The Pulptress Versus The Bone Queen: Blood and Bone

by Andrea Judy

  “What?” My gun was out and at the ready again, and it only took me a second to see the hoard of stumbling chiffoniers. “We need to go now!” I said, grabbing Jackson’s arm and pulling her back toward the parking lot.

  Chapter 2

  Jackson stumbled after me, and the strange man followed right behind her. I didn't bother trying to count the number of creatures coming toward us. I could hear their steps against the soggy ground and see glimpses of shadows moving with every bolt of lightning striking near us. As the rain rushed over us in a near torrential downpour, I struggled to keep Jackson with me, and, paying more attention to who was behind me than what was in front of me, I plowed straight into a headstone and toppled to the ground with the air knocked out of me.

  Jackson tripped over me and fell to the ground, skidding across the damp clay.

  I grunted and tried to get back to my feet, but struggled with the slick mud clinging to my shoes. The man, Aramis, appeared in another flash of lightning, grabbing my hand and helping to pull me to my feet. I used his grip as a counter weight and jerked myself upright and then backwards, shoving myself into the chest of one creature that had gotten a bit too close. However, another grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked me backwards. I stumbled back toward the approaching hoard.

  "Go!" I yelled at Jackson and the man.

  Jackson picked up her baseball bat and charged forward swinging. The man stayed where he was.

  Jackson's bat cracked through several fragile skulls, and dusty remains of the chiffoniers splattered in thick clumps against my cheek. Letting loose of her weapon with one hand, Jackson took my arm. "Come on!" She pulled me.

  I let her drag me ahead as I tightened my grip on my pistol and fired at anything that got too close. Aramis rejoined us as we crawled over the brick wall and rushed toward the truck as another group chased after us.

  "Get in the back!" Jackson yelled as she scrambled to unlock the truck's door and get into the driver's side. I jumped into the bed of the truck with Aramis right behind me. I fired a few shots at some of the creatures as they screamed and reached for us. "Jackson!!" I roared.

  "I'm trying!" She yelled back, the engine sputtered several times before finally turning over. Tires squealed and tore through the mud, knocking a few more chiffoniers back from the truck as it tore toward the road.

  I grabbed onto the side railing and Aramis did the same as the truck bounced wildly, and the rain just made the metal bed slicker. My grip kept slipping and I slid closer toward the end of the truck bed and a drop straight onto the gravel road.

  Aramis reached out and offered his hand, and after a few seconds of hesitation I grabbed it.

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and swung me back toward the top of the truck. I grabbed onto the open window in the back of the cab and held on tightly as we swerved through the muddy roads, and finally back onto solid asphalt. I let out a deep breath and squinted back through the pouring rain, sure that we were safe for the moment.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence and when the truck finally pulled into the driveway, I eagerly jumped back onto solid ground. Jackson hurried to the front door and opened it up. "Here get inside. I think I have some spare scrubs you two can change into and I'll throw your clothes in the wash."

  I nodded and stood in the hallway, sopping wet and dripping all over the hardwood floors. Jackson hurried inside and then returned with royal blue scrubs that she handed to me and then to Aramis.

  He took his and went to find a side room to change in. "Here, there's a restroom right here." Jackson pointed a door out to me. "Just leave your clothes on the floor and I'll collect them in a minute."

  I nodded and slipped into the bathroom. Shutting and locking the door behind me, I slowly began to peel my sopping wet clothes off and flung them to the ground. The warm, dry scrubs felt like heaven against my skin. I sighed, and padded barefoot back out into the hallway to see Aramis joining Jackson as well. She walked past me and grabbed my wet laundry before tucking Aramis' clothes under her arm and going down the hallway.

  "You have a washer here?" I asked.

  "We do have running water in Georgia, you know," Jackson teased. "Yeah, sometimes the autopsies can get a little messy." She smiled. "So it's a good idea to keep something here to help with that."

  “Thank you,” Aramis said with a nod.

  He looked toward me, and stepped closer to my side as Jackson turned the corner and began loading the washing machine.

  "I think I've found a way to kill the Bone Queen." He said. "But it can only be done by the hand of the living."

  "Well, that seems obvious." Jackson huffed, looking back around the corner. "The dead don't..." she looked at Aramis, “…aren't suppose to be able to do much of anything, let alone kill someone!”

  I didn't comment as Jackson disappeared down the hallway to another room to change her clothes. Aramis offered me a smile.

  I didn't return it and turned to face him. "Who are you?”

  He smiled, “Aramis. Your friendly, neighborhood helping hand.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Same as you.” He said.

  I narrowed my eyes, “Were you there in Paris?”

  His smile faded a bit, “No. I wasn’t there, but I’ve been tracking her for a long time. It wasn’t hard to notice when someone else began following her signs.”

  “You’ve been watching me?” My hand slid towards the hilt of my knife.

  “Not in the peeping-Tom sort of way. I mean you’re a lovely woman but I’m dead, and you’re not… it just wouldn’t work.” He teased.

  My face stayed stony, and he cleared his throat then sighed. “You really need to work on your sense of humor. Yes, I was watching you, mainly where you were going. Atlanta, right? That’s where your information had her heading from Europe. You were on the right track. You just missed where she went from the airport. Not a big deal.” He shrugged.

  “And I take it you didn’t miss where she was heading?” I asked. “How? How did you know where she was going?”

  He hesitated before saying, “Let’s just say we have an intimate connection that gives me better information on what she’s doing than any detective work ever could.”

  “So you came here and then what? Planted my information?”

  “I knew that’d get your attention.” He said, “I figured if it came from someone who had no clue what was going on you’d be more likely to come.”

  “You could have killed someone by letting those chiffoniers be collected!”

  “It was fine!” He waved his hand dismissively. “We’re in rural Georgia, babies know how to shoot guns here. But I will say that whole protect the innocent thing you’ve got? Really great trait by the way.”

  “What do you want?” I finally asked.

  "I want the same as you," he said simply.

  "And what's that?" I demanded.

  "To stop the Bone Queen. That should be obvious.”

  "You just said that wasn't possible, that you can't kill her," I protested.

  "No, I said I can't kill something that's already dead," he said with a smile. "Now you on the other hand, well there's hope for you being able to."

  Jackson walked up with a plateful of sandwiches. "Hungry?" she asked.

  I frowned but took a sandwich and slowly sat down at the table. Aramis sat across from me and Jackson joined us.

  "What are you two talking about?" she asked.

  I looked to Aramis.

  He offered a smile. "So this is where the creatures were taken. Where were they held? May I see?"

  Jackson looked at me then nodded, and stood up. Aramis and I followed her back down to the autopsy chambers. He looked around with a slow nod.

  "So, are you actually dead?" Jackson asked, watching Aramis.

  "Hm?" He glanced at her. "In your sense of the word, I am very dead. No pulse means no life, correct?"

  Jackson said, "Then how are you able to move? What kind
of circulatory system provides blood for your muscles to be able—"

  Aramis laughed. "Ah, I see. You are one of the science minded people. Very admirable, but unfortunately entirely lacking in the means to describe how it is I still move." He explained, "I move because it is willed to happen. Willed by something very close to death. My body is far past the point of death, but it stays, partially because of this Bone Queen you hunt."

  "Who is she?" Jackson asked.

  "She is exactly who she sounds like. A creature of bone and hate," Aramis said after a moment. "And I have the means to destroy her."

  I protested, "But I thought you said-"

  "I said I had failed at killing her. That does not mean it isn't possible," he interrupted. "I am not so proud that I don't realize sometimes I am out of my depth."

  "So what do you need?" I asked.

  "I need a living soul."

  "Like a sacrifice?" Jackson asked as she circled around him.

  "No, not like a sacrifice at all." He said with a sigh.

  "Do you mind?" Jackson asked as she pulled a stethoscope from her desk.

  He shook his head. “By all means my dear.”

  Jackson put the stethoscope against his back, frowning.

  "What did you mean you need a living soul?" I asked. “Like a sacrifice?”

  He laughed, “No, nothing quite as dark as that. Someone living has to be the one to kill her. It doesn't work if another dead does it, believe me I have tried."

  "What do we have to do?"

  "There are three gems. I've got one, and she's got one in the sword she keeps with her."

  "And the third?" I pressed.

  "I think it is somewhere in the cemetery here. It became some kind of family heirloom and when that family went from France to England to America, it came with them. But she and I lost track of it during the Civil War."

  “You both know where it is?” I asked.

  “Why else would we be in the middle of nowhere Georgia?” He smiled.

  "And what? You just start digging up the graves?" Jackson asked, shaking her head. "That's not going to happen."

  "I didn't say anything about digging," Aramis said. "My gem will let me know when we get close to it and the last time I went down to the cemetery I could tell it's somewhere in there, but I knew I needed help.” He turned to face me. “So, I got help."

  I nodded, crossing my arms and drumming my fingers against my forearms.

  "Are you considering helping him?" Jackson asked.

  "Yes. He's my ticket to finding the monster that killed Amaury." I curled my fingers into a fist. "You got a deal." I nodded to Aramis.

  He flashed a smile. "Well then, I guess now we just need a plan."

  "What do you know about the gem?" I asked.

  "I know it's relatively small, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It'll either be grey or black, and when it gets close to my gem, I'll know."

  "Where's the one you have then?" I asked, watching Jackson move around the room out of the corner of my eye.

  "Well, I can't exactly show it to you."

  "And why not?" I asked, crossing my arms.

  "Well, it's-OW!" He jumped as Jackson poked a needle into his arm, sucking a small amount of blood into the plunger and then pulling away. "What are you doing? Give some warning before hand at least." He rubbed his arm.

  Jackson muttered to herself as she went over to some of her equipment. I watched her for a moment before turning back to Aramis. "So this gem. What else can you tell me?"

  "It's old," he said, still rubbing his arm, "and she'll be looking for it too. I know she's here somewhere, I can feel it. When I was in the cemetery I could feel her watching me, but she's starting to lose power. It's too hard for her to hide what she is, her skin fails."

  "She never hid it in Paris," I muttered.

  "Well, I imagine that flying across the ocean as a half skeleton must be a challenge," he said with a smirk. "You eventually learn and figure out a way to make it work I guess. No one checks for a pulse to get on a plane and enough money can buy the necessary fake documents to get anyone through."

  "So she knows this gem is here too? She'll be searching for it as well," I said.

  "You've got it." Aramis smiled. "But since she's here, if we find it before her, we can use it to kill her for good."

  "And if she finds it before us?"

  "Well then she'll probably go after me and my gem and if she gets that she’ll use the three of them together to summon a plague that will wipe out most of the world and turn all the dead into her army."

  "What?" Jackson spoke up from her corner.

  Aramis glanced toward her. "Yeah I know, it is-"

  "This is incredible." Jackson said.

  "Those are not the words I would have used," Aramis said with a frown.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked.

  "This blood, it's... This is incredible!" Jackson murmured, half to herself and half to the rest of the room. "It's dead, but still moving. The cells don't regenerate but they still create. It's amazing."

  "Well thank you. I do what I can," Aramis grinned.

  "Do you realize what kind of advancement this kind of work could cause?" she asked. "Being able to keep dead cells active?"

  "I'm assuming a lot, but that isn't going to happen," Aramis said. "It's a side effect of a cursed gem."

  "Which I'm still waiting to see," I butted in. "Where is yours?"

  He sighed. "It's embedded in my chest. I wanted to make sure it stayed safe. Forever. So I made sure I could never lose it. Looking back on it, it was a poor decision, but at the time it made sense."

  "How long have you been alive?" Jackson asked.

  "Um..." Aramis looked at the ceiling, counting on his fingers. "I don't know exactly. Since the first black plague in France? All the years start to blur together anymore."

  "All the things you must have seen." Jackson leaned against the table. "I can't imagine. You're...truly dead. This isn't some kind of trick?"

  "Truly dead." He smiled. "I promise."

  Jackson frowned, walking back over to him, and looked him over carefully. "But there are no signs of decomposition."

  "None," he agreed.

  I rubbed my temples. "Yes, this is all very fascinating, but what I want to know is more about this gem. We need to know where it is. We can't just blindly wander the graveyard until you get a feeling in your chest."

  "That isn't what I suggested doing," Aramis protested.

  "It sure sounded like it to me." I crossed my arms. "What do you suggest then?"

  "Going to the graveyard and doing a walk around getting a feeling of the general area where the gem should be, and then carefully digging." He said with a smile.

  "You can't dig up those graves!" Jackson spoke from her workbench. "That's illegal."

  "Well, in case you missed it, we're fighting someone that kills people so I think bending the law a little is alright," Aramis pointed out. “In the name of saving the world a few laws must be broken. Hopefully the judge will be lenient on a corpse like me.”

  I rubbed my temples and let out a long sigh. "So yeah, we do need to wander around aimlessly until you just get a good feeling about this gem? God, that has got to be the worst plan I've ever heard."

  "Well then, what's yours?" Aramis asked.

  I frowned. "I don't know! I don't know how this all-" I paused when I heard something thump from the entryway. "Jackson? You expecting company?"

  Chapter 3

  Jackson looked up from her work. "It might be one of the officers, they come check on me from time to time. I'll go see." She wiped her hands on her lab coat and headed up the stairs.

  I lingered at the bottom of the hallway and listened. The door eased open and I could make out the muffled sound of Jackson's voice, and then another loud thud. Jackson's voice got louder and then I heard a distinct crash of something shattering. Drawing my pistol, I rushed her way.

  Jackson stood above a pile of d
ust and bones at her feet, mingled with the shattered remains of a lamp. "He...It attacked me," she said slowly, taking several slow deep breaths. “They must’ve followed us from the graveyard.”

  "Get back into the basement," I told her, pushing her behind me.

  She stumbled toward the stairs as I hurried to check the rest of the floor. The rooms were empty, though I found one broken window with some ripped fabric on it that marked the monster's entry point. The rain from outside poured in as the lightning crashed and thunder roared. Looking into the backyard, I found it crawling with stumbling creatures.

  I pulled my pistol from my pocket, and loaded it with the extra bullets I kept along my belt before I took a position under the broken window. Aiming through the broken panes of glass, I fired, taking out the closest creature. It dropped to the ground in a heap of filth.

  The noise sent the other monsters clawing for me. One moved faster than others grabbing my hand, digging its nail into the soft flesh of my wrist. I grunted with pain as my hand lost grip on my pistol and dropped it. I managed to get my other arm up and slammed my elbow into the creature's nose. It released me and stumbled backwards.

  I took the chance to step away from the window as one of the monsters began clawing through. Pulling my knife from its sheath, I slashed across its throat. It groaned, then dissolved. The next two went down just as fast, but then the door behind me burst open and more of them rushed. I dropped to the floor, just barely missing the grabbing hands.

  Cutting Achilles' tendons as I went, I crawled from the room. The monsters toppled above me, still clawing and grabbing. One got firm hold of my boot. I pulled my leg back and slammed it crashing into the thing’s shoulder again and again, until the thin arm separated free from the rest of its body.

  Grabbing my pistol as I escaped the room and rolled back to my feet, kicking the skeleton hand still clinging to me free from my pants. Several more rushed toward me and I stumbled backwards. I snagged my finger around the trigger and fired into the mouth of the closest monster lunging toward me, its toothless mouth agape.

  The bullet took out its intended target and the three behind it before embedding in the wall of the bedroom. I took the moment of confusion to rush out of the hallway where more monsters were pushing out of the bedrooms.