Under Zenith

by Shannen Crane Camp

  Didn’t he care that this thing was trying to kill me?

  Okay fine, so I was already dead. But it was definitely trying to hurt me and Hayden was showing a serious lack of chivalry by ignoring that fact. He would not make it in the south with an attitude like that.

  “Help me!”

  “You’re getting closer,” I could hear him yell far ahead of me.

  I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in front of me without my knowledge, but somehow he was already at the cabin. Now I was definitely unimpressed by his manners. He couldn’t have just waited for me?

  “I don’t see the cabin,” I yelled into the fog that was quickly growing thicker and thicker.

  A cold sensation shot through my arm and I slowed down to grasp my wrist, just for a second.

  Big mistake.

  I screamed once more as dry, bony fingers clasped my shoulder and pulled me backward onto the ground. My white blonde hair flew up around my face, clouding my vision and the awful smell of decay instantly hit my nose.

  “Help!” I screamed again, kicking out at the creature to keep it at bay.

  “I can’t,” was Hayden’s simple reply, much closer than he had been before.

  Knowing I was the only one who could get me out of this, I closed my eyes tight, brought my knees up to my chest in a gesture that was very unladylike in the knee length dress I was currently wearing, and kicked with all my might at the corpse that was quickly descending upon me.

  I heard a sickening thud as my boot made contact with the creature, but I didn’t open my eyes until I heard it hit the ground a few feet away.

  “Not bad,” Hayden said, now standing over me and looking amused.

  “You were going to…let me die,” I sputtered between deep, panicked breaths.

  I couldn’t seem to stop the hysteria that was building within me.

  “Already dead,” he said again.

  He just loved to point that out to me.

  I didn’t say anything, but stared at him incredulously. How could he be so callous about the whole situation?

  Laying my head back against the loamy earth, I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath again.

  “I wouldn’t just sit there if I were you,” he informed me.

  “I just need to rest for a minute. I feel so heavy all of a sudden.”

  “The longer you’re stationary, the more likely it is that more of those things will show up,” he stated.

  “Great. That’s just what I need,” I answered with a deep sigh, heaving myself up off of the ground and hoping the cabin wasn’t too far off.

  Only moments before, I had been amazed by just how much stamina I had; it was like I’d taken some sort of miracle drug. But now, it took all of my will power just to put one foot in front of the other.

  “What’s wrong with me, Hayden?” I asked, feeling completely exhausted.

  “Wait,” he began gravely. “That zombie didn’t bite you, did it?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered, my eyes wide with fear. “I mean I guess it could have. Why? What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” he replied with a laugh. “Just wanted to scare you.”

  “You’re the worst Guide in the world. Are all Guides like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Mean and awful to their…people?” I asked, unable to think of a word to describe what I was to him.

  “I don’t know. I guess,” he answered distantly.

  His eyes were trained on some unseen spot in the distance and I instantly quieted myself, wanting to know what he was focusing on.

  “Footsteps,” I whispered.

  Hayden nodded, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

  “I guess that’s my cue then?”

  “I’d say so,” he answered.

  “Ugh. I hate being dead,” I told him as I forced myself to resume my run toward the unseen cabin.

  My legs still felt as if they were filled with concrete, but anytime I felt like stopping, I’d conjure the image of the zombie attacking me and that motivated me enough to keep going. It wasn’t long before I could see the hazy outline of a small structure in the distance, and suddenly I had hope that I might actually make it out of this thing alive.

  No pun intended.

  As I neared the cabin, Hayden stuck his head out of one of the windows, looking as smug as ever and nodding behind me.

  “You should probably watch your back,” he called.

  I didn’t bother looking behind me. I already knew what I’d see. Instead I pumped my arms harder and ran as fast as I possibly could, hearing the crunching of leaves getting closer and closer behind me as I neared the door.

  As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the cabin door before the creature caught up with me. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure what else I could do. It was quickly gaining on me and there was no place to hide.

  I knew my brother Tuck would have been able to simply overpower the thing, but he was bigger and stronger than me. It was just like when we were kids and he’d chase me around the yard, trying to ‘wrestle’; which just meant he wanted to be able to playfully beat me up without getting into trouble. The only defense I’d had against him was the fact that I was small and agile. I could climb trees like a squirrel.

  Glancing over my shoulder for just a second, I wondered if the corpse would be able to climb a tree without any muscles. It was certainly doing a good job of running without muscles, so it was very likely the thing could follow me right up a tree, though at that particular point in time, I didn’t really have many other options.

  It was either climb a tree and maybe get attacked by a reanimated corpse, or keep running to the cabin and definitely get attacked.

  Without another thought, I ran straight at a nearby tree, used my foot to propel myself upward, and grabbed the lowest branch I could. After that it was all a matter of simple muscle memory to pull myself from branch to branch, trying to ignore the persistent tingling in my legs.

  “That’s not the cabin,” Hayden called, having seen my entire ascent into the foliage.

  “I couldn’t outrun it,” I answered quite obviously.

  The corpse came to a stop under the tree and turned its head skyward with a slow creaking movement. It didn’t make any move to come after me, but it didn’t leave either. It simply stared at me with those dark holes where its eyes should have been.

  It was bizarre that I was so out of breath and yet this monster didn’t seem fazed at all by the run. He didn’t take a single breath as he stared at me.

  “I am ever so curious to see what the next part of your brilliant plan is,” Hayden said with a smirk.

  I ignored him. Figuring that if all he was going to do was make fun of me, I was better off without him. I had died after all. I was being chased by a psychotic zombie through some task I didn’t understand. It wasn’t like I was whining just to whine. I had a very legitimate reason to be upset at the moment.

  The space between the tree and the door wasn’t very far. If I hadn’t been so high up, I might have been able to jump down from the tree and try to outrun the creature. But unfortunately, I was almost positive that if I jumped from this height, I’d break my ankles and be zombie dinner for sure.

  Looking to the cabin, I realized that this wasn’t as overly complicated as I was making it out to be. If I took the cannibalistic corpse out of the equation, I was just left with a puzzle that I needed to solve. The whole ‘fear of being eaten alive’ thing was clouding my judgment and making me too scared to make an intelligent decision.

  Why try to outrun the zombie to the cabin when I could just jump from a branch overhanging the roof?

  It seemed so simple now that I realized what I should do that I almost laughed at myself for not having thought of it before.

  “You seem happy,” Hayden said, still sounding arrogant as usual.

  I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. Really, he’d probably just make fun of my
idea and tell me I was going to get eaten for sure. So instead, I pulled my boots off to get a better grip with my bare feet and walked carefully along the tree branch until I was standing just over the roof of the building.

  I’d jumped off enough swing sets as a kid to know that a hard landing could be an unpleasant thing on your legs, so with that knowledge, I braced myself as I jumped from the branch to the roof. The landing wasn’t exactly graceful and I ended up rolling so far down that I almost fell off completely, but I managed to right myself in time to see the corpse running toward the cabin.

  I can readily admit that split second decisions aren’t my strong suit. There were two options sitting before me and I’d need to make my decision pretty quickly if I didn’t want to be eaten. I could either sit there on the roof and let the zombie come after me, hoping he couldn’t get up there, or I could jump right at that very second and try to get through the front door before it reached me.

  “What are you waiting for?” Hayden yelled inside of the house, spurring me into action before I could really think about what I was doing.

  With a loud yell I jumped off of the roof, boots in hand, and yanked on the front door as hard as I could; opening it with more force than I’d meant to. It took me all of two seconds to get inside and start shutting the door, though the corpse’s arm that was now flailing wildly, was definitely blocking my path.

  It felt like I was in a horror movie with the zombie’s arm wedged in the door and me panting and yelling as I tried to shut it out. All I needed to do was lock the door, just like Hayden had said, and I’d be safe. I would have passed the first task.

  Judging by how horrible the first task had been, I didn’t even want to think about what the others would be like, or just how many I had in store for me.

  “You can’t just push his arm out for me? Is that really interfering that much?” I asked Hayden, still pushing against the wood of the door with all my might.

  This zombie wasn’t budging.

  “Can’t help you,” he said again, lifting his hands up in surrender.

  “I really don’t like you,” I panted, pushing hard enough that the creature finally withdrew its arm.

  The door shut, I locked it, and then I turned around and slid down the door into a pile of sweaty shock. There wasn’t much more I could do. I was completely exhausted and really wanted to punch Hayden in the face as he smiled innocently at me, wrinkled his nose, and said, “Rough day, huh?”

  Chapter 6

  “What was that?” I asked, angrily getting to my feet and ignoring the pins-and-needles sensation that was now travelling through my entire body.

  “I thought we decided to call it a zombie,” Hayden retorted, throwing a few sticks of wood into the dusty fireplace and pulling a lighter out of his pants pocket.

  “Not that,” I spat, probably not making any sense at all. “Why did you leave me out there to die you--,” I stopped myself, trying to keep from using a few choice swear words that had gotten my mouth washed out with soap as a kid.

  Just because I was dead didn’t mean I’d ignore all the good life lessons my mama had taught me.

  “You almost did a good job out there,” he answered, finally managing to get a fire going. “Almost.”

  “Oh, well I’m sorry I didn’t live up to your high standards of zombie dodging.”

  “Maybe the next task will go a bit smoother,” he said with a shrug.

  I really didn’t like this guy.

  “What kind of place is this? What kind of afterlife makes you run away from zombies under the guise of completing an agility test?” I asked, sitting on an old wooden rocking chair and disturbing a few spiders that had been resting in the woodwork.

  “Guise? Fancy word for someone so…,” he let his words trail off.

  “What?” I asked threateningly, daring him to finish his sentence.

  “Southern.”

  “I graduated from a well-respected university yesterday, thank you very much,” I informed him.

  “With a degree in vocal performance,” he pointed out. “Then you got yourself killed.”

  “Oh yeah? Well what did you major in? How to piss people off?”

  “Yeah, that was my major,” he deadpanned. “You know what your problem is?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “You worry about the wrong things. All of your anxiety is completely misplaced,” he said, his British accent getting thicker now that he was upset.

  I wished I didn’t find the accent so alluring. Though I’d never admit that to Hayden. He didn’t need a reason for his ego to be inflated any more than it already was.

  “How is it misplaced?” I asked, trying to keep my cool as he took a seat on the moldy bed across from me.

  “You’re dead, Isla,” he said simply, as if that should explain his cryptic opinions. “You died last night and you haven’t said one word about being sad or upset. All you’ve done is worried about your family’s finances, or questioned my chivalry, or figured out some new and interesting way to make me want to throw you off a cliff.”

  He shook his head in disbelief and threw me an eye roll.

  “Aren’t you the least bit upset that your entire life was stolen away from you at such a young age?”

  I didn’t say anything to him, not wanting to get into something so personal with someone so unfeeling. Of course I was upset, but as long as I didn’t explore those feelings, it would almost be like they weren’t real.

  I may not have been scared of wolves or moody men, but I was definitely terrified of my own weaknesses, and emotion was one of those weaknesses.

  “What about the fact that you won’t ever see your parents again? Does that bug you?”

  “Are you trying to get a rise out of me or something? Because I don’t really get what’s going on here. Why do you care if I’m okay with being dead? Is that really part of your job description as my afterlife liaison?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders at me and laid down on the bed, placing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “I don’t care. I just think it’s weird,” he said.

  It looked like he was done with the talking thing.

  “You want to talk about weird things? Why can’t you tell me what you did before you became a Guide?” I asked, fully aware that my voice was squeakier than normal because of my heightened emotional state. “You must know how you got here. So why can’t you tell me any personal information?”

  “What if I told you it was against the rules to give you any information about my own personal life?”

  “Would you be lying?”

  “Yes, but would it shut you up?” he asked, mimicking my voice once more.

  “You’re rude,” I told him. “Needlessly rude; which is the worst kind of rude to be.”

  “There’s a good kind of rude?”

  “Why are you still here? Now that I’ve finished the first task can’t you leave me alone for a while?” I asked, wanting nothing more than to be alone right at that moment.

  In all honesty, having company would have been nice to keep me from thinking too much about the questions Hayden had asked me. I didn’t want to think about how much I’d miss my family or how unfair it was that my entire life was now gone. But Hayden wasn’t good company and so I thought having to deal with those unpleasant demons would be a better alternative than sitting in a room with him for another second.

  “I have to stay until the end of the cycle,” he responded, as if that response should have made perfect sense to me when all it did was confuse me more.

  “Cycle?”

  “Each day is a cycle. You get one task per cycle and I have to stay with you through the entire thing.”

  “So when is the cycle over so you can leave?” I asked, being sarcastically sweet to him.

  “Trust me, love, I want to leave just as badly as you want me out of here. Don’t you think I have better things to do than sit around all day listening to you drone on with tha
t awful, slow accent?”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  “Obviously.”

  “When is it over?” I asked again, since he had opted for a snarky comment the first time I’d asked him that same question. Maybe if I kept asking, one day he’d finally answer me.

  “Once the snow starts to fall, I can leave,” he said cryptically.

  I glanced out the window at the foggy woods. It had been chilly once the sun had disappeared, but I wouldn’t say it was snow weather. It just wasn’t cold enough.

  “Please don’t state the obvious and tell me it’s not cold enough for snow,” he said, stopping me before I could voice that exact thought.

  “Well it’s not,” I mumbled in response.

  “It’s also impossible for zombies to be real,” he pointed out, reminding me (not so subtly) that I was dead and the rules of life had changed.

  “What was with the zombie thing anyway? I didn’t really picture the path to heaven littered with zombies.”

  “Zombies scare you, so that’s what came to motivate you,” he responded.

  “Zombies don’t scare me,” I protested with a nervous laugh.

  “Listen. I don’t make this stuff up. I didn’t come up with the creepy running corpse thing. That came out of your own imagination. You have way more control over this world than you think you do,” he said dryly. “Besides, you snuck out of bed when you were nine and watched a zombie movie your parents had rented and you’ve been terrified of them ever since.”

  My mouth hung open in shock that someone I had just met could know a detail about me that was so intimate. I hadn’t even told Tuck and Monica about that night. Mostly because I was embarrassed that out of all the things in the world I could be scared of, zombies was at the top of my list.

  Still, it could have easily been a lucky guess.

  “Who told you that?” I asked.

  “No one had to tell me. I’m your Guide, remember? I know things.”

  “Yeah, but things about my nine year old self? Why would that even be useful?”

  Hayden didn’t respond. Instead he just gestured to the dark, dirty cabin we were currently stuck in as if the answer to that question should be painfully obvious.