He goes to pound on the door, begging Maisie to let him out, but I snatch him back and spin him around, then lift him up and pin him against the wall.
I tighten my hand around his neck, my vision tunneling down to just his face. “Are you going to confess?”
“Please,” he whines. “If I snitch on the lab, they’ll kill me.”
I shake him, then lay my forearm over his throat. “It would be nothing less than you deserve,” I sneer into his face, a little spittle coming out with my words. “Confess!” I bare my teeth.
“Yes, I’ll confess,” he chokes out. “I’ll tell them everything.”
“I’m going to make absolutely certain that you do,” I growl, and I lean in toward his face, the blackness enclosing us both.
***
Maisie
When my Grady told me to leave the room and not open the door for any reason, I knew he was going to do something to make sure Biff confessed. I thought I could handle it, whatever it was.
Even when Biff rattled the doorknob, begging for me to let him out, I ignored it.
But then the screaming starts. He isn’t asking me to open the door. It’s an animalistic noise of fear and pain, something I’ve never heard before, and even with my hands over my ears and my eyes clenched shut, I can’t handle it.
Something is wrong.
Tears running down my cheeks, I drop my hands. I just want to drop to my knees and cover my head until it’s over, but I can’t let Grady kill Biff. No matter what he’s done, I just can’t. And I have no idea how far Grady will go. Too far, by the sound of it.
Hands shaking, I scrape Grady’s key into the lock and turn the knob.
I cover my mouth in horror when the door swings open. Grady has Biff pressed high against the wall. Grady’s face is hidden from me, but the look on Biff’s face, in his eyes... the blood and sweat soaking the front of his shirt, tells me what’s happening.
My husband is eating his boss.
“Help me!” Biff begs, pushing against an immovable Grady, eyes wild.
How is Grady holding him there, even though he’s struggling?
“Grady, stop!” I yell. Nothing happens.
I run to them and try to jerk Grady away, but he pushes me off with one strong hand. I grab his shirt and his hair, my heart in my throat, and yell into his ear as loud as I can. “Stop it! Get away from him!”
He turns and suddenly he’s overwhelmed me, growling and gnashing his teeth at me as I barely hold him back with my forearm under his chin.
I’m terrified as I struggle with him and look into the void behind his eyes. This isn’t my husband—this is a rabid monster out for my blood.
Biff scurries back beside me, and that catches Grady’s attention. Biff freezes as Grady pins him with his crimson stare. It gives me a second to breathe, to think.
They say you shouldn’t wake up sleepwalking people, because they could be dangerous. It’s like Grady is in a similar state. He has that same empty look in his eyes as the few times I’d seen my dad sleepwalking. My mom had cautioned me never to try to wake him. Instead, she’d lead him back to bed with a calm voice and demeanor.
I need to lead my husband back to me, too. Only I’d disturbed a hungry zombie.
But he’d come back from his red-eyed state before. He has to this time, too.
“Grady, I’m your wife.” I use my firm but calm ‘we need to talk’ voice. “Stop trying to hurt me.”
He pauses in trying to overpower me. His face is still blank, but he must have heard me on some level. I keep going, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
“Baby, it’s me. Calm down. Come back to me.” He stares back at me with sightless eyes, blood around his mouth. “Baby, please,” I beg. I’m terrified, disgusted, but I know my husband is in there, and I have to try to reach him. I don’t know what to do if this doesn’t work. Tears burn my eyes. “I need you to come back to me.”
I stare down the monster, not sure he can even hear me. But he finally lets go of me and takes a step back.
But Biff, idiot that he is, has gotten up off the floor and is bolting for the door.
Grady looks over at him, and in a flash, he’s behind Biff, has him in a choke hold, and is trying to pull his mangled neck closer to his mouth.
Biff screams, but that only serves to make Grady tighten his arms and try harder to drag him to the ground and get another bite.
“Grady, you have to stop.” I’m not yelling this time. I walk to the other side of Biff so Grady can see me. “Don’t kill him. If you do, you won’t get justice, and I know how important that is to you.” I slowly rest my hand on his tense shoulder. “If you kill him, he can’t make his confession and this will all have been for nothing.”
Biff falls to the floor and crawls behind me, leaving me between him and the rabid zombie again.
He’s such an ass.
Meanwhile, Grady is standing silent and blank. I need him to come back to me. Voice wavering and hands shaking, I slowly step closer to him. “Baby, it’s Maisie. Can you hear me?” He doesn’t move, but at least he’s not slobbering at Biff’s neck anymore. I slip under his arm and put mine around him, in the same midnight pose as my mother and father, gently leading him toward the doorway that Biff is half-crawling through.
“Biff!” I call. He stops for a second and flashes a look at me, hand to his neck. “Take out your phone and make that call to the police right now, or I’ll sic him on you and let him finish.”
I’m reasonably certain he will confess now. Surely, getting gnawed on by a zombie will make him re-evaluate his priorities.
Surely.
If he says no, I don’t know what the next step is. I wouldn’t really let Grady finish him, but I need him to think I will, so I glare at him as I pretend to step away from Grady.
He fumbles the phone out of his pocket, and now I see the damage. His ear is mostly gone, and there’s a bit of flesh missing on his neck beneath it. There’s teeth marks, and everything is still oozing blood.
Yum. My stomach turns.
He stares at the two of us and dials, breathing hard. When I hear the operator on the other end of the phone, there’s a moment of fear where I think Biff is going to tell them we attacked him, instead of what he’s supposed to say.
But face pale and waxy, eyes vigilant on Grady and pleading to me, he starts. “I need to confess to a crime. A—a few crimes.”
He tells them about the toxic waste at the condo site. And at previous sites that I know nothing about.
Then there’s a long period of silence on his end.
“Annnnnnnnnd,” I prompt, tilting my head at a still catatonic Grady.
Biff takes a deep breath. “And someone was murdered. But not by me!” When he sees the glare I’m shooting his way, he weakly adds, “But I helped.”
Then I have to listen to Biff tell the police that he killed my husband with the help of the muscle from a local laboratory and Travis’s excavator skills.
Travis too? God. My previous sympathy for him evaporates completely.
Hot tears falling down my cheeks, I look over at Grady. This is all because of greedy, evil men. He’s not himself because of them, it’s not his fault. I can forgive him. For what I saw, for what he did. For what he almost did.
But I can’t worry about that right now. I need to get Grady home before someone sees, or he decides he’s ready for dessert.
Dessert wife.
I laugh at my own stupid joke, because I’m barely keeping it together as we make slow progress to the door.
Grady stops and turns his head toward me. “Maisie?” His voice is slurred, but his soul is there in his eyes again, instead of the emptiness of before.
With a relieved sob, I put my hand to his cheek. “Yes, it’s me.” I’ve touched blood somewhere, and my fingers leave a red print when I pull my hand away.
“Maisie...” He grabs my hand and holds it to his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say, patting
his chest, his blood-spattered shirt. But it’s not. Nothing is okay. “Biff made his call.” He’s waiting for the police, and I hear sirens in the distance. “We need to go, now. Let me take you home.”
I lead him to the car, and by the time we get there, he’s shaking. I grab a blanket from the back and wrap it around him, then get in and drive, trying to keep my mind blank.
Nothing is okay, but it’s going to be. Biff made the call to the police. He confessed. He will tell them about the laboratory and the toxic waste and the goons, and they will be brought to justice, too.
And Grady didn’t give into the darkness. He didn’t kill Biff, and he didn’t hurt me. It was close enough there for a minute that I still feel shaky and nauseous, but everyone is okay. Everything is going to be okay.
Grady stares silently ahead, unmoving, for the whole trip. Until the very end.
I’m pulling into the driveway when Grady breaks his silence and says, “Maisie, I have to die. Again.”
***
Grady
Maisie doesn’t respond. She just gets out of the car like she didn’t even hear me.
She stays a few steps ahead of me as I follow her, my feet and heart like concrete blocks.
I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to have this discussion, but with what just happened...
I’d chewed on a man and then turned on her when she went to save him. The way she’d been looking at me when my sanity returned crushed me.
I broke her heart. I saw it.
There’d been fear, disappointment, and a deep sadness layered in her eyes. I’d tarnished the vision of the good man she’d held in her heart.
I’d forever be the man that almost hurt her. That scared her. That almost hurt her. I’d betrayed her.
I’d broken that intrinsic trust between a couple that says I’m safe with you. I’d made her feel unsafe, even momentarily, before her trust in me snapped back into place.
And the worst part is she is unsafe with me. She just loves me too much to see it. But I love her too much to ignore it.
“Maisie.”
We make it through the door, but she’s not going to answer me. She’s not going to address it at all.
“Maisie, stop.” The blanket falls away as I grasp her arm. “We have to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t. You need to rest and go—go get some food.” She’s talking to me, but she won’t look at me. “You’re obviously hungry, so go eat and then we’ll see what our next step is.”
I let go of her arm, hoping she’ll turn to face me. “I know what my next step is,” I murmur. “And so do you.”
She does turn to me then, fists on her hips like she’s scolding me. “You’re overreacting. You don’t need to die. We’ll go to Ms. Josephine tomorrow and see if she can help you, see if she can do anything else.”
“I already know what she’s going to say. I asked her before.”
“You knew this would happen?” Her expression is wounded.
“I strongly suspected.” I hold a hand out, pleading. “Maisie, this isn’t normal, and you know that. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“We just need to try harder to find a solution. Voodoo did this, so how do you know there isn’t something else out there that can fix it?”
“I don’t know that. But Maisie... I don’t have the time to find out.”
“What? That’s nonsense. Of course you do.”
I’m shaking my head before she even finishes. I know the truth. My encounter with Biff had been a wake-up call. I’m losing my grip on this world, on my soul, and I can’t let that happen. “No I don’t, Maisie—”
“Grady—”
“Maisie, I ate the neighbor’s dog.” I can’t look at her when I shout it, but she needs to know it now. No more half-truths, omissions, or worrying if she’d still love me. She has to know who she’s married to. What she’s married to.
“What?”
I glance at her, and she’s shocked, confused. “The night I came back. I blacked out and I ate Barkley.”
She shakes her head, refusing to believe, but I know she’s seen the little cross under the tree, too.
“I did,” I emphasize, stepping toward her. “And one day while you were at work, I went into the woods and killed and ate a deer. At least I hope it was dead before I started eating it. I blacked out and don’t remember.” I step even closer, invading her space, pressing her back into the wall. She needs to understand. “I killed it with my bare hands,” I say, holding them out, fingers curled, Biff’s blood still staining my fingertips, “And ate it warm, while its blood was still running. It wasn’t neat, and it wasn’t quick.” Even now, I can imagine killing again, and how good it will feel. How good it would feel to feed. My voice lowers to a growl. Half an hour ago, I wanted to do the same to Biff. I almost did.” She won’t look at me so I grab her jaw and force her to face me, to face reality.
Force myself to face it while looking into her beautiful, innocent face.
“When I was lost to the darkness, I wanted to do the same to you.” She tries to yank her head away, but I won’t let her go. “Do you understand now? I turn into a monster who doesn’t recognize you as anything but food.”
Tears flood her eyes as she stares at me.
I soften my grip on her chin, and stroke her hair back with my other hand before cupping her face in both. I press my forehead to hers. “Hear me, please. It’s not easy for me to choose death. You don’t seem to understand that that isn’t the outcome I want. I’m terrified, and I’m positively broken that I have to lose you again, that you’re going to be hurt again. But it’s the only solution I see. The only safe solution. I’d rather die a thousand deaths than hurt you.” I’d already died once, what was one more, right?
“No matter what you say, no matter what we want, what I want, I can’t keep going like this. I’m hungrier, more often. It takes more to satisfy me now. There will come a time when I either won’t be able to be satiated, or I won’t be able to return to sanity. Or both. And then I will be a ravenous, rabid, dangerous monster with no logic, no self-control. No guilt. And it will be soon. It could have been tonight.”
I don’t know what stopped me this time, but I couldn’t trust something that wasn’t in my control. “I won’t do it, Maisie, I won’t kill anyone. I won’t risk it. I won’t be like the people who murdered me and wrecked our lives. I will not hurt anyone. Not even Biff, who arguably deserves it. But especially not my wife, the woman I love.” I may be a zombie, but I’m not a monster. Yet. “I won’t risk hurting you. Do you understand?” And she’s the one in the most danger, because she loves me.
Eyes red and wet, mouth wobbling, she nods. “I do. But what about Biff? What about the lab? What about justice? Don’t you still want that?”
I do still want it, but it’s less important now. “I thought I needed justice. But when faced with choosing between that and your safety, it’s disappointing to let it go, but I CAN let it go. I cannot let your safety go.”
“What if we don’t have to? Grady, we have to try. Aren’t we even going to try?”
My stomach sinks. She won’t give up on me, so despite the bad feeling in my gut, I agree with her. “Okay. Tomorrow we’ll go see Ms. Josephine and see if she can help, or knows anything else that will.” I enfold her in my arms, and she rests her wet cheek on a clean spot on my shoulder.
She still believes in me, believes this will all work out, somehow. And I love her for that optimism, that naivete. I do.
But I also know she’s wrong.
I didn’t think I could experience anything scarier than dying, than being murdered. I didn’t think there was anything darker than the memory of drawing my last breath. But I was wrong, I’d found something.
Myself. Me as a hungry, careless monster with static for emotions, who would kill and eat people I knew. People I loved.
The only thing darker than my death is the way I’m living now.
And I can’t let it go on.
/>
Chapter Seventeen
Grady
Maisie still doesn’t agree that I need to die.
We’re on our way now to Ms. Josephine’s house to talk to her, to plea, to beg. To see if there is anything else she can do for me.
I know the answer, and I suspect Maisie does too. But I guess she has to hear it with her own ears before she’ll believe it.
We pull up in front of Ms. Josephine’s house, then sit there a minute in silence after Maisie turns off the ignition.
I peek at Maisie. She looks tired, in a way sleep can’t fix. The way she did when I first returned to her.
“Hey, why don’t zombies eat clowns?”
She’s a good sport, and even though the last thing she probably wants to do is play along, she does. She thinks about it a moment before giving her answer.
“Because they’re scary?”
Maisie doesn’t like clowns, like a lot of people I guess. They don’t bother me. But I guess it’s good I came back as a zombie, at least, and not one of those. We would have had no chance of reuniting then. “No. It’s because they taste funny.”
I fake a grin at her horrified laughter. “Too soon?”
She nods, hand over her mouth. I’m trying to lighten the mood because my heart is breaking. We have to say goodbye, for real this time, or I could hurt her. Would hurt her.
But the jokes from before aren’t so funny now. Our strained mirth dies, and melancholy smothers out any remaining humor until we’re sitting there in uncomfortable, painful silence.
We get out of the car and Ms. Josephine is waiting for us, holding the door open. “Welcome, welcome. Come in. You’re right on time.”
We’re early actually, but I learned my lesson from last time. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is completely unacceptable.
Ms. Josephine gives Maisie a double cheek-to-cheek kiss and then she waits for hers from me. I oblige, and she motions for us to follow her.
She’s wearing what can only be called a mu-mu. My great-grandmother wore them almost exclusively in her later years, but Ms. Josephine seems too young for one in my mind. Then again I have no idea how old she is. She is ageless.
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