AEGIS Tales 2, page 8
part #8 of Airship Daedalus Series
The man with the gun squinted at her name tag. "Suzy, is it? Funny. You don't look like a Suzy.”
"Here!” She held a hand up, the partially crumpled bag locked in those bloody fingers. "You want the bag. Take it. Take it and get out of my diner. Get the hell out of my diner.”
Something moved in the bag, like a worm on the hook twisting to avoid the fish's mouth. Whatever it was, it startled her, and she almost dropped it altogether.
"What was tha—” Those were all the words Suzy got out before the diner descended into chaos.
These sorts of things tend to happen when dead people get back up.
Gerry moved like a man possessed. His pale skin catching the overhead light and showing off that mortal wound, which no longer seemed to bother him in the slightest. A faint red glow twinkled from behind milky eyes. He might not have been super-coordinated, but he knew how to swing his arms and how to eat bullets.
Suzy hit the floor as gunshots rang out overhead. Suited men fired shot after shot, each one taking a chunk of flesh, but none of them stopping Gerry in the slightest. For a man who couldn't have been bothered to lift a finger most days, in death he was quite helpful.
The dead thing shrugged off the tearing metal, wrapping his fingers around a booth table and ripping it free. The tall man scrambled to get a few more pistol shots off before Gerry got a hold of his neck.
Slugs of metal ripped through flesh and bone, embedding themselves deep in a corpse that didn't appear to care.
Crack!
Gerry's fingers snapped his neck and tossed the rest of that jerk through the window. He landed somewhere on the sidewalk, very much dead.
Boom! Boom!
Suzy scrambled for the counter, crawling over fallen men and past still-smoking pistols, while above her Gerry did exactly what she wanted.
She wanted them out of her diner, and that's what he did. The thing that had been Gerry just kept coming, just kept breaking necks, eating bullets, and throwing men out the broken window.
It wasn't until the last of them ended up in a pile on the bloodstained sidewalk that Suzy stopped to catch her breath, and Gerry crumpled to the ground where he stood. The man collapsed like a folding chair, landing in a heap among the broken glass and ruined table.
Suzy didn't have time to process it, or to make sense of much of anything, before one of the car doors opened.
Long and elegant legs slipped out, legs encased in tight pants that put her uniform to shame. They traced their way up to a slender jacket with ample buttons that looked almost military. Suzy'd met a few of the guys when they'd come in from the base. If this was an army girl, it wasn’t one of ours.
Run!
She wanted to. She wanted to kick those heels off and make a break for the back, but something about how this woman moved made Suzy think that would be a bad idea. Growing up on the reservation, she'd stepped on a hornet nest once, those bright yellow insects stung her no less than a few dozen times before she'd gotten away.
She’d ended up spending a night under the almost constant watchful eyes of her grandfather and coated in some pasty concoction he'd cooked up. That whole night had been just a non-stop fever dream of stingers and pain.
This woman moved like one of those hornets, mesmerizing and powerful, and most likely with a stinger to match.
Suzy clutched the tiny bag tight in her bloody fingers, the counter between her and the deadly woman practically floating through the front door.
Her long blond hair was done up in a tight bun, almost like the nest Suzy imagined her springing forth from. She popped a beret off her head and placed the black thing on the closest table before surveying Gerry's handiwork. "Impressive. I told him it would work.”
Suzy held the bag up. "Get out of my diner!”
Unlike last time, Gerry didn't move. He didn't get up and toss that slender woman out on her backside. No. Gerry stayed very much unmoving, and by the looks of it, very much dead.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way—” The blond squinted at her name tag. "Suzy, is it? Yeah. It doesn't work that way at all.”
"Gerry, get up! Get up and throw her out of my diner!”
The old trucker didn't budge.
The blond woman picked up her hat and tucked it under a jacket-covered arm. "I told you, Suzy. It doesn't work that way. Here's what's going to happen. I'll spell it out for you because the education system in this country is borderline deplorable. Don't worry, I'll use small and simple words. You're going to give that to me before things get worse for you, a lot worse.”
Suzy pulled the bag back, clutching it to her blood-stained chest. "No.”
"I figured you'd say that. Let me take a minute to explain. You see Gerry over there?” The blond tilted her head at the trucker gone undead bouncer. "That cost you a lot.”
"Cost me—”
"Oh yes, very much, I'm afraid. Can you feel it yet? The squeezing in your chest. I'm told it's a little like having your hand stuck in a vise.”
Suzy pressed the bag against her top, and the heart that beat like a tribal drum beneath it. "I'm fine.”
"Sure you are, but the damage has been done. The longer you hold that thing, the worse it's going to get for you. Good chance you'll end up like Gerry here. Is that what you want?”
"I…”
The blond shook her head, moving like a rattler, slipping between the dead men and broken glass until she'd positioned herself over the former trucker. "Let's ask Gerry, shall we?”
She pulled him over, exposing that bloody face and dead eyes. Suzy's stomach rolled as if catching up with the grisly situation just now.
"Gerry?” The blond drew him up, placing her lips on his forehead and leaving a soft kiss on that pale skin. "Tell her, Gerry. Tell her what she has to do.”
The old trucker screamed, his mouth open wide in agony. "Suzy! Suzy, it hurts! It hurts so much. Please make it stop. Please!”
"Gerry, I—”
"Please! I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for the things I said, for all of it. Just make it stop. Make the pain stop! I'll do anything if you just make the pain stop. It burns, Suzy! Please, it—”
The blond let go of his head and let it land like a soft melon on the hard floor.
"Do it for Gerry, Sweetheart. Do it for your brainless friend. Give me the bag and this can all be over. His pain, your pain, all of it. You don't need any of this. You need to go home, rest, sleep it off. You need to make yourself right again, before what's in that bag chews a hole in your heart.”
The bag…
Suzy pulled it away from her chest. The blood stained leather felt hard in her fingers.
"That's it.” The blond left Gerry, once again moving with a predator's gait. "That's the way. Give me the bag and you can go home. You can start over, get a new job, do something that doesn't make you wear a revolting polka dot apron.”
Suzy hesitated, the bag shifting softly beneath her fingers. "I…”
The blond extended her hand. "Give me the bag and everything will be fine. I can put your life back together. I can make it so none of this ever happened.”
Suzy stared past her, at the distant trees.
If I can make the forest…
Suzy turned back to the bag, then past it, to the old man whose medicine it had been. She tightened her fingers around the leather, and used her other hand to grab the first thing she could find. It turned out to be a pile of napkins.
The little white squares slipped out of her fingers, hitting the ground like paper from some ticker tape parade, but they didn't stay that way.
They changed.
The tile split and cracked, bright-green shoots springing forth from the fallen napkins and plunging into the earthen grout. They twisted like vines, snaking both out and up, wrapping around booths, legs, and anything they could get their hungry ends around.
What in the—
Suzy's thoughts were cut short by the crack of gunfire and the sharp smoke that followed. She panicked, dropping to the floor and crawling for the exit. Vines laced limbs and snapped bones. More men piled in, only to be sucked up by the hungry green. They screamed and tried to shoot them off, only hurting themselves worse in the process.
Just get to the trees.
Suzy repeated that mantra like some church prayer, her eyes on the exit, the parking lot, and the trees beyond it. The bus stop wasn't far away, but the woods were closer. She could be safe there. She could run. She could kick off those stupid shoes and vanish between the trunks.
She told herself that, and she believed it, but the blonde had other ideas.
The woman snapped out a slender blade. It moved fast and precise, cutting through green shoots and the darkening stalks behind them. It didn't take her long to block the exit.
"Give it up. You can't keep going. It's eating at you already.” She sliced through an inquisitive vine. "You can feel it in your bones. Can't you? That's where it starts, but it goes deeper, it will drill holes in your mind.” She pointed to Gerry's body, a broken shell of a man smothered in vines and blood. "It takes a heavy toll, to bring them back, to bring all of this back. The more you do it, the more it's going to take from you in return.” She stuck her gloved hand out. "I've got a better idea, a much better idea. Why don't you give that to me, and I'll make sure things go better for you? You can't be working here by choice.”
"I…” Suzy squeezed the bag to her chest. The heart beneath her ribs pounding like a kick drum. "You killed them! You killed them both! What did they ever do to—”
"That's how life is. The old die and make way for the young. See, I have a feeling you know that.” She tilted her head, as if reading the young waitress's face like a travel brochure. "Your grandfather is it?”
Suzy's heart banged against her ribs. "Don't you dare hurt him.”
"I won't have to if you give me the bag.”
Suzy clutched the leather, the vine's torrid growth slowing around them. "If I give it to you—”
"Yes.” The blond lowered her sword. "If you give it to me, I'll make sure he gets whatever he needs. Pills? Booze? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I care about what's in that bag. They don’t get it.” She tilted her head toward her men, all of which appeared to be in various stages of crushed or tied by the born again paper. "They don't understand us. We're different. We can do things they'll never comprehend, not fully. You know that. You know that in your heart. You also know that bag is bad magic. You know it because you can feel it nibbling at your soul.”
Suzy nodded slowly, getting her feet under her and trying to come up with a plan. The front door was out of the question. The woman had it completely blocked, and she had a feeling the blade could slice through her just as fast as it cut through those vines.
Give her the bag?
The young waitress’s eyes fell of the booth, and the dead men laying in it. They'd died for this and whatever it meant. It had to mean something.
What then?
"I can see it in your eyes. That's a bad path you are taking.” The blond edged closer, her sword out and shining in the bright light. "You aren't thinking this through. You're getting my good side, the friendly one. I could show you the darker side.” She snapped the blade out and let it throw sparks against the back of the nearest booth. "I don't think you'd like that.”
Think!
The napkins had sprouted into plants, returning to what they'd been. Gerry had come back to life with just a touch.
“…those coyote bones just up and walked around. I'm telling you, Suzy.”
Bones.
The trash held chicken carcasses, maybe a few rib bones, but nothing more than that. Would it be enough?
There was only one way to find out.
Suzy raced for the can and the bones inside.
The blond shot past her, the edge of her blade slicing into Suzy's arm and the flat of it sending her reeling.
The bag slipped out of her fingers and onto the floor, where it was hooked with the blade and tossed into the air.
The blond snapped the bag effortlessly out of the air. "This is mine now.” She squeezed soft leather in her slender fingers. "Would you like to see real power? How about it? How about you feel that power as it snaps your neck?”
"You said—”
"I lied.” The sword woman held the bag high. "Let’s see what the spirits think, shall we?”
Bodies shifted. Pale hands pulled at vines, snapping the dying green shoots and pulling their owners upright. Dark eyes and dark faces stared back at her.
The old man was there, and Gerry, all of them pale and hungry, mouths open and faces set like flint.
"This is only the beginning.” She pointed the tip of her sword at Suzy. "You'll join them, you know that, right? Once they've snapped your neck, you'll join them. I'll even give you a nice job.” She laughed. "Maybe you can bring me my coffee, at least until your fingers start to rot? How does that sound?”
Suzy panicked, her back against the counter and her hands scrambling for something. Her fingers found a stack of forks and knives. She ripped them out and threw them at the advancing men. Most fell harmlessly, but a few stuck, dry wounds refusing to drip beneath the fresh cuts.
"I guess that's a yes?” The sword woman sheathed her blade before turning her attention to the medicine bag. "I tell you what, how about you try to keep that beautiful face of yours nice and smooth? Perhaps don't let them smash it? I'd appreciate it, but whatever works.”
She turned away, slipping under the end of the counter without a second thought. Vines rotted at her feet, whatever Suzy had done to them, it had long since lost its power.
"Should have given it to me when I asked.” The blonde chuckled, her fingers playing with the leather string at the top of the bag. "If you had, maybe it would have only been one of them breaking you, and not five. I guess it doesn't matter though, not anymore.” She shrugged her shoulders. "Kill her.”
Dead men closed in, their broken bodies twisted like rag dolls, but somehow still limping, still shuffling forward. There was no passion in their movements, no energy. They moved like automations, like mill machines left to turn. Suzy grabbed whatever she could, a coffee pot, a pan, a stack of plates. She threw them all, shattering porcelain and sending heavy cast iron into the closest face. Bones broke, but they didn't stop. They crawled over the counter, and cut off her only exit.
She screamed and kicked, but they were too strong, and there were too many of them. Pale hands found her neck and squeezed.
Suzy saw stars and the diner darkened. Bloodless faces and dark eyes swirled like stirred coffee, and no matter what she did, they didn't stop.
Drums thundered in her ears, or was it her heart? The diner melted away but for one booth, for the old man who had sat at it.
He was there now, in her head, still silently staring at that black coffee.
When he spoke, his words echoed in her ears, rumbling with the ebbing blood. "Still not interested in the old ways?”
Steam drifted lazily from a coffee cup that Suzy knew didn't exist, but there it was just the same. It sat cradled in a wrinkled and callused hand, clutched as if those fingers might suck the warmth from its smooth handle.
"Am I—”
The old man shook his head. "Not yet. Not in the strictest sense of the word, but you aren’t alive just the same.”
"I don't—”
He lifted the mug up slowly, pressing it against those thin and tired lips. "I thought you didn’t need this? I thought you needed… What was it? Oh yes, something that didn’t make you look like a clown? Was that right?”
“Just tell me, please.”
He sighed. “You're dead to who you are, to where you came from, to what you can do.”
"Can do?” Suzy found herself behind the counter, a rag in her hand and that stupid apron around her waist. "More stories? More riddles. I don’t have time for stories and games. I don’t have time for any of that.”
The old man didn't answer, not immediately, he simply stared out the window and into an empty parking lot. There were no cars, no painted lines, nothing beyond the dense forest, and above it, the stars.
When he finally spoke again, it was with a hint of sadness, a blue note coloring his words. “You are right about that. You don’t have time.”
Suzy couldn't remember that last time she'd seen the stars, and never like this, never so bright.
"Beautiful, aren't they?” He placed his cup back on the table quietly.
"Is that it?” Suzy tossed the rag and came around the counter, only to find that stupid dish cloth right back in her fingers not a second later. "What about my grandfather? I take care of him. Me. I do that, and now who is going to? My ancestors? They're all dead and gone. Heck, they're probably here.”
"They are.”
Two words. Two words was all it took to knock Suzy into silence.
She remembered the stories.
Camp of the Ghosts.
Her grandfather had told the tale so many times, it stuck like the burned grease on the fryer in the back. The ghosts were there, the good and the bad, her ancestors. They all wanted to come back, but you couldn’t look at them, and you couldn’t invite them back.
You could never invite them back.
She hadn't said a thing, but he nodded just the same. "You remember the stories then. That's good. That's a start. They're here, and they know you, they also know what you've done.”
Suzy stared at the darkened glass and beyond it, catching the subtle movement between the trees. It was a shifting and frenetic movement, like flashes of shadow against a curtain of indigo night. It didn't fill her with excitement or relief.
It filled her with dread.
"If you remember the story. You remember what you should be doing,” he said, just as casually as her grandfather would have.
Suzy looked away from the glass, but didn't close her eyes. "I'm not looking.”
"Well, it's a start. They'll come, though. Even now, they're milling about outside. They'll come and if you aren't careful, you'll see them. If you see them—”
"I'll be stuck here forever. Yes, yes. I remember the story. I'm dead, though, so what does it matter?”
The old man waved his fingers over the mug, those wrinkly digits pulling on the steam like a weaver's loom. The blond woman moved in his steam. She moved with purpose and power, each step like a thundering hammer blow. Dark shapes moved around her, not her ancestors, different, deeper, older, and far less human.
