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Advice to the Living

Smoke flowed around her ankles as Zola walked to the battle field. All around her monsters were screaming and crunching at the bones of the fallen warriors. She drew her swords and let out a blood curdling battle call. Every flesh eating zombie on the field looked up with their hideous glowing red eye, some of them still with bits of soldiers hanging from their mouths. They rushed at her with their jerky uncalculated movements. For just one second she wondered if the sheer number of them would be enough to defeat her. Then she left that idea behind as she rushed at the mass of them. She cut them down one by one with a swift slash of the sword. Rotting flesh flew through the air and heads rolled. She beat a path through them to the other side of the field. There were still hundreds more. The mutilated soldiers had begun to turn into ghouls themselves adding to the numbers. She didn't know if she had enough energy to fight them all. If only she could make it to the top of the hill, somehow, by some miracle someone would be there to save her, some wonderful warrior who would slay the hundreds of terrors in no time at all, and then sweep her off her feet. She started to climb but the rocks were slippery and smoke started to set in. She could hear a name being called from just over the hill, "Cat…Cat!" Cat? Who was this? The smoke grew thicker and she couldn't see. Zola started to run, falling and getting up again. She had to make it to the top of the hill but she couldn't see! "Cat! KATHERINE!"

Katherine Deschain jumped and almost fell out of her chair. She looked around at all the staring eyes. She wondered where all the smoke and monsters had gone. A small smile flashed across her mouth when she realized she had of course been dreaming.

"Katherine, I would greatly appreciate it if you at least tried to stay awake in my class," complained her history professor. "If you can't find the time at night to get to bed, please for the sake of all of us have some coffee in the morning."

Some of the students who hadn't already gone back to working snickered at her snide remark. Katherine didn't pay attention to them, she was thinking about the dream she just had. Usually her dreams were boring and nothing really cool or even sensible happened. In most of them she was the object of some public ridicule which was never surprising. In the bad dreams something was always chasing her and she ended up falling out of bed in an unconscious attempt to run away. But this dream was exciting, she had something important to do in it and she just knew that everyone was depending on her. Who everyone was she did not know, but they were probably important.

The bell finally rang and Cat gladly pulled together her things and ran out the door. She longingly watched the other kids get into their cars with their friends and speed off. As she stood there in a trance thinking about how wonderful it would be to have her own car, her bus pulled away. She heard the screech of the door and looked over just as it pulled away from the curb.

"No!" she yelled, "please wait! Come back please I don't have any way home!"

Despite her cries and the looks of contempt from the kids who had made it to the bus on time, the driver kept on chuggin'.

"Great," she thought to herself, "now I have to walk home, with my luck it'll rain or someone will kidnap me. Why can't I just make friends with someone who has a car and likes me enough to take me home?"

Though this was a pleasant thing to think about, Cat knew no one from the school would ever become her friend. These kids all had well to do parents and lived in nice houses on the upside of town. She lived in a dangerous neighborhood with her aunt. She wasn't worried about starving or getting hurt, but it was embarrassing to have to go to this school and live in that place. She remembered trying to convince the social worker to let her go to the school down the street. It was a lot closer and she would get an education at either one.

"Do you know how dangerous that school is? There are stabbings all the time there, I just had to drag a body out of there last week! Why would you want to go to a place like that when you have a grant for a private school?" the social worker mused.

"Everyone is going to make fun of me, I wont make any friends," Cat tried to argue.

"Yes well, you won't make any mortal enemies either. And of course you won't make friends with that kind of attitude."

"You know I'm not going to make any friend anyway!" Cat screamed running out of the house.

She had honestly tried making friends at that school but just as she had suspected the other kids looked at her like trash. She finally gave up trying to talk to anyone when they filled her locker with garbage. At least she would not be stabbed or shot there. She looked thoughtfully at the passing clouds, wondering if it really hurt that bad to get shot.

She snapped back to reality as she felt cold drops of rain on her face.

"Shit," she covered her mouth after she said it. She had never cursed until she came to live with her aunt. Her aunt made it a point to use every profanity there was each time she opened her mouth.

Katherine started walking faster in hopes it would be enough to beat the rain. She always felt stupid running, she knew she would look silly with the huge school sack on her back. The light spring drizzle quickly turned into a downpour and Cat had no choice but to start running. As soon as she did a car full of school kids drove by. They all stuck their heads out the window and laughed at her, cat-calling and pointing.

Thankfully she was well used to it and ignored them. She soon came upon a back alley.

"Yes, definitely time for a short cut. I hope all the muggers called it a day because of the rain," she humorlessly thought. After living in her neighborhood for so long she had learned that things like muggers were very real. When it rained out most of them really did call it a day, why shouldn't they. They made more money than she did so they could spare a day of rain.

She whipped around the corner without bothering to peak first. She hadn't gone more than two feet when she ran head on into something solid. She bounced back hard enough to throw her feet up over her head. One of her books jabbed its dull corner into the small of her back and she yelled out in pain.

The rain continued to pour down with no signs of letting up as she lay stunned on the ground. She managed to pull her arm out from under her and push her soaking hair out of her eyes. She looked up in horror at the huge figure that loomed over her.

He had to be at least six and a half feet tall with an oversized hat atop his head. She could see dark hair blowing out around his shoulders and the glint of some colored glasses. A gust of wind rushed down the alley and caught under his giant overcoat causing it to billow out behind him. Underneath it he wore what looked like a plain black suit and a looped bow tie. It was dark in the alley so most of what she could see was only his silhouette, but that alone was enough to terrify her.

She stammered and jumped to her feet. She couldn't stop starring at his face, or where his face would have been if she could see it. Just then the sun burst out from behind a cloud and a ray made its way billions of miles down to this mans face. If Katherine could have moved she would have run away as fast as she could, but she seemed to be glued to the spot. The man was deathly pale, and his eyes appeared to be glowing red.

"His eyes can't be red," Cat thought, "humans don't have red eyes it must just be his glasses or contacts."

The man seemed to know what she was thinking. He tipped his head gently back and chuckled. The corners of his mouth reached almost to his ears and he gave her a toothy grin. Teeth that were just a little too pointed for Katherine's comfort.

"This guys some kind of maniac. What the heck am I still doing here!" she mussed. "I'm so sorry sir I didn't see you there," she forced the words out of her mouth. "I didn't see you," why did she bother saying that, obviously she hadn't seen him. If she had wouldn't she have stopped? She hated herself for always saying stupid things like that.

The man just chuckled again and starred at her. It was like he was looking through her, or even worse, into her.

"You had better hurry along girl, you'll catch your death out here in the rain," his voice was smooth and deep.

He had emphasized 'death'. As Katherine considered this he looked down at her and chuckled again. She jumped at the sound and gave herself a little shake.

"Well, have a pleasant afternoon," she nodded her head at him and rushed down the alley. She looked over her shoulder as she jogged and watched him turn around and look at her. She looked forward again and quickened her pace.

When she reached the end of the alley in which seemed like eons later she turned around to find the man gone. It had only been a few seconds and he was already gone. But there was nothing odd about that right? She was sure he had only gone around the corner, he had only been 2 feet from it after all.

Katherine turned back around and began to run home. She had a funny feeling deep down in her stomach. Like she was leaving something important behind, or maybe something important was going to happen. There was no way to really tell, maybe she had just been in the rain too long.

Whatever it was from the feeling was rather unsettling.