Tony shining his flashlight over my shoulder isn’t even half as excited as I am, “A book? Unless it’s the bible, I don’t see how it will help!” I laughed but answered with, “No this is good…..” It’s encased in a glass, standing atop a mantle for display. I’m guessing dad was meant to present this at the museum in the next couple of weeks. Sorry old man, but that exhibition just got canceled. I smash through the glass and hold high what looks like an ancient tome.
Veronica asks, “What is that?” I’m shouting happily, “This boys and girls is the Book of Shadows!” Grinning ear to ear, I continued, “Its a real cookbook of magic spells and stories. A Grimoire belonging to a coven of Witches. ”
Veronica walks over shining her flashlight shouts, “Seriously?”
I just shrug my shoulders, staring at her confidently. “Seriously. This is what we need to beat that thing and send all those monsters back where they came from!”
Completely skeptical Veronica replies, “And how is it going to do that?”
“Well,” I explain. “That thing clearly doesn’t belong here and needs to be banished…. and…. the Book of Shadows definitely has the spell somewhere in these pages to do just that. We just need to find it.”
Tony looks incredulously skeptical at me, “How the heck do you know all this stuff?”
I just smile saying, “I read a lot.”
Veronica then sighs and comments, “Well it's good that you read while this monster is ready to wreak havoc on our city.”
To which Bradlee yells, "Who knows….maybe he’s right……we have to do something. If my boy says, that book can save the day. I’m rolling with him. ”
Robbie who I could tell has significant doubts chimes in, “Agreed. I’m sticking by Derrick.”
Upon hearing the approval of my boys, Veronica rolls her eyes and nods her head. She’s all for it now. Tony, being a die-hard Christian, doesn’t like the idea of using witchcraft to fight a demon-spirit-monster thingy, but says, “Alright. Count me in.”
***
We come back up from the basement, ready to do battle with the undead. I check up on Gina, and she’s still knocked out on the couch, breathing heavy with her mouth. I can’t help but stare at her. Even as a crazed, bloodthirsty woman possessed, I find her fascinating.
“Alright,” Veronica interrupts. “What do we do first fearless leader?”
“Uhh, I think we need supplies,” I suggest nervously. “Robbie, Bradlee… I need you guys to go find anything we can use as weapons. We may have to kill some zombies on the way. Anything… uh… knives, tools, a baseball bat… load up and meet us outside.” The boys shoot upstairs without question.
Meanwhile, Veronica gets on her cell phone to warn people in town about what’s happening. I can hear her from the next room. She is agitated. Trying to get the people on the other end to believe her, “No! No! This is not a joke! I know its Halloween! But this is serious…..yeah? What?! Screw you too buddy!” After that she throws her phone down, putting her head in her hands to cry to herself. I peek around the doorway. Her boyfriend Tony comes over and says, “Was that the police, babe?” Veronica looks up at him and replies, “Yeah. The Sheriff laughed at me.” Tony grabs her hands and motions for Veronica to stand up, “Well, Tony doesn’t like the sound of that. They didn’t believe you?” Picking up her cellphone Veronica sighed, “Oh baby….who would?”
She then puts her arm around his waist. Looking up at him with sad resignation, “You need to know if this is our last night together. I love you big bear.”
“Nah, Tony doesn’t want you talking like that, babe. This ain’t our last night together.” Tony glances up at me. “Right D?”
“Right.” I nod.
Veronica turns to me, "Maybe you– Hey, where is Gina."
"She was still laying on the couch a minute ago” I reply. “Shit, look around you guys. Maybe she’s walking around the house or lost outside in the garden.”
I’m not sure what else I could say. Suddenly I’m the fearless leader of the ragtag monster squad, and I needed a plan. I take off through the house to search, and it’s so quiet I can hear my own chest heaving in fear. That kind of eerie silence that makes me want to move slowly in case something is stalking me in the darkness. I travel down the hall, clicking the light switch. Nothing. The electricity is still out. There’s an empty bedroom ahead where my dad stored a lot more boxes for his job. Yeah, of course, the door is cracked open with a gleam of light from the moon trying to escape into the hallway to greet me. Now should I take the bait? I stop, look behind me, listen carefully, nothing. Okay, here we go. The slow walk to my impending doom.
Ba-thump.
What the hell was that?
I turn to check behind me again. It’s too dark in the hallway, so I back up towards the room and crack the door open a bit more, allowing the moon to light up the hall as much as possible. I spot a pair of bare feet and legs that disappear into the shadows. That slow growling sound is all too familiar, “Gina? Is that you?”
She answers by lunging out of the dark towards me.
I take off like a rocket, crashing into a door, slipping on my own feet here and there. The screams barely leave my mouth as Gina claws her way through after me. Her eyes are glowing purple now, her skin is rotting away, pale and dry as if the being possessing her is devouring Gina’s life force from the inside. I nearly go head first into a wall when Gina’s nails tear through my leg like hot knives “ARRRRGGGGHHHH!” I belt out a scream like you wouldn’t believe and kick her off. Then another kick straight to her face, before shooting down the hall for safety.
I stumble through the living room and quickly drop to my back as Gina leaps over me like a ferocious animal. Tony and Veronica are freaking out at the sight of her.
“What happened to her?!” Veronica cries.
“The possession is complete," I explain quickly. Gina's gone full-on super zombie, V! Don’t even try to reason with her. She’ll tear you limb from limb."
Gina is hanging from a shelf above and staring us down. Drool leaks slowly from her mouth, her teeth are rotting away to a sickly green and brown tint. Tony then looks over at me cradling my favorite new spell book and asks, “You got any ideas man? Aren’t you the horror expert? Use that damn book to get our girl back to normal.”
I don’t know for sure if Tony is joking or not, but I respond with, “That thing is a freaking demon, Tony! A real-life denizen of the underworld! What we need is a priest so we can do an exorcism to send that thing back where it came from!”
Before another comes either one of us, Gina launches herself at us, snarling with hunger.
Gina goes directly after Veronica. Before I knew it, Robbie, out of nowhere, tackles Gina to the floor. He tries to lock her up in some kind of wrestling hold, but she’s way too powerful. “Get the hell out of here,” he screams. “I’ll hold her as long as I can.” Gina doesn’t agree with this plan. She takes a bite out of his arm, spins around onto his back, and cracks her jaws through his skull like a melon. Veronica loses it. Tony screams so loud I can’t hear anything else. It’s like at this very moment everything's slowing down too, and I lost myself, frozen in disbelief. Gina is killing our friend in front of me. I click back to reality. Rushing forward with Tony and snatching Gina off of Robbie’s bloodied carcass. A light goes off in my mind, telling me to grab the necklace from her neck and throw it against the wall. It flies hard across the room, but nothing has changed in Gina. Bradlee, with a bat he found in my room, lays into the necklace with all his strength shattering it to pieces.
Suddenly Gina, or something within her, cries in excruciating pain. That evil force that had been crushing her to death, nearly extinguishing all sense of self, has finally been lifted. And with the lifting of that weight all of her inhuman strength instantly disappears and Gina collapses to an exhausted and terrified wreck in Tony's arms.
We’re all kind of silent.
Nobody moves, nobody speaks. We need this moment.
For our friend.
Revenge and redemption
Chapter Seven
Bradlee brings Veronica a drink and a blanket.
She’s a wreck. And even though everyone is quiet, we are all thinking the same thing.
I’ve never experienced death before. I didn’t know how to handle it or whether it was appropriate to do anything. I needed to say something. I mean these guys appointed me the leader, and I failed Robbie. “Hey, shouldn't we like, say a prayer or something?”
Tony, who is very much surprised at my conviction says, “You don’t need to ask Tony. The Lord is always listening, man.” Tony frowns and adds, “If you’re suddenly planning on calling for the Lord’s power, you better mean it.”
I smile and point at Tony saying, “Well, you’ve just been ordained, my friend.” Upon hearing this Tony shakes his head and laughs, “You have got to be kidding.”
But I am deadly serious and tell him, “You are the most religious person I know buddy, hell you’re the son of a pastor. If God is going to listen to any of us, I know he will listen to you first and foremost!”
Veronica surprisingly backing me up in this claim then added, “He’s right Tony. You are the only kid in the prayer club at school.” She then adds with emphasis, “In fact, you are the prayer club!”
Tony then sighs, looking surprisingly sincere, “Look I do believe in God, I do have faith, but that makes Tony no different than anyone else. The faith I have is something you can all have. You just have to accept Christ and believe in him!” He then looks back at Gina’s sleeping body and carefully added, “This faith is in you if you just accept it; you don’t need Tony!”
Silence again.
Gina starts moaning. Her eyes slowly blink open, and she appears so weak. I can see she is terrified and trembling. Feeling sorry for her I give her my blanket and put it around her shoulders. At which she gratefully whispers through her chattering teeth, “Thank you.”
“Do you–“ I begin to ask.
“Remember anything?” Gina finishes. “Yeah. I remember everything. It’s like I can see myself, but I couldn’t stop myself from hurting you all.” Gina is failing to hold back her tears. Veronica tries her best to comfort Gina telling her, "It’s ok. You’ll be ok.”
But hearing her words of comfort are not doing that much good, so Veronica turns from consoling her to encouraging Gina to get back on her feet. I’m on the floor, packing up all the weapons that Robbie and Bradlee collected into a duffle-bag. I use this time to get my head back into the game. Gina sits down next to me. She looks so sad, staring at my wounded leg and let’s face it, the body lying across the room. I’m not mad at her, but I don’t really know what to say. Gina wraps her arms around mine and rests her head on my shoulder. Her little way of saying I’m sorry? I take a second to enjoy the hug, then kiss her atop of her hair. My small way of saying, you’re forgiven.
As for Bradlee, there’s an awkward silence between he and Gina that I want absolutely no part of. She pleads for his forgiveness, but he doesn’t even look at her. I don’t know if any amount of time will heal this wound.
Then Bradlee suddenly jumps to his feet and breaks his silence, “He’s alive! Yo guys he's still alive! Get over here!”
Yes, to everyone’s surprise, Ace stopped bleeding from his neck long enough to stumble back to us. The bleeding is even worse from two gashes on his head, but there he is, standing before us in the doorway once again.
Upon seeing this Bradlee yells, “He’s probably a zombie! Don’t trust him!”
I then turn to Tony and yell, “Now’s your chance man! Do an exorcism!”
Ace laughs gruffly and yells, “Say what?! I ain’t no damn zombie! And I don’t need no $#%@# exorcism! Especially not from Tony!”
Tony shakes his head, “Don’t listen to them my dude, Tony’s not exercising with nobody!”
I’m dumbfounded at his comment, “Its Exorcising not Exercising! Geez.”
But Ace quickly dismisses me saying, “Yeah, whatever Terrence you can hop on a treadmill later! I just got smacked down by some kind of monster, and you guys give me one hell of a greeting. I tell you what though. I don’t know what the hell that thing is…”
We all watched Ace pause and pull a gun out of his pocket, "but I’m getting my revenge!”
Fully onboard at this cry for action, Tony and Bradlee happily take up the war cry of their newly elected leader and cheered him on yelling stuff like, “Yeah!” and “We’ll show that freak whose boss!” I should say something to stop them but it's too late, Ace and his comrades are already piling into his Mustang, and with Veronica chasing after Tony, Gina and I followed. For better or for worse, we were going to Halcyon City.
Live at the four leaf
Chapter Eight
It’s around 11 o’clock when we arrive downtown. It's was amazingly quiet for a Halloween night but still no sign of zombie activity. So much so that our self-proclaimed Zombie hunter Ace asked out loud, “Did we lose them? Everything’s quiet?” He is still contemplating these things when we drive by the Four Leaf Pub. When Ace’s car pulls up to the spot I yell from the back seat, “Ace what are we doing here, man? Why did you stop the car?”
“We have to stop here!” Ace reluctantly puts the car in park. He looks over at Gina and says, “Ok! We’ll stand guard out here! Make it quick!”
We’re all a little confused, but somehow Gina gets it. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Ace responds, falling back against the headrest.
“You're alright, Ace," Veronica says, rubbing his shoulder.
Gina leaps out of the car and bursts into the Four Leaf. Feeling responsible for her safety, I follow quickly behind, “Hold up. I’m coming with you.” Turns out this is the Irish pub that her mom works in. It isn't as busy as one would think it would be on a Halloween night, but a few hapless souls are drinking at the bar when she walks in. Gina sits down and waits for the bartender that she expected to be my mother but instead someone else completely different pops up; it was an elderly man who wreaks of cheap cigars and even cheaper whiskey. He leans over the counter at the sight of us and belches out, “You kids want something to drink?”
"No sir," Gina answers. Feeling slightly uncomfortable in the place she nervously blurts out, “I want my mom!” Two guys at the end of the bar burst out laughing, and the one next to me shouted in slurred speech, “This is the place to get drunk lass! Not to search for your mommy!” During the laughter, the television above the bar clicks on by itself. White noise. “Gina, check it out,” I tap her rapidly as we look at the TV screen. There are flashes of burning buildings, people screaming in the streets, and then a bright glare of a woman’s face burns out the screen.
“Derrick,” Gina says to me slowly. “I just thought of something. Why is the electricity suddenly working here but it’s completely out everywhere else?”
Then the jukebox in the corner switches on. It’s starting to play Franz Ferdinand’s Michael…. backward. “She’s worried about you. Call your mother.” The message is faint. Then louder and on repeat. Even louder now. We jump up off the stools. “Gina…”
“I know,” she whispers.
Then we spin around, and the bartender, the gentlemen at the bar, even the people in the back of the room are paper white. Their eyes are gone, sunken into dark pools with black blood flowing from their mouths. “Oh my God!” Gina bellows out. “We gotta go.” But the creatures are now howling like tortured banshees. The sound is deafening. We cover our ears and run for the door only to smack into a tall lady in a white gown, standing still.
“`You can not leave,” she demands with a hoarse voice. “You failed us. Kill them all.”
The others repeat the command. “You failed us. You failed us.” continuously they chant together, and I’m finally aware of what they mean. I grab Gina’s arm and pull her toward the back door as quick as we can move. Before we reach the door, the woman in white shouts at us, “Gina, you failed us!” She lo
oks normal, but she’s crying.
“Mom?”
The woman’s face transforms again. “She’s worried about you. Call your mother.”
“Mom!”
“That's not your mother anymore!” I scream at her. “Let’s go!”
We bust our way out of the back and into the alleyway. Heading towards the main street, I let Gina in on my thoughts. “I figured out why Samhain didn’t kill us back at the house or have his army do it for him. He wanted you to do it.”
“What?!” She’s crying at this point, nearly losing herself again. “They killed my mom, I failed her, Derrick. You heard them, I wasn’t there to help–“
“No!” I have to convince her. “That wasn’t your mother. Th’ose were evil spirits. You didn’t fail your mom, the spirits are talking to the thing that was possessing you back at the house. You failed to kill us all, and now they’re pissed off. Maybe even worried.” I pause for a second and look at her again. “They're worried. I think we can beat them.”
She doesn’t answer, so we bolt out of there and dive back into Ace’s car at which he arrogantly yells, “It’s about time! I was starting to think you two were Zombie food in there!” I glared at Ace and shot back, “There aren’t any zombies in there, but I think I know where all of them are going to be.” Ace shrugged and said, “Okay good, let’s go hunting!”
Bring out your dead
Chapter Nine
We're swerving all through the city streets, trying to avoid the chaos. People are yelling from windows and rooftops above, while others are crashing into lamp posts when they see herds of walking dead in front of them. We get blocked by a barricade of turned over cars and trucks, so the crew hops out of the vehicle and regroups behind a wall on the corner.
Samhain - Spirit of Halloween Page 3