Old Magic

Zombie Man

She didn’t know where the strength came from, but she rose to her feet and charged the mass of skeletons surrounding David’s body, cutting through the line before they even had the chance to turn.

David lay at her feet within seconds. She dropped the machete and reached for him, pulling his face from the tar.

“David,” she called, “David can you hear me?”

Tiny remnants of the tar stuck to his face, but his face was so serene that he might as well just be asleep. She knew better though, he’d been under the tar for too long.

She tilted his head to the side, fighting the urge to panic as she lowered her head to listen for his breath as she checked his pulse.

But when she heard the consistent breath and steady heartbeat, she pulled back and stared at him in wonder. How was he okay? He’d been under that tar pit way too long to survive without aid, how was he breathing now?

Unsure what to do next, she looked around at the gathered skeletons. None of them moved, they all just stared toward David’s body as they waited. She didn’t know what they were looking for, but she turned back too, relieved to see that, for now, the skeletons were content to mind their own business.

She shook David’s shoulders.

“David, open your eyes.”

No response.

“Come on David, wake up.”

She shook him again, but nothing changed. His body didn’t respond either, almost like he was asleep.

She drew back her hand to slap him but before she swung, she noticed the skin on David’s face starting to droop. She frowned and let her hand drift back toward the ground as she studied his face.

As she watched, b****y cracks formed in parallel lines down his face, and the pieces started to slide apart, revealing the muscle and bone beneath.

Melody scuttled back, fighting the urge to vomit. But even as she moved away, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the b****y mess.

“He has failed,” called the creepy, cold voice of the zombie, his tone almost sad this time.

Melody watched as more skin, and then muscle, fell from David’s body. The flesh crawled toward the pit in tinny clumps.

“What did you do to him?” Melody whispered, her hand rising to cover her mouth.

But as the shock wore off, the heat rose in her chest and she turned toward the zombie man.

“What did you do,” she screamed as she stomped toward him, “why did you do this to him? What did he ever do to deserve this? How dare you! We weren’t trying to hurt anyone, we didn’t mean to provoke you, but you didn’t care about that, and now-”

Her voice broke and she fell to the ground again, hopelessness sinking into her soul. David was gone and he was never coming back. She looked back at the body, the flesh and muscle almost entirely gone now. As she watched, the skeleton rose from the remains of the body and joined with the rest of the skeleton hoard.

She shook her head a second later when she realized that she couldn’t tell which skeleton was David’s.

Her mouth dropped open as she realized the truth of the situation. How many people had been trapped down here? How many men had lost their lives over the centuries? Why had any of this happened? What was the point? And why hadn’t they done the same thing to her?

This whole place was a mass grave, one that had been luring unsuspecting victims in, possibly for generations. And yet, all the skeletons had a strange similarity to each other, none appearing older than the others, and not a single skeleton appeared to be female.

For a second she felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She’d been rejected, unwelcome to join their hoard and that stung a bit, but the relief she felt about knowing she wasn’t going to become a living skeleton overwhelmed that sense. Still, she shouldn’t be thinking about any of this; David was dead.

Her head spun and her body went numb.

She didn’t know what to do, everything had shifted so quickly. She would have to report this though, she would have to tell headquarters about David, and to do that, she would have to find a way out.

She pulled up the screen overlay and stood up.

There were funeral arrangements that would have to be made. David’s family would have to be notified. So many people would come, what would she say to all of them?

Her body started to go limp again and she shook the thought away. Now wasn’t the time to think about all of that, she needed to get out of this place first, there would be time to figure out the details later.

She grimaced as images of David’s death replayed in her mind. She shouldn’t have agreed to this mission, if she’d just said no then David would still be okay. It just didn’t make sense. After everything they’d done to get to this point, how could he be dead?

How had this happened? He’d been right about everything else, right to the degree that it was almost supernatural, how had it gone so wrong this time? They had been such a good team, how could that be over?

She made her way up a massive staircase carved into the cavern wall, only marginally aware of her surroundings.

To have it all end so suddenly, she didn’t know how to process it. Why hadn’t she listened when David told her that they should leave? Why had she let her curiosity cloud her judgment so thoroughly? Why wasn’t she able to save him? And why did she have this strange feeling that she was missing something?

As she reached the upper level of the cavern, skeletons shuffled out of her way, their own forms looking dejected and sad for some reason. She scowled at them. It was unfair for them to mourn David when they had been the ones that took his life. And why would they? They’d known what they were doing, they’d certainly done it before.

Melody’s body started to shake as she stared at all the dejected skeletons and she ground her teeth. This had been their fault; they needed to pay for what they’d done.

The sensation boiled through her until it was too much to take and she pounced, landing on a skeleton and beating it until it shattered. She grabbed it’s femur bone and took to beating more skeletons too, beating one after another until the ground around her was nothing more than a mass of scattered bones.

The skeletons didn’t fight her and they didn’t run, they merely stood there and accepted their fate. It just made her even angrier though and she continued her attack until her limbs refused to cooperate anymore.

Her body had already taken too much a***e and she knew that exerting herself would only make the recovery time last longer, but damn it, David deserved to have his death avenged and she was the only one around to do it.

Her rage was insufficient though, she knew that any of their classmates would have done a better job. Chad alone would have decimated the entire cavern full and then beaten each bone into dust. She wished that she had that kind of fire inside but all she wanted to do was lay down and escape the horrible memories.

She let the femur drop from her hand and turned back toward the exit but, as she turned, something caught her eye. Something had happened to the zombie body, it seemed to be repairing itself, the skin practically glowing as it knit itself together.

Was this why David died, to help this creepy zombie man return to life? Had this zombie king sacrificed all of these lives so that he could leave this place?

“You sick son of a b***h,” Melody screamed, forgetting the fatigue in her limbs as she ran at him.

The zombie man seemed to hear her words and turned toward her just as she smacked into his chest.

He fell to the ground under the momentum of her strike, his arms coming up to protect his face from her punching arms.

“Hey, stop it,” he said, trying to grab her arms, “cut it out.”

He managed to subdue her attack; his hands clamped around each of her wrists like shackles. Melody tried to break free of his grasp, but she didn’t have the strength to fight him off.

The, now glowing, man looked irritated as he glared at the hands that attacked him, but when he looked toward Melody’s face, his mouth fell open.

“Melody?” he said, “is that you? What happened?”

Melody frowned. Something about the man’s voice seemed strangely familiar, enough to give her pause but not enough to stop the rage from burning inside her.

“You killed him,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I what?”

“You killed David!” a surge of power rushed through her and she tried to break free of his grasp again, but to no avail.

The man was momentarily distracted as he tried to retain control of her arms, but once she settled down again he gave her a frustrated look. A look that was so familiar that it took her breath away.

“What are you talking about?” he said, “I am David.”

Melody snorted, unable to ignore such ridiculousness.

“You most certainly are not,” she said, “David was the young man you just had your cronies throw into that pit. You are a monster. An evil, vile monster that sucks the life out of innocent strangers who happen to wander into your cave. And you’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

She fought to get her hands free again and the man grunted as he tried to keep hold.

“Will you please stop doing that?” he said.

“Why?” Melody asked, “so you can kill me too? Oh wait, women aren’t allowed in your skeleton club are they, so not only are you a creep and a monster, but you’re a misogynist too.

The glowing man didn’t give her the chance to fight this time; he rolled them both over until he was sitting on top of her.

Melody was caught off guard, and in that moment of shock, her body reacted to the strange man’s touch. Her stomach clenched and heat rose through her torso. She flushed and turned her face away, ashamed of the involuntary response. David hadn’t even been gone an hour and she’d known how he felt about her, how could she be so disloyal?

“Are you blushing?” the man asked, strangely delighted by the fact.

“What’s it to you?”

“Oh, come on, don’t be so naive,” the man said, “I’ve been trying to get your attention for years and you know it.”

Melody’s blush deepened, but this time with anger.

“You have not,” she said, trying to shove him off, “I don’t even know you.”

The man threw up his hands in defeat.

“Yes, you do!” he shouted, “I’m David! You know, David, your partner. David, the guy who keeps dragging you to digs you have no interest in. David, the kid nobody expected to pass the Grave Digger exam. It’s me, Melody, I swear, what do I have to do to prove it to you?”

Melody pulled up a reflective display on her hand and turned it toward his face.

“You think you’re David,” she asked, “try looking in the mirror.”

The man turned to see his reflection and his eyes bugged out. He touched a hand to his face as he stared.

“This is impossible,” he whispered, but then he turned to give Melody an annoyed look, “I know I’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

He turned back to the mirror, but Melody’s mouth fell open at the words. She shook her head in awe, her hand mirror display dissolving as she looked at the man with new eyes.

“David? Is that really you in there?” she asked, tentatively reaching to touch his face.

He hummed as her fingers touched his skin, making her stomach clench again. He reached up to wrap his own hand around hers before he opened his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, with a chuckle, “it’s me.”

“But how?” Melody asked.

David shook his new head.

“I- I’m not sure exactly,” he said, and then he flinched, “I’d rather not talk about it right now if you don’t mind. Why don’t we get out of here? I’ve had enough of this place for one day.”

Melody nodded and allowed him to pull her up.

“But you will tell me?” she asked.

“I promise,” David said.