Living (Un)dead

The miles passed by in a desperate blur. The gravel crunching under my feet on this godforsaken highway was the only sound, besides the crickets' song, and that fell oddly silent as I passed. My capacity for rational thought increased with every step I put between myself and the grave I crawled out of. Spanish moss draped every branch of the tree-crowded back road I was stumbling down. The trees themselves leaned and huddled together, as if asking each other what life choices had led to my state. The absolute panic was fading, but the bone deep, mind numbing fear settled like a cat in a sun beam, digging it's claws in. I could feel something was wrong, a slow poison seeping deeper; incurable, irreversible. I gasped in a sobbing breath, felt my lungs expand, the tears on my face, but not my heart. From the moment I woke it had been as quiet as...the grave. A heinously bad pun, but I couldn't help thinking it. The rocky back road should have been murder on my bare feet and I certainly wasn't careful as I wrenched myself out of that hideous hole; but still I felt no pain. Saw no blood. The sweltering heat of the night should have had me sweating like a pig, but all I felt was cold. Cold and hollow. I couldn't remember how I got there. I couldn't remember. That was almost more terrifying than the grave. Mothers always warn you: be careful, stay together. Don't let down your guard, don't go anywhere alone. Had I? If I hadn't, where were my friends? Why did they leave me? I felt like I had fallen into a horror story with the first chapters missing. What happened? The sun was just starting to brighten the sky when I finally spotted the familiar mile marker close to home. In my eagerness, I stopped paying attention to the terrain and came down hard on a particularly sharp rock. I felt it slice into my foot and a little wetness but...not nearly as much as I would have expected with a cut like that. I stopped to check over my poor battered feet and winced in horror. I must have been more worn out than I could cope with because in the moonlight they looked like they were missing chunks of flesh and that that last rock had flayed a piece from the bone. I thought I could see something flopping around horribly but I couldn't feel it. And there was definitely too little blood. I must have been dragging something along. I was so frazzled, I wouldn't have noticed a snake even if it bit me. I tore a piece of my already ruined shirt to tie around my feet in make-shift shoes; I didn't want to get any more dirt in the cuts I knew had to be there, and I certainly didn't want to face the nettles in the grass without some protection. I may not be going to medical school, but I was no fool... My left eye twitched and my breathing hitched as scenes from the night flashed through my mind. I was fine. I was fine. I felt like myself, still. I refused give in to panic or despair. I was fine! Nothing truly horrible could have happened, nothing that I couldn't survive, if I was still myself. My Da used to say that self is the one thing you should never lose; you can lose your shoes, your keys, your money, but if you have yourself, you are never lost. I would not be lost. At this point, I was too exhausted to follow the curve of the road to the driveway. I hopped the fence and staggered across the lawn that was desperately in need of a cut. I spared less than a second of thought to mark that oddity; I had mown the lawn yesterday, following the precise lawn care instructions my step-dad, Andy, had left while he, my mom, and his twins were in Scotland on sabbatical. The three-story wood paneled Victorian-s***h-plantation house sat in the shade of some truly impressive willow and oak trees. The yard was large, the garden was wild and overgrown, just how I, and my botany professor mother, liked it. Gardens should be left to their own devices and ours always seemed to thrive better with minimal supervision, even in drought when other gardens withered. Both dogs were still in the yard, just as I left them last night. My and my mom's German Shepard, Bo, came tearing up to greet me but stopped in his tracks when he caught a whiff. The way he fell over himself to backpedal would have been comedic if it wasn't so heartbreaking. Bo was my best friend; he'd been with me since childhood. He never, would never, run from me. Why.... My stepdad's tiny Pomeranian, Knuckles, came around the corner yipping up a storm. I had always thought it funny that my stepdad, a big blonde manly man who loves guns, flannel, and all things sports also loves this silly little thing. It just never seemed to go together to me, but love is not always explicable. The tiny puff of fur came up like he was going to tear me apart. Granted, I couldn't look too great, not after scraping my way out a dirt hole and walking all night, but really. It's not like I was a monster. Focus, focus focus, I chanted like a mantra. I felt so strange and I was getting distracted too easily. I began to wonder if I wouldn't have done better to get to a hospital, but I didn't have my phone and I didn't know how to get there. But standing out in the yard, fending off Knuckles wasn't getting me anywhere. Literally. Get inside, eat something, get cleaned up... find out what happened? A hot, sick feeling curled through my stomach. What if I was better off not knowing? The yipping was definitely going to wake someone. The last thing I needed was Mrs. Sheen next door seeing me like this and calling my mom, she'd be on the next plane home, but the stupid dog would not let up. I waived a stick I found in the overgrown grass in an attempt to get Knuckles to play, but Andy's precious baby just wouldn't go for it. I flung the stick away in disgust, abruptly angrier than I'd ever been. He just kept yipping and yipping as Bo cowered, adding his whining to the racquet. I was just really, steaming- raging-kill-this-dog-to- make-it-stop, irrationally angry. I took a step toward Knuckles and I realized the growling was not coming from the dog anymore; it was coming from me. Bo's whining snapped me out of it. I was appalled. I love animals. I can't stand to see them hurt, which had put a rather final kibosh on my dream of being a veterinarian. Just thinking about an animal being hurt makes me want to cry and I'm no weepy girl. Animals are about the only thing I'll cry about. What was I doing? I needed to get inside NOW. There was something seriously wrong with me, I could hardly think... and I was so hungry. I caught myself staring at Knuckles, a little drool spilling down my chin. Both dogs had gone silent, watching me nervously. I pulled myself together and started walking towards the back door hoping it was unlocked. I didn't seem to have my keys anymore, but then, I'd never really needed keys. Even though my hands shook and I had trouble marshalling my thoughts, the lock wouldn't cause me any trouble if I could find something to pick it with. My head felt like it was filling with cotton wool and, all at once, I lost patience. My fading vision went dark completely. I heard a crash of glass and came back to myself sitting in front of the open refrigerator, my feet itching something terrible. Someone had pulled almost everything out of fridge and I was sitting in the wreckage. Packages had been torn open but only meat products had been bitten and the package of raw pork sausage had been completely demolished. There were still little globs of the sausage on my hands. The taste lingered in my mouth, overwhelming, and still I wanted more. At least I felt more in control, more like myself. But... What was wrong with me?! What had happened? The last thing I remembered clearly, before the grave, was being at Christy's party. It had been fairly wild, but I don't drink much. The thought that I could have been drugged surfaced but I had never, in my whole 22 years of life, heard of any drug that caused a trip like this. Maybe we had all gotten drunk, decided to take drugs, and then took a trip to the local cemetery? That was a growingly popular thing to do; trying to see some Supernaturals. I decided that since I had already gotten to the eat something part, I might as well continue with the plan and ride out this bizarre trip. And while I was deciding, I decided that this was a drug trip and I could not be held responsible for my actions until such time as it had worn off, or ever after. Maybe I could pretend it was just a bad dream. That sounded pretty good. Still hungry, I pulled another package of sausage out of the fridge and munched on it as I went up the wide oak stairs to my own private bed and bathroom in the converted attack slash old servant's quarters. It didn't even seem weird to eat it, I was just so hungry and it was so delicious. I wondered, idly, what this drug had done to me. I was just reading about a tick that had venom that made people allergic to meat. Maybe this was like the reverse? Instead of anti-meat it made a person crave raw meat as a side effect? Awfully gross. I had a hard time believing this would catch on, but then again, meth makes your teeth rot out and people still do that. In the black and white tiled bathroom, I was shocked at the image that greeted me. My hair was full of grave dirt and my face, clothes, and body were streaked with it. I looked like I had been buried alive...which I guess I had. The little bits of raw meat that clung to my face just added to the macabre image. Good thing there's little real blood in supermarket meat or it would have been just too much. My wildly turbulent emotions peaked and I sighed as a welcome numbness settled in. I turned on the old ornate copper tap to start a shower and stripped off my ruined clothes. I didn't bother throwing them in the hamper, they went straight to the trash with the empty sausage wrapper. I would have to keep that strip bandage on my foot for now and take a look at it after the shower. The warm water felt heavenly and I relished washing the mysteries away for a few minutes. I was home and alive. It wouldn't even be a bad memory, because I couldn't remember anything. I bet this was the first time anyone was ever grateful for amnesia. Head full of muzzy thoughts, I didn't immediately notice my nice clean reflection in the mirror but when I did I had to muffle a scream. The things I didn't notice under all the grime became apparent; like my naturally blonde hair was now a multitude of crystalline hues that all together equaled a sort of oil-slick black, and my hazel eyes were now the oddest orange color, they practically glowed. My skin looked tight, emphasizing the fine bones of my face and my eyes looked larger than they used to be. And my ears! I now had pointy ears, like an elf. The face was...beautiful, a fantasy, but not in a normal way. Just to look at it you would suspect magic and darkness and spells in the night. This inhumanly beautiful face was not my face. It was frightening. Monstrous. I hated it. It meant that the sudden craving for raw meat was probably not a drug side effect, something Supernatural had happened to me and things weren't alright. Forgetting things was not an option. I needed to know what happened to me and if I could go back. If I could be fixed. I wanted to cry. My hazel eyes were from my da, seeing them in the mirror was like seeing him again and now they were gone. I didn't even know that a human could become Supernatural, even the vampires and werewolves were born! Except... Except for zombies... My silent heart dropped into my stomach. Zombies were the only ones that had to be turned from humans, could only be. Zombies were made by one kind of magic; any Super's already existing magic would interfere, and then things could get messy. I had heard about a shapeshifter in Miami (who hadn't?) who had the zombie whammy put on him and he wound up going berserk and eating someone's face. I remembered reading about it in my Supernatural studies class at the beginning of the semester; and that zombies weren't like in the movies. They weren't mindless eating machines and they weren't created by a disease. Sometimes, if you could find a willing necromancer, people had their loved ones brought back for a little while; a last goodbye if there wasn't time in life or if they hadn't left a will. I say a little while because the ones who were brought back couldn't stick around; the bodies might be animated but they were still dead and rotting. I guess if the spell caster got to the body early enough it's possible to cast a stasis spell retaining "freshness" for lack of better term, but that took some oomph and few Supers had that power, or were willing to admit to it. Also, the zombie in question was completely in the control of the person who brought them back. The Miami shapshifter's innate magic had allowed him to break that hold. Too bad he couldn't retain his sanity. If everything I remembered was right, then it looked like someone tried to turn me into a zombie...and my Supernatural blood stopped them. Except, as far as I knew, I didn't have any Supernatural blood. Was I going to rot? Go berserk? I had to be dead but I felt, not alive exactly, but not like a walking corpse! I left the bathroom, dressed in long pajamas and thick socks to protect what was left of my still itching feet, and tired to recall everything I could about zombies. Another thing I remembered from class was that the Supernatural blood had to be strong, at least second or third generation, to be able to affect the zombie making process. There were certain kinds of Supers that looked like, and frequently bred with, normal people so it was possible my mom wouldn't know anything about it. I caught sight of a picture of my mother and me. Our faces used to be so similar; same high cheekbones, rounded chin, and pert slightly upturned nose. Now, I didn't even look like I was related to her or the human race. Sadness and another wave of panic crashed over me. How would I ever explain this to her? To Andy and the boys? They were kind and accepting people, but who could really embrace a zombie for a daughter? If I even lasted that long. The family wouldn't be back for another 7 months, at least, most sabbaticals being a year long. Would they come home to a rotted corpse? A empty shell? Would I wonder away and be put down, like a beast? They'd never really know what happened to me. And my friends? How would they react? It was one thing to hear about Supernaturals on the news or read about them in our textbook, but now I was one of them. While Five Rivers University, where we all attended and my mother taught, was open to both human and non-human students and faculty, we never really seemed to cross paths. Mostly, the Supernatural kids kept to each other. Prejudice and violence were hard teachers, even though people on TV were endlessly exhorting that they no longer existed. It was a hard thing, discovering that humanity wasn't alone. Some people handled it well, even most governments. But people are people. An unfortunately prevalent reaction to things that scare them is to try to destroy it. Riots and vandalism marked the early days of the Outing, making most Supernaturals tight-knit and understandably reticent. Their power had always been in secrecy; it had to be frightening enough, to be known. They weren't exactly tripping over themselves to be known about. The generalities, sure. But they weren't going to give away all their secrets to people who made no secret about how much they hated their new neighbors. (Oh. My. God. My feet were really itching, like athlete's foot on steroids. That would be icing that the cake of my day really needed; to have picked up a fungus from the cemetery or on my stumble home.) What I needed were answers. I didn't know enough about my situation. Zombies aren't exactly known for their longevity, if there was a way to reverse or preserve my condition I wouldn't find it in a textbook or on the internet. I'd have to go directly to the source. Except I didn't know what the source would be! I felt like a big cat at a zoo, pacing back and forth in my room. I had always thought my room, with its dark wood walls and floor, looked like a cave. How ironically now, I felt that it was perfect for the new, monstrous, me. Tisking in disgust, I turned towards my bed. I tripped over the rug and it yanked my full-length mirror. I watched it tip and thought I really couldn't do with anymore bad luck. I flung out a hand to catch it, but as I jumped toward the mirror it jerked itself upright. Huh. Did I do that? Do zombies have magic? At a loss, I paused in the middle of the room. I didn't feel like crying anymore; crying never fixed anything, anyway I absently scratched my still itching feet on the corner of a textbook I had left lying on the ground. The itching wasn't going away, though. In fact, it was getting worse. Cursing under my breath, I flopped to the ground to remove my socks. What I saw when I got them off made me gasp out loud: my skin had re-grown! My feet looked pristine, if a little pink. Running my fingers over my miraculously whole feet, I tried to think how this was possible. Could it be magic? I mean, obviously it was magic, but was it my magic? I grimaced as an odd thought occurred: the raw sausage. Was it possible that eating raw meat healed me? Gross. That was awfully movie-monster of me. Squirming with that uncomfortable thought, and the realization that I was no longer hungry, I accidentally smacked my knee on the textbook next to me. Frustrated, I picked it up to throw across the room when I saw the title: The Supernatural and their Attributes. Well. Now I felt like even more of an i***t. I knew who could have the answers and my class with him started in an hour. ........................................................