by Thomas Grave
“Huh? Yeah, sure,” Jared said, not paying attention. Without a glance at Mr. Zombie, Jared went to join the circle of zombie observers, eager to get a better view of the fight.
With a heavy sigh Mr. Zombie said to himself, “He couldn’t control his pupils.”
Jared made his way through slightly or mostly decaying Souls until he had a good view of the fighters.
“That’s a Poltergeist,” Jared heard Mr. Zombie say from behind him. “It’s interesting. This Poltergeist is going for power. I’ve never seen this before. They usually stick to their haunts.”
“Haunts?”
Mr. Zombie placed his hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Boy, you got a lot to learn.”
Jared knew that was right. The strange thing was, when Jared had searched for Sara, the city had been deserted. After seven minutes with Mr. Zombie, they had found a horde of creatures—Lesser Souls, Greater Souls? Whatever they were. And right now it seemed to Jared that he was about to witness . . . a zombie fight.
Mr. Frosty didn’t seem to move normally. Mist surrounded him, moving as he did, and it gave the appearance of floating, drifting side to side. Carefully, he glided away from the Shade, giving himself distance. The horde moved back, widening the circle. Then Mr. Frosty raised his hands, and the ground began to shake. It stopped seconds later. A slight response rippled through the crowd. Moderate clapping.
One obnoxious onlooker mockingly yelled, “Yeaaah!” in the background. Another howled. Others chuckled.
The Shade cocked his head, parting his lips to reveal his teeth, like a wild dog ready to fight. He raised his staff and grunted. Then he pointed his staff at the Poltergeist, challenging him.
The horde erupted with a shower of applause, shouting, “Shade! Shade! Shade!”
If Jared were a betting man, he’d put it on the Shade. Of course, maybe size didn’t matter here, and he knew nothing about the “order of Souls.” There was no question this Poltergeist, with his mist, floating and ground-shaking, had the creepy factor going for him.
Listening to himself, Jared sounded crazy. Never in a million years, would he have thought the words don’t underestimate the Poltergeist would form in his brain.
Ah, well. Things change.
“See that?” Mr. Zombie said. “The levitation and the mist?”
“Yeah,” Jared said, nodding.
“Each Soul in the hierarchy has its own ‘power,’” Mr. Zombie did air quotes with his fingers, “but, we call them Gifts.”
The Poltergeist’s arms sharply shot into the air, and two heavily mangled dumpsters flew into the sky, catapulting toward the Shade.
The Shade raised his staff and smacked both of them into a nearby structure with one swipe. The brick walls exploded to bits as the dumpsters disappeared into the building.
He smiled wryly at the Poltergeist, his expression asking—no, begging—for something else. Something better. If this Poltergeist wanted his power, he would have to earn it. None of these pathetic tricks. The little creature would have to outsmart him if he could.
A flash of self-doubt flitted across the Poltergeist’s face for an instant, but then his jaw clenched, lips stretched back displaying his cracked, rotten teeth. He balled his hands into fists, ice-blue knuckles turning completely white. Mist seeped out of the street, snaking their way up the Poltergeists legs, stopping at his knee.
A piece of paper rose from the ground, followed by crushed cans, small piles of dirt and trash, all moving faster and faster as they rose. Barrels of fire, a burning car, and even the two mangled dumpsters joined in, circling around in the air. Everything in the alley not fastened to the ground rose and funneled around, a tornado of garbage and ruin. A few lightweight Lesser Souls, so rotten and wasted they barely weighed anything, lifted into the air, their screams drowned out by the roar.
The Shade, eyes wide, stared at the Poltergeist and nodded fiercely.
“Do it,” he said, his dark voice filled with bass. “Do it!”
The Shade banged his staff on his chest, and the strange carvings on the rod glowed an even brighter red. Their light gave the Shade’s body an eerie glow.
Pointing a finger in the Shade’s direction, the Poltergeist let out a banshee scream as the funnel of junk flew at his opponent. The Shade stood his ground and took the onslaught with a smile on his ugly, mangled face, his eyes closed, his chest out and arms back, as if basking in the sun.
The whirlwind of trash battered the Shade. The two dented and rusty dumpsters followed, the force of them sliding him back one step.
“Yaaaahh!” yelled the Poltergeist as the dirt around him rose. A cold white mist seeped from his body as he lashed out with his hand toward the Shade as a conductor of the great junkyard symphony. Veins bulged from the Poltergeist’s forehead as he continued to scream, his neck muscles straining as the mist grew thicker and hazier as more trash and detritus smashed into the Shade.
The Shade punched both fists out, knocking the dumpsters away just in time to see the burning car slam into him face first. The strength of the attack caused a spark, setting off the gas tank and creating an enormous explosion that filled the night sky.
Heat from the explosion seared Jared’s face for an instant, and the silence that fell after the wind died caused his ears to pop. Flaming debris filled the silence with crackling and pattering as it touched the ground. Thick smoke covered the air where the Shade had stood.
Jared didn’t know enough about the supernatural limitations of both creatures, but what he witnessed was pretty freaking awesome. Flaming, floating cars, zombie cage fighting, killer trash tornados! His expression was of pure delight, his smile from ear to ear.
The Poltergeist searched the horde, throwing heavy nods, asking them to acknowledge his victory over the Shade. In return, they stared back at him with expressions filled with shock and awe. One zombie stood frozen, his jaw hanging slack with his hands clasped behind the back of his head.
As the dust and dirt settled, a pile of smoldering trash came into view. Flipping his collar, the Poltergeist strolled to the pile, taking his time, strutting like an old disco king. He raised one finger in the air as he walked, letting the horde know that he was the champion.
He came within a few feet of the flaming heap, a victorious smile on his cracked lips. He pulled the sleeve of his ice blue jacket over his right hand, and reached into the burning wreckage to claim his prize.
From the ash and debris, an ebony, muscular arm, with animated glowing white flame tattoos, exploded out. When Obsidians hand found its target, inside the Poltergeist’s rib cage, the flame tattoos glowed brighter and continued to writhe and slither up his forearms.
The Poltergeist’s eyes filled with fear. His mouth opened wide into a silent, agonizing scream. With a dark grin, the Shade walked out of the heap, hand still wedged inside the Poltergeist’s chest. Mist seeped off his unscathed body as the Poltergeist’s feet dangled a foot off the ground like a puppet.
“Did you think you had a chance?” the Shade taunted.
The Poltergeist opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out.
“Did you think you had a chance!” the Shade shouted.
The Poltergeist’s eyes begged for mercy.
Without warning, the Shade ripped his arm out of the Poltergeist’s chest with a loud crunch. Held within his fist was a glowing ball of energy. The Poltergeist’s body slumped to the ground. The Shade raised his hand high in victory as energy blazed between his fingers.
“Aaarrrrggghhh!”
The horde cheered wildly throwing their hands in the air.
“It’s a Soul,” Jared heard Mr. Zombie say from behind him.
“But I thought we were Souls,” Jared whispered.
Mr. Zombie nodded, grinning. “Yeah, but that’s the essence.” He paused. “The core. Our bodies are just a physical representation of it. That’s why we can look like anything, really. This is all just basic spectral science, man.”
Jared motioned to the
Shade. “But what’s he going to do with it?”
“You wanted to know about the pecking order? The Hierarchy of Souls? In order to go up the chain, you need to absorb a higher level Soul’s essence. That’s when you gain its Power.”
“The Shade is going to absorb that thing’s Soul? You mean he’s going to—”
The Shade waved the Soul he’d ripped from the Poltergeist up and down, up and down, riling up the horde. On the cold cement floor, the Poltergeist’s corpse shriveled up. Cracks formed on the body’s surface, growing larger until the entire thing wilted away into dust and mist.
The horde chanted, “Do it, do it,” growing louder with each round.
The Shade gave a dark wolf grin, showing his teeth, and to Jared’s surprise, crushed the Soul in his hand. It shattered like an hourglass thrown at a stone wall. Particles of Soul dust sprinkled to the ground, glistening in the moonlight.
The horde dropped onto their knees and tried to eat the Soul dust off the ground like rabid animals. Their tombstone-like teeth nipped at the ground. Some licked their hands and fingers before touching the Soul dust, before bringing them up to their hungry mouths. Others licked the ground itself. The chattering of their teeth sent shivers down Jared’s spine. He thought maybe the term ‘Zombie’ wasn’t so far off after all. Some eat brains. Others eat Souls.
Jared watched in horror while Mr. Zombie casually took another puff of yet another mysterious cigarette. He exhaled a puff of smoke.
The Shade, satisfied with his work, flew off, leaving a sonic boom in his wake. Several members of the horde were flattened by the gust of wind.
Jared turned to Mr. Zombie. “Why did he crush the Soul? Why didn’t he absorb it like you said?”
“He didn’t need to. Shades are number two on the food chain. That Poltergeist was stupid to try and go against a Shade. But if he’d won, if he’d beat Obsidian, then he would have become a Shade.”
“Who’s number one?”
“The Master,” Mr. Zombie answered. “Do you want to meet him?”
Tuesday, 11:22 pm
Sebastian blinked into his bedroom. He tried to flick on the light, but the power was out in the neighborhood. The only source of illumination was a faint glow stemming from the full moon hovering outside his bedroom window. He squinted through the darkness, finding his bed empty, the covers piled in a heap on the floor. The rest of the room remained exactly as it had been before he’d brought Sara back. Clean but cluttered.
A gust of wind came through the window and blew a stack of papers off his desk, scattering them across the floor. The wind seemed to bring with it an air of uncertainty. Something wasn’t right. Where was she? He moved around carefully, searching every nook and cranny of the room, including the closet and under the bed. Sara wasn’t there. His heart threatened to punch a hole through his chest. He’d asked her to stay here. Where could she have gone? Could his mother have found her?
He ran to the window and peered at the empty driveway. If his mother was home, she would have been waiting in his room when he’d returned. Perhaps Sara was still in the house somewhere, snacking in the kitchen downstairs or visiting the bathroom. His heavy boots thumped on the hardwood floor and he went to his bedroom door and called down the hallway, “Sara?”
His voice resonated in the silent house.
The hall was pitch-black. There were no windows and the lights were dead, yet his vision was clear. The more time he spent in the dark, the better his sight became. He could make out more than just shapes and shadows. He could see a full palate of colors as well, a vivid picture of his surroundings. Being the Reaper was turning out to have all kinds of interesting benefits.
He hurried down the hallway, bursting into the guest bedroom.
“Sara?” he called. But the guest room was immaculate, the comforter pressed, the pillows fluffed, and no occupants. He rushed to the bathroom and banged on its door.
“Sara? You in there?”
No answer, no sound whatsoever. His only companion was an eerie silence. Dread gripped him to his very core. Something that felt like buckets of ice filled his stomach.
He blinked downstairs to the front entrance. The door stood wide open. A rush of wind blew in from the street, chilling him to the bone.
Sara was gone.
Tuesday, 11:29 pm
A trickle of soft snow twinkled in the beams of pulsating streetlights. Sara wrapped her arms around herself as tightly as she could. The sweater she wore over her corduroy jacket was proving to be woefully inadequate against the biting night air. She’d been stumbling along in a daze since she left Sebastian’s house. Her route should have been comfortable, familiar, but it didn’t feel that way at all. Part of her felt as if she were seeing this neighborhood for the first time, and yet, she somehow knew the way to her home.
Fuzzy images pitched and rolled around inside her head. Every time she tried to reflect back on her life, to make sense of her current predicament, she hit a wall. So much of her memory was littered with gaping holes, names without faces, ideas without origins, events without context.
There was a recurring feeling of water, of coldness, but it was fuzzy. The one thing she could see with clarity was her home, or part of it anyway. In her memory, she kept seeing the explosion that had apparently killed her. If only she could remember what she had been doing when it happened. Well, perhaps a visit there would help to bring back some of what she’d forgotten.
She turned onto the street she somehow knew was hers and her house rose within her sights. What lay before her did not match the image in her mind’s eye. At a base level, it was somewhat like her house. This building, however, was dilapidated, perhaps waiting to be demolished. It sat on a slant, leaning left on its crumbling foundation. Weather-worn wood peeked out from behind faded, peeling strips of paint. Warped windows in Dr. Seuss-like shapes held the slightest amount of remaining glass. Across the entrance was strung a criss-crossing web of yellow crime scene tape.
Sebastian told her she’d died just a few days ago but it looked like a bomb had leveled this house not a week, but decades before. The houses on either side were pristine, not a whiff of damage whatsoever.
The closer she got, the stranger things became. As she reached for the knob of the front door, a wave of ripples spread out into the air around her wrist. She fell backwards, tumbling part way down the steps and watched in stunned silence as the ripples encased the entire house in a transparent undulating dome. Climbing back to her feet, Sara slowly approached the threshold of the barrier and reached out her hand. On contact, another wave rolled across the bubble’s surface, sending a warm tickle up her arm. She dragged her fingers across its surface, playfully poking at the mysterious sphere.
What is this? A force field? A hallucination? How was it possible?
Maybe the answers were inside.
When she was confident the bubble wasn’t a threat, she pressed on, tearing through the crime scene tape and pushed the door open. It gave a haunting creak. A tapestry of cobwebs lined the ceiling from corner to corner. Wide streaks of black soot and tar covered sections of the walls. Rotting studs were visible through openings in the disintegrating drywall. A thick layer of dust covered everything from the windowsills to the furniture.
In the middle of the living room, a torn leather couch sat slumped, facing a broken television that must have been manufactured in the fifties. Dreary portraits featuring a slew of faces she didn’t recognize mocked her from behind films of dust.
Sara rubbed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. “What is this?”
Past the living room, she came to the kitchen. The walls were dark and bent and squished like wet cardboard when she touched them. She went to the ancient refrigerator and jerked open the door. Glass jars filled with dry, dusty gunk lined the shelves, and its dark, rust-laden bottom half swarmed with a quivering mass of spiders. She closed the door again quickly.
The stairwell to the second floor was a minefield of missing boards
and broken handrails. Step by cautious step, Sara made her way up them. Each time her foot touched down, haunting creaks echoed through the house. Planks of rotted wood fell away behind her, dropping into a seemingly endless abyss below. She quickened her pace but paused at the top of the stairs. She should have known in which direction her bedroom was, but here, in this haunted place, nothing seemed familiar.
She turned right and peeked into the first room. It was a skeleton of a bedroom with no mattress or blankets. Everything sat covered in dust and cobwebs. She tried the other direction down the hall. The hinges on the next door squeaked as she gingerly pushed the door open. Straight ahead of her a twisted brass bed frame lay under a broken window. There was no mattress, sheets or blanket, just a rusted husk shoved against the wall. A collection of destroyed photographs were pinned to the walls. Sitting next to the bed frame was a battered dresser missing half its drawers. In the corner stood the scorched remnants of a bureau. Moonlight shone through a massive hole in the ceiling, bathing everything in a soft blue.
None of it was right. This was not her room, not her house. The portraits on the walls were of strangers, not her family. As she turned to leave the haunted house behind, a sparkle of light caught the corner of her eye. She whipped her head around, eyes fixating on something she was certain hadn’t been there only a moment ago.
Resting atop the bureau in the corner, a snow globe shimmered under the radiance of the moon. Something about it seemed familiar. She plodded towards it, hands reaching out for the singular item that she recognized, if only vaguely. Staring into the globe, her mind wandered. A series of images slammed into her head, some jumbled, some clear. The fog obstructing her memory began to slip away.
“Brrrrrrroooowww!” A large, black cat pounced from out of nowhere onto the desk and swiped angrily at Sara’s face. She stumbled backwards and the back of her head slammed into the edge of the open door. Her vision blurred, and her head swam.