by Molly Snow
“This can’t be happening,” he said.
“Oh, but it is!” Marsha cooed, then put a hand to Damien’s arm affectionately. “Honey, you’re a fine-looking young man. You’ll be just fine. And we’re going to take care of Stella, so you don’t need to worry about her.”
“But she doesn’t want to go with you guys.”
“Oh, yes, she does, honey. She just doesn’t know it yet. Tonight we’ll head back down to California, back to the little bed and breakfast, and turn it into our home. She’ll still be by a beautiful beach, and it will be so much warmer down there. Now that she’s one of us, it’s important to keep her warm, you know. Oregon just isn’t going to cut it, and neither is Idaho.”
Suddenly Damien’s blood felt like it drained from his body, as he stood there, honestly, a bit confused.
“You see,” the woman went on, “she’s not just marrying Billy. She’s marrying us. We’ll all be there for her. It’s for the best. And, golly, I’ve been waiting a century for my boy to choose a bride. As a mother, you have no idea how painful the wait has been for not just him, but for me too.”
“Is there any way to change Stella back? Back to her normal self?”
The woman’s husband chuckled to that, and she said, “No. No, no, no, no. She’s turned, and there’s no way of changing back. No reverse button. Boop! She’s a zombie. And a mighty pretty one, I might add. This one is a keeper, for sure.”
Moments later, Damien helplessly watched a zombie-filled station wagon pull away, taking with them Stella. In anger and frustration, he turned to his jeep and kicked it as hard as he could before slumping down to the ground, and dipping his head between his knees. “You were a coward,” he told himself. “But there was nothing I could do. Coward!”
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, dazed; but, eventually, a few howls pierced the night sky, catching his attention.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The ride down south to California felt extra long and extra bumpy. Stella was still in her drug-like stupor. At least she felt no pain. Gah, she hated the fact that her head was on Billy’s lap, but there wasn’t much she could do about it but grunt.
“If you could say how you’re feeling, I know it would be ‘I love you,’” he said softly.
Oh, how she really just wanted to punch his face in. His stitched up face in. She started to tell him just how much she hated him, but again it came out as nothing but a stupid grunt.
“You’ll be able to speak again soon enough. Walking normally will come in time, too, my darling. These are just side effects of being new to our lifestyle. The chemicals in your body will start to work with you, rather than against you. And I can’t wait to see you walking down the aisle, and saying ‘I do.’”
*
The next morning, Marsha happily perched Stella on a dining room chair at the old inn like she were her personal doll. Though a pink hat sat atop Stella’s head (not of her own choice), her neck slumped to the side like a puppet without a hand; but whatever—good impressions were not important under the circumstances. The wannabe zombie-in-law was already discussing… well, telling… Stella what her “Big Day’s” colors would be.
“Periwinkle and lime green! My favorites. Now, I’ve already placed an order in this morning for napkins in both those colors. Oh my, I should have told them I’d also need matching plates. Well, that’s okay—I’ll just make a call this afternoon.
“Besides the colors, honey, we need to come up with a floral motif. Now, I was thinking carnations. Carnations are so cheery and scream celebration. Plus, it has great symbolic meaning in certain Asian cultures.”
Boy, if Stella had a mouth about her, snarky comments would be issuing forth from her like never before.
“Roses, Mother,” Billy said nonchalantly on his way past them. “She loves roses. Black in particular.”
“Black?” Marsha pressed a hand to her chest. “My-my. Well, that just won’t do. What girl ever said a black rose was their favorite flower? That is just bizarre. Roses I’m fine with. I wonder if I could order them in periwinkle. That would be just divine. Periwinkle roses it is, then. I’m glad we can have this talk.
“Where was I?” She pressed a fake nail at her scrawled list of to-do’s. “Oh, right—the wedding party. I’ve already decided I’ll be your maid of honor. I know what tradition says about it, but I don’t give a rat’s hooey about tradition in this case. As your new mom, I want to be front and center at the ceremony. And don’t worry—Ted will walk you down the aisle, since your father can’t attend.”
This woman had to be the absolute stupidest thing in existence, Stella mused. No way was anybody walking her down an aisle. There wouldn’t even be a wedding.
*
Um, yeah… So, as it turned out, it didn’t really matter what Stella thought—wedding preparations continued in full swing over the next few weeks. She actually became thankful she hadn’t been able to speak her thoughts, or give Marsha the stink eye those first couple weeks. No, it would be better to pretend she was happy for the impending wedding, in hopes that they may take her out someday, around other people, like at a bridal store. Then, she would escape. It would definitely be safer to sneak away with lots of other people around, and not in the middle of nowhere.
And her age? That didn’t matter either. Billy already beat her to the punch, anyway, by saying, “When you’re a zombie, age doesn’t make a difference anymore.” Well—it still made a difference to her! And the fact that telemarketers were destined to call her Mrs. Butt for the rest of her existence was the least of her worries. For one, seventeen was way too young to get married. And two—if Billy’s exterior were to show his real age, he’d be seen as one majorly perverted geezer.
Every day she wondered where the heck Damien was. She understood that while being surrounded by zombies, there wasn’t anything he could do about the kidnapping. But would he also leave her to live the rest of her life with zombies? She didn’t want to be like one of those stereotypical damsels in distress in romance books, who just knew their hero was coming to save them. The truth was, she didn’t know whether or not he’d come; she only hoped he would come. And she had to be honest with herself: the fact that she was now a zombie as well, gave her extra reason to doubt he’d ever be coming.
A month and a half after being kidnapped, Stella’s body was starting to catch up with her brain, coming out of its stupor. She could finally sit at the dinner table and eat, for instance, without the assistance of Billy forking her too much at once. A couple times she had spit her food at him in defiance, and he just wiped at his face with a handkerchief as if it was nothing out of the ordinary; like all he had was a dangling booger. They told her day in and day out that she was eating meatloaf, and she desperately hoped that meant beef and not brains. She didn’t believe all the talk about her having an insatiable desire for brains basically wired into her; the thought of it made her want to puke.
Stella wasn’t once let out of the inn, even to go for a walk in the woods or down at the beach. Her kidnappers told her it was too risky. They even chopped down the mailbox at the end of the driveway and cancelled the newspaper subscription, in fear that someone may get too close to the house, and Stella would go berserk trying to eat a live person.
“We don’t eat the living,” Marsha had told her quite possibly a hundred times by now.
The thought of her parents was always either at the back or front of her mind. They were always with her that way. They probably put out missing person posters all over the Western United States by now. Her mother surely stocked up on more guns and ammo, in hopes to kill the bastard who took her. Her father would be in correspondence with all the local and national media as the spoke-person with all his eloquent lawyer-like speeches. That all sounded ideal, but realistically it depressed her further. Because she knew that once she did bust out of there, things could never be the same. Their hopes would be up so high, only to come crashing way down.
She would never be lik
e their old daughter.
Besides, it would be only a matter of time before they’d suspect her lack of aging, and figure out her obsession with Mentos covered what was sure to be a major case of halitosis—too bad there’s no way to smell your own breath, she thought after breathing into her hand once again, trying to get a whiff. She was a freaking zombie.
THIRTY-EIGHT
~~Back at the night of The Deathheads’ concert~~
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Damien kicked a random beer can near his jeep in frustration.
“I was going to tell you.”
“And this is why you couldn’t be in my life all this time? Because you were touring with The Deathheads? You aren’t even a member of their band!”
It got quiet. Damien turned back around to see what his father was doing. He was still standing there, beside the jeep, completely in the makeup and costume. “You’re right,” he finally responded.
“What?”
“You’re right. It was stupid and selfish. I chose the life of a rock star without any of the real glory. Your mother and I tried making it work for the first couple years of your life, but I was gone too long. And the girls, the groupies, were more than willing to sleep with me, and I didn’t tell a one of them I wasn’t who they thought I was.”
“That’s just wonderful!” Damien kicked another beer can, and it popped high in the sky and fell somewhere far away onto the beach below. “Not only did my father leave his family, he cheated on my ma!” He slumped over his hood and cried, not caring to be seen that way. Always known for being strong, this was one moment he felt like a baby.
“I let Stella go.” Damien cried some more, and wiped his eyes. “I’m no better. Like father, like son, huh? I’m a coward who didn’t own up. Like father, like son.”
The sound of sniffling, coming from somewhere other than his own nose, surprised Damien. He looked back up through blurry tears, and saw his dad wiping his own eyes with his forearms. “I’m sorry, bud. I was a jackhole. A real jackhole. And I was too afraid to tell ya. It doesn’t feel good being found out for the scum you truly are by your own son.” His father stepped closer to him, and the silver makeup was all streaked over his cheeks. “I wanted to come clean to you tonight, because I thought it would be easier. I wanted you to be all excited about the concert, and see what I do, and have some sort of understanding, and maybe even look up to me a bit. But that was just plain asinine. Why would my son suddenly forgive me for not being there for him for eighteen years of his life, over a few pop-a-wheelies and blasts of fire? So I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. You should feel that way, in fact. I deserve it. Every bit of it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Yes, I do.”
They both leaned over the hood side by side.
“Are you a werewolf, Pa?”
“You called me Pa.”
“Are you a werewolf?” Damien breathed in with a shudder, composing himself.
“No.”
*
“Damien Capernalli, please report to room 201. Damien Capernalli, room 201.” He set down his Pepsi on the lunch table and stood up, thinking it very strange to hear his own name over the school’s loud speaker.
“What’s that about?” Tyler asked, swiping the soda and taking a swig.
“I don’t know.”
“You busted?”
“For what?”
“Well, I don’t know. Room 201 is detention hall. You musta done something. Hurry back to tell us what’s up.”
His group eyed him as if he won a trophy, like he did something worthy of getting rewarded for. “I’ll see ya,” Damien said, and took off.
Once inside room 201, Damien quickly realized he was all alone but one other person. “Maggie? What’s up?”
“Sh! First of all, read the nametag. Here, I’m not Maggie; I’m Mrs. Simcox.”
“Aren’t you only like nineteen or something?”
“Sure, but the office ladies don’t know any better. Sit down,” she ordered. It surprised him. He wasn’t used to Maggie talking to him with such authority. Still, he sat, and right away.
“Listen to me,” she said, her blonde hair in a bun, and pointing a pencil at him in her pudgy hand. “You, sir, have got to have a plan. What is it?”
“Huh?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said. “It’s been a month and a half. Stella’s face is plastered everywhere by now, minus milk cartons. You have to have some sort of plan, so spill it.”
He blankly looked at her. “You’re kinda freaking me out right now, Mags. I ain’t gonna lie.”
She paced back and forth a couple times, before slamming her hands on his desk and looking him dead in the eyes. “Aren’t you worried about her? Aren’t you gonna do something?”
“Yes!”
“Then what’s the hold up?”
“If you haven’t thought of it by now, then I’ll spell it out for you. I’ve been a suspect to her kidnapping; or worse, her murder. Her mother has her cross-hairs aimed right at my head twenty-four seven. I was the last person seen with Stella at the concert. Many witnesses came forward to testify of that fact. I can’t just up and leave. Not yet, anyway.”
That just heated up Maggie more. “Sometimes the knight has got to get off his britches and ride off to the castle to slay the dragon. Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Right, and if I happen to get caught by one of the authorities, zooming past the Oregon state boundary, then my britches are thrown in jail! There’s no way I can help Stella if I’m behind bars, is there?”
His interrogator finally deflated like a sad balloon into a seat beside him, pasting her forehead right to its desk. “Oh glory. Why didn’t you just shred Billy when you had the chance?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean ‘you couldn’t’?” She lifted her head and turned to him. “You’re a werewolf, Damien.”
“First of all, how would you know anything about me? I went to the PAA fieldtrip, but we hardly talked.”
Maggie pulled her shirt down to show the scar on her chest. “You think this thing is from having a pacemaker implanted? I was bloody covering up for seeing Gordon’s paranormal scanner beeping in your hands.”
The shirt snapped back up and Damien sighed in relief. Maggie’s cleavage was not on his list of things to see. And that would be twice he got a good view. “It’s not what you think.”
“What do you mean? You either are a werewolf who can shred Billy to bits or you aren’t. And if you’re not, then what’s Plan B?”
“I’m not a werewolf. I don’t know what I can do… if I can do anything, even.”
“Do you want to do something?”
“Yes, I said I do.” Man, did he ever.
“That’s all that matters.”
THIRTY-NINE
So it wasn’t out to a store, but it was a step in that direction. Marsha had packed a picnic basket filled with food, a red and white checkered tablecloth hanging out the side of it and all. They were headed together as a happy little zombie family to a park.
Stella helped lay a blanket out on the bushy green grass beside a lake, then sat on it as Marsha dispersed the plates and food. Billy took his spot next to her and wrapped an arm around her back. She cringed, feeling her muscles tighten, but didn’t say anything.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Marsha used Ted’s shoulder to help steady herself back up, and trotted off to the station wagon. She returned with sweaters in hand, tossing one to each of them.
Stella was already wearing a pastel jumpsuit with a white turtleneck underneath, still looking like one of Marsha’s dolls. She politely refused the sweater. She wasn’t that cold anyway. Billy, on the other hand, put on his preppy cardigan in thankfulness.
“Stella,” Billy said quietly, “I have something to show you. Come with me on a walk.” He stood and extended his hand to help her up. She pretended to not have noticed the gesture, and got up on her o
wn.
They walked along the lake’s shore, and Stella kept her eyes mostly to the ground, or watching geese float to the water’s edge.
“I’m so happy we are finally back together again,” Billy said, putting his hands in his pockets. “It feels like I’ve been waiting for forever. I thought it only proper to back things up a bit and do things the right way. Come with me to that willow, where we can have some privacy.”
She glanced up to his nervous expression, and nodded.
Beneath the willow tree, far from his parents, Billy knelt on one knee and opened a black velvet box, showing her a simple diamond ring. “Stella Lynn Dabrowsky, you are the prettiest thing to have ever walked the face of the earth.”
Air. Stella suddenly forgot how to breathe. But she right away realized it didn’t matter in her current condition if she breathed or not. This was not good. This was not part of the plan of going with the flow until she could run away. A girl should only be proposed to once, ideally—and by the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“Will you marry me, love?” He looked up to her with what she could tell was a forced and hope-filled smile.
Stella pressed a hand to her cold forehead. “Billy. You kidnapped me. You turned me into a zombie against my will. You-you think I could be happy about this? What do you think I will say?”
His expression fell slightly just before a smile sprung back up—a smile that under sane circumstances would actually be very charming. “I was hoping you would come to your senses. I’m offering you a wonderful gift: A loving family, a longer life… me. And here is your beautiful engagement ring; I hope it fits your delicate finger.”
She couldn’t help but snort at his last comment. “My hands are witchy. See?” She clawed at the air like the night Maggie and Kit made fun of her fingers; coincidentally, the night his grandmother’s insides were splattered all over the floor like Jell-o.
Billy took one of her hands and pressed it to his icy lips. “They’re beautiful.”
Stella slumped to the ground beside him with a big sigh. “Billy, do you remember you nearly killed my friend, leaving his limp and bruised body outside my front door?”
He sat down with her, and with a serious expression said, “I didn’t nearly kill him. I just bumped him around a bit. Kind of like how a cat plays with a mouse. I knew he’d be fine.”