Undead for a Day

by Chris Marie Green, Nancy Holder, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  If the actions of the Amayas exposed the world of the Favored to the Untouched, the other Families would be well within their rights to destroy them.

  This is happening too fast, he thought. I need time to think this through.

  He heard the first bell of midnight from the clock tower atop the mansion. His year marriage was done, over. He felt no release from Marica. He hadn’t felt her for months. But he was officially a free man—and he needed to be married by the last stroke of midnight for their union to work.

  He kept kissing Bridget and his family went wild. She fought hard but he held onto her with magic, keeping their arms extended. Behind his father, the bonfire blazed as Emilio and Celia leaped into it, disappearing into the flames.

  His father hastily wrapped the cord around and around, chanting as he wove the strands and knotted them in the proper sequence, the witch’s version of the blessed rosary. He tied the last knot very tight. Xavier heard the final binding incantation pour from his father’s lips in rapid-fire Latin. The words were well-known to all Amayas, who grew up attending multiple weddings, some for the year, others for as long as love shall last, held every Samhain.

  He had to stop kissing her to make his vow. “For a year am I yours,” he said in English.

  “What the hell?” Bridget bellowed, and that would have to do as her reply.

  He sealed their union with the first kiss of marriage. Her magic surged through him like a lightning bolt, an explosion of pure ecstasy such as he had never known. Then he clasped her tightly against his body and hurtled them both into the flames.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bridget screamed for all she was worth as Xavier Amaya charged into the fire. This was it. She was going to die in the arms of a madman.

  Then instead of the immolation she was braced for, frigid darkness engulfed her, and she fell hard onto what felt like stone. She began to crawl away, trying to escape, registering that she wasn’t burning to a cinder. And also, that she was still tied to Xavier, and he wasn’t moving.

  She put a hand out. Her palm came down on his face. He didn’t react.

  She felt down the side of his head to his shoulder, and on down his limp arm to the cord that tied them together. There were bumps all over it—the complicated knotting his father made while he was chanting in a foreign language. Marrying them. For a year. In Crazy Town.

  “Xavier, wake up,” she said. Then she thought the better of it. If she could untie herself while he was out, then she could escape and…do what? She had no idea where they were. He must have expected them to wind up here or he wouldn’t have jumped into the bonfire.

  So he’s not so crazy after all, she thought. Or I am, too. Or drugged.

  She felt for her fanny pack. She could use her phone to get some light. But the pack was missing. So, no phone.

  “God, if I could just see,” she said, startling herself with the sound of her own voice.

  A dim circle of light from overhead snapped into existence as if someone had turned on a light. Warily she looked around to see who had helped her out. Pitch blackness extended beyond the light. Undeterred, she began to pick at what appeared to be a loose end, but was threaded back into the knots. There was a low groan. From Xavier, she assumed, and she shifted her attention back to him. Still out. She was startled all over again by how good-looking he was, and also that such a thing would ever register in her brain, given what was going on.

  Not that I have a clue about what’s going on.

  She got ready to do a hand strike if she needed it, and waited for him to open his eyes. But he didn’t.

  She heard the groan again.

  It wasn’t coming from him.

  Then she heard another sound, strangely papery, like scratching. The hair on the back of her head stood straight up; her face prickled.

  There. Another groan. Definitely not coming from him.

  Another scratching sound.

  “Hey,” she whispered, jostling him. She cupped his chin and leaned over him. “Wake up. Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  He didn’t move. She tried the knots again. There were at least a dozen, and the one she was working on didn’t give at all.

  There was a new sound like chain being dragged over stone.

  Coming toward them.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Hey, Xavier.” She gave his cheek a light slap. “C’mon.”

  His head rolled to one side. And another terrible feeling stole over her, worse than the one that had sent her searching for Colin. She put her fingers beneath his nose.

  No air.

  Moved them to his slightly parted lips.

  No air.

  He wasn’t breathing.

  She placed two fingers over the artery in his neck. No pulse.

  On instinct, she opened his mouth and swabbed it out in case he had an obstruction. She tried a couple of rescue breaths. Then she began CPR, folding his limp arm as she pushed on his chest, every cell in her body intent on saving his life. Pumping his chest steadily, efficiently, knowing she had just ethically committed herself to working until he came to, or someone relieved her, or it became too dangerous to remain. Not that she could exactly leave.

  What am I going to do, saw his arm off?

  The groans grew louder. The sliding sounds and the jangling chains, closer. She kept working.

  Then what appeared to be two rotten feet shambled into her field of vision. She looked up to find a skeletal corpse dressed in the cobwebbed tatters of a long white gown with a veil over clumps of dusty, dried hair. The face was coated with green slime, and yellowed cheekbones were poking through the skin. Maggots writhed inside the desiccated wounds and one dropped onto Xavier’s face, rolling and sliding along his smooth, olive skin.

  “Get away from us!” she yelled.

  She rose onto her knees and pushed the thing—the body, the zombie—as hard as she could with her one free hand. The corpse tottered and then fell backwards off the stone.

  The light brightened a little, and she saw that she and Xavier were on top of a large stone covering a grave. There were graves all around them, toppled headstones carved into pentagrams and crescent moons. They were in a cemetery, old and neglected. The watery yellow light glowed through skeletal trees…

  …and gleamed on more corpselike figures staggering toward Xavier and her. They shuffled through clumps of dried weeds and scrub, some missing a leg or an arm.

  Or a head.

  “Xavier, Xavier, come on, come on,” she ordered. No pulse. No breath. She remembered wishing for light, and then there was light. “I wish you to live. Abracadabra. Abrafuckingcadabra.”

  Nothing.

  “You lunatic, you stupid lunatic,” she shouted at him, pounding on his chest. “Snap out of it!”

  In the movies, the hard pounding would jolt his heart and save his life. But this wasn’t a movie. It had to be a horrible dream.

  Then she smelled the stench—rot, putrefaction—as the dead stumbled toward them. She choked on it and covered her mouth, breathing through her nose. Looked at the dead bodies lurching toward them, then down at Xavier.

  The corpse she’d pushed away was beginning to get back up. Bridget scooted over and gave it a sharp kick to the pelvis. It broke apart, jerky-like skin ripping and bones shattering. Bride dress disintegrating like tissue paper. She whirled to find that another corpse was clambering onto the grave and grabbing at Xavier’s free arm. She executed a sharp back kick and sent that one flying too. Its skull arced into the sky like a football.

  I can fight them, she told herself. No problem.

  She whirled around with a sidekick and caught a skeleton in tattered grave clothes in the ribcage. She took out another with a high kick. Grabbed a third by the neck and tried to heft it at more incoming, but she couldn’t get up the momentum. She had to free herself from Xavier if she wanted to fight them off.

  Several hideous possibilities about how that could be accomplished presented themselves, and she rejecte
d each one in turn. Maybe he wasn’t really dead. Maybe it was some kind of magical slumber, like in fairy tales.

  Maybe these things didn’t want to hurt them. They were simply a so-very-terrifying welcoming committee.

  “Colin!” she yelled. “Colin Flynn! Take me to him! I wish to go to him!”

  The things moaned and wobbled toward her. She pushed another one hard and it fell over, taking down one more that had bunched up behind it. But more were coming. How many could there be?

  “Marica!” She tried to remember the woman’s full name. “Maria del Carmen!” Her last name, what had it been? “Capacola!” That was wrong. She didn’t care. How many Maria del Carmens could there be in a graveyard inside a bonfire?

  “I need help! I wish for help!” she yelled.

  Her demand went unfulfilled. She went into full-bore battle mode as more zombies—were they zombies?—came at her. She didn’t know why they were attacking—if they wanted to eat her brains, or kill her, or what—but she spared no time in finding out. She used the dead weight of Xavier’s body to anchor herself as she executed multiple spin leaps and powerful kicks. Soon her hands were coated with slime and dust. Everything reeked. Xavier didn’t wake up.

  And still more lumbered toward her.

  Xavier had said their powers would mingle. How? Was there something she could do to make it happen? Did it still work if he was…if he was…

  “Xavier, don’t be dead,” she heaved between punches straight into the face of a tall, burly corpse. A corpse with a shock of faded red hair. She screamed as she stared into two empty eye sockets. “Colin!”

  “He is dead,” a lightly-accented woman’s voice answered her.

  Then whoever it was said something in a foreign language loudly and with an air of authority, and the dead stopped moving. They didn’t fall; they just froze, hideous, stinking nightmares with arms outstretched, reaching for her. She got a good look at the burly corpse and saw that it wasn’t Colin. Choking back a sob of relief, she scanned the cemetery for her savior.

  The corpses all began to groan—the same groans Bridget had heard before.

  “Who are you? Where are you?” Bridget called, trying to catch her breath as she swiveled around, looking everywhere. To her far left were two stone walls covered with moss. They were separated by a rusty iron double gate made of vertical bars. Along the top, large block letters spelled out a name, which she saw backwards. CARACOL. That was Maria del Carmen’s last name.

  So she was in the graveyard of Maria del Carmen’s family? The person who had called out might have been Marica herself. Bridget didn’t know if that was good news or bad. Good would be better. Bridget was exhausted, and if she really did have magic powers, she had no idea how to use them. And maybe it wasn’t too late for Xavier.

  “I need help. Please help us,” Bridget said.

  For a few seconds, nothing happened. Fixed in their positions, the zombies moaned plaintively, as if begging for release. Their stink was unbelievable. Even though it seemed hopeless, she resumed CPR.

  Still no pulse. And Xavier’s lips were turning blue.

  Then a young, dark-haired woman in a black sleeveless top and tight black pants appeared outside the gates. Colin walked beside her. Colin, Bridget’s twin, safe and sound.

  “Colin!” she shouted. “Colin, over here!”

  “Bridge!” he yelled back. “We’re coming! Hold on!”

  She tugged on Xavier as she tried to run to her brother. Then, as if it was okay to finally feel, all her fear about his safety and Xavier and the graveyard boiled over into a bad case of the shakes and she plopped down heavily.

  “We’re coming,” Colin assured her.

  “You and the evil bitch,” she murmured anxiously, even if it was the best thing ever to see Colin alive and well.

  Marica—if she was Marica—laughed. It was impossible that she could have heard Bridget, but nothing about any of this was possible.

  The gates opened and Marica strode through first. Colin dashed ahead of her, knocking over a couple of the dead like traffic cones, and threw his arms around Bridget. He grabbed her up and hugged her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe, and she hugged him back as best she could, since she was still tethered to Xavier.

  “Bridge, look,” he said, pulling up his eye patch.

  And where nothing but wrinkled eyelid over an empty socket should be, she saw a blue eye. Reeling, she blinked and put her fingertips on his cheek.

  “It’s not glass,” he said. “It’s a real eye.”

  “Oh, God, oh my God,” she breathed, lost in his embrace. “Colin, how?”

  “Marica,” she said. “She did it.”

  The cord around her wrist untied all at once and went slack, and Xavier’s arm dropped hard onto the stone. As the blood rushed back into her hand, the deep, stinging throb made her wince. She gritted her teeth and let go of Colin as she began to rub and flex it, even though it hurt like a son of a bitch. She turned back to Xavier to resume CPR.

  “Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Colin asked, bending down and studying her face, pushing back her wild hair so he could get a good look at her.

  As she pumped on Xavier’s chest, she looked up at her brother.

  “A transplant?” she asked.

  “No. Magic,” he said in a soft voice.

  Marica bent over Xavier. She was wearing Versace perfume, detectable through the odor of rotting flesh. She looked up at Bridget and pursed her lips together.

  “My condolences,” she said to Bridget. “You’re a widow.” To Colin, she added, “Your sister was his year wife. Same as me.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Colin growled. “If he wasn’t dead, I’d kill him.”

  “Are you sure?” Bridget asked softly.

  “Trust me. He’s dead,” Marica declared, and firmly lifted Bridget’s hands from his chest.

  “But can you…bring him back?” Bridget asked, even though with Xavier dead, at least one threat was also gone.

  “No, and I wouldn’t anyway,” Marica declared.

  Bridget stared down at Xavier. The reality of his death hit her hard. She had barely known him, and now she never would. To see him lying there, and to know that he would never get up, made her quake.

  Then Bridget glanced around at the frozen corpses, and threw a questioning glance at Marica.

  “If you’re wondering about Xavier, he won’t rise to be like them,” Marica said. “The veil between life and death is very thin tonight, and he’s already traveled to the underworld.” She cocked her head. “You’re grieving. Don’t waste your time.”

  Her brother put a protective arm around his twin and kissed her temple.

  “It’s okay,” Colin said. “Turns out Marica’s one of the good guys.”

  That could be difficult to argue with, given the fact that Colin had two eyes again, but Bridget was willing to give it a shot. She wasn’t willing to trust anyone in this strange new bizarroland.

  “I didn’t even know him,” Bridget said. “How come he died?”

  “I cursed him,” Marica said, as if it were obvious. “I had access to his essence, and I declared that if he came onto our land, he would die. Then I diverted the bonfire’s path.”

  “I was in his arms,” Bridget said. “He was carrying me.”

  “It was very reckless of you to leave that note for her,” Marica chided Colin. “If you hadn’t confessed to me, I wouldn’t have been able to alter the curse. She would have died, too.”

  Colin went white, and Bridget said again, “Colin, what the hell?”

  “Same old story,” he said to Bridget. “Hot chick with baggage.”

  “Hey,” Marica protested.

  The corpse that Bridget had mistaken for her brother let out a slow, anguished moan. Other corpses in the graveyard seemed to answer in a despairing chorus.

  “This is the night of the dead,” Marica told her. “These shades are inconsequential.” She turned her back on Xavier. “They’ll sink at s
unrise.”

  “But what about Xavier?” Bridget asked.

  “He’ll never rise as long as he’s on Caracol land. That’s a just reward for his actions.” Her voice was flinty. “This isn’t the proper place for either of you.” She smiled at Colin, and then at Bridget. “For the Favored twins of the Flynn family.”

  “And we’re back to that,” Bridget said carefully. “Xavier and his father said a few things—”

  “About me, I’m sure,” Marica cut in angrily, dark eyes flashing. She was as beautiful as Xavier was handsome. Had been handsome. “Blaming me for stealing the sphere. What did you call me? An evil bitch?”

  “They’re pretty pissed off at you,” Bridget allowed.

  Marica raised her chin. “I only took what they stole from us in the first place. And I can prove it.”

  “I don’t really care,” Bridget said. “This has nothing to do with us.” She looked at her brother. “You told me you needed help. I’ve found you. You’re safe. And you have two eyes now. But it’s time to go.”

  Colin managed to tear his gaze away from Marica and wrinkle his nose as he regarded his sister. Guilt blossomed all over his face.

  “Um, yeah, about that,” he said.

  More of the corpses moaned. Marica put her hand on Bridget’s shoulder. Bridget began to quiver uncontrollably, as if she’d been hit by a Taser, and her knees buckled. Colin caught her and she trembled finely, her teeth chattering

  “Sorry, sorry,” Marica said quickly, jerking her hand away and cradling it against her chest. She went pale. “That must have happened because you’re both here, and you’re magnifying your powers. I’m so sorry.”

  Bridget’s reaction vanished. Marica turned toward the gate again, and Bridget cleared her throat to get her attention.

  “I don’t want to leave him here,” Bridget insisted.

  “He’s not going back to the Amayas,” Marica said. She bent down and picked something up off the ground. It was Bridget’s fanny pack. She handed it to her. “So he may as well rot.”