The girl from the mire: part 3

EPILOGUE

"She's coming for us again!!!"

The world that Patricia knows in this moment is coated in the sensation of a million broken shards, mirrored around the incorporeal murkiness of near total tenebrosity. One dim pot light faintly hangs shadows at the entrance before the darkness of the destroyed lobby. Under that tiny burdened haze, she is watching the door. Sweat coats the entirety of her body under her clothes. A butchers cleaver is partially hacked into the blood coated wall beside her. And she is watching the door. Sweat drips into her sorrow, into her eyes and so she wipes her face. Watching the door. Waiting for her fear to show itself. Waiting for Death. Watching the door.

She can hear her own terrified breathing. It's like her soul is shivering out of her mouth and is silently wishing ascendance into the unknown afterlife. Perhaps the Hades underworld. Or a reincarnation. Even eternal recurrence would give her time for the next inevitability. It's less of a death wish to eat a bullet now and be anywhere but here, anywhere but in this moment, this piece of time. Anywhere but this caesura between what horror has happened and what horror is soon to come through that door. That white steel, blood drenched door. It reminds Patricia of a rabbit that her dad shot when she was little. White fur exploding crimson upon white snow. Warmth becoming cold as life leaked away. She remembers her tears freezing to her cheeks and her father's rough hands wiping the tiny icicles from her eyelashes.

"I love your heart, my little girl. But life feeds on life. We must be fed as does time. One day we all become the rabbit in the snow. The trick is to know that this is what we are and to then make the best of what life is before that moment. Promise me you'll make the best of it."

Patricia never answered her father. She never promised anything to him. He was a brutal man but he taught her to shoot. He taught her to kill. Maybe her actions were more of an answer than a child's word.

An hour ago her father became the rabbit in the snow. An hour ago, Death tore his head off and smashed it into the concrete and composite vinyl tile floor, exploding his pink brains like a boot stomping on pieces of vomit. It made the sounds of morsels and broken skull sloshing in thick red muddy liquid. Patricia could only watch as people all around her fled. Her friends pulled her away from what was to come.

Her sister died as well. A few minutes before her dad. Muerte walked through the door and no one knew it. That thing was disguised as a friend who was supposed to be dead. Terra was dead. How was she walking through the door? Paula didn't see the monster coming. She had turned around to give her friend a hug. What everyone thought was Terra, that pale skinned reddish blonde waif, twisted Paula's head all the way around and snapped her beautiful face from her neck.

Then Paula's boyfriend, Mark, attacked Death. She grabbed his throat and tersely laughed as if her voice was playing through an old, crackly record player. She opened her mouth wide and her voice came out without her lips moving. "Boo!"

It was Terra's voice but it wasn't. It was Mark's throat, and then it was no throat at all.

Everyone who had a gun pulled them out and unloaded into her. It only took a few minutes for her to get back up and continue the slaughter.

This wasn't Terra. Terra had always been extremely fast in her movements, like she couldn't wait around for anyone, always quickly walking or simply running. Her reflexes were stunning!

This thing lumbered slowly, treacherously until it was close enough to its victims. It was in those final moments that Muerte used Terra's speed.

And now they wait. Watching the door. Watching the door. Waiting for Death.

Patricia is beside Garret. He is possibly her last living friend. He became leader after they all learned of Terra's demise hours before Terra reappeared. Garret and Terra were in love like spring blooming away the white and red snow. It's as if they have been robbed of the sweating summer heat and a valley of autumn colours. There is only the red upon the snow, too soon, like the vast distance that a frail memory fades from. And of course, it's their own fault that she died.

Patricia says, "Garret! Did you hear me? She's coming this way! I can hear her foot dragging behind her!"

Death cannot be allowed to escape into the city. The city that Muerte, when her name was Terra, had saved from the forces of a brutal system of power hungry politicians and eugenicists with her disarmament of their chemical weapon systems, thus ending their plans of annihilating most of the city and with it, any chance of remaining in power. Terra was captured and everyone at The Factory thought that she had been killed. It was all much, much worse than any of that.

"Garret! We're gonna have to chop her up and burn her! That's only "if" the two of us can take her down this time!"

Muerte can't die. She hasn't only been shot. Exploding arrows have been released, rubble has been dropped, heights have been fallen, lungs have been drown. She keeps getting up. Muerte has left a trail of dead behind her and a trail of what should have killed her. It's long past time to get creative.

"Garret! This monster isn't Terra! We have to do this!

"What if she's in there somewhere?"

"Terra would never do what this thing is doing. Terra would want this thing killed! She's gone, Garret! We abandoned her and they did this to her and there's nothing that we can do about it! Do you want her to kill the whole city? The city that she gave her life to save?"

"Oh, god...I..."

Garret sobs because he's coming to the realization that the love of his life is gone for the second time and now he must destroy her empty shell. Patricia would love the opportunity to be able to apologize to Terra for being wrong, and she can imagine what words Garret would love to take back. They fucked up. Their friend died and now many of their friends have died.

And now the room grows extra silent, except for the door being thudded and creaked open. Garret and Patricia turn from each other and watch as a contorted, marionette of a woman slouches from the entrance.

Death embraces the shadows cast by the dim pot light as she walks into the room, her head slightly tilted, breathing like a crackling record player. She has a decapitated head in her left hand. It's their friend and fellow warrior, Lord. Beautiful Lord. The Venus of the little group. All Patricia can taste of this moment is the sweat dripping from her memory. It's all she has left of Lord and all of the others.

Patricia empties her rifle into Death's torso, and yet Muerte continues to advance upon them. Garret pulls out his handgun, still sobbing, points and blows part of Deaths head off. She keeps lumbering toward them, her brain and skull exposed with strings of reddish blonde hair covering the hole. Lord's head drops and rolls away. Garret looks into Terra's remaining eye one last time. He fires and doesn't stop until all that's left are brass jackets fuming on the ground.

Patricia grabs the clever from the wall that she took from the kitchens and jumps on Death's fallen body, hacking her to bits and pieces. The neck first, then the arms, elbows, shoulders, feet, ankles, legs, pelvis, chest...spraying blood everywhere. It is a soupy mess of flesh and bone and blood and rags. She's covered in Death's liquid. It's like she's poured smashed cherries on herself.

Garret hurries to her side and collects Terra's pieces and randomly puts them in separate garbage bags. A hand, a toe, Deaths's lifeless partial head. Terra's lifeless green greying eye. Eyes that he loved to see looking at him. Eyes that payed attention to him. Eyes that would cry in his lap. Eyes that he knew were crying when they had fought and he had walked away calling her every vulgarity that came to him instead of pushing through it and seeking forgiveness in her arms, unknowingly leaving to never see such emerald eyes again.

Once all of Death is in garbage bags, Patricia and Garret head for the marshland in a Factory jeep. They drive out of the dystopian city and crash it deep into the marsh. The jeep is stuck in the mud and the two survivors abandon the sinking machine.

Garret opens the first bag by the mire and pours gas on the body parts. He lights it up with a flare. Patricia takes another bag and does the same thing about a mile away. They pour gas on the sizzling flesh numerous times before it all becomes ash.

By morning, they have done their task. All six bags are gone. Muerte is scattered to the wind. Terra is gone with her.

Garret collapses into uncontrollable fits of crying and bashing his fists into the ground. Patricia sits beside him and truly cries for the first time since Muerte walked into the meeting room. She lets it all out and wails.

They just killed their friend, their leader, the one person who they thought wouldn't die. She was too strong and brave to have an ending like this. She didn't deserve to be turned into a monster.

Patricia wipes the tears from her eyes. "Garret, we're not done. The people who are responsible for this are still out there. We have to hunt them down. We have to..."

Garret's communicator sounds off. He pulls it out and their friend, Jeff, is trying to talk to them in a broken signal.

"Garret...recording...she was....you need...what they did to her."

The signal clears up. "They need to pay for this! What they did to Terra is beyond redemption. The Leonard's recorded all of it! I don't want you to see this but I think that you need to. Michael Leonard and his butchers won't get away with this! Are you guys there? Please be there. Over."

Patricia takes the communicator and says, "we're here. Good to hear your voice, Jeff. We killed Muerte and we're in the Marsh. We'll be awhile walking back to The Factory. And yes, we are going to kill them all for this. Terra's going to have her vision become reality. No more subjugation to a single ideology and those who abuse us with it. Time for something different. It's time for a democracy. Is there anyone else left? Over."

"Just me and Reaper. His arm is broken and he's probably got a concussion but he's alive. There is no one else. Muerte took them all. I'm sorry Patricia. Your sister..."

Jeff cuts out and the signal dies.

Patricia's beautiful younger sister. Ashen and pale with eyes like bright translucent green marbles. Always mimicking Patricia in her own way. Paula...Patricia screams into her hands.

Garret looks up and slides over to her on his knees. He embraces her and they sob into each other's grief.

When they arrive back at The Factory in daylight, it is in ruins. Many people survived because Patricia and the others were able to contain Death. Most of them payed the ultimate price. Terra's blood still puddles in the carpet where Patricia hacked her to bits. She glances at a broken mirror and sees that she is covered in blood and ash. A red rabbit covered in grey snow.

The meeting room is now a makeshift morgue. Twenty-two. Muerte took twenty-two of the best warriors and friends that Patricia knew. Her entire blood family as well. She finds Paula. Her sister's head has been badly sewn back onto her neck. Patricia sits beside her and takes a lifeless hand into her own.

"I'm sorry, Paula. Oh my god, I'm so sorry..."

For the second time today, Patricia breaks down and sobs. This time onto the white pinkish blanket covering most of her beautiful sisters corpse.

Garret goes to his apartment to change his clothes and hopefully wash up if the water taps are still running. He sees his phone laying on his bed where he threw it a few days ago. He checks his phone and sees the message that he ignored. With everything that's happened, he forgot about it. How could he forget about it? Garret goes into his messages and listens to the last recording on his phone, the one he ignored out of petty anger. It's Terra's voice he hears in the message.

"Garret. I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I can't do this alone. You guys need to come back! The Leonard's are going to drop chemical bombs on the entire city! I need your help! I can't wait for too long, though, I have to destroy the weapons safely. I know how, that's the easy part. I need you guys to have my back when I do this. I'll be trapped and they'll kill me for sure once I try to escape from their facility. David is there, too. Oh, god...Please, Garret...I love you. Please...I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to die. I need you with me. I need us to work this out...I love you."

There are a few moments of silence and Garret can hear her desperate breathing mixed with sobbing.

"I've got to go. Please take your head out of your ass and listen to this message. You know where to go. I love you. Please don't die."

The message ends. Garret pulls his gun from its holster and places it in his mouth. He tastes the metal and the powder residue from the bullets that entered Terra's face. His finger fondles the trigger as tears creep out from under his closed eyes.

He thinks to himself that this is too easy. Too cowardly and undeserving of everything that Terra was.

He opens his eyes and drops the gun from his mouth. Garret decides that he's going to live long enough to kill everyone who had a hand in Terra's destruction. He'll save himself for last.