Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse (Part 1) Read online

  “It’s okay, Haden.” I said misinterpreting the reason for her defensiveness. “I don’t mind the attention. Not tonight.” I sat down on Devin’s lap and he jumped in shock, but welcomed me by wrapping his arms around me.

  “What has gotten into you, Lenore?” August chided.

  “Nothing…yet.” I smiled and squirmed against Devin’s lap. He smiled broadly and chuckled.

  “Are you drunk?” August asked standing up.

  “Yeah, yeah, shush mom.” I waved my hand and leaned in to kiss Devin. He pulled away, but didn’t stop smiling.

  “I can’t do that while your drunk, girl.” He shook his head.

  “It’s the only way I can.” I said and bit his earlobe, since he couldn’t pull any farther away. He chuckled and urged me closer despite his reservation to my inebriation.

  “Devin!” The snap sounded from both August and Haden.

  “Okay!” He said pulling me away. “Oh, sweet thing, why couldn’t you have done this last night, or any other night before this night.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked running my hand up his leg. August ground out his name again, before he stopped me from reaching my goal. He kissed my hand.

  “I’m going to have to ask you not to do that, but just for the record, yes, yes, and yes. I smiled and slipped out of his lap. There was a lot more opposition to our hook up than I thought there would be, but I was determined to get Devin on my side.

  “What do I have to do to convince you?” To add to my already egregious humiliation, I started to dance: a slither in my body, a roll in my shoulders, and a dip in my knees. It might have looked more like an epileptic seizure though.

  August moved to stop me, but Devin grabbed her and pulled her back down on his lap. “No, no, no, this is too priceless to interrupt. You go girl!”

  “Devin, this is uncalled for.” August said struggling against his grip.

  “Oh, let her have her moment. Lord knows you aren’t going to let her have anything else before she goes.”

  “Goes?” I asked in mid crouch. “Where am I going?” I stood up without consideration for my center of gravity, my blood alcohol level, or the fire behind me. I faltered and fell right at the fire.

  I could see August struggling to get off Devin in time to save me, but for the first time ever, I realized that she was right. She couldn’t be there to save me every time. I waited to feel the burn, and hoped that I could get out before my hair caught on fire, but I never hit the coals.

  Arms braced my back and lifted me away from the growing heat. When I opened my eyes, I saw a man, a strange man. I didn’t wait for introductions. I screamed and punched him in the face. He dropped me and I crawled to the safety of August’s legs.

  “Lenore,” August said, “I’d like to introduce you to my brother, Garrett.”

  -Sisters?-

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Haden drug me into the house by my wrist. I think she wanted to be dragging me by my ear, but she wouldn’t have gotten me very far, since I was still too drunk to function without a sober-eye-dog.

  “I wanted to get back at her.” I said as I stumbled after her up the stairs to my bedroom.

  “For what?”

  “She thinks I can’t be friends with Priest, without getting hurt.”

  “What?” Haden pushed me down on my bed and searched my closet for non-whore clothing. “She just doesn’t like him. None of us do. He’s a freaking priest who didn’t get taken by God. Imagine what he must have done to deserve that.”

  “He’s not bad! He’s just broken!” I yelled much louder than necessary.

  “Shut…up.” Haden clamped her fingers together indicating how my mouth should be. I should have said “fuck you,” but the alcohol decided that crying was a much more scathing insult. “Oh, for craps sake, Lenore, you are so bad at drinking.”

  She knelt down before me and pulled off my high heels, before removing my dress. “I’m sorry, Haden.” I whined. She glanced up before pulling me to stand. “I shouldn’t have tried to sleep with Devin. I know how much you love him.”

  “Love…what…” She sighed. “Is that why you never went for him? Cause you thought I would be mad?”

  I nodded and sniffled. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Hell yes, but no more mad than if you ate my chips. I hate to share.”

  I shook my head. “You two can pretend all you want, but I see how much you want each other.”

  Haden grabbed an extra big wad of tissues from my bedside table and shoved it to my nose. “Blow.” I blew and she viciously pinched away what must have been assaulting to her perspective. “Look, you do whatever you want with Devin. I might be mad, but I’ll get over it. This is the end of days. I’ve got no reason to hold a grudge, especially against one of my sisters.”

  “Sisters?” I asked.

  “Yeah, stupid, what did you think we were?”

  “I thought you hated me.” I said.

  “No,” she snarled. “I don’t hate you. I like you, but you do annoy the crap out of me, so yeah that makes us sisters, right?”

  I hugged her. I wasn’t sure it was the alcohol either. She had never expressed anything but irritation to me. I was relieved she didn’t hate me. She hugged back for a moment, and aside from my nudity, and my nose threatening to leak on her shirt, it was nice.

  When she pulled me away, she dressed me like a child pulling my pants up for me, and slipping my arms into my shirt. I buttoned my pants and tucked in my shirt. Before she could drag me back downstairs, I hugged her again. She tried to pull away, but I tightened my grip, and she gave in. I thanked her and released her. The second hug might have been the alcohol.

  We came downstairs and found the party had moved into the kitchen, so we joined everyone there. I started to slow my approach, but Haden jerked my wrist and nodded her head up at me, indicating that I should keep my chin up or be brave, or some such inspirational shit.

  “Hellooo sexy.” Devin drawled shortly before Haden punched him in the gut on the way by. It must have hurt because he didn’t say anything more. Haden sat down at the table with Garrett and August. Devin was standing leaving one open chair available opposite Garrett.

  “Sit down, Lenore.” August instructed.

  I glanced at Devin as if he might be able to take the seat instead. Despite looking a little green from his gut shot, he smiled and mouthed, “It’s okay.” I took the seat keeping myself a good foot from the table. The kitchen felt small with five people in it and my claustrophobia was kicking in.

  “Lenore Evans, this is my half-brother Garrett Smith.” August repeated the introduction, but this time, instead of being quickly ushered off with Haden, I shook his hand. Garrett was a rusty blonde with buzz cut hair, and hard muscular features. His square chin was only slightly over shadowed by his nose, which was a little too big, but he was attractive. Not as attractive as Devin, but really, who was?

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. I was still pretty drunk, but I was not without my sense of embarrassment for my earlier display. He no doubt saw most of it from the shadows beyond the firelight. If he was in anyway amused by me, he didn’t show it—just the opposite. He looked bored, like he realized that his blind date was a taxidermist, and he still had three more meal courses to go before he could gracefully leave. “I didn’t know you had a brother.” I told August.

  “You will be leaving with Garrett tonight.” August stated like the entire conversation leading up to that decision had already happened.

  “Say what?” I looked at Garrett. He wasn’t surprised by the statement. He barely looked at me. He seemed to have found a fleck of dried noodle on the table and was determined to scratch it off.

  “Garrett is going to train you in self-defense.” August said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, geez, not this again.” I stood up, but Devin blocked my escape. I must have looked as betrayed as I felt because he looked sheepish.

  “Please, sit and listen.” He whispered before squ
eezing my shoulder. Had it not been him, I might have been gruffly pushed into my chair. As it was, when I finally sat, he made it a point to rub my shoulders to keep me down. My claustrophobia flared again.

  “I need you to be part of this group.” August said. “In order to do that, you need to train. You said yourself, you can’t fight us. You know us all too well. I’m confident that my brother can train you to be who you need to be.”

  “Who you want me to be?” I said snidely.

  “I’m not asking you to change yourself into someone new. I’m asking you to become the woman you are supposed to become.”

  “I am who I’m supposed to be.” I said. “I’m fine with who I am.”

  Garrett looked at August. “I see what you mean.” His voice was deeper than I expected.

  “What did she mean?” I stared down Garrett and crossed my arms for effect. I tried to shrug away Devin’s hands, but he was no longer hiding the fact that he was holding me down. “What did she say about me?”

  Garrett looked me over like he was making his own assessment. “That you’re stubborn. However, I disagree. I think you’re just lazy.”

  “Excuse me! You don’t even know me dirt bag.”

  “Big words for someone who can’t back them up,” Garrett leaned back in his chair.

  “Did she tell you I can hit a grim in eye from a hundred feet?” I bragged.

  “Is that supposed to impress me? What can you hit at two feet?” Garrett leaned forward over the table. “How about now? I’m a grim sitting at your table. You got in a lucky shot outside; let’s see if you can do it again.”

  “You wouldn’t make it that close to me if I had my bow and arrow.” I said.

  “That’s the point, Lenore.” August was no longer making any effort to hide her exasperation. “He was that close to you outside. He was just outside of the fire light, and you never saw him. You never even suspected that someone was there.”

  “I was drunk.” I said.

  “Would it have mattered?” August asked. “You just assume that we will take care of it. You never even worry. You are a liability to us, and until you can be more than my cook, you can’t stay here.”

  I struggled against Devin, before a slipped under his grasp and away from the table. “Get off me! Fuck you! Fuck all of you!”

  I ran upstairs, away from them all. I secured myself behind my locked door and fell into my bed. Seconds later the door frame splinter and August came in with Garrett behind her. I yelped and jumped up using my bed as a barrier between us.

  “Just knock her out.” Garrett grumbled.

  “No, she goes voluntarily, or they’ll be nothing more to discuss.”

  “Leave me alone!” I sounded like a teenager screaming at my parents, but I didn’t care.

  “Lenore, please don’t make me force this upon you. You have to learn to identify trouble. You can’t always depend on a weapon that will eventually run out of ammunition. Why do you think I don’t carry a gun?”

  “How can you ask me to leave you?” My voice started to shake with the pain I felt from this potential abandonment. “I love you.” I whispered trying to stay below the squawk of emotion forming in my throat.

  August’s demeanor softened and she approached me with the motherly warmth that I wanted and needed at that moment. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to make yourself strong and then come back to me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to be strong. I just want things to stay like this. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to be alone again.”

  August hugged me and pet my hair, but didn’t offer any comments. I could tell she was soundlessly arguing with Garrett over my shoulder. “If I let you stay here, will you promise to let him train you?” I nodded into her shoulder. “No matter what, you have to do as he asks. You have to listen to his instruction as if he were me.”

  “I don’t like him.” I whispered even though he could probably hear me.

  “I don’t need you to like him. It will be easier to fight him if you don’t, remember.”

  I drew back and looked at her. “You brought him here, so I had someone to fight that I don’t know well enough to feel bad about hurting.”

  “That’s essentially the gist of it.” She said.

  I looked Garrett over. He was standing at the door, looking as perturbed by this whole scene as that blind date he was just on. “I don’t think I’ll feel bad about hurting him.”

  -Home Sweet Home-

  Attention to detail was never my strong suit. When August suggested that I could stay at the house to train, I never imagined that meant her, Devin, and Haden would leave me behind with no vehicles and an arrogant prick for a trainer.

  I stared out at the empty drive way. I hadn’t heard the engines start, but sometime last night they had left to stock up groceries and left again with their travel bags. They weren’t planning on returning any time soon. A week, a month, I hoped not more than a month. I was mad, but I had made my promise, so I started doing whatever Garrett asked, as if he were August.

  He started me out on basic calisthenics and running. If all else failed, he would have me ready to out run a grim in no time. We started sword play, which was kind of fun, except that when I stumbled he would thwack me with the side of his blade until I got back up. It was the type of negative reinforcement that I didn’t respond well to.

  After two weeks I came to realize that this was not going to be just a month of training. I was disappointed, but I didn’t have time to gripe about it, since everyday was packed full of training exercises. The only conversation Garrett and I had, was instructional, or necessary. Do you want gravy?—wasn’t exactly what I called small talk.

  Still, I endured everything he had to shove at me, including the ridiculous wrestling moves that I recognized from high school competitions. It wasn’t until the two week mark that I got to use any real self-defense, and it was only because I actually had to defend myself.

  “Dinner will be done in a few minutes,” I said as Garrett came into the kitchen. I expected that the comment would be met with the same wordless grunt that it usually was, but instead he pulled me away from the stove with a thick arm around my waist and bent me face first over the table.

  I screamed or cursed or something, but it all blurred into shock and fear. He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. His other hand was down my shirt, gripping my breast. “I need an appetizer.” He said and I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  I kicked and screamed, but he slammed my head into the table and started undoing my pants. I leaned onto the table further and used both my feet to kick the inside of his knee. The pain made him yelp and he fell back to get away.

  I ran for the back door, but he tackled me. He pressed a chef’s knife to my throat he had grabbed from my wood block. I shoved his hand away and pushed myself up to crawl from underneath him. He hooked his finger in the belt loop on my jeans and flipped me over. He pressed the tip of the blade sharply into her throat. “Undo your pants, or I’ll slice you open and finish with your corpse.”

  There might have been more to that sentence, but I punched him in his Adam’s apple. He withdrew the knife unable to resist clasping his hands on his aching throat. I thought I would be able to get away, but he punched me in the face. The blinding pain paralyzed me for a moment. It took me a second to realize the tongue in my mouth was not my own.

  Garrett was on top of me, pushing his mouth onto mine. I bit his tongue and he pulled away. He slapped me, but I ignored the pain. I pushed his knife wielding hand into his still cocked slapping hand, forcing him to gouge his flesh. He must have been surprised by the move, because I was still able to punch his crotch and upper cut his chin before he could slash me with the knife.

  My forearm bled heavily from the retaliation, but I wasn’t concerned. I pushed the knife up again. As I suspected, he over compensated to push against me so I didn’t cut him again. I turned his wrist as he pushed back. The
knife planted firmly in the linoleum beneath us. He pulled back on it, but it slipped from his hand.

  I grabbed the knife prepared for the extra tug it would take to release it. He jumped off me to avoid my newly acquired weapon, and I threw it at his head. It was intended to be my shining moment in the battle, but the hilt hit his shoulder impotently, shattering any hopes I might have had about joining the circus.

  Luckily, I was an ever devote scaredy-cat and already had my exit strategy in motion. I was up and opening the door before the knife hit the floor. I slipped out just as he started to charge after me.

  I hadn’t really anticipated what to do when I got outside. I ran. It was the only thing I could think to do, and there was only one place I could think to run to.

  -The Great Escape-

  When I arrived, I was wet with sweat, wet with tears, and wet with blood. I couldn’t imagine what Priest thought when I walked through his church doors. “Priest!” I stumbled through the aisle, trying to find a happy medium between crying and breathing.

  He was standing at the altar with one of his female friends. I was relieved that whatever they were about to do, hadn’t started yet. “Lenore?” He scrambled around the altar fully robed in what probably would have been saved for an Easter ceremony. It didn’t matter.

  He was down the aisle after four long running strides. He caught hold of me and lifted me into his arms before he could see that my injuries weren’t that serious. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go. He tried to rape me.”

  “Who tried to rape you?” He asked enraged by even the “tried” part.

  “I did.” Garrett’s voice sounded at the door. My head whipped, and between me wanting to run again, and Priest wanting to attack him, I was out of his arms in one swift movement.

  “You followed me?” I asked behind Priest’s arm. I wasn’t sure if he was pressing me behind him, or if I was cowering there, but I was content to grip onto his arm like it was a life preserver.

  “Actually, I arrived before you. I still have my motorcycle remember. I knew exactly where you were going. August told me about your…priest.”