Vintage Memories

Chapter Thirty-One "Truth Cannot Set Free After Lair's Lips Consume The Key."

"The early sinner gets the good shit," he said, luring her out with that cleverly parodied proverb.

But, as it turned out, the early sinner got the spear—got it right in the shoulder.

He didn't sense the Exterminator coming up on his six as he combed through the dead for valuables to keep or pawn. But Cherri did. He heard her scream his name and froze in confusion. A shove to his side startled him and he hit the ground, caught by newly scuffed forearms.

Then came her second scream, a high wailing that reached down into his body and braided his intestines together. He rolled over onto his ass and watched as the spear retracted from her shoulder, taking with it muscle, tendon, and blood.

But she managed to stand her ground, pressing her hand to her wound.

The Exterminator loomed over her, moving in a disjointed, yet sickeningly precise manner. The sight of the heavenly titan, whose shadow seemed to overlay Cherri and stretch for miles behind her, struck a primordial terror in Anthony's soul. Its monstrous, smiling mask twisted in unnatural corkscrews, with a bile-green glow pouring through the facial cutouts. Deep scores— three on the right, four on the left —dragged like tear trails down its cheeks to the chin, most likely battle scars from Exterminations past.

To Anthony, its hideous, crying-smiling form stood like an epitome of all things insanity and chaos, warped and wicked. How could anything so wretched claim to come from a place of goodness, love, and forgiveness? Anthony wanted to vomit, but fought to keep it down. All four arms hung with invincible weight, and he was sure his legs would be of no service if he tried to stand.

It was Cherri, despite the hole in her shoulder and body failing fast, who acted. She unlimbered her entire arsenal of rudimentary explosives, and stole them both away in the screen of rubble and dust. When they had gotten a considerable distance away, and Anthony freed himself from the divine stupor paralyzing him, she gave into her injury and collapsed.

He hurried her home, holding her and upholding constant conversation to keep her conscious.

That was three days ago.

Her injury wasn't immediately fatal, but Anthony wavered about whether that was a good thing. Regardless of where it struck, the holy toxin coating an angel's blade was lethal, like virulent cobra venom. It wreaked havoc on her body, inflicting a discomfort that sometimes flared into all out agony. Sometimes she screeched and wailed as the toxin ate its way through her insides. Other times, she'd be deathly still and silent, a perspiring, panting clump beneath her blankets. All the while, guilt ate at Anthony as he watched her suffer what should've rightfully been his ordeal.

He tried to palliate her symptoms and make her comfortable, but no attempt succeeded. She was too hot with covers and too cold without; starving, but no appetite; thirsty, but rejecting water; hallucinating and conversing in nonsensical babble with her illness-borne fantasies. All he could do was sit with her, reciting lays of comfort and wiping away her sweat.

"You'll be okay." He told her. "You're doing great, sugah'."

She'll be okay. She's fighting it. He told himself. After she recovered, he swore he would spend the rest of his (after)life making it up to her.

But on the third morning, she wouldn't wake up.

When he nudged her, she gave little grunts of discomfort, her cyclopian eyelid fluttering in a half-lucid state. The last of his denial left him to drown in a rapid river of panic. She was slipping out, leg back and aiming to kick the bucket, giving up the ghost.

They were already ghosts; what did she have left to give up?

Nothing. She wasn't giving up shit. He had what he needed. He would save her. This wouldn't happen again.