Лорел Гамильтон - Strange Candy

It’s pretty pitiful at parties. All the animators huddled, talking shop like a bunch of doctors. But doctors don’t get called witch, monster, zombie queen. Very few people remember to call us animators. For most, we are a dark joke. “This is Anita. She makes zombies, and I don’t mean the drink.” Then there would be laughter all around, and I would smile politely and know I’d be going home early.

Tonight there was no party to worry over, just work. Work was power, magic, a strange dark impulse to raise more than what you were paid for. Tonight would be cloudless, moonlit, and starred; I could feel it. We were different, drawn to the night, unafraid of death and its many forms, because we had a sympathy for it.

Tonight I would raise the dead.

Wellington Cemetery was new. All the tombstones were nearly the same size, square or rectangle, and set off into the night in near-perfect rows. Young trees and perfectly clipped evergreen shrubs lined the gravel driveway. The moon rode strong and high, bathing the scene clearly, if mysteriously, in silver and black. A handful of huge trees dotted the grounds. They looked out of place among all this newness. As Carla had said, only two of them grew close together.

The drive spilled into the open and encircled the hill. The mound of grass-covered earth was obviously man-made, so round, short, and domed. Three other drives centered on it. A short way down the west drive stood two large trees. As my car crunched over gravel, I could see someone dressed in white. A flare of orange was a match, and the reddish pinpoint of a cigarette sprang to life.

I stopped the car, blocking the drive, but few people on honest business visit cemeteries at night. Carla had beaten me here, very unusual. Most clients want to spend as little time as possible near the grave after dark. I walked over to her before unloading equipment.

There was a litter of burned-out cigarettes like stubby white bugs about her feet. She must have been here in the dark for hours waiting to raise a zombie. She either was punishing herself or enjoyed the idea. There was no way of knowing which.

Her dress, shoes, even hose, were white. Earrings of silver flashed in the moonlight as she turned to me. She was leaning against one of the trees, and its black trunk emphasized her whiteness. She only turned her head as I came up to her.

Her eyes looked silver-gray in the light. I couldn’t decipher the look on her face. It wasn’t grief.

“It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

I agreed that it was. “Carla, are you all right?”

She stared at me terribly calm. “I’m feeling much better than I did this af ternoon”

“I’m very glad to hear that. Did you remember to bring his clothes and a memento?”

She motioned to a dark bundle by the tree.

“Good, I’ll unload the car.” She didn’t offer to help, which was not unusual. Most of the time it was fear that prevented it. I realized my Omega was the only car in sight.

I called softly, but sound carries on summer nights. “How did you get here? I don’t see a car.”

“I hired a cab, it’s waiting at the gate.”

A cab. I would love to have seen the driver’s face when he dropped her off at the cemetery gates. The three black chickens clucked from their cage in the backseat. They didn’t have to be black, but it was the only color I could get for tonight. I was beginning to think our poultry supplier had a sense of humor.

Arthur Fiske was only recently dead, so from the box in the trunk I took only a jar of homemade ointment and a machete. The ointment was pale off-white with flecks of greenish light in it. The glowing flecks were graveyard mold. You wouldn’t find it in this cemetery. It only grew in graveyards that had stood for at least a hundred years. The ointment also contained the obligatory spider webs and other noisome things, plus herbs and spices to hide the smell and aid the magic. If it was magic.

I smeared the tombstone with it and called Carla over. “It’s your turn now, Carla.” She stubbed out her cigarette and came to stand before me. I smeared her face and hands and told her, “You stand just behind the tombstone throughout the raising.”

She took her place without a word while I placed ointment on myself. The pine scent of rosemary for memory, cinnamon and cloves for preservation, sage for wisdom, and lemon thyme to bind it all together seemed to soak through the skin itself.

I picked the largest chicken and tucked it under my arm. Carla stood where I had left her, staring down at the grave. There was an art to beheading a chicken with only two hands.

I stood at the foot of the grave to kill the chicken. Its first artery blood splashed onto the grave. It splattered over the fading chrysanthemums, roses, and carnations. A spire of white gladioli turned dark. I walked a circle sprinkling blood as I went, tracing a circle of steel with a bloody machete. Carla shut her eyes as the blood rained upon her.

I smeared blood on myself and placed the still-twitching body upon the flower mound. Then I stood once again at the foot of the grave. We were cut off now inside the blood circle, alone with the night, and our thoughts. Carla’s eyes flashed white at me as I began the chant.

“Hear me, Arthur Fiske. I call you from the grave. By blood, magic, and steel, I call you. Arise, Arthur, come to us, come to me, Arthur Fiske.” Carla joined me as she was supposed to. “Come to us, Arthur, come to us, Arthur. Arthur, arise.” We called his name in ever-rising voices.

The flowers shuddered. The mound heaved upward, and the chicken slid to the side. A hand clawed free, ghostly pale. A second hand and Carla’s voice failed her. She began moving round the gravestone to kneel to the left of the heaving mound. There was such wonder, even awe, in her face, as I called Arthur Fiske from the grave.

The arms were free. The top of a dark-haired head was in sight, but the top was almost all there was.

The mortician had done his best, but Arthur’s had been a closed-casket funeral.

The right side of his face was gone, blasted away. Clean white bone shone at jaw and skull, and silver bits of wire where the bone had been strung together. It still wasn’t a face. The nose was empty holes, bare and white. The skin was shredded and snipped short to look neater. The lef teye rolled wildly in the bare socket. I could see the tongue moving between the broken teeth. Arthur Fiske struggled from the grave.

I tried to remain calm. It could be a mistake. “Is that Arthur?”

Her hoarse whisper came to me. “Yes.”

“That is not a heart attack.” “No.” Her voice was calm now, incredibly normal. “No, I shot him at close range.”

“You killed him, and had me bring him back.”

Arthur was having some trouble freeing his legs, and I ran to Carla. I tried to help her to her feet but she wouldn’t move.

“Get up, get up, damn it, he’ll kill you!”

Her next words were very quiet. “If that’s what he wants.”

“God help me, a suicide.”

I forced her to look at me instead of the thing in the grave. “Carla, a murdered zombie always kills his murderer first, always. No forgiveness, that is a rule. I can’t control him until af ter he has killed you. You have to run, now.”

She saw me, understood, I think, but said, “This is the only way to be free of guilt. If he forgives me, I’ll be free.”

“You’ll be dead!”

Arthur freed himself and was sitting on the crushed, earth-strewn flowers. It would take him a little while to organize, but not too long.

“Carla, he will kill you. There will be no forgiveness.” Her eyes had wandered back to the zombie, and I slapped her twice, very hard. “Carla, you will die out here, and for what? Arthur is dead, really dead. You don’t want to die.”