The Ghosts of the Zombie Apocalypse (13 page)

  "It's just...That woman who brought me in, Henrietta was it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, where is she? It's just you told me to go support her in the basement and all I found there was her corpse."

  "Well she is in mid possession of that zombie right now." Mist said with another yawn.

  "Can...can we do that?"

  "Oh yes. But only in little amounts" Mist said as she stretched her arms. "I imagine it will reject her out soon enough. Whether you think it or not a zombie is still a living thing. The living don't take well to being possessed by the dead for very long."

  "Oh."

  "Go on back down. I imagine she'll be wanting some company after she gets expelled."

  "Um."

  "What is it?" Mist said with an unseen sigh

  "Well if she is going to be expelled anyways, why keep her corpse living?"

  "Cause it would give her such a headache if I did. It's best to let things like this run their course."

  "Huh."

  "Anything else?"

  "No...I'll just leave you to your sleep."

  Mike started to head back to the basement when he stopped and remembered his manors.

  "Thank you...for everything."

  "Don't mention it." Mist said very thankful that Mike already got to the thankful stage.

  Mike left the room leaving Mist to relax in her covers. He was coming along much faster than she thought he would, considering the state he was in when he got here. This might just be bearable after all. She then pulled the covers over her head feeling as though she could finally get some sleep now.

  Slowly Mist drifted peacefully off to sleep. And as her consciousness finally let her go to drift deep into the either, the last coherent thought that fluttered through her head was "Did he just say
her
corpse?"

  Well that didn't work.

  Henrietta lay exhausted on what she assumed was the floor. It was hard enough to tell directions when you were a weightless incorporeal entity, but it was near to impossible when you were within a solid object. Or at least she assumed that she was inside a solid object. It was getting hard to focus or remember more than a few minutes ago.

  For the last half hour, or what appeared to be a half hour, Henrietta had been trying to move...things. It was hard to know if the things had moved or not because it felt like she was within them when she tried to move...them. It was getting harder to focus...or remember more than a few seconds...ago...

  Damn, I'm losing it. I'd leave this...place if I could but it keeps pushing me back in. And pushing me out. And pushing me back in. And pushing me out.

   I'm getting so tired. But I got to do this. Mist said...Mist said...What did Mist say? I can't remember. Who was Mist again? Somebody...I use to...know? Why does my mouth taste like flesh?

  Mike came back down to the basement where Henrietta's corpse seemed to be having a fit on the floor. It was odd the way the corpse was holding its head while rocking back and forth neurotically. He'd never seen a corpse act like that before. But...a lot of things were happening today that he wasn't use too and that witch did seem to know what she was doing.

  The tea actually wasn't half bad once he got it down. It was a weird sensation trying to figure out how to drink it. But after a few times of metaphorically spilling it down his shirt he started to get the hang of drinking. It was just hard to think of it as drinking when you don't actually drink it. It certainly did make his head feel better.

  Mike sat down on the stairs and watched Henrietta's corpse writhe in madness. He didn't take any pleasure from watching that display knowing the person who pulled him away from that monster was in there. It looked painful, like watching something steadily go insane that you thought never had a mind to begin with.

  "Kinda makes you think, don't it." The Master said.

  Mike couldn't comprehend that sentence. He heard it but anything that he could possibly do about it presently escaped him as he watched the Master rise up from the floor like a classy kind of devil. He stood there facing Mike with his chin tilted down as the rim of a white Panama hat covered his eyes. The Master stood there with swagger while he leaned on a cane with his arms outstretched as if he were about to break into an evil song and dance. But none of that compared to his grin, a simple relaxed upper lip with a sliver of teeth shining through like luminescent porcelain gems. It was a grin that said "I got alllll day for what I'm gonna do to you. I ain't even upset. In fact I'm
glad
to see you. We're pals you and I. And I love
my pals
.
I especially
Love
making time for my pals."

  It took Mike a minute to realize and register that the Master actually did say that. But he didn't move. Neither of them moved as they stared silently at each other. Fear sat there patiently, fear its self almost smiled.

  "So where is she?" The Master finally said.

  "Who." Mike said practically hypnotized

  "The one that got away." The Master said patiently

  They stared at each other silently for another minute before the Master brought his cane up and across Mike's head sending him tumbling through the stairwell's wall and further into the dark basement.

  "WHERE IS SHE!!!" The Master said with no patients at all.

  Mike's head throbbed. He wondered where the Master got a cane and why did it hurt so much when he was hit with it. But that's as far as he got before the Master picked him up by his neck, which would have been way more uncomfortable if he needed to breath, but was still plenty terrifying as it was.

  "I'm not going to ask you again." The Master said carefully "I'm just going to
keep
spending
time! W
ith my
Pal!! Here!!!"

  Mike lay limp in the Master's grip on his throat as blow after blow was unleashed mercilessly on to him until the Master finished his sentence. Mike then slowly looked up at the fuming eyes of this daemon with surprise.

  "You really don't know where she is! Do you." Mike said making the Master's eyes go furiously narrow.

  Blow after blow, hell was brought down upon Mike's ghostly body. It didn't hurt he realized, it just felt like pieces of him were slowly fading or breaking off him and that sensation was like a pain completely indescribable in human terms. Little nicks and pieces of his body started to litter the floor and begin to sizzle into nothingness.

  That's when the door upstairs burst open.

  The world felt fuzzy. And it spun like vertigo. There was no sensation yet there were millions of them, like fireworks. Henrietta was both overwhelmed...and at peace. There was no memory, just burning rage. Rage and burning. All of her burned like a tremendous sunburn under her skin, itchy and hot...yet it didn't. It did and it didn't. Not one or the other but both at the same time...and neither, if such a thing were possible.

  Time didn't seem to exist but there was movement. She was moving...or Henrietta was. Why did she think that, who else was here?

  She was supposed to do something...

  ...who?

  Me?

  ...Me who?

  Just "Me", I guess.

  Henrietta looked around. She couldn't see anything. Nothing made sense. Her body felt like a fever full of burning, itching, over sensitive, rotting-

  "NO!!!" Henrietta shouted as she rejected everything, trying to pull back to herself. But she couldn't. There was nowhere to go back to. She couldn't remember where it was she wanted to go back to anymore. She couldn't remember anything anymore. Everything was so animal now. Wild, sick, and...hungry...So hungry.

  ...there was food upstairs. Maybe she'll feel better after she eats. Mother said you had to feed a cold...there was...
food...
upstairs...

  John was pumping water into the sink full of dishes when the basement door burst open. The corpse was standing in the doorway breathing heavily...and glaring at him. Other zombies had never noticed him before, little lone glared at him. This corpse however was and it was terrifying. The corpse then charged. It was then that all the chickens in the rafters got spooked and decided to attack...him.

  "What in God's name is going on?!" Mist said bursting out from sleep. "I was in the middle of a very important conversat-“

  Mist stopped mid sentence as a smell seemed to catch her nose.

  "Oh no."

  Henrietta's mouth was happily full of something juicy, delicious, and vaguely crunchy. She didn't know what it was or how she found it but it felt instinctual. Just one thing, why did it taste like chicken?

  John was on the floor covered in feathers and spur gashes all over his body. The zombie currently was trying to shove the other half of a whole chicken into her mouth. The other chickens had flown back up into the rafters to regroup after the surprisingly swift defeat of one of their own. They seemed to be studying their new enemy with frightening focus. John took that the moment to quickly scurry away.

  "Quick! Grab her and pull her into the basement while her mouth is full!!" Mist commanded

  The voice of command overrided his flight response and dictated his movements. Easily he picked up the unresisting zombie and rushed her down into the basement as Mist came running down after him with some rope and her shotgun.

  "We need to tie her up. Here!" Mist said tossing him the rope.

  Then as quickly as he caught it Mist shot her gun at an empty wall.

  "Get down!!" Mist shouted

  "Wha- Oh shit!!!" John expressed as Mist shot again and again at different spots in the basement before she blocked an unseen blow making her boots skid across the floor backwards.

  A poof of feathers made him remember about the zombie...which had also disappeared.

  Something terrified Henrietta. She could feel it more at her core than her skin. Something she couldn't remember made her terrified. It felt as if she were at the other end of her current meal. She didn't like it. She didn't like what was in her mouth anymore. She spat it out then threw up.

  She then heard voices, but couldn't understand them.

  "Well, well, well, Mist! How've you been?" The Master said jovially

  "Hello Harry." Mist said as she struggled to hold back the locked blow Harry was pressing on her with his cane.

  "What's it been, fifty years?"

  "More than that." Mist said as she broke the grapple and let loose another gunshot that missed.

  "Time’s been hitting you hard Misty. You had better aim back then." Harry said as he brought his cane back down on Mist who parried it with her shotgun with a clang. "I remember when you fought way harder when I killed and ate your daughter. Where is that fiery daemon I remember so well?" He said as Mist deflected another blow.

  Mist shot her gun again before knocking away another blow.

  "She’s had a long time to get experience." Mist said "I remember when you took this seriously."

  "Oh I am. I am." Harry said as he swung his cane rapidly precise again and again. "It's you after all."

  Harry managed to land a thrust into Mist's belly making her keel over only momentarily "Nothing but the best for my Misty."

  "Likewise." Mist said as she stood up and deliberately shot her gun at an empty adjacent wall.

  Soft white light mist started to fill the room. Harry was starting to have a hard time moving.

  "What is this?!" Harry said perplexed

  "This is my house." Mist said as she swung the butt of her gun upside his head.

  Mike lay motionless on the ground. He took Mist's advice to get down after she knocked the Master of him with that gun shot. He had just given up at that point from trying to make sense of anything from now on. Guns now hurt ghosts, so that’s a thing. It makes about as much sense as anything else here. Still even if he wanted to move he couldn't.
Harry
[12]
had beaten the stuffing out of him, for real.

  Mike felt like one of those paper dolls that a one handed blind kid made for an arts and crafts project. Pieces of him, nicked out of his body, littered the ground around him. Well it could be worse. He was just having a hard time thinking of what could be worse at the moment but it had to be something. Yes definitely something. Something would definitely be worse than this. Never a truer word had been thought.

  Still...it probably couldn't be as bad as Henrietta right now. Her corpse had come over here and thrown up a chicken. A whole chicken! If the head wasn't already severed on that bird I would definitely hate to be that zombie when it woke up. But it can't be easy for Henrietta in there right now being rejected from her own former body. That's gotta be a bruise to the ego.