Acherontia Atropos Part 11
The Browning dropped from my suddenly lax grip and fell to the
thinly carpeted floor with a loud thud. I was lucky that it didn't
choose that moment to go off and take me out.
I stared into the flat, dead eyes of Yan like a deer caught by the
headlights of a tractor trailer. For a long moment, I wondered if
it were just a new horror that my nightmares had produced. But no,
the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh was stronger than ever,
accompanied by the dull, wet scent of damp earth and death. I was
awake.
"No." I whispered, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. "You
can't be here. You're dead." For a crazy second, I wondered if I'd
dreamed it all, and that he actually was alive.
No. No. It couldn't be possible.
Yan continued to watch me. There was nothing in his eyes, no vital
spark or hint of reflection. It was like trying to look into the
eyes of one of the preserved animal specimens at the museum.
"What do you want?" I whispered, very afraid. It's not often that
a guy gets visited by the ripening corpse of one of his friends.
This was definitely a first for me.
Yan's mouth opened and moved, as if he were talking. No sound came
out though, nothing but the whistling of moving air. My gaze moved
slowly, reluctantly down... oh God, I didn't want to look. Yan had
been buried in a suit. It still looked starched and pressed, like
he'd just taken it out of his closet and put it on. he high collar
was buttoned and he was wearing a tie, but I could still see a bit
of his neck. The gaping hole was still there; it looked like some
giant had reached down and just scooped half of his neck away. Air
was rushing out through the gap between the collar and his throat.
I covered my mouth with one hand. Of course, he couldn't talk. No
vocal cords. No throat. It all made perfect sense. A hysterical
little giggle started bubbling up inside me, and I fought it off.
If I started laughing now, I'd never stop. Stop. "Please stop," I
said, very carefully.
Yan stopped moving his mouth. Once again, he just looked at me.
There was something in his empty gaze, as strange as it seemed. He
was expecting something. No, not just expecting. Needing.
Needing me to command him, to give him something to do. The
knowledge came to me, the thought forming completely unbidden in
my subconscious.
Oh shit...he was looking at me for orders. What the hell was going
on?
I shivered. Static energy crawled along my skin, making every hair
on my body stand on end. I was overflowing, there was too much...
too much what?
My hands stung, and I looked down at them. Blood glittered on my
palms, welling up from four cuts that I'd made there with my
fingernails. I'd been clenching my hands in my sleep.
And now that I was awake and looking at the blood, I needed to do
something. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the weird thoughts
that were creeping through my mind. I could almost feel that cold,
dark energy dancing along my fingertips in the moonlight. I had
to...
I held out a shaking hand toward Yan. Blood droplets glittered on
my fingertips. I spoke, the words drawn from me reluctantly by the
power. "Drink," I said, my voice husky in my ears. "Take the
offering and walk again."
The corpse...
No, that wasn't right.
Zombie. Yes. It was a zombie--didn't need any more urging. It
grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, then began to suck the
blood from my fingers. Its hand was hard and cold, its skin
faintly waxy. A dry, leathery tongue rasped against my fingertips,
and I let out a soft, frightened whimper and tried to pull my hand
away. The zombie clung like a limpet, making a protesting almost-
sound, and continued to lap at the blood. I stopped trying to get
away when its grip tightened enough to make the bones of my wrist
grind together. When it had finished with my fingers, the zombie
turned its attention to the still bleeding wounds on the palm of
my hand and began to drink from them. It looked at me the entire
time.
I was caught in its gaze, frozen. With each passing minute, the
zombie's eyes became less flat, less dead. There was something
shining in them--not life, it couldn't be that--but awareness.
Knowledge. Self. Just as weird, its neck healed as I watched,
shiny white scar tissue closing over the gaping hole.
My nerves protested like all hell when the zombie began sucking at
the cuts. The pain brought me back, and I suddenly realized that I
was just standing there, letting something that just crawled out
of the ground drink my blood. Oh God. I tried to pull my hand back
again. The zombie mewled out a pathetic protest. "Let go," I said,
sharply.
It did exactly as it was told, and I stumbled back a step and ran
the backs of my legs into Heero's bed. I just wanted to laugh. It
was mine, all mine. I'd created it, brought it to me, and now it
was mine to command. A strange kind of elation welled up inside me,
and I felt the dark energy stir, pulling toward the zombie. I
wanted to touch it again, to share my blood with it. It was mine.
My child...
/Stop that!/ I told myself. This was too freaky.
The zombie stared at me again. Its lips were dark with blood. We
watched each other for an eternal second, and then the zombie
licked its lips. It was as if that little bit made all of the
blood, magic, or whatever reach critical mass. Suddenly, the
zombie's entire posture changed. It was no longer stiff and dead,
though it wasn't quite alive.
It looked at me, and Self flooded into its eyes. "Duo?" it said
with Yan's voice, inflections, and everything. "What's going on?"
It--no, shit, I couldn't think of the zombie as an it any more,
not when it was looking at me like that--HE sounded like a lost,
scared little boy.
I took an involuntary step back, toward the door. The zombie took
a step toward me.
That was it. "Stay there!" I yelled, my voice cracking. I backed
away more quickly, even though the zombie obeyed my command. This
had to be a bad dream. I ran my back into the door and yelped.
Yan the zombie watched me, a mixture of curiosity and hurt on his
dead face. "Duo, what's wrong?" he asked.
That was too much. I fumbled for the doorknob, not looking away
from the zombie, and managed to get the door open.
I slammed the door behind me as soon as I was out in the hall,
then ran the short distance to Wufei's room. My breath was sobbing
in my throat, coming way too fast. "Wufei!" I said as loudly as I
dared, knocking on the door. There was no answer. "Wufei!" My
voice shook. I knew on an intellectual level that the zombie would
still be back in my room, waiting for the next order... but my
intellect was definitely not at home. I could all too easily
imagine the zombie creeping up behind me, reaching out for me in
classic "Night of the Living Dead" style.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God...
"Wufei!" I gave up any pretense at being quiet. If the other guys
in the hall had a problem, THEY could go deal with the damn zombie.
I pounded on the door. Still no answer, and for one terrible
moment I imagined that another zombie had come and gotten Wufei,
and any minute the one in my room would change its mind about
obeying me and eat my brain like so many licorice all-sorts. My
knees gave out and crashed into Wufei's door and slid slowly down
its smooth surface until I was on the floor. I continued to hit
the door with one hand. The cuts in my palm had reopened, leaving
little smears of blood on the door every time I hit it.
There was a soft sound beyond the door, and it was suddenly jerked
open. I fell over, caught completely off guard, and ended up
sprawling at Wufei's feet. His hair was hanging around his face,
and he was wearing only a pair of pants. "Duo?" He asked,
incredulous. "What's wrong?"
I was feeling a little upset. Yan dying, I could handle. Dead was
dead, no changing it, I wouldn't be Shinigami if I didn't know
that. But... now... he wasn't dead. Kind of. Because of me.
So I went into a round of hysterics.
Wufei handled it pretty well, I think. I threw myself at him and
locked my arms around his waist, and he didn't push me away.
Instead, he awkwardly returned my desperate embrace. He didn't do
that sort of thing very often. He stood there and half held me and
listened to me babble for several minutes before he realized that
I wasn't going to just calm down on my own. Then he pushed me away
slightly, grabbed my arms, and shook me once, very firmly.
The sound of my teeth rattling in my head brought me back to my
senses. My breath came in rapid gasps. I concentrated on slowing
down until a small measure of coherency returned to my thoughts.
"Okay, Duo." Wufei said, a great deal more calm than he had any
right to be. Then again, he didn't know about the dead guy in my
room yet. "What's going on?"
I took a long, deep breath. "Yan." I said, very softly. "He's...
in my room."
Wufei's eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. "What?"
"Yan's in my room!" I shouted, my voice cracking.
To Wufei's credit, he didn't ask questions or patronize me. I
guessed that after the week we'd all been having, he was pretty
much willing to believe anything. "Can I let go of you now?" he
asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to talk again. He let go of my arms,
then disappeared into his room for a moment. When he came back out,
he was tugging on a shirt one handed and holding his sword.
Wordlessly, we walked down the hall to my room. Wufei opened my
door and took a cautious look inside.
If he saw anything, he didn't give any outward sign. For a crazy
minute, I wondered if it had been a nightmare, and I'd gotten
Wufei out of bed for nothing. God, I hoped it was a nightmare. I'd
take the ass kicking without a complaint.
Wufei took a deliberate step back and quietly shut the door. His
face had taken on a pale, sickly tinge. "That," he said very
carefully, "is impossible."
My eyes widened. I hadn't heard Wufei sound like that very often.
He was afraid. The only thing that was keeping him from breaking
down like me was the fact that he was Wufei, and Wufei would never
let anyone see him like that. I fell back against the wall with a
solid thump and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I
wanted to laugh. "Oh good," I said. "That means I must be
imagining it."
Wufei took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Did it attack
you?"
I shook my head.
"Did it act hostile at all?"
I shook my head again. "It..." I took a deep breath and tried
again. My words came out in a rush. "It's waiting for me to tell
it to do something."
Wufei's eyes widened. "What?"
I scrubbed at my eyes with one hand, the hand that the zombie
hadn't touched. "It's waiting for me to give it orders. It's
mine."
"How...?"
"I don't know. Jesus, I don't know." I actually started laughing.
I put my face in one hand and slammed the other into the floor.
Hard. The pain shocked me enough that I managed to pull myself out
of another looming bout of hysteria. "God, Wufei... when are our
lives ever going to go back to normal?"
Wufei crouched down until he was level with me. "I don't know," he
said. "Were they that normal to begin with?"
I snorted. "God, I don't know how you handle this so well."
"It's happening to you, not me. I'm only effected because I am
your friend...so I am at least getting a choice as to whether or
not I want to get involved," he pointed out. "Besides, maybe you
only think I'm taking it well. Maybe once the zombie's taken care
of, I'm going to go back to my room, lock myself in, and draw on
the walls for a while."
The comment had its desired effect. I laughed, and it wasn't
tainted with panic in the slightest. The image of Wufei, barefoot
and with his hair loose, drawing on the walls with scented
permanent markers was just too ridiculous. I felt calmer almost
immediately, a little removed from the problem. If Wufei could
handle it, so could I, damnit.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. God, Wufei is one cool
cucumber.
"You win." I said. "I'm okay now." I took a deep breath. No, I
wasn't okay, but at least I was in control. "What do we do?"
"We go inside and see what it wants. It came from somewhere. We
send it back." It sounded so simple when he said it. Maybe it was
that easy. I hoped so. Sometimes I wished I could see the world in
simple terms like Wufei seemed to. There's a fight, so you apply
sufficient force to the enemy that you will leave nothing standing.
There is a wrong, so you right it. There's a pervert groping you,
so you kick him in the nuts. There's not enough rice, so you go
buy more. There's a reanimated, ripe-smelling corpse standing in
your friends' rooms, so you go in and ask it what it wants, then
send it home. See? Fits right in.
I nodded shakily and stood up. He followed me when I walked into
my room. It was the bravest thing I'd done all week.
The zombie was standing where I'd left it--him. When I came in, he
looked at me, and I only had one name for the expression on his
face. He was hurt. I suddenly felt like a heel, which seemed
pretty ridiculous. I was feeling bad about hurting the feelings of
a corpse.
But damnit, corpses weren't supposed to look so...alive.
"Duo?" Yan looked up at me. There was still a strange flatness in
his eyes, like he was lacking some vital spark. Well, duh. But at
the same time, they were still Yan's eyes, and there was still a
measure of intelligence and self awareness in them. "What's going
on? What am I doing here?"
I carefully moved past him and sat on my bed. Wufei stayed
standing, by the door, still holding his sword. "What do you want,
Yan?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
If anything, the question seemed to just confuse him more.
"Want...?" he said wonderingly, as if the thought that he might
actually want something was completely foreign to him.
I glanced at Wufei. Wufei shrugged. Big help there. So I tried
again. "Why are you here?" When in doubt, rephrase the question.
Yan suddenly smiled. Boyish. Innocent. All American. If you
ignored the fact that he was dead and smelled, that is. "You
called me."
"I *WHAT*?" I nearly yelled. That wasn't the answer I had been
expecting.
Yan regarded me unblinkingly. "You called me," he repeated.
I looked at Wufei. He shrugged. I resisted the urge to hit him.
"Called you from where?"
Yan hesitated. "My... room?" It sounded more like a question than
an answer.
I knew THAT wasn't it. I shook my head. "Try to remember."
"But where would I be if I wasn't in my room?"
It didn't seem right for a zombie to sound so... lost. They were
supposed to try to eat people, and stumble around moaning "fresh
meat" or something like that. At least if you believed the movies.
"I hate to tell you this, man, but you're dead."
"I am?"
I nodded. God, this was so weird. "A vampire ripped your throat
out. It's hard to get deader than that."
Yan reached up and cautiously touched his neck. His eyes widened.
"I don't remember..."
"That's probably for the best," Wufei murmured.
Yan looked at Wufei. He smiled. He'd always liked Wufei. His
attention came back to me almost immediately, though. I was the
focus of his world. "I'm... dead," he said quietly, as if he were
testing out the idea. "My parents are sad, aren't they."
"A lot of us are." I said, just as quietly. "Some of the guys are
out, right now, looking for the monsters that killed you." Shit.
The guys. They wouldn't believe this.
"Can I go home?" he asked.
I shook my head quickly. "I don't think that would be a good idea.
Your parents already got a bad shock when you died. If you showed
back up, I don't know how they'd take it."
He nodded. "You're right. So I'm dead." He was so trusting. It
only made
me feel worse.
"Yes." At least he wasn't in denial about it. I don't know what I
would have done about that.
"Then I should go back to being dead, shouldn't I?" he said slowly.
His voice immediately firmed, and he nodded, as if he liked the
idea. "I should get put back."
Great. Never mind the fact that I had no idea how to do it. Then
again, I hadn't had the foggiest clue on how to bring someone back
as a zombie to begin with. Maybe whatever it was that told me how
to start this little adventure would tell me how to finish it.
"Where did you come from?"
Yan shrugged. No help there.
Wufei cleared his throat. "There's a graveyard a few miles
northwest. That is most likely." I blinked. I hadn't known that.
Wufei smirked. "It pays to be thorough in one's reconnaissance."
I rolled my eyes. Of course. Wufei seriously needed a life if he
spent his time scouting around for graveyards, but I wasn't going
to say that, considering he'd just saved my ass. "Okay, then.
We'll go there. Sound good to everyone?" No objections. Great.
Take charge, Duo. As I stood, a strange thought came to mind.
"Wufei, do you have some salt?"
Wufei had been turning to leave, but he stopped at my question. "I
might have some in my room. Why?"
"Don't know." I shrugged. It had been a weird, stupid idea that
came up from my subconscious. Considering all the interesting
things that had been coming up from that part of my mind lately, I
wasn't going to argue with it.
Wufei obviously was thinking along the same lines as me. "I'll go
check." he said.
* * *
When we consulted with a map, we found that the graveyard was
closer to five miles away. Too long to walk in as little time as
we had until dawn. I knew I sure as hell didn't want to get caught
walking around with Yan's animated corpse. So we hot-wired one of
the cars in the teacher's parking lot, a truck that belonged to
one of the night janitors. Wufei drove. I wasn't feeling too
confident in my ability to do anything that required any amount of
focus.
After a little discussion and shuffling, Yan got relegated to the
back. As sorry as I felt for him, I didn't want to deal with how
he smelled in close quarters. I figured that if the back of the
truck smelled a bit off when we returned it, well... hopefully the
janitor wouldn't notice. There were all sorts of cleaning supplies
and implements back there. Maybe he'd figure that he hadn't rinsed
his mop out well enough or something. Let someone else deal with a
damn mystery for once.
The ride to the cemetery was silent. Yan wouldn't speak unless
spoken to, and neither Wufei or I really felt like talking. Once
we got there and unloaded Yan, we had another problem.
"Where the hell did you get buried?" I asked the dead guy, more
than a bit exasperated. The cemetery was huge. Acres of crosses
and weathered stone angels, tall headstones covered with kanji and
english characters, as far as the eye could see. Looking for one
grave would take forever.
"I don't know." Yan shrugged. "I just remember coming to your
room."
Great.
"This is an old graveyard," Wufei said. "There won't be many new
graves. So we look for freshly disturbed sod or dirt."
It was a better than being completely clueless, but for some
reason, the thought of wandering around in a huge, old grave yard
in the middle of the night looking for a small patch of freshly
disturbed earth just did not turn me on. Call me weird. "Wait, I
have a better idea." I glanced at Yan. "Does your family have a
plot in this cemetery, maybe somewhere you guys would
visit?"
Yan nodded slowly. "I think so. Yes. I remember where it is."
I grinned. "Bingo. Take us there, then." Yan the zombie nodded and
chose one of the gravel paths to walk down. Wufei and I followed
him. None of us spoke; the only sound was gravel crunching beneath
our feet.
I watched Yan walking ahead of me. He had his hands in his pockets.
That was another thing. I thought zombies were supposed to shuffle.
And do so while holding their arms stiffly out in front of them. I
would really have to have a talk with the guys that thought up
horror flicks some time. So far, they were batting zero.
Yan's family plot was pretty far from the front gate of the
cemetery. It was on the outskirts; there were trees on almost all
sides of it, and a fence. End of the road. There were several
large grave markers, all of them covered with the graceful,
spidery shapes of hundreds of kanji. I could only understand about
half of them, but the effect itself was pretty. They glimmered in
the moonlight; the characters had been filled in with silver
leafing. Yan's grave was the only relatively new one. There were
two wreaths of flowers set up by it, and an easel with Yan's
picture on it. The picture was draped in black so it looked like
the kanji number four. /Shi./ Death. Yan in the picture was
smiling. His hair was slicked back perfectly and he was in his
uniform.
Strangely enough, the earth over the grave wasn't disturbed. It
just looked like it had settled--there was a depression in the
grass. Yan obviously hadn't clawed his way up through the earth
like in the movies...
/Geeze, man,/ I hissed at myself in annoyance, /enough with the
damn horror movies./
Some days, I really wonder about myself. Other days, I know.
I cleared my throat and looked at Yan. "Looks like the end of the
road, man."
He nodded and stood by his grave. None of us moved for a moment.
Finally, he looked at me, his face expressionless. "Will it hurt?"
he asked.
I hesitated. "I don't know," I said honestly, "I don't think it
will, though."
He nodded. "Then put me back. I'm tired."
At his quiet words, a lump formed in my throat. I blinked my eyes
quickly. Damnit, I was not going to cry. I took a deep breath. The
air tasted tired, faintly moldy and full of the earthy scents of
fresh dirt and old death. "Okay..." I said. "Okay..." I turned let
myself go. I didn't have any better ideas.
As soon as I stopped trying to keep it out, the cool, electrical
power crashed through me, leaving me gasping as if I'd just been
dunked in freezing water. All of my nerve endings were sensitized;
I could feel the slightest breeze, could almost feel the tiny
pressure of the moonlight on my skin. I couldn't give it direction,
because I didn't know what to do with it, so it rushed into the
ground madly, leaving me tingling with its constant flow.
But it was more than that. I could see underground, into the
graves, through the grass and dirt and wood of the coffins.
Skeletons and rotted corpses caught my attention, and I could see
each one in my mind's eye. One woman, now nothing more than dust,
lay in her grave like so, though there was no longer enough of her
left that her position could be discerned with sight. Another
grave held three corpses stacked one on top of each other, ancient
on the bottom, barely fifty years dead on top. I could taste the
last glimmerings of the people that had left the bodies behind,
roll the feel of them between my fingers and tell how old they
were, when they died.
"Duo," Wufei said, his voice strained.
I opened my eyes slowly, turning to look at Wufei. All around,
small clusters of lights or mist had sprung from the graves. I
knew that they were ghosts - corpse candles - without knowing
precisely why. They were the last gasps of personalities and souls
that had long since moved on, but had been strong enough, angry
enough to stain the ground over them with their presence.
"Ignore them," I said, my voice very calm. "They can't hurt you if
you ignore them."
I turned my eyes back to Yan--no, what was left of Yan. There was
no soul there, only the short-lived memory of who he had been
moving the body, using the vital spark of power that I had given
him. My zombie. My... child. I had called him, and now he was
tired, ready for to rest once more.
I stepped forward, tearing at the scabs on my hand until one came
free and blood welled from the newly reopened wound in a hot line.
The blood clung to my fingertips. I wiped it gently on Yan's lips.
He watched me, his eyes wide and frightened. He couldn't
understand what I was doing. I wasn't sure if I understood, myself.
My hand went to my pocket, and I pulled out the small paper packet
of salt that Wufei had found for me. my guess was that he'd
liberated it from a fast food restaurant at some point. That
wasn't important though. The salt itself was. I sprinkled the salt
on Yan's shoulders, and he shuddered.
"With blood and earth, I bind thee. Return to thy rest and walk no
more," I said, very softly. I couldn't believe the words that were
coming out of my mouth. Too strange for me.
Yan closed his eyes, and smiled. "Thank you," he whispered.
I took him by the arms and helped him lay down on his grave. The
grass and soil flowed over him like water until he was hidden from
sight.
The power inside me dried up abruptly, and I collapsed to my knees
on top of Yan's grave, my hands shaking. Whatever it was that had
moved me before, it was gone now. I was just Duo.
Well, pretty much. Right then, I just felt like a candle that
someone had left out in their car in the middle of summer.
"Are you alright, Duo?" Wufei asked, kneeling by me. I hadn't
heard him move.
"Yeah, just peachy-keen," I said. "Now that that little adventure
is over with."
"Is it?" Wufei asked. He gave me a hand up. "I have a strange
feeling that things are only going to get worse."
I groaned, laughing. "Don't say that, man! Someone might be
listening!" It felt good to laugh and relax. Things were okay now.
The corpse was back in the ground. "Oh God..." I moaned, stumbling
against Wufei as the enormity of what had just happened hit me
like a falling pallet of bricks. "What the hell did I do?" I'd
brought Yan, the boy I'd helped kill, back from the dead. This on
top of everything else. Was I even human any more?
Wufei caught me and held me up. "You didn't do anything," he said.
"Everything that has been happening since the beginning of this
mess has been caused by the vampires." I looked up. He sounded
angry. "Everything," he said again. "They're the reason that the
boy died. They're the ones that...assaulted you." His lips curled
in distaste. "They're why the others are out in the woods tonight
and we're here. Don't try to blame it on yourself." He turned his
gaze on to me, and gave me a sharp shake. "Or I won't be angry
with them any more. I'll save all my anger for YOU."
I nodded meekly. I'd never seen Wufei in a mood quite like this
before.
"Understand?"
I nodded again.
"Good."
He half carried, half dragged me back to the truck, and we drove
back to the school in silence. When we were back in the dorms, I
hesitated in front of my door.
"Wu-man?"
He stopped, halfway down the hall. "Yes?"
I licked my lips nervously. This sounded really weird. "Can I
sleep in your room tonight?"
Wufei turned back toward me, his eyes wide with shock. Finally, he
nodded. "As long as you promise not to have any more visitors."
"I'll do my best." I grinned weakly and let him usher me into his
room. Soon, I was ensconced on his bed.
Wufei grabbed one of his extra blankets and wrapped it around
himself, then sat on the floor by the door, his sword propped
against his shoulder. "Go to sleep, Duo," he said quietly. "I'm
watching over you."
It was like before, when Quatre and Heero had held me. I suddenly
felt warm and safe, because Wufei was there. I didn't have to be
afraid.
I lay down and drifted off to sleep.
The Browning dropped from my suddenly lax grip and fell to the
thinly carpeted floor with a loud thud. I was lucky that it didn't
choose that moment to go off and take me out.
I stared into the flat, dead eyes of Yan like a deer caught by the
headlights of a tractor trailer. For a long moment, I wondered if
it were just a new horror that my nightmares had produced. But no,
the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh was stronger than ever,
accompanied by the dull, wet scent of damp earth and death. I was
awake.
"No." I whispered, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. "You
can't be here. You're dead." For a crazy second, I wondered if I'd
dreamed it all, and that he actually was alive.
No. No. It couldn't be possible.
Yan continued to watch me. There was nothing in his eyes, no vital
spark or hint of reflection. It was like trying to look into the
eyes of one of the preserved animal specimens at the museum.
"What do you want?" I whispered, very afraid. It's not often that
a guy gets visited by the ripening corpse of one of his friends.
This was definitely a first for me.
Yan's mouth opened and moved, as if he were talking. No sound came
out though, nothing but the whistling of moving air. My gaze moved
slowly, reluctantly down... oh God, I didn't want to look. Yan had
been buried in a suit. It still looked starched and pressed, like
he'd just taken it out of his closet and put it on. he high collar
was buttoned and he was wearing a tie, but I could still see a bit
of his neck. The gaping hole was still there; it looked like some
giant had reached down and just scooped half of his neck away. Air
was rushing out through the gap between the collar and his throat.
I covered my mouth with one hand. Of course, he couldn't talk. No
vocal cords. No throat. It all made perfect sense. A hysterical
little giggle started bubbling up inside me, and I fought it off.
If I started laughing now, I'd never stop. Stop. "Please stop," I
said, very carefully.
Yan stopped moving his mouth. Once again, he just looked at me.
There was something in his empty gaze, as strange as it seemed. He
was expecting something. No, not just expecting. Needing.
Needing me to command him, to give him something to do. The
knowledge came to me, the thought forming completely unbidden in
my subconscious.
Oh shit...he was looking at me for orders. What the hell was going
on?
I shivered. Static energy crawled along my skin, making every hair
on my body stand on end. I was overflowing, there was too much...
too much what?
My hands stung, and I looked down at them. Blood glittered on my
palms, welling up from four cuts that I'd made there with my
fingernails. I'd been clenching my hands in my sleep.
And now that I was awake and looking at the blood, I needed to do
something. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the weird thoughts
that were creeping through my mind. I could almost feel that cold,
dark energy dancing along my fingertips in the moonlight. I had
to...
I held out a shaking hand toward Yan. Blood droplets glittered on
my fingertips. I spoke, the words drawn from me reluctantly by the
power. "Drink," I said, my voice husky in my ears. "Take the
offering and walk again."
The corpse...
No, that wasn't right.
Zombie. Yes. It was a zombie--didn't need any more urging. It
grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, then began to suck the
blood from my fingers. Its hand was hard and cold, its skin
faintly waxy. A dry, leathery tongue rasped against my fingertips,
and I let out a soft, frightened whimper and tried to pull my hand
away. The zombie clung like a limpet, making a protesting almost-
sound, and continued to lap at the blood. I stopped trying to get
away when its grip tightened enough to make the bones of my wrist
grind together. When it had finished with my fingers, the zombie
turned its attention to the still bleeding wounds on the palm of
my hand and began to drink from them. It looked at me the entire
time.
I was caught in its gaze, frozen. With each passing minute, the
zombie's eyes became less flat, less dead. There was something
shining in them--not life, it couldn't be that--but awareness.
Knowledge. Self. Just as weird, its neck healed as I watched,
shiny white scar tissue closing over the gaping hole.
My nerves protested like all hell when the zombie began sucking at
the cuts. The pain brought me back, and I suddenly realized that I
was just standing there, letting something that just crawled out
of the ground drink my blood. Oh God. I tried to pull my hand back
again. The zombie mewled out a pathetic protest. "Let go," I said,
sharply.
It did exactly as it was told, and I stumbled back a step and ran
the backs of my legs into Heero's bed. I just wanted to laugh. It
was mine, all mine. I'd created it, brought it to me, and now it
was mine to command. A strange kind of elation welled up inside me,
and I felt the dark energy stir, pulling toward the zombie. I
wanted to touch it again, to share my blood with it. It was mine.
My child...
/Stop that!/ I told myself. This was too freaky.
The zombie stared at me again. Its lips were dark with blood. We
watched each other for an eternal second, and then the zombie
licked its lips. It was as if that little bit made all of the
blood, magic, or whatever reach critical mass. Suddenly, the
zombie's entire posture changed. It was no longer stiff and dead,
though it wasn't quite alive.
It looked at me, and Self flooded into its eyes. "Duo?" it said
with Yan's voice, inflections, and everything. "What's going on?"
It--no, shit, I couldn't think of the zombie as an it any more,
not when it was looking at me like that--HE sounded like a lost,
scared little boy.
I took an involuntary step back, toward the door. The zombie took
a step toward me.
That was it. "Stay there!" I yelled, my voice cracking. I backed
away more quickly, even though the zombie obeyed my command. This
had to be a bad dream. I ran my back into the door and yelped.
Yan the zombie watched me, a mixture of curiosity and hurt on his
dead face. "Duo, what's wrong?" he asked.
That was too much. I fumbled for the doorknob, not looking away
from the zombie, and managed to get the door open.
I slammed the door behind me as soon as I was out in the hall,
then ran the short distance to Wufei's room. My breath was sobbing
in my throat, coming way too fast. "Wufei!" I said as loudly as I
dared, knocking on the door. There was no answer. "Wufei!" My
voice shook. I knew on an intellectual level that the zombie would
still be back in my room, waiting for the next order... but my
intellect was definitely not at home. I could all too easily
imagine the zombie creeping up behind me, reaching out for me in
classic "Night of the Living Dead" style.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God...
"Wufei!" I gave up any pretense at being quiet. If the other guys
in the hall had a problem, THEY could go deal with the damn zombie.
I pounded on the door. Still no answer, and for one terrible
moment I imagined that another zombie had come and gotten Wufei,
and any minute the one in my room would change its mind about
obeying me and eat my brain like so many licorice all-sorts. My
knees gave out and crashed into Wufei's door and slid slowly down
its smooth surface until I was on the floor. I continued to hit
the door with one hand. The cuts in my palm had reopened, leaving
little smears of blood on the door every time I hit it.
There was a soft sound beyond the door, and it was suddenly jerked
open. I fell over, caught completely off guard, and ended up
sprawling at Wufei's feet. His hair was hanging around his face,
and he was wearing only a pair of pants. "Duo?" He asked,
incredulous. "What's wrong?"
I was feeling a little upset. Yan dying, I could handle. Dead was
dead, no changing it, I wouldn't be Shinigami if I didn't know
that. But... now... he wasn't dead. Kind of. Because of me.
So I went into a round of hysterics.
Wufei handled it pretty well, I think. I threw myself at him and
locked my arms around his waist, and he didn't push me away.
Instead, he awkwardly returned my desperate embrace. He didn't do
that sort of thing very often. He stood there and half held me and
listened to me babble for several minutes before he realized that
I wasn't going to just calm down on my own. Then he pushed me away
slightly, grabbed my arms, and shook me once, very firmly.
The sound of my teeth rattling in my head brought me back to my
senses. My breath came in rapid gasps. I concentrated on slowing
down until a small measure of coherency returned to my thoughts.
"Okay, Duo." Wufei said, a great deal more calm than he had any
right to be. Then again, he didn't know about the dead guy in my
room yet. "What's going on?"
I took a long, deep breath. "Yan." I said, very softly. "He's...
in my room."
Wufei's eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. "What?"
"Yan's in my room!" I shouted, my voice cracking.
To Wufei's credit, he didn't ask questions or patronize me. I
guessed that after the week we'd all been having, he was pretty
much willing to believe anything. "Can I let go of you now?" he
asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to talk again. He let go of my arms,
then disappeared into his room for a moment. When he came back out,
he was tugging on a shirt one handed and holding his sword.
Wordlessly, we walked down the hall to my room. Wufei opened my
door and took a cautious look inside.
If he saw anything, he didn't give any outward sign. For a crazy
minute, I wondered if it had been a nightmare, and I'd gotten
Wufei out of bed for nothing. God, I hoped it was a nightmare. I'd
take the ass kicking without a complaint.
Wufei took a deliberate step back and quietly shut the door. His
face had taken on a pale, sickly tinge. "That," he said very
carefully, "is impossible."
My eyes widened. I hadn't heard Wufei sound like that very often.
He was afraid. The only thing that was keeping him from breaking
down like me was the fact that he was Wufei, and Wufei would never
let anyone see him like that. I fell back against the wall with a
solid thump and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I
wanted to laugh. "Oh good," I said. "That means I must be
imagining it."
Wufei took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Did it attack
you?"
I shook my head.
"Did it act hostile at all?"
I shook my head again. "It..." I took a deep breath and tried
again. My words came out in a rush. "It's waiting for me to tell
it to do something."
Wufei's eyes widened. "What?"
I scrubbed at my eyes with one hand, the hand that the zombie
hadn't touched. "It's waiting for me to give it orders. It's
mine."
"How...?"
"I don't know. Jesus, I don't know." I actually started laughing.
I put my face in one hand and slammed the other into the floor.
Hard. The pain shocked me enough that I managed to pull myself out
of another looming bout of hysteria. "God, Wufei... when are our
lives ever going to go back to normal?"
Wufei crouched down until he was level with me. "I don't know," he
said. "Were they that normal to begin with?"
I snorted. "God, I don't know how you handle this so well."
"It's happening to you, not me. I'm only effected because I am
your friend...so I am at least getting a choice as to whether or
not I want to get involved," he pointed out. "Besides, maybe you
only think I'm taking it well. Maybe once the zombie's taken care
of, I'm going to go back to my room, lock myself in, and draw on
the walls for a while."
The comment had its desired effect. I laughed, and it wasn't
tainted with panic in the slightest. The image of Wufei, barefoot
and with his hair loose, drawing on the walls with scented
permanent markers was just too ridiculous. I felt calmer almost
immediately, a little removed from the problem. If Wufei could
handle it, so could I, damnit.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. God, Wufei is one cool
cucumber.
"You win." I said. "I'm okay now." I took a deep breath. No, I
wasn't okay, but at least I was in control. "What do we do?"
"We go inside and see what it wants. It came from somewhere. We
send it back." It sounded so simple when he said it. Maybe it was
that easy. I hoped so. Sometimes I wished I could see the world in
simple terms like Wufei seemed to. There's a fight, so you apply
sufficient force to the enemy that you will leave nothing standing.
There is a wrong, so you right it. There's a pervert groping you,
so you kick him in the nuts. There's not enough rice, so you go
buy more. There's a reanimated, ripe-smelling corpse standing in
your friends' rooms, so you go in and ask it what it wants, then
send it home. See? Fits right in.
I nodded shakily and stood up. He followed me when I walked into
my room. It was the bravest thing I'd done all week.
The zombie was standing where I'd left it--him. When I came in, he
looked at me, and I only had one name for the expression on his
face. He was hurt. I suddenly felt like a heel, which seemed
pretty ridiculous. I was feeling bad about hurting the feelings of
a corpse.
But damnit, corpses weren't supposed to look so...alive.
"Duo?" Yan looked up at me. There was still a strange flatness in
his eyes, like he was lacking some vital spark. Well, duh. But at
the same time, they were still Yan's eyes, and there was still a
measure of intelligence and self awareness in them. "What's going
on? What am I doing here?"
I carefully moved past him and sat on my bed. Wufei stayed
standing, by the door, still holding his sword. "What do you want,
Yan?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
If anything, the question seemed to just confuse him more.
"Want...?" he said wonderingly, as if the thought that he might
actually want something was completely foreign to him.
I glanced at Wufei. Wufei shrugged. Big help there. So I tried
again. "Why are you here?" When in doubt, rephrase the question.
Yan suddenly smiled. Boyish. Innocent. All American. If you
ignored the fact that he was dead and smelled, that is. "You
called me."
"I *WHAT*?" I nearly yelled. That wasn't the answer I had been
expecting.
Yan regarded me unblinkingly. "You called me," he repeated.
I looked at Wufei. He shrugged. I resisted the urge to hit him.
"Called you from where?"
Yan hesitated. "My... room?" It sounded more like a question than
an answer.
I knew THAT wasn't it. I shook my head. "Try to remember."
"But where would I be if I wasn't in my room?"
It didn't seem right for a zombie to sound so... lost. They were
supposed to try to eat people, and stumble around moaning "fresh
meat" or something like that. At least if you believed the movies.
"I hate to tell you this, man, but you're dead."
"I am?"
I nodded. God, this was so weird. "A vampire ripped your throat
out. It's hard to get deader than that."
Yan reached up and cautiously touched his neck. His eyes widened.
"I don't remember..."
"That's probably for the best," Wufei murmured.
Yan looked at Wufei. He smiled. He'd always liked Wufei. His
attention came back to me almost immediately, though. I was the
focus of his world. "I'm... dead," he said quietly, as if he were
testing out the idea. "My parents are sad, aren't they."
"A lot of us are." I said, just as quietly. "Some of the guys are
out, right now, looking for the monsters that killed you." Shit.
The guys. They wouldn't believe this.
"Can I go home?" he asked.
I shook my head quickly. "I don't think that would be a good idea.
Your parents already got a bad shock when you died. If you showed
back up, I don't know how they'd take it."
He nodded. "You're right. So I'm dead." He was so trusting. It
only made
me feel worse.
"Yes." At least he wasn't in denial about it. I don't know what I
would have done about that.
"Then I should go back to being dead, shouldn't I?" he said slowly.
His voice immediately firmed, and he nodded, as if he liked the
idea. "I should get put back."
Great. Never mind the fact that I had no idea how to do it. Then
again, I hadn't had the foggiest clue on how to bring someone back
as a zombie to begin with. Maybe whatever it was that told me how
to start this little adventure would tell me how to finish it.
"Where did you come from?"
Yan shrugged. No help there.
Wufei cleared his throat. "There's a graveyard a few miles
northwest. That is most likely." I blinked. I hadn't known that.
Wufei smirked. "It pays to be thorough in one's reconnaissance."
I rolled my eyes. Of course. Wufei seriously needed a life if he
spent his time scouting around for graveyards, but I wasn't going
to say that, considering he'd just saved my ass. "Okay, then.
We'll go there. Sound good to everyone?" No objections. Great.
Take charge, Duo. As I stood, a strange thought came to mind.
"Wufei, do you have some salt?"
Wufei had been turning to leave, but he stopped at my question. "I
might have some in my room. Why?"
"Don't know." I shrugged. It had been a weird, stupid idea that
came up from my subconscious. Considering all the interesting
things that had been coming up from that part of my mind lately, I
wasn't going to argue with it.
Wufei obviously was thinking along the same lines as me. "I'll go
check." he said.
* * *
When we consulted with a map, we found that the graveyard was
closer to five miles away. Too long to walk in as little time as
we had until dawn. I knew I sure as hell didn't want to get caught
walking around with Yan's animated corpse. So we hot-wired one of
the cars in the teacher's parking lot, a truck that belonged to
one of the night janitors. Wufei drove. I wasn't feeling too
confident in my ability to do anything that required any amount of
focus.
After a little discussion and shuffling, Yan got relegated to the
back. As sorry as I felt for him, I didn't want to deal with how
he smelled in close quarters. I figured that if the back of the
truck smelled a bit off when we returned it, well... hopefully the
janitor wouldn't notice. There were all sorts of cleaning supplies
and implements back there. Maybe he'd figure that he hadn't rinsed
his mop out well enough or something. Let someone else deal with a
damn mystery for once.
The ride to the cemetery was silent. Yan wouldn't speak unless
spoken to, and neither Wufei or I really felt like talking. Once
we got there and unloaded Yan, we had another problem.
"Where the hell did you get buried?" I asked the dead guy, more
than a bit exasperated. The cemetery was huge. Acres of crosses
and weathered stone angels, tall headstones covered with kanji and
english characters, as far as the eye could see. Looking for one
grave would take forever.
"I don't know." Yan shrugged. "I just remember coming to your
room."
Great.
"This is an old graveyard," Wufei said. "There won't be many new
graves. So we look for freshly disturbed sod or dirt."
It was a better than being completely clueless, but for some
reason, the thought of wandering around in a huge, old grave yard
in the middle of the night looking for a small patch of freshly
disturbed earth just did not turn me on. Call me weird. "Wait, I
have a better idea." I glanced at Yan. "Does your family have a
plot in this cemetery, maybe somewhere you guys would
visit?"
Yan nodded slowly. "I think so. Yes. I remember where it is."
I grinned. "Bingo. Take us there, then." Yan the zombie nodded and
chose one of the gravel paths to walk down. Wufei and I followed
him. None of us spoke; the only sound was gravel crunching beneath
our feet.
I watched Yan walking ahead of me. He had his hands in his pockets.
That was another thing. I thought zombies were supposed to shuffle.
And do so while holding their arms stiffly out in front of them. I
would really have to have a talk with the guys that thought up
horror flicks some time. So far, they were batting zero.
Yan's family plot was pretty far from the front gate of the
cemetery. It was on the outskirts; there were trees on almost all
sides of it, and a fence. End of the road. There were several
large grave markers, all of them covered with the graceful,
spidery shapes of hundreds of kanji. I could only understand about
half of them, but the effect itself was pretty. They glimmered in
the moonlight; the characters had been filled in with silver
leafing. Yan's grave was the only relatively new one. There were
two wreaths of flowers set up by it, and an easel with Yan's
picture on it. The picture was draped in black so it looked like
the kanji number four. /Shi./ Death. Yan in the picture was
smiling. His hair was slicked back perfectly and he was in his
uniform.
Strangely enough, the earth over the grave wasn't disturbed. It
just looked like it had settled--there was a depression in the
grass. Yan obviously hadn't clawed his way up through the earth
like in the movies...
/Geeze, man,/ I hissed at myself in annoyance, /enough with the
damn horror movies./
Some days, I really wonder about myself. Other days, I know.
I cleared my throat and looked at Yan. "Looks like the end of the
road, man."
He nodded and stood by his grave. None of us moved for a moment.
Finally, he looked at me, his face expressionless. "Will it hurt?"
he asked.
I hesitated. "I don't know," I said honestly, "I don't think it
will, though."
He nodded. "Then put me back. I'm tired."
At his quiet words, a lump formed in my throat. I blinked my eyes
quickly. Damnit, I was not going to cry. I took a deep breath. The
air tasted tired, faintly moldy and full of the earthy scents of
fresh dirt and old death. "Okay..." I said. "Okay..." I turned let
myself go. I didn't have any better ideas.
As soon as I stopped trying to keep it out, the cool, electrical
power crashed through me, leaving me gasping as if I'd just been
dunked in freezing water. All of my nerve endings were sensitized;
I could feel the slightest breeze, could almost feel the tiny
pressure of the moonlight on my skin. I couldn't give it direction,
because I didn't know what to do with it, so it rushed into the
ground madly, leaving me tingling with its constant flow.
But it was more than that. I could see underground, into the
graves, through the grass and dirt and wood of the coffins.
Skeletons and rotted corpses caught my attention, and I could see
each one in my mind's eye. One woman, now nothing more than dust,
lay in her grave like so, though there was no longer enough of her
left that her position could be discerned with sight. Another
grave held three corpses stacked one on top of each other, ancient
on the bottom, barely fifty years dead on top. I could taste the
last glimmerings of the people that had left the bodies behind,
roll the feel of them between my fingers and tell how old they
were, when they died.
"Duo," Wufei said, his voice strained.
I opened my eyes slowly, turning to look at Wufei. All around,
small clusters of lights or mist had sprung from the graves. I
knew that they were ghosts - corpse candles - without knowing
precisely why. They were the last gasps of personalities and souls
that had long since moved on, but had been strong enough, angry
enough to stain the ground over them with their presence.
"Ignore them," I said, my voice very calm. "They can't hurt you if
you ignore them."
I turned my eyes back to Yan--no, what was left of Yan. There was
no soul there, only the short-lived memory of who he had been
moving the body, using the vital spark of power that I had given
him. My zombie. My... child. I had called him, and now he was
tired, ready for to rest once more.
I stepped forward, tearing at the scabs on my hand until one came
free and blood welled from the newly reopened wound in a hot line.
The blood clung to my fingertips. I wiped it gently on Yan's lips.
He watched me, his eyes wide and frightened. He couldn't
understand what I was doing. I wasn't sure if I understood, myself.
My hand went to my pocket, and I pulled out the small paper packet
of salt that Wufei had found for me. my guess was that he'd
liberated it from a fast food restaurant at some point. That
wasn't important though. The salt itself was. I sprinkled the salt
on Yan's shoulders, and he shuddered.
"With blood and earth, I bind thee. Return to thy rest and walk no
more," I said, very softly. I couldn't believe the words that were
coming out of my mouth. Too strange for me.
Yan closed his eyes, and smiled. "Thank you," he whispered.
I took him by the arms and helped him lay down on his grave. The
grass and soil flowed over him like water until he was hidden from
sight.
The power inside me dried up abruptly, and I collapsed to my knees
on top of Yan's grave, my hands shaking. Whatever it was that had
moved me before, it was gone now. I was just Duo.
Well, pretty much. Right then, I just felt like a candle that
someone had left out in their car in the middle of summer.
"Are you alright, Duo?" Wufei asked, kneeling by me. I hadn't
heard him move.
"Yeah, just peachy-keen," I said. "Now that that little adventure
is over with."
"Is it?" Wufei asked. He gave me a hand up. "I have a strange
feeling that things are only going to get worse."
I groaned, laughing. "Don't say that, man! Someone might be
listening!" It felt good to laugh and relax. Things were okay now.
The corpse was back in the ground. "Oh God..." I moaned, stumbling
against Wufei as the enormity of what had just happened hit me
like a falling pallet of bricks. "What the hell did I do?" I'd
brought Yan, the boy I'd helped kill, back from the dead. This on
top of everything else. Was I even human any more?
Wufei caught me and held me up. "You didn't do anything," he said.
"Everything that has been happening since the beginning of this
mess has been caused by the vampires." I looked up. He sounded
angry. "Everything," he said again. "They're the reason that the
boy died. They're the ones that...assaulted you." His lips curled
in distaste. "They're why the others are out in the woods tonight
and we're here. Don't try to blame it on yourself." He turned his
gaze on to me, and gave me a sharp shake. "Or I won't be angry
with them any more. I'll save all my anger for YOU."
I nodded meekly. I'd never seen Wufei in a mood quite like this
before.
"Understand?"
I nodded again.
"Good."
He half carried, half dragged me back to the truck, and we drove
back to the school in silence. When we were back in the dorms, I
hesitated in front of my door.
"Wu-man?"
He stopped, halfway down the hall. "Yes?"
I licked my lips nervously. This sounded really weird. "Can I
sleep in your room tonight?"
Wufei turned back toward me, his eyes wide with shock. Finally, he
nodded. "As long as you promise not to have any more visitors."
"I'll do my best." I grinned weakly and let him usher me into his
room. Soon, I was ensconced on his bed.
Wufei grabbed one of his extra blankets and wrapped it around
himself, then sat on the floor by the door, his sword propped
against his shoulder. "Go to sleep, Duo," he said quietly. "I'm
watching over you."
It was like before, when Quatre and Heero had held me. I suddenly
felt warm and safe, because Wufei was there. I didn't have to be
afraid.
I lay down and drifted off to sleep.
