But then she found the wallet.
Sure, Janine had seen a lot in her sixteen years as a prostitute, but she’d never seen lady luck smile on her as she had this full mooned night. The wallet, was full of crisp one hundred dollar bills.
Janine stuffed the cash into her bra. “Not a bad way to make a buck on a Tuesday night.”
THE END.
THE RAISING by Ace Antonio Hall
IT HAPPENED BEFORE EVERY RAISING I performed. I called it grave fright. The same way an actress would get cold feet right before her part in a stage play, an autonomous ritual of an unnerving chill would ripple down my spine and make the butterflies in my stomach flutter and buzz.
We were aboard the Sea Queen a.k.a. The Ship of a Thousand Corpses—the best zombie-themed cruise in America. Imagine being in one of those magnificent hotels in Las Vegas during spring break; the golden elevators, escalators, walkover bridges, restaurants, and stores, filled with tons of thrill-seeking college kids and adults. You could call the Sea Queen one of the world’s best luxury hotels but on water.
Inside the ship's dance club called Lipstick Zombies, costumed zombie freaks were everywhere: werewolves, zombies, evil jesters, grim reapers, undead doctors, sexy devil girls, and a three-hundred-pound zombie clown stood near, waiting to see the live spectacle of an eighteen-year-old girl raising a corpse from the dead. My nerves were more on edge than usual. Maybe the fact that we were not on cemetery ground bothered me, although, I didn’t necessarily need a grave submerged in dirt to raise a deadhead. Unlike what many people believed, zombies didn’t climb out of the ground as they did in the movies. At least, they didn’t smash through the splintering wood of their coffins with their fists as if possessed beasts bent on eating the brains of every living person that stood in their path.
For one, zombies weren’t savage killers. They had the brains and innocence of a six-year-old mentally challenged child and were enamored with shiny objects like keys or snow globes. If you promised to let them hold one of those kind of things, they would tell you everything they knew. Secondly, most people who are buried alive can’t break out of a coffin, so how would a weakened, decomposed skeleton do it? Newsflash, they don’t. One or two things can happen, though. If the corpse had no coffin to begin with, and, if the skeleton is still intact, it can slowly crawl out of the grave (and by slow, I mean hours) or in like most cases of a raising ceremony, there’s an unburied casket—like the very elegant one in front of us, glimmering elegant wood.
My friend and one of the partners in my necromancy business, Flip, rolled the coffin with Blanche’s deceased husband, Boris, to the middle of the floor within the lighted circle. The pretty rose-colored casket sat on a mobile casket carriage made of 14-gauge welded steel tubing with pneumatic wheels.
Flip wore his short black hair slightly faded on the sides. His creamy brown skin stretched around a big round head and large walnut-shaped eyes that constantly begged for approval. He stood at six-foot-four and his feet were the size of skateboards. He ducked back into the deejay booth to give DJ Romero the music I wanted played while I performed the ceremony: Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt. Sue me—I’m a sucker for creepy classical music.
“So, did you meet Blanche Bankhead, yet?” Emily asked. She was my assistant and Flip's girlfriend.
“Not yet,” I said, looking into my black box of ceremonial goodies, “kinda creepy meeting her this way. I’ve got a perm case of the willies.”
She and I were dressed similarly, except Emily wore a beige midriff tee shirt with a diamond-shape opening (revealing a little cleavage), tight brown leather pants and knee-high boots with buckled straps. There were sheathed fake knives on each hip and a shoulder holster for her fake gun and magazine case. Em wore a thin, rubbery fake piece of skin around her neck called a flesh-wrap. I was dressed in all black, instead of brown, had no cleavage to speak of, and decided against wearing flesh-wraps for the raising. It didn't seem professional.
Emily placed a red bag, about the size of a shoe box, down next to my feet. Clucking sounds came from it. “Here’s the chicken. Whaddya mean, creepy?”
“Thanks. I don’t know—not that I care for her work, but when I think of meeting a celebrity, it would be at a book signing or at Comic-Con or something. But at her husband’s raising?”
“We’re starting to get a crowd, finally.”
Emily and I both looked at the small group of costumed freaks forming outside of the lighted circle of power. Somewhat of an audience watched us, but since the music still pumped loudly through the club, many people in the bar were still talking, walking around, and still ordering drinks.
My hands trembled, a little, when I sifted through my black box. I shoved over the butcher’s cleaver, wrapped in a cloth, in search of my jar of deadhead balm. The chicken clucked and squawked so abruptly it gave me a start. I shook my head. My nerves were really on edge.
The bag wriggled a few inches away from me, and I slapped my boot down on the tip of it and held the escaping chicken in place. “Uh—uhn—uhnn. The only place you’re going is through the gates of death.”
Emily pulled out an erasable black marker from her pocket.
I found the small jar, twisted off its top and smiled as I rubbed a dab of it between my fingers. Sweet! What a perfect consistency. I rarely made a bad batch—those smelled like a high school boys’ locker room.
“Did you remember to make a new batch of necrotic ointment?” Emily asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Graveyard mold, crushed datura, pig iron, herbs, spices (to disguise the corpse’s smell), and last but not least, a teaspoon of coup de poudre, or as the non-French say, zombie powder made up my dead-raising concoction. The odor of it helped cast an alluring spell on the deadhead.
“Well, we’re almost ready, Syl. I can see Flip leaving the deejay booth. By the way, have you seen the captain?”
“Yes, briefly. He ran off for some kind of emergency. My guess is he had a lot more people get sick on board.”
“Come on, Syl. You really think it was more to it than people not knowing their limits with their drinking?”
“I don’t know, Em. I don’t know. Told you what I saw with that blind lady.” I scooped out a handful of yellowish balm, and rubbed it onto the back of my hands and palms. My nostrils opened up immediately as the golden-sparkled cream released a strong vapor from the herbs.
Emily drew a star on the wooden dance floor with the black erasable marker, and then wrote the names of protective tiki gods at the points in the circle. She wrote KANE, LONO, KU, and HINA inside the circle, one god for each cardinal point—north, south, east, and west, respectively. I fished out what I needed from my black box and placed a flameless candle under Kane’s name, a small jar of blessed water for Ku, a coconut beneath Hina, and sacred bamboo seeds underneath Lono’s name. When we were done, we attracted twice as many observers; so the deejay lowered the music.
I stuck my hand back into my black box, and shifted through my goodies. Cremated ashes of a chicken that had been buried in ground for three days and anointed by the High Priestess, Nani Kama, were in a tin box the size of a pint of milk. I shifted the ashes onto the lighted circle, creating a real Circle of Power, and left a small opening where the casket stood at the base of the deejay booth.
The circle worked like a bubble or a force field of protective energy, which allowed me to cast the spell necessary to raise the corpse. Once I closed the circle, no one could enter or leave it until I raised the deadhead. Doing so, could allow bad energy in and disrupt the ceremony. I slowly walked toward the middle of the circle, holding the tin box of sacrificial chicken ashes in my hand, and took a few deep breaths.
Emily stepped out of the circle from the opening I’d left. Right on cue, the dance music stopped and the Hungarian Rhapsodies began. The three of us performed this ceremony so many times, we could do it blindfolded.
“Will Blanche Bankhead come forward?” I said, with a raised voice.
> Why are my knees trembling and my heart thundering?
Movement stirred from the bar area, and then the crowd opened up to reveal two men escorting a beautiful woman, with skin as white as flour, walking toward the circle. I recognized Blanche from the pictures on the back of her novels. She swayed her hips like a runway model. Her hands were poised like those of a conductor about to lead an orchestra into a harmonic realm of darkness and beauty.
Glancing at my own hands, I noticed they were shaking, and clasped them together. What’s wrong with me? I smiled slightly and watched the hulking men bring her forward. The men were both wearing tight black tee-shirts with Sea Queen embroidered on their chests. I recognized the hella-cute black guy as the guard I saw, earlier. The other beastly man looked about twenty-five, with reddish-brown skin, and a scarred face that resembled a bulldog. The scar (definitely not a good look for him) went from his right eye crookedly down to the corner of his mouth.
Emily met them as they approached the Circle of Power and led them to the opening, near the casket. I kept my eyes forward, breathing slow, gathering the calmness I needed to perform the zombie raising. For some reason, I couldn’t center my focus. Beads of sweat formed on my nose and I rubbed them off gently with the back of my hand.
“So, darling, this is the famous Sylva Slasher,” Blanche said, to Emily.
Her thick Hungarian accent sent chills down my spine. I inhaled deeply one last time and turned, facing them. The ghostly lady lifted her small and perfect chin to look me over. I avoided looking straight into her yellowish-hazel eyes because her cat-like gaze made me uncomfortable. Her full lips curled, as if she smelled something bad. The cake-white makeup and red lipstick gave her face a geisha vibe.
“Please,” I said, gesturing, “enter the circle.”
Blanche gave me a dumbfounded look and then turned to Emily.
“She means you, Miss Bankhead,” Emily said. “Only one close family member or the spouse of the deceased is allowed in the circle during the raising ceremony. You didn’t read the ceremony packet we sent you, huh?”
“No time,” she said, and stepped into the circle.
Blanche Bankhead wore a white, full-length tattered gown, a tulle petticoat and white gloves. She looked to be in her thirties or forties, with a long, Goth vampira white wig falling over her pale, bare shoulders. The Bertha collar of her gown showed a low neckline. I imagined her cleavage drew furtive looks from every hormone-crazed college boy in the bar. She hit wickedness and sexy elegance dead on.
“Stand here,” I said, pointing to the middle of the circle, “and face the casket.”
“You’re so young,” she said. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I ignored her comment, and got the cleaver from my black box and unwrapped the sharp sacrificial tool from its cloth. Flip came in the circle and gathered my black box. I watched him set it down behind the casket and then walk to the area where the Circle of Power was incomplete.
“I spent a lot of money for this, and for some child—”
I raised the cleaver to my lips, tapping them gently with the sharp blade. “Shh,” I said, giving her the best fake smile I could muster. I opened the tin, and spread the remaining ashes to enclose us within the circle. My hands were shaking so much, I almost poured out all the ashes before completing the circle. I closed my eyes and took a few more deep breaths.
This is no different than any other time, girl. Get it together. You’ve done this a million times.
My arms rose to welcome everyone into the ceremony and I spoke in a sepulchral tone. I scanned the room while I delivered the first words, and saw, not only awe but fear in each and every costumed undead person there.
“Not one word will be spoken by anyone in this place besides myself until the dead has risen. Any person who breaks silence dare their own spirit to be snatched out of their bodies to drift endlessly beyond the astral gates of limbo. May the Divine Being not cause any harm be done against me or anyone here during this ceremony for my goal is to not cause death but undo it.”
I picked up the red bag and lifted it high, above my head. The chicken squawked and squirmed.
“It is my wish that the universe favor the Circle of Power drawn on the ground. This fowl will provide a sacrificial blood offer to the protectors of the four cardinal points so that there may be no opposition to me from Him who keeps balance between light and darkness.”
I lifted the chicken out of the bag by its feet. It clucked and flapped wildly. A few feathers from its white body floated in the air and fell at Blanche’s feet.
I turned to Blanche. Her cat-like eyes narrowed. Her cold, hard look gave me a chill. Damn, this chick really creeps me out. I’m supposed to be the bad-ass, not her? Fail.
“Under no circumstances can you step out of this circle until I release Boris to you as your undead husband. Do you understand?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”
I slung the cleaver down so hard into the dance floor that it pierced the wood, and stood with the handle jiggling toward the ceiling. “I hope not,” I said, and slapped the fowl’s body against the ground.
With my other hand, I ripped the cleaver out of the dance floor and slashed it down just behind the jaw of the chicken in one clean swing, beheading it. A multitude of gasps exploded throughout the bar like a burst gas pipe. Blood spewed from the chicken’s limp body and poured like watered-down maple syrup from its neck onto the ground. If I’d cut an inch higher or lower on the chicken’s neck, I wouldn’t have severed the jugular vein and it may have still been flopping around like a fish flapping on land. That hardly ever happened to me anymore. My phone vibrated in my front pocket, but I couldn’t answer it, and berated myself for not turning it off.
Grabbing the chicken’s limp body, I held it in the air over the casket, still holding the cleaver in my other hand. Its blood dripped onto the floor. Some of the people that stood nearest to the edge of the circle on either side of the casket winced; others inched back.
“Thy body is the body of Unas,” I said. “Thy bones are the bones of this Unas.” Quickly, I slit the tip of my finger. “It is essential that during a ceremony, the blood of a necromancer mixes with that of a warm-blooded sacrifice. This ritual spawns the elements needed to call upon the powers of the ancient spells needed to summon the dead to walk. The chicken is symbolic for a sacrificial lamb and I am the embodiment which makes the connection from the physical world to the spiritual realm as our blood consecrates on top of the corpse’s coffin.”
I held the chicken over the casket and let its blood trickle down. I poured the sacrificial blood from the foot of the coffin up to the head. Crimson flowed over the rose-colored cell of death and dripped onto the floor. A burning ran through my toes, up my ankles, legs, up my torso, shoulders, and rippled down my arms. The sacrificial blood touched the coffin and then the floor, which allowed every inch within the Circle of Power to be ignited with magic. Nothing would happen to Blanche. She did not initiate the spell. Besides, she wasn’t a necromancer anyway.
I could barely breathe. I didn’t move a muscle or blink an eye, feeling the deadhead stirring below me. Fire burned in the tips of my fingers, and forced me to inhale violently. A current, like static electricity, ran around my lips and made me grit my teeth. I lived for that kind of adrenaline rush.
“Boris, this blood is the sacrifice for the one who controls the spirit realm so that you may be allowed to rise.” I reached back and extended my hand to Blanche. “Please, step forward.”
She did as I asked and I felt her cold fingers apprehensively wrap around my hand, which was drenched in sacrificial blood.
“Boris, rise and come to me,” I said. “Ego sum te peto et videre queo,” I repeated, over and over, which meant rise and come.
Using his name gave me authority over him when he rose. If I were to raise him without knowing or calling his name, which I’m not sure it’s even possible, he would be somewhat uncontr
ollable—harmless as an autistic child but uncontrollable still the same—which could turn into a big headache for me.
“Come to me, Boris,” I said. “Come to me. It is time for the dead to walk!”
Suddenly, the air inside of my body jerked in and out. Like a drowning victim desperately grasping for life, Boris’ spirit tugged at my energy force, again and again, until suddenly it stopped.
I stood in silence. Dead silence.
Heat rushed to my head like I’d just immersed myself in a hot tub, and I began to consider a thousand things that could have gone wrong; the lame-lighted Circle of Power from the ceiling canceled out the one Emily drew, or we should’ve used chalk instead of markers, or someone put the wrong corpse in the casket. But right before I could turn to Blanche with the embarrassing task of apologizing for the butchered ceremony, the shiny, rose-colored lid opened slowly.
Gasps came from the bar of onlookers.
Long, purplish-blue fingers slowly extended from the cracks of the coffin’s lid like a spider crawling out of a dark hole.
“My voice is the only one you will obey, Boris Farkas,” I said. “Walk. Walk and come forward! If thou walkest, this Unas walks, if this Unas walks, thou walkest. Feel the ka within the shell which knits and strenthens thy limbs. Walk now!”
Boris pushed the lid completely open. He clumsily kicked one leg over the edge of the coffin, exposing a shiny dress shoe on his foot. A rising murmur seeped from the onlookers. He pulled his body up, awkwardly and stiffly, and then fell like a bag of cement, hitting the floor with a loud thud.
Feet shuffled. Cries of hot-blooded terror erupted.
I raised my hands. “Not to worry, every undead corpse falls out of the casket. I am not allowed to help. He must make his first movements as the walking dead on his own. Do not be afraid. This is totally normal.”
The crowd seemed to simmer down a little, so I turned my attention back on Boris. He wore an expensive-looking dark suit. Boris moaned and picked himself up.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 16 Page 5