by Dima Zales
A bullet shatters a display to Beatrice’s right, and I take sadistic pleasure in her startled jump. The necromancer recovers quickly, though, and responds by throwing her energy mojo at the skinless horse and its skeletal rider.
Do her powers only affect former humans?
No such luck.
Both the steed and its rider come to un-life and charge right at me.
I dash behind the exhibit of a corpse that has been sliced into thin pieces, each of which has been enclosed in glass to create the illusion of a see-through body. My hope is that all this glass will unnerve the horse—with the reanimated cross-sections wriggling inside the glass, I’m certainly disquieted.
The horse doesn’t care where I stand. It rears up on its hind legs, and I see that I’m moments away from getting trampled by its stone-like hooves and cut up by the glass.
I scramble out of the way just as the right hoof connects with the display and shatters it. Bits of glass fly at me, slicing at my forearms as I try to shield my face.
A flat slice of the see-through cadaver slithers out of its broken glass prison and onto the ground toward me, but it’s quickly squashed by a hoof.
The horse rears again.
A gunshot rings out behind the animal. Its rider’s head flies off, but his legs and torso hold on, turning the exhibit into the headless horseman from Sleepy Hollow.
Clearly annoyed, the monstrosity turns toward Ariel.
I lower my arms, ignoring the stinging and the blood from the cuts, and stomp on the still-moving slice of dead flesh before me.
Ariel elbows the horse smack in the snout.
It sounds like all thirty-four bones in that equine skull break as one, and the horse stumbles.
Doubling down on her success, Ariel kicks at the horse’s two front legs. The animal’s legs fold at the knees, and Ariel jumps around to the thing’s midsection. Throwing her leg back like a soccer player, she kicks the horse with devastating force.
The broken horse monster flies at the wall, taking a couple of glass displays with it.
“Flank her from the right!” Ariel shouts and rushes for Beatrice, staying to the left herself.
With all my remaining energy, I do as Ariel says.
Beatrice must know by now who’s the bigger threat, so almost all of the remaining corpses attack Ariel.
In the corner of my vision, I see Ariel rip a feminine dancer-corpse in half. Meanwhile, I vault over a barely crawling, quadriplegic zombie whose earlier job must’ve been to expose his organs for display.
Ariel yanks the exaggerated lungs out of the open chest of a singer-cadaver and smacks him on the head with them. She then shoots in Beatrice’s general direction, but a moving skeleton takes the bullet for his mistress.
I can see we’ll have Beatrice cornered in a few moments.
Unfortunately, Beatrice realizes this too, so like a cornered rat, she summons all her minions with renewed vigor. The energy waves she’s shooting from her hands could power the Apple Store for a week.
I glance at Ariel and see her focus on something behind me. “On your right!” she screams.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of a basketball right before it smacks into my face.
The bridge of my nose explodes in pain as horrid memories of playing dodgeball at summer camp flit through my mind.
My legs falter, and my mind goes blank.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I come to my senses on the floor.
Ariel is extending her hand to me, so I grasp it and get back on my wobbly feet.
A dozen of the walking dead have begun forming a wide circle around us. Some of the corpses look like pasta drainers with all the bullet holes Ariel put in them. She must’ve gotten some target practice in as she made her way to me.
“Let’s flank her again. I’ll thin this herd and you follow,” Ariel whispers and takes a few steps away from me.
The corpses—or Beatrice—do not like the idea of Ariel moving, so they begin to slowly constrict the circle.
Ariel stops, reaches into her inner pocket, and takes out a clip. She must need to reload that gun.
Still dazed, I glance around. The floor is littered with body parts Ariel must’ve ripped off with her bare hands.
There’s a flutter of movement in my peripheral vision. I turn and see a cadaver who looks like the one that used to hold a spear—or was it a disk?
Whatever the weapon, he’s not holding it anymore.
There’s a loud scream from Ariel’s direction.
I look back.
A spear is sticking out of my best friend’s chest.
The shock hits me like another basketball to the head.
The clip and the gun drop out of Ariel’s hands as she grasps at the spear lodged in her chest. She tries to pull it out but screams in pain.
Her eyes roll back, and like a cut tree, she starts to topple over.
I reach Ariel in one leap—just in time to slightly soften her fall by catching her shoulders. Numb, I kneel over her to take a closer look at her wound.
It’s bad.
The whole spearhead is inside her chest.
Ariel’s breathing is extremely labored, and blood is oozing from her mouth.
“No,” I whisper. “Please, Ariel. No.”
“I’m sorry.” She opens her bloodshot eyes, her beautiful face contorted in pain. “Here,” she says, with blood gushing from her mouth. She takes my hand in hers and puts it on the bloodied knife strapped to her belt. “You have to—”
“Hush. Don’t talk like—”
She grabs me by the collar, shakes me for a moment, then gurgles, “You have to get away from me—”
Her body slackens, and her breathing stops.
I stare into her eyes uncomprehendingly, watching them turn lifeless.
No.
This can’t be happening.
If I could rip out Beatrice’s throat with my teeth right now, I would. I’ve never felt this kind of bloodthirst before, but I don’t reject it—I let it fuel my revenge.
Grasping the knife, I leap to my feet.
An arc of energy shoots from Beatrice’s fingers into Ariel’s dead body.
I now understand why Ariel told me to get away from her, even as a part of me rejects that conclusion. Surely the universe wouldn’t allow—
Ariel’s body stirs.
Now I’m ready to torture Beatrice before I kill her. First, though, I have to run.
Ariel jumps to her feet with supernatural speed.
Somewhere far in my brain, I recall that fresh corpses make superior killing machines for Beatrice. I don’t want to believe that Ariel—even a dead, reanimated one—would hurt me, but I’m not sticking around to find out.
Turning, I start to run, but a vise-like grip on my left elbow yanks me to a halt.
It’s Ariel.
She got me.
Her neck muscles strain, and something in my arm breaks with a horrible crunching sound.
The agony hitting my brain is all-encompassing and pure.
I must be in shock because my mouth is screaming, yet my mind is observing my surroundings with a strange detachment.
How am I not fainting?
Three cadavers grab the knife from me, toss it aside, and grab hold of my right hand, leaving me stretched out between them and Ariel like I’m being crucified.
My scream devolves into a hoarse hiss as I lose my voice.
Beatrice approaches, unfolding her butterfly knife.
“It was a valiant effort,” the necromancer says, her tone almost sympathetic. “This wasn’t personal. I hope you understand that.”
“Wait,” I try to scream, but my vocal cords fail me.
With a practiced thrust, Beatrice buries her knife in my chest.
I look down and see blood spreading over my shirt pocket.
“I wasn’t supposed to die here,” I futilely try to say, but my heart stops and I die.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I
hang bodiless and stare as Beatrice reanimates my corpse and says, “This was a close call, but you two will make great bodyguards for what’s to come. So there’s a silver lining. For me.”
She walks up to my corpse and pulls out the knife.
She then rips the spear out of Ariel’s chest.
I come to my senses on the floor.
Ariel is extending her hand to me.
She is alive.
I am alive.
But how?
Of course. That was another psychic vision.
The ball knocked me out, and just like at the TV studio, I saw the near future.
I was correct to worry about butterfly effects. The vision of that Council meeting did change my future, and I can be killed. The only bit of silver lining here is that if we survive the next few minutes, there’s a chance that the future could be changed enough that I won’t have to face the Council at all.
I grasp Ariel’s hand and get to my unsteady feet—though the adrenaline helps me recover quicker than in my vision.
Just as I’ve foreseen, we’re surrounded.
“Let’s flank her again. I’ll thin this herd and you follow,” Ariel whispers, and before I can grab her hand, she takes a few steps away from me.
As before, the corpses—or Beatrice—don’t like the idea of Ariel moving, so they begin to constrict their circle.
“Duck,” I shout at Ariel. “Drop to the ground! Now!”
She doesn’t seem to hear, focusing on getting the gun and clip from her inner pocket.
There’s no more time for talking.
I have to undo everything I saw in that vision, right this moment.
There’s a principle in magic that I often use in my restaurant act: a large movement will cover a small movement. Since Beatrice is looking at me closely, I decide to utilize that principle now.
Reaching into my pocket, I prepare for the small-movement portion of my plan. Then I spin toward Ariel, preparing my legs for the much larger movement.
Though I’m not looking in that direction, I detect the flicker of movement from the cadaver throwing his spear.
I leap for Ariel, bodyguard style.
In the air, I complete the smaller movement. I probably won’t even need this precaution, but if the future decides to be stubborn, this can help.
My larger movement is also a huge success. I tackle Ariel. Her gun and clip drop to the ground, and we fall onto them in a two-person heap.
The spear grazes my neck and clanks on the floor a few feet away.
Ariel’s gaze falls on the spear, then darts to me.
“My gun,” she says. “I have to grab it—”
She sees something over my shoulder and violently pushes me away. I fly almost a foot into the air and land on the ground, rolling. My breath vacates my lungs, and as I wheeze for air, my ribs scream in protest.
Catching my breath, I see the reason for Ariel’s action. As soon as that spear had taken flight, the dead circling us must’ve started running toward us. Ariel had gotten me away just as they’d closed in, and now they’re piled on top of her like a bunch of demon kindergarteners.
I rush to excavate Ariel from all the dead, but a skeletal arm grabs my left elbow.
I twist, kicking the corpse in the shin, but then I spot a movement to my right.
Spinning, I see that this corpse is missing the top of its skull, so I reach in and yank out the exposed brain.
Necromancy clearly doesn’t require the corpse to have a brain of its own, because my attacker doesn’t slow in his effort to grab my right arm.
Yet again, I’m caught in a crucifixion position. I struggle, trying to get free, but nearly dislocate my shoulders to no avail.
Damn it. The future does like its patterns. That, or this is the worst case of déjà vu I’ve ever had because I again have a corpse holding me on each side—almost exactly like in my earlier vision, except (and this is huge) Ariel is alive.
To complete the picture, Beatrice comes toward me.
She takes out her butterfly knife and readies the blade—just as before.
In my periphery, I see the mound of corpses on top of Ariel shake, as if it’s about to erupt like a volcano. But even if my friend frees herself, she won’t get to me in time to stop Beatrice.
“It was a valiant effort,” Beatrice says in that oddly sympathetic tone. “This wasn’t personal. I hope you understand that.”
With a practiced thrust, she buries the knife in my chest.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I slacken and feel the cadaver hands on my arms loosen. Beatrice probably needs them to help keep the almost-escaped Ariel in check.
I look down, but this time, there’s no blood spread over my shirt pocket.
Beatrice clearly didn’t catch the small movement that was covered by my leap.
This is what I did: I palmed my trusty deck of cards and hid it in my shirt pocket, just in case the future tried to be stubborn, which it did. The knife couldn’t get through the barrier I created—even Ariel isn’t strong enough to pierce more than half of the cards in a deck.
I’m not sure how different stabbing a deck is to stabbing a ribcage, but it looks like Beatrice isn’t experienced enough with stabbing to tell the difference—she must usually use the knife for carving fleshy parts.
Ripping my arms from the loosened grip of the corpses, I grab Beatrice’s wrist and attempt to wrestle her knife away.
I’m not sure if it’s the element of surprise, or if I’m just stronger than the necromancer, but I rip the knife away, cutting her palm as a bonus.
Without thought or hesitation, I slice at her.
The knife cuts through something soft.
Beatrice screams, and her hands clasp her face.
The scalpel-like knife has cleaved open her cheek, and blood is gushing out of it.
Despite her screaming, she has enough sense to back away from me.
I come after her, readying for a stab.
Something—probably a corpse—grabs my shirt from the back, so I spin on my heel and slice at it.
The knife enters the mummified meat in the creature’s neck and cuts through the vertebrae. My attacker’s head falls to the ground.
This knife is sharp.
Unfortunately, two more corpses are running straight at me.
I pivot back toward Beatrice.
Knife throwing is something else I’ve always wanted to add to a future show, but I haven’t yet mastered this skill as much as I’d like—mostly for safety reasons.
Aiming fast, I hurl the butterfly knife at Beatrice’s back.
The formerly chess-playing cadaver jumps up and takes the knife for his mistress.
He then runs for Ariel’s pile.
The two cadavers from earlier grab me by the shoulders. I try to wriggle free, without much success.
Ariel’s pile finally erupts, leaving her in the middle with someone’s detached leg in her hands. Ariel then uses the leg as a club to clear a path toward Beatrice.
I jerk away from the corpses holding me, but they grab me again.
Ariel’s head is bleeding; one of the cadavers must’ve hit her with a blunt weapon. But she doesn’t seem to notice her wound, and as soon as she catches sight of Beatrice, she rushes toward her.
The dead—or more likely, Beatrice—don’t like that. A bunch of corpses desperately clutch at Ariel’s boots and clothing, but she keeps moving. If a corpse can’t get a grip on Ariel, they grab on to one of the corpses who’ve managed to get a grip on her. Soon, Ariel ends up dragging a literal dead weight behind her, like a morbid bridal train.
The blood trail she leaves behind worries me, so I again try to rip out of the arms that hold me, but only succeed in hurting my shoulders.
More dead attempt to stop Ariel from proceeding forward, but they only slow her down. Despite the trickle of blood, she looks so determined I doubt anything short of decapitation would stop her.
When Ariel is only a leap away fr
om Beatrice, the cadavers holding me decide they might be more useful at the battlefront. The restraining hands let me go, and I torpedo forward.
Ariel must’ve saved some strength all this time, because despite the corpses anchoring her, she leaps like an Olympic jumper and is instantly free of them.
Landing next to Beatrice, she strikes the necromancer in the chest.
Beatrice flies several feet and lands on her back with a satisfying smack.
I jump over several corpses as I rush to help Ariel.
Ariel leaps again. This time, she lands on Beatrice in some sort of wrestling maneuver. Grabbing the necromancer by her shoulders, Ariel lifts Beatrice’s body off the ground for a moment, then slams it back down.
I’m almost there when the corpses pile on top of Ariel once more, trying to pry her away from their mistress.
I grab the nearest cadaver by the leg and pull him off my friend, dragging him face down.
The cadaver’s head does an Exorcist-style one-eighty, and he yanks his leg so hard I’m left holding just his foot.
Hopping up onto his remaining good leg, he faces me. I throw the foot at him. He bitch-slaps me across the face, then clasps my head between his bony palms, as though to force me into a staring contest.
I try to jerk away, my hands grabbing at his wrists to pull them away, but my head is stuck in a literal death grip.
The cadaver’s thumbs reach for my eyes.
I squeeze them shut and desperately kick out, ramming my boot into a bony shin. It cracks with a dry crunch, but the thumbs are on my eyelids, pressing.
My stomach rolls, my heartbeat supersonic as I claw at the corpse’s hands. The pressure on my eyeballs is the most frightening thing I’ve ever felt.
In a few moments, I’ll be blind at best—but more likely dead.
There’s a thud and a crack from Ariel’s direction.
The pressure on my eyes disappears.
Through the white blotches in my vision, I see my attacker collapse where he stands.
Then I stare, dumbfounded, as the corpses begin to fall in a second death all around the exhibit.
The pile on top of Ariel stops their fidgeting.