Romancing the Afterlife

Me? Zombie

Cain and “Julie” sat in the backseat of Jonas’ orange 2004 Ford Focus. It was painted orange by its previous owner, and that had made it more affordable for Jonas. It smelled like sweat and burritos inside. The two of them sat ankle deep in trash that had been nonchalantly thrown back there for the passed three and a half months. In the passenger seat was Janice Gawlhaerich who did not seem too keen on having them crashing her mall experience. She was also the one who was in charge of the radio, helping Cain and his apparent girlfriend Julie to discover a similarity with eachother. Neither of them liked country music. Cain knew for a fact Jonas didn’t like country music either but constantly suffered through it for the sake of Janice’s supposed love.

They arrived at the Raccoon Hill mall, which hosted a total of thirteen actual stores and four eateries inside. It was built on the edge of Raccoon Hill in the hopes that it would attract people from the surrounding area. Though small it could sometimes be quite busy do to the lack of options in the area. The real mall was a two and a half hours drive away, leading people in Raccoon Hill to plan it as more of an all day outing.

Today the mall wasn’t that busy and they had little resistance traffic while travelling around inside. Jonas tried to keep the group together, but it was to no avail. Janice and Julie moved at different speeds. One knew what they wanted, and the other preferred to browse and try things on. Janice found the new girl to be a bit suspicious. Something about Julie bothered her. It was hard to trust someone who wore a scarf over her face. It seemed unlikely it had anything to do with her religion, or else the scarf would be over her head as well. She did not like the amount of attention Julie was getting, especially from Jonas. Julie acted a little self-righteous in her opinion. She seemed to be taking advantage of Cain, and neither Cain nor Jonas said anything about it, even though she was obviously making Cain buy her a bunch of expensive clothes. Another thing was that Cain and Julie didn’t act like they were a couple, they never even held hands. Jonas normally would hold her hand when they went through the mall, but today he seemed distracted by Cain and Julie for some annoying reason. Secretly she felt threatened because she knew other than the scarf Julie was prettier than her, but she would never admit it.

Julie/Lucy was trying on zip up hoodies checking out how they looked in the mirror. The saleswoman appreciated how they all looked on her. They were for the evenings when it got chillier. Cain stood a few feet away, but was rarely asked for his opinion. He was just waiting to pay for whichever one she chose. It was less awkward than the lingerie store he had waited for her choice in, trying not to stare at anything or anyone too much, in case he was confused with a pervert. Janice and Jonas sat on a bench outside the store sharing a fruit smoothie, also waiting for them. Jonas was really good at appeasing his girlfriend whenever she got a little on edge. He hoped he was appeasing his “girlfriend” by buying her the clothes she needed to feel more comfortable. He saw the expense as an investment.

Lucy finally picked a light blue sweater that had the designer’s name on it in far too many places. Cain paid at the cash and they headed out of the store to reconvene with the other two. At the same time two tall guys a little older than them were entering the store. One looked like a combination of a surfer and a nightclub attendee, and the other was dressed like he wanted people to assume he was trouble. They both stared at Lucy and Cain as they walked by them. The thug looking man mumbled something to his beach douche friend causing him to get excited and exclaim, ”You know I would!” He then turned around in an attempt to do whatever his friend knew he would do. He called after Lucy, “Hey what are you doing after this?” Cain thought the question seemed suspiciously presumptuous, but it got her attention.

“I don’t know, maybe going to the beach.”

“Nice, we can give you a ride if you like.”

“I can find my own way, but maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Oh you will definitely be seeing me.” Cain hated this guy. It was Bruce all over again. The moment was made worse by the fact Jonas and Janice were viewing the scene from their bench.

His buddy decided to chime in, “You as beautiful as you look under that scarf?”

“It’s none of your business,” Cain snapped at the guy.

The two guys looked at eachother like he had just told a joke, Lucy looked at Cain and shook her head like he had done something wrong.

“It’s your business though?” The beach guy asked him. His quiet sidekick stepped away, more off to the side. Jonas looked around for security. “I don’t think you are with her, I think you’re a tag along.” He looked to Lucy and she did not dispute it. The other guy was now to Cain’s right. Jonas wanted to help, recognizing that the other guy was flanking Cain, but Janice held him down. “I think we’d all be happier if you f****d off, and stayed in your league.” The other guy took Cain by the shoulder and tried to lead him away from Lucy, but Cain resisted and instead was thrown to the ground. He was already getting up, annoyed but afraid. Several people in the mall were just walking by, but a few were actually stopping to watch. One woman even had two kids with her.

“That was uncool,” Lucy practically groaned to them, like when a child is forced to do chores, “I think you two should go do whatever you were going to do, and forget this.”

“What if we want to do you?” he propositioned her in a douchy tone, “I know this guy isn’t showing you the good time you deserve,” referring to Cain, who was now being blocked by the other guy from rejoining Lucy.

“Okay, now you’re just pissing me off.” The abrasive chauvinist grabbed her shoulder, and in a knee jerk reaction, she punched him the ribs and felt them gel. He collapsed, having never been punched so hard. He held his side and was near crying on the ground. His supposed friend literally walked away from the whole scenario. By the time someone had called 9-1-1 to aide the severely hurt young man, Cain and the others had already left the mall.

It had been a long and surprising day of shopping. Cain had spent almost $300 on Lucy’s new wardrobe, and little to show for it but feeling emasculated by publically having a girl fight for him. He felt they were getting along okay, but she didn’t seem very content with his company. He was doing everything he could to make her happy and help her adjust to her new life as Julie, but often her reaction made it seem like it was all a burden. He saw an odd inner struggle within her, between the person she was inside that he had always noticed and the persona that no longer needed to exist but she fought to have again. He didn’t understand her current concern of keeping up appearances, for who and what reputation? He pulled down her scarf a little to see the state of her lip, trying to avoid prying eyes. The glue was holding, but there was an obvious seam. He wondered what had made it split like this in the first place. She did not like him looking at it and when he touched it she shuddered a bit, but not out of pain.

“It’s getting better,” he whispered to her. A white lie but he hoped it would have a placebo effect. Though he couldn’t see it, under the scarf was a soft smile. Jonas and Janice started discussing their plans for the next day, Jonas suggested joining Cain and Julie in whatever they were doing, but Janice was adamant on having sometime just the two of them. She suggested seeing the new romance movie ‘Ghost, Too’

“Do you guys want to come to that Cain?” Jonas asked them

“Jonas!” Janice hit him in the arm.

“I don’t know, I think Julie and I are going to chill at home tomorrow,” Cain answered for the both of them.

“What if I want to do something?” Julie piped up.

“Like what?”

“Like go to the beach.”

“ Oh, I love the beach” Jonas piped in, but then Janice hit him again, “Ow, stop hitting me. I don’t need broken ribs,” Janice shook her head at him. They had chalked Julie’s one punch destruction as a random lucky blow, but she was still weary.

“Well I guess we can go to the beach.” Cain said, feeling like he was compromising.

“Didn’t you want to chill at home?” she asked him.

“Well yeah, but I can take you to the beach.”

“Well I’m sure you have other things you could be doing.”

“Like what?”

“Like things not involving me.”

Janice smiled to herself feeling validated in having thought there was something wrong with their relationship. Cain was amused, thinking she must be crazy to assume he had something better to do than follow a resurrected regenerating beauty like her around. Realizing she was serious, he counter-acted insecurity by advocating their partnership.

“But we’re supposed to be together forever.”

“Says who?!” she replied a bit outraged.

Janice chimed in with her own thoughts, “Yeah Cain, you’re being a bit much. You shouldn’t be so possessive this early in a relationship.”

“We’re not even together!” she shouted pulling the scarf away from her face to not be muffled. Jonas and Cain both shared a momentary simultaneous clench, expecting Janice to notice her face and react and then have to answer questions, and it would be a whole big thing, and Janice was a blabbermouth (Jonas had confirmed earlier). There was no reaction though, except from Cain.

“You’re healed.”

“Really?” Jonas asked excitedly.

“What’s the big deal?” Janice asked them.

“I’m some sort of supernatural entity that Cain is in love with.” Janice assumed Julie was making a stupid joke. Cain and Jonas worried she’d take it seriously and freak out. Julie/Lucy didn’t care anymore. The car went silent and nobody said anything to each other for the next awkward six and half minutes it took to drop them off at Cain’s house.

Cain waved goodbye to his friend and his friend’s grouchy girlfriend as they drove away. Lucy said nothing to him as they carried her bags to the backyard and stored them in The Box. Cain waited outside so she could change into some of her new clothes. Mrs. Lewis spotted him in the yard and invited them in for dinner. He waved to her to show he had heard her invitation. When Lucy came out of The Box he attempted to clear the air. “The whole point of trying to bring you back with some ancient love stone, well the point was supposed to be …. I mean it wouldn’t of worked if we weren’t supposed to be ….” He was losing confidence. She let out a hearty sigh in response. He was unlikely to ever let that this go, she’d be hearing this stuff for his whole lifetime (if that was indeed how this worked), then again where was the evidence that she was bound to him? She was entitled to a second life of her own, and not to be smothered by some inconsequential admirer from school.

“Well things take time! And in any successful relationship, both parties need to spend time apart to keep their own individuality, or else they grow to secretly resent each other. Besides women hate clingy men who don’t trust them.” Cain nodded. He had heard such things before on talk shows he’d never admit to having ever watched, perhaps it was as she said. She stood in front of him with much confidence and pride, trying to hide the satisfied smile from reaching her face. He bought it.

“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. You don’t belong to me, I’m just worried-”

“Well don’t, I’m a big girl, I can handle stuff myself.” The thought of letting her go and potentially never seeing her again pained him. She was an actual dream come true, but she deserved to be happy. “Thank you for bringing me back to life, that was really sweet of you. I’ll forever be in your debt.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, creating the exact reaction she had hoped for, stunned with a mildly stupid grin on his face. “I’ll see you back at the house, you should probably discuss details with the rents about our living arrangement anyway, so there’s no awkwardness. Maybe I’ll just crash in your little hang out shed for the time being, until I find somewhere more permanent.” She turned and walked away from him with no intension of ever seeing his sad puppy dog eyes that were watching her depart again. Somewhere inside him he knew that to be the truth as well.

She wanted to see Bruce again. He was one of the last things she remembered from her life, and he may be one of the only things she could re-obtain from it. It was hard for her to understand, but he kind of mattered more to her now then he had when she was alive before. Besides she sure as hell couldn’t leave him to Amber’s whorish claws. Obviously she couldn’t establish herself with Bruce, with a clingy Cain beside her getting jealous and declaring her as belonging to him. As she turned around the corner, she didn’t look back but knew he was still watching.

She hoped that Bruce might consider the concept of running off together with a hottie he just met, so she could avoid any future confrontations in this town. She contemplated even telling him the truth, if the moment was right and she thought he could handle it. He was never supposed to be her forever, but he had been good to her and she needed something familiar.

Naively Cain had believed that resurrecting Lucy with the stone meant that she would have a real connection to him, or else what was the bloody point? Why would it have worked, if they weren’t meant to be together? Now he had no choice but to wait and have faith that eventually he would see her again, because it was fated, maybe. He sat at the dinner table with his parents staring off into space. This wasn’t overly unusual for him, but this time they contributed it to the fact that his apparent girlfriend had already vanished. “You know I wasn’t always so lucky to have a great woman like your mom, you know?” his dad randomly remarked with food in his mouth, trying to break the silence. His mom put her hand over his dad’s out of sentiment. It didn’t make him feel any better, he loved his mom but she was no Lucy Little. He stirred his chocolate milk with the straw and thought about how his dad had given him the stone in the first place, so this was a little his fault by association. He might also be the only person with any incite for him though. “Hey dad, remember how you gave me that cool aboriginal stone as a grad gift?”

“Cain we’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it. If anyone gets a Camaro in this family, it’s me.”

“No, that’s not what I was asking,” he replied feeling a little guilty. His dad calmed down a bit and went back to his dinner. “I was just thinking, that you didn’t really finish the story that day. I mean what was the lady shaman trying to do, what was the purpose of her spell.”

Mr. Lewis was surprised and excited by his son’s sudden interest, and dropped his fork. “Well to be honest I’m not truly sure. I used to talk to my grandfather about this sort of thing, he was a quarter aboriginal you know, although I think his quarter came from somewhere else. Anyway, he had two schools of thought. The one I liked was that the shaman resurrected the women’s sons and husbands to live out their lives with their wives and mothers, and be the protectors they had only come to be in their deaths, like a redemption of the soul. Grandfather well he wasn’t as idealistic as me, and his theory was that she simply wanted to bring their souls to life one at a time to say goodbye to their loved ones and give them closure”

“Awe, that’s a really sweet thought too.”

“Yeah, but he also said the shaman failed and created monsters that they controlled with love and set upon their enemies to devour them!”

“What enemies?” Cain asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know. To be honest your great granddad got a little light in the head as he got older.” Cain gave up and finished his dinner in silence.