Лорел Гамильтон - Strange Candy

Arthur slid off the flowers and stood uncertainly. His eye rolling around in its socket finally spotted us. Though he didn’t have much to show expression with, I could see joy on his shattered face. There was a twitch of a smile as he shambled toward us, and I began dragging her away. She didn’t fight me, but she was a dead, awkward weight. It is very hard to drag someone away if they don’t want to go.

I let her sink back to the ground. I looked at the clumsy but determined zombie and decided to try. I stood in front of him, blocking him from Carla. I called upon whatever power I possessed and talked to him. “Arthur Fiske, hear me, listen only to me.”

He stopped moving and stared down at me. It was working, against all the rules, it was working.

It was Carla who spoiled it. Her voice saying, “Arthur, Arthur, forgive me.”

He was distracted and tried to move toward her voice. I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Arthur, I command you, do not move. I who raised you command you.”

She called one more time. That was all he needed. He flung me away absentmindedly. My head hit the tombstone. It wasn’t much of a blow, no blood like on television, but it took everything out of me for a minute. I lay in the flowers, and it seemed very important to hear myself breathe.

Arthur reached down for her, slowly. His face twitched, and his tongue made small sounds that might have been, “Carla.”

The clumsy hands stroked her hair. He half fell, half knelt by her. She drew back at that, afraid.

I started crawling over the flowers toward them. She was not going to commit suicide with my help.

The hands stroked her face, and she backed away, just a few inches. The thing crawled after her. She backpedaled faster, but he came on surprisingly quick. He pinned her under his body, and she started screaming.

I half-crawled, half-fell across the zombie’s back.

The hands crept up her body, touching her shoulders.

Her eyes rolled back to me. “Help me!”

I tried. I tugged at him, trying to pull him off her. Zombies do not have supernatural strength, no matter what the media would like you to think, but Arthur had been a large, muscular man. If he could have felt pain, I might have pulled him off, but there was no real way to distract him.

“Anita, please!”

The hands settled on her neck and squeezed.

I found the machete where it had dropped to the ground. It was sharp, and did damage, but he couldn’t feel it. I chopped at his head and back. He ignored me. Even decapitated, he would keep coming. His hands were the problem. I knelt and sighted at his lower arm. I didn’t dare try it any closer to her face. The blade flashed silver. I brought it down with all the strength in my back and arms, but it took five blows to break the bone.

The separated hand kept squeezing as if it were still attached. I threw the machete down and began prying one finger at a time from her neck. It was time consuming. Carla stopped struggling. I screamed my rage and helplessness at him and kept prying up the fingers. The strong hands squeezed until there was a cracking sound. Not a sharp pencil break like a leg or an arm, but a crackling as the bones crushed together. Arthur seemed satisfied. He stood up from the body. All expression lef thim. He was empty, waiting for a command.

I fell back into the flowers, not sure whether to cry, or scream, or just run. I just sat there and shook. But I had to do something about the zombie. I couldn’t just leave him to wander around.

I tried to tell him to stay, but my voice wouldn’t come. His eye followed me as I stumbled to the car. I came back with a handful of salt. In the other hand I scooped the fresh grave dirt. Arthur watched me without expression. I stood at the outer edge of the circle. “I give you back to the earth from which you came.”

I threw the dirt upon him. He turned to face me.

“With salt I bind you to your grave.” The salt sounded like sleet on his suit. I made the sign of a cross with the machete. “With steel I give you back.”

I realized that I had begun the ceremony without getting another chicken. I bent and retrieved the dead one and slit it open. I drew still-warm and bloody entrails free. They glistened in the moonlight. “With flesh and blood I command you, Arthur, return to your grave and walk no more.”

He lay down upon the grave. It was as if he had lain in quicksand. It just swallowed him up. With a last shif ting of flowers, the grave was as before, almost.

I threw the gutted chicken to the ground and knelt beside the woman’s body. Her neck flopped at an angle just slightly wrong.

I got up and shut the trunk of my car. The sound seemed to echo, too loud. Wind seemed to roar in the tall trees. The leaves rustled and whispered. The trees all looked like flat black shadows, nothing had any depth to it. All noises were too loud. The world had become a one-dimensional cardboard thing. I was in shock. It would keep me numb and safe for a little while. Would I dream about Carla tonight? Would I try to save her again and again? I hoped not.

Somewhere up above, nighthawks flitted. Their cries came thin and eerie, echoing loud. I looked at the body by the grave. The whiteness of it stained now with dirt. So much for the other half of my fee.

I got in the car, smearing blood over the steering wheel and key. There were phone calls to make; to my boss, to the police, and to cancel the rest of my appointments. I would be raising no more dead tonight. There was a taxi to send away. I wondered how much the meter had run up.

My thoughts ran in dull, frightened circles. I began to shake, hands trembling. Tears came hot and violent. I sobbed and screamed in the privacy of my car. When I could breathe without choking, and my hand was steady, I put the car in gear. I would definitely be seeing Carla tonight and Arthur. What’s one more nightmare?

I lef tCarla there alone, with Arthur’s forgiveness, one leg lost in the flowers of his grave.

I feel like we need a depth chamber between this and the preceding story. We’re moving from almost as dark as I get as a writer, to almost as light as I get. I got a lot of nice rejection slips on this story. Editors loved it, but not enough to buy it. One editor at one of the top-paying magazines at the time actually told me the truth: that since they published only one piece of fiction in each issue, I wasn’t a big enough name to help their magazine sales. But she adored the story. When I became a big enough name to make a difference, I did not send the story back to her for another chance. One, I was too busy with novels to think about it. Two, I’m petty. It’s the same story; the only thing that changed was that now I was a name. I rarely give second chances.

I WAS walking along Market Street on my lunch hour, wishing I hadn’t worn high heels today, or a skirt. Pantyhose were no protection at all against the icy winter air. I was minding my own business when I saw them. They floated by the streetlight at the corner like gigantic moths attracted to the cold electric light. Half a dozen small naked children with cotton-candy wings and curly ringlets, mostly blond. They were also carefully neuter, smooth as a Barbie doll.

Cupids. Shit. That was all I needed. I looked for a door, a shop, anything that I could take refuge in. The brick building stretched smooth and doorless. There was a small shop across the street, but I’d never make it, too open, no cover. I began to walk sideways, back down the street. One hand on the wall to make sure I didn’t trip. If I could just make the far corner, maybe I could run for it.

But it was too late; they had spotted me. One of the chubby pink things strung his tiny golden bow and began to sif tthrough his quiver for an arrow. His shiny little eyes never lef tme. I wasn’t close enough to see his eyes, but I knew what color they were. All Cupids have sky-blue eyes, like Easter eggs, or baby blankets.