Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse

Angels and Demons

Seeing a grim so close was beyond creepy. I couldn't bring myself to look at his eyes. The sallow glaze was the only thing that made the body look dead. The pallid flesh glittered, reflecting the moonlight, same as the snow beneath him. He roiled at the end of his leash, screaming obscenities at me. I examined the bolt that shackled him to the barn, but so far the connection was stable.

I didn't recognize him. He looked like someone I might have seen on the street once or twice. A familiar stranger, but that was all.

"Why are we doing this?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the grim.

"So you can talk to it," August answered from behind me.

"Why would I want to talk to it?" I asked.

"You need to understand what you're fighting," she said.

I turned away from the monster before me and joined her by the fire. This was day two of our enlightenment journey. We hadn't gone far—a few miles to the east to a different house. There were three grim still in this house, but two of them were just babies—so to speak. We killed them and tied this one up to monitor it.

We kept a constant vigil over him and the surrounding area. His screams tended to draw a crowd, thus the new location. In the two days we had been waiting for grim number three to start formulating intelligible sentence structures, I had killed nearly a dozen grim and August just a few less—only because she was letting me work on my skills.

My training was, thus far, holding up to her expectations, as was I.

"How much longer will this take?" I asked, frustrated that our camp was starting to look like a battleground, minus the blood.

"He'll talk when he's ready." August looked over at the creature. "He's just waiting to see our weaknesses. Then he'll try to trick us."

"I still don't see the point to this. Grim bad, kill grim, what else is there to know?"

"You need to know the mind of your enemy. You need to understand what their goal is."

"Their goal is to maim and kill."

"Yes, but to what end? Are they planning to kill everyone? If so, why? What happens then? Believe it or not, the grim aren't mindless zombified corpses like you think. The demons that control them have an agenda, a purpose in what they are doing. You must ask him what it is."

"Why don't you just tell me what it is?"

"Because like everything you hear second-hand, you'll take it with a grain of salt. I want you to hear this first-hand, so you can't deny it, or rationalize it away, or pretend it's an exaggeration. I want you to know the truth. Then you can understand what your job is."

"What's to understand? Fight grim, kill grim, save a few lives."

"No, that's my job. Yours is bigger than that."

"Remind me when I applied for this job again."

"The application was submitted the day you were born to this Earth. You were hired the day you were denied into heaven." She smiled, playing her statement off as clever repartee, but I got the feeling it was pretty close to the truth.

"And... don't take this the wrong way, but... why can't you do it?" I grimaced at how lazy that sounded.

"I'm not capable of it. Only you are."

I wanted to deny the assessment on both counts. August was capable of everything. I was still counting my lucky stars to be a pretty decent sidekick. "Wow, did you just seriously call me the chosen one?"

"Something like that." She chuckled. "You are important at the very least. My instincts told me that the minute I laid eyes on you the first time. Although, had I known you were so set in your ways, I might have settled for a different prodigy." She winked.

I smiled, thinking about the day we met. It was so special to me. That was why I loved August so much. She didn't just save me from death. She saved me from my life. There was no equating the loneliness I felt after the reckoning. When I woke and saw her face over mine, alighted in a soft heavenly glow, I knew I was truly saved.

"I don't think there is a chosen one," August continued. "I think everyone has a purpose. Sidekicks, as you know, contribute a great deal to the hero's success. They aren't just backup. They are what drives the hero to keep going, against all odds."

"August, can I ask you something?" I asked, twiddling my thumbs.

"Of course."

"Are you...?" I couldn't believe the words I was about to speak. "Are you an angel?" It sounded preposterous, but if there were demons, why not angels? And if anyone on this earth was an angel, it was August.

I waited for her to start laughing, but she restrained herself, though the smirk on her face twisted pretty high before she could respond. "Why would you ask me that?"

"I just feel different around you. Ever since we met, I've been drawn to you." She nodded, trying to understand. "Not in a... just like... familiar. You know?"

August looked down at her hands, remembering something. "I'm flattered." She looked back up at me in earnest. "I'm honored that you could think that of me."

"Is that a no?" I asked, noting that she hadn't denied it.

Her smile grew so large that all her teeth were showing back to her molars. "I'd prefer to let you continue thinking that I am, if you don't mind. I like the way you look at me, Lenore. I like what I reflect in your eyes. You make me feel magnanimous when you look at me."

I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable by the depth of the conversation, despite the fact that I started it. "That's what a good sidekick is for, right?" I shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile.

She nodded and stared into the fire. Her lips relaxed back down to her usual warm smile. "There is something else to consider, though. Maybe I'm not projecting. Maybe you're just sensing. If that's the case, then I am even more flattered."

She glanced at me, then tossed another log into the fire. A few embers jumped out of the blaze, landing in the dirt in front of me. I kicked dirt onto them, to stifle their potential.

"Would you have left me?" I asked, abruptly changing the tone of the conversation. Her brow dipped in confusion. "Before, you threatened to leave me if I didn't try harder. Would you have left me? Would you have found another prodigal sidekick?"

August frowned and tears sprang to her eyes. I had never seen her cry. To see it was like watching my own mother cry: Uncomfortable because she is supposed to always be strong, but heartbreaking because you know she can't. "There was only ever you, Lenore. Only death will take me from your side, and God willing, not even then."

I was surprised to hear her speak of God. I had never seen her pray, or use any reference to Him. In fact, she had stopped me on many occasions from clasping my hands in prayer in public. I wondered if she intended that for my protection more than objection.

"God has no will here," the grim said behind us. Apparently, he wasn't a fan of the big G.