English 8A-7
November 18, 1999
It was a bright, beautiful day outside; the autumn season brought leaves of all
colors to rest on the earth. Arthur Thomas lay on his deathbed, awaiting the man with the
scythe, and also awaiting his $150 Vintage 1888 red wine, which he had sent his daughter
to fetch more than half an hour ago. Maybe she had gotten lost, he thought, on the way to the kitchen. He felt a tremor. His blood seemed to pound harder through his veins. He was not old; it was not a heart attack he feared, nor was it a tumor in his head or other body that would carelessly destroy his life like a drunken Dr. Frankenstein with an axe having second thoughts about the whole idea of reanimation on his monster. It was an accursed rusty nail he had stepped on barefoot. He had had all his shots, but his death seemed fated to happen. The virus mutated almost immediately after entering his blood. The doctors didn’t have a clue how to cure it; they had wanted to keep him in the hospital to study its progress, but he had refused, saying that he wanted to end his life in his own house with his extended family.(He later decided to just die with his daughter; he had a lot of uncles and couldn’t afford drinks for everybody.) At that moment, his daughter returned. She was wearing a lot of makeup and was carrying a cold beer. “Where’s my wine?” he inquired with a shaky hand on the bedpost. She seemed intoxicated almost to the point where she lost consciousness. She staggered over to the bed, gave him his beer, and asked for a generous tip because of the inconvenience it had been to barter the beer “away from the fridge.”
He was furious, and it was at that moment that he noticed the rock and roll playing, only slightly muffled, in the background. He yelled inquisitions after her as she backed away from the bed, but before she could reply coherently a guy in his twenties was dragging her towards the door. He seemed equally, if not moreso, drunk. He spent a second trying to remember how to operate the doorknob, then staggered out, banging his head on the doorframe in the same place he had banged it when he came in.
Arthur felt cheated and lost. His own daughter had turned his death into a party! There were tears in his eyes as he popped the beer can open, the last can of beer of his life. He listened to the satisfying fizz and felt the minute vibrations on his lips as he took a big gulp.
It was at that moment that the life was ripped from his body in one smooth, phlegmatic swish of a scythe. He sat straight up in bed in one last giant muscle contraction. His lifeless body fell limp on the bed and the beer can, still half full, spilled all over the mattress. His daughter was having the time of her life as an amber spot began spreading on the sheets.
* * * * * * * * * *
There are times when something almost infinitely improbable and certainly bizarre happens. This was most definitely one of those times, as it is a known fact in folklore that unfinished business causes a spirit to return to the land of the living. There is no recording, however, on what makes a zombie, or a lich, or a ghoul arise. It is known that there is an eerie correlation between alcohol and the underworld, but to what extent is unknown. Who could know what unfinished beer would bring…
* * * * * * * * * *
Blue. Blue, and fuzzy. Shifting. Arthur’s head swam. Slowly, painfully, as if doing it for the first time, Arthur forced his eyes to focus. Flowers, he thought, pretty blue flowers on the ceiling. A low buzzing filled his ears, a buzzing that quickly grew to a roar, and then to an explosion of sound. As if walking through a door, the noise suddenly clicked in his head and made sense. The drone of many voices became apparent, and he heard an unknown speaker intone,
* * * * * * * * * *
Arthur’s head hurt. There was no pain, but he was just so used to his body hurting when it was damaged that it very nearly did. It was a mental hurt. He was new to the whole concept of being dead, or undead, he wasn’t sure which. He distinctly remembered dying; he wondered if this was perhaps some twisted form of punishment in the afterlife. Arthur had taken a good beating before the footpad decided something unearthly was afoot and ran away with his wallet. Arthur had been powerless to stop him; his undead muscles were not obedient sometimes, though they were stronger than his living ones. He had nowhere to turn, so he began his trek home. As he turned a corner, a skinny little man with a disfigured face and a bad smell bumped into him. The man eyed him oddly, then without a word handed him a card and ran off into the night. Arthur yelled after him, but to no avail.
He examined the card. It was a grungy scrap of paper with a name and address scrawled on it in a shaky hand. It read, “Death Guild, the club for those of us who are living impaired. Join today!” He examined his situation. It was a good bet that either the police, the mob, or the blond man would be at his house. Maybe going there was not the smartest choice of action. He needed to lose his publicity; this death guild might be a good place to go undercover. The address listed was in a slums neighborhood, an area he had never been in. He started walking. As he trudged down a seeming nameless street in the downtown vicinity he caught sight of a group of men wearing leather tunics. Various religious symbols dangled from necklaces, armbands, and key chains, all made of metal and jangling as they walked. He recognized them as Champions of Light and scrambled behind a bush. Despite his best effort of hiding behind the small shrubbery, one of them saw him and pointed. With a word to the others, their band charged at him like a troop of holy percussionist dogcatchers chasing down a mangy, collarless mutt. He started to run, but his foot landed off balance on a rock, sending it skidding into the gutter and him to the ground face first. They were on him in a moment. They formed a circle so that he would have no way of escape, and as he struggled to his feet he was beaten back to the pavement by a carefully aimed punch from a burly man in a brown hat with a star on it.
He was the only one of them possessing headwear, so Arthur assumed that he was of some importance; possibly he was their leader. Arthur felt rough hands holding him down, and a rope being tied behind his back around his wrists tight enough to cut off his circulation, had he had any. He felt a sap touch the back of his neck. He almost laughed, and it came again. Three tries later its owner gave up, and they settled for stuffing an old, sweaty sock in his mouth, shoving him in a bag, and dragging him. His undead limbs were strong, he thought, but were they strong enough? He flexed once, and then, feeling a surge of TV superhero bravado, put his everything against the cord around his wrists, but without any noticeable results. Once more he strained with all his might for his freedom, accomplishing nothing. He could not break the rope despite his best efforts, and he was sure had he been alive his wrists would have been bleeding.
* * * * * * * * * *
“Wot do you reckon we should do with the bloody thing when we get it back to the guild house?” Holy Knight Corporal Johnson asked. Holy Knight Captain Eric was disgruntled. He had never apprehended anything not living but still moving before in all his thirty years as a Champion, and frankly it scared him. It scared them all; he could tell because nobody had tried to nick the boots off the corpse yet.
* * * * * * * * * *
The Holy Honoured Leader was angry. He face had grown redder and redder as he had listened to Holy Paladin Ivan’s report. It was his policy that all undead be brought to him immediately for “disposal”, lest they threaten the peace or the Champions. He would take every action necessary entrap the monster, no matter the cost.
This was the first undead the Champions had dealt with in a long time; they seemed to be becoming scarcer and scarcer as the years went on. Yesterday’s occasional corpse rising and today’s rare cadaver walking were a big relief compared to the undead hordes of the Middle Ages. They were the very reason the Champions were created.
* * * * * * * * * *
Arthur’s legs began to hurt, but then he caught himself and they decisted immediately. The rough cement’s burning caress had worn through the plastic garbage bag they had ignorantly stored him in. It was now, after wearing through his pants, going to work on his skin. He struggled, the thought of his body being destroyed without his knowledge was as bad as with the pain, if not worse. A thought struck him, and he shifted position, so that although his thighs were being skinned, the ropes that bound his ankles were slowly becoming frayed. The thought “no pain, no gain” crossed his mind, but then he thought “no bodily lacerations, no gain” would be better applied to his current situation. The rope wore thin, and suddenly snapped. His feet were liberated; now he just had to free his hands. He got to his feet and began walking, then stopped without warning. He felt the expected jolt as his captor tried to continue dragging him but found he could not. Arthur lunged. Through the bag he felt out where the Champion’s throat was, and put the oval his arms and tied wrists formed over the poor man’s head. Arthur held on, and soon the guard suffocated, the black plastic depriving him of sweet air. Arthur quickly climbed out of the bag and started awkwardly running with his hands tied together. It was a good twenty seconds before the Champions had stripped all items of value from their fallen comrade and decided to give chase. His feet were pounding hard against the concrete as he heard the shout of a pursuing Champion. He looked back and could tell that his undead stamina was putting distance between him and his antagonists. Thoughts flashed through his mind. What caused him to be able to move despite the lack of a beating heart? Were his bodily reserves being depleted as he ran, meaning he would run until his body exhausted his supply of fats and sugars? What would happen then? Would he be paralyzed and helpless, or would his existence come to an end? As he ran past a run down brick house with ivy growing into the open windows he wondered if that would be preferable to his current half-life. He shuddered at the thought. His mind was unable to wander farther, because just as he was rounding a corner, four Champions and Ivan Genkovich appeared. He immediately performed an about face and continued his merry jog.
* * * * * * * * * *
The Holy Leader leaned back in his chair. He was satisfied with a job well done and was recording his deeds in the Champions of Light record book. He had ordered that Arthur’s remains be gathered up in a bag and placed on his bed so that Death may collect his dues. The Champions had tried to get them up with a shovel, but that didn’t work out, then they tried a pitchfork, but the quivering mass of protoplasm was uncooperative. They unsuccessfully tried a rake before finally flipping him into a bag with the Holy Spatula of Light.
* * * * * * * * * *
A dull ache throbbed in Arthur’s head. How was he… alive? He put his hand to his heart… and felt a slow, rhythmic beat. He was so overjoyed he threw his hands in the air, noting that he had both hands, and gave a whoop. He had never before looked at the carefully chiseled art of his body in the same way. It was probably a dream, he thought, but the remembered images seemed so vivid! He needed to think, so he climbed out of bed and made a beeline for the pub.
* * * * * * * * * *
As Arthur entered the bar, he caught sight of the Holy Honoured Leader downing a shot of whiskey. He approached, and sat down on an unoccupied stool beside him.
“We knew him not only as a man, but as a loving human being, as doer, a humble, shy---“
“Erm, excuse me," said Arthur, his head and upper body poking out of the casket, "what's going on?"
The minister who was overweight and had no good heart record, collapsed with a gasp and a red face. His daughter, who had been feigning anguish but secretly rejoicing over inheritance in the form of a house and car and enough life insurance money to live in the house on for the rest of her life, fainted dead away.
Suddenly a man he recognized as Simon Marx, the president of the Reincarnation Guild,(All club facilities are freely accessible to the public, as most people were members, most of the time without knowing it.) stepped forward and proclaimed,
“The dead have risen! See here the truth in our cause! I ask each and every one of you to…” His recruitment speech continued, despite the fact that what had happened had absolutely nothing to do with reincarnation.
He was well known and well hated for speeches such as this on public occasions, even, or perhaps especially, funerals. He always found some obscure reason to talk; he was once selling raisin cakes at a wedding when all his “raisins” became startled by a loud noise and flew away. “It is a miracle the like of which this world has never seen! Our guild toll free number is…” There was low mumbling from the crowd, most of which were total strangers, come for the food, and the others were Arthur’s drinking buddies, with the exception of his sister and a few uncles who wanted to frisk his body for spare cash. Arthur decided to save the mixed crowd some boredom, and promptly lay back down. An uncle of his stood up, interrupting Simon’s drone, and said,
“He’s not alive! See! He done gone got dead again!”
“But did we not hear him speak? He came back to deliver a message from beyond the grave! Just make your checks out to Reincarnation Guild, 1544 Greenwood Terrace, and…” They booed him back into his seat. The pastor was recovering when the paramedics someone had had the insight to call burst in. They dashed over to the fallen man and hauled him out on a stretcher like ants carrying a centipede. A big, fat centipede, or perhaps a small dog, that is. Arthur decided he’d had enough of this charade and sat upright. Simon was up and talking again in a millisecond. Like a horde of seagulls to the last scrap of meat on the beach, the people descended upon him. They had had enough, and at this point, so had Arthur. He decided he wanted to really live again. That is, if really living meant climbing out of a casket during a funeral and running off, Arthur was ready to give it a try. He encountered, however, one minor difficulty on the way; his legs didn’t obey him. He muscled his way out of the casket with his arms and landed helpless on the floor. His legs felt stiff, but he was sure he could wrest some use from them. He got up. He collapsed. After several repetitions of this, the hive that was the crowd attending the funeral had finished with the annoying boy throwing rocks and swarmed towards Arthur. In the front was a tall, blond man in his thirties. He wore an old fashioned leather tunic, black, weathered boots, and a confident, stalwart gaze. He had a hawk’s nose, and eyes like a character in the cartoon Speed Racer. He smelled of garlic and carried a sword, not to mention various religious symbols. With a battle cry like a rabid tiger, he and his ‘troops’ charged.
Arthur realized that if his legs didn’t start moving within the next second or so, he would become very dead, or perhaps very redead, he thought. Fortunately, miracles ARE known to happen. Like a fallen power line jumpstarts a car, this realization seemed to jumpstart his legs. In a frenzy of spinning feet that would have done Sonic the Hedgehog proud, Arthur made his exit. He dashed out the funeral home door, past the wooden sign upon which someone had neatly painted ‘Ye Olde Funerale Homme’ and ran down the sidewalk.
He panted hard and sprinted into an alley. No, that is not entirely correct. He DID sprint into the alley, but his attempt at panting failed miserably. A sudden realization hit him; he couldn’t pant because he couldn’t breathe! He keeled over and tried to gag. His success in this area was somewhat limited. He was doing okay with the bodily spasms part, but the part where he exhaled kept eluding him.
The full realization of why he couldn’t breathe hit him in the stomach like a thug with a piece of pipe. He was undead! The dead don’t breathe, why should he? He looked up just in time to see the thug hit him again across the forehead. He was, very literally, dead.
Ivan Genkovich was in a tight situation. He was the mob’s leader, the director of their wrath and anger, and he was thus their prisoner. He had to either focus their hateful intentions on others, or their fury would run loose and find its own target. As their leader and the person who received the blame, it would most likely be him.
“The abomination is around this corner! Forward!” The horde charged. Their leader slipped into an alleyway unnoticed in their madness. They had been searching fruitlessly for at least half an hour. He winced as he watched them take out their anger on elderly Mrs. Perkins and her French poodle. Maybe they thought that no dog could look so fancy, or that no one could be so snobby without being undead, but whatever the case, he was glad to be out of harm’s way. The mob had found a focus for their anger, and now would most likely disperse. Ivan knew the undead monster would have to be destroyed, but it would not happen tonight. He had other things to do. He, being a paladin in the Champions of Light, made it a point to attend every funeral in case something, or someone, should arise. This particular funeral had been a failure; he had never really seen an undead before and didn’t seriously believe they existed. It had taken a few minutes before he got over the shock and regain his composure. He had then wanted to study the zombie and see how it moved. This had been a mistake; it, along with Simon Marx’s riot allowed the beast to escape. The mob was like a flood; it could kill anyone, maybe the people you wanted dead, and maybe you. He headed for his home away from home, the Champions of Light guild house. He was going to hate to have to report this, he thought, running his hand through his oily, blond hair.
“We’ll take ‘em back to see what our Holy Honoured Leader thinks and go from there,” he said testily, “those are my orders.” They dragged on.
Deep in the recesses of his mind, something sparked. An idea had come into existence, a very small, insignificant idea. It was quickly nurtured by facts and information. As it neared maturity it fed on opinions and ambitions, and finally, in less than ten seconds, it was a full-fledged whopper. The Holy Leader smiled.
“Stop, villain!” yelled Ivan, hurtling a rubber water balloon after him. He nearly laughed out loud, yet he remained wary. What are they doing, he thought, could they really be so stupid? The other four Champions had produced water guns from their belt holsters and began talking long, menacing strides toward Arthur. Arthur kept ahead of them, but when a daring Champion ventured too close to him and too far from the others, Arthur sprang like a wolf hunted by hounds. The man shot a spray of water at him, and though he had no fear, he dodged purely out of reflex. Arthur had no lust for blood; he was just fed up with being like the dangerous animal he wasn’t and wanted to make an example for the other Champions. He used his tied wrists as one big fist, bashing the man’s skull in with a blow. He scraped his bindings against the curb, weakening them enough for him to break. With his liberated hands, he grabbed the toy gun away from the fallen man and smashed it in his fist.
He cried out; a hurt like he had never felt before gripped him, and he looked down in horror to see that his hand was melted down to the bone by the water. As he gazed at the naked bone hand leading to a pasty blue wrist, it hit him. They were using holy water! And yet that deduction created even more unanswered questions. Why should holy water hurt him? Was he really evil? It wasn’t his choice to become undead; he wasn’t bad, just misunderstood. Then he thought of the two Champions he had killed. Did that warrant the title evil? At the time, it had seemed to him to be self-defense, but can someone really protect one’s life when he or she has none to protect? It didn’t matter right then. All that mattered to him was that his existence not be prematurely terminated. He realized he was trapped in a corner by two Champion bands, one having holy water and Ivan. They proceeded slowly, like a beast moving in for the kill. They were sure of themselves, but wanted to do everything without further error. The two groups mixed together as they drew close, and formed a semicircle around Arthur’s corner. He was sure this was the end, to die by holy water from a child’s toy, but then, a trumpet sounded, playing off key with a seemingly arbitrary rhythm. A hole in the circle opened and the Holy Leader stepped through. Arthur, undaunted, stepped forward.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded,
“Why are you doing this?”
The leader laughed. “Why do you think? You are a creature of the night, a spawn of evil. You must be destroyed to protect the Light.” The crowd of Champions cheered loudly at this, but Arthur was having trouble controlling his rage. Nobody could tell he was mad; a crimson face and heavy breathing were beyond his abilities, but they could feel a tension in the air. They knew something very important was about to happen.
“I… am not… evil!” muttered Arthur through clenched teeth, his fury growing.
“You ARE evil. And dangerous,” countered the Holy Leader.
Something inside of Arthur snapped. He was sick and tired of being blamed for something entirely out of his control to the point where total strangers would want to kill him. He lunged at the Holy Leader, ready to end the man’s life with as much regret as a child turning off a light. Arthur grabbed the man with his one intact hand and used the sharp, pointy ends on the other to stab with. A long, narrow gash appeared on the Leader’s face, and he received several puncture wounds under his shirt. The surrounding Champions rushed to his aid, but there was no need; he reached behind him, grasped the desired object and with a mighty swing smashed it on Arthur’s head. Arthur felt a sinking feeling, and found himself melting, his reality blurring and running like a child’s marker in the washing machine, but it was somehow a good feeling. It was like an experience he was sure he had had before, but could not recall.
“Hey,” he said by way of greeting, “do I know you?”
The Holy Leader nearly tossed his drink, then said with a laugh,
“Only as an acquaintance. How are you doing? Are you happier with your body now?”
Arthur was taken aback. “But how did you know… then it wasn’t a dream?”
The Leader laughed long and loud. “You old scoundrel, how do you think you came back?” Arthur stared blankly.
“Holy beer, of course! When I got you wet, you reverted to protoplasm, and it was a good half day before your living body was reformed.”
Arthur was still confused. “But how did you know? Where did you learn how I became… and how did you know how to bring me back?”
“Well,” said the Leader with a Machiavellian grin that seemed unhampered by the gash across his cheek,
“I think I should know, I’ve been dead for 320 years.”