AN: I nearly rewrote this chapter adding in the prolouge and a few bits that were going to be added later, but I changed my mind and figured they fit better back here. I promise I will not do this a lot. I just felt that my prologue was a waste of space and ineffective and I have a much better thing rolling for it at the moment. Thank you for stopping by and reading. I hope you enjoy.
Soundtrack:
"What it Means to Be Alone" by The Dear Hunter
"Life on Mars" by David Bowie
"We will become Silhouettes" by Postal Service
Chapter 1
My Brother the Corpse
Eliza Harper sats on the end of her bed tugging at the loose threads at the hem of her jean skirt and tried to muster up the courage to leave her bedroom. She has spent the better half of the last week trying to convince her parents of to find some alternative to returning to herto public high school. Her mother's footsteps announce the inevitable: she has to leave her room and face the harsh reality of life after her brother's deathshe had to face the world and put her brave face on.
"I'm not going to school," she calls to her mother before she could knock hoping against all hope that her refusal would be enough.
"Yes you are, even if I have to drag you there myself," her mom say through the closed door.
"Can't you just home school me?"
"Eliza! You know why you have to go to school. I'm sick and tired of having to repeat the same argument every day. It's going to be hard, but we have to return to business as usual," she says said with a sigh. Eliza can could only imagine what her mother's face lookeds like after that sighn.
Since her brother returnedcame back, her mother only hasd two facial expressionses. One which Eliza calls "the Christopher face" which can only be described as the face of pure joy consisting withof a huge toothy smile and eyes that look glassy and on the verge of tears. This was had not always the face that was associated with her brother, but everything has changed. The other, which she knows knew her mother is was wearing nowat the moment, she calleds "the Eliza face". This face is tense with a deep creaseds in the forehead and a mouth pursed into a thin line. This face was also not as new, but it used to only be seen when Eliza had done something to get herself into trouble.
"I don't want to do this anymore mom," Eliza says feeling her resistance failing. "It's not fair. I don't want to have to go through this, I just want to be normal."
"We have to show this town that we are the same family we used to be," her mother said weakly.
Eliza sighed knowing that the battle was lost and there was no reason to push her mother further today. She knows knew her mother blameds herself sometimes for what happened to Christopher. It is what parents do when bad things happen to their children, but now it must be even harder since some teenagers who die do not stay that way. Chris was the first in the northern western corner of Indiana which means the first in Winamac. It all began when he injured his knee last year had taken him off the basketball team he began to distance himself from the rest of the world retreating into his bedroom at night and not taking calls from any of his friends. When summer arrived he went into surgery to repair the damage. The first morning he was home Eliza was sent to his room to give him breakfast and to make sure he took his medicine. She will never forget the scene she saw when that door opened.
Eliza slid on her sneakers and collected a few pens and a notebook and shoved them into her bag. With one last look around her room she slipped on her hoodie and paused at the door. Two more years she thought and took a deep breath and left her room. She walked past her mother without making eye contact to avoidavoiding her mother's sad eyes. She walked past Chris's bedroom and fought back the regular heave from her stomach. Every time she saw his door she was brought back to the image of his body sprawled out on the floor cold and motionless in his own vomit with the empty medicine bottle lying on his desk. She will never forgive him for that image that had been permanently seared into her memory.
Christopher was already waiting for her on the front porch. Since he cannot drive they have to walk the three blocks to school together because her parents believed it to be safer than walking alone. Eliza walked past him keeping her eyes forward trying to control her nerves.
"Are you ready for this?" Christopher asked slowly.
"Whatever, Chris," Eliza replied. Their limited communication made even a trivial question like this feel awkward and painful.
She Eliza was not in the slightest ready for whatever hell she was walking into. She did not want her voice to give away her emotions and so she pulled her head phones out of her back and pretended to listen to music. She snuck a peek over her shoulder at her brother. She was still getting used to the fact that he no longer breathed and thhis haunting vacant look that he always worethat he wore. His face jaw was tense but his eyes were completely vacant and . unfocused just like a corpse. A chill ran up her spine as she remembered the old smile he used to always wear and then the corpse lying on his bedroom floor. He stomach gave a lurch and her breakfast ended up in someone's front yard. She straitened herself out refusing to give Chris a chance to speak again.
She began to feel light headed as she closed the distance between herself and her high school. She felt as though her stomach was swelling to twice its normal size as the old brick building was within view.
This was going to go down as one of the top ten worst days of my life, she thought as the hushed voices from the students congregating in the parking lot reached her ears. She felt the panic rush through her body making it feel weak and heavy as she saw everyone's eyes wide and staring. Even the teachers were peeking out of the classroom windows trying to be discrete, but failing miserably. HerShe panic became pure torment when she noticed her Angela, her best friend from since pre-school, laughing with the ass clowns who were covering their heads mockingly begging Christopher to not eat their brains. These used to be her friends and in any other situation they would have stood up for her but now theyre were the people hurting her the most. She saw several of her old friends sitting on the stairs staring at Christopher and the look on their faces was unmistakable terror. Eliza turned to lookaround slightly to see what at his face looked like only to see the same tensed jaw and vacant eyes. She could not help but wonder what he was thinking or was his mind as empty as his eyes.
Upon entering the building all the faculty in the lobby suddenly appeared to have remembered something they had to do. Looking busy so they did not appear to be as immature as the students, but they were not fooling Eliza, they were just as curious as everyone else.
"Could Elizabeth and Christopher Harper please come to Mr. Simpson's office, please?"
"You have got to be kidding me." Eliza said under her breath knowing that if anyone was not looking at her and whispering about Christopher, they were now.
She felt a large hand on her shoulder and jumped clumsily to the side as if she were a terrified fawn on the side of the highway. She no longer maintained her balance and a hand was now wrapped around her arm pulling her back to feet.
"You are very jumpy today," Christopher whispered. "Come on, they are only going to talk to us about me."
"That's what I am afraid of," she said ducked her head under her hood hoping that it was some sort of invisibility cloak. She could feel the heat on her face and neck meaning only that her face was the exact same red as the banner displaying the head of an the Indian warrior hanging from the ceiling. She knew that her the graceful greeting of her brother had only made her more visible
"It's going to be alright." Christopher said with a weak smile.
Eliza nodded to try to show that she was being supportive but kept her eyes down on the ground so if she threw up again she would not step avoid stepping in it. Then fought like hell to keep the bile from rising because that was one more thing she needed to make her entrance any more dramatic.
"Well, hello Christopher, Elizabeth," Ms. Griffith said with the same voice only a minute earlier had been screeching through the PA system. "Mr. Simpson will be right with you."
She sat behind a counter trying to appear busy to distract her from Christopher's presence. This was something that most people did while in his presence. They did not do this out of politeness but out of the fear of a reanimated corpse. Christopher's appearance seemed to make people even more uncomfortable because he did not look dead. Eliza believed that someone met him on the street it would take them a little while to realize that he is a Zombie. This was not always the case. Quite rapidly he regained his ability to walk and gained back most of his coordination. It took much longer for him to begin to speak again and when he spoke for the first time it made Eliza physically ill. She could not get over the fact that her brother was beginning his whole life over again while she could only see death. She dreamt about his lifeless body every night. Every time a door would open he was always lying on the floor, dead. She avoided him as much as possible and hated his proximity to her now.
"Hey kids," Mr. Simpson said with a bit too much more enthusiasm than Eliza could stand and she have had to fight hard to stop my eyes from rolling.
Mr. Simpson was a round man who always wore short sleeved button up shirts and sweater vest. Students always made fun of his choices in clothing especially around holidays when he would pull from his collection of festive vests. Eliza always wondered how they were supposed to take him seriously with a Santa sweater jingle bells included. She always thought that he appeared and acted more like a host of a children's television show than an authoritative high school principle. This always worked against him and the students took advantage of his cheerful disposition and his desperation to be considered the nice principal.
"Come in and we can talk about a few things before the day begins, and don't worry your homeroom teachers know you are with me."
He looked uncomfortable, like he had a bad case of heart burn, or maybe it was just Christopher's presence. He looked really uncomfortable in Christopher's presence or it could have been a case of heartburn. Eliza quickly sat down in the first available seat and pulled her knees up to her chest. She wanted to make herself small and insignificant in contrast with her brother so she would not have to talk about anything.
"This summer, I know, has been difficult for you and your family," Mr. Simpson began his obviously rehearsed speech. "I hope I can make this year as easy as possible. I am dedicated to making any accommodations that you and your parents see fit.". "
As he was about to continue with his well rehearsed speech there was a light knock on the door right interrupted him and before it swung opened. Obviously it was only a courtesy knock there was no intention of waiting to be invited in.
"Good morning Dr. Hamliton," Mr. Simpson said with a hint of fake surprise. "You are earlier than I expected you."
Dr. Hamliton was a thin man with a very long nose and stern beady eyes. Eliza thought he looked more like Ornithologist than someone called into a principles office to talk to a teenage girl and her zombie brother.
"Good morning Simpson," Dr. Hamliton. "You must be Christopher and Elizabeth. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Dr. Hamliton," Chris and Eliza mumble in unison.
"I am going to make this quick," Dr. Hamliton began. "I was sent here by the powers that be to deal with the situation that has come to our attention, your situation to be exact, Mr. Harper. It is our responsibility to make sure that you get acclimated to the school setting in your new condition. Since your incident this summer there are many things that have changed which you are already aware of most of these. However, now that you have decided to continue your education I must warn you that there are many hurdles for you to cross. I will be your advocate and will be responsible for your well being while the students become adjusted to this new situation. I must warn you that this is going to be difficult for you and it could be dangerous."
"I know this already," Christopher said slowly making every word sound much more deliberate. "You don't think I know that now that I am dead I have no rights?"
"I wouldn't say that Mr. Harper," Dr. Hamliton said. "You may not officially have real protection, but—"
"Well then what would you say about the lack of any government protection for me?" Christopher said his empty eyes growing in intensity. "People are wasting so much time trying to decide what they should call me and making accommodations that they have forgotten that I should still have rights, and our state government has done nothing."
"We are getting off topic here," Dr. Hamliton said. "I am here to help you. I am one of the very few people who are on your side. I hope that with your principal's assistance we can make this as easy as possible to try to get you back into the swing of things and help your fellow students to understand more of your condition. We believe that by educating the students and answering their questions we may prevent any incident like the ones we have seen in Indianapolis."
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Christopher Chris said looking over at Eliza with skepticism painted all over his face.
"With an assembly today," Dr. Hamliton said with a very proud smile. "We will work on some sensitivity training and getting all the details about you out in the open. I believe that it will take more than just today's assembly, but I assure you that I am going to do anything I can to make things easier on you and your family."
"Yeah this is going to work," Eliza said under her breath.
Christopher smiled back at her and she could see the skepticism still in his grin. She was trying so hard not to hate him for all of this, but with every ne embarrassment it got that much harder.
