Juan of the Dead

by Jacalyn Boggs

  "I am choosing to look at this like a happy mistake. Sure, he probably could have known more about what he was doing, but it worked out well. Maybe you should do the same. Look at me. Do I look scary? Do I look like a monster? Way I see it is this: I used to be a real bear before my morning cup of coffee. But, now? I don't seem to need to sleep. Not a problem anymore. Trust me. People will line up to thank Jon for that gift. Well, except the girl who works at my local coffee shop. I bet they're going to miss me."

  "You might be missed. But don't you think your family should get the chance to mourn you properly? You are dead."

  "Back to that? How would you like it if I kept pointing out that you had a great big zit on your nose? Pretty rude, right?"

  Was I going to have to keep that battle going? Maybe we could get something tattooed to my forehead stating that I knew I was dead and please don't bring it up. I needed a t-shirt for crying out loud.

  "Touchy?" Now she looked smug. I guess the surprise at the revelation I had a pulse had totally worn off. Shame. I needed to milk that for what it was worth.

  "You know, since I do have a pulse and all, maybe it's not so much that I am dead, but that I was dead. You know, medical science is something these days. People are brought back thanks to doctors all the time." Okay, so I don't know how often that happened or why it happened for some and not others. Did it matter? It did happen, and that was an argument in my favor.

  "We know that's not the case, now don't we?" Well, rats. It was worth a shot. Too bad she wasn't buying.

  "I know I want to go home and get on with my life. I know I'm trapped here, and I haven't a clue how to get home because I've lost my ID and my passport and stuff. Everything else? Clueless."

  Her voice creeped up an octave. "You do so know. You know you are unnatural. Enough. We've talked enough."

  Oh dear. Leahonia realized that for all our talking, it meant nothing. We were always going to end up here. I sighed.

  "I'd say so. Now, if I could take my leave?" Hey, I wasn't going to totally give up.

  "No, you may not leave. You really are stupid." Her gaze hard, she pressed her lips together and pinched the skin between both eyes. Good, she was giving me a headache, too. Turnabout was only fair play, right?

  "Look, how about we just part ways. You keep your opinion, I keep mine. We can agree to disagree. If I leave here, you don't have to worry about me being whatever it is you think I am. Even if it's true, your people will be safe. Near as I can tell, this is a win-win situation."

  "How is it win-win if I allow you to fall victim to your nature? You might win, but what about your victims?"

  "So far the only victims to my anything that I know about is some people who I totally beat grabbing for good deals. You learn to be fast, that's for sure. If you want the good bargains, you have to be ready to fight."

  “The victims to your hunger.” Leahonia glared at me with the stupid-girl look.

  “You've mentioned that before. I'm telling you, I'm not hungry. I haven't been hungry. It's why I didn't eat at your house. The oh so big clue as to what I was or whatever.”

  “The hunger will come. My people, we're told from early on how bad it is. It will engulf you, consume you, that you will lose all of yourself to it. The first few days? Not so bad. Then, the hunger.”

  “Just what is this hunger? You make it sound like its freaking crack. I'm no drug addict.”

  “You don't need to be a drug addict before. We have the stories.”

  I was glad I managed to distract her again. I didn't expect it to last long. “If it's the same ones you told Jon and me, then that was so long ago. Mere legends are what you are basing this off of? Don't you think your stories have maybe kind of grown or something after all this time? Made things sound worse than they actually are?”

  "You don't understand. We have the prophecies. And we know what happened before. That's enough to know that you are a threat to not only us but to the rest of mankind."

  "But I'm no boogeyman. I'm normal. Okay, except for the not eating or sleeping thing. But, come on. Is that really so bad? Haven't you always wanted more hours in a day? Think of what you could do if you needed less sleep! The eating thing is really a shame because I gotta admit, I do like good food. I kind of miss eating."

  "Miss it enough to think you are ready to see what it is your body needs to survive on? Your body needs something. I know you've already died, but it doesn't mean you can't starve."

  She turned away from me at this point. It was almost like she couldn't bear to look me in the eyes anymore. Was it the fact that I was fighting for my life? Or the fact that I brought up good points? Just what was she so afraid that I could or would do?

  I kept my voice soft. "Leahonia, why you? Look at you, I don't think you want to do this anymore than I want you to. Why are you here trying to convince yourself this is the right thing to do?"

  She looked over her shoulder at me. "It is the right thing to do. One of your kind killed my father before we could stop it. I can't let you do that sort of thing to someone else. Some other little girl who has to grow up like I did."

  A vendetta? While I could hear the hurt in her voice, something wasn't quite right. If she was so bent on revenge, why hadn't she done something right away? No. There was more to that and I needed to find out what it was.

  c

  chapter twenty-one

  "That's very noble of you, Leahonia. I can't imagine. But I didn't do that to your father. Someone else did. Don't take it out on me."

  Her hands clenched by her side, the strain on her palpable. Her voice struggled to get through clenched teeth. "You may not have done it, but you will. He was my Papa. And that... that... monster... killed him. Destroyed everything that was good about him. Devoured his soul. I was only five. I couldn't do anything to stop it. I screamed and I screamed. I couldn't even run away."

  My heart nearly broke and I wanted to choke. No wonder she got roped into this sort of thing. She watched her father's murder? Though her back was still to me, I looked away. The shame that anyone, like me or no, could do that to someone else was just too awful to bear.

  "Then how... you... you're here. Something happened..."

  "My screams brought people, it's the only reason I'm still alive. They killed that creature, but it was too late for my father. I knew then that the stories we have are true. I've seen it firsthand and I have vowed to never let that happen again. To never let another monster go free."

  "So, what am I then? Your play-toy? You want me to suffer like you did? You were a little girl. I can't imagine what you went through. But that was not me. I'm not like that person that killed your father. I'm not trying to kill anyone. I don't want to kill anyone. Why can't you believe that?"

  "I wish I could. I'm done. I just... I thought that it would be courteous to try to explain to you why we have to do what we have to do. You do seem... well... normal. I had a hard time believing that you were the one that we'd been waiting for all this time. But you are, and now we must do what we must do."

  She turned back to me. I saw tears in her eyes. I wished there was some way I could change what she had to go through, but there wasn't. No one can bring back a little girl's father.

  "Can you just tell me one thing?" I just needed to know, before I resigned myself to inevitable death.

  "I think I've wasted enough time already."

  "Please, Leahonia. I just don't understand what the hell is up with this prophecy. What are you so afraid of?"

  She looked at me and I met her gaze with my own. There had to be a reason one group of people thought I was the greatest thing since sample sales, and another group was convinced I was the greatest abomination since duct taped clothes.

  "The prophecy. Didn't they tell you it all?"

  "I was going through three different people. Those guys thought I was some kind of returning queen or goddess or something that I know for sure I'm not. I'm just me. I can't help anyone rise to greatness or whatever. What
else is going on here?”

  "I don't know how to translate it into English very well. Why do you want to know, anyway? It won't matter much..."

  I suppose it wouldn't matter if they killed me. She had to know I'd try everything to stop that, though. Didn’t she? "I don't need it verbatim. If I gotta die, I should at least know why. It's only fair. You said so yourself." And it buys me time to plan my next move. Maybe she won’t think about

  that.

  She sighed, a weary sound. “I suppose you are right.”

  Cheer! I tried to focus on what she said, while I also tried to plan a way to escape the furious five. Too bad dying didn't open up the infinite knowledge of the universe. Or at least the infinite knowledge of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. Those guys would laugh off these odds and ask for another thirty goons.

  “Thank you. This has all been shoved on me and I really have no clue what is going on. Or what it means. Do you know what it feels like to be the bystander and seeing your life being driven by forces way beyond your control?”

  "I said I'd tell you."

  Oh, now she’s impatient? She didn't need to snap at me. Geez. Testy, testy.

  And so, she started. I really wasn't ready for what she had to say, but she went all in.

  "The prophecies are old. They come from the time I already told you about. No one was safe from the wars of the undead that raged. The beings were uncontrollable. Then one tribe claimed to have 'mastered' this so-called art. They knew how to raise someone without all the dire consequences of mindless murderous tendencies. You'd think this would be good, but it wasn't. The killing didn't stop.

  "Those that were raised, they could think and reason. But still the hunger that set in... they couldn't fight it. We found their writings; it drove them near mad. They were men and women who were good and wanted to remain that way. Just as you claim to be. But they couldn't fight the hunger. At first, they didn't know what it was for. They tried everything. Once they gave in, they could not stop. Some tried to be kind, taking the old or infirm. It was a different time, there weren't many of the weak.

  "And so, these beings became murderers just like their feral wild cousins from before. The only way to stop them was to dismember them. Some didn't want to be that way; they took their own lives. How noble of them, but a shame they couldn't have taken matters into their own hands before murdering so many innocent people in the name of the hunger. Those supposedly good few wrote of a time they foresaw. No one knew exactly how they came about receiving these prophecies. For a long time, they were probably just fantastical tales. How do you explain the things we have today to a people over a thousand years ago? A car? Telephones? Light bulbs? You can't. But the legends came down anyway. More a tale of caution so no one would try to embrace these dark arts again.

  “Some think the legends are nothing more than tales their grandfathers told. That they don't mean anything other than people being scared of the night. Those people scoff. But then there's some of us who look at the world and we see the things we cannot understand... things from the stories.

  "These stories are more than legends, so we vowed to watch and wait. And now here you are. You who was prophesied about. You who will change everything. I cannot begin to recite it word for word in English so you can understand. But the prophecy tells of one who will be risen. She will not be from our people, but from a gleaming country of gold. She will die in a great earthquake and a stranger to her and to the arts will raise her in Chichen Itza."

  Okay, I had to give it to her. That sure sounded like me. Well, I didn’t know about that country of gold thing, but wasn't that what everyone seemed to think about America? We were all rich and the streets were lined with gold? Yeah, well whatever they wanted to believe. We had our poor and our needy and if you knew where the gold paved streets were, let me know.

  "This is nice to hear Leahonia, and I gotta admit, that sure sounds like me. But I see nothing that makes me out to be all scary."

  "I wasn't done. You will unite the forces of those who have risen from death. Those who are like you. You will bring them from where they hide, scattered around the world. Banding together, you will usher in an age for your kind like no other. You will rule from the great mountains and peace will reign."

  Humph. Peace sounded good. Ruling sounded like a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I liked the idea of bossing people around. But, let's get real, leadership was nothing but a great big royal pain in the rump. Leaders didn’t get credit for the good things they did and got blamed for all the crap that happened. No, thank you. The stress alone aged you. Wrinkles became no one. Especially me. I didn't need the headache.

  "Maybe I'll abdicate. I don't wanna rule anything. All in all, though, is peace that bad? It doesn't seem that way to me. What's so wrong with peace?" I shrugged.

  "It's not the peace, but the price it comes by. For you to bring your people together, that is a threat to those of us who are living. Frankly, the thought that we haven't hunted you all to extinction is a threat to those of us who are living. Each one of you that survives means people who are dying to feed you."

  "Just what is it I'm supposed to eat? Cause you make it sound like I'm now going to be some kind of cannibal. Gross. You aren't looking like a giant ham bone or donut. I told you, I'm no different than I was before I was alive." More circles.

  "Your kind eats brains. And haven't we been over this already? The hunger will come."

  I gagged; again. The thought was so far beyond disgusting that I didn't know how to get back. I suppose that was considered a delicacy in some places, but guess what? Not for me. I sure hoped it never became one.

  "No, thank you. You can keep that to yourself. I'm not coming at your frontal lobe with a spork. Gross."

  "What about when you are so wracked with hunger you cannot control it any longer?"

  "If I get hungry, drive me to a McDonald's for a cheeseburger. That's my idea of living on the edge of cuisine." I liked good food. If I was going to eat anything disgusting it would come from the fast food joints that sold things that only halfway passed for food.

  "I don't think it would satisfy the hunger." She didn't need to sound so sure of herself.

  “Hey, I'm willing to give it a shot. I still want my Coach handbag back. I want to know what's going to come out from Ralph Lauren next year. If I can keep my fashion sense, I bet I can keep my taste for good food. Throw me a lobster, I bet I'll be fine."

  I wasn’t stupid. If I was going to ask for something to eat, I was going all in. I'd ask for the good stuff. I figured caviar was fairly hard to come by in these parts, and maybe even lobster. What's the worse that would happen? She'd say no and make me choose something else? Eh, fine. Best that would happen was I'd be served one very scrumptious lobster.

  "Why should I 'give it a shot' as you say? If I'm right, it's our lives at risk. Why should I be so willing to sacrifice ourselves?"

  I snorted. "I think you've got some pretty good odds. Five goons plus you against little-old me. And you have the home field advantage. I see this as a situation for you to do the right thing. Give me a chance to prove myself. Otherwise, you are really no better than what you claim me to be - a murderer.”

  I watched as she digested that. It was a low blow calling her a murderer. But she did the same to me. I hadn't harmed anyone. I didn't know about her. If she and her friends hunted "my kind", couldn't that be considered murder?

  My head hurt. This was way too much deep thinking for me. I liked my life to be simple. Wake up, make myself gorgeous, go to work, hang out with friends. That's it. How had my life veered off into all this complicated mumbo jumbo?

  Ah, the good old days. How I wished they were still here. Bring on the pool boys and the fruity drinks. Go away prophecies and scientific magic crap and people wanting to debate the philosophies of life.

  "You make a point. I would be no better than you. But I don't think you are human anymore, so then it's not murder. You Americans hunt to maintain the animal populatio
n from growing out of control. We do the same."

  Did she just call me an animal? First, I'm a murderer and now, I'm an animal? "Excuse me? Your people must think they are so great if you can be so judgmental. I am not an animal. You may focus on my differences, but I'm still human. No matter what you and your bigoted friends may think."

  The time passed. I was done. I needed to find my way out of here and leave.

  "You call us judgmental? Your kind consider us as lambs to the slaughter!” she retorted.

  "You have no way to know what my kind or I think. Is there any more to your little prophecy, or have you just blown things way out of proportion? Maybe my so-called-people just want to be left alone by the likes of you."

  I wanted to spit at her but controlled myself. Barely. The audacity. Next thing I knew, she'd try to justify enslavement. If there really was an 'us' to speak of. Since I hadn't run into any other un-dead people, let alone anyone jonesing for a good taste of cranium soup, I wasn't so ready to buy in to her far-out theories.

  "You really aren't taking this seriously. If your kind tries to gather, there will be bloodshed."

  "See, I don't like bloodshed, I'm more the free nuts and berries sort. So maybe that's the benefit of me leading the way. I'll do it with peace and harmony. "

  It could happen. Growing pains to reach peace and harmony tend to ripple out, touching all. But, did that mean it would be blood running the walls and misery for all? I didn't think so.

  "You say that now. Wait for the hunger. You'll change your mind."

  "That's it!" I was done with her and her 'blah-blah wait for the hunger' junk. "Enough with the hunger. It's not bothering me now and I say we cross that bridge when we come to it. You need to not be so prejudiced. Maybe this so-called hunger you are worried about isn't so bad with me. Back off!"

  Could she tell I was angry? I really did like peace and went out of my way to avoid outright conflict. Barbed words were one thing, but violence didn’t do anyone any good. Even so, I felt an increasingly strong urge to punch her in the face. Break her nose to match her broken record of brain-eating garbage.