Who is Audrey Wickersham?

by Sara Shrieves

  “You merely exist. You are not happy, because you can not be who you truly are.”

  “And who am I? Truly?” I rolled my eyes.

  “You are a monster.”

  Well…that was just rude. I opened my mouth to speak again, trying to come up with a response that would get him rambling, when I was suddenly grabbed from behind, and dragged out to face Andrei. He was smiling at me as I tried to struggle out of my captor’s apparent iron grip. I kept trying to turn my head to see who it was, but they seemed to dodge me each time.

  “Okay, who is this?” I said, exasperated. At this point they had lifted me completely off of the ground, and I could not escape them, or even kick or headbutt them. When I tried they just held me out, away from their body.

  “That is a friend,” Andrei said, smiling.

  “Not a friend of mine, apparently.”

  “Aren’t they? You aren’t dead, are you?”

  I laughed, maybe a little arrogantly, considering my situation, and said, “Yeah, that’s not likely.”

  “You don’t know who’s holding you,” Andrei said, seeming angry now.

  “Then tell me!” I tried turning to look at them again, but they did the same thing as before. “You see!” I said, finally giving up, folding my arms across my chest as best as I could. “Ridiculous,” I muttered.

  “Release her,” Andrei said coolly.

  Finally I was dropped, but I landed swiftly on my feet and spun around, ready to launch into a fight with whoever this jerk was. My mouth fell open stupidly when I saw Star, the idiot store clerk from Magick Eye that I had attacked only a few days ago.

  Her face was still mauled from where I had bitten it open. She (or someone) had tried to stitch it up, but it hadn’t turned out too well. It looked totally infected. But that could have had something to do with her overall green pallor. It seemed that Star was now a full-blown zombie. Her eyes had a vacant look to them and she had her head angled absently to the side, as if her mind were elsewhere…or just gone entirely. And she had this slack-jawed look to her that just screamed zombie. So this is what I would have become. Wow. I didn’t know if I felt relieved or maybe a little envious. At least if I were a mindless drone I wouldn’t have to worry so much anymore, or deal with consequences or other people’s feelings. I’d basically be like the rest of my sophomore class. I smiled a little at my own joke.

  “Do you find her amusing?” Andrei asked, annoyed.

  “What? No. Why would I?”

  “You seem to find something about this situation amusing.”

  I think he had actually expected me to be scared. “I basically created her. Did you think I would be intimidated or something?”

  “There is more to her now than you think.” He scowled at me and then shouted at Star, “Attack her!”

  I turned towards Star again, waiting to see what was going to come of this. She just stood there though, with her head still tilted off to the side, looking even more stupid than she had when she was alive, if that was possible.

  “What am I waiting for, exactly?” I took a step towards her and then suddenly she was flying towards me--just as fast as Kirk and I--with her fists flailing around everywhere, making contact with my head and my chest. She knocked me over and pinned me down, and bent forward and bit into my cheek, hard. She swung her head back and forth like a dog, trying to rip my cheek right off. Her only advantage had been my initial shock at her reaction. That’s what I kept telling myself, at least. But I wasn’t able to push her away from me, and I could feel my cheek coming completely loose now. I knew I could heal, but I didn’t know about regenerating flesh. I managed to get one of my arms free from her grip and I grabbed her jaw and began trying to push her face away, but she just shook it off and pinned me down harder.

  “Shit!” I yelled out, muffled by her attack. I gave her one last, hard (pointless) push, and was suddenly amazed when I felt her lifting off of me.

  “Ha!” I yelled, beginning to jump up, only to be immediately knocked back down, this time by a third person that I hadn’t seen yet. He had tricked me, making me think I had thrown Star when really it was him.

  “Audrey, this is Lincoln,” Andrei said cheerfully.

  “Who in the hell is Lincoln?” I asked, exhausted now.

  “You don’t remember him?”

  I gave the creep a really good look, as he grinned like a moron up at Andrei, pinning me completely to the ground. Star hovered nearby still. Suddenly he looked down and made eye contact with me, and he scowled. And then I remembered exactly who he was.

  “You’re that damn D&D nerd! From Magick Eye! Wow. Of all the luck, I get attacked by the guy who uses the most cliché movie lines ever.”

  “That’s an odd way to measure a person’s character, Audrey. I think I would be more worried about being killed at this moment.”

  “Well, do I have another option?”

  “Of course you do. You can come with me…with all of us.”

  “And be like Star and Mr. Moviefone here? Gross. I’d rather be eaten. Why did you choose to make him one of your minions anyway? He’s so lame.”

  Lincoln snarled at me and then leaned forward and bit my neck. I screamed at him, and tried to get my arms loose. I shifted underneath him, but couldn’t get out from under him no matter what I tried. How was he so much stronger than me?

  “Damn it, stop biting me!” I yelled.

  “Let her up, Lincoln.”

  He obliged, and slowly released me. I quickly moved away from him, but before we were too far apart I swung at him and knocked him back onto Star.

  “That’s for biting me.” I felt where he had bitten me and then looked at my hand. It was a greenish color. Huh…so I still didn’t have normal blood. I felt my cheek and it was loose and flopping down below my jaw.

  “This had better heal,” I growled at Star.

  The two of them walked towards me, standing next to each other. I took a step towards them, raising my arms to defend myself again, hoping they would think I was trying to fight with them, and once they began circling me, I turned and sprinted quickly over to Andrei, ready to plant my teeth in his neck and jump over the edge of the cliff with him. I knew I would most likely heal, whereas he wouldn’t be so lucky. Not with that fall.

  Before I could accomplish this plan, however, I was stopped mid-jump and lowered back down to the ground, slowly. Andrei had been waiting for me to make my move. I couldn’t even let out an expletive to express my fury. Defeated by two idiot zombies and a man-witch? How embarrassing.

  He turned me around and had me face Star and Lincoln. “How does a good beheading sound?” He asked, breathing heavily into my ear. He looked back over at Star and Lincoln and said, “I don’t think she’s worth the trouble of keeping around. Do you two?” They both stood there, staring blankly at me, ready to do as he commanded.

  “I do Andrei!”

  There was a sudden blast, causing me to shut my eyes and lower myself down to the ground after a moment. The hold Andrei had had on me was suddenly gone. After a few seconds I felt something splat onto my shoulder. I opened my eyes slowly to see myself being stared at by one of Andrei’s piercing green eyes.

  I brushed it off quickly in disgust and then stood up slowly, looking around to see who had apparently blown up Andrei.

  “Besnik?” I gaped at him in shock.

  He was facing Star and Lincoln, seeming unsure of what to do to them. They stood facing him as well, still looking slack-jawed and blank.

  “What am I supposed to do with them? Are they dangerous?” He asked, ignoring my shocked reaction.

  “Well they did just try to kill me.”

  He opened his mouth to shout out a spell at them, when suddenly Star seemed to snap out of her zombie trance and screamed, “Wait!”

  Besnik stopped mid-shout, and looked at Star dubiously.

  “She’s speaking,” Besnik said. “Should she be speaking?”

  “Of course I should be speaking!” She
looked at me in a panic. “Audrey, please. We only attacked you because Andrei was controlling us. We were under some weird spell of his. I don’t know how it works. Just…please.” She turned back to Besnik again. “Don’t do that to us,” she said, pointing to a small pile that I figured could only be Andrei’s intestines.

  “So wait,” I began, “You two are zombies, correct?”

  “Yes, we are. But they did something to us! I don’t know what.” She wrinkled her forehead in distress and turned to Lincoln. “Please Link; you have to snap out of it!” She started shaking him violently, and his head flopped back and forth, making him look like a rag doll. She stopped after a moment, when he didn’t respond and said, “He’s the one who knows everything. He’s smart.”

  “And what about you?” I asked.

  “Well, before this, I was a numerologist for the shop.” She smiled wistfully.

  “Well that explains it then,” I mumbled. “Besnik, just get rid of them. I don’t think Lincoln will come around in time and who really needs another numerologist anyway?”

  “Have you ever even been to Magick Eye?” She sneered at me, making her face look really grotesque. It had seriously deteriorated where I had bitten her, and a bunch of green ooze seeped out (along with a few maggots) and dribbled down her cheek onto her neck as she scrunched up her face at me. She didn’t seem to notice though. Along with the overall greenish tint to their skin tone, it seemed to be dried out as well, especially around any wounded areas, as if it were waiting to crack open and fester at a simple touch.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t do that,” I said, indicating her face.

  “Do what?”

  “Just stop looking so angry.”

  “Well you’re insulting me!”

  “You seemed a lot more…relaxed…the last time we met. What happened to you?”

  She glanced over at Lincoln, seeming distressed, and then put her head in her hands and moaned miserably. “I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve been able to actually think at all for like…a while. I don’t really remember much since you came into the shop last.”

  “Well…what is ‘much’”?

  “You came in…” She scrunched up her face again and produced more ooze. I turned away in disgust and looked over at Besnik. He was watching her with rapt attention.

  “Think, girl.”

  “Her name is Star.”

  He glared at me and turned back to Star. “Think about what happened after you saw Audrey.”

  We stared at her for a few minutes while she tried to think, or actually Besnik did--I couldn’t--until we were all interrupted by Lincoln suddenly charging forward towards me, shouting out barbarically, and flailing his arms around.

  I stepped aside quickly, too fast for him to realize what had happened, by the surprised expression on his face and his sudden halt, and then I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back over to Star. Apparently they were neither stronger, nor faster than me anymore. At least Lincoln wasn’t, anyway. He seemed to be clumsy now, and slow. The way most zombies were depicted in movies and books.

  He looked around a little, confused, until he finally saw his friend and he smiled and shouted out, “Star!”

  Obviously their temperament was a little different than what would be considered normal for zombies.

  Besnik was watching them as if he were looking at slides through a microscope. “Besnik,” I said, coming up next to him. He jerked a little in surprise and turned to give me a quick, slightly annoyed glance, and then looked back at Star and Lincoln as they were talking to each other. “So what should we do?”

  “What should we do with what?” He asked.

  “With freaking Gomez and Morticia over there. We can’t just leave them.”

  “No… No of course we can’t!” He looked at me now, finally, giving me his full attention. “We need to find out how all of this is happening. How they have become this way. We need to experiment!” His eyes filled with a manic glee.

  “Okaaay… Let’s just get out of here first.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, walking over to Star and Lincoln.

  “Oh and thanks for rescuing me!” I called after him.

  He waved me off dismissively as he began leading the two zombies in what I assumed was the direction of my house.

  Chapter 14

  My dad hammered the last nail into the temporary cover for our large picture window in our living room.

  “That should hold until the new window gets delivered,” he said, tossing the hammer back into his toolbox.

  I closed it back up and then brought it back out into the garage where he always kept it. As I came back inside he looked at me briefly and then shook his head, smiling. “I’m still getting used to that, you know. Even after…everything. You used to have the upper body strength of a kitten.”

  “Hey!” I said, resentful. “I wasn’t that bad.”

  He gave me a doubtful glance and said, “Right. Well, anyway. We should go check on Bruce. See how he’s holding up and everything.”

  “Okay let me just go grab something!” I ran to the kitchen and snuck a pre-made thermos into my bag.

  We arrived at the hospital with flowers and chocolate, much to my dad’s displeasure. He grumbled the entire way up the elevator about spending too much money. Once we got to Bruce’s room, however, and my dad saw his face light up at the bouquet of Stargazers and the box of See’s candies, he of course took all of the credit, placing them proudly on his bedside table.

  “Oh you guys,” Bruce said, holding his hands up to his chest happily, “you definitely should have!”

  We both laughed, and I went to sit beside him on his bed, and leaned over to hug him, trying to be gentle. I stealthily slipped the thermos I had brought under his pillow, for him to drink later. He gave me a subtle wink as I sat up straight.

  “So how are you feeling?” My dad asked.

  “Oh, you know sweetie. I’m healing. I’m like a little gay Energizer Bunny. Ooh, and he’s pink, too!”

  My dad rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, I think he’s healing just fine.”

  “You look like you healed up pretty well yourself, doll face.” Bruce touched my cheek and then turned my face to the side and looked at my neck, where Lincoln had bitten me as well.

  “I was afraid I was going to look like the Crypt Keeper, after they had finished with me.”

  “Well you’re totally pretty enough to pull that look off, you know. Gaping hole in the face, missing teeth, crumbling skin.” He tapped me on the nose.

  I smiled at him and then got up from the bed and went over to my dad.

  “So where are you two off to today?”

  “We have to go see Besnik and Agnes. They’ve been working with Lincoln and Star. Seeing what makes them different, and how they can still function mentally.”

  “Oh, goodie.”

  “Okay, everyone OUT!” A booming voice echoed throughout the room, making me jump. I turned, expecting to see a giant woman coming towards us, but instead it was a young, petite blonde woman. She was pretty, with a stern face. She had sharp gray eyes, which landed immediately on Bruce’s chocolates. “Contraband?”

  “Aww, come on!” Bruce began to scramble awkwardly to try and reach the box of chocolates, but the nurse managed to step over and pluck them quickly off of the bedside table before he could get his fingers around them.

  Suddenly I realized my dad was staring at her back a little too long, and then I realized his eyes were aimed at her butt.

  “Eww Dad,” I whispered. I walked away from him to the door, waiting for the nurse to finish scolding Bruce, and for my dad to finish getting his eyeful.

  “And what’s that? I heard the nurse say.

  There was silence for a moment, and then Bruce asked innocently, “What?”

  “That little container you’re trying to hide underneath your pillow!”

  Bruce’s eyes flicked quickly over in my direction, as he was trying to
come up with an excuse to give to the militant nurse.

  “Okay, look. You can take the chocolate; just give it to Ralph to hold for me. But please. Let me keep my Shirley Temple?” He took the container from underneath his pillow and curled it up to his chest lovingly, cradling it as if it were a child.

  My dad looked at me. “Really, Audrey? You’re contributing to his insanity?”

  “Well you brought him the chocolates!”

  “No I didn’t! You were the one who demanded that we buy him all this junk!”

  “You didn’t get me the flowers and chocolates, Ralph?” Bruce sniffed.

  “Huh?” My dad looked over at Bruce, and saw that he was getting emotional.

  “It’s the medication,” the nurse said. “This is why we need to let him rest. And he shouldn’t be having any sugar.” She eyed the thermos angrily. “But I guess I’ll let that slide for now.”

  “Oh thank you,” Bruce said dramatically, squeezing it tightly. “Goodbye you guys, I love you!”

  “He is emotional,” I mumbled. “He usually only says that while he’s looking in the mirror.”

  My dad laughed and we headed out of the room. The nurse caught up to us and gave us the chocolates. She introduced herself as Ivy, a friend of Bruce’s. No wonder she could be so strict with him. We headed out to the car after my dad had chatted her up for a few more minutes, to my disgust, and then headed for Magick Eye.

  We pulled up to the shop, and headed into the annex, where Agnes and Besnik were both working with Star and Lincoln.

  At the moment Agnes had Lincoln sitting in a chair, practicing a normal conversation with her. They were pretending to be a customer and proprietor.

  “So what are you up to?” I asked, interrupting.

  Agnes stopped mid-sentence and then slouched down in her chair, despondent.

  “Did I mess things up?”

  “No, it’s not that, dear.” She looked at Lincoln, who at that moment seemed to be re-enacting the conversation he and Agnes had just been having, with himself. He seemed content.

  “What’s wrong? Link seems happy.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s the problem.” She scooted down off of the stool-height chair and came over to me, grabbing my elbow gently, guiding me over to the opposite corner of the room. My dad followed us.