Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3)

by Daryl Banner

  He gives me a once over, then nods.

  “You can come in. I’ll just change in the, uh … in the bedroom I never use.” I open my apartment door and let us in. He surveys the drabness and the nothingness of my horribly barren living space while I slip into the bedroom and peruse through my tiny closet for something nicer to wear. “I’m sorry,” I say through the door. “I never really took a lot of pride in the apartment, I’m afraid.”

  “Looks better than mine,” he calls back through the door, though I have to wonder if he’s lying to spare my feelings.

  I choose a sleek red dress. I hold it up to myself, give a survey of my form in the mirror. When I see a row of stitches at the belly of the dress, I freeze.

  How’d I not recognize this? I lay it on the bed, studying it long and pensively. “Hilda …” I whisper, the name of the woman who made it coming to me. She met her end long ago.

  And then I’m thinking of my own First Life because, well …

  There was a prom I once snuck off to, and …

  And another red dress with a hole torn in its middle … by none other than my own mom. She was also the one who mended it.

  “Winter?”

  I lift my chin. “Yes, I’ll be a minute, John.” I snatch the red dress, shove it back into the closet and pray it’s forgotten forever. Ann had explained to me a few days ago that my belongings from my rickety shack-I-called-a-house in Old Trenton were transferred to this apartment. I hadn’t expected everything to survive the test of time, let alone this now-more-than-twelve-years-old red dress.

  When I emerge from the bedroom, I’m standing in front of John in a short blue dress cut off above my knees, a black pair of boots, and a leather cuff on my left wrist where an exposed bit of bone used to be.

  After a moment of taking in the sight of me—which is more flattering than I can express—he suddenly asks: “Who gave you that?”

  I lift my hand. Yes, I’m wearing John’s steel ring. No, it no longer burns me. Whether I’ve lost my sensitivity to steel or the chemical makeup of the ring itself has changed after burning me for twelve years, I cannot say.

  But I lift my chin to John and reply: “Someone very, very special to me.”

  He stares at the ring again, this time with new eyes. I suspect he knows precisely who I’m referring to; he is not dumb. When his thoughtful eyes meet mine again, he lets on a smile and says, “Better get going. Sun’s due to rise in an hour.”

  We take a stroll down the street of the Necropolis, not a soul in sight. For some reason, with John, I don’t feel alone, even on empty streets. There may only be twenty-one of us left in the city, but I forget that useless fact. There could be just the two of us left in the whole world and I’d be just as happy … as long as John’s by my side.

  He takes my hand. I’m startled by it. “Is this okay?” he asks.

  I have to judge whether it’s old-John or new-John I’m thinking about when I answer: “Yes.”

  He starts to hum, which startles me worse than the hand-holding did. When he notices my quizzical look, he chuckles, interrupting his song to explain. “It’s something a fellow bartender was singing the other day. Got stuck in my head. You like music?”

  When I restarted as Winter in this new world, free from the consequences and troubles and pain of my First Life as Claire Westbrook, did I make radically different personality choices in this world? Did Claire let go of me? When given the opportunity, does a person who’s restarted their life decide suddenly to enjoy the sweetness of music when they were once brooding and hateful before? Is what I’m witnessing the potential of John which, previously locked up, is now unleashed?

  Claire was selfish. John was tortured. Maybe without his memories, the real John underneath was more … pleasant. Maybe without my memories, the real Winter learned to be more … selfless.

  Maybe this Second Life is a gift. “You were a much darker person,” I admit as we pass through an overgrown orchard. Little tendrils and branches lined with tiny white flowers hang low and tickle our hair as we pass under them. “You were almost menacing … touchy, sensitive, reclusive …”

  “I sound like a jerk,” John says flippantly, sounding like his old self in saying so. “I have a gut feeling I’m not going to enjoy my Waking Dream at all.”

  “I hope you’ll enjoy some of the memories that come with it.” I sigh, struggling to express the tangle of feelings that are lodging themselves in my throat.

  “We had feelings for one another?” he asks, searching.

  “Yes.”

  “We were … together?”

  “Yes.”

  He’s chewing on his lip, wrestling for his own thoughts. “But … But I was alive, and you were—”

  “As I am now, yes, Undead.”

  “And … I was okay with that?”

  “You weren’t at first. You were repulsed by me.”

  To be fair, I can’t really say for certain if he was. I worry I’m starting to project my own fears I felt long ago onto John now and confusing the truth. Memory is one thing; reality is entirely another.

  “I find that hard to believe,” he argues, smirking. “You are anything but repulsive. I mean … I mean this is really a fascinating thing, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be able to tell us apart from the Living if we were all lost together in a crowd. Do we smell?”

  I laugh at that random question. “Well, you never seemed to complain if I did.”

  “Did we love each other?”

  “We …” I suck on my tongue, thinking on a moment John and I shared in the barren woods during our journey from Trenton to Garden. “We … We did use that word, John.”

  He grips me right then, his big hands on my hips, and his eyes pour into mine. A single branch of those little white flowers rests on his shoulder like some knobby, decorated ponytail. Instinctively my hands clutch at his arms, feeling the firmness of his smooth, muscled forearms … the forearms of a smith, a metalworker.

  “Why wait for my memories?” he asks, his voice soft and inspired. “I wouldn’t dream of tormenting you any longer. Why can’t we just … pick up where we left off?” It’s a fair question, a question I could answer in both whys and why-nots. “I could love you,” he says.

  My mouth parts, astonished by his sudden fervor. I don’t know how to respond. How could he love me? He doesn’t know me. But even now, I still watch his every movement. I study his eyes. I listen to the subtle lift and fall of his voice. “I could love you.” I look for it. Just that one little sign, that one little thing that will answer once and for all my pesky little question: does he remember? I’m filled with as much excitement as I am fear, and the warring logics within render me stupidly immobile.

  “John, I—”

  I can’t get the words out because his lips pressing against mine interrupt them. He pulls me in tightly, his big strong hands unrelenting. He’s as strong as me, now. He’s no longer the wimpy, breakable Human. His grip is tireless and his mouth works to kiss mine with such force I literally worry he could break my face in half. That’d be quite a way to ruin the moment—but that doesn’t happen, and the two of us lock lips and explore one another under the shade of the flowery orchard. He lays my body down on a bed of fallen leaves and flower petals, like some cheesy romance; the only thing missing is the pale light of a lover’s moon in the night sky that I wouldn’t be able to see anyway.

  He only pulls from my lips long enough for me to say: “You’ve changed.” To that, he smiles devilishly and returns to making a game of our mouths.

  If only we had hearts to race, the world might think there were earthquakes in this pretty orchard.

  C H A P T E R – E I G H T

  T H E S C O U R G E

  It’s the same feeling I had when Living John and I experienced our first “kiss of passion”, you might call it. I’m on my first shift watching the streets of New Trent—sorry, still can’t say it—of the Necropolis, and I can’t stop thinking about our hours in the orchard. The m
oon wasn’t yet visible, even to John, likely blocked by a building—or too far set, or not yet risen—but everything else was. When we finished, he held me in his arms and described what the night sky looked like, each and every cluster of stars within reach of his magic eyes.

  There are so many things I can’t explain about this world, let alone why the whole of Undeadkind cannot see the sun or the sky, and my John is the sole exception. If only his “sole exception” could be forgetting his First Life instead; then he would’ve Risen from the Whispers knowing exactly who I was.

  But which was the better? With this new, innocent John, I’m learning so much more about him than I ever knew—assuming this new “side” of him is part of him at all. The depth of a person is unknowable; the further you plunge in, the further you find you can go, and the more you find, the more there is to find.

  I’m learning that to be quite true with everyone.

  “Your mother is a lot like you,” Robin tells me when I visit the hospital a day or two later, just to say hi.

  “It’s nice that everyone got to know her so well and I didn’t even get the chance,” I remark, trying my best and failing miserably to hide my bitter tone of voice.

  “You’ll see her again.” Robin winks. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh, I met your husband Leo, by the way. We’re both guardsmen.” Robin lifts her eyebrows in surprise. “But, um … I didn’t quite disclose my true identity. He thinks I’m a Living woman named Winona. Hope that’s okay.”

  Robin stifles a laugh, slapping a hand to her face. “Oh, my poor Leo,” she says, removing her hand. “He’s a bit dense. I hope our kids take more after me, though I fear Jay’s a bit of a like-father-like-son case, so …” She laughs again. I find myself drawn into her laughter, too.

  Then there’s a shout from down the hall, slaying our peace in an instant. Robin and I share a worried glance, then hurry toward the noise.

  From the end of the hall, a young man cries for help, his voice a squeal. As we approach, we find him dragging a shirtless, seemingly unconscious boy bleeding profusely from the shoulder, blood smeared down his back.

  “He was bitten!!” screeches the young man, tears in his eyes. “My little brother was bitten!!”

  “Come, come,” Robin urges him, rushing to aid in the carrying of the hollering man’s brother. “We need to bandage him up and … I’m sorry, you said he was bitten?”

  “NO!” screams the man, and for a moment I think he’s answering Robin’s question until I notice the finger pointing in my direction. “I don’t want that coming anywhere near my little brother!”

  That? Am I the “that”?

  “She’s … She’s fine, Dan,” Robin assures the Human. “This is Winter, the one you grew up hearing all about. She’s—”

  “I KNOW who she is and I don’t CARE!” the panicked one named Dan shouts. “He was bitten by one of THEM!” His voices screeches and breaks with his volume.

  I back away; there’s no need for my presence here to make things worse. “No worries, Robin,” I say quickly in a voice as calm as I can manage. “I’ll stay away. Far away. I’ll get Doctor Col—” Oh, Collin is also one of us.

  “My brother Rake,” she urges me, picking up on my unvoiced concern. “Go to the main waiting room. The clerk there can summon him. Hurry, Winter.” With the panicked Dan glaring at me, Robin struggles to help carry his bleeding brother into the nearest room.

  With no time for hurt feelings or sensitivity, I turn on my heels to fetch Rake. I don’t look back.

  Soon enough, both the twins are in the boy’s room making work of Dan’s younger brother. I’m standing outside the room like a creepy ghost, naturally. Was he really bitten? And if so, who the hell bit him? I’m troubling over these thoughts when I hear Dan softly tell Rake, “I don’t want her here. Tell her to go away.” Of course, Rake turns his twelve-years-older eyes to me, dark and shy and uncertain, and I just nod, not needing further instruction. I dismiss my unwanted self from their sight.

  Sitting on the curb outside the hospital, I’m left to worry on what’s happened for a long while, imagining the worst. My eyes glaze over and soon I’m staring at nothing, not even the cracks in the pavement before me.

  An eternity later, a hand softly touches my shoulder. I turn to find Rake’s tired, shy face. He shakes his head.

  “Dead??” I blurt, unable to believe it. “From a bite?”

  He drops onto the curb next to me with a whispery sigh. “He was bitten all over. People bites. Dan claimed it was …” Rake shakes his head, licks his lips. “He said his brother was being fed on by … by one of your kind.”

  One of my kind.

  I snort, rising off the pavement, furious in an instant. “Let’s get one thing straight,” I say, feeling imaginary blood rushing to my cheeks. “Our kind do not eat people. If someone who is Undead is eating people in this city, they are a different kind. Crypters, Abominations, Deathless … These are terms you ought to know!”

  “Sorry.” Rake sighs, rubs his face. “I should have said it differently. I haven’t slept in days, sorry.”

  It takes me a long moment to calm myself. I know I’m yelling at the wrong person. This isn’t Rake’s fault. Trouble is, I don’t know whose fault it is.

  It’s the Deathless epidemic all over again. The hunger for Human blood. Is our long-guarded secret out?

  I feel sick.

  “This isn’t good,” says Rake simply. “We have to report this to the Mayor. A child’s been murdered. Our safety is … is compromised.” Rake shakes his head.

  I bring myself back to the curb, sitting next to him. “Is your sister alright?”

  “Yeah. No. Yeah.” He wrings his hands, frustrated. “I’m sorry, Winter. I can’t.” He gets up abruptly, quite finished with our moment, I guess, and retreats into the hospital. I’m not sure what it is that he can’t, but I’m left alone regardless with only my worries for company.

  I should probably tell Megan myself. If one of “my kind” have turned to feeding on Humans, I want to know who it is. You know, so I can personally turn them to ash.

  “I’m here to see the Mayor,” I tell the two men at the front desk. “It’s urgent.”

  A radio is picked up and a word or two is shared. Then the man nods and directs me up the stairs. Twelve long flights of steps later, I’m let into the Mayor’s office.

  “Winter,” says Megan for a greeting, seated at her long, cluttered desk. “Come in. Have a seat. You said your business is urgent?”

  “Quite. And I’ll stand.”

  The door shuts behind me. I come to Megan’s desk and keep my eyes on her. I want her to keep her head about her. Somehow, after the years of hardening that this position has clearly given her, I doubt I should be concerned at all. Regardless, I still see this woman before me as the little ten-year-old I once sheltered and cared deeply for … like a daughter or a little sister.

  “Well, go ahead,” urges Megan, her voice low and steady. “Say whatever it is you’ve got.”

  “We’ve just had a death at the hospital,” I begin. “It was a boy. He was … allegedly bitten by an Undead. He was bitten many times. ‘People bites’ they called them. I assume he bled to death, I’m not sure.”

  Megan’s face remains blank as paper. A long moment passes. She simply inhales, then exhales.

  I frown. I guess I could go on with my own thoughts and give her time to form her own. “So … you and I can safely presume why an Undead might bite a Living, but we’re left to wonder who. And also … how the Undead learned what effect blood has on us …”

  Megan still listens with the coolness of an undisturbed pool of water. Not a single emotion, positive or negative, seems to cross her face; she’s simply listening with pure neutrality in her eyes—the Living and the dull blue one.

  “Do you … Do you think we have Deathless among us?” I ask, not caring for the question at all. “We need to find out who did it. We need to find them and stop them. I’l
l put a sword through their belly myself.”

  “Very well,” she says simply.

  I lift my eyebrows, confused.

  “Very well,” she repeats, rising from her chair. “That was the way of Old Trenton, if I was told it right. The Judge would perform a simple test to determine if a citizen was Deathless; that is, if he or she drank of Human blood or ate a person’s Living flesh. It was a steel sword, I believe?” Megan smiles gently. “We’ll gather the Undead of New Trenton and we will put a steel sword through each. The guilty shall be outed.”

  The idea makes me nervous. I want to know who it is that bit and killed the child, of course, but what if I don’t like the answer? Benjamin had quite suddenly developed a sensitivity to steel, but insisted he was no Deathless. I wonder if he even knew what a Deathless was. Surely he knew … Surely …

  “Let us do it now and let us do it publically,” she decides, her blue eye flashing with conviction. “We need an answer, and the people deserve it directly.”

  I don’t like this at all. I don’t like the sound of it. I don’t like what it means. I don’t like the statement it makes, but all I do is answer: “Yes, they do.”

  A public “meeting” we will have.

  In the course of one painstaking hour, all the Undead are summoned to the main courtyard of the Necropolis, just outside the Mayor’s Cyclops tower—which I’ve aptly named so. Three Undead had to be called away from their jobs, others from the comfort of their homes in the Neighborhood. Word spread quickly, and many Humans were drawn to the scandal, whether by curiosity or by mere dark suspicion. The air is thick with mistrust and unanswered questions riddle the faces of all.

  “We are here today to make a display of trust between Livingkind and Undeadkind. As you well know, I do not hold secrets with my people and I will continue to uphold that reputation. That is why we will conduct this display of trust publically.” She nods at an armored man, who produces a steel blade from his sheath. “We will perform the Judge’s Test on each of our Undead to prove, simply, that we are—none of us—a member of the Deathless faction. I see this as a way, publically, for our Humans to rebuild trust with our Undead companions, as you pay witness to each and every one of them as their innocence in Deathless activity is, right before your eyes, proven.”