Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse (Part 1) (8 page)

-
Dinner Take Two-

             
The ride home was a little precarious since his motorcycle didn’t offer much room for personal space.  I tried to just sit without touching him, but he pulled out so sharply I was forced to wrap an arm around his chest.  I kind of figured he had done it intentionally, but I’m sure he would have claimed otherwise. 

             
When we got back, I went inside via the kitchen door.  The table was set neatly again, with fresh flowers in a vase.  Since the house wasn’t filled with smoke, I presumed, he had also taken care of the food.  I hadn’t even realized I had frozen in the door until Garrett bumped me from behind.  “Come on, the mosquitos are getting in.”

             
I stepped in and started to head into the living room.  My intention was to go straight to bed, even though I was hungry.  “Lenore.”  Garrett said before I had made it to the stairs.  His voice held the same tone that August’s did.  It was a question, but also a reprimand.  I stopped and debated my options.  Risk indigestion rushing through the most uncomfortable meal ever or go hungry to prove my point.  That point being: I
could
go hungry, or I can get my way, or I’m stubborn, or…

             
Forget it. 

             
I came back into the kitchen, just as Garrett pulled the still warm skillet of food from the oven.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to sit down when he sat.  I wanted to eat somewhere else.  I also wanted to not be a coward. 

             
After Garrett had served both our plates, he turned himself in his chair to look at me.  “What are you thinking right now?”

             
I blinked away my confusion.  Why do people ask that?  Do they really want to know?  No one ever wants to know what you’re thinking.  “I don’t want to be near you right now, but I don’t want you to think I’m running away from you either.”

             
“Are you angry at me, or scared of me?”

             
I rolled my eyes.  No matter which answer I chose, I was going to look like a typical emotional female.  “I feel like you’re more a stranger to me now than you were two weeks ago.”

             
“That doesn’t really answer my question.”  He stood up abruptly, and I took a big step back.  “That does though.”  He put up a finger to pause the conversation and went outside.  He returned a minute later holding hand cuffs.  I took a couple vacillated steps back, but he shook his head.  “Easy, Lenore, the handcuffs are for me.  I’ll give you the key, and you can take them off when you feel comfortable enough to risk it.  Or until I have to pee, whichever comes first.”

             
He tossed me the tiny key and latched the cuffs around his wrists behind his back.  I scoffed at him, but he proceeded to sit down and eat from his plate like a dog.  The comfort of his hands being bound, wore off quickly when I realized it meant I would have to serve him and wipe his face when he was done. 

             
After his second helping of food he leaned back in his chair and looked me over.  It had bothered me that he barely acknowledged my existence over the last two weeks.  Now that his stunt had made him intimately familiar with my body, I wished he
would
forget I existed. 

             
“Do you want to hit me?”  He asked when I couldn’t meet his eyes.

             
I scoffed in an attempt to laugh, but he didn’t offer it as a joke, so I let my smile drop.  “No, I don’t want to hit you.  I don’t even want to be near you.”

             
“I can’t have you afraid of me.”

             
“I thought that was the point.  Scare me into fighting you.  Scare me into survival mode.”

             
“Yes, but that won’t work twice.  You won’t fight me nearly as hard if you suspect I’ll let up at the last second.”

             
“I figured I would start wearing skirts so we could skip the fight and go straight to the rape.”  He actually looked away.  He was no doubt irritated, but I also detected offense.  “Why is she making me do this?”

             
He looked back at me like I had asked him to tell me what he hides under his mattress.  He thought about it a moment, before standing to retrieve his plate via his bound hands.  He managed to get it to the sink and slide it in without breaking it. 

             
A man cleaning up his dishes post-apocalypse?  Maybe hell had frozen over.  Or maybe it was just avoidance at its best. 

             
I brought my own dish over and started a batch of soapy water in the sink.  “There has to be a reason.”  I said to remind him that he hadn’t actually answered me yet.

             
“Aside from saving your life?”

             
“Yes.”  He rolled his eyes and leaned against the counter by the sink while I proceeded to wipe down the table and bring over the other dishes.  “I get the purpose.  I just don’t get the effort.”  The suds in the sink mushroomed up when I dumped the skillet in.  A particularly large splotch of foam hit Garrett’s face.  He blew most of it off, but a little piece remained on his nose.  I wiped it off rather briskly with a dry towel, which he thanked me for.  He still had some remnants of sauce on his face from the meal, but not enough that I felt compelled to help with.

             
“Why don’t you think you’re worth the effort?”

             
“Am I?”  I waved my hand to the set that had been the scene of my attempted fake rape.  “Look how far you had to go to get my, so called, best.”

             
He nodded in contemplative agreement.  “You did impress me tonight though.  You might be too stubborn to start a fight, but once it was out of your control, you were forceful and creative.”  He turned so he wasn’t relying on the counter to hold him up.  His proximity put me on guard, but I held my ground.  “August just wants to reverse your foot dragging obstinacy into a stalwart fighter.  I thought she was wrong about you.  I didn’t think you were worth the effort either, but after tonight I think she may have been right.  So, now that I’m on board too, you can expect to be miserable.  Tomorrow I am going to make you hate me so much, that you’ll never say no to an offer to hit me again.”

             
“Great, I suppose I should feel privileged that you are waiting that long.”

             
“I’d like to apologize for tonight.”  He said ignoring my quip.  “In spite of the necessity of it, that isn’t the image I want you to have of me.  That’s not who I am.  I expect you’ll continue to hate me.  That’s for the best, but if you would allow it, I would like to reverse some of your impressions of me as a man.”

             
“Excuse me?”  I hadn’t really been listening, since the skillet wasn’t voluntarily releasing its dinner residue, but I probably would have asked it anyway.

             
“I don’t mind being hated.  I don’t mind you being scared of me so far as it suits your training, but I don’t want to be a monster to you.”  He stepped away from the counter, and I turned to see what his strategy was.  I must have been wearing twenty layers of dumbfounded on my face, but he seemed to be oblivious to it.  “When you’re ready.”

             
“What?  What do you want me to do?”

             
“Just come to me, so I can offer you a different picture of me.  One without violence.”  I must have stepped back, because my butt started to feel wet from the sink overflow.  “Please.”  He said lowering his head.  He wasn’t badgering me with an apology, because he knew I would never accept it.  He was however, offering a redo.  He wanted to change how I saw him.  “I’m still cuffed.  I won’t take advantage.  I just want one kiss.”

             
Hearing the word kiss made my whole body flare hot.  It wasn’t even sexual or angry heat. It was like someone had called me to give a speech in my underwear.  I shook my head, but just the thought of kissing made me wet my lips.  I smacked my washcloth on the counter and walked off. 

             
I was half way through the living room before a thought occurred to me.  Maybe I needed to kiss him too.  Once again the thought wasn’t based on any sexual desire I had for him.  At this point, my emotions toward him were being stored in a mental filing cabinet in reverse chronological order of experiences.  I did feel threatened by him though.  If I ignored how I felt, it would just put me on edge.  That might help me train, but it would also make me worry myself into restless sleep, and gastritis provoking mealtimes.

             
Garrett didn’t want me to view him as a rapist bastard because he found the label offensive to his honorable nature.  I didn’t want to view him that way, because it would make the next few weeks or months intolerable. 

             
After my pause in thought and step, I returned to the kitchen and found him still standing in the center of the kitchen waiting for his kiss.  He didn’t smile when I returned, which was good.  He just watched me fidget and inch toward him like he might suddenly jump me again.

             
When I was right in front of him, he leaned in for a kiss and I pulled away.  I wasn’t even sure why I did.  Somehow in my cycle of prudishness I forgot how to just let someone kiss me.  I chuckled and apologized.  I looked at him to see if I had annoyed him again, but he was patiently waiting for my kiss. 

             
My eyes watered and I shook my head.  “I’m sorry.”  I apologized again laughing at my confusing reaction to what should have been a simple kiss.  “I can do this.”  His brow dove deep and he tilted his head to look me over.  “It’s not you.”  I said feeling more tears coming on.  “Geez, I can’t believe I’m getting this worked up.  Okay, just kiss me.”  I turned back to him, but by now he was showing concern for my sudden blubbering.  “Just do it.  I understand your purpose.”  I moved toward him to kiss him, but this time he pulled away.

             
“Would you feel comfortable un-cuffing me?”  I nodded and pulled out the key.  Once he was free, I wiped my eyes and sniffled a few times so I wasn’t the most disgusting lip partner.  He put his hands on his hips and watched me prepare.  “That long, huh?”  He asked and I offered him a mumbled curse.

             
He came at me painfully slow, and put his hand around my back.  He drew me forward, and I closed my eyes.  I dutifully tipped up my head and parted my lips.  His lips pressed against my forehead instead.  For a moment, I felt rejected again, but his arms drew me in closer pressing me to his chest. 

             
I was too tired to fight, too exhausted to delve into the strangeness of being held by a man that I hated five minutes ago, and would hate again tomorrow.  I just relaxed against his chest and felt the warmth of his body.  He smelled like the leather of his motorcycle jacket.

             
At what point I started sniffling out stuttered sobs I don’t know, but he continued to hold me while I did.  I apologized a few more times for my theatrics, but he just pat my back when I did.

             
When I finally pulled away from him, he pulled my matted hair away from my face and poured me a glass of water.  After I guzzled it down, I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.  “Do you still want your kiss?”  I asked.

             
He smiled, or at least he almost smiled.  “I think we’ve at least dismantled a few assumptions about my character by now.  That ought to get us through the bulk of our uncomfortable silences.”  He stalked passed me, but paused just outside of my peripheral.  “Unless you still want one.”

             
I wanted to look at him.  I imagined that his expression might have been less pleading this time, and more hopeful.  I didn’t look though.  Bottom line was, he was a man, and I was a woman, we were bound to wind up in bed at some point.  It certainly didn’t have to be tonight.  There was always time to explore my ever changing opinion of his character and my emotions that went with it.         

-
So It Begins-

             
There’s always a starting point to every story.  The story of my training with Garrett should have started two weeks ago, but it didn’t.  I hadn’t realized that he didn’t believe in me anymore than I believed in myself.  His efforts to groom my fighting skills had thus far been perfunctory.  It was a torpid attempt to induce the use of my natural survival skills: kick, punch, bite, run.  After the kitchen incident, he started to see my underlying skill—albeit unrefined—at thinking on my feet.  That was when Garrett decided to start training me for real.

             
When I came downstairs and found the couch empty, it wasn’t a surprise to me.  Garrett was an early riser and rarely out slept me.  He had taken to the couch instead of one of the rooms upstairs that I offered.  His excuse was that without a nightly rotation on watch he needed to be our first line of defense against the grim, but I think he just wanted to keep me from sneaking off in the middle of the night.

             
I did however find the lack of breakfast odd.  He wasn’t much of a housekeeper, but either out of graciousness or expediting progress he had taken to making breakfast for us.  Since I didn’t see him or smell spam frying, I B-lined to the back-front door of the living room to make sure he wasn’t battling a trespassing grim outside. 

             
I reached for the door knob but it was gone.  Lock or unlock it made no difference, the hardware within kept the door shut.  Aside from the gaping hole that offered free admission to bugs, I assumed that it was an attempt at securing the house since we were without a proper night watch.     

             
I headed back to the kitchen to the side door, but the knob was off there too.  It took a lot to really scare me, especially these days, but the thought of being trapped in a confined space was ranking on my “pee your pants” level.  “Garrett?”  I said quietly hoping that he was going to jump out and attack soon, so I could fold like a weak chair and disappoint his efforts. 

             
I heard movement in the laundry/storage room off the living room.  The room had nothing to be frightened of, except that it led to the basement, the place where the deceased resident was stored. 

             
The former elderly man should have been subdued by my holy water, but the process did require fairly regular updates to prevent emergence.  It was the downside to keeping the bodies in the home, but it was just an unwritten rule that if we took a house, we had to protect the residents from changing.  It seemed noble, past tense included. 

             
I decided, with the little bravery that I had, to go check it out.  I was confident the resident should be secure, and I assumed that Garrett was just planning a sneak attack.

             
As I rounded the corner to the little room I discovered that I was right and wrong.  The resident of the house was still securely padlocked in the basement.  The crystalized man before me was a completely different grim.

             
The one thing difficult to agree on when it comes to the grim is how to deal with them.  Many people argue that as the bodies of the risen, they should simply be avoided and left alone.  These are the people that usually stay held up in their homes 23 hours a day, living on whatever creature happens to wander into their traps.  These are also the people, that despite their misgivings to harming the grim, will freely shoot living trespassers like they’re part of a carnival game. 
Damn hicks
.

             
August and the others took to killing grim like a sport.  The only rule, the grim must be animated.  They consider it a low blow to dismantle a body that hasn’t tried to hurt anybody.  It is a strange morality, especially since all crystalline dead have the potential to become grim, but once again, in a world without social taboos, we start to develop our own moralities.  Humans are ingrained with the desire to be restricted.  Without it…Lord of the Freaking Flies.         

             
Which brings me back to the growling, glaring, human-wearing demon standing before me.  My sympathies for the consecrated body he inhabited went right out the window the minute he exposed his teeth.  The fine pointed jagged dentition in his mouth was handcrafted.  It told me this demon was particularly maniacal. It also told me that it had full control over the faculties of this body.

             
Screaming would have been an appropriate response, but in situations where legs are far more vital than voice boxes, you tend to forget that part.

             
I ran from the room just missing whatever was thrown after me.  I rounded the corner with only three thoughts: knife, screwdriver, and bedroom.  To break that down for you, I offered myself three options to survive.  The first of course was to fight, yeah right.  The second was to find a screwdriver and twist the remaining hardware in the door in order to escape—not enough time.  The third option was to run up to my bedroom and hide behind a locked door. 

             
In truth I wanted to go hide.  Two weeks ago, and maybe even one day ago I might still have done that, but I already knew the only weapons I had up there were toxic hairsprays and girdles.  If they hadn’t killed women this far in, they weren’t likely to kill a grim. 

             
My hair snagged on something as I changed directions at the last second to the kitchen.  The pain was easily ignored.  I didn’t bother turning to see how close he was.  I was already moving at impossible speed: “mach holy shit.” 

             
I reached the chopping block and found only one large butchers knife in it.  Garrett had wisely removed the remaining knives so that the grim didn’t follow my lead and grab one also.  I flung the block behind me hanging onto the knife as it unsheathed.  Rounding the island I grabbed the skillet drying by the sink.

             
There was no guarantee of anything at this point, but I knew my speed wouldn’t hold out, and frankly without getting trapped in smaller rooms upstairs, I needed to turn around and face the grim truth. 
Literally
.

             
I whipped the skillet behind me as I turned.  The pan made impact with the grim chipping part of his face.  My retreat slowed and he reached to grab me.  I jumped out of his reach and stabbed his vulnerable hand.  Though he didn’t feel any pain, he did take the slightest inventory of his now missing finger. 

             
I squatted low and fast—kicked out his knee.  He stumbled and I stood using the momentum of my rise to jump up.  I careened the skillet at his head and landed a satisfying fracture.  I toppled onto to him as he went down to the floor, and I stabbed him repeatedly until his arms had crumbled away and his growl had quieted.      

             
I panted over my kill with only a minor amount of satisfaction.  A slow clap brought my attention back to the room.  Garrett had come back in and was standing over me like a proud teacher.  His mouth wasn’t smiling, but he’s eyes were.

             
I dove at him, neglecting the knife, but gripping the skillet firmly.  He must have expected the lunge, because he caught my arms and hastened my descent to the floor.  He didn’t attack, but he did ready himself for another attack from me.  “You’re not ready to fight me.”  He said flatly when I gripped my skillet again. 

             
“I hate you.”  I said tossing the skillet aside. 

             
He relaxed his stance and offered me a hand up.  “That’s okay.” 

             
I took the proffered hand out of some sense of truce, and he pulled me up.  I started to walk away, but he didn’t let go of my arm.  I expected to see a coy smile on his face.  Something indicating that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of my hand. 

             
A few too many romance novel scenes later and I was twisted up in his arms with one of the missing kitchen knives at my throat.  “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”  He murmured in my ear.                Apparently breakfast wasn’t just postponed, but cancelled.