by Suzanne Robb
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Taurian whispered. “I realize that you are suffering terribly. I’m very humane. I’m an expert in euthanasia. It will only sting briefly, while I put you out of your misery...”
SUGAR SKULLS
Rebecca Snow
The crickets screeched like fingers down a blackboard as Jesse stopped outside the locked iron gate. Darkness soaked though the cemetery like the tears he’d cried into his father’s handkerchief seven years ago when the old woman had died. The chirping insects silenced as a figure stumbled close to where Jesse stood. The council laws stated that as long as he stayed a few steps away from the bars, he was safe. The extra chains looped around the entrance gate kept the walkers at bay but did nothing for the festive atmosphere the evening used to hold.
The hike to the graveyard on this late October evening had taken longer than he’d remembered. He wasn’t surprised because he didn’t often take the trip at night, and the wakeful hoots of owls and scuffling of possums made him stop at random intervals to listen for the shuffling step of the dead. After the three years of a sort of siege, the council proclaimed that the town was safe enough with the walking corpses isolated in the boneyards. Jesse wondered what happened when someone died in his sleep or was killed in an accident. They couldn’t keep everyone under lock and key twenty-four hours a day. It was safer to be careful, so Jesse took his time.
Reaching into the paper sack he carried, the teenager fumbled open a damp book of matches. His trembling fingers fumbled several times as he tried to find a match that would catch fire and then several more to ignite the wick in his lantern. When he’d closed the globe around the flame, his gaze returned to the bars. Arms stretched to their limits trying to grasp any part of his living form. Skin peeling like onions flaked from the underlying tissue. Bones jutted in odd angles having punctured through the surrounding flesh.
The lamplight flickered across the dead faces. Their mouths hung open as they hissed and moaned for him to come closer. Jesse’s feet remained rooted to the spot where he stood. He lifted the lamp higher to illuminate the crowding corpses. Deceased friends and neighbors swayed in the dancing shadows. Old Mr. Barstow’s good Sunday suit hung from his emaciated frame. Dirt from his dig to the surface crusted the edges of his wedding band. Jesse remembered how Mrs. Barstow had howled at the funeral. Two weeks later, she’d walked in front of a bus. Scanning the small crowd, Jesse didn’t see her. She’d had a closed casket service, so there was a good chance that she was stuck eight feet under without enough motor control to tunnel through the soil. His second grade math teacher thrashed at the bars as if remembering the snake he’d put in her desk drawer. The entire library staff huddled in a pack ready to pick apart any unwary live patron who happened to intrude. Jesse found it strange that the dead still collected in the groups they’d formed in life. A guard passed, tipping his hat to the boy.
“Evening, sir,” Jesse said.
The man’s eyes twinkled. He flashed Jesse a quick grin before continuing on his circuit around the barricade.
A familiar floral pattern fluttered at the back of the crowd. Jesse took a few sideways hopping steps before he could make out any part of the body shrouded by the blossomy, moth-eaten cotton. He bounced, bobbing and weaving, as he tried to catch a glimpse of the clambering cadaver.
Finally, it broke free of the shuffling stiffs and dragged itself toward the fence. Leathery, cracked skin was drawn close to the bones as the arms shot through the bars. Skeletal fingers opened and closed as if attempting to revive a lifeless heart. The jaw hung slack, showcasing several empty spaces. The dentures had been lost long ago. Even so, a mummified smile lingered.
“Gramma,” Jesse whispered. “Gramma, it’s me, Jesse.”
The brittle hand continued to squeeze and release, squeeze and release. A hiss rattled from the gaping mouth. The lantern’s flame sliced the dead woman’s face with shadow bars from the wrought iron rods. Dried soil crumbled from beneath her ragged nails. Her clouded eyes flicked in their sockets in a mad search for the young man’s voice. A second guard’s footsteps trickled past.
Jesse spread a patterned blue blanket on the ground just out of reach of the decaying fingers. Squatting next to the thick wool, he felt around in the crinkling bag and removed a small potted marigold. He peeled off the price sticker and set the container on an uneven patch of ground. When it toppled, a bit of dark soil confettied the lighter dirt. Jesse righted the wobbling plant. With the toe of his boot, he scooted the green plastic pot toward the bars. His hand disappeared again into the open sack and removed a few small wreaths of the orange flowers. He rose to his feet.
“Sandy made these for you,” Jesse said. “You remember Sandy. My little sister.” He smiled into his grandmother’s dead eyes and draped the flower rings around her wrists. “She wanted to come, too, but you know Mom.” Jesse lowered his eyes to survey a clump of dry grass. Strands of his dark hair curtained his forehead. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”
The corpse moaned and seemed to wag a finger at his downcast face.
“I know, I should do what she tells me to,” Jesse said. “But she’s been impossible since Dad joined the recovery crew. She worries so much about if he’ll make it back in one piece. They’re starting to expand the borders into the mountains.” Jesse’s eyes brightened until he remembered he was talking about his mother. “Anyway, she’s so scared that she coddles us like we were three years old.”
Jesse dropped onto the blanket and rested his arms over his crossed legs. A breeze rustled a mantle of leaves across the path he’d followed to the graveyard. His frown faded to a yielding smile.
“How about we forget that for now and get this picnic started?” Jesse rubbed his hands together as if to warm them.
Feeling around in the bag, he withdrew a cellophane-wrapped package containing two chocolate, cream-filled cupcakes. Jesse tore the plastic with his teeth, removed the cakes, and placed them side-by-side on a floppy paper plate. One of the white swirls stuck to the wrapper. He ran his tongue across the wayward icing, savoring its grainy sweetness. The dead woman at the fence groaned.
“Sorry, Gramma. This was the best I could do. The bakery was out of the pan de muerto you liked, and Mom refused to make me any.”
He lifted himself to his knees and inched toward the reaching hand. As he approached, she flailed an arm, sending one of his floral offerings sailing into the darkness. Her claw-like fingers dug into the soft flesh of one of the frosted treats. Crumbs toppled to the ground as the cream core oozed between her clenched fist. Pulling her sticky hand back to her face, she crammed the offering between her missing teeth. After one taste, her arm shot through the bars toward Jesse. Bits of cupcake clung to her lips and cheek. Each time she reopened her hand, clumps of chocolate mush dropped to the dirt. The cadaver uttered a guttural groan and shoved her shoulder through the small opening.
“I know it isn’t sweet bread, but it’s all I could get.”
Jesse sighed. Sitting back cross-legged on the blanket, he pressed his thumb into a pile of crumbs on the white plate and lifted them to his mouth. He eyed the remaining cupcake.
“Do you mind if I eat this one?”
A hum sounded from the old woman’s throat. Peeling the solid sheet of icing from atop the rejected gift, he dropped it into his mouth like a frat boy eating a goldfish. The chocolate dissolved on his tongue as he watched the remains of his grandmother strain against the barrier between them.
A woman’s scream further along the fence pierced the hum of insects. Jesse placed the unfinished dessert back on the plate and scanned the darkness as his grandmother wandered toward the sounds of struggling life. A few other glimmering dots speckled the landscape. From where he sat, Jesse could see someone flailing by the bars. The guard that had raised his cap to Jesse sprinted by without a glance. In a moment, the shrieking quieted to a dull whimper.
“Were you bitten?” a deep voice asked. Jesse assumed the words belonged to the guard.
<
br /> A sniffling hiss of affirmation followed a moment of silence.
“You have time to write a note to your family before you make your choice,” the guard’s disembodied voice said.
Jesse edged closer to the exchange. A female form waved a hand toward the teeming cemetery. The skin on her wrist was torn and hung in ragged strips. A dark line of blood led to her elbow and seeped into the sleeve of her shirt.
“This is my family,” she said. “They’re all I’ve got left.”
Jesse guessed the woman’s eyes brimmed with tears or the spreading infection as they glinted in the guard’s light beam.
“Have you made your choice?” the guard asked.
The woman nodded and looked at her hands. Picking up a flap of skin, she pressed it to her oozing flesh.
“I want to be with my family,” she said.
The guard’s lips drew into a thin line and he exhaled a long breath. The dead at the bars strained to reach the injured woman. One of the faces displayed the same discoloration as the woman’s arm. The second guard arrived, winded from his sprint from the opposite side of the graveyard.
“What’s up, Martin?” he asked, casting a glance toward the seated woman.
“She was bitten and has decided to breach the boundary,” Martin said, wiping a day’s worth of stubble with a calloused palm.
“Excuse me, miss,” the second guard said as he dug through a pocket and removed a small notebook. A pencil attached with a tattered shoestring hung from the spiral wire. “I’ll need you to print your name and address. Write down the manner of the incident and your decision. Then sign and date the bottom of the page.” He handed the pad to her and stepped back to stand next to Martin. “What happened?”
“My best guess is that she got too close and was bitten. I’m not sure it matters at this point if it was on purpose or by accident.” Martin lifted his hat and ran his hand through his hair. He glanced up at the stars before returning to stare at the scribbling woman. “We just do our job and move on, Carlos.”
The woman coughed and spit into the grass. As she passed the small book back to Carlos, she convulsed.
Carlos flipped to the page she’d inscribed and read the details to himself before replacing the pad in his pocket.
“Eva, do you understand what’s going to happen?” he asked.
The woman nodded. The three figures waited in silence as the night air chilled. Jesse watched his grandmother teeter on the periphery of the crowd gathered behind the fence. To him, she didn’t seem interested in the dying woman, only drawn by the commotion the screaming had caused as if she were just a concerned citizen and not one of the hungry dead.
Twenty minutes passed before Eva’s head drooped and her torso flopped onto the grass. The walkers that had been drawn by her flowing blood drifted back to wander between the untended tombstones. Martin and Carlos, having donned heavy leather gloves, picked up the lifeless body and carried it to a bench. Stepping up, the two men heaved the dead weight over the iron bars. As the corpse fell, its skirt snagged on a spike and tore halfway up its thigh revealing an expanse of pasty flesh. The landing resembled a dropped sack of flour without the accompanying white puff. Martin whispered a few words Jesse couldn’t hear. The guard tapped his head his chest and his shoulders before turning away from the fence.
“I guess that’s it then,” Martin said, touching the brim of his hat and continuing his route around the cemetery wall.
Carlos squatted next to three lit candles. Cupping his hand close to the flames, he blew out the small dancing fires. He rose to his feet and patted the sides of his arms for warmth. After the wax had cooled, he glanced over his shoulder before pocketing the trio of extinguished pillars.
Jesse opened his mouth to protest but changed his mind. The comment lingered on his tongue, but the silence prevailed. Maybe it was protocol to take unattended candles. He didn’t think it was, but he had decided to mind his own business.
Carlos disappeared around a corner of the fence just as the body he’d dumped quivered. First, its feet and hands twitched as if it were dreaming and not dead. Jesse had never witnessed a return, so he inched as close as he dared while still staying in the shadows. A moan rumbled from its chest and Jesse flinched. The cadaver sounded as though it were in pain, nothing like the resigned groans of the long dead. The clouded eyes rolled in their sockets as the torso attempted to lean on floppy elbows. One arm slid on a tuft of grass as the lifeless skull crashed to the ground.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Jesse mumbled more to himself than to what was left of Eva.
Managing to sit, it tried to bend its knees. They splayed sideways in a suggestive pose looking more like a puppet discarded by a mad puppeteer than a once attractive young woman mourning her family. The body continued its struggle to stand as Jesse stared without embarrassment. He was certain his mother would be horrified if she saw him, but he was beyond caring.
The walker was on its knees. Pressing its palms into the dry earth, it wobbled to a standing position. It reminded Jesse of his little sister as she learned to walk. Every step unsure as she learned to balance on her own. The thing that was Eva trundled into the darkness.
Making his way back to his glowing lantern, Jesse scanned the fence line for his grandmother. He knew she couldn’t have gone far. The old woman who babysat him when he was small dragged past before he spotted the thrashing flowered dress. Her shuffling feet seemed to be snagged in a hole.
Jesse clapped his hands, and his grandmother shifted her direction. Her feet came free, and she stumbled back to the fence. Sitting on the blanket, Jesse shoved the rest of the small cake into his mouth and ground his teeth through it until it was digestible. He swallowed and almost choked.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Jesse said after he’d regained his composure. He tilted his head to look up at the dead body of the smartest woman he’d ever known. “How can your soul come back to visit on Dia de los Muertos if your body is still stuck here?” He frowned before continuing. “Mom says it doesn’t. She says you’re just a shell and that we shouldn’t bother communing with the dead anymore.” Jesse pounded the dirt with a clenched fist. “She says it’s pointless.”
His grandmother swayed at the bars. He imagined she blinked.
“Well, I think she’s wrong. I don’t think we should forget you.” Jesse wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I don’t think we should forget any of you. And I certainly don’t think it’s pointless.”
The dead woman leaned her head against the bars.
“I think she wants to pretend you never existed. She’s even taken down most of the family photographs.”
She paced a few steps before turning back to face the fence.
Jesse tilted his head and pulled a clump of grass up by its roots.
“But if your body is still down here walking around, where did your soul go?” he asked.
She let out a swine-like snort and swiped her hand to her chest.
“Why can’t you move on?”
A shrill cry rose from the rotting corpse as she swung her arm in a wild arc and slumped to the grass. Her hand stretched toward her grandson, her fingers still flexing. Her clouded eyes gazed through him.
Jesse sighed. After reaching inside the bag again, he crumpled the paper and tossed it beside him on the blanket. Scooting across the rough wool, he held out his last tribute in his flattened palm. The sugar skull was positioned as if it were staring straight into the reanimated woman’s eyes. Its colorful sugar paste lines and curls stood out against the stark white of the pressed granulated sugar glistening in the lamp’s flame. The deceased woman’s grasping hand stilled as Jesse drew closer, a thin sheen of mashed cake peeling from the base of her thumb. A delicate sigh seeped from her chest when her flaking fingers brushed the calavera de azúcar. As her hand closed around the crystallized form, small flakes of sugar escaped through cracks in her flesh. Her grip tightened, and the delicacy shattered, littering the patchy weeds with
candy shards. She pressed her fist to her lips for the length of time it took Jesse’s heart to beat four times before she moaned and opened her hand to reach for him once more. The remaining cracked skull fluttered to his feet.
Letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he stood. He noticed even more lanterns flickering around the cemetery’s iron bars as he gathered his belongings. Hushed words from muted conversations filtered through the cooling breeze.
“Goodnight, Gramma,” he said.
The dead woman grunted.
Jesse extinguished his lantern and trudged home through the pre-dawn light. His feet crunched the fluttering leaves.
RANDY'S NIGHT OUT
Douglas Vance Castagna
Randy lifted a gnarled hand to his mouth. His gums were oozing small amounts of blackened blood. He felt his teeth. His right incisor was cracked and broken off.
He remembered the good old days, when he'd been invincible. He only had his memories of those times:
The freedom of the night air. The terror he'd struck into the hearts of men when they found out who he was. What he was. The strength and power he'd felt after feeding, and, of course, the glory of the chase. All of these things were gone.
He wondered how a Vampire could be infected. He thought his immune system had been totally capable of dealing with anything.
Often he would speak aloud to himself.
"Why did I pick up that prostitute? She was the one, I know it was her. But I shouldn't have gone to her."
In the back of his mind he knew that it might have not been her who infected him. He could have contracted the virus from any one of his countless victims, but he felt the need to blame someone for his pain and suffering.
"Why don't mortals take care of themselves?" he would often cry with tears of pity and anger. He wished that someone would put a stake through his heart and end it already. However, he had no such luck. He was a Vampire and therefore immortal. Which meant that his suffering would be never-ending.