by Gary Jonas
“I’m fine now, Cher.”
“Aw. That’s sweet…wait, that’s not French, you mean the singer, don’t you?”
The DJs didn’t have skin anymore. Hard chitin covered their shiny faces. No noses, only compound eyes and proboscises that curled up and down as they breathed. Their arms and legs ended in hooked claws. Antennae tested the air. Kokopelli clung to his flute and Mana to her pipe.
Behind us, time moved on in slow motion. More zombies rose as Kin, vampires, and wizards fell. The box elder bugs and cicadas barely moved – slowed down by the sudden winter. Red and blue lights flashed along Cheesman Park’s perimeter – somebody had called the cops.
We’re here to investigate someone disturbing the peace. I almost laughed, just as Grandmother Spider coaxed my attention back.
A ring of forty white stones with a gap every tenth rock appeared at our feet. I looked closer. Not rocks. Knucklebones.
“We’ll use your sticks, old woman, but we play with bones here, not rocks.” Kokopelli’s voice grated, but didn’t make me think my brains had turned into an anthill. “What’s your marker?”
She turned over the bottle of snake oil and the meteorite fell into her hand. She placed it in one of the gaps between bones.
“Yours?”
Kokopelli lifted an elytra, uncovering a wing which it stretched out. On the wing hung a satchel, and Kokopelli reached in and pulled out a seed. It placed the seed next to the meteorite.
Grandmother nodded.
I didn’t think the gods would play for money. And I was right.
“First bet,” she said. “Brand Easton against the zombies in Cheesman Park.”
“Wait, what?” Brand tightened his grip around me. “She can’t wager me against Kokocabana here.”
“Second bet. Amanda West against Kokopelli-Mana.”
Amanda smiled and ribbed Brand. “I’m worth more than you, gorgeous. Welcome back, by the way.”
“Third bet. Kelly Chan against your Children.”
Kokopelli flinched, but nodded in agreement.
“Fourth and final bet. Myself against your flute. Ramona will throw the sticks for me since I’m the wager.”
“Grandma, no! What if I lose? Wager me instead.”
Grandmother Spider ignored her granddaughter. “And on that bet, winner takes all.”
The monster’s proboscis straightened and curled. “What about Chasing Star Dancer? We want him to help us raise the dead.”
“And give us more Children,” Mana added.
“I won him back from the white man but Kelly Chan set him free. He’s not mine to bet anymore.”
Kokopelli chittered in anger. Mana joined him.
Grandmother Spider squatted down by the ring of bones. “The game is set. The bets are made. This is how you and I play.”
Kokopelli sat across the circle from Grandmother Spider. “You tricked us, but we will still win. Chasing Star Dancer will come down from the sky when he sees you’re my slave, and give himself to me.”
“We’ll see.”
Back in the world, the battle raged on. The Sekutar fought the cicadas as if they’d never been their brothers. The bugs healed as quickly as when they’d been human. Amanda turned to watch. I saw her eyes dart from one Sekutar’s face to another’s, looking for Juke.
She didn’t see him. Neither did I.
I felt Brand’s hand tighten on my shoulder. Our eyes met, mine holding a question, his an answer. He didn’t need to tell me we’d never see Juke again.
Grandmother Spider held the sticks above the center of the circle. She dropped them. Thunder crashed as they hit the ground. Chasing Star Dancer sent lightning across the sky. The sticks fell dark sides up. Grandmother Spider moved the meteorite five places to the right.
I watched a pack of Kin devour the zombies attacking them.
Kokopelli picked up the sticks and dropped them. Lightning flashed. Three white.
Grandma groaned. Kokopelli moved his piece ten places and tossed again. Three black. He moved five places.
Another group of zombies surrounded the pack of Kin and moved in. Not one ghoul was left standing.
The game progressed. And Grandmother Spider lost.
Kokopelli pointed at Brand. “Mine.”
Brand’s arms dropped to his sides as he silently walked over to Kokopelli. Mana wrapped her claws around him. He stared blankly at me, but I knew. Obedient ants marched through his mind.
“No.” I twirled my katana. “Game over.”
Grandmother Spider flung a piece of string at me. It hit my arm and I found myself wrapped to the chin in a silken cocoon. Ramona caught me as I fell struggling against the tight fibers.
“Sorry, Kelly,” she said.
“Not as sorry as your Granny’s gonna be.”
Amanda blasted the silk. Nothing happened.
“Shit.”
Kokopelli started the next round. As they played, so went the battle outside. Until Grandmother Spider lost again.
Amanda’s eyes went blank. She joined Brand.
Kokopelli laughed. “Your season, your game, old woman. You play it so well. Serves you right for tricking me.”
Grandmother Spider said nothing. She dropped the sticks into the center of the circle. Two white, one black. She moved her marker one space.
A Sekutar with a sharp piece of cocoon moved in on a cicada and slashed its abdomen open.
Kokopelli’s turn. Three black. Five spaces.
The cicada ripped the Sekutar’s head off.
Ramona stroked my hair. My heart pounded.
Seed and meteorite moved around the circle. Kokopelli’s marker stayed ahead of Grandma’s. Until she lost.
“No!” I felt the silken strands dissolve along with all rational thought. Ramona whispered, “Stay strong,” and let me go as I stood up to join Brand and Amanda. I struggled inside for one thing to cling to, one thought that would stay mine, that would save me from transforming into a mindless slave.
I raced backward through my days.
Ramona’s kiss flickering on my lips and…gone.
Grandmother Spider telling me I didn’t have to be weak if I didn’t want to. Her voice fading to white noise.
Lina’s warm hug and the taste of cinnamon, cooling and turning to ashes.
Brand’s passionate touches as we made love, growing softer until they amounted to butterfly wings, then nothing.
Jessica. The way she’d grown from a scared victim to a woman capable of fighting monsters. But on her terms – through grace and inner strength. Always my best bet.
Everything went dead white.
And then: the image of a Jeep crossing a battlefield past broken-down tanks. Clear as day.
I smiled. I would never be a slave again. And the whole world came back to me.
The seed sat three spaces ahead of the meteorite and five spaces from winning. Kokopelli held the sticks. He raised his arm to drop them in the circle. I could take what passed for his hand clean off with one swing of my katana. I had the strength and the will. But then Brand would probably die at the hands of Mana. Maybe Amanda, too. And who knows what Grandmother Spider would do.
So instead, I nudged him ever so slightly as he dropped the sticks.
One landed partially outside the circle. No score.
Kokopelli looked at me and hissed. I kept my face blank. A perfect slave.
Ramona grabbed the sticks and dropped them. She held her breath. So did I. Thunder crashed when they landed.
Three white sticks faced up. Ten spaces.
Victory.
Chapter 36
Ramona pumped her fist in the air. Grandmother Spider hugged her. Brand and Amanda came back to themselves. I pretended to wake from my own trance.
Kokopelli and Mana shrieked.
“You cheated!”
Grandmother Spider shook her head and grinned. “I wagered well.”
Back in the ordinary world, Chasing Star Dancer brought the healing rain. The z
ombies immediately dissolved into the muddy ground. The Children of Kokopelli and Kokopelli-Mana hid their faces and tried to burrow into the ground to hide. In a flash of lightning, Chasing Star Dancer swooped down and gathered them all up along with the restless souls that animated the zombies. He set them free among the stars.
At least, that’s how Grandmother Spider tells it.
Me, I was too busy attacking a couple of hell-bugs to pay attention.
As soon as Kokopelli knew the jig was up, he grabbed his flute and tried to run. Mana raised her pipe but I grabbed hold of her proboscis and squeezed it permanently shut before she could blow. I guess it cut off her breathing, too. Or maybe that happened when Brand crushed her abdomen. I don’t know, I’m not an entomologist.
Amanda got a couple good shots in on Kokopelli before he could exit the stage. I caught up with him and broke the appendage holding the flute.
“I believe this belongs to the house, since you just lost it in a bet.”
“You cheated!”
“So you say. I’m going to take it now. Just call me Rocco the Enforcer.” I grabbed the instrument out of its useless appendage and roundhouse kicked its head.
When Kokopelli hit the floor, its body reverted back to Trixster 13. Mana was gone too, leaving behind 11th Hour. Neither DJ would be performing soon. If ever. I don’t know; I’m not an undertaker.
I’m the Midwife. Bit of a change for me, but I’m getting used to it.
Chapter 37
The pretty newscaster with the gleaming white teeth acted very serious when she reported the story the next morning.
“It’s another rave gone wrong, this time in Denver’s own Cheesman Park.”
The camera cut to a panning shot of the park, where rain still fell on the torn-up lawn. Her chipper yet condescending voice-over narrated the scene. “Rave-goers came to support the victims of a mysterious illness contracted at an earlier rave, but they left the park a disaster, didn’t they, Brian?”
“Yes, Suzy, they did. The lawn was reportedly destroyed from a style of dancing called moshing.”
They cut to a clip. A woman with a face full of bruises talked about the most violent mosh pit she’d ever seen. “I swear, I watched people get ripped apart. I’m lucky I made it out alive.”
Back to the intrepid Suzy. “Along with the moshing came music so loud, it actually blew out local residents’ windows and damaged some buildings.”
Another cut, to a local and his incoherent take on what happened, including speculation that the pot smoke was so thick, it gave him and his neighbors hallucinations as they watched the concert from their balconies.
I wondered which box elder bug he’d been the night before.
When Kokopelli and Mana returned to the Third World, their Children reverted to human. Chasing Star Dancer carried them home. Well, the living ones at least.
Juke was gone. He was the only cicada the Sekutar managed to kill. She sat teary-eyed beside me on my couch, clutching a ragged scrap of t-shirt printed with a lightning bolt, one she’d given him a few months before.
Brian continued. “Police were called in, but rave-goers ran from the park before arrests could be made.”
Actually, they’d all exited via shadow.
“Tragically, the DJs in charge of the event were found dead on the scene of apparent drug overdoses and possible violence. Police are investigating the matter.”
The camera returned to Suzy and Brian in their bright, clean studio.
“Brian, are police speculating that the drugs the DJs took are related to the incident at their earlier rave?”
“It’s possible, Suzy.”
“And what about those other victims reportedly quarantined by the CDC?”
“We don’t have any more details on that yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. Now, the weather. Looks like last night’s surprise storm will be lingering through the weekend.”
Amanda spoke, her voice flat. “That’ll be next week’s big news. Twenty-eight dead, contagion contained, memorial run planned. No music, please.”
Brand stood behind us. He gave Amanda’s shoulders a squeeze.
“I wasn’t in love.” Amanda wiped her eyes with the t-shirt. “I wasn’t.”
“It’s okay if you were,” Brand said. Juke had been about the closest thing Brand had to a friend among the other Sekutar.
Yes, I let Brand back in. Time would tell if I’d made a mistake. But Lina left me a message defending Brand, explaining how she made the decision on her own to try and cure Daphne. She said it was sweet of me to try and protect her, but I couldn’t choose her battles for her.
I realized that Brand’s intentions were good, but that he’s just an idiot sometimes.
Like me. Two of a kind.
Someone knocked on the door. I had a suspicion I knew who it was.
Ramona wore a gray suit almost identical to the one I’d ruined. The rawhide cord was gone. Her leather satchel sat at her feet.
I stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind me.
Ramona smiled at me over her glasses. “I wanted to see you before I left. To thank you. And to see you.” She bit her lower lip.
“Ramona, we talked about this.”
“I know. And I’m teasing. A little.”
I relaxed. “Do you need a ride to the airport? What time’s your flight back to San Francisco?”
“Oh. No, thank you. Actually, I’m not going right back to San Francisco. After this, I think I need to get back home for a while. Not San Francisco, but my real home. Third Mesa, in Arizona.” She looked down at her bag. “I’m going with my Grandma.”
I looked down the hall. “Where is she?”
“Oh, she’s not here. She’s patching up the ones who got injured last night.” Ramona shrugged. “She’s still a doctor after all.”
“Your Grandmother’s not a doctor. She’s an engineer.”
Ramona tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
I’d had time to think about Grandmother Spider’s role in all this. The way she’d shown up at the right time. How she knew that Ravenwood would want to use Chasing Star Dancer to fight Kokopelli. It was her only chance to free the Kachina.
She was a doctor, true. But she was also a spider. And spiders can weave big webs to catch what they want.
I smiled at Ramona. “Nothing. Just a little joke.”
Ramona shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I did come for one more reason. I know you said you’re grateful to the Kachina who cleansed you of the vampire blood.”
“I am.”
“There’s a Hopi ceremony at midsummer, called the Niman ceremony. That’s when the Kachinas depart this world for their spiritual home, until they return at the Soyal ceremony in December. When they go, they take the prayers of the people with them. Chasing Star Dancer will go with the rest of the Kachinas. I thought you might like to say a prayer of thanksgiving for Chasing Star Dancer to take back with him. So, I’m inviting you.”
I nodded. “I’d like that. Thank you. I’m honored.”
***
My hair took its time growing back. Figures. So the next day I went out and had the rest cut short to match. I’ve always had long hair so it felt weird. It did have the advantage of taking away an opponent’s potential handhold and felt cool in the summer heat, so I considered keeping it short. But I missed the way the ends tickled the top of my ass when I got undressed.
When I came back, Jessica looked over my short hair and grinned.
“What? You don’t like it?” I ran a hand over the tips to make sure they weren’t sticking up funny.
“No, I do, it’s cute on you.”
“But what?”
She shrugged. “You know what they say. A woman changes her hair, she changes her life.”
“That’s it. I’m growing it back out. I can only take so much change.”
***
Midsummer’s day, I stood out in the Arizona desert with the sand under my bar
e feet and studied the mesa rising up against the horizon. Fire ants scurried in and out of the hole they’d made, whose hill I’d accidentally stepped on. They swarmed over my feet, biting the enemy who disturbed their home. A hopeless waste of energy on their part – I didn’t feel any pain.
I walked on. Sweat trickled down my neck and pooled in the hollows behind my clavicles. This land was sacred to the Hopi, to Grandmother Spider. To the Kachinas.
Ramona waited ahead, ready to help me say thank you. I’d brought offerings and hoped they’d be accepted.
Clouds gathered over the mesa. A cool wind picked up, bringing the clean smell of coming rain.
Dedication and Afterword
For my son Jack, who knows how to play a mean song. And my son Declan, who knows how to kill a mean zombie.
You know, I swore I’d never write a book about zombies, or anything with a Lovecraftian feel.
Just ask Gary. He gave me the title Zombie Rising and I whined and said, “Do I have to?” Apparently, there was already a book cover. The rest is history.
I’ve wanted to write about Hopi mythos ever since I moved to Denver and had a dream about a dancing Kachina doll. That was before I knew anything about Kachinas – or Katsinas, as they’re called now. I educated myself pretty quickly after that.
For this book, I’ve taken great liberties with Hopi and Navajo beliefs and history, fictionalizing and melding them with the horror of Lovecraft. I encourage you to read the traditional stories in the way they were originally told, to appreciate the beauty and wisdom in them. Might I suggest The Fourth World of the Hopis – The Epic Story of the Hopi Indians as Preserved in Their Legends and Traditions by Harold Courlander, Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, and Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with his Daughter by Barry Holstun Lopez, which is a compilation of Coyote stories. But read about this trickster god in the winter months only, as tradition dictates.
If you want to watch how the Stick Game is actually played, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdJ8vG-Rl3A
For pronunciation of Hopi words, check out:
http://www.native-languages.org/hopi_guide.htm