‘ Pardon me? I’m afraid I can’t hear you. You will have to repeat your mumble.’ Their moans grow louder. The moment gets the better of me and I let out a small laugh of delight at my own joke. But inside I am far from happy.
‘Stupid zombies.’ Death has not improved my boys’ communication skills one jot. ‘A garden full of boys, and not a one to say I love you.’
‘I love you.’
A shiver like ice cubes pours down my back, fear and excitement one and the same.
‘Who are you?’ I glower into the night garden. My boys are all in gloom and I can not tell which one speaks.
‘One who loved you once. One who offered you a gift. One you turned your back on. One that would play for you.’
When I was eight I accidentally beheaded my teddy bear with a kitchen knife. I cried for an entire afternoon until Bruno sewed Mr Bumpkins fluffy bonce back onto his body. I really thought that was the worst I would ever feel about anything until I saw that tuffty blue hair staggering across the garden towards my window.
‘oh no.’
In one limp hand Hub drags the body of a six string guitar. Discordant tones echo as it bounces on every bump in the lawn.
‘Oh yes.’
‘You shouldn’t be here. I never let you give me the ring.’
‘But I did give it to you.’ He crosses one arm over his chest so that the hand rests over his heart. ‘In here.’
With that he hefts the electric guitar into his arms and brings one hand wind-milling down over the strings. A noise like tortured angels vibrates the night. For a moment I’m not certain what’s worse – having murdered Hub, or having to hear him sing.
‘Here’s a little song I wrote…’ He curls his lip up in an Elvis sneer
‘… ‘bout a girl named Fred.’
Four bars of cacophonous noise pass before I realise this is the intro, not the warm-up. When he starts to bellow over the racket I almost wrap my hands over my ears.
‘Her friends call her Fred…’
‘But they are all dead…’
‘Please call me, she said…’
‘Am – al - frida instead!’
‘AMALFRIDA! AMALFRIDA! AMALFRIDA!’ He shouts the last with extra gusto. A chorus I suppose. And I NEVER asked him to call me Amalfrida instead.
The shouting is replaced by a high squeaking as he goes into the solo whilst banging his head to the beat. Around Hub the zombies are going air guitar crazy, one of them is even pretending to play the drums, like some lovesick zombie boy band.
‘With this ring I thee wed!’
‘You get me crazy in the head!’
‘We could have had fun in bed!’
‘But you killed me…stone dead!’
‘AMALFRIDA! AMALFRIDA! AMALFRIDA!’ Hub strikes the last discordant chord and takes a bow. At some point I started to cry, and now my cheeks are soaked with tears.
‘I didn’t kill you.’ I shout, but the words come out in whispers. Even I don’t believe my denial. A beam of light arcs onto the lawn.
‘What in damnation is going on in here?’
My Father bursts into my room wearing only his boxer shorts and dressing gown. If you had asked me five minutes ago I would have told you in the most explicit details how much I hate my father, but at this moment I have never been happier to see his bald head and sagging gut.
‘Who the hell are these people Amalfrida?’
Even with the music silenced, the band are still jigging like string puppets, all except Hub. He just stands starring up at me.
‘Oh my great lord…’ Father has finally comprehended what it is he is looking at. He gives me a richter scale ten glower of disapproval.
‘What?’ I retort defensively.
‘What? What she says!?’ He waves his arms about, somewhat over dramatically in my opinion. ‘That!’
‘Oh. That. Like, don’t have a cow, man.’
‘I’ll give birth to an entire herd if you aren’t careful. What did we say after the last time?’
‘Last time wasn’t my fault daddy! You said so yourself. I didn’t know what was happening. And it was only two boys.’
‘Two boys who’s parents are still out there searching. You have no idea the favours I had to call in to get that little mess cleared up. Why Amalfrida, just tell me that. Why?’
I realise with some guilt that I have never really considered why. Sure it was fun enchanting the boys. Having them fawn all over me was a trip. But why did I have to keep them so long? Why did I have to make it all so painful for them? What does that say about me, as a person I mean? And why did I do this to Hub?
‘Just leave me alone.’ I say eventually.
‘That’s the best you can say for yourself, is it?’ My father says with disappointment. ‘Fine. Well, here we go again. Like I don’t have enough on my plate as it is.’
With that he closes his eyes, stands up straight as a post and waves his hand at the garden whilst muttering. My boys echo his pose, standing to stiff attention. Then they begin to shake and shudder and I feel an odd buzzing around the rings on my fingers, as though they are crawling with tiny ants. Then the boys just collapse. The old ones literally fall apart, piles of skin and bones and rags flopping onto our lawn.
‘At the very least you could have had them dispose of themselves.’ Father says with annoyance. ‘Poor Bruno will be digging all night.’
The sound of laughter, high and manic comes up from the garden.
‘Isn’t that the Goldberg boy? What’s he doing down there?’
Standing amongst the dust and bones is Hub, laughing so hard he is having to grip his midriff to stay standing.
‘Hey you. Get the hell out off of my lawn.’ Father calls out but Hub just keeps on laughing.
‘I know your parents young man, don’t think they won’t be hearing all about this.’
Hub just laughs. Then it hits me, a wave of poisonous anger soaking through every bit of my body, filling me with a brutal rage.
He.
Is laughing.
At me.
‘Don’t make me come down there.’
Waving away my fathers threats Hub swings the guitar onto his back, turns and walks away, still laughing every step of the way as anger seethes in my belly.
‘Kids’ says my father and then seems to notice me again. ‘You, young lady, are so grounded.’
I am doodling a wonky hexagram onto the palm of my hand when I catch him looking at me. Antonia, Jane, Elisabeth and I are sitting in the school library, now four witches together. In registration this morning Ms Holloway told us she was leaving our school to teach orphaned children in Ukrania. I don’t think she ever recovered after the remains of the missing boys were found in various states of decay around the county. I hope for the sake of the orphans that she gets laid eventually. Father went ape shit and said I couldn’t do any magic or stuff until I learned to be responsible blah blah blah. Bruno got a new suit. In all the excitement I almost forgot about boys altogether but then it all blew over and everything went boring again.
‘Hey.’
Tufts of blue hair appear across the desk from me.
‘You.’ I say. When I imagined this conversation I always started with the silent treatment. The best laid plans and all.
‘So like, how’s your assignment going?’
‘Fuck.’ I give him the finger. ‘Off.’
‘Come on don’t be like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘All,’ he searches his tiny tufted brain space for the right adjective. ‘Angry.’
I decide it’s never too late for the silent treatment and turn away, pretending to find a nice view out of the library window.
‘Look. I’m sorry I gate crashed your party, OK? But when I figured you were messing with enchantments I just couldn’t resist. And besides I…’
‘Why didn’t you just tell me your family know my family?’
‘Tell you my old man knows dark mojo and my mother has her thir
d eye wide open? I don’t know about you but where I come from that shit ain’t considered polite to raise on a first date.’
‘Hold on. Besides what? What were you about to say?’
‘Well.’ Hub looks shy all of a sudden. ‘I was going to say, besides, I wanted to see you again.’
The most annoying thing is that without even bothering to ask permission my heart goes all bumpity bump and sends butterflies fluttering through my intestines. Am I really so easy to please? Apparently yes.
‘So, like, where have all your rings gone?’
I picture the silver, each ring buried in its shallow grave.
‘I got bored of them.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I guessed. So I brought you a present.’
Hub tugs something out of the pocket of his skin tight jeans. With a shy look he holds his hand out to me and there, sitting on his palm, is the weirdest looking ring I’ve ever seen. It’s bright mauve and violet and a few other colours too, moulded from shiny shiny plastic in the shape of a daisy and almost as big as my fist.
‘Its not very Gothic looking.’ I say.
‘I thought you said you weren’t a goth?’
I begin to correct him again but then don’t. Instead I reach out my hand, and let Hub put the ring on my finger.
My Lovesick Zombie Boy Band Page 2