Page 6 of Deceptively Dead

“There are still good people out there, Lady” this comment comes from thunderbolt thrower, and it’s delivered in a much nicer tone than his friend was using. I gingerly turn towards him as he continues “We couldn’t just let you die out there. Not without giving you a chance to explain yourself anyway. My names Chase, by the way. That there’s the good doctor, Nate” he gestures to the blond man who has retreated into the corner of the room, apparently content to watch the proceedings. “And that grumpy ass there is our fearless leader, Hunter.” With this he gestures to the man at the foot of the bed, who is, in fact, wearing a seriously pissed off expression. Great.

There’s a strained, expectant pause and I wonder what they are waiting for.Your name you idiot, that’s what normal people do when someone introduces themselves, they respond with their name.

“My names La- Angela, Angie. My names Angie.” I blurt out in a rush. Then I kind of wish someone would shoot me again because I sound like an idiot. I’m abruptly done talking to these guys while laying on my back and letting them loom over me. I start to struggle into a sitting position and two large, gentle hands immediately help to lift me. I can’t help the tension that locks me in place when the hands touch me, my heart rate picks up and my breathing hitches in fear. Before I can do anything rash, though, the hands are snatched swiftly away, and I’m left feeling embarrassed about my near panic attack. Ridiculously, Ihope they didn’t notice. I don’t want them to know how broken I am. It’s a weakness.

It’s only once I’ve controlled my breathing and can risk looking up at them again that I realize none of them are even looking at me. Apparently, there’s something super interesting on the ceiling. I look up, too, but I don’t see anything.

“Angie. Your, um, your sheet slipped…” the giant Chase says in an uncomfortable, strained voice.

“What does it matter if the sheet… oh.Oh! Wait. What? Where the fuck are my CLOTHES?!” That last bit might have come out as a screech, as I pull the sheet up to cover my mostly naked body, because I’m immediately‘Shushed’by three masculine voices. I don’t care, the thought of someone ever touching me again without my permission has me feeling like I might vomit. I feel the blood drain from my face as I start to shake uncontrollably.

“Calm down, please, it’s not what you think. Your clothes were filthy and covered in fresh blood, we had to throw them away because we needed to travel through the forest, we didn’t want the dead to smell you.” Chase says in a low soothing voice, while keeping his eyes fixed to the ceiling. Looks like he’s the designated ‘deal with the crazy lady’s meltdowns’ support guy. “We found clean clothes for you, and we brought up a bucket of water” he gestures to the bucket of water in the corner “so you can wash your things and your wounds…”

All of a sudden, it’s all too much and his voice trails off as the room starts to spin around me and blackness creeps into my vision.

I’m staring at the wash bucket. But it’s not the bucket in the brightly lit room I was just in. I’m staring at the wash buckets of the toilet block where I killed Ben. I never made it out. It’s so dark in here, so silent. The only thing I can see is the buckets. The silence presses down on my chest making it hardto breathe. Something is leaking from one of the buckets and I take a hesitant step toward it, then another, until I’m standing over the dark liquid. I watch as it sluggishly seeps from a hole in the bottom. Wait. Water shouldn’t be sluggish. The smell of blood overpowers me, then, and I gag. There’s blood in the bucket. Why? Where am I? A sound from behind me has me spinning around and I stumble a little in the blood. I peer into the gloom, trying to find the source of the sound. It sounds like rasping breathing; I realize with horror. I can do nothing but watch, my limbs locked in place, as the reanimated corpse of Ben drags itself slowly into the light. With every step he becomes more solid, moving easier and faster until he stands in front of me.

“La- ceyyy” his voice hisses around me and I watch in horrified fascination as his slit throat moves with the word. I can’t move, I’m trapped, nowhere to go and no weapons. Defenseless. Again. I start to cry as he reaches a dead hand up to caress my face…

I jerk away from the hand caressing me, falling from my mattress with a hiss, like a feral cat. I crouch, scrambling for weapons I don’t have. It takes a moment for the soft, gentle murmuring to reach my ears, and I wildly search out the source of the comfort, needing something to ground myself. My gaze collides with dark chocolate-colored irises, crouched at my level, only inches away. Shock leaves me momentarily immobile as Hunter continues his nonsensical comforting in a soft, smooth voice. He doesn’t move an inch as my gaze stays locked on him while I frantically try to corral my thoughts as the last vestiges of terror leave my body.Just a dream, Angie.I tell myself,just a dream, in the middle of the day during a conversation about why you are sitting in your underwear with three strange men. Nothing to panic about. He’s dead, truly dead. There’s no coming back for him.I have to repeat the dead part severaltimes before I can breathe properly again. All the while staring into dark brown eyes that never leave mine.

As soon as I start to relax, though, Hunter stops his comforting murmurs and gets to his feet. Without another word he turns and walks out a door I didn’t notice. Everyone watches him go in silence. I have no idea what just happened.

I look to the two remaining guys, only to find that it’s just Nate and I. The Viking doctor gives me a small, sad smile. “You had a panic attack.” He states gently and, if I’m honest, a little unnecessarily “Are you ok? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No”absolutely not. “I’m fine. Where’s Chase? Did I scream?” those two questions are the first things that pop into my head, so I blurt them out. “I’m sorry, I’ve never had a panic attack before.”

“It’s ok,” Nate’s voice is soothing and calm, and I abruptly realize I’m still crouched on the floor like a cornered animal. I straighten myself and pain dumps into my system again, I can’t stifle the groan that escapes me. Nate is next to me in the blink of an eye, helping me back to the bed with strong, gentle hands. “You might have screamed a bit, but it wasn’t too loud.” Nate answers my weird questions as he tucks the sheet back around me, “Chase, well I think he felt bad, like he caused your attack. He said he was going to kill something.”Oh, well that makes sense.I think. “Hunter must be going to check up on him” continues Nate with a slightly concerned look on his face as he glances at the door. It smooths out when he looks back at me and he continues in a brisk voice that I immediately dub his ‘doctor voice’. “You need to rest. You’ve way overtaxed yourself. No moving from this bed without my specific ok, do you hear me?”

I want to bristle at the command, I don’t take orders from anyone anymore, but, unfortunately my body and my mind disagree and I start to relax despite myself. Ugh.

“But I need to wash the blood off me” I meekly protest.

“Later. When you’ve rested. Now go to sleep, Trouble.” I grumble incoherently at the unfair nickname, but my body is already obeying him and I’m struggling to hold on to consciousness. I feel his warm fingers brush gently over my bruised face and I sigh, feeling ridiculously safe for the first time in a long, long time.They haven’t hurt me. They’re helping me. I’m allowed to be… me. For now.

Chapter Eight

Iwake many hours later to the sun starting to fade outside the high little window. I check Ben’s stolen watch, only to realize it’s no longer on my wrist.Maybe I lost itI think morosely. I don’t have a lot of things, so I find myself immediately and excessively attached to things I steal, er, gather. A pang runs through me at the loss of my meagre belongings and I resolve to find them as soon as possible.The more pressing issue is the loss of my weapons,I think,without them I might as well paint a target on my forehead.As soon as I am well enough to tackle any obstacles in my path, I resolve to hunt down my possessions.

I push myself up on my good arm and look around hopefully for water. My throat is so dry it feels like sandpaper and I wonder how long I’ve been sleeping. My eye snags on the wash bucket by the wall.That will have water in it.I start the slow process of getting gingerly to my feet and find myself feeling surprisingly better than the last time I was awake. Unfortunately, as soon as I start to move, my bladder decidesto wake up too and I have a crushing urge for a toilet. I wildly search around the room again until my eyes land on what looks like a squat pottery vase, placed strategically by the end of my makeshift bed. I limp my way over to inspect it and find it blessedly empty.Perfect. I check out my surroundings a little more thoroughly as I pee, the mattress that is my bed lays in the centre of the wooden floor of the spacious room. The wall to the right of my bed has the high set little window and the bucket of water resting underneath it. The opposite wall is bare, with only a door set in the middle and a bunch of furniture dumped into the corner. The wall nearest the head of my mattress looks to have a large window which is covered up with heavy drapes, while the one at the foot of the bed is blank. Moving on I hobble over to the wash bucket and check out the water. It seems clean enough and doesn’t have a rank smell to it, so I take a sip to wash the sand from my mouth. There’s a towel laid out under the bucket and another folded neatly next to it, I spit the water in my mouth onto the towel under the bucket.Don’t drink water unless it’s running or you can be sure of its sourceit’s not one of my rules but its good advice none the less.

Once my mouth feels mostly normal again, I really look at the accompaniments to the wash bucket and I feel my mouth drop open a little. There’s soap, for starters. People got stabbed for soap where I came from, and it’s just sitting here all perfect and smelling pretty. I don’tthink it’s even been used!I squeal girlishly on the inside. Even better than the soap, though, is the shampoo and conditioner next to it. I can’t even remember the last time I washed my hair, I could never let my guard down that long. Plus, water was a scarcity and no one but the king and his harem could waste it in that way. Piled haphazardly next to the soaps are an array of girly products including hair ties, a nail file, tweezers, a small bottle of perfume, lip gloss, nail polish and what looks like a kids hair clip and a scrunchie. There’s even atoothbrush and a small tube of paste. I smile as I look over each item greedily. It looks like someone just emptied a teenage girl’s bathroom drawer on the floor.Which they probably did.I’m not one hundred percent sure why that makes me so happy.Geez, I really need to work on my propensity to Stockholm syndrome, apparently.

I quickly snatch the toothbrush and paste and scrub ferociously at my teeth, craving the once familiar feeling of a clean mouth. Back at the compound I had found a twig and used the chewed down end to try and scrub my teeth clean each day… this is so much better. Once I’m done, I can’t wait to wash off, so I grab the little washcloth left on the side of the bucket and start to sponge off my injured left arm. It hurts enough that I need to stop several times before the arm is clean but I’m relieved to find I can move my fingers when the crusted blood is removed. I find I have limited movement in that arm but, surprisingly, nothing feels broken. I crane my neck to look at the wound and find the exit point just under my collar bone, the entry point feels slightly higher up through the muscle in my shoulder.Bloody hells. That was too close.I breathe deeply as I inspect the neat, precise stitches holding me together.I would have died if not for my kidnapping saviours.

Abruptly, I need all the blood and grime washed off me. I stay kneeled by the bucket and start to wash my face and neck, but the bloodied, dirty water is running into my only, already filthy bra. I make a snap decision and do another quick check to ensure I’m alone as I struggle to unclasp my most prized possession. I’m thankful all over again to the previous owner of this bra because it unclasps at the front, or I would never be able to remove it with my injured shoulder. With my bra removed my panties quickly follow and I dunk them both in the water, giving them a quick scrub, before laying them off to the side.

Finally, fully naked, I start to wash every bit I can reach, lathering up the soap on the washcloth with my good hand and watching the bucket of water turn black as I studiously remove the caked-on grime. This feels suspiciously like heaven. I’m lost in a trance of cleanliness, contemplating the chances of me being able to wash my hair with one arm and a dwindling bucket of dirty water (chances are pretty low), when I hear a muffled, manly squeak and a loud crash. Before I can react I hear the door slam shut.

I scramble to grab the giant towel and wrap myself up, my shaking body betrays me and it’s far more of a struggle than it needs to be. By the time I’m wrapped up and facing the door I can hear two sets of rumbling voices on the other side. I creep toward the door and press my ear to it to listen to what they’re saying.

“What do you mean she’s naked?!” Hisses one voice, Nate, I think

“What does naked usually mean Nate?! Naked, naked. She’s having a bath I think.” That’s Chase’s voice, a bit higher than usual.

“Bloody heck, she’s going to think we’re creepers! Way to go Chase! Try knocking next time!” Nate again.

“You said she’d be in bed!” Chase sounds distinctly miffed about this point.

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