulously after a few moments.

And that was the last thing I heard. Once again, my body wanted to give up, my limbs becoming heavy, my mind shutting down like a tired old machine. Luckily I knew I wasn’t going to drown this time. I knew I was in good hands. I keeled over right onto the boat and made a note to thank Maximus when I woke up.