The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 43

[ 43 ]

“CARL, I FEEL YOU’VE BEEN ASLEEP QUITE LONG ENOUGH,” DONUT SAID as I groggily sat up.

I groaned. I’d been dreaming. Dreaming of the river, of me being swept away. Of those eyes. The eyes of the ogre as she died.

“How long was I out?”

Donut sat next to me, and she was completely covered in gore, but I could see she’d successfully cleaned off half her head which meant I’d been out a while. She continued to furiously clean herself.

“Forty minutes! Really, Carl. You’re always getting knocked out. You’re really good at killing things, but you’re only barely competent at not getting yourself killed. Who would’ve thought getting turned into a sieve comes with such a nasty set of debuffs? You let that porcupine lady stick her points in your eyeballs! And where did you get that ring? It’s keeping most of the debuffs at bay, but I didn’t realize it wasn’t your strength ring until I saw it glowing. No, no, don’t stand up yet. My goodness. You still have Woozy. I don’t have the tokens, and the bodies tumbled off the edge, which means you need to go diving into the ocean to find the corpses. They’re probably buried, too. So you need to get moving, but first we have to make sure that Woozy debuff goes away first. I can’t have you passing out while you’re submerged.

Honestly, though. I’m afraid the bodies might be hopelessly buried. If so, that means we’ll fail the quest to get the key.”

I could still taste the ogre on my lips. Those eyes. Holy shit. Where had I seen her before?

I coughed. “I have the bodies of both of them in my inventory. They have the tokens on them, but not their cards. Holy crap, that escalated quickly. You saved my life, Donut. Again. Thank you. I’m going to need a minute.”

“You have the tokens already? Oh.” She sounded almost disappointed.

We sat at the edge of the farm, along the cracked asphalt. The majority of the commercial barn had tumbled off the edge, but some of the supports of the structure remained, metal girders hanging off the edge of the ever- crumbling cliff like a clawed, skeletal hand.

“Anyway, Carl. It escalated because you did that superhero jump with your back patch skill. You punched a hole in the entire mountain! Really, Carl. It was a little over the top. We’re lucky Mongo didn’t get bitten by a zombie turkey. They, by the way, didn’t go away, so we have to be careful.

They’ve gotten into the pigs, and now there’s a bunch of zombie farm animals roaming everywhere. Have you ever heard a pig moan? It’s quite distressing. I had to put Mongo away. Now, wipe yourself off. You look like you were dragged through a pile of wet, disgusting corpses.”

“I was.”

“Maybe so, but there’s no reason to look like it. I suppose you should give me the tokens.” I blinked over at Donut, who was still furiously cleaning herself. “Oh, and don’t worry about the cards. Not only did I get them, but I made some changes to our deck. They were just floating there at the edge, and I grabbed them all. Miss Sharp Elbows had a lot of cards, including some of our old favorites. No time to get into the details, but we have a new totem in the deck.”

Donut was acting odd. She was being strangely… stiff, matter-of-fact, talking faster than usual. It wasn’t so much what she was saying as how she was saying it. Something was wrong.

“Wait, what? A new totem? Who’d you get rid of?”

“Nobody! Remember that magical staff card? The one that ogre lady used to turn the dead turkeys all into zombies? That was in her deck. It’s not consumable even though it’s a special card, but either way it doesn’t take up a totem slot, though it does take up a card slot while it’s active. I have to imbue it with one of my spells before we start the fight, and if I do, I can cast that spell, but I can only do it once. The staff itself works like a totem, and it looks different depending on what spell it’s holding.”

“That’s good,” I said. “If you use Clockwork Triplicate, you can make three Shi Marias or three Jolas.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I’ve already set it up, and it works. I had to have a quick fight with a group of zombie turkeys while you were out, and I summoned my deck and tried it out. I used it on Geraldo, and they all started fighting each other until I yelled at them. But it worked!”

“Good, good.” My head was starting to clear. “What else did you get?”

“We got another combo card, but it’s a unique! Isn’t that great? It’s called Golden Combo. It works the same way as last time, but it’s not consumable, so we can do it over and over! Imagine the possibilities!”

“Donut,” I said, finally sitting up. “Why are you talking like…”

“Anyway,” she said, cutting me off. “I was thinking maybe I can do this last fight by myself. With those new cards, I’m pretty much indestructible.”

I blinked. “Is that a joke?”

“Not even a little bit. Look, Carl. The fight is right over there. There’s a vending machine, and I pop the tokens in, the trailer opens up, and I go inside. I have a short, quick, easy fight, and I’ll be right back out with the key. It’ll be nothing. You just sit here are rest.”

I just looked at her, not saying anything.

“Or, you know,” she continued, “we can just skip the last fight and go see someplace new for the last part of the…” She trailed off.

“Donut, you’d rather us fight other crawlers than get the key?”

“I…” She paused, and she deflated. “No, I suppose not.”

I took a breath. I was finally starting to realize what was going on. I held out my arm, and she jumped into my lap.

“Donut, do you remember on the last floor when you first saw it was Ferdinand, and I freaked out? I wanted nothing more than to skip the Butcher’s Masquerade and just go down the stairs.”

“I do remember, Carl. I also remember you later saying you wished you had gone down the stairs.”

I nodded. “I do wish we’d figured out a way to avoid that last fight. But if we had, even more people would’ve died.” I paused as she leaned into my chest. She looked up at me, and her face took up all of my vision. “How do you know who it is, anyway?”

She blinked a few times. “Uh, well, it’s two things, really. The first you’ll have to see for yourself. But the second is the motorcycle. It’s the same one you were offered in the prize carousel on the fourth floor. It has that big dent in it. I remember how it affected you when you saw it. You didn’t say anything at the time, but I knew you recognized it. And now that same motorcycle is sitting outside of that trailer over there, and I just know he’s going to be in there. You’re always saying not to let them have the satisfaction, Carl. I’m trying to be more like you.”

I pulled Donut into a tight hug. “Thank you,” I said.

I mentally prepared myself, and I stood all the way up as Donut transferred to my shoulder. “You know what? It’s okay. They’re doing this to everybody. We have to get it over with. And don’t try to be like me, Donut.

You need to be like you.”

Donut sighed as she settled onto my shoulder. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Good girl. Now come on. Let’s go say hi to dad.”