Who is Audrey Wickersham?

by Sara Shrieves

  “So, tell me,” she began, almost timidly. “What are your symptoms?”

  “Well, when I left you yesterday I was a little more…clumsy than usual.” I looked over at my dad and he gave me a small nod of encouragement, so I continued talking. “Also, I started puking everywhere when I got home, which wasn’t too long after I left.” I looked at Agnes as I said this last bit, and she seemed very solid, like she was steeling herself up for something really bad. That made me nervous.

  “Go on, Audrey,” Agnes said. “What happened after you…puked?”

  “Umm…I guess my dad put me to bed, and then…” I sort of hesitated at this point, and darted my eyes quickly over to my dad and then back to Agnes. I thought about Kirk coming into my room and if my dad knew about it or not. But of course he didn’t, right? I mean, wouldn’t he have said something by now? Like, “Hey Audrey, why was your sexy friend Kirk hovering over your bed in the middle of the night?” Of course he would leave out the sexy part. That was just in my head. He was just a friend, but he was easy on the eyes. I sighed inwardly.

  Okay, wait a minute. What in the heck was wrong with me? I blinked a few times and looked over at my dad and Agnes. They were looking back at me patiently.

  “Audrey?” My dad said, noticing my change of expression.

  “Right! So basically…Dad put me in my bed, then I fell asleep--all night--and when I woke up it was like I’d been dropped into the mind of Tom Cullen or something, you know? M-O-O-N, and whatnot.”

  Agnes stared at me blankly for a moment and said, “Tom Who?”

  “Oh! Sorry. You know, The Stand?” She kept staring at me so I prompted her again with, “Stephen King?”

  “Noo?” Agnes replied slowly, looking confused.

  “Maybe no more book references Aud.” He turned to Agnes and said, “Let’s just say she wasn’t in full function of her mental faculties.”

  “Ahh, okay.” Agnes smiled briefly and shifted in her chair. “So what happened exactly?”

  “Well I basically forgot certain words in my vocabulary. Not anything that really made sense to forget, but just stupid words. It was frustrating. That didn’t last too long though.” I shrugged my shoulders and started messing with my bandage.

  “So, was that everything then? Or did anything else happen?” Agnes looked at us both, back and forth.

  My dad looked over at me playing with my bandage and I could tell he was waiting for me to talk about the whole “cat” thing. I didn’t really want to though. I was getting angry all over again and I just wanted to stay quiet now. I glanced up at him, hoping he could somehow understand all of this telepathically.

  He sighed, and then said, “Audrey forgot her cat, Phantom.”

  “Our cat,” I mumbled.

  “Forgot him momentarily, or completely?” Agnes asked.

  “So far it seems that she’s forgotten him completely. And it’s not even that she forgot that we had a cat. She forgot what a cat is. She woke up terrified because he was in the bed with her. I had to explain what he was, and what he was to her. That was hard to deal with.” He looked over at me, concerned.

  Agnes looked completely upset. That was not comforting. I mean, couldn’t she try to at least hide the fact that she was scared and seemed to have no clue what was going on?

  “I don’t know what to do,” Agnes said quietly.

  Okay, I guess she couldn’t.

  “What?” I said, shocked. “What are you talking about?” I leaned forward and stared at her, unbelievingly.

  “I never should have had possession of the Zomorwai.”

  “What are the Zomorwai?” My dad asked.

  Agnes sat quietly now, looking off into space.

  “Well! Tell him!” I couldn’t believe this. Wasn’t she supposed to be like this wise old Gypsy lady? Or a wise old witch or whatever the hell she was? Damn it!

  “Audrey calm down. I’m sure she’ll tell me.” He gave Agnes a penetrating stare after this remark and she didn’t even seem to notice. She was lost in her own thoughts for the moment.

  The silence began to draw out uncomfortably and Agnes just sat there and said nothing, looking all worried and confused. My dad kept shifting around in his chair. I think it was too small for him and he was also worried he would break it. That always seemed to run through his mind nowadays, ever since this one vacation we had taken years ago. He had been tagging along with me so he could relax outside and read, I wanted to swim, and he sort of eyeballed all of the poolside chairs and had decided on a lounge one. He lowered his large frame onto the chair and let himself ease into it, and after only a minute or so there was a huge “crack!” that reached me at the other end of the pool and I looked around to see him with his legs up in the air and his ass on the ground, and the chair was broken in two. He looked so surprised; I started laughing before I could even ask if he was okay. Now he had a mantra before he sat in any sort of (what he deemed) precarious chair of, “Don’t break, don’t break, don’t break.” He would say this quietly to himself every time.

  “Alright so, can you tell us anything?” I asked, trying to be patient.

  Agnes looked at me and then down at my hand and got up quickly and said, “Wait here.”

  My dad watched her as she walked away and said to me, “This is ridiculous Audrey. That woman has no idea what’s going on with you. And if we do go to a normal doctor now, what do you think is going to happen? They’re going to lock you up in quarantine or something. She had better know someone who does know what’s happening with you. If this is just the first day, and your hand looks like that…” He shook his head and stared off in the direction that Agnes had gone.

  “I’m already freaking out enough, with her looking totally scared when she’s supposed to know everything. Or at least I thought she was supposed to, that’s why I dragged us back here to her. I don’t want you angry at me too. I’m really sorry. I just- I was trying to do a spell, you know? Messing around.” I looked down at my lap realizing how stupid I must sound.

  “Let’s just talk about that later. All I care about right now is getting you fixed. I’m not mad. I will be if you keep making me repeat myself though.” He patted me on the shoulder and then leaned back into the chair, seeming to forget his worry about its slight instability.

  I heard Agnes coming back from the front room, because she was speaking to herself. I looked up and saw that she was holding a large book in her arms, open, and she was reading something out loud.

  “Okay, here is something…” She came and sat behind her desk and set the book down in front of her. “I just want to explain myself a little bit. I know I have been vague-”

  “Yeah,” I cut her off with a sharp laugh, “vague wasn’t the word I would have chosen, but go on.”

  My dad glanced at me disapprovingly and I looked back at Agnes and smiled somewhat apologetically. “Sorry. I’m just stressed out.”

  “Well, I know I have not told you everything you need to know, in regards to my own knowledge, or actually my lack of knowledge, on this particular subject.” She sighed heavily and looked at us both, seeming to plead with us to understand what she was saying before she had even begun to explain anything. “I don’t know a lot about the Zomorwai, as I have already said, and that is my fault. But I am knowledgeable in other areas that matter, such as spell-casting and healing. Those may come in handy, down the line. When it comes to your affliction I mean, Audrey.

  “My affliction? That’s what you’re calling it? So, what exactly are you saying? I’m just getting more vagueness out of all of this.” I looked over at my dad.

  “I agree,” he said. “Can you give us anything else about why Audrey now has this affliction, as you call it, and how we all ended up in this situation? I would be grateful for anything you could tell me.” He said this last bit through clenched teeth, so it seemed to contradict his last sentence. He was getting more and more angry. That was not good.

  “Of course!” She said, surprised. “I hav
e a lot to tell you. I am doing something that is forbidden, just by discussing this with you, or with anyone, for that matter. Actually, even I myself am not supposed to have any knowledge of the Zomorwai.” She turned and grabbed the book she had brought in with her and placed it on her lap, open to a certain page. “This is how I first stumbled across the little knowledge I have about this curse. That’s what it is, unfortunately. I do a lot of research for other covens, powerful witches all over the world who don’t have the same resources and live in remote areas.

  “One day I was asked to research curses--anything and everything about them. A fellow witch wanted to write a lesson plan for a class she was going to be teaching on curses and how to defeat them. I have collected several books over the years on many things, and there are also several places here in the Los Angeles area to find them. So I began hunting things down for her. And I came across this.”

  She looked down at the book and then up at me. “I never thought anything could come of something in one of these books, just by doing a little bit of research for someone else.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point of those books? To get something out of them?” I asked.

  “No, dear, I mean something that would affect me, just by reading them for someone else. One evening a boy walked into the shop, saying he had a book for me. This book.” She brushed her hand across the open pages. “And he said he was delivering it to me from a fellow witch. And that was all he would tell me. He placed it on the table out there and then left and I never caught his name. But once I began reading this book I couldn’t stop. It had spells and even stories in it that I had never heard of. And I have read volumes upon volumes on curses and magical ailments.

  “This one though, will help you out with a little bit of information, I should think.” She passed the book over to me and pointed to a part for me to begin reading:

  A time and place in our earth’s past

  A violent illness came to pass

  Sickly creatures they dove in deep

  Desiring only our flesh to eat

  The human condition gone overnight

  All to behold a grisly sight

  Mutant creatures of the walking dead

  Devour you whole and rip off your head

  A power so great in one so small

  A single bite can transform us all

  Gruesome resurrection in the blink of an eye

  Know you have come upon the Zomorwai

  “Are you trying to tell me my daughter is becoming a zombie?” My dad said from behind me. I jumped a little at this and almost dropped the book.

  “Geez Dad. Freak me out enough.”

  “Sorry Audrey.” He kept his eyes on Agnes and said, “Well? Is that what this is saying? I’m pretty sure it is, but I would like to hear you say it.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s exactly what the book is saying. But- Please!” Agnes began to stand up as my dad grabbed the book out of my hands and threw it across the room.

  “Tell us what we can do to stop it. And why she hasn’t fully changed already. And sit back down NOW.” My dad yelled this last part at her as she began to scramble awkwardly over in the direction of where the book had landed. She went and sat back down pretty quickly though after he raised his voice.

  I had remained firmly planted in my chair, looking straight ahead. I was turning into a zombie?? Oh my gosh, that explained the green hand. Oh, yuck. Would this mean I would start getting the urge to eat people soon? Would I even be able to think about anything else? Or would I be able to think at all? So that explained this morning. So this would just keep getting worse. Shit.

  “I will tell you everything I can,” Agnes said, interrupting my thoughts, “but I need that book. And you just threw it like that!” She looked over in the direction of the book again and then darted a quick angry glare at my dad.

  “Fine. Grab it then.” He sat back down and put his head in his hands.

  I remained silent, lost in my own thoughts for the moment. A freaking zombie?! Talk about a reputation killer. I was already the weirdo girl at my school. This definitely didn’t help things. Well, wait, did that even matter anymore? No more school! Oh, but, no more rational thoughts either, after who knew how long. Shit.

  “Why haven’t I turned yet?” I asked.

  Agnes had grabbed the book from where it had landed and sat back down in her chair. “I am thinking it’s because I got you into the shower right after you were attacked.”

  “She was attacked?!” My dad began rising from his chair again and his face had begun to take on a bright red shade. “No one said anything about her being attacked. Audrey, explain this to me please.” He turned to me and I kind of sputtered out a few words, all incoherent for the most part. I looked at Agnes pleadingly, hoping she could sort of fill him in on that part.

  “I want to finish explaining how I came to be in possession of the Zomorwai, and I will come to the present, which will bring us to Audrey’s attack.” She looked up at him patiently. “Can you sit back down?” He was hovering over her and I could tell his head was on the verge of exploding, or something. After a few seconds he backed up and then lowered himself onto his chair again.

  “Okay,” she began. “After I received the book I became completely fascinated with that poem, and that particular curse. I began looking around and finding out any information I could. But no one else knew about it. I wasn’t too surprised, since I had acquired the book so mysteriously, and I couldn’t track down the witch who had had it delivered to me.

  “I gave up, after a while. And I began to think of the curses in this book as legends. The witch I was doing the research for had never heard of them either.”

  “What about a publisher, or an author? There isn’t anything on the book itself?” I asked her. I realized I hadn’t even paid attention to that when she had brought it in here. But she had already had it open and then laid it that way on her lap.

  “No, I’m afraid not. It’s what witches would call a Book of Shadows. Somebody wrote this entire book out on their own. It’s much harder to track the originator of something like that down than a national best seller.”

  “So how did you get the Zomorwai?” My dad asked.

  “Eventually I realized that some of the writing in here is Romanian, as well as Romani, which is obviously the language of the coven that this individual is a part of. So I knew then that my only solution was to go to the source.”

  I stared at her blankly. I didn’t know what a cat was anymore, and she expected me to remember world geography at the moment?

  “Romania, Audrey. I told you before, that’s where the Zomorwai originated from. However it is not where the Gypsies originated from.” She said this last part a little too loudly, as if she were continuing an argument with someone else.

  “Okay,” I said, blinking. “But that was before I had these things munching on my brain, or whatever.” I rolled my eyes at her.

  Agnes continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “When I arrived it didn’t take me long to locate the coven, with the help of a friend. When I showed them the Book of Shadows, I thought they were going to take it away from me. Instead, it seemed to bring them fear, and they wanted me to leave. I couldn’t get any information out of them, except that the individual who wrote this was in fact a Gypsy, as well as a witch, hence the Romani writing throughout the book. My friend told me things that he knew, and explained that the book was obviously passed to me for a reason; otherwise I wouldn’t have ended up with it. He explained that there was a council that I would need to meet with if I wanted more information than I would get from the coven. The Council would know about the book and also specifically the Zomorwai. They were apparently the caretakers of that knowledge.

  “I went to them, as he said to do, and they would not tell me anything. The entire journey was fruitless. They said I was not on The Council, or even a member of anyone’s coven, so I did not deserve the knowledge. The only thing I managed to do was steal one sma
ll portion of a specimen of the Zomorwai. I did not know exactly what they were at the time, or the danger they contained. The poem in the book had not convinced me fully. The specimen was at my friend’s house, and he said he had been entrusted with it so that he could perform the necessary research on controlling and containing the curse. I felt awful for what I had done, and he never knew, as far as I could tell. I kept it here, at my shop. Up on that shelf out front, in plain sight, since it looked like many of my other potions and no one ever comes back here but me. I see now though that I was being naïve, just letting it sit there, thinking nothing could ever happen. I was quite young at the time, and then over the years I became overly confident.” She looked up and saw our faces, to see that my dad looked stunned and I just looked completely confused.

  “So where does the attack come into play?” My dad asked.

  “Oh, of course. Audrey had come in yesterday looking for a spell. I spotted her in the other part of the shop and she stood out to me. I wanted to help her by making a custom spell for her and I brought her over here. She went over to the jar that contained the Zomorwai, almost as if she were being called by it. They had her attention from the moment she walked in there. I saw her and shouted out to her. I guess I scared her. I didn’t mean to.” She looked at me apologetically. “When she turned to me she knocked the jar on herself and it broke and its contents poured out over her. She was virtually attacked by the Zomorwai at that moment. I did what I thought was right. But it obviously didn’t help enough.”

  “No, it certainly didn’t. And she basically told me that already, but I didn’t think of it as an attack. So either way she’s turning into a zombie.” He said this as a statement but she still nodded her head yes in reply. “So there are those--things--inside of her right now, eating away?”

  “Yes. I believe they are moving more slowly than they normally would because I got her into the shower so quickly. But most likely they are in her head and apparently her hand at the moment. Normally it is a complete siege of the body and the change occurs all at one time. Her process is being extended.”