A Secret In Your Throat

Chapter 5

I followed right behind Gerard to my window and peered out of it. He was invisible, already gone with his inhuman speed. I slammed the window shut and locked it. I was suddenly freezing, my body covered in a cold sweat despite the heat.
I fell down on my bed, curling my knees against my chest, laying on my side. I stared at the blank wall.
The hatred in my heart was only equaled by the love in it. Mikey wasn't dead... well, he wasn't gone. He was definitely not alive. But I hadn't failed... at least, not badly.
Success would have been staking Gerard before he could collect his brother.
The electricity clicked back on. I pulled my shabby blanket over my body, feeling as though I had dissociated beyond tears.
How could I keep my promises, when he had burst back into my life, bringing with him all the warmth and intensity that had marked our human time together? How could I kill him when he loved me still? Was he still my Gerard, the tender, eccentric person that I had trusted with all my secrets?
He had loved me and it took him no time at all to adjust to not using feminine words to describe me or talk about me. This meant more to me than I could ever describe in words. Unless you've been through it, that euphoria is impossible to describe. He saw me for exactly who I was. He had been a force of passion during our nights together, like nothing I had experienced with anyone else.
I shifted, thinking about his touches, knowing that if I merely asked, I could have them again. I could accept his gifts, drown in him, kill the evil with him. Be with Mikey again. Tell him how sorry I was that I'd lost him. Know the two other mysterious members of his coven, maybe create eternal ties to these unknown people that could never be broken.
Could I betray my promise to the love of my human life, and carry on selfishly with him forever?
***
It happened like this.
Fall slipped into winter, and into early spring during our stay in our remote cabin, and we had gotten better and bolder at sneaking out and finding ways to steal food. None of us had the stomach for hunting, and we didn't want to unless we absolutely had to.
An abandoned bulk store in Denver that still had power stocked us in our industrial freezer for a very long time.
Mikey and Gerard raided a chain of restaurant freezers - some had lost power for too long to save anything, and fresh fruits or vegetables were out of the question, but on the whole we were successful in creating a stock of food to last in the freezer for as long as we could safely stay there, at the very least. The lodge had a water cooler with dozens of five-gallon jugs of fresh water, in case the water supply stopped or was tainted.
But it never did. This place seemed the paradise in the middle of the hellscape in which we had been trapped.
Lisbeth was my best friend. My confidant. Soon after that first night with Gerard, I was able to come out to her. When I mumbled the words, she threw her arms around me.
"Rae I know. I mean, I was pretty sure, but I didn't want to ask. You know I love you and I support you. We all do." She released me and held me by the shoulders, "You know, when I came out, my family didn't believe me. They called it a phase. I think it really hit them when I got engaged." She smiled sadly and added, before I could ask, "It didn't work out. But they believed me after that."
We were in the lodge, Mikey in the kitchen, sitting on a sofa as we put together a puzzle. It had been a sunny day, the sun reflecting off the snow to light up the room through the vast windows.
Twilight had fallen, almost time for us to ascend the hill back to our cabin. The delicious smell of dinner filled the lodge. Gerard was just outside, smoking a cigarette and writing in a spiral bound notebook. I watched him, my fingers growing still and laying down the puzzle piece I held. Lis nudged me, "I've known Gerard a couple of years. I did lighting at some of their shows in Jersey when they were real small-time. He's been through it. He's really wonderful. He'll stick with us through this, whatever the end looks like. Mikey, too."
I smiled at her and said softly, "I really love him. I love you all. I've been so lonely for a long time. This is like having a real family."
Lis laughed, "The apocalypse will do that, I guess."
I leaned my head back against the couch, "Do you think this is it, Lisbeth? You think that the monsters have us cornered so well that it's just a matter of time before we're gone?"
She shook her head, slipping a piece into place, "They need a food source. I'm willing to bet we end up like cattle, if there's no safe cities left. But we aren't cattle, Rae. We're clever. We have spirit and a drive to be able to survive. Humans can persevere. We can rise up and strike back."
It was like slow motion. Gerard's head snapped up and he bolted through the snow to the lodge. He slammed through the door and bolted it just as several heavy bodies slammed into it.
"Jesus! Fuck! Mikey!" Lis screamed, and Mikey came running in from the kitchen. We dashed for the stock of stakes we kept sharp and ready on the bar top, my heart ready to explode. I'd fooled myself into thinking we could stay... but maybe, if there was a coven leader and we got them, we wouldn't have to leave...
The huge picture window exploded inward, unhurt mindless ones scrambling through it.
We struck, Lis and Gerard going in close for the kills, with Mikey and I weakening them from a distance.
We dispatched them quickly, and Lisbeth and Gerard retreated back to us, getting ready. We knew a coven leader had to be here, this time. They wouldn't go so far out on their own without one.
A woman stepped around the edge of the window, her long, white-blonde hair swept into a braid.
She was gloriously beautiful, and completely in control of herself. Her thick boots crunched over the glass as she stalked, cat-like, toward us. Her all black outfit was a stark contrast to her pallor, except her almost black eyes.
"You've survived awhile." she noted, kicking away the lifeless arm of one of her underlings, "In truth, if your tire prints hadn't been so fresh, we would have passed you by." She smiled, all of us edging closer together, gripping our only lifelines - the ten or so stakes we had to defeat this clearly formidable woman, "Such a small mistake. So fatal."
She launched herself at us, moving almost too fast to see. The difference between this woman and the hordes of mindless undead was startling. She dove over and under our stakes, almost as though she knew where we would be aiming them. She tackled Lisbeth to the ground and I adjusted my throw, striking her in the shoulder. She roared and lifted her head, whirling to me, murder in her eyes.
She flew toward me, and before I could get another stake, she was on me, her teeth inches from my throat.
She convulsed violently, a stake driving into her back, and with a scream knocked Mikey away from her, her inhuman strength sending him flying through the air and smashing him against a heavy bookshelf, which toppled over on top of him.
But it was over for her. Gerard slammed two more stakes through her back, one right through her heart. She screamed again, and Gerard shoved her off of me just as she began to disintegrate into ash.
"Rae! Rae! Did she...?"
"No! Jesus, we have to get that bookshelf off of Mikey, Gee!"
As Gerard ran to his brother, I looked at Lisbeth.
She writhed on the ground, a crescent wound at her throat.
"Oh my god, no! Lisbeth!" I scrambled to her and knelt beside her, my trembling fingers ripping off my thin cotton hoodie and trying to staunch the bleeding.
She grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer, rasping out, "Stake me..." as her hands clawed at her throat, her legs twisting with the pain.
I felt as though I was leaving my body. She had been bitten. The venom was coursing through her body and I had no means of pumping it, no way to extract it. The vampire venom worked too quickly.
Gerard was unaware of the disastrous drama unfolding feet away from him. I shook and sobbed, taking her hand, "I'm so sorry, Lis," I whispered, my tears hot on my now freezing face. The air was glacial from the broken window.
She had broken out into a cold sweat. Her back arching with pain. I reached out and grasped a stake laying now in the ashen remains of the coven leader.
"I'm so sorry," I sobbed again, louder. My hands shook and Gerard looked up, just in time to see me drive the stake through my best friend's heart.
She collapsed immediately, and I crawled back away, my knees snapping up to my chest. I stared at her for several moments before Gerard's voice broke through the haze, "Rae you can't save her, we have got to help Mikey!"
I tore my gaze away from the red leather jacket that was now full of ashes, and remembered Mikey. His brother. My brother. I scrambled over to him, shoving the misery and trauma down into my stomach. Mikey.
Together Gerard and I lifted the heavy shelf away from him. He had been knocked unconscious, but he was breathing.
"Gee I need my kit, in the van. His head is bleeding, and bring my splints. I don't like the way his leg looks."
Gerard was gone in a flash, as I took Mikey's head into my lap. I tossed aside his broken glasses, and started feeling his chest. I wouldn't know for sure if he had a broken rib until he came around to tell me where it hurt. I had no X-ray here. I wouldn't know how to use it if I did.
He was back quickly with the duffel bag, and I dove into it and found the suturing kit. I snapped on some gloves, my hands trembling a little, but I managed to thread the needle properly after a couple of tries. I disinfected the area, Gerard moving to keep Mikey's hair hair parted and out of the way. I stitched slowly and a little clumsily, but well enough. I wasn't technically qualified for this, but I knew how to do it.
As I snipped the thread and disinfected the area again, Gerard asked impatiently, "Now what?"
"All I can do is feel and splint his leg. I don't have any casting... or a walking boot. I wouldn't know how to fit one anyway."
"I thought you were a medic." He snapped.
"I'm not a goddamned doctor, Gerard!" I exploded back at him, "As long as he doesn't have a rib puncturing his lung, he'll probably live."
"How will we know if he does?"
"I can't even know if they're broken until he comes around. Even if I had an X-ray, I don't know how to operate it."
"Oh fucking great, DOC."
"Don't talk to me like that." My heart felt like stone. Who was this person glaring at me with anger, when I was just doing my best? "I never pretended I could cure everything. You saved me because you thought I'd be useful, I didn't ask you to, and I will do my best for Mikey, but you expect too much of me." My voice was cold. I turned away from him and moved to Mikey's leg. I cut up the leg of his jeans and pulled them away. I could tell by the bruising that there was at least a small fracture.
I bound his leg up in a splint, fuming, not even looking at Gerard.
"We can probably get him to the couch, but I don't want to move him too much until he can tell me about his ribs." My voice was still cold, and I could feel the numbness of dissociation creeping in. I knew if I let myself feel Lisbeth's death, feel the tearing of her flesh under the stake in my hands, I would start screaming and never stop.
Night had truly fallen now. I felt reasonably confident that we had decimated their entire coven - unless she had a mate. But if she did, why wouldn't they have come? Two strong leaders were better than one.
Together, we moved Mikey to lay on the sofa. I sat on the floor beside his head with my knees pulled against my chest, my eyes on the fire, shivering from the cold or the trauma, or maybe even anger - I didn't really know.
Gerard's black leather jacket dropped over my shoulders. It was warm from his body. I wanted to rip it off and throw it across the room, the smell of cigarettes and bonfire and his own skin strong around me. He sat beside me, before I could fling the jacket away, and wrapped an arm around me.
"I'm so sorry," he said, and the tremor in his voice jolted me out of my numb anger. I looked at him, and tears were falling thick and fast down his face. "I couldn't think about what you had to do, with Mikey in danger... I'm sorry." He buried his face in his free hand and began to sob in earnest.
The loss of our imagined safety was devastating. The loss of Lisbeth was a hollow, aching wound in my chest. Knowing Gerard expected miracles of me was sickening. I couldn't deliver any miracles. I wasn't capable.
"Rae, I didn't mean anything I said. I swear I didn't. You are more brave and talented and smarter than I could ever tell you. You are a gift to the world." His hazel eyes were boring into me. I couldn't look at him, not yet. "If you can't forgive me yet, that's okay. I fucked up. We've seen more death in the last months than anyone should ever have to see. I know you process in silence." he pressed a tender kiss to my temple, "But I'm here. I love you."
And we sat there in silence, staring at the fire.