Divine Fantasy (7 page)

He handed me the pistol. It was a Colt Peacemaker. I recognized it both because it was the gun I had shot on that memorable occasion when I had my one father-daughter bonding experience, but also because of the lecture I got along with the lesson on how to shoot this rather heavy pistol without injuring myself.

For those of you who don’t know the Colt, it had an illustrious history—and by that I mean it has a long and bloody history. It was the handgun of choice at the OK Corral, for instance. It’s shot a lot of soldiers and a lot of “injuns.” Unlike its sleeker, modern brethren that shoot high-velocity, steel-cased, narrow-caliber shells that leave neat little holes in targets—and bodies, I assume—the Colt shoots large, unjacketed, soft-nosed bullets that mushroom on impact, ripping large messy holes in targets. And bodies, again presumably. My father told me that if I was stupid enough to shoot myself in the foot with it, I would no longer have a foot. I had handled the gun with great care. As I still valued my feet, I handled this one with great care as well.

“Don’t worry. It’s already loaded. You just have to point and shoot.”

“Okay,” I said, again at a loss for words. Miss Manners’s etiquette guide just didn’t cover a situation like this.

I kept the gun pointed well away from my feet, though my finger was nowhere near the trigger. I know, it’s dumb, but the whole “if I shot myself in the foot I wouldn’t have a foot” thing has always stuck in my mind.

“Ready?”

Well, not really. But I nodded and we went back outside. In the few moments we had been indoors, the weather had changed. Clouds had roiled in from the west and blocked out the sun. The smell of ozone was strong in the air.

“So, shower and olives first?” Ambrose asked. “Or do we head right for the beach?”

Olives! Pick olives!
My cowardly side sniveled. But I said: “The beach. We need to find out what’s going on.”

I sounded so brave I almost fooled myself. I could never have faked it if I hadn’t known that Ambrose really wasn’t afraid, and confident that he could handle anything we might face. I was strictly a second-string benchwarmer.

“Or at least if there are any more zombies,” Ambrose muttered. I don’t have supersensitive ears, but my hearing is rather good and I was listening carefully, so I caught this.

Ambrose and I were walking differently as we stalked over the sand. Weapons do that to a person. They make one move with deliberation and purpose. Also, one’s balance is different when one
is holding a handgun out to the side so it doesn’t point at one’s feet.

We didn’t speak, though it was unlikely that we could have heard anything over the sound of waves shushing across the beach and the increasing screech of the wind as it whipped its way through the thrashing palms and up the side of the mountain that divided the island in two.

“A storm’s coming. That’s odd, because there wasn’t anything in the long-range forecast about one.” Ambrose sounded a bit grim.

“Great,” I muttered, thinking of all the horror movies I’d seen where people got trapped on islands because of terrible storms. For a moment, I thought Ambrose was going to say something more, but he decided to keep his counsel for the time being.

All too soon we reached the edge of the water. I stopped a foot away from the waterline, reluctant to get my feet wet with water that had also touched a zombie.

“I’m going to put you up on the rocks. You’ll have a better vantage point,” Ambrose said, taking me by the waist and tossing me and the Colt on top of a flat-topped, shoulder-high boulder that was damp but not slimy. The casual use of his unusual strength was still disconcerting, though I had no fear of him turning that strength upon me. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I nodded, being tired of saying so. Particularly since I was increasingly less okay every time he asked.

“Keep this for now,” he said, handing me the
shotgun, which I laid on the rock beside me. It was probably more accurate than the Colt, but I’d never used one before and I didn’t think this was the day to begin lessons. Ambrose’s dark eyes considered me as I straightened. “I’d prefer you not shoot me, but if I come out of the water with anything attached, feel free to let fly. I don’t like getting shot, but even less do I like getting bitten by zombies.”

I looked at the deadly Colt in my hand and remembered how it kicked and how loud the percussion was. Then I thought about the zombie and what it might look like fastened to Ambrose’s neck. Injury by bullets or teeth, neither option appealed to me, but his preferences had been clearly stated. I would honor them.

“I’ll try to keep away from your face,” I said, which was a grim sort of truth, but for some reason it made him laugh.

“Please do. That Colt will drop a charging bull at fifty yards. I’d be hours picking up pieces of my head.”

Before I could say anything else, he peeled off his khaki shorts and T-shirt and began walking naked toward the water. I thought about asking him what the hell he was doing, but decided that I didn’t want him to turn around and talk to me while he wasn’t wearing clothes. One naked body a day was enough, even though Ambrose’s body was a much more pleasant form to look at.

In a distressingly short period of time he had disappeared under the water. I saw him break the
surface once when he was out beyond the waves. He traveled the distance in half the time it had taken me.

It began to rain the moment I was alone. Big fat stinging drops, which I hated both because it decreased visibility and also because it was surprisingly cold after a while. Or maybe it was fear whose cold hands ran themselves over my body and lingered at my heart.

“Shit. Why me?” I asked the heavens. “I’m not good at stressful situations, and this situation would turn John Wayne into a bed wetter.” In answer, the rain began falling hard enough to hit the rocks and then bounce back into the air. The drops that hit me bounced back, too, but only after they had bruised my flesh. Also—and I tried hard to tell myself it was only my overwrought imagination—I thought I could smell traces of rot and sulfur in the air. That wasn’t normal. I didn’t know if I should be looking for more zombies creeping up behind me from the beach, or watching for the cone of what might be a reawakening volcano.

All around me the wind jeered and bushes whispered slyly. I could have shouted back, but the wind would have shredded my voice as it did all other sound.

I recalled a particularly horrid story that had haunted me all my days at boarding school. It was about the Jólasveinar or Yulemen. They were sneaky goblins who showed up around Christmas time and lingered until Twelfth Night. These are the thirteen progeny of Grýla and Leppalúöi, an Icelandic troll
couple opposed to family planning who, additionally, had a habit of eating disobedient human kids who desperately needed to get up to use the bathroom in the night even when it was against dormitory rules. The ogre kids weren’t truly evil like their parents, but they were malicious. They had names like Door Slammer, Window Peeper, Meat Hooker and, rather horribly, Doorway Sniffer. Most terrifying of all of them were the Lamp Shadow, the Smoke Gulper and the Crevice Imp, because they could be anywhere and everywhere. What house was there that didn’t have lamps or a fireplace or the odd crack or two where something wicked could hide? It made every nighttime trip to the bathroom at the end of the long, icy hall an exercise in terror.

But that just goes to show you how even the worst things can have a silver lining, I told myself. It was excellent training for someone who might have to play hide-and-seek with zombies.

Nevertheless, I had worked myself into a good state of pre-hysteria and heart palpitations when Ambrose reappeared from the agitated surf. I was so grateful to see him—sans zombies—that I forgot to be bothered by his nudity.

“Did you see anything?” I called, a hand at my chest in a protective gesture that was probably a bit theatrical but still comforting. The wind tossed my words back at me, but he seemed to hear them anyway. I kept my eyes on his face. I wasn’t ready for any other distractions.

“Not yet. But the sharks are definitely behaving
oddly.” He picked up his damp shorts and shirt but didn’t put them on at once. “Hand me the rifle,” he said, and I bent to retrieve the shotgun.

“Okay, let’s get dried off and have a bite to eat and then I’m going over to see the mangroves.”

“W-we’re
going to see the mangroves,” I corrected. My teeth had begun to chatter either from fright or the cold. I didn’t mention the volcano. The smell was gone and the idea seemed stupid once I was no longer alone. Also, though it is anthropomorphizing, I felt that the island was grateful the wind had stopped its eerie moaning. A few birds appeared in nearby bushes and a long green lizard crawled up onto the rock where I was standing. He moved warily, as though expecting further assault. I sympathized.

“Okay,
we’re
going to see the mangroves. But not until you’ve warmed up. I don’t mind pale women, but you look like plasterboard. Gray just isn’t your best color.” He could probably also hear my heart galloping along like a wild horse with a lame leg.

The cold didn’t seem to bother him, but I was beginning to shake and didn’t protest when he lifted me down from my perch. His hands were still wonderfully warm as was his naked but wet body. “E-everyone’s a c-critic,” I muttered and then laughed. I had recalled Ambrose’s entry on this subject in his
Devil’s Dictionary:
Critic
,
n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him
.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand and pulling
me close for a comforting hug. He held me close for a minute and I felt something like scar tissue rise up on his chest. It was his lightning scar, the ceraunograph imprinted on his body when he was electrocuted by the Dark Man. “Excuse the liberties, but you’ll freeze if we don’t get you warm.”

I excused the liberties. I even welcomed them. Being in his arms was like being wrapped in an electric blanket turned up to an unsafe but toasty setting. I needed that badly.

Ambrose was dressed and had made or procured a pot of hot chocolate by the time I was out of his shower. Feeling infinitely better, I joined him at the small table near the French doors that overlooked the beach, and accepted a vibrant blue mug from his long-fingered hands. A quick sniff told me the hot chocolate was laced with brandy. Fortunately, a quick sip assured me that the chocolate was strong enough to defend itself against the liquor, and the drink was smooth and luscious and completely unlike the stuff I got at the greasy
ptomainery
where I had often grabbed breakfast and sometimes a late afternoon hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps.

“Have you noticed that there’s a support group for every problem? Except this one,” he added.

“I don’t know,” I hedged, trying for a bit of lightness as I sipped again at the chocolate. It was delicious. Usually I am surly when fatigued, but this time I was too shocked by what had happened and too fascinated with Ambrose to feel any of the low-grade peevishness that might be cruising through my body. “They might have a Zombies Anonymous chapter in Haiti.”

“No. I’ve checked,” he said.

“Well, that’s just disappointing.” Maybe it was my mind protecting itself, or perhaps the hot chocolate, but I seemed unable to return to my previous horrified state. In fact, I felt exhilarated.

He turned to me with a small smile. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably a good thing that zombies aren’t all that common. The world has trouble enough with cockroaches and termites.”

I nodded at this bit of prosaic wisdom and took refuge in my cup. We watched in companionable silence as a small bird flitted by the window and alit on a flowering bush just outside. It was a strange silvery white shade that I associate with the ghostly winter weather in Munich, and its eyes were red. I found its gaze a bit unnerving and wondered fleetingly if it suffered from albinism.

“Ambrose, is that all that zombies do? Track people, I mean.”

“Pretty much. They do whatever they are bidden—as long as it involves hunting and killing
and eventually eating whatever they find. They’re not smart enough for anything more sophisticated…at least not the ones I’ve seen. You wouldn’t send one to rob a bank or break into a computer.” We weren’t looking at each other. Instead, we watched the bird as it hopped closer, its red gaze intent on us though our images could not have been clear through the glare on the glass.

“That’s a very strange bird,” I said at last, forced to voice some of the discomfort I was feeling.

“Very. I’ve never seen one like it,” Ambrose said slowly, beginning to rise. At the first sign of movement the bird hopped back from the window. Its posture was wary.

“Is it an albino? Can a bird be born without pigmentation?”

“Yes, but that isn’t the only way they turn white. Look at my skin. It’s a side effect of Dippel’s treatment.”

“But…you think this bird got electrocuted somehow?”

“Maybe. Saint Elmo’s fire isn’t selective with its targets. If an animal just happened to be nearby….” His gaze was fixed on the bird. “I think that it might be best if I had a closer look at our avian friend. It’s native to these islands, so it hasn’t flown in from anyplace far away.”

“Good luck with that,” I said just as the bird again took flight. This time it landed in the highest branches of a spidery, broad-leafed tree. It stared at us for another moment and then flew away.

“Why did you come here for Christmas?” Ambrose
asked me abruptly, resuming his seat. His gaze was bright like a searchlight on an escaping prisoner and about as welcome. Sensing my discomfort, he looked away. But I knew that out of sight wasn’t out of mind.

“I didn’t. I came the day after,” I corrected, not wanting to get upset again. My body was already filled with tension; I didn’t want my emotions adding to that.

“You booked two days before.” His voice was mild but I suspected he’d be insistent. It occurred to me that my arrival had rather coincided with the zombie’s, and that maybe he was wondering about possible connections.

“You had a cancellation.”

“Yes. A fortuitous one.”

“Well, that’s debatable.”

Ambrose raised a brow.

I thought for a moment before saying anything else, deciding just how much I was willing to share to put his mind at ease—at least, put it to ease regarding whether the zombie had or had not been after me. Usually life’s small hurts and indignities roll off my shoulders, but this last one had been crushing, and I still felt a bit bruised and disinclined to share anything about Max or my lost baby.

“I am an only child. My parents are dead. They died on Christmas in a plane crash a decade ago,” I said baldly, because there was no way to soften this story without having it sound like a plea for sympathy. “I expect that somewhere inside I must feel badly about this, but I think it is probably
more that I feel sad I never had real parents to begin with.” I cleared my throat. “They should never have had a child. Society doesn’t like to hear this, but some people just shouldn’t. As it was, I was given to nannies and then to schools to raise. I saw my parents only twice a year.”

Why hadn’t my mother just smothered me in the crib and put me out of their misery?
I wondered this for the millionth time. With my bad heart, no one would have ever asked questions about a crib death. If I had to take a guess—and was feeling unusually cheerful—I would say it was my father who stayed my mother’s hand, and sent me away as soon as he could so that she couldn’t harm me. He seemed okay with imperfection as long as he didn’t have to confront it daily, and it hadn’t been his genetic flaw that had been passed on to me. My mother could barely stand to look in my direction.

I have sometimes wondered if maybe she didn’t try smothering me once. All through childhood I had a terrible time sleeping, and feared the dark. When I had nightmares, I never cried out, fearing my parents would hear me and be angered. Nor did this fear go away when I went to school. Even now I hate to recall all those long nights in bed in the dorm room surrounded by the bodies of sleeping classmates but still feeling all alone and cold in my soul because the certainty existed that if the monster came and got me, no one would really care. I often imagined that I died, and thought about how my belongings would be divided up amongst the other girls.

In my fantasies, my parents never came to get my body. Some coroner would cut it up—a classmate’s father was a forensic pathologist, and Miranda often regaled us with tales of strange and highly implausible autopsies. The butcher would discover that while most girls were made of sugar and spice, I was actually stuffed full of slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails. And Miranda would tell all the other girls what her father had found and they would laugh at me.

“Don’t look so…whatever you’re looking.” My voice was too fierce and I moderated it immediately. I was looking at Ambrose but seeing my mother with a pillow in her hands, and at her side was a masked coroner holding a scalpel. “I never lacked—physically—for anything, but…they had all the parental affection and instincts of a cash register. I was flawed bodily and they didn’t love me,” I ended flatly. “And because a large part of me believed them when they made the judgment that I would never amount to much in my short life, I never expected to live to adulthood. Not too surprisingly, I didn’t develop a lot of the normal social skills other people have. I don’t make friends easily. Especially male ones.” I swallowed. “When the dazzling Max Ober swooped into my life I jumped at the chance to be
normal
. When this got taken away I…let’s just say that the erosion of the illusion that I could ever be entirely normal was swift and horrifying. It made me rather bitter. And sometimes cruel.” There was probably more I should have said, but I could go no further.

“Were your parents related to my late unlamented wife, do you think?” he asked after a moment. “Or is it just wealth that makes some people compassionless assholes who have no patience for anyone with flaws?”

This obscenity startled a brief laugh from me.

“They may have belonged to the same heartless social clubs,” I conceded. It took some effort but I forced lightness into my tone. “You know, we’re not unique. Not for this, at least. History is full of disasters, and disastrous lives and disastrous people.”

“Sure. Like Pompeii,” my companion said agreeably, and took a gulp of his own hot chocolate.

“The
Hindenburg,”
I suggested. He apparently liked natural disasters, but I preferred man-made ones. Most people had screwed-up lives because of something they had done or had done to them by the people they loved; it wasn’t accidental or random.

“Hurricane Katrina.”

“The
Titanic.”
I was beginning to smile.

“And my wife and her blasted mother—and apparently your mother and father.” Ambrose sipped. “A bad relationship shouldn’t inform one’s every moment, but…”

“But it does.” I sighed.

“For a while,” he agreed.

“I’m fine now, though. I’m over it.” There was absolutely no proof of this, but it seemed obligatory that I say it.

“So, it wasn’t the sudden lack of parents that sent you to this island.” Ambrose didn’t comment on my assertion that all was well in my brain.

“No,” I said.

He waited. I waited too, but he was better at it and eventually I loosened the vise grip on my tongue and told him what he wanted to know. “Have you ever spent winter in Munich? At Christmas?” I asked.

“Yes. It was charming if rather cold.” I had the feeling he was going to be unyielding about this particular point, so I decided to go ahead and get it out in the open. Then I’d post a no-trespassing sign on this topic.

“A few months ago I…had a miscarriage.” That sounded better than losing a baby. Babies were people and their loss had to be mourned. Miscarriages were medical mishaps that didn’t require expressions of sympathy from him or admissions of grief from me. “My relationship with her father was already on life support when I found out I was pregnant. He stayed because although he is a philandering, self-involved jerk, he isn’t heartless or entirely irresponsible. He knew I had no family to help me. But once I miscarried there was no reason not to pull the plug on things, so we did.” I looked Ambrose full in the eye, daring him to ask even one more question. I didn’t tell him that my hateful recriminations had started before the first tear could dry on my cheek. That would make me sound like his wife. She had also been a hysteric. Let it remain all Max’s fault.

“I lost two children, one to suicide,” he said softly. “And I ran away from home too. Hell, I even bought an island so I wouldn’t have to go back and
deal with my old life. If you were looking for a lecture on the sanctity of relationships, you won’t get it from me.” This reminder about his losses took some of the hot wind out of my sails. It was rumored that he had told H. L. Mencken that he kept his dead son’s ashes in a cigar box on his desk. The boy had been only sixteen when he killed himself.

“Don’t feel bad about getting away,” he said. “It would have been worse had you married him. Men who are morally maneuverable are the least likely to change with wedlock.”

“Was your wife really that bad?” I asked, glad to change the subject. Normally, I wouldn’t have been this bald with my questions, but he had rather invited such a tack. Perhaps it had all happened so long ago that it just didn’t matter anymore.

“Yes. She was the daughter of a hard-rock miner, and that pretty well describes her heart and soul. In my day, you didn’t live with a woman before you married. In fact, you rarely had a chance to visit with them without some chaperone nearby. I took her measure only weeks after our marriage and did my best to steer clear of her after that. Unfortunately, the children always brought me back. Her beauty did the rest. It’s why we had three children and not just the one. I used to call her Miss Mol-lie,” he said reminiscently “She hated that, said it was vulgar—which was reason enough to do it.”

“History has been kind to her. She’s usually painted as the wronged party,” I said gently. Was I really still thinking of doing his biography? A part
of me probably was. Observing others and telling their story was part of my nature.

“I know, and I’ve let that fiction stand for my daughter’s sake. My ex-wife died soon after the divorce, and though she may have been devious and cold-blooded where I was concerned, she did love her children in her own selfish way. I couldn’t take away my daughter’s illusions. And, to be just, I was an utter bastard at times. Most times. And it got worse after I took that bullet to the head. I pity everyone who had to live or work with me before I was resurrected. Frankly, it’s a miracle the marriage ended in divorce and not homicide.”

Resurrected. The word made me shiver. Seeing this, Ambrose frowned and poured me more hot chocolate out of his small porcelain pot.

“Your…treatment helped with the head wound too?” I found myself rubbing my chest in sympathy, and stopped immediately.

“Yes, a great deal of the rage went away. I can’t view it as an entirely bad thing, though it rather took away the urge to write. My career was fueled by vitriol, you know.” His smile was wry, his voice self-mocking.

“So it’s not an entirely good thing.”

“No, especially not when you throw in the lycanthropy” He paused. “Also, I don’t think the human brain is designed to suffer from the kinds of loss that come with extended life. It isn’t just the deaths of friends and family that amass. It’s the extinction of your era, your culture, even your preferred style
of dress and speech. The world keeps evolving and so must I. It’s wearying, though.” He shrugged. “Who would have guessed that I’d end up being one of the things that goes bump in the night? It’s probably what I deserve, but not at all what I expected. At times I have even wondered if I am entirely sane anymore.”