Living (Un)dead

Living Up To It, part II

The cemetery looked small and

desolate from the tiny access road.

It encompassed a few hills ringed in cypress and weeping willows, that obscured the graves. The lawn was overgrown and patchy, making it obvious that this large, out-of-the-way place was chosen for its anonymity and seclusion. The access road couldn't even fit a car; it had eroded too much.

Cue the bad-tempered Detective

Hein directing the forensic team as they dragged their heavy equipment up to the summit of the hill where we had found: my empty grave, an altar, and those odd symbols painted in the grass

and on the surrounding tombstones.

"Well. I'd definitely say this was

the work of the monster we're chasing," Knight sighed heavily.

Though he was given to levity, this place didn't allow it.

The air had a weight that settled on shoulders and pulled mouths into frowns.

The weight was like an Other awareness; this place simply did not want us here.

Without any "human" touch, only somber markers remained of the forgotten here.

Empty, this place felt sinister and twisted; I had to suppress a shiver even in this heat.

Or maybe there was something

sinister here, not just a feeling. Walking closer to the grave, I passed near the symbols in the

grass and immediately felt nauseous.

My stomach cramped and I hunched, retching.

My vision flickerd, making everything in my vacinity shimmy.

"Ughhh!" I moaned. I wondered if that sausage was about to make a reappearance.

I honestly wouldn't be upset if it did.

Another wave of nausea crested, and I shuddered and spat bile.

Hein noticed my mini-crisis and rushed over.

"Hey! What's the matter with you?" For a second, a very small second, I thought he was showing a modicum of concern for me. Then he wrenched me around. "You'll ruin the evidence! Get away from there!"

I gave him side-eye as I struggled to regain my balance.

"Excuse the hell outta me," I mumbled while he inspected the ground around where I had been standing.

Lips pursed, I shuffled towards the other side of the grave.

The hole was raggedly dug in a human-ish shape, and tenacious clods of the covering grass littered the lawn between my neighbors.

The weatherbeaten headstone leaned backwards while it's neighbors leaned forward.

The lettering was all but erased by time, neglect, and incompetence. You could tell that no love or skill was applied here.

I frowned, looking around.

None of the gravestones could be read at all.

All of these people, forgotten in death, were completely alone when they went into the ground.

I couldn't help but feel a kinship.

And an immense sadness.

Unless these were all mass murderers, they deserved better.

I walked to my closest neighbor and tried to brush a little dirt away.

"Don't!" Hein snapped out.

I froze with my hand extended, almost touching.

"Why?" I gritted out, turning my face to him. I didn't want to explain what I was doing or why, not to him.

"That isn't dirt," he hissed through clenched teeth, disdain positively dripping from each word. "It's blood evidence. Go somewhere else, you're compromising the scene."

"It's probably mine," I huffed back, rankled to be called out again.

The kicker was that he was likely right, we didn't know if it was mine yet. I just hated to give any ground to him.

The look he leveled at me said he knew everything I was thinking, and also, that he thought I was a nuisance.

And an i***t.

I rolled my eyes and stepped into the row behind, trying to get out of the way.

"Or, you could just leave," Hein said "under his breath", but it was just a little too loud, and I heard it clear as a bell.

I didn't even spare him a glance.

Grey clouds had moved in and a chilly wind had picked up, throwing the tail of my ponytail into my face.

I turned into the wind and a flicker of motion caught my eye.

Squinting, I stilled, trying to catch another glimpse.

Nothing but the long grass dancing in the sporadic gusts.

Everything was as quiet as...the grave (har har).

I frowned, for some reason I couldn't put my finger on, I felt unsettled.

More than because I was killed here, more than because it was a graveyard. I was surrounded by police people and sunlight, but I felt like I was at the bottom of that grave and someone was shoveling on the dirt.

My chest heaved and I couldn't get enough air. My eyes filled with tears and my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I gritted my teeth and tried to pace away, but stumbled again.

"Snow White, what's wrong?" Knight had drifed up behind, without my notice. "Ah. I see."

His voice was kind and deep and soothing. He didn't need me to answer, Fae can read and manipulate emotions.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, I never do this." I whispered to him, my voice choked by a throat full of nameless emotions.

"Well, honey, you've never died before, either." He said it as gently as he could, but I still flinched.

I didn't want to keep thinking about it.

I wanted to ignore it, bury my head in the sand. Pretend I was still normal.

Christy had asked if it was reversible, if I could go back to how I was.

I didn't know.

There was so much magic and possibly out there now.

I wanted to. I was hoping so badly, wishing with all my heart. I didn't want to be dead, but I think, also...I didn't want to be a Supe. They had it so much harder in this world; no amount of magic could make up for the every day snubs, the fear, the backlash.

"I don't want to be dead," I whispered even more quietly; each word cut like glass in my throat.

"Well, not many people do," he said, still kindly. "But look! Even dead, you're still here. You're a step ahead of almost everyone."

I guffawed through the tears. "Almost everyone?" I asked.

"You're not the only zombie around, don't get a big head." He delivered it like a punchline and it had the same effect.

I laughed and the choking weight lifted a bit.

"Yeah, nothing worse than having a big head." I raised my voice just a little and was rewarded by an annoyed sigh from Heins direction.

Knight grinned down at me. "Oh, you're going to fit in just fine."

"Huh?" I asked. Fit in? Where was I fitting in?

Knight was called away by a forensic tech before I could ask him, and I was left standing alone again.

I sighed. What was I even doing here? What was I hoping to find? Closure, maybe.

But I didn't feel it.

So, how about some clues?

I paced around, inspecting the ground for anything. Footprints, ritual debris, a map and a circled X where the villan lives.

Mostly I found garbage. Cigarette butts, discarded needles and drug paraphernalia, used condoms, crisps bags, empty beer cans.

"Hasn't anyone ever heard of a trash can?" I mumbled digustedly to myself. At least they were using condoms.

I was at the bottom of the hill, standing under a small wash of trees, when I found something.

A tiny glimmer in the dirt caught my attention when a shard of sunlight broke through.

Squatting, I brushed some grass aside and a pebble sized gem twinkled up at me.

The gem was a deep purple-blue with highlights of fuchsia. The marquise cut showed off the unusual hues, but without a setting the points were quite sharp. Too big to be set in a ring, I wondered where this had come from and how no one seemed to be missing it.

I looked around to call someone over, and stared straight into the sucking black eye-pits of a creature I'd never seen before.

I froze, mouth hanging open, terrified to move.

It hadn't attacked yet but that could change very quickly.

It was odd, it had a form and it didn't. It was there one second and translucent the next. I couldn't tell if it's skin was black or if it was simply the shadows the creature crouched in. It had a humanoid frame, but twisted and wrong. It was agonizingly thin, adding to the confusion. The fingers were too long and brittle looking, the arm and leg proportions off.

It hadn't moved from its crouch, but I could tell it would be tall when it did. Or long. It's arms were nearly as long as the legs; maybe it moved on all fours or swung like one of the greater apes.

Either way I didn't want to see it in action.

I had just decided to scream when I heard the whispers.

So quiet, so low, I couldn't make out the words, but I began to relax.

My anxiety and stress melted away, and I felt lighter than I had since I'd woken up. Lighter than I had in years.

Why worry about a career or paying future rent? Why worry about finding a job I don't hate in a field I care nothing for? What did it matter that the world was dying, that capitalism was destroying the middle class, that any children I had would be born into the worst conditions?

A blip of anxiety spiked when I thought about kids and the fog thinned a little. Was that even possible anymore? The thought was quickly brushed away.

The thing that was there and not there had drifted closer while my mind drifted away.

That caused another blip of anxiety that was just as quickly smoothed over.

It felt nice not to be so bogged down; to be absolutely unburdenned.

I felt myself smile at the creature.

It couldn't be bad when it made me feel so good! It must be a friend. It didn't want me to be scared. It didn't want me to scream for all those other people. They were so noisy and they wanted to weigh me down. It wanted us to be secret friends. Weren't secret friends the best?

The creature was only a foot or two away now, and I hadn't seen it move. Darn. I hadn't been paying attention.

My legs were getting tired from my squat and I shifted, startling the creature and making it back up a step. I felt disappointment and knew I was a bad secret friend.

I tired to be as still as possible for my friend, but my gaze shifted to something moving behind it.

Small humanoid shadows danced in the copse of trees. At first, in my muddled thoughts, they were just the leaves being tossed in the now steady wind, but now that I was actually looking, I could see they were separate and apart.

The steady, insidious whispers were overshadowed by the shadows' chanting. This I could hear clearly, though I didn't know the language.

My secret friend stopped and hissed at the shadow people as they closed in.

I worried for it, and my brow wrinkled. Worry was bad, right? I shouldn't be doing that. I shouldn't...I shouldn't...my thoughts got fuzzy as the creature turned it's attention back to me, but the chanting grew louder and I gasped a breath.

The creature hissed again, in frustration, and decided to cut its losses.

It turned those empty eye sockets to me and gathered itself to leap.

It was not my friend.

I swallowed hard, still struggling to think clearly.

The chanting hit a crescendo.

Unprompted, my hand reached out and snatched up the gem.

And a blaring wail of sound blasted from my mouth; startling not only myself, but the creature, and the shadow people.

We all sat unmoving for a moment, before a flurry of action broke.

The shadows dissipated as the police descended on my position.

With one last regretful look in my direction, the creature fled.

And Hein snatched me to my feet.

"Are you ok? Look at me! Can you tell me who you are?" He sounded almost frantic and I didn't understand. Why wouldn't I know who I was?

"Yeah, what was that thing?" I asked.

He stared at me nonplussed. I noticed that he, and everyone else had their guns out.

"What was that thing?" I asked more insistently, supressed fear finally rushing in.

Hein continued staring but barked out orders to the patrolmen. "Fan out and hunt it down, don't let it get away. How did no one know there was a basilisk living here?"

"A basilisk?" I asked numbly. "But I thought they petrified their victims."

"They cloud their minds, freeze them in place; so they can...do what they do." Hein's lips pinched in displeasure or disapproval. "What happened here?"

"I don't really know, it said it wanted to be friends but then the shadow people came and it was angry."

Hein looked at me like I was speaking gobbledygook.

"....what?"

Embarrassed, I got snappy. "You asked what happened, that's what happened!"

"You want me to believe that shadow people came and saved you from your friend the basilisk?"

His emphasis made everything I said, and me, seem utterly ridiculous.

"Yes! Listen, I didn't make this up. This is your world, buddy. Not mine."

Hein had dragged me back up the hill and we stood arguing by my grave.

His pale face grew even paler.

"Attitudes like that...," he started to hiss, but swallowed his own words. Munch crunch.

After a few deep breaths he tried again. "What did the shadow people look like?"

"They looked," I glanced around. "Kinda like these things. The...I don't even know. Are those words?"

"Your professor says they're

representations of particular loa in conjunction with the Vodou sorcerer's intentions. Which makes them unique and therefore untraceable to even which particular sect or religion," Hein

said, musing.

"Do they normally get up and go for a walk in the woods?"

Hein rolled his eyes. "You were seeing things. Whatever the witch did to you must have addled your brain."

"Bokor," I narrowed my eyes back at him.

"Excuse me?" He sounded pissed,

but, when didn't he?

"The sorcerer is called a Bokor. I thought it was important to be specific in an investigation."

"What makes you say it's a Bokor? It could easily have been a witch," Hein replied pointedly.

"What's the penalty for striking a police officer?" I asked Knight, who had just joined us. He laughed. I continued, "Professor Cane said Bokors specialize in zombies. And here we are in a cemetery with, gasp, a zombie, product of whoever is running

around killing people. But why? What's the point? If he wanted zombies, why were all the girls left dead?"

"Those are questions for the

police, not you," Hein snapped.

"I thought I was here to help the

police," I gritted out, my temper flaring.

"You were. Now you're done. You're a liability, especially with this basilisk hunt. Could someone please escort Miss Monroe home?" He called toward a couple uniforms who were still securing the scene.

As I was escorted away I thought this detective was pretty naïve if he actually thought I was going to just walk away from all this. I was going to find out what happened to those girls, and myself, and I knew two amateur sleuths who would love to help.

It was really helpful of Detective Hein to have left that crime board up for my visit, complete with murder scene addresses.

The i***t.