The Ghosts of the Zombie Apocalypse (11 page)

  Henrietta screamed in pain and frustrated furry.

  "You need to posses it!" Mist shouted

  "What?!"

  "Take it over!!"

  Henrietta looked down at her corpsely self then back at her ghostly hands that seemed to be smoking slightly from where she hit herself. Taking a deep breath, she looked back down at her corpse. Then with a charging yell, she dove in.

  Silence fell as the corpse went instantly limp. Mist sat there out of breath for a moment before she tried to stand. Unfortunately her legs were like trying to stand on jelly and greatly worn out so she slumped back to the ground. After another two attempts she managed to push herself upright and over the momentarily limp corpse to get her shotgun. She then went to a cupboard and grabbed something out of it before she then up righted a chair and sat down.

  Opening a box of shells Mist reloaded her shotgun then tossed the empty box onto the table.

  "I haven't smoked in fifty years." Mist said cocking her shotgun. "But that just made me wish I died of emphysema years ago."

  Mist exhaled deeply with her hand on her heart as if she just finished a marathon.

  "You kids and your zombies. It'll be the death of me! Well now sweetie, do you still feel as if you wanna consume my flesh?"

  Henrietta's corpse began to stir on the ground. Mist stood up and put her foot on its back forcing it back down to the ground as she poked her gun to the back of its neck.

  "Na ah. No moving till I know who's doing the moving."

  The corpse stopped moving a moment then quickly swept Mist's feet out from under her. Before she knew it, the corpse was on top of her hissing like a beast. That was when Mist saw it, only for an instant, a twitch of intelligence in her face. The corpse then lost it and screeched as it dove in for the kill only to be suddenly pulled back and up into the air.

  Henrietta's corpse flailed like a feral beast hissing and clawing ferociously at the air as the accident prone man held her in the air. After a brief struggle he threw her into the basement and shut the door. The corpse started to bang relentlessly on the door making it shake as the man turned back to Mist.

  "Alright," Mist said concedingly "you've definitely earned your keep. Now help me up."

  The man went and helped ease Mist back to her feet. Mist then sat back down holding her injured sides while laughing. The man stood there and gave her a look.

  "What?" Mist said as she noticed his expression. "No, I'm alright. Just a little banged up. It's more the adrenalin still kicking in."

  He gave her another look

  "No I don't think I'll kill her right away. She's our experiment."

  The man gave her a look that could only be described as "What?!"

  "Your friend from the other day. She's gone and possessed that thing there. Now I don't know which way this'll turn out. I'm out of my depth when it comes to possessing zombies. But it
is
going to be one of those wait and see kind of things."

  "So what now?" The man expressed

  "Well, now we should clean up. This place is a mess."

  "AAAAHHHH!!! Where am I?! Oh my God, I've gone lost!!" Said a voice from upstairs.

  "And on top of that we have another visitor upstairs to deal with." Mist said, and quickly added "No! Just a ghost. Don't worry. I'll go handle it, you just clean up in here."

  "Ok." The man expressed

  "And when you're done go and make yourself something to eat. This one's going to be a while. It's one of those damned touchy ones. They can take all night to accept anything."

  The man gave her quite an unusual look.

  "What?" Mist asked.

  "It's nothing, just...Why do you do it?" The man expressed

  "Cause I can is the easiest response."

  The man shrugged "But even now? With the world as it is?"

  "The world has always been as it is. That's why it's called the world. But I'll tell you what. If I didn't help that friend of yours out, that corpse in the basement would be munching on my bones right about now. The least I can do is take care of her guest till we can figure this thing out."

  Everything was strange. Where was everybody? And more importantly, where was he?! Mike huddled up into himself with fear. Too many nights now he's been at the beck and call of the Master. And the Master shouldn't be kept waiting or he will eat him.

  Mike kept repeating that under his breath as he rocked back and forth neurotically in the bed. It was only after a minute he realized that he was in a bed. A comfortable bed at that. How can a bed be comfortable for a ghost?"

  A loud creaking of wood made Mike huddle even tighter in on himself. He glanced over and saw an elderly lady coming up the stairs. He relaxed a little. It wasn't the Master but he still stayed tight as a ball. The old woman approached his bed and then kept on walking. After a moment he heard fabric rustling.

  Mike looked up in curiosity. The lady was making a bed. She looked old yet moved surprisingly agile as if she were young while she took the old sheets off and dressed it with new ones. She then went and opened the blinds letting in the bright red light of day...and frowned.

  "John!! The coop is on fire! I told you to burn the deer further from the house! Go take care of it would you! Extinguisher is under the sink!"

  The woman sighed as she sat heavily on the freshly made bed. Silence fell over the room as Mike watched the woman from behind his tightly wound arms as they clung snugly around his legs. He was waiting for her to get up and leave or do something else but she didn't. She just kept sitting there as if she had all day. A clock ticked loudly in the silence.

  "You know..." She said suddenly making Mike twitch, but only so much cause he knew he was a ghost.

  "...It's ok...to be scared after something bad has happened to you."

  This made Mike seize up. This woman couldn't possibly be talking to him, could she? Anyways that doesn't matter. The Master could be here any moment and eat him, so what does anything matter anymore.

  "You died...and then something bad happened again. I can tell that much."

  Oh God she really is talking to me! Or is she a loon.

  "...So it's ok to be scared, because something else bad might happen again soon."

  The woman had Mike's full attention now.

  "You...had the greatest misfortune to learn…that death doesn't mean the end to bad things happening to you. I'm so sorry for that."

  The way the woman said it made Mike want to cry. And then suddenly he wanted to cry so hard like he had never cried ever in life. The woman waited patiently as she sat there on the bed staring at the wall in front of her.

  "I'm not a nice person." Mike said finally

  "And I'm not an old lady." She said

  Mike quickly looked up at the woman who was in fact not an old lady but a youthful teen with ginger freckles. She then randomly burst out laughing as she suddenly became the old lady again.

  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She said panting in between laughs "But you should have seen your face just then!" *snort*

  Mike felt a mix of embarrassment and anger.

  "Well I'm not a nice person! Why shouldn't bad things happen to me?!"

  The lady began to calm down, but gradually, as she found her composure. She sat there looking at him for a bit as he fumed angrily at her.

  "You've been killed by a zombie hoard. Let the sins of your life die with your death."

  "But that's not how it works!! The wicked should be punished in eternal hell fire!" Mike said surprised at himself for saying it. "I stole more than my fair share and took pride in it! Why shouldn't I be living in hell!! It's no more than I deserve. I'm just surprised it took this long to find me!"

  The lady sat there quietly for a while as if thinking to herself.

  "Devout Christian or Catholic, at least for a while before you gave it up or grew up. No surprise there. I bet death came as quite a shock to you even if you've long left the church."

  Mike didn't say anything. His ashamed silence said it loud enough for him.

  "Well let me tell you something." She said softly "Life...happens."

  That didn't help much.

  "What you stole sounds like no small amount. But that's life."

  That still didn't help

  "Life is about finding a way.
Any
way. Life doesn't put restrictions on people just because they are people and can think better than other living things. Life is life and does whatever it wants. It actually does
do
whatever it wants whenever it wants. That's what life is!

  "Listen. We were put into this world to live. And we do so as every other life form did before us. Find a way to live, however we can, given our immediate surroundings and resources."

  Mike didn't say anything but he was listening

  "Trouble is, every other life form has the same instructions as every other life form and that means there’s not enough of everything to go around for everyone. So that means there’s not enough surroundings and not enough immediate resources. Or maybe one wants more than the others do or get, and why not? That one may have gathered or produced more than the others so why shouldn't they have more? Or, that one has so much more than the others so why shouldn't I take some of his? He has enough for like five of us.

  "The thing is we turn each other into another immediate resource rather than turn the actual immediate resources into something useful or into enough for everyone."

  Mike felt lost

  "And then you get into rationing to make sure you don't burn through your resources too quickly so that you will have some later down the road and then it becomes “I have to protect it from others” for the same reason. On and on and on it goes like that."

  Mike sat quietly as he felt lost and confused

  "The thing is...we just want to live as best we can. So farmers take the best advantage of the soil to yield crops. A hunter takes advantage of animal’s predictable behaviors to provide meat and clothing, or other terrible acts of poaching. A thief takes advantage of a flawed system to yield a living, well at least a good one does. The thing is if you try to poke a system, it doesn't like that much. You poke at it too much it either squashes you or it breaks down into what you want it to be or it breaks so much that nobody can use it anymore."

  "Why are you telling me all this?" Mike asked

  "Because you're not a bad person."

  "How can you tell?"

  "You see me sitting here talking to a ghost and you ask me if I can tell a good person from a bad one? Ha! Well let's just say I notice more than your average bear."

  Mike scoffed a laugh

  "But since you're not going to be satisfied with that then it's because you didn't poke the system so much that it broke down. It seems you only ate enough to get by, if only to get by well enough. To put it a different way, you were just a mangy wolf who learned how to prey on the weak of the herd. Sad but true. That's nature at work."

  "But that's so cynical! You might as well forgive everyone for everything they have ever done to anyone for doing anything!"

  "Yes that's the point isn't it."

  Mike felt like he just got hit hard with a truth but didn't feel it stick.

  "Then...How can you blame anyone for hurting others?"

  "Oh I didn't mean that everyone just lets them get away with it. It's just predators can only go after the weak for only so long. Sooner or later one of those weak meals bites back. It's the threat of predators that make weak people scared enough to become stronger so that they can defend themselves from it.

  “But if it makes you feel any better the same thing would still happen even if there were no thieves in the world. Time, quantity, and uncertain chaos are the biggest thieves in existence. They are always taking what people have and people are always trying to be strong enough to protect themselves from those forces. And they’ll keep on doing it right up until the day when one of them steals enough from them to make a person weak enough to be preyed upon."

  Mike sat there feeling as though he was beginning to understand but didn't feel so good about himself.

  "You were not a
great
person in life it seems...but that doesn't mean you're a
bad
one. You're not a rabid wolf you know. You didn't kill everything in sight." She said

  "No. But the Master sure did."

  It was the lady's turn to look offset

  "What was that?"

  "The Master? He had me follow him around as his
silent
pet as he eviscerated and ate ghost after ghost. It made me so
sick
to watch. But I couldn't turn away after a while because he
made
me watch, like it was some kind of game to him,
always
taunting me that he could eat me at any moment he liked and could track me if I tried to lose myself from him."