One Foot in the Grave: An Almost Zombie Tale (3 page)

A tiny old woman smiles at me, showing off a set of beautiful pink gums. “Why hello, Isis. What a nice surprise! Doing your laundry?”

What else would I be doing with a basket of dirty clothes? “Hi, Mrs. Castemar. How are you?”

“I’m peachy, dear, just peachy.” She peers at me over her bifocals. Yeah, she’s pretty much a stereotypical little old lady. “You look peaky. Have you been sleeping all right?”

“I’ve been restless lately,” I admit. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“But school is over.” She reaches out to pat my arm, but stops midway. “Oh, dear, what happened to your wrist? Did you break it? Shouldn’t it be in a cast?”

I shake my head, even though I really have no idea. “It’s just bruised really badly.”

“Oh, dear.” She fumbles around in her purse. “I have some ointment my daughter sent me. It’s miraculous, actually. Makes bruises disappear almost instantly.”

I seriously doubt that, but it can’t hurt, right? I start to unwind the bandage. I haven’t looked at my wrist since yesterday, so I’m expecting that kind of weird ‘dead’ skin. What I don’t expect is for my hand to fall off. I instantly go numb.

Mrs. Castemar blinks for a moment. I wait for her to scream; heck, I wait for
me
to scream, but neither of us does. She just bends over, picks it up, and turns it over in her palm. “It looks so real.”

That’s when I notice no blood is pooling onto the floor. I open my mouth and the lie just rolls off my tongue. “It’s a prosthetic wrist. I had an accident when I was young. I’m so sorry!” I hold out my other hand for my errant limb. She hands it back to me. I put it on top of the laundry, not entirely convinced what’s happening is actually happening.

“Well, you need to be careful with it, dear. Whatever you’re using to hold it on, it’s not working well.”

It’s called muscles and veins. And yeah, they’re not doing their job well. Or at all. I don’t have a clue what’s happening, but I suspect it has to do with Andrew and the weirdness under the pier and my newfound appetite. Or lack thereof.

The elevator dings and the door slides open at the ground floor. Mrs. Castemar smiles as she steps out of the elevator. “It was wonderful seeing you, dear. Don’t lose your hand.”

If weirder parting words were ever said, I sure don’t know them. “Thanks,” I say as the doors slide shut again. I’d like to say the idea of continuing on to the basement is out, but the amounts of laundry I have to do are truly staggering. I stare at my wrist, shrug, and toss the hand onto the pile of dirty clothes and wait while the elevator continues its journey down. Laundry’ll be so fun to do one-handed. I can’t wait. The door slides open and I’m there; the machines staring at me through the doorway; lined up in two neat rows with the dryers pushed back against the far wall.

Luckily for me, the basement is completely empty, so I don’t have to explain the hand. I reach into the basket and put it on the edge of the washing machine for safe keeping. It’s not until after I start the load of laundry, though, that I hear the telltale
thump thump thump
. My eyes flick up to the top of the machine and yup. The hand’s gone. I close my eyes and sigh. Well, that’s one way of washing myself, though not the one I would have picked. Call me super lazy, but I’m not going to fish around searching for it. I’ll call it a tennis shoe if anyone comes in and wait until they do their laundry before I transfer mine to the dryer.

The washer stops its spin cycle. I hope my hand’s in one piece. I mean, regardless of what I said to Mrs. Castemar, it’s kind of irreplaceable. I reach in and start pulling the laundry out and back into the basket. My left hand is sitting at the bottom of the washer, intact. I fish it out and put it on top of the wet clothing, then transfer the whole mess into the dryer. I figure as long as the dryer’s on the lowest setting, my hand should be fine.

The
thump
of the hand kind of lulls me to sleep. I wake with a start when the dryer buzzes. Hoisting everything back into the basket, I haul it back to the elevator, ride it upstairs and, finally, close the apartment door behind me. Then I slide to the floor and cry. Or rather, I try to. My shoulders heave, my throat tightens up, I start to sob, but that’s it. I have no tears. My eyes are bone dry. I wasn’t a biology geek in school, but I’m beginning to suspect that Andrew has a
lot
more to answer for than I originally thought. And yeah, while the idea of a doctor flits across my mind, I discard it almost as quickly. I’m pretty sure whatever is going on, a doctor isn’t going to be able to fix it. I’d rather not be turned into a research paper for some medical journal. And telling Mom is pretty much out of the question. I love her and she’s awesome, but I don’t think even her open mind is open enough for a daughter who eats brains. As much as I don’t really want to, I think it’s time to go to church and talk to Lydia and the flying rock.

Four:

Is This Really a Church?

I don’t want to go back to the church but here I am, debating whether or not to go inside. Of course, I will. I have to. My blood is congealing and my freakin’
hand
fell off. Rewrapping it was an exercise in patience, and something I never, ever want to have to do again. So that means I need answers. Badly. I hope Lydia is inside. No sooner does the thought cross my mind when the doors open and the red-haired woman pokes her head out.

“Isis! It’s so good to see you. Come in. Please. I have a quick errand to run, but I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I bite my lip, not particularly interested in going in without her, but really. What else am I going to do? I edge my way inside, peering up at the ceiling just in case the ‘priest’ decides to drop on my head.

“What are you doing?” The voice reminds me of rocks tumbling down a mountain; something I experienced first-hand once when I visited the Southern California coastline. It’s unnerving, to say the least.

A sound like two large pieces of granite moving shivers its way up my spine.
Something
is in here with me and it sure as heck doesn’t qualify as human. I look around, but don’t see anything, which makes the hair on the back of my neck stand to full attention.

“Ad—admiring the ceiling,” I stutter. Stupidly, because honestly, who’d admire a ceiling, unless it was the Sistine Chapel.

“I’ve always liked our ceilings, but then again, I’m a bit partial to them.”

There’s no nice way to ask, so I blurt it out. “Are you the thing that flew down from the ceiling yesterday?”

“I’m the priest here, yes.”

It’s only kind of an answer. I’m not sure what to do with it. “What are you? I mean, besides the priest.”

Rumbling laughter fills the sanctuary. When it finally dies down, a scraping sound like I’d imagine tectonic plates rubbing together takes its place. “Is it all right if I come closer?”

I’m not super happy with the idea and wish Lydia’d hurry up with her ‘errand’ and come back already. “I guess…”

What I’m expecting is an old man, hunched over, face wrinkled and careworn. I don’t know why, I hear the grinding as he approaches, but it still scares me when I finally get a good look at him. True, he’s old. He’s also pockmarked, made of stone and three quarters covered in moss.

Holy crap, the priest’s a gargoyle. I fumble my way to the nearest pew, which, as it turns out, is farthest from the doors. “But…you don’t exist!” Granted, it’s not the brightest thing I’ve ever said, but there it is.

The thing grins at me. At least, it shows me two rows of super long, super sharp teeth. I’m hoping it’s a grin and not a prelude to dinner. “When is the last time you looked closely at the architecture on a church?”

I blink. “Ummm…” is my oh, so intelligent reply. My mom would be so proud.

“Gargoyles have existed for a millennium, and we’re not the only ones. I created this working church around that fact, after all.”

Whatever
that
means.

It continues as though my shock is nothing new. Maybe it’s not. Who knows. “Is there a specific reason you came here?”

“Lydia invited me back. See, I’ve got this problem.” I kind of waggle my left hand in his direction. “Can you do anything about this?”

In return, the creature holds up its claws. “I can’t unwrap the bandage. Would you mind doing it?”

I do as it asks, and, as I knew it would, my hand drops to the stone floor.

“Ah, I see your dilemma,” he says.

It’s kind of hard not to. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I confess. “All I did was go on a date with my boy—
ex
-boyfriend, and when I woke up, everything started going pear-shaped.” I’m still not entirely convinced this isn’t some kind of hallucination brought on by Andrew and his neck chewing fetish, but it can’t hurt to explore the options. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”

I didn’t know creatures made of stone could shrug until that moment. Somehow that fact makes the whole conversation more normal.

“Let’s backtrack a minute,” the creature says. “You’re already acquainted with Lydia, but I’m Father Moss.”

I giggle at his name. I can’t help it. “Seriously?”

“It was given to me before I collected lichen,” the priest replies. “It’s a family name.”

Wait. “Does that mean there’re more of you? I mean, were you actually born?”

Father Moss flexes his shoulders. Rocks groan. “I was created, as were my parents and my grandparents. We were all carved by the same man, you see.”

I nod, even though I really don’t. I always thought
creation
implied a soul. Can you even carve something with a soul?

“But we aren’t here to talk about me,” he continues. “Have you experienced any other symptoms lately?”

Ummm...yeah. I fill him in: raw brains, eating like an animal, everything.

“You need to use our computers,” Father Moss says.

“Oh, I have a laptop,” I say. “Just give me the name of the website and I can look it up at home.”

“Our computers are a bit more specialized than that,” the gargoyle says.

I frown, but before I can ask him what he means, the doors pull open and people start spilling into the sanctuary. I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said this was a working church. It’s not like hundreds of people or anything, but it’s enough to make me flinch backwards and clutch at my unattached hand. I don’t really get a good look at any of them; they just file in and start to fill up the pews in front of me.

“Excuse me,” the priest stands up and his clawed feet dig into the pitted marble flooring. Little chunks fly up around him. A grinding sound accompanies the sight of wings unfolding from his back, and my breath catches. The wings are beautiful quartz, the light from the stained glass windows catching and reflecting the purple of the stone. “It’s time to start services.”

Having grown up in churches across Georgia, I fully expect a relatively normal service, though in retrospect, I have no idea why. I mean, the priest
is
made of stone. I turn to face the altar and bow my head.

Father Moss clears his throat. It sounds like a monsoon storm of boulders, but it doesn’t slow the low rumble of chatter from everyone. Cleary, no-one’s new except me. He clatters those gorgeous wings, and the sound dies down. “We’ve got a new visitor tonight.”

At that, most of the heads swivel in my direction and suddenly I’m the center of attention. I also get an up-close view of the people sitting around me. The word ‘bizarre’ doesn’t do them justice. “What the…frick.”

“What’s your problem?” The girl directly in front, probably the only one in the room
not
staring at me, turns in the pew. I gasp. Her eyes are huge, green, and slit vertically, like a cat.

As usual, my mouth gets in the way of my brain. “What the heck are
you
?”

Those eyes narrow. “Rude much?”

“Let it go, Noelle,” Father Moss says.

She subsides, but not without glaring daggers at me first. Great. My first enemy.

Five:

In Which I Learn What I am.

“Everyone, this is Isis,” Father Moss says.

“Hi, Isis,” everyone except the chick in front of me, Noelle, says. I feel like I’m at an A. A. meeting in the Twilight Zone. Everyone is deformed: there’s a kid around my age whose hands are massive paws. That can’t be real, can it? And what about the guy who grins at me, his canines needle sharp? My gut tells me those have
nothing
to do with body mods, but the alternative – that they’re real – is even weirder.

I’m pretty sure the gargoyle sees the whites of my eyes, because he motions to me with one clawed hand. “While everyone mingles, let’s go to my office.”

I nod. I don’t think I’m ready to learn the truth of why all these people look so freaky. Computers feel safer. They only do what they’re told, after all. Nothing more and nothing less.

“When I said our computers are specialized, I meant that the search engines go deeper than normal ones,” Father Moss says. “They were designed by an old friend.”

I shrug. Okay, so he doesn’t use Google. No biggie.

It doesn’t take long to reach the office. It’s not like the church is massive or anything. I actually expect a closed and locked door, but there’s only an archway. That makes sense, I guess, since the priest doesn’t have fingers to grip a doorknob. The gargoyle gestures me before him. I walk in and sit in one of the comfy looking computer chairs, facing away from the arch. Behind me is a row of high tech desktop computers. Nice.

“What did Lydia tell you about our church?” The priest squats down on his haunches, wings folded across his back.

I think back. “Not a thing.”

“Let me guess…you started finding strange notes lying around?”

“I found a note, yeah. Is that some kind of conspiracy to get people to come here?”

The gargoyle laughs. “Not really. Lydia specializes in finding and helping certain groups of people.” He shrugs and small pieces of stone fall from his shoulders in a gritty cascade. “Your kind of people.”

“What do you mean, ‘my kind of people’?” I lean forward in the chair.

“Isis, what do you think you are?”

The question kind of throws me. “Well, for starters, a high school graduate…but that’s not what you mean, is it?”