Perry raised the shovel again, and from the crazy determination in her eyes, that kind of determination I only ever saw in her, I knew she was going to finish him. I just hoped she could do it without making me a part of the snake kabob.
She brought the shovel down sharply, and with a sick squelching sound the snake suddenly released me. I gasped loudly for air, trying to pull it off my neck. Perry stared at the severed snaked for a few triumphant moments before she dropped to her knees and reached down into my grave to pull the upper half of the snake off of my neck. Then she reached beneath my shoulders, as far as her fingers could go, and slowly pulled me so I was sitting up. The python’s dead body dropped to my waist, freeing me.
“Dex,” she whimpered, taking my face in her hands and peering into my eyes. I wanted to tell her so many things, but air wasn’t my friend yet. My throat and lungs were too bruised and raw. The only thing I could do was lean up as far as I could and kiss her, just a brush of our lips, but enough. Just to remind me that this was why I was alive.
It also reminded me that she was kneeling on the ground, soaking wet somehow, and I was sitting upright in a coffin, half-naked, a severed black python wrapped around me. It was then that she looked down at me and gasped. Her frightened eyes went from the markings on my chest, legs and feet, to the gash on my jaw, to the place where the top tip of my ear used to be.
“What the f**k happened to you?” she whispered, terrified. “Where is your ear?”
“I’ll explain once we get out of here,” I said hoarsely, finally finding my words. With her help, I got unsteadily to my feet and climbed out of the box. I knew I looked quite the sight, now covered in dirt and snake guts. At least the mix was deterring the mosquitos for the time being. “How did you find me?”
“It’s a long story,” she said. “I came with Maximus but I…I don’t know what happened. I lost him. The zombies, they’re out there. They tipped our boat. I swam…I don’t know what happened to him. I…I think maybe I heard him drowning. I’m sorry.” She was near tears again and I put my arms around her and held her to me, grunting quietly through the pain of the cuts and my broken rib.
“You did good, kiddo,” I told her, whispering into the top of her head. “You did good.”
She sniffled and then pulled away. “I just had a feeling I knew where you were. I could sense you.”
“What about Rose?”
She shook her head. “I don’t sense her. What happened?”
I chewed on my lip. “She’s buried somewhere here too.”
“Then we have to dig her up, she might die we if we don’t.”
“I think she’s already dead.”
“No,” she said determinedly. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. If I gave up hope on you, I wouldn’t be here now.”
I looked over her shoulder, at the shape of Ambrosia’s small cabin in the distance. There was a light flickering in one of the windows, but I couldn’t see or hear anything else. Perry was right. We had to try.
“Okay,” I said. I tried to bend over to pick up the flashlight, but the pain was too great. She quickly got it for me and I shot her a grateful smile as I took her hand in mine. It definitely wasn’t the time to get sappy and we definitely had a lot to talk about and we definitely didn’t know where we stood as a couple, but I wanted to take the moment and hang on to it. At this point, I wasn’t sure if it would be our last.
She nodded at the flashlight. “Come on, let’s get Rose. Then we’ll find Maximus and get out of here.”
For once I wished the big red giant really was immortal. I hoped Ambrosia’s minions hadn’t found him, though the bayou was still quiet aside from the occasional splash or bird cry. No gnashing of the teeth to be heard.
I shone the light into the area around my shallow grave. It did look like it had been an ant hill at one point, and then had probably been turned into a compost heap. Though it was maybe only twenty square feet and wildly uneven, it looked like it was the only land around. Everything else that my flashlight caught beyond the mound shimmered like water.
“Over there,” Perry whispered, pointing to her left. I shone the light over and we quickly crept forward. The ground had been disturbed recently, but it looked more like something had been dug up rather than buried. We looked over. It was a grave alright, but it was empty.
“She must have buried her way before me,” I said. “She already has her.”
“Well what can we do?”
I looked back at the cabin. Rose was in there. But was it too late? And was it worth the risk of trying? The two of us versus a heap of mind-controlled zombies wasn’t exactly a fair fight.
Suddenly there was movement from the water and I knew the undead were rising slowly out of the swamp, as if they’d been there all along, waiting like alligators. I hoped that at least a few lucky gators got a meal out of them.
Perry whirled around toward the sluicing noise and I shone the flashlight on them, their eyes shining with madness. Yup. The undead.
I was about to tell Perry to run, to take us back to her boat, when I felt a presence behind me. Automatically, I made my body go slack, as if Perry had just dug me out and I was a bit brain-dead still.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ambrosia said, her hand resting on my shoulder. “I figured the poison would wear off faster with you.” She looked over at Perry, who was frozen in a mix of hate and fear as the zombies came closer and closer. “So you thought you’d come and try to save him. Well, I’m sorry dawlin’, he can’t be saved. And now, neither can you.”
I was grabbed from behind by six strong hands and ripped backward just in time to see a bunch of Ambrosia’s slaves lay their hands on Perry.
I yelled out for her before I was yanked forward and dragged through the dirt to her cabin. The ground disappeared and we had to slog through water to get to the entrance. They threw me up the stairs and up onto the rickety porch. No wonder Ambrosia practiced her magic out here, no one would ever suspect a thing. No one would even hear you scream.
I was shoved back into the cabin where I fell onto the floor covered with feathers, candle wax, and blood. The chicken’s body was gone, nailed to the wall with a knife. They immediately picked me up again and hauled me to one end of the main sacrificial room, whirling me around to face the door. Perry was brought in after me, Ambrosia holding onto one arm, her nails digging in, while another slave held the other. I fought to get free while she fought to get free, trying to get to each other. Our eyes said it all.