The Resurrected Compendium Read online



  "I'm going to see if I can get this out," she told him.

  "It will be attached to a spring with gears," he said. "If you can get the box open, you should be able to pry it apart."

  As it turned out, the box had suffered from the blow nearly as much as the wooden post had, and it fell open in her hands when she grabbed it. Inside, the gears and springs detached easily enough, leaving the the bottom of the spike free. She tossed the metal bits and pieces aside, then eased the wood down and off. It thundered when it hit the floor. She gripped the spike, slick with blood. She looked at Dennis.

  "Are you ready? It will hurt."

  "Better this way than the other," he said.

  Kelsey gripped the spike just above his hand, and also just below to anchor it. She waited a second to give him time to prepare. Then she let go of the bottom half as she yanked the top half. Dennis let out a stuttering breath, but no more than that. He leaned forward, his head on her shoulder. Blood poured from his wound.

  She hadn't thought this through as well as she might've. Kelsey wriggled away from him enough to pull off her shirt, which she wrapped around his hand. Blood soaked through it in seconds. She pressed, hard, willing it slow.

  "Dennis. Baby, listen to me." She fell into sweet talk unconsciously, heard herself saying it but didn't bother to censor it. "We need to get this taken care of. Right?"

  "Right." He shook his head and put his hand over hers, holding down the blood-soaked shirt. "Upstairs. Bathroom."

  Together, they made it up the stairs to a standard-looking hallway lined with doors, most of them open. Kelsey peeked into a the couple they passed. Bedrooms, sparsely decorated. A sewing room. At the end of the hall, a bathroom, dark without an overhead light and the window closed off with another of those metal shutters. With every step, she waited for something to fly out and hit her, to explode, to shoot. For a woman to burst through one of the doors with a gun leveled at their heads. They got all the way down the hall without incident.

  Dennis collapsed onto the toilet, his hand in the sink. "Should be some bandages and stuff under the cabinet."

  "Is this bathroom like the other one?"

  He gave her a weary smile. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

  Kelsey would've stroked his cheek, but her hands were covered in his blood. She settled for turning on the faucet, instead, standing back in case it gushed with boiling water. The pipes didn't shudder, and the water that came out was warm, not scalding. Using the soap from the dispenser on the counter, she scrubbed her hands, watching the blood swirl down the drain.

  Her reflection stopped her. Pretty girl, face drawn, no makeup, in her bra with blood smeared all over her. It was the closest her outsides had looked to how she felt on the inside for a long, long time. Kelsey gripped the sink, breathing in and out slowly, determined not to freak out. Dennis needed her help, and his mother was still presumably in the house somewhere, lurking, ready to kill them both for getting past her elaborate set of traps.

  "In the cabinet," he said. "There should be a kit."

  There was, a full medical kit including sutures and scalpels in sealed packages. Ointments, creams, bandages, all tucked neatly into a metal case with instructions sealed onto the lid. She pulled out several packages of sutures and also a tube of some sort of surgical glue.

  Injuries could be bold, or they could be subtle. Kelsey had learned to deal with the subtle sort. Bruises in places nobody could see. Broken bones from "accidental" falls. She'd become a master at lying to emergency room doctors about what had happened, but even better at treating her own wounds without help from anyone else.

  Dennis's injury was not subtle. The wound gaped, the edges raw. The blood had slowed, but not yet started to clot. It wasn't clean, she couldn't see light through his hand or anything like that, but if she'd pushed a finger through it, it would come out the other side. She pressed a pad of gauze soaked in antiseptic to it, wincing when he hissed.

  "Sorry, sorry."

  "It's okay," he said. "Hands get infected really easily. Can't take any chances."

  She held up the tube of glue. "I'm going to use this instead of trying to sew it...is that okay? I think it will hold better."

  He reached for her suddenly, weaving on his seat on the toilet. "Kelsey..."

  She linked her fingers with his, careful not to press his good hand too tight. "Yeah, baby. It's going to be okay. It'll be okay."

  "No." He shook his head. A hissing whisper trickled from the vicinity of the shower, a scent like sulphur tickling her nose. "No, it's not. And I'm sorry."

  Kelsey blinked, the edges of her vision blurring. "...For what?"

  "Because I forgot about the gas," Dennis said.

  Then everything went dark.

  38

  He caught her before she could hit the ground, her body a dead weight he wasn't sure how long he could hold. He'd pulled in a long, deep breath at the first whisper of the gas coming from the shower head, but he couldn't hold it for much longer. He had to get them both out of there. Steeling himself, Dennis gripped his fingers into the hole in his palm.

  The pain hit him like a fist but kept him awake despite the tinge of red threatening the edges of his vision. He hefted her against him, dragging her as he backed out of the bathroom and down the hall, all the way down, her heels scudding on the polished floor and catching the runner. It bunched, threatening to trip him. It did trip him, and he stumbled, shoulder hitting the bedroom door.

  It knocked the breath out of him. He gasped, hoping they were far enough away from the bathroom for it to be okay. His nose and throat burned, more in memory than anything else.

  "You have to be able to get through it," Mom says. "It's kinda like drowning, Dennis, you have to be able to hold your breath for a really long time."

  Then his head's swimming and the world twists and turns. When he wakes up, she's standing over him with that sad, disappointed look on her face that tells him he did it wrong. Whatever it was, he did it wrong. So he does it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until he does it right.

  He pulled Kelsey into the bedroom. Placed her on the bed, covered in a plain dark spread he didn't remember, though this had been his room for a long time. Mom had rearranged the furniture in here, and he stubbed his toe on the desk chair. Then Dennis sank onto the bed next to Kelsey, his throbbing, bloody hand close to his chest. He had to stanch the wound, but had left the first aid kit behind.

  Mom had changed the furnishings but hadn't touched what he'd left behind in the heating vent, which came free of the wall with a tug that made him grunt with pain. Inside, dusty but untouched, was his personal kit. It took him awhile, working with just one hand and on the edge of the passing out, but he managed to clean and seal the gash in his hand, then bandage it thickly.

  On the bed, Kelsey stirred. She groaned. Dennis bent over her, turning her onto her side in case she puked, but she only opened her eyes. She breathed in with a cough, then another. She didn't struggle.

  "I'm alive," she whispered.

  "Yes." He pushed her hair from her face, trying to check her pupils, see if they were dilated. To see if the color had returned to her cheeks.

  He wasn't expecting her to sit up, nor for him to kiss him the way she did. Soft and slow, full on the mouth, her fingers threading through the back of his hair. He couldn't move, couldn't shift, couldn't even kiss her back. When her tongue slipped between his lips, though, he startled.

  She looked surprised when he pulled away. "Dennis..."

  He shook his head, wiping a hand over his mouth. She'd kissed him. She was beautiful and sexy, and she'd kissed him, just like in all those movies where it didn't matter what else was going on, the hero and the heroine always had time for a shag in the middle of the apocalypse.

  He'd never felt less like a hero.

  His heart thumped, his dick half-hard just from that kiss and the way her hair had brushed his face when she leaned in to him, b