by Kayes, Greg
"Why now?" She said
It wasn't like there weren't a million times before hand when she could have melted down. But she hadn't. The only time she could even vaguely remember when she was about to lose it was-
Henrietta suddenly stopped in her tracks.
...when she died.
Slowly she started moving again.
So what. Everyone dies. I mean everyone did die. Why shouldn't you lose it when you die?
Henrietta slowed down.
But I didn't lose it...
She looked up at the clear sparkling sky
...none of us did.
Henrietta stood there with that last thought hanging in the air like a dead fish. It was like she knew there was something there, and it stunk like an itch in her mind. But she didn't know how to handle it. Or maybe that's the wrong analogy or...whatever. It felt significant...or wrong...or something else.
"Oh forget it!" Henrietta shouted to the world as she felt hot and sort of seethed while she stood in the middle of the forest.
A noise behind her made Henrietta turn sharply around. Two watery gentle eyes met hers as they peeked through the leaves. She jumped back in defense then felt silly for doing so and relaxed. The deer then pushed itself through the brush then stood before Henrietta looking gently at her as she looked back.
The deer then playfully bobbed its head and stamped its hoof on the turf. Henrietta simply stared at the doe as she did it again. Henrietta began to feel confused when the doe suddenly burst into a sprint through a tree.
"Hey, Wait!" Henrietta said before giving chase to the ghost deer.
Henrietta kept the doe in sight for a bit before it disappeared. For as fast as a ghost can move, who doesn't need to pay attention to physics, the ghostly deer appeared to be much quicker. She searched for another few minutes for it before giving up. Looking up and around at her new surroundings she found she had gotten herself in to a strange part of the forest. Things didn't feel right here like an air of sickness fell thick on the surroundings.
A low noise started to ebb just out of sight. It sounded like a growl or moan from something that wasn't use to doing either. A sharp crunch startled Henrietta. She knew she was dead but she found out that since she lost her corpse it was easy to forget that. Nothing reminded you more of that fact than seeing your rotting body in front of you day after day.
Recovering her senses, Henrietta went in the direction of the crunch to find a doe standing uneasily as it was bent over another deer on the ground.
*Crunch*
Soft horror started to creep up into Henrietta's realization.
*Crunch.*
Another was heard just out of view
*Crunch*
And another.
The forest was slowly filling with the sound of bones being crunched in the teeth of deer. Henrietta was used to this kind of thing but...these deer?
The forest became a low howl of moaning deer coming back from the dead as a sea of red glowing eyes shown brighter in the filtered sunlight. They lifted up their heads and turned to look at her.
Well this is new.
Soon a herd of deer were all staring at Henrietta and nothing else. Dead or not that gave her the willies. Then as one they charged. Henrietta grabbed her head in defense and screamed as the herd charged through her. After they passed she opened her eyes and felt all her ghostly pieces to see if they were all there then she looked in the direction of the stampede.
"Mist." Henrietta said softly in realization.
She didn't know how she knew but she knew that way was where Mist's cabin was. She began to charge after them when a ghostly doe appeared in front of her, then another, followed by a herd of ghostly deer appearing out of the forest. They all seemed lost.
Henrietta didn't know what to do or if she could or should do anything. But the words "Come on." Found her lips from somewhere.
The first doe shook her head. Henrietta stared dumbfounded at her for a bit before the doe seemed to gesture for her to go. Henrietta nodded then sped after the herd of zombie deer. She knew that the man wouldn't have any problem with them but Mist herself seemed vulnerable especially because she doubted she had enough shotgun shells for a whole herd of zombie deer.
Everyone was in a panic, what the runner said he saw didn't make any sense. What he did know for sure was that Benny was lost to them and not in the way that a ghost normally gets lost. The runner said something came at them and...and Benny charged it like a brave fool. And now Mike was standing there in the center of the crowd, holding the last remaining piece of Benny’s arm in his hands.
Henrietta rushed on with haste. Staggering zombie deer with three or less legs zoomed behind her as she pushed on. She didn't know what she could do but at least she could warn Mist. That is if the deer didn't get there first...
Henrietta squeezed her surprisingly burning eyes, dismissed the thought and found some extra speed from somewhere. The mass of the herd was just up ahead and they were moving fast.
The next bit happened as if it were a dream. Or a nightmare. Out of nowhere something rushed the crowd and then...pieces went flying. Mike held his eyes shut and tried to cover his ears to no luck as the shrill scream of the thing paralyzed everyone still. People screamed then went silent over and over again. Mike peeked from his petrified state to see more than half the crowd was gone before he shut them again.
Soon the screams stopped and Mike opened his eyes. There in front of him was the sharp eyed man standing alone in a sea of ghostly...pieces as he licked his fingers. Mike stood there cowering as the man continued to meticulously lick his fingers. It gave Mike the impression that he was watching a cat clean its claws. Then suddenly in mid lick the man looked up at Mike.
"Come on, stop your cowering. We both know that if I wanted to eat you you'd already be eaten."
...and that Mike was an interesting mouse that has momentarily amused the cat enough to not kill until he's played with it a little.
"Not far from the truth." The man said as if reading Mike’s mind. "Simply put, you entertain me. And that's why you’re alive. You have no idea how boring all those ghosts can get just talking on and on about the mundane things their boring zombies did that day. Oh it was excruciating! But honestly it was the first real interesting thing to happen in quite a while."
The man looked at Mike again.
"Oh come now. You are allowed to speak. I know you're smart enough not to ask stupid things that would make me want to eviscerate you. So go on, ask away."
Mike stayed silent for a moment. You could see his face contort as he tried to work out as many of the questions as he could on his own.
"Zomb- no. You’re a cannibal ghost. Do you need to eat or just like to?"
"Ha! Got it in one. Both really. Now there is something I need from you."
"What?"
"A story."
Mike was a fast thinker at this point after having to critically think for a group of unimaginative ghosts and he really knew better than to question why, at least not right away. But two things he just had to ask.
"Ok. But...What do I call you, or do you not want me to call you anything?"
"Good question."
Mike stayed silently waiting for a reply until the man caught his expression.
"Well go on start the story! I'll tell you if I want you to be calling me anything. No point in tellin your food your name until you’re sure you wanna keep them as a pet."
Mike nodded as his not blood froze in his ghostly skin.
"Just one last thing if it's not too much to ask."
The man nodded but in a way that said you're on thin ice and its beginning to creak.
"Just how much...longer have you been dead?"
The man's eyes grew narrow as he moved real close to Mike and with a gravely serious slow voice he said "A Realllly. Long. Time."
Henrietta got to the hut before the deer but only just. She could hear the stampede coming in. Fortunately the house was empty. Un
fortunately the house was empty. So were the animals from their pens. At least the smart ones like the goats.
The chickens on the other hand were rushing about as the herd of deer arrived who thusly began chasing them around. But these chickens were apparently the survivors of generations of forest free range chickens. They were used to being chased by predators of all kinds including bears and possum. Skills like that made them no easy meal for the zombie deer to catch.
Henrietta sat a moment on a tree stump watching a debacle unfold as two synchronized chickens ran head on across one another's path making the chasing zombie deer collide into one another so hard that it put them out of zombie commission. The crunch she heard when they hit made her sure of that. Who would have thought that chickens would be the ultimate zombie deer killers? Not even half the survivors she'd seen held an ounce of cunning and coordination these chickens had. It was almost comical until the deer were able to catch a few.
It was then that Henrietta had seen enough. She had seen enough of what comes next to not want to see it anymore. It's was always the same. You're doing great until you get out numbered and then all you can do is run but zombies don't get tired and then you're trapped and then...
Henrietta went inside before the "and then..." and poked around. Some of the deer had ignored the chickens and busted their way into a disappointingly empty clam shell of a house. Now they tore apart and smashed all they could driven by their mad zombie deer brains with the smell of the living all over the place. She had remembered reading somewhere about how deer have a crazy good sense of smell and can smell things miles away. Well that made her feel better. That meant that the two must be miles away by now.
And now you're alone. For real this time.
Suddenly rampaging zombie deer didn't seem so interesting anymore. Which was a lie she knew but she wanted to pretend that it was. Either way the mood was ruined. Right now all she wanted was some space from all the noisy dead. Henrietta flew off into the forest back toward the only other ghostly home she had ever known.
Mike was alive, for a given value of alive for a ghost. The sharp eyed man had been swayed by his story telling abilities enough to not eat him right away and also told him to refer to him as Master. So...now he was the pet of a narcissist. Mike would be the first to admit the irony of how he, a big narcissist himself, was a slave to an even bigger one. But at least he wanted to pretend to himself that at the end he had everyone's best interest at heart before they all got eaten. He really did.
However despite recent events, it was a fascinating experience being under the terrifying wing of this cannibalistic apparition. Although given the circumstances he may just as well call him a daemon. For starters the sense of terror and awareness of his own mortality have return since he died by zombie bite. And this Master seems aptly able to live up to his name. He sure did have an overwhelmingly strong sense of freedom compared to any other ghost he's ever seen.
Freedom aside the man simply terrified him with his wit. He didn't really say much but when he did it was like an unseen assassin stabbing from the shadows strait at the heart of the subject at hand. There was no defense for it. But what scared him more was when he wasn't talking because that was when he was listening.
Mike had been smart enough in life to at least learn the difference between hearing someone talk and listening. Hearing someone is just absentmindedly acknowledging something but when someone listened, there was an observation going on. When someone took the time to observe, it meant that they were studying, looking for flaws, weaknesses, patterns that they could use later or elsewhere. Looking for the perfect time and place to strike and get what they wanted or needed. Such people are terrifying when you realize at just how much power observations really held.
To Mike's advantage at knowing all this he made sure to say as little as possible, unfortunately this also completely gave him away. But he knew that this was the only option that he could take. The position on frivolous speaking had been easily established that it would also be a terminal one. So with no hope for any alternative he followed the Masters lead and listened. After all, there was so much freedom in listening especially when the main freedom was that you still had a body to listen with.
But besides all that, the worst part of all this was the screams. For the last two days Mike has done nothing else but tell stories and follow the Master around as he stalked down all the fallen ghosts frozen in their place. The sight of him eating each one was so gruesome that Mike had to turn away each time as stray pieces floated away from the scene of the ghostly slaughter. It was something he just couldn't get use to despite having witnessed countless zombie survivor raids.
But the very worst part was that all the fallen ghosts recognized Mike. Their faces would light up instantly at the sight that someone had found them on top of the fact that it was the story master himself who had found them. And they would be so elated...right up to the part that they were eviscerated. Their screams of disbelieve were enough to make him scorn his former cherished title.
Mike didn't believe in Heaven or Hell after he became a ghost a while mainly because he thought "Well this must be it." But being stuck in this slave bound psychological torture with no idea if there could be anything after this ghostly death, if the master ate him here and now...Well he might as well admit that this Hell was as real as Hell could get.
It was beginning to feel like a mistake coming back to the city. It wasn't even a city anymore, not after the fires finally died out. All that was left was a series of collapsed husks of what looked as if it could have been some buildings at one time. It looked like an alien landscape compared to the familiar city Henrietta spent most of her life as well as the better part of her death.
After a day or so of wandering through the chard wastes Henrietta found a few fallen ghosts in a group. They were all huddled in one spot not moving or talking much and looking as if they were malnourished if that kinda thing were possible. When she approached they all rushed at her hungrily and eager for stories, gossip, anything really as they had no one to talk to but each other. It quickly became apparent that they had exhausted all their own stories days ago.
The display made her a bit uneasy but she stayed for a short while and told them a story of when she was at the city’s pond when her corpse chased an angry goose around until her corpse caught it. After she finished talking they acted as if they got a drug fix then proceeded to tell the others about the story they just heard her tell oblivious to the fact that she was standing right there. Feeling disturbed she quietly left without a word before the others finished talking over each other in the retelling of her story. She found more groups but after the fifth group she stopped trying to interact with anyone and avoided the groups altogether.
Occasionally she found a solitary corpse with a follower. They acted different than she remembered. They were defensive and ornery at the sight of her probably because she looked like another fallen. They shouted obscenities at her nonstop for her to go away. When she left without a fuss it seemed to surprise them like they were interrupted in mid sentence by a duck that flew into their face out of nowhere. It always left them stunned and unsure as if such a thing couldn’t really have happened.
At least there was plenty to eat in the city. In Henrietta's recent avulsion from ghost society she wandered around not really sure what to do with herself. But there was plenty of food everywhere. She never noticed that she could eat so many things as a ghost.
In a wine cellar Henrietta found a recently broken bottle of fine Champaign. The taste of intoxication floated up like a bubbling aura hanging softly in the air. Later In a coffee shop, a coffee grounds bag had been broken open by debris, brewed slowly in warm rainwater that had pooled in a giant novelty cup from one of their customer displays. The air fizzed delightfully like she just walked into a bustling coffee shop full of people.
It wasn't as if Henrietta could get drunk or a caffeine buzz, she later realized that she needed a body to feel
that. But it was more the feeling it gave off, like being around something pleasing or nostalgic. It reminded her of some sweet times in her life; champagne on a good date, those mornings when a cup of coffee was exactly the best thing to start the day, or just the simple memory of the rain pounding heavily on her as she ran through a storm playfully as a kid getting soaked to the bone and her feet caked in mud. It was like for the first time since she had died that she was the one telling herself a story, and it felt good...But not satisfying.
Henrietta kicked a rock in frustration sending it rocketing off a few inches. That was another thing, moving stuff seemed amazing after a while, but it was a thing she didn't understand. It hurt her head if she tried to think about it and even more whenever she attempted to do it. It only seemed to work whenever it felt like it. At least that quandary distracted her for a few hours at a time.
It was beginning to dawn on Henrietta that she was going to have to face eternity sooner or later. The boring prospects of being alone for forever had been seeping in. There was no ghost she could or wanted to talk to anymore. There was no life left to watch, even if it was her undead body. And the only living person that could talk to her was missing, could just about die at any moment if she wasn’t dead already, and was totally a frustratingly cryptic know it all.
"But I suppose if I were able to talk to ghost, while alive, I'd want to be a know it all as well just so I could go to sleep at night without being completely terrified all the time." Henrietta said to the air as she looked out over the destroyed city.
But besides all that, one thing was really bugging her. Why was there a pair of fallen ghosts roaming around? I thought all the groups stayed in one spot.
Things were getting odd a little more so than terrifying. The master was behaving differently after that last group of ghosts said something before he had a chance to eat them. "There's another one coming!" They said. What could it mean? Another ghost with a corpse? The master avoided those for some reason. I think he said "Not ripe enough" under his breath the other day. But I'll be damned if I'm going to ask him about it.