Her proximity is alarming.
The eyes are the same solid black orbs I remember. As long as they don’t start turning gray, I think I’ll be all right.
“Page a arezodi.” Her voice echoes in the relative silence of the night, a confirmation of Sicko’s demise.
All of the zombies retreat into the woods at her command. The skeleton remains at her side.
“So, uh… can I ask some questions now?”
“No one’s stopping you.”
“Wow, okay. Let me rephrase. Will you answer some questions now?”
The shadow of her cowl lifts to reveal a wry grin. “Ask.”
“What are you?”
“I don’t call myself anything. I was human once, not so long ago. Now, I’m not so sure. The name you gave me so many years ago is as good as any.”
It’s weird, just standing here in the woods with her, but I’ve been hoping for this moment for over twenty years. All the questions I’ve ever dreamed of asking her try to gush right out, but I can only ask one at a time. “How long have you been this way?”
“Which way?” The smile is gone.
I can’t see her face, but I think she’s genuinely confused.
It’s too late to take the question back, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to shove my foot into my mouth. I can’t stop myself.
“Not human. That way.” Yep, there it is. For better or worse.
“I don’t know what happened to change me to this degree. I can’t even guess. But if you want me to, I’ll tell you my story.”
“Thank you.” Really, that’s all I can think of to say at this point. Brain.exe has stopped working.
That sarcastic smile appears again. “Let’s find a place to rest, where we can speak comfortably and freely.”
“My apartment is just a few minutes away.” I leave unsaid that her skelly pal will draw some unwanted attention, but my pointed glance does the trick.
Justice turns to the dead kid and hugs her. Actually hugs her. She whispers something, and a nearby shadow grows slightly brighter with a bluish glow. The skeleton walks into the shadow. Then glow and bones disappear, leaving behind a darkness that—I swear—seems somehow real.
Not that a shadow isn’t “real,” but I mean real in the sense that it’s a physical thing I could touch. Not like air or time. Not like a shadow at all, but a door. That’s not quite right, either. An opening without a door, like an archway between rooms—only, you can’t see the walls surrounding the archway. There’s no context. Just an empty space where a shadow should be.
That’s the best way I can think to describe it. The shadow is now an opening of sorts, one I dare not attempt to go through. I can’t even bring myself to ask Justice about it.
Instead, I pick up the slack in my jaw and head towards my apartment. Glancing over my shoulder, I’m surprised to find her right on my heels.
Even amongst the fallen leaves that crackle under my feet, when she walks, she makes no sound at all.
• • •
Once inside my apartment, I put on a pot of coffee. No matter what happens next, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it.
Justice sat in one of the two cheap wooden chairs at my kitchen table.
As I fix my cup of joe, a thought occurs to me that really should have come up sooner. Not sure what that says about me.
“I should probably call the cops. There’s a corpse in the woods back there that’ll need explaining.”
Once again, she hid her hands and face within the folds of her mantle. “No need. Simply behave as though nothing happened.” She sat so still, even as she spoke, she could have been a statue.
“I can’t. It’s not that simple. I walk that exact path almost every night of the year when I get off work. And just in case something were to happen to me—”
“Like tonight?”
“Yes, like tonight but without you and the Zombie National Guard to save me. Anyway, I have a few friends at the hospital who know my routine. They know I usually walk to work through the woods. If the cops find the body and start asking around, and I didn’t tell them about it first, that’s going to look really bad. And the longer I wait—”
“They won’t find a body.”
“Oh.” I’m not entirely sure I want to know.
Damn it. I have to ask.
“What are you going to do with the body?” An image of Zombie Boy roasting it on a spit flashes into my mind. Surprisingly, I’m not even the least bit nauseated by the thought. I must be in shock or something.
“The same thing I did with all the others.”
Duh. “I figured as much. I mean…”
At this point, I’m just disgusted with myself. I don’t want to know. I really don’t.
I can’t even remember what I was going to ask her once we got here, so I’m just going to sit here and sip my coffee until she speaks. No more questions. It’s too weird.
The hood lifts again and those eyes, devoid of light but somehow full of knowledge, pierce right through me.
“I will tell you, but first, you must understand why.”
I’m nodding before I realize it.
“My story begins where it ended.”
AUGUST, 1973
I was twelve years old when my grandfather died. He was like a father to me, especially since I didn’t have one. He and my grandmother raised me as their own. Even as a child, I understood that they were much older than my friends’ parents. But I didn’t fully understand the implications of that. By the time I turned sixteen, my grandmother was ready for the nursing home. She couldn’t care for herself, and I was too foolish and too selfish to take care of her like I should have. If I knew then what I know now, my life would not have turned out the way it did. Without doubt, without hesitation, I would change the past if I could.
I had relatives who could take me in. My aunt and uncle were thrilled, in fact, to ‘adopt’ me and finish raising me as their own. My cousin, Alice, became my best friend. We even bought matching charm bracelets. Hers said Best and mine said Friends. She and I were inseparable, even though we were as alike as night and day. Our differences became our downfalls.
One morning before school, I woke to my aunt yelling at her.
“If you’re going to piss in your bed, you’re going to wash your own sheets! What’s wrong with you?”
Anger flooded my whole body with heat. I tossed the covers off of myself, intent on rushing to Alice’s defense. I was grateful for my aunt and uncle having taken me in, but I loved no one in the world more than I did my cousin. I would not tolerate anyone treating her in such a way.
“Why can’t you be more like Kristine?”
Those words sent a spear right through my heart. Somehow, this was my fault but Alice would suffer the consequences.
By the time I gathered my wits and made my way to her door, my aunt had already stormed out of the house.
I knocked gently. “Alice?”
“Go away!”
“I’m sorry, Alice.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Go. Away.”
I wish I had told her there was nothing wrong with her. That lots of kids have that problem. That her mother was being awful and she didn’t deserve to be treated harshly for something she couldn’t control.
There are so many things I wish I had said that day.
Instead, I finished getting ready for school. As I closed the door behind me, I noticed my aunt’s car missing. She probably went shopping. She did almost every day. I briefly considered trying to talk to Alice again, but I had to be the last person she wanted to see. That’s what I told myself anyway. Now, though, I think I just wanted to spare myself the pain of seeing her hurting because of me.
If I had gone back, though, I could have saved her. I’m certain of it.
When I got home from school that afternoon, there was a police car and an ambulance in the driveway. Neither had lights flashing. No EMTs rushed urgently to or from the house.
Dread settled into the pit of my stomach. I approached the house from the back to avoid facing the adults who were no doubt in the living room. I wasn’t thinking of what I’d be walking into, of what I would face. I was nowhere near prepared for what I found.
I dropped my bookbag by the back door and walked straight toward Alice’s room.
So surreal was the moment, I took her open door as a good sign. A sign that she would let me in and talk to me.
She lay on the floor in a pool of darkened blood. Her bracelet was soaked and barely visible, but the charm glared in the afternoon sunlight.
Heedless of anything but my own grief, I sank to my knees and crawled across the carpet to her. Pulling her in my arms, I rocked her like a baby and screamed all the while.
I never lost my faith in God, but that day, I cursed him. Thoroughly. Until my throat was raw and my eyes burned. I rocked until my knees ached and lashes of pain shot across my lower back.
I rocked until I had the courage to draw back, to look at the face of the one person I loved above all others and say goodbye.
Her open eyes, devoid of life, stared blankly over my shoulder.
Then she blinked.
I dropped her and scuttled backwards, pushing myself away from her until my back hit the wall and I froze.
Alice sat up, her head and eyes moving around the room as if seeing it for the first time.
When her gaze finally settled on me, something inside me broke.
I’m not sure what happened next. My mind will only allow flashes of memory to surface.
I do remember seeing all of my aunt’s houseplants as I walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Every single one of those once-vibrant vines and flowers had shriveled up to skeletal remains of their former selves. On the floor in the kitchen, in his usual spot, the family dog lay curled up in a tight ball. I almost could have convinced myself he was sleeping except his fur lay in dried up curls on the floor all around him, his skin stretched tautly over his bones.
I encountered a similar scene in the living room. My aunt and three others I didn’t know—all three wearing uniforms—looked exactly like the dog and the plants: sucked dry of life.
On the front porch, I paused to bask in the warmth and golden glow of the setting sun.
A cold hand reached for mine.
Alice was beautiful in a new way, precious to me because she was something else entirely, something I had created. Instinctively, I knew what had happened, what I’d done. I had taken life from everything surrounding me to bring her back.
And I wasn’t the least bit sorry.
NOVEMBER, 2017
Present Day
She’s just sitting there, lost in memories.
I don’t want to ask any more questions. There’s only one thing I’m curious about and I’m sure I know the answer. The kid who was with Justice the first time, back in ’96, that had to be her cousin Alice. The skeleton still with her? Probably one and the same.
More questions come on the heels of that realization as I resurface from her story. Instead of asking them, like a single-minded asshole, I try to imagine her as a friend in need of a confidant. As odd as that sounds, I think it’s exactly what she needs. It’s why she’s here.
“What happened next, Justice?” I can’t bring myself to call her Kristine. For whatever reason, it seems too personal; a secret she didn’t mean to share.
I still can’t see her face beneath the hood, but I think she’s coming out of her memories.
Squaring her shoulders, she continues her tale.
“We wandered for years, keeping mostly to the woods where no one would see us. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching someone hurt her. I could hardly bear the thought of living at all. I was so sure I’d die of grief—convinced no human being could experience so much pain and survive. And if the loss didn’t kill me, starvation would certainly do the trick.
“The shadows whispered to me of a long-dead language. To this day, I don’t know if it’s the language of angels or demons.”
I wondered at the purpose of those odd words. She clearly didn’t need them for her life draining ability. But all those corpses she showed up with today— She interrupts my train of thoughts before I can grasp whatever idea was taunting me from the darkest corners of my imagination.
“One day, Alice and I happened upon a man in the woods. He was attacking a young woman.”
Chills race up my spine. The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise.
She tilts her head up to reveal that dark gaze and wry smile once again. “I believe you’re familiar with the scenario?”
Words? What are words? I can barely manage a nod at this point.
Before retreating once again to the shadows of her mantle, a wistful smile makes a brief appearance on her face.
“I killed that man, drained the life right out of his body. In those moments, I fully accepted what I was. I was a monster, pure evil. But then you said something, and your words haunted me every night thereafter.”
“I said you were my hero.” I remember that night—the feeling of having been saved from something awful—very well.
“That you did. I tried to become something good. I thought of how I might use this ability for good, to save girls like you and Alice from the cruelty of this world. My thoughts turned ever darker. I became obsessed with justice.”
Ooops. That was totally my fault. Still, if she’s only killing the bad guys…
“I came to regret leaving that man who attacked you where I killed him. Not because I thought he’d be found—”
“He never was.”
“I suspected as much. But I regretted leaving him there because there was more I could have done. I could have brought him back and made him suffer eternally for his vile nature. And so, from then on, that’s exactly what I did.”
Oh. My. God. All those zombies…
“My ‘army of zombies,’ or whatever you called them, is the result. The man who attacked you tonight will join them.”
“That’s… a lot to take in. The words… what are they for?” She didn’t need them to make Alice, so why use them now?
“Communication. I know of no other purpose for the shadow language, but I do know the dead don’t understand any other language.”
“Huh… Makes sense, I guess.”
“You know what the worst part is, what makes me truly evil?”
“Aside from hanging out with a horde of corpses?”
When her posture stiffened, her hood moved just enough to reveal the bottom half of her face and, on it, a frown.
Have I offended her?
Oh, I did. I forgot about Alice. Crap.
“Sorry.”
She waves one pristine, white hand in dismissal. “The worst part is that I’ve condemned my beloved Alice to the same fate as those vicious beasts. Because of me, she will endure an eternity of living death.”
Justice stands and moves toward the shadows in my living room, shadows retreating into the corners with the approach of dawn.
“Wait, you never did tell me why you came back to tell me all this.”
“You have the answer.”
With that, she’s gone. I’ll probably never see her again.
She’s right, though. I do have the answer. She told me because she needed to, and she told me because others need to know.
That’s why I’m telling you. Don’t ignore the darkness within you. Confront it and defeat it. As hard as that may be, you must.
I assure you, the consequences of failure are more than you’re willing to bear.
A Word From Jessica West
You’ve probably never heard of me, and that’s totally cool. I prefer to work in the background. Considering the type of work I do, it’s probably best done behind closed doors. Some people say I’m ruthless. Brutal. Relentless. That I enjoy their suffering too much—that I’m too good at making them suffer—to be anything but evil. In my defense, they’re authors and I’m an editor. Hey, love hurt
s.
Speaking of love, would you believe I have a husband and three kids? I know, right? Me either. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was a banshee or vampire or some sort of soul-sucking demon; that I don’t even exist, really; that I’m a manifestation of every author’s worst fear. But no, I’m about as ‘normal’ as normal gets.
Well, that’s not quite true. Everyone who has ever encountered me knows there’s something off. The doctors have yet to figure it out, but I’m leaning toward borderline personality disorder. The voices and I are still discussing it. We’ll let you know if we figure it out. In any event, we’re very happy with our typical life. I have a cool husband, three beautiful daughters, and a dog who goes by various names. First, she was Bug. Then Josie Bug. Sometimes I call her Silly Bug or Goofy Bug. Don’t judge me, she doesn’t know any better and I already told you I was evil.
When I’m not torturing authors as an editrix, or wifing and momming, I write. Sometimes, I swear, it’s lovely. Other times, I’m exorcising a demon. I can’t believe I still have some wandering around in here. I could swear I’d gotten rid of them all.
There are a few in Daniel Arthur Smith’s Tales from the Canyons of the Damned series, one in The Faces of the Crying Girl, and another one in an upcoming anthology (B-Movie) from Samuel Peralta and Artie Cabrera. Lots more demons where those came from. They just keep coming.
If your heart and sanity can take it and you’d like more (you poor, strange soul), follow me at Bookbub or Amazon to get a notification every time I possess their servers. Or you could just sign up for my newsletter but I suck at those so I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m pretty damn good at Facebook and Twitter, though, if I may say so myself. You can always just cyberstalk me there. I’m not afraid of stalkers. Even if a maniac managed to corner me IRL… let’s just say it didn’t end well. I mean wouldn’t. It wouldn’t end well. Most of my personalities are totally harmless. So, yeah. Stalk me but keep a safe distance just in case.
P.S. If you want to google me and find out where else I might be (I’m everywhere), search for West1Jess. Do not, for the love of all that is sacred in this world and the next, google Jess West. You’ve been warned.
World Domination Page 2