Behold! The Nightmare presents…
Title: Bring Me to Life
Author: Lain Monroe
Rating: PG-13.
Summery: Two leaders (Micah & Bridgi) wake up to find that they are both alive and, somehow, chosen to lead together… Will they succeed this time? Or will they meet the same bloody end? Or even worse; will it be at the hands of one another?
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Micah Balding, Children of the Corn, He Who Walks Behind the Rows, or any of that stuff… I only own Bridgette Fritzen and Father Avigal.
Author's Note: Parts of this story may contained spoilers (mostly to the endings) of Final Sacrifice and, my fic, Harvest Mistress. Just thought I'd warn you…
"It was a long time ago, longer now than it seems.
A place that perhaps you have seen in your dreams...
Welcome to my world, is it what you thought it would be?
I am trapped inside this hell between blood queen
And purgatory a coop filled covered hall,
A tattooed baby doll,
I've got the devil in my corner and Jesus on my wall..."
- Preacher by My Ruin.
She stood up, grasping the preacher's stand-y thing to keep from falling.
He wondered how long she had been from this world… wondered how long he had been dead… and shivered.
She heard a noise behind the preacher's stand thing… and looked, but she couldn't see on the other side of it from where she stood… so she turned slowly to face it, as if she were the preacher, and stood on her tippy toes, and leaned over it to see what was on the other side.
And, to her surprise, there was a boy there.
He looked up at her... she looked weak and deathly pale, like a very… very… very ill person… dark shadows behind her eyes and all… just like him.
He store upon her with a dab of shock in his sickly looking face… they store at each other for a long time… silent.
"Hello." She said, quietly, finally.
"Hi." He replied, smirking… the first words of his being alive again would be: hi.
Her eyes traced him over and over again. She cocked her head to the side in a puppy like way of an innocent confused look. "Who are you?"
"Micah…" he shut his eyes for but a moment. "… and you?"
"Bridgette… Micah who?"
"Micah Balding."
"Micah Balding?" Bridgette echoed. He nodded. "I know you… you were the second leader of His children. He told me about you…"
Micah thought for a moment, trying to remember… and so he did. "Yes, that's right…"
Bridgette swung around the side of the priest's stand-y thing, moving quickly, she forgot their reincarnation dilemma, and moved too quickly before she had remembered the way the world works. She tripped on herself and hit the ground hard.
"Are you alright?" Micah said in his calm, low-ish voice... a voice that always seemed to purr.
Bridgette pushed herself up to her knees. "Yeah… thanks." She crawled in front of him to speak face-to-face with the former leader.
… Then again, she was a former leader, too…
"Micah…" Bridgette looked him cold in the eyes, with her unwavering stare. "You're dead… you got swallowed up by a tractor…"
"Harvester." He corrected her.
"Yeah… whatever." Her stare didn't change. "You're dead… what are you doing here?"
"I don't know…" Micah confessed. "but this means I'm alive, doesn't it?"
"I believe so…" Bridgette's eyes trailed away. "But… I'm dead, too. So I wouldn't put much stock on anything right now."
Micah's brows lowered in suspicion. "You knew of He Who Walks Behind the Rows… You know of me… and you're dead… who are you?"
"Bridgette Fritzen." She smiled dimly. "I was one with He, too… a leader of His children. Until I was… shot down, you might say."
She touched her side; as if still holding her wound… but there was no longer a wound… she was alive now.
He watched her… silent, for a long moment, before he whispered: - "We've both been brought back…"
Bridgette nodded. "… But why? And how?"
"Maybe… He… Who Walks Behind the Rows…"
"Why?" Bridgette looked back up at Micah. "He abandoned us, both. Why would He bring us, of all leaders, back? And why now? Why the two of us, together?"
Micah looked away… having no answers. And they both sat, silent; in wonder… pondering these questions… these questions that they'd probably never have answered. These questions that all revolved around Why.
Finally, Bridgette broke the silence once again. "Perhaps, this is a sign… that we must be together, and form an alliance…"
"Perhaps…" Micah echoed, still deep in thought.
"Then so it shall be…?" Bridgette whispered… neither one knew exactly why they were whispering.
Micah looked back up at her… and nodded slowly. "Yes."
The decision was made.
The two spoke, together, for a good long time… trying to work out as much of these strange issues as they could.
But some things just couldn't be answered.
Although, they tried… coming up with several different ways this could have happened… none of which were actually logical. But there wasn't much logic behind coming back from the dead, now was there?
It didn't take long to learn to walk again… to learn all the things of the world of the living all over again… only an hour.
And once they knew… once they had worked out all these little kinks, they decided to wait in the church… wait for someone to show up…
And so it was.
"Ignore the past, for this is the present…"?
Father Avigal began walking up the church steps at only a few minutes before seven a.m.
Ten, fifteen, at most.
Today was Sunday and he was, being a preacher and all, supposed to give the typical ceremonies of the day.
He unlocked the double doors to the large building, clutching his old bible under his arm… it was a great book, big, fat, black leather bound, shiny golden letters on the cover reading "the Holy Bible", crisp white pages that smelled of old book… very fine, very fine indeed.
The doors came open with ease, the church was new-ish – it had only been rebuilt the years before.
His eyes trailed up to the alter, but were disturbed by something in the back row, to his right. He took a step back, and gazed at it.
Two children – teenagers – sat, side by side, in that row, on the center isle side of the bench…
They both turned their heads in unison, gazing upon the old preacher with blank faces.
Father Avigal couldn't help but be shocked… not to mention the fact that the children didn't look at all normal. They were cloaked in black clothes from head to toe, except the girl whom wore white and black stripped stockings… and they both looked so ill, so inhumanly pale.
The priest dropped his book and stepped back. "How… How did you kids get in here?"
The boy smirked. "So sorry, Father…"
"Did we scare you?" the girl smirked, too. The tone of their voice was similar… soft and low… blank, really.
The preacher's mouth moved with all the possible things to say, but no words were formed. "How did you kids get in here?" he repeated. "The door was locked… double locked. How did you get in here?"
The girl looked at the boy, and there was silence between them. They looked back, again with blank expression. "What is the time, Father? The day? The date?"
"W… Why, it's 7:00am… and…" Father Avigal took a long, long time to explain… longer then I've ever heard of someone taking to tell a date.
It was early October.
The girl smiled, and stood. "Thank you, Father. We'll be going now…"
And so they did… they left… leaving behind a very… very… confused old man. Bridgette snickered at him in her mind… she had a deep disliking for priests.
Fool...
You'll all die, soon.
"Now why couldn't I kill him?" said Bridgette.
"Because," black eyes met green when Micah looked, as he spoke, to her. "He has not called for it yet… we have no sign of His consent."
"No sign of His consent?" Bridgette stopped walking. They were walking along the street… away from the church now. That episode was over. He stopped and looked back at her. "Micah, we're alive… as in, not dead… where as, twenty minutes ago, we were dead. How does this not strike you as a sign?"
"We have no proof as to who brought us back," Micah said, softly… his voice was soft, a purr, almost always. "It is entirely possible that it was not He Who Walks Behind the Rows… we should wait until we have a full sign."
Bridgette wrinkled her noise but ceased any farther protest… and, after only a moment, continued walking by his side.
"Until then, we have other things to worry about," Micah went on, once they had continued walking.
"Like what?" Bridgette sounded amused.
"Well," Micah's eyes dodged up towards the sky, as he seemed to be thinking. "… Like, where we are going to stay."
"Oh! Don't even worry about that." Bridgette answered quickly.
"Huh?"
"It's simple, really… I know what to do; just trust me and follow my lead." Bridgette grasped hold of his arms and yanked him forward into a jog-ish run.
"Where are we going?" asked Micah.
"I thought I just told you to trust me."
Bridgette's long black hair flickered as she jerked around.
Her dull green eyes glittering; she couldn't keep at least a small, devious grin from playing on her red-ish pumpkin colored lips. "Stay quiet," she whispered. Her eyes burning deep into his, as if they could penetrate and take his very soul.
Micah nodded and watched her turn back towards the house, watched her look in the window, inspecting everywhere it would allow her to see.
"He's in there, yes," her whisper was practically breathing. "… but he's in the bed room… it's on the completely other side of the side… Such a lazy man; a sleep at this hour. He is a shinning example of why He calls on us to serve him… against them."
As she spoke; Bridgette raised her elbow and jammed it against and through the glass window. Micah gasped; expecting the noise would surly wake the man up and surly get them caught… doing… whatever they were doing.
Bridgette has a plan, Micah told himself, trying to reassure himself, He Who Walks Behind the Rows would not have chosen her if she were foolish enough to ruin thing just-like-that. Have faith, Micah.
Clearing away the glass, Bridgette reached up inside and unlocked the window. Then, pulled the window up and began to crawl through it.
"What are you doing?" Micah hissed in a harsh whisper.
"Breaking and entering," Bridgette said, cheerfully, now inside and turning back, fully intent on helping him in. "C'mon, now."
Micah took a deep breath, held it, and accepted her help.
Once inside; Bridgette set a finger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet, and then began to creep towards an internal door… leading to a kitchen… if one was to go into the kitchen (which was at the end of the house) and turn to their left; they would find the door to a bed room… wide open with the lazy middle-aged man laying in a pile of his own filth on a bed.
"Come out, come out." Bridgette whispered, and grinned as the dirty man came awake. "Come out and play."
The man sat up and scratched the thinning hair of his head. He watched through his door for a long moment, not seeing Bridgette hunched beside the door to the kitchen… and certainly not seeing Micah; who still up served from beside the window they had come in through.
Standing up, the man quickly threw on a dirty old T-shirt (with holes in it and all) and a baggy (and dirty) pair of beaten gray over-alls… and began to make his way towards them.
Bridgette backed up to Micah's side, slightly in front of him. Every mescal in her fragile body tensed and she appeared, almost, as if a cat stalking pray.
The man staggered into the room and didn't even notice Micah nor Bridgette until he was, roughly, four feet away from them.
"Hey!" the man burst. "What are you kids doin' in 'ere? How'd you get in 'ere?"
Micah tensed, ready to run… or whatever he'd have to do. But, to his surprise, Bridgette relaxed and straightened up.
"Good Sir," she smiled, wickedly, running her fingers over the window sill. "Now you know we can't tell you that… or, at least, you should."
"What you talkin' about, Girly-Q?" Bridgette flinched, but hid all other signs of her distaste. "You'd better explain yurselves, or I might 'ave to call the po-lice."
"No, no, Sir," Bridgette's fingers pounced and grasped something outside the window. "That won't be necessary." She pulled through a pitch fork.
Micah's eye brows narrowed. What was she doing with that?
Holding it tight in both hands she smiled at the man. "Really, Sir, we can't have cops around here… they might discover the body."
"Ah, uh, what body you talking about?" Swinging the pitch fork around, the handle knocked the man in the legs. He lost his balanced and fell backwards. Bridgette jumped on him, standing above him, with the pitch fork pressed to his neck.
"Yours," She purred, and pressed down hard. The pitch fork sliced clear through his skin and layers of tissue… right inbetween the top and second rib bone.
He gargled on his own blood (which invaded his throat), but, eventually, fell limp and dead. Bridgette backed off; the pitch fork standing up on its own. She backed up to Micah side, again, looked at him, smiled, and said: "Bag the farmer, get his barn."
Micah seemed puzzled. "Why the barn?"
"Because, someone shows up, finds the body; they'd find us, too… the barn is the best place to hide… no one will think it too suspicious if they find us there… and if we see cop cars coming, we run. If we see a stranger coming, we… well," she motioned towards old Farmer Brown, here. "You know what to do."
Micah looked down at the body. "We'll have to get rid of him…"
"Just hide him in a closet," Bridgette smiled, and moved to grab his arms. "Come on, help me. The sooner we get the farmer out of the way, the sooner we can check out la home, sweet barn."
