Death's Awakening

Chapter Forty-Two: Parrish

"What do you mean?" Noah asked her once they were out of the house and back in the safety of the bright light of day. "You just woke up one day knowing how to behead zombies with a ninja sword?"

Parrish shrugged. She knew it sounded crazy, but yeah, that was the basic truth of it.

"So you're telling me you've never taken any kind of self-defense class or martial arts or anything like that?"

"No, nothing," she said.

"You made it look easy, but decapitating a full-grown man with a big sword like that is not something a girl your size can just do on a whim," he said.

He paused and Parrish stopped and turned around. He was chewing on his bottom lip, his hand raised up as if he was thinking something through.

"What?"

He shook his head. "It's too crazy, forget it."

He started walking again, but now she was too curious. She put her hand on his arm and he glanced down at it, then at her.

"What?" she asked again.

He turned. They had made it to the front of her house and were standing very close to the spot where they had sat, listening to Zoe's violin concert. The night the virus interrupted their lives. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

"In the past couple of weeks, have you felt... different?" He scrunched his eyes together. "I can't think of the best way to describe it, and I know how crazy it sounds, but—"

"At this point, do you really think anything is crazy?" she asked with a half-smile.

"So, does that mean you're saying yes?"

Parrish took in a deliberate breath. How could she deny it? Yes, she'd thought she was crazy too, at first, but after today, she knew he was right. Something was definitely different.

"Yes."

Noah's shoulders relaxed and he took a deep breath in and out of his nose. "I'm glad it's not just me," he said. "But I don't really understand it. What's it like for you? Just the ninja sword stuff? Or is there more to it?"

She walked over and sat down on the steps in front of her house. Something she'd done a thousand times before, but never once because she was terrified to go inside.

"There's more," she said. "You're right, though. Ever since the virus, it's like I know how to do things with my body I never learned. Like roundhouse kicks and using this sword. But there was something really weird that happened right after my mother died."

Noah came to sit next to her.

She nervously picked at the skin around her fingernails. "I was really upset and alone. And the more I thought about what was happening, the angrier I got at the world. I had this crazy urge to start destroying everything in the house, so when I looked up and saw this sword on the shelf, I gave in and started slicing things up," she said. "There was this violin on the wall that my parents bought me when they still had hopes that I had an ounce of musical talent in my body. I just felt this pure anger and hatred and I took the violin and smashed it up."

"None of that sounds weird," he said.

"No, it was what happened after that," she said. "I started crying and all of a sudden, my tears were really cold. Ice cold. One of the teardrops fell onto the violin and the whole thing frosted over with this thin layer of ice. I know it sounds impossible, but it happened. I have no way to explain it. It was like I was crying ice."

Noah's breath came faster and she looked up to see his face had gone white.

"Something similar happened to me," he said, his eyes wide. "When I killed my father with that bat, my whole body felt like it was freezing cold. I mean, I honestly thought that for a second, my bat iced over, but then I wondered if it was a trick of light. And when I hit him, did you see it? His head came off with one swing. A sword is one thing, but to take off a human head with one swing of a bat?"

Parrish nodded. "I guess I didn't really think of it that way," she said. "I was just focused on the horror of it all."

"Me too, at first," he said. "But when I was sitting there afterward, I started piecing it all together."

"Piecing what together?"

"The fact that I've been growing stronger and stronger ever since the virus started," he said. "And it isn't just strength. It's some kind of healing, too, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"When you and Karmen first came to my house, remember how her leg was bleeding and I put my hand on it?"

Parrish nodded. She remembered him making some kind of bandage to stop the bleeding.

"It was like I could feel her pain being sucked from her body," he said. "I felt that same kind of cool energy I felt when I hit dad with the bat, but it was different. Instead of pouring out of me, it was like it was flowing into me. It's hard to explain."

They fell silent and Parrish thought about what he'd said. About what they were saying to each other.

"Do you think this is happening to everyone?" she asked. "Everyone who is still alive?"

Noah shrugged. "I have no idea," he said. "I thought it was just me. I thought maybe I was imagining it or losing my mind or something."

She laughed. "Me too, honestly."

"Come on," he said, standing and offering his hand to her. "We need to grab your stuff and get moving. We've got a lot to do today."

Parrish took his hand, then followed him inside her house for the last time.

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