Prologue: The Rules
Samantha loomed over Calina's face closer than would be considered comfortable. The woman sat below, frightened by the spirit's presence, reaching weakly for her gun, and steadily praying in the back of her mind that there was at least one bullet left within it. The young ghost-like child was ripped apart, her bones playing hide and seek with every movement she made, poking through the gaping wounds on her arms and legs. Her white dress had been torn to threads, and her blonde hair shimmered until it was practically grey in the deadened light of the theater.
Her breathing echoed hauntingly as her almost fleshless mouth pulled into a tense grin. Calina had heard stories of this young girl, of a spirit who owned the undead and controlled their actions. She is known as the keeper of the hell-hounds, killed by her own pet, and out for revenge against the living. How cruel irony was.
"Hi, " the girl chirped; Calina could feel tears stinging at her eyes as she reached again for the gun. Her body was beaten and her flesh torn as she sat alone next to the Speed Cola machine. No zombie had shown up for quite some time, but at this point she would prefer one over the child's gruesome appearance; at least she'd know how to kill it. "I said HI!" the child shrieked again.
"Hi," she whispered back, voice cracking in her own ears. Damn she needed a revive!
"You're pretty!" Samantha yelled, her voice echoing eerily through the fogged air. The woman tried to smile; how like a child to voice their thoughts immediately.
"Thank you," she breathed, fighting her falling eyes.
"You're a girl," Sam stated back, and Calina nodded stiffly. "That's good, because if you were a boy I'd send my pets after you, hee hee!" The woman tried to smile weakly as the child laughed heartily in front of her. "But since you are a girl, I'm going to help you!" The ghost giggled, coming unbearably close to the woman's face once more. "I like your eyes."
"Thank you," she mouthed inching back, the wall hindering her escape.
"Can I have them?" The woman winced.
"I…I need them, Samantha."
"I want them, I want them!" The girl stomped her foot.
"But I need them, dear," Calina repeated in a motherly tone.
"You can have mine, though!" Sam urged playfully.
"What do you mean?" Calina asked weakly. The child got closer, her smile widening. Samantha blinked quickly, and her childish-blue eyes changed to a green that directly mirrored the woman's own.
"I'm pretty now too!" she sang happily, spinning around innocently. Calina instinctively reached her hand towards her eyes, touching the skin of her eyelid. Her face twisted into a primitive rage as she finally took hold of her MP40, watching the dancing child closely as she lifted it to aim. The girl stopped suddenly as if sensing the weapon, and turned her head sharply to look at the shakily wielded gun that pointed directly at her, and the smile on her lips curled into a demonic frown. A haze of silence rose between them as the beaten woman stared into green eyes, her eyes, stolen by this vindictive spirit. She took in heavy breaths as the tension grew, feeling her own blood slowly drain away from the wounds as the seconds passed, never lifting her gaze away from the child. She allowed the tip of her finger to contract over the gun's trigger as if reminding herself where it was, blinking quickly to keep the girl's image from blurring.
At that instant, the spirit screamed loudly, her voice radiating off the walls gaining pitch as it crossed through the fog surrounding them. The woman, weak and dying as she was, felt her head sting with the volume of the child's shriek. She lifted her hands to her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise causing the gun to fall to the ground, and the last bullet within it to pierce through the metal door across from them.
Just as quickly as it started, the girl's screech ceased, revealing the same grinning child on the other side of it, her green now glowing eyes smiling directly back at her attacker. Calina could feel the warm tears slip passed her cheeks, and she was unsure of their origin. She was not scared of death, nor did she regret the life she lived, but the tears still fell, breathing a final insistence on self-preservation. Samantha's footsteps came nearer to the woman whose final pathetic attempt of protection was to throw her arms in front of her body and close her eyes tightly hoping the entity would offer her some sort of compassion and pass by. No such luck of course, she opened her eyes slowly to see the child sitting next to her looking at the door the bullet rebounded into, laughing gently.
"You're funny!" She smiled. From this angle, Calina could see a gaping wound on the girl's neck, inflicted by the dog and probably the cause of death, assuming she hadn't bled to death before the wound was made. Calina felt herself flinch with a strange sense of sympathy towards the girl. Samantha turned her head to look at the woman again, swaying playfully the way children do. "You wanna know a secret?" she asked quietly. Calina nodded. "I see things other people can't, and since I can see them, my pets like me, and they listen to me when I ask them to do things." She got up quickly. "And since you were nice and let me have your eyes. I'm going to let you play with them too!" The woman frowned.
"Play what?" The child glared darkly at the question.
"Weren't you listening!" she yelled. "I said you can play with my pets! Now do you want to play or not!" Calina nodded weakly. Why not after all? What did she have to lose?
"The rules then!" Samantha yelled triumphantly. "You have to let me keep your eyes." Calina nodded. "And you have to make all of them happy!" She flinched again.
"Who?" The girl smiled wider, opening her arms to conjure what felt like a light wind. Her eyes began to burn a bright red, her hair was now darkened beyond a simple grey to pure silver, and her teeth shined beyond the fog. The distinct sound of boards being ripped off of the doors hit Calina's ears, causing adrenaline to flood the already weakened veins inside her skin. Her stomach twisted sickeningly, and her breath escaped her mouth faster than she had ever remembered as her eyes flickered to and from the windows into the room. A swarm of zombies conjugated at each one with a particularly large group coagulating at the door directly adjacent to her. She crawled closer to the Speed Cola machine being caught in a corner, she knew cornering herself was suicide, but instinct overthrew her judgment and she was too weak to move away. One by one, the monsters circled her and the child, groaning and hunched deeply, their skin rotting and torn, their appalling scent bombarding Calina's senses.
"Aren't they wonderful?" Samantha asked gently, cocking her head to the side. Calina didn't dare move. The ghost walked up to her, reaching out a badly torn hand, and laughed. "If you take my hand, you agree to play. If you don't, then I let them eat you, hee hee!" Calina hesitated, but reached up, touching skin that felt like ice and ash, and a shock vibrated through her body immediately, darkness shrouding the area she sat in. Bones cracked underneath her skin, flesh felt as if it were dancing over the wounds stiffly, making the woman let out a loud scream. She felt as if her life was slipping from her grasp and into the hand of the small child before her.
"Please stop!" she begged, the pain bringing her to sobs. Even the devastating attacks from the undead were nothing compared to this burning.
With the cracking of her last bone, the pain faded, and a dim light like she had never seen glowed in the room. Lanterns flickered with candle light, and what sounded like soft music replaced the groaning. She looked down at her body and winced. An elegant dress, painted with natural hues of blues and gold substituted the once tattered clothes she wore only seconds ago. Strands of gold hair that connected to her own scalp fell over her shoulder and to the ground, quaintly replacing her brown locks. Her body was no longer bloodied or sore; it was almost as if she was a different person entirely.
"Get up!" The child's voice, no longer raspy and broken but now sweet and ringing, spread through the darkness. The woman obeyed, lifting her body easily. "And look!" With that, the lights were raised, bleeding quickly into the room. Calina's eyes flickered to and from the faces before her. She smiled.