The yellow light pulsed, producing a second image. The young girl, motionless, on a gurney, her pretty pink night gown stained with red. The man watched, tears trickling down his face, mixing with saliva dribbling from his mouth. A police officer wrenched the man’s arms behind his back and secured his wrists in tight metal cuffs.
The yellow light faded. The dark trees of the corpse forest became vivid. Now, Willy knew the secret of the man with the smoking hole in his head. He’d taken his daughter’s life. He was the sickness that stifled her last breath.
The bone hand retracted from the smouldering hole and settled beside Willy’s kidney.
She swept her gaze across the corpses and found the woman with the slit wrists. She recognized her by her long, dark hair. It took a few moments until she could make out the details of the body, hanging, dead, asleep. The constant crimson river ran from the open gashes in each of the pale wrists. Willy swallowed against the dryness in her throat, longing for the soothing sapidity of an ore-tinged moist merlot.
Her stomach grumbled. Her mouth parched, her stomach empty, she longed for a real meal.
Her pain had numbed. A deep longing swelled within her.
If she had chosen, where would she go? Would she be able to sate her needs? She had no idea what would be ahead—in door number two. The urges within her were building as every moment passed, and her desire to satisfy them was driving her wild.
A whoosh whipped through her ears and ice cold hit her cheeks. The dead boy materialized out of nowhere, hovering close to her face. His whispers were colder than ever, leaving a crust of ice over her skin. “You have chosen.”
The ice breath of the blue-lipped boy clouded around Willy. The corpse forest vanished.
Was she ready? Panic filled her. It was too late.
Epilogue: Raptor Morphosis
* * *
The icy, dead breath morphed into sweet white plumes. The wails of a rock god vibrated through the electric air. The sweetness of the vapor dissolved, and the room cleared. A pleather-clad man stood up on a stage, his long, raven hair cloaking his face and sticking to his sweat-soaked skin. A steel-studded belt hung low on his sinewy torso, muscles rippled up his abdomen. A scarf woven of glitter danced around his shoulders, clinging to his neck. The odor of barbaric desire clung to the hot air. Savage fans packed in tight, surrounding the stage like a wild herd in heat. She was back in her current life—the one she had taken herself from. Yet, she knew she was still dead.
She scanned the afterlife version of the familiar scene. Animal electricity seethed through Willy’s veins. She clung to two glasses, cherries bobbing in the dark liquid. Her favorite sugar-infused, alcoholic concoction.
She stalked through the tightly packed, hot bodies, inspecting the herd. Tall black boots up to her thighs secured her sturdy steps against the liquor-soaked floor. A long, dark cloak flowing over her shoulders amplified her slight stature. The clank of the buckles littering her shiny boots vibrated with the guitar riff seething from the stage. Tight pleather packed her curvaceous legs. Her glossy chocolate hair, wild and teased in a crazed mane, poked into the corners of her eyes.
Working her way through the crazy crowd, she examined each specimen. They looked human. They seemed oblivious.
A shimmer caught her eye. A tall man with dark hair hovered behind a beautiful blonde woman. Glitter shone from her crop top as she pumped her hips to the primal beat. The man’s physical being flickered like a fluorescent tube on the brink of burning out. One second he was there, and the next he wasn’t.
His materialisation toggled between a human-like man and something out of a horror film. His long fangs protruding from the sides of his mouth hung close to the blonde woman’s milky skin at the nape of her neck. His green scales iridescent under the purple-blue light bouncing off the stage.
Willy knew he was like her, in more ways than one. Dead. Ready for a feast. In his serpent-like manifestation, the red glow of his eyes caught her gaze. She nodded and kept moving through the heat of the packed bodies.
All the questions whizzing through her brain as she hung in the corpse forest had dissolved. The pain had vanished.
Drinks in hand, she wormed her way through the broiling bodies. Sweat trickled down her back to the nape of her crack where it clung. She halted her prowl with a stomp of her boot. She saw the one she was seeking. The girl stood two bodies ahead. Soft, bleached-blonde curls wild and free around her face. Tight, acid-washed jeans encasing her shapely legs like a perfectly packed butcher’s cut, and a lacy white tank top clinging to her perky breasts. Willy slid up next to the white tank top and lightly bumped the girl’s shoulder.
The girl jolted.
Willy coated her voice with sugar. “Oh, I’m sorry. Tight crowd.”
The girl blushed. “It’s okay.”
“Are you alone?” Willy enquired.
“Uh, yeah. My friend was sick, so she had to go home. I didn’t want to miss the show.”
“Would you like a drink?” Willy held up one of the cherry Coke cocktails.
The girl eyeballed the drinks with suspicion.
“I have an extra. My dick of a date ditched. Hasn’t been touched.”
The girl smiled. “Oh, that sucks. Sure.”
Willy handed the girl a drink. “Great show.”
“Yeah. These guys are always so good.” The girl smiled sheepishly, her cheeks flushed.
Willy moved to the music, watching the girl out of the corner of her eye. The girl danced and drank her special cherry Coke.
“Are you from around here?” Willy asked.
“Not exactly. I’m stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“Oh… are you new here?” Empathy bled from the girl’s eyes.
“Uh, yeah.”
The girl placed a hand on Willy’s arm. “You know you’re… dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“You might be stuck, too. When I… died, I kept living my life. But here. I can’t seem to get out of this strange world. Crazed monsters appear sometimes. And people disappear.”
“Scary.”
“Yeah..Always good to have a friend nearby.”
“Good idea.” Willy took a sip of her drink. “I think I’m stuck too.”
The girl nodded. “I’ve been watching the others. I think we have to be patient. Wait until we move to where we’re supposed to be.”
Willy pondered the words.
The girl looked back at the stage and kept dancing. After a couple of tracks, she leaned on Willy. “Oh, I’m dizzy.”
“It’s hot in here. Let’s get some air,” Willy said.
The girl nodded.
Willy led the bleached-blonde out the door and into the parking lot. The frigid air slapped her cheeks and stung her lungs. Despite the chill, the girl drooped her head and struggled to keep her eyes open. Willy smiled. She mixed the drink perfectly. She guided the girl across the dark parking lot and along a sidewalk.
Across the street, under the dim glow of a streetlamp, a police cruiser slid up alongside the curb. A young woman, wrapped in a woolen scarf, halted her walk through the cold night to lean over and speak to the driver. As the woman climbed into the car, the driver stared out the window. His arctic wolf eyes glared. His chiselled face shimmered, turning from that of a man to that of a savage beast, mucus dripping from his snout, his sharp teeth stained with blood. Another monster of the night on the prowl in this death realm.
A few blocks later, she steered her frail prey onto a dirt trail, into a forest of tall, dark trees.
Willy laid the bleached-blonde down in a circular clearing in the trees. The thick, moist grass left droplets over the goosebumps pricking the girl’s arms. The midnight sky twinkled with stars. The bulbous, silver moon cast an eerie glow over the forest.
Willy slid her knife from inside her tall boot, strapped against her thigh. The rhinestones studding the golden handle glimmered in the moonlight. She admired the special tool.<
br />
Willy knelt over her catch and moved strands of bleached-blonde hair away from the creamy neck. She wrapped both hands around the heavy, golden handle, and raised the knife over her head. -She drove the knife down into the heart of her prey. The girl’s eyes popped open as she gasped. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth. Her wild eyes stared as she wheezed.
Willy stood tall, black cloak draping her body, boots rooted into the thick grass.
The dark night spun around her, a crisp whirlwind prickling her skin. She looked down at her body. Her torso shimmered, transparent one second, solid flesh the next. White mist seeped in small clouds around her. The tips of her fingers tingled.
She looked down at her hands. Her fingernails surged into obsidian talons. Her teeth slid down her chin as they protruded from her gums into pointed fangs. The dark cloak fluttered, thin material thickening into a black velvet, hanging heavy from her shoulders. The pleather encasing her legs stretched, ripping open, exposing her meaty flesh. Plumes of feather-like, soft, onyx fur sprouted from her skin.
Animal blood coursed through Willy’s veins, broiling her insides. She knelt down over the acid-washed prey. Wrapping a black clawed hand around the golden handle, she pulled the knife from the heart of her kill.
Blood oozed over thin, white cotton, steam rising as the heat of the liquid hit the icy air. A metallic tang taunted Willy’s nostrils. Soft wheezing whistled through her ears.
Willy placed the tip of the blade against the creamy neck, and with the utmost precision, sliced a long slit deep enough to sever the windpipe. Wheezing turned to gurgled gasps. Willy’s ears perked. She waited for the silence.
With the obsidian shard protruding from her pointer finger, she ripped the limp body from neck to navel. Flesh parted, exposing perfect organs shining with internal fluids, dark and ripe with health. A red bath seeped from inside the carcass, over the pale flesh. Willy swallowed down the rising hunger. Every particle in her body buzzed with life.
She had no idea if this would last. All she knew was that she had declared her choice, to accept who she was. Her afterlife reality turned from constant pain and exhaustion, whispering through cracked, dry lips a half-truth, swaying back and forth in a corpse forest, to a feeling of having all the time in the world to live out her ultimate fantasy.
She’d chosen to escape inflicting pain by slitting her own flesh. She’d chosen to escape the corpse forest by morphing into a night beast of the afterlife.
Were there consequences? She didn’t know. Right now, all she cared about was relishing the meal laid out before her. A leisurely moonlight picnic.
Wheels Within Wheels
By Daniel R. Robichaud
Whathehelljusthappened?
Sensory impressions came in slow. A high-pitched keening, and below that the revving of an engine and a fast whub-whub-whub. Tires? Stink of burnt rubber with freshly mown grass. Steering wheel sitting akimbo. A car—he was in a car. Sensation of a belt, tight across lap and chest. A view through shattered windshield: the world turned upside-down and rocking slightly left and right and left again, moving dully like the pendulum on a dying grandfather clock. A single blade of wild grass reached up to tickle his nose. Small chunks of stone sitting over his head. Dust stinging his eyes. Something warm and wet on his face—blood on his hands, oh shit. Cold air on his scalp and neck, warm arm blowing on his hands—the first came through the windows, the latter from the vents.
Whatthehelljusthappened?
Peter Ellis shook his head. The ringing in his ears would not quit. Moving foot off accelerator killed the engine and tire-rubbing sounds, thank God. He cocked his head to the left and then the right. Nothing he did turned the world right-side-up again.
One last desperate thought: Whatthehelljusthappened?
The clock on the dash glowed blue. Number flipped to five past twelve. Dark outside, so midnight. Midnight? So, he knew when. How about the other questions: Why? Where? What?
Answers eased through the panic, but they were broken into pieces the same as Peter’s sensory impressions. Accident. Was driving I–75 South. Heading toward… Where? His brain called up south-eastern Michigan geography. So, Troy? No way he was even close to Ferndale and home. It was too dark around here. Some lights, though, off along the expressway. So, that would be Troy. Exit 69, Big Beaver Road—a laugh ever since elementary school. After that, Oakland Mall and 14–Mile Road. Then… a big gap until I–696. Out here, though? North of Troy? Big dark patch of nothing. No, wait. Not nothing. Coming from Rochester. From Oakland University. Memory clicked, and he remembered being at Oakland University for a late study session. He was tired, sure. Accident This was an accident.
No other cars around, though. No drivers. No one asking if he was all right.
Another piece in the memory puzzle appeared for him to turn over in his hands: an animal.
It appeared on the expressway, loping up from the island in the middle. Crossing from the east side to the west. An animal. What kind? Big. Bigger than a stray dog, bigger than a deer. Big as a moose? There were no moose in southern Michigan—those were upstate critters, upper peninsula beasts—but that’s what it looked like. No, that was the size. Moose do not have sharp teeth or sleek snouts or powerful shoulders and lean bodies. Moose do not stare down oncoming cars, lips peeling back to unleash streamers of scarlet drool. Not a moose, but big. Animal.
An animal that might still be nearby.
Peter’s hands fumbled with the seat belt, found the button, clicked it. It refused to release. He jammed his thumb against it, felt the sudden stinging pain of a bone shifting the wrong way before he heard the muffled crunch. Not from the buckle; that came from his thumb.
GoddammitJesusFuckingChrist! The pain made colors burst in Peter’s vision. His hand was a gateway for sensation to come flooding back in. He realized his chest ached. Probably had been since the accident.
He lifted his thumb to see. Broken? Too dark. Too goddamned dark. He kissed the thumb, tasting blood and feeling a bulge where no bulge ought to be. Maybe broken, maybe not.
Something big ducked around the rocks to his left. The animal was nearby, all right. If it was an animal. If he wasn’t just imaging things. Sitting upside-down, blood all rushing to his head. He might be seeing things. Sure, that was a comforting thought.
And the animal in the road? The big snarling beast Peter swerved to avoid? Not a hallucination. It was real enough—thus his predicament. It was a bad idea, swerving like that when speeding along at seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five miles per hour. Control of the car all but evaporated. Peter’s Toyota Yaris bounded over the drainage ditch, rolled across grass, slammed through the fence.
What if it wasn’t an animal to begin with. Then, what? Some twisted Devil’s Night prank? Crazy jerk in a weird costume? Must have a death wish, come loping into the expressway like that. Maybe a robot or something. Automated. Kids in the weed with grins and an RC controller, antenna pointed toward their sick homeschool science project. That would be weird, huh?
Well, this was the place for weirdness. He was north of Troy, up by that White place. White Chapel. A cemetery for goodness sake! Wasn’t that just the place for weirdness? Especially tonight. Wait. Halloween wasn’t today. It was Devil’s Night, time for the firebugs to go nuts downtown. Time for little devils to do the capital-D Devil’s work. Half-remembered lines from a movie sparked him to announce, “All Hallows Eve ain’t ’til mañana, crackhead!” His voice was an eerie croak. Besides, the clock rolled from 12:05 to 12:06, begging to differ. Crackheads might be celebrating Devil’s Night, but it was officially All Hallow’s. Like this mattered.
Must get out of here. Car might be leaking gas. Leaking gas might catch fire. Head might be collecting rushing blood. Collecting blood might damage things that didn’t heal so fast or neat. His other hand reached for the button. Less optimal left. It found the buckle, jammed fingers on the button. It was wet and slick and resisting his efforts. Bloody, no doubt. Jesus, I hope I’
m not seriously broken. Everything ached now. His knees and his elbows and his chest and his pelvis. Even his damned tailbone.
New sounds: a snuffling. Shit. Animal noises, sniffing the air. Smelling the blood. Don’t go shark on me, Peter thought. Don’t go crazy.
In the bent—but not destroyed—side mirror, Peter watched a shape break off from the shadows behind him and lumber toward the car. As it came into clearer focus, he saw naked feet. Bare angles. Fuzzy legs. The shape hunkered down, knees popping like firecrackers and peeked through the broken windshield.
Mumbles and growls battled his own heart’s pounding and the tinnitus. Animal growls. Animal. It was right here.
No, this was a man’s face. Black man’s features. White grin and eyes catching the Yaris’ dashboard lights and all but glowing. He grinned there, waiting for a response.
Peter asked, “Huh?”
The stranger pursed his lips and repeated, slow and loud: “Had yourself a spill, huh?”
“Did you see it?” Peter asked in a sudden need to have his hallucination banished or validated. “The animal in the road?”
“You dodge a squirrel or something?” The man clucked his tongue, shook his head. Dreads rustled softly. He tapped the upside-down car’s door, saying, “The real, unspoken price of PETA. Save a squirrel, get yourself wrecked.” His laugh was almost a huff, a howl.
“Not a squirrel.” Hurt to talk. Something was wrong in his throat. Still, he pushed the words out. “Bigger. Ani-animal.”
The man turned his head in a slow negation. “Nah, man. Didn’t see anything like that.”
“You’re naked.”
The stranger wore a sudden expression of surprise and looked down at himself. There was enough light to see a lean body and dangling parts that were usually covered up in public spaces. “So it appears.”
The Other Side Page 7