Damage & Decay

Chapter 14

Part two: Zombie Cards (Collect the Whole Set!)

"Everyone carries around his own monsters."

-Richard Pryor

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The following morning was cool for the first day of September. Eren lay in bed and stared out the window at the dense white clouds stacked tall above the mountains. The air was moist with the promise of rain.

Eren was awake for more than an hour before he realized that he felt better. Not completely. Maybe not even a lot. Just . . .  better.

It was the last week of summer break. School started next Monday, although with his new job, that would only be half days. He lay there, listening to the birds singing in the trees. Armin told him that birds sing differently before and after a storm. Eren didn't know if that was true, but he could understand why they would.

He got up, washed, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. Armin set out a plate of eggs for him, and Eren ate them all and then scavenged the frying pan for leftovers. They ate in silence almost to the last bite before Eren said, "Armin . . . the way you do it . . . Does anyone else do it that way? Closure, I mean."

Armin sipped his coffee. "A few. Not many. There's a husband-and-wife team up north in Haven. And there's a guy named Church who does it in Freeland. No one else here in Mountainside."

"Why not?"

Armin hesitated, then shrugged. "It takes longer."

"No," Eren said. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Sugarcoat it. If this is the way it is, if I'm going to have to be a part of it, don't jerk me around. Don't lie to me."

Armin set down his coffee and then nodded. "Okay. Most don't do it this way, because it hurts too much. It's too . . ." He fished for a word.

"Real?" Eren suggested.

"I guess so," said Armin. He tasted the word. "'Real.' Yeah . . . that about says it."

Eren nodded and ate the last piece of toast.

After a while Armin said, "If you're going to do this with me--"

"I didn't say I was. I said 'if.'"

"So did I. If  you're going to do this with me, then you have to learn how to handle yourself. That means getting in better shape and learning how to fight."

"Guns?"

"Hand to hand first," Armin said. "And swords. Wooden swords in the beginning. We'll start right after school."

"Okay," Eren said.

"Okay . . . what?"

"Okay."

They didn't speak again that morning.

----

When Eren got to the garden gate, he stood looking at it, as if it was a dividing line between who he had been before Armin had taken him out into the Ruins and who he was going to be from now on. For a week he had been unable to open that gate, and even now, his hand trembled a little as he reached for the latch.

It opened without a crash of drums or ominous lightning forking through the clouds. Eren grinned ruefully, then headed down the lane toward Levi's house.