The Beautiful Dead
Read The Beautiful Dead Online
Authors: Daryl Banner
The Beautiful Dead
A Post-Post-Apocalyptic
Novel
By Daryl Banner
Copyright © 2013 by Daryl Banner
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual places or persons,
Living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Other Stories by Daryl Banner
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE!
| Psychology of Want There’s "His storytelling is horribly sarcastic, "Unique yet timeless. Revelatory yet Super Psycho Future Cameron “What a ride this book is -- I’m terrified. I’m excited. “Anyone with a decently dead-end job, this story will speak |
The
B
eautiful Dead
for
Lanford
Lauree
Mallory
Doc
Naif
celebrating your First Life
here’s to your Second
P R O L O G U E
It’s so cold.
It’s so, so cold.
What you
should know is, the first time a dead man opened his eyes, the twenty-seven
doctors in the room screamed. The dead man did not bite them or foam at the
mouth. He didn’t claw at them with his dirty nails nor did he grunt and moan
like the dead were expected to do.
The dead man
just opened his tiny mouth and asked, “Where am I?”
I’m so cold,
but let me assure you, it was a quiet end. That’s what you should know above
all else. Even with bombs all over the news. Mushroom clouds and calmly-reporting
reporters. Debris snowing from the heavens, like winter. Bombs here, bombs
there, bombs in your backyard and your neighbor’s living room. Smoke and liquid
fire ate up the cities, the forests, the children.
No one knew exactly
what was happening, and by the time they did, it was over.
And they were
dead. All of them. Fire and smoke still covered the land like a blanket long
after they were gone, the last of leaves and tree trunks burning on. The final
blink of mother nature’s eye before she retired for a long, long sleep. Sweet
dreams.
I’m not sure
where I was when all this happened. I may have died already, but it doesn’t
matter. None of us were going to survive.
At least, not
completely.
If time were
an endless plain, this event is the chasm cut deep in the earth, its yawn
spanning far beyond what light can reach. This awesome rift, we will never know
for sure how wide it is. But on the other side, as sure as we are that there is
another side, that’s where my story begins. Not when the world ended, but long
after.
After the
trees have all but expired.
After oceans
burn and mountains fall.
After the sky.
It’s so, so
cold, but before my life is gone … before I forget my mother’s face or my
favorite flower or my name, I need to explain something, and it’s crucial that
you pay attention. I’m so cold, but just let me say this one last thing to you
before I’m dead, before I’m
before I’m
before I’m
Are you paying
attention?
The
Beautiful Dead
C H A P T E R – O N E
I came into
this world like most people do: screaming.
“Don’t worry,”
a kind voice tells me. “You’re just dying.”
Everything
hurts. My skin is all icy and bitter. My heart’s a heavy stone the earth is
trying to wretch from my chest and my vision is an angry haze—I am blind.
“Your eyes are
adjusting, girl. Just relax.”
Dying?—Did she
just saying I’m dying?
“Undying,” she
amends. “You’re undying. But really it’s sort of the same.”
I’m reaching
out for my mom. I want to find my dad’s hands and pull them toward me, they
should be there somewhere. I’m furious that no one seems to be helping me, that
no one’s there.
“No use in
screaming on, you’ll just break your voice. You might need it.”
Why would I
need a voice if I’m dead? And for that matter, how’d I die? When did
that
happen? Shouldn’t I know?
“No use trying
to remember,” she murmurs sadly, her voice strangely accented. “That was your
Old Life … a nothing life.”
I can’t
picture my mom’s face. Or dad’s. There’s a strange vacuum in my mind now, like
I can’t even remember having parents. The idea of anything existing before this
moment, that simple idea seems so difficult to understand suddenly.
“You’re the
worst I’ve ever heard! This awful screaming! Really, you should quiet down.
You’ll wake the dead.”
I don’t
remember the last word I uttered. I don’t remember the last meal I had. I don’t
remember the last hour I saw on a clock. I don’t remember …
I don’t
remember my name.
“That was a
little joke of mine,” she says with a squeaky snicker. “Wake the dead. You’re
not laughing.”
I’m panicked
by the silence in my body where a heart should be racing. I’m gasping for air
that isn’t there, with lungs that stubbornly refuse to fill. I’m in agony, I
think.
“Let go of my
hair!—You’ll pull it straight off!”
Her soft hair
clenched in my fist, it’s the first sensation I have that isn’t horrible. It
grounds me like an anchor. Suddenly gravity makes sense. My position of lying
on cold hard ground makes sense. I’m aware of my ears for the first time and
the information they helpfully lend … the ambiance of howling winds and
whispers … the distant rumbling of thunder … the precise location of the
strange accented voice that’s been speaking to me …
“You’re coming
to, at last. I feared there was no hope for you, screaming as you were. Now
please, a finger at a time, let go of my hair.”
My eyes have
been open, but they only just now discover how to work. The furious haze of
earlier releases me to my new world. Hovering over me is the face of a
twenty-something-year-old with wide-set beady eyes and curls of black hair that
gather atop two sharp shoulders.
“Really, I’d
hoped for a prettier Raise, but you’ll have to do. Oh, your skin is so tragic.”
Who is this
person?
“My name is
Helena Trim,” she tells me, “and yours will be—Oh, I hadn’t noticed your hair!
It’s so …
white
. A snowdrift in a dream. Almost makes up for your face.
I’ll call you Winter.” She smiles for the first time. It sits oddly on her
stiff, pointy face. “There, that was easy. Now are we ready to try standing?”
I push myself
off the damp ground. Curiously, I find all the pain and torment I’d only a
moment ago felt is gone, leaving an empty ringing in my ears that echoes down
my body like a bell. I feel hollow. I feel weak. I feel like a vacuous shell
holding nothing, not even air.
“Where,” I
say, startled for a moment by the sound of my own voice, “am I?”
“The
Harvesting Grounds,” this person called Helena informs me. “This is where the
dead are Raised, girl. This is where everyone’s Final Life begins … if this can
be called a life.”
“I’m—I’m
dead?”
“Undead.” She
delicately moves a strand of hair out of my eyes, wrinkles her face in pity.
“We should get you to the Refinery straight away. Death hasn’t been kind to
your—ah, never mind.”
I don’t
remember leaving the murky field. I don’t remember being guided down a winding
road that cut through an endless array of dead trees and into a city. I don’t
remember walking crowded streets or being steered into a squatty pink building,
but now I’m leaning back on some kind of doctor’s table and there’s a large
flush-faced woman with green eye shadow looming over me.
“Her hair is
just
exquisite!”
she squeals, taking a handful of it into her puffy
palm. “I’ve never seen hair like this, the color of pearls. And coming straight
from the earth, no less! Her skin, however … oh, help us all.”
“Will
someone,” I whisper quietly, “
please
show me a mirror?”
“Not a chance,
sweetheart. Roxie, dear precious, hand me my Chromo and a two-inch carving
blade, will you?”
I’m not sure
what is happening, but it reminds me of prom night. The large lady starts
working on my nails while gossiping sweetly with the others. Another girl who
couldn’t be more than twelve years old starts scrubbing my legs for some
reason. The one called Roxie takes to my hair, combing it and applying some
pungent formula that makes my nose recoil. Helena keeps stealing my attention
away, talking her little head off and, I suppose, trying to distract me from
looking at myself. Despite her efforts, I catch a glimpse of what looks like an
arm missing half its flesh, the bones of the hand visible. Of course I don’t
recognize it as my own hand because, well, denial’s a powerful thing. And I’m
still pretty sure I’m dreaming, except I’m not sure where I’d wake up. The idea
of having a bed, or even a home to return to seems strange.
“Have I lost
my memory?” I ask finally. “For good?”
“Oh, here we
go,” the large lady sings.
Helena faces
me quite seriously. “Yes and no. Your Old Life is gone. Your memory of it and
all the memory you had in your previous life is no longer. It’ll come back
someday, sure, but it’s best not to think of it at all. Just let go now and
never again look back.”
“But—But I
remember how to speak, obviously. I know language. I know how to walk. I
remember concepts like … like prom night!—of all things. How is that possible
if I lost all my memory?”
“Some things
stay, most things go,” the large lady chimes in, working some tool into my
foot. “It’s not ours to decide. Do you prefer cherry or coral toenails?”
I move my eyes
back to Helena. “But you said it would come back someday?—my memory?”
“It’s called a
Life Dream,” she answers. “Or Waking Dream. Or the Dreaming Death. It has many
names, but it’s when everything rushes back all at once, the memory of your Old
Life returning to you in an instant. It will happen someday, but I assure you,
it will be like an unwelcome enemy arriving at your doorstep. It’s best to
forget it and leave it in the dust behind you, girl.”
The large lady
murmurs agreement, kneading something gritty into my skin like I’m dough. The
one called Roxie winces in her own form of concurrence. The twelve-year-old
just purses her lips, like the idea of remembering her life tastes bad.
“That looks
like it should hurt,” I point out, staring at the large lady and the tool she’s
poking into my foot. “I feel it, but I don’t. Is that normal?”
“Perfectly,”
one of the girls behind me mutters. “Now keep still.”
The questions
start coming like a wave of nausea, I can’t help it. “What are you doing
exactly?—Where’s half my arm?—Are those my bones?”
“Helena,” one
of them grunts, annoyed.
“Listen to
me,” says Helena, pulling my face toward hers and away from my own innards.
“This new life you’ve been given, your Final Life, it’s all that matters now.
You’re one of us.”
“One of us?” I
ask. “One of what?—A zombie?”
Wrong word.
The large lady drops the tool she had in her hand. Roxie steps away from me so
quickly I might as well have burst into flames. An icy hush has covered the
room. My gaze moves from one horrified set of eyes to another. “I’m sorry. Did
I say something wrong?”
“We,” Helena
says, steels herself, then finishes, “are not zombies. We are
people
,
and we have
standards
, and we have
flesh
, and for the love of God
we
do not eat brains!
We are a dignified people, all of us. Even you.”
I look around
the room, my eyes meeting each person before I speak again. “I’m sorry. This is
all very new to me. Obviously. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”
After a very
lengthy moment passes in which I’m pretty sure the ladies in the room would
gladly toss me back to the foul earth from which I’d been yanked, the large one
finally sighs, if just a little, takes up her tool again and says, “It’s okay,
honey. I’m sure I said something equally as awful on my first day, which was
far too long ago if you ask me. Which you didn’t.”
“You’re all
dead,” I whisper, like I’m just now discovering this.
“Undead. Every
last one of us,” she agrees. “I doubt there’s a Living left in the world.”
Looking at
each of them, it’s dawning on me what world I’ve been brought into. A dead
world. Ageless. No one breathes here or ever will again. Souls being fetched
from soil and made up into fake-alive people, like me. A world full of … silent
chests.
“Now,” she
says, gripping my foot tight, “hold still while I make you a new pinkie toe.”
I don’t
remember what else she or the Roxie girl or the twelve-year-old do to me. I
don’t remember having my right ear reshaped, or my nose reset, or color fused
into my lips by some weird kind of gun-shaped mechanism. Even though Helena
claims otherwise, I don’t remember choosing Icecap Blue for my eyes.
“And now,
girl, meet Winter!” Helena’s guided me over to the first mirror I’ve seen since
my Raising. The maybe-twenty-year-old face in the mirror is one I should
probably recognize since it’s my own, but I don’t. She has eyes like arctic
pools. Hair that falls like a soft mist, veiling half her face. Her skin is a
sea of satin. Her nails are little polished glass shards. Her lips, a subtle
pink, with cheeks gently blushed the same. The person in the mirror is a person
I do not know.
“What do you
think?” the large woman asks me, obviously proud of her work. “Can you live
with this?”
My left hand
falls off.
“Roxie!” the
large woman yelps. “Adhesive, honey! Proper, level-four-grade adhesive!—I do
swear!”
A lot of
shuffling, a slight shove from my left side, and I’m whole again. I wiggle my
fingers and they seem to work. For how long, who knows.
“Should we try
another blush?—another eye color?” the large-in-charge offers sweetly. “We have
enough time before our next appointment.”
“This is
fine,” I say, defeated somehow. “Icecap Blue is fine. My name is fine.
Whatever.”
Winter. I
didn’t even choose my own name.
And so this is
where Winter was born, and how. Whoever she is.
Then I’m given
a tour of where I’ll live for the rest of forever. The heart of the city is the
Town Square, surrounded by rings of streets that hold businesses, stores, tall
apartment complexes. It’s all very downtown. Then on the outskirts of the city
you’ll find clusters of trailers, shacks and little houses. One of them is
mine, apparently.
Helena tells
me living here is entirely free. No bills or rent will ever be collected
because, in her words, “money is a bother.” Consequently, no one is required to
work or hold a job, even though many do. Some people form pretend-families with
one another, maybe for comfort, maybe for fun. Fun, they call this.
Oh, and yes,
there are children here. A short girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, lives
somewhere among my circle of houses with another lady who pretends to be her
mother. This is all very normal and accepted. The girl has long black braided
hair and Helena tells me I’ll be happy to meet her someday. I would never wish
this on a child, but I guess I didn’t have a choice either.
Trying for
some levity, I ask where all the stray city cats are. Helena replies,
"What's a cat?" I ask her, where are all the birds in the sky. She’s
like, “What’s a bird?”
I think maybe
she’s joking, but it occurs to me that every tree I’ve seen is dead. Every blade
of grass, a browned, yellowed, or otherwise lifeless fleck of paper it may as
well be. Litter is all it is, the remnants of a world that once thrived, now so
very unalive.
To my
surprise, she tells me there is electricity, but nothing seems to work very well.
Especially when we draw near anything electrical. She wouldn't elaborate
further. Oh, and she says there's running water more or less, but it isn't good
for our kind. I ask what she means and she says, “Think, like magnets of
opposing poles. Whatever you might call natural, we are its opposite.”