Death After Death

As Simon took his time killing the two encroaching zombies and moving the table to reinforce the broken window before more could join them, he tried to remember what had happened next the last time he was here. Even though he’d have sworn that every detail of those wonderful few days had burned their way into his brain, he was surprised to find that they’d been scoured away just like everything else during his time in the desert.

He remembered Freya, of course, but even his memory of the beautiful dark-haired woman hadn’t done her justice. Everything was the same as it had been, though. The sadness, the outfit, and even bloody hands remained unchanged. So, once the breach was secured, he found it so hard not to stare that he was forced to mumble, “I’m going to make sure that there’s no more of those things in here with us. You keep that knife handy.”

She didn’t respond, but then she didn’t before, either, did she? Simon tried not to let those thoughts and his second-guessing of himself distract him too much. Even though there hadn’t been another zombie in the building before now, it would be just like Helades to add another one just to zombify him when he’d finally found his way to Freya again.

So, taking at least twice as long as he did the first time, he searched in every closet and under every bed from the owner’s room on the third floor down to the basement. Then he reinforced the back door, so it wouldn’t cut their time together short like it had last time. It was only when all that was done that he joined the intermittently sobbing girl again.

Simon thought about trying to hold and comfort her, but as he approached, he saw her grip the knife a little harder, and he decided against that. Instead, he very obviously set aside his weapons and then pulled each of them a pint before he sat down on the opposite side of the table from her.

“Look,” he said finally, trying to break the silence. “It wasn’t your fault, okay? Whatever happened? Whatever you did, I’m sure it needed to be done.”

“How would you know?” she asked, not bothering to look up.

“You aren’t the only one who’s lost someone in all this,” he sighed, trying to push back flashes of that smoke-filled basement. “I’ve… well, the zombies took someone special to me too.”

Somehow the silences seemed more tense than last time, and Simon was trying to figure out what he’d done wrong when Freya finally spoke. “It was Brenna… she just… and then I-I—” she whimpered as she started crying.

As she spoke, Simon remembered what she was going to say next and rose to get her a wet rag. She’d been a basket case last time, too, until she’d wiped all the blood from her hands. Even though he still had no idea what Brenna had done, the little he knew of the woman made him sure that it hadn’t been anything good.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, wiping off first one hand and then the other. Once she was finally done, she looked up at Simon with a hint of panic in her eyes. “I had to, you understand? I didn’t want to hurt Brenna, but then she…” The woman trailed off into silence after that, making the whole situation that much more awkward for Simon.

“It’s okay. It’s over, Freya,” he said, trying to sound sympathetic, even if it was really strange to talk to the same woman again after missing her for so long.

There was a long moment of silence, but when she finally opened her mouth again, her tone was full of suspicion. “How… how do you know my name.”

Simon swallowed hard as he realized he fucked up. He almost fucked up a second time by telling her he saw it on her name tag. That would have worked on a waitress in the real world, of course, but here it would make him sound even crazier. Instead of answering, he took a long sip from his beer to give himself a moment to think and then decided to go with the mostly honest approach and said, “That is your name, isn’t it? I thought I remembered it from my last trip through here, but if I’m mistaken, I’m sorry.”

“No, it is, it’s just…” her suspicion melted instantly. “With everything that happened, and you just appearing and your accent, it seemed like… but it’s fine.”

“This isn’t my first time through Schwarzenbruck,” Simon nodded, “but I admit I haven’t been around in a while. My travels have taken me far from home.”

“What’s your name?” she asked, finally looking at him as a person instead of a possible threat.

“I’m Simon,” he smiled, “and it’s nice to meet you… again.”

“Si-mon?” she asked, mispronouncing the letters of the unfamiliar word, but that didn’t bother him. “That is a very strange name.”

After that, they talked at length about what they knew. Freya told him what the tavern owner, Mr. Olggen, had told her about the adventurers and the necromancer, refreshing his memory. Simon nodded appropriately while he worked his way through his beer. He hadn’t actually gained any additional insight from his time as a zombie to give him any clues there. There had been no orders from a wizard bouncing around in his head or anything like that. All he’d felt during that time was hunger, and all he knew was that in a few weeks, someone would open the south gate to purge the zombies and release them on an unsuspecting world in the process.

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Simon wasn’t really sure what he could do with that information, though. He could hunker down here with Freya until it was safe to leave, but he didn’t really need to. He could just open a door for them at any time, and they could go say hello to the wyvern by way of the sewers and the jungle.

But wouldn’t that freak her out?

The thought came completely unbidden to his mind, but he was forced to agree with it. Even trying to open the front door would make her attack him, but seeing a portal open like that? Would she turn on him the same way the villagers had in his last life, or would she try to give him the benefit of the doubt the way that Gregor had? He didn’t know, so for now, he decided it was best to just stay quiet.

Simon enjoyed their conversation more than anything in a long time. The feasts at the Baron’s, as well as the dueling yards before it had gotten too warm, were nice, of course. They just weren’t as nice as this because Freya had the advantage of being a beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties.

“Do you suppose there’s enough food in this place that we could make ourselves something to eat?” Simon asked, making her smile slightly for the first time.

“There’s more food than two people can eat before it starts to spoil,” she said, finally setting aside her knife as she seemingly decided Simon wasn’t going to murder her.

After that, they busied themselves in the kitchen. She mostly focused on reheating some stew left over from the night before, and he spent his time trying to clean up the place. By the time he’d removed all the bodies from the common room and the kitchen and wiped away as much blood as he could, she’d almost stopped flinching when he walked by.

The food was great, especially for leftovers, and they were both hungry enough that they ate in relative silence while they focused on the meal. It was only when Freya’s bowl was finally empty that she asked, “What are we going to do now?”

“Well, you said so yourself; we have plenty of food and even more beer, so we’ve got plenty of time to figure that out,” Simon tried to reassure her, though she didn’t seem reassured, exactly. “We’re safe for now. That’s all that matters.”

The rest of the day passed in idle discussions, and Simon told her about the time he helped Gregor kill a mine full of goblins to try to convince her that he knew what he was doing, but she kept her distance both physically and emotionally. Simon couldn’t remember if she’d been this standoffish last time, so eventually, he decided to go take care of something he was sure he’d done the last time he was stuck here with her: remove the corpses scattered throughout the inn.

Putting on his thick leather gloves, he dragged them upstairs one at a time and tossed them out of the second-story window. It was backbreaking work, and it made him curse his newfound weakness again as he realized how much work he needed to do to get back to where he was so recently. The Simon he was yesterday would have been able to get rid of all the bodies without taking a single break, but the Simon of today had to stop and rest after each one, and it was aggravating.

By the time that was done, the night was starting to fall, so after one last perimeter check to make sure there weren’t any boards that were going to break free in the night and cut his time with Freya short, he went upstairs and started getting the innkeeper’s room ready for bed. He wasn’t completely surprised when he heard a knock on the door while he was laying out the sheets.

“Do you mind if I sleep in here with you tonight?” Freya asked meekly. “It’s just that—”

“It’s fine,” Simon said, pulling back the covers and offering her a spot. “There’s plenty of room.”

Freya shook her head and took a spot on the floor instead, though. Curling up fully clothed with a blanket and a weapon. “This is fine,” she said, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “Don’t even think of trying anything. I’m sleeping with this knife. Just so you know.”

That made Simon smile as he brought the last remaining lantern to the bedside table. This was a moment he remembered too. She’d been so nervous the first time he was here, and even though he was pretty sure that she was going to crawl in bed with him again later that night, he couldn’t help but find the moment of Déjà vu completely adorable.

“The last thing I’d ever do would be to take advantage of a woman,” Simon assured her, amused by the repetition. It, more than anything else that had happened today, assured him that he was on the right track with her.

Simon had already taken his armor off during dinner, but he stacked it up neatly after he barred the door and hung his weapons in an easy-to-reach place in case something went bump in the night. After that, he crawled into bed and stripped down to his small clothes. This mattress was filled with something besides straw, so while it was much more comfortable than the one he’d grown used to in the cabin, it still wasn’t quite as comfortable as the one he’d had while he lived in Slany.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Simon was awoken by the familiar sensation of Freya sliding into bed with him. “I had a nightmare,” she whispered. “Do you think that I could… maybe…”

“Of course,” he yawned, pulling the covers back. “Make yourself at home.”

She fell asleep clinging to the edge of the bed, but by the time morning came, she was clinging to him like a drowning victim, just as he remembered. That made Simon smile, too, as he looked at dawn’s rising light through the shutters. “Maybe everything was going to be okay after all,” he whispered to himself as he lay there. He didn’t dare move right now, because the last thing he wanted to do was wake her and spoil this perfect moment.

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