by Amy Cross
“You're smiling,” Sam says suddenly, stepping up behind her.
“No,” Anna hisses, reaching up for the veil.
“Yes you are,” Sam replies, pulling the veil away. “And you look different. What's going on?”
“Nothing's going on,” Anna says defensively. “I just... I'm happy, that's all. Sorry if that bothers you.”
“You're going on a date.”
“So what?”
“With someone who's alive.”
“And?”
Sam stares at her for a moment, before leaning closer and peering straight into her eyes.
“Are you different?” she asks finally.
“In what way?”
“In every possible way.” She reaches out and puts a hand on the side of Anna's face. “You feel... warm...”
“It's a sunny day.”
“Warm deep down,” Sam continues, “as if you're warm from the inside.”
“So?”
“It's almost as if...” Sam pauses for a moment.
“Hey, look,” Anna replies, trying to break the tension, “there's a bird up there.”
Sam turns just in time to see a sparrow landing on top of the cemetery wall.
“It looks like the dead one you had earlier,” Anna continues.
“It is the dead one I had earlier,” Sam replies, turning back to look at her. “You're not going to believe this, but it just seemed to puff back into life in the palm of my hand. Even its little beak fixed itself. How do you think that happened, huh?”
“Amazing grace?”
“You mean perpetual grace,” Sam replies, “and maybe, but it still seems kind of random.” She pauses again. “Things coming back to life, being revived... You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you seem very healthy,” she continues, “and because you're sure as hell not wearing any make-up right now.”
“It's subtle.”
“No make-up can be that subtle.”
“Mine is,” Anna replies, taking a step back. “I don't know if you're jealous or something, just 'cause I'm going on a date, but you can't expect me to sit around this place forever, rotting slowly and acting like a cemetery is my whole life.”
“I never asked you to do that.”
“I know you didn't,” she continues, “you just assumed. I get that you're dedicated to this place, but that's because it's your job. I'm only here 'cause I figured I could help out, and 'cause I didn't have anywhere else to go. But now... Now I think I'd like to see if I can have some kind of a life. You might be happy hiding out here, mowing the grass all day and occasionally digging a grave, but that's not how I want things to be.”
“Anna -”
“It's not my fault you had a kid and you screwed it up.” As soon as the words leave Anna's lips, she regrets them, but she also knows it's too late to take them back.
“What's that got to do with anything?” Sam asks, clearly shaken.
“Just that I understand why you're happy to spend the rest of your life in this walled garden, but I've got different plans. And I'd rather you didn't let your jealousy get on top of you, okay? If I want to stay out all night tonight, that's what I'll do, and you don't have any right to moan at me. Don't worry, though. I won't get drunk and end up having a kid I can't support.”
As she turns and walks away, Anna already knows that she went way, way too far, but at the same time she has no intention of going back to apologize. Not yet, anyway. All she cares about is enjoying her new body, and the last thing she needs is to spend the whole day being grilled by Sam about how she managed to accomplish the change. She figures her new body parts from Ruth Havershot must have somehow regenerated the rest of her body, but she also knows that Sam would be furious at her for stealing from a corpse.
There's no way she's giving the body parts back, though. She just needs Ruth Havershot to be safely buried six feet under, so that no-one will ever find out what happened.
Four
“Okay, Ruth Havershot,” Sam grunts as she tosses the final shovelful of soil into place and starts patting the surface of the grave flat. “I think you can finally start resting in peace.”
Once she's done, she takes a step back and admires her work. In less than an hour, she's managed to fill the grave in completely, and although her arms and back are aching like hell, she feels content at having completed a hard afternoon's work. Wiping sweat from her brow, however, she realizes that her next job is much simpler: she needs to take a shower. Raising her right arm, she gives her armpit a quick sniff before immediately grimacing at the stink.
“God,” she mutters, “I could use a pint of -”
She catches herself just in time. For a moment, she can taste an ice-cold beer going down her throat, and the imagined sensation is sublime. After abstaining for so long, a single beer would be like spending a few minutes in paradise. She quickly reminds herself to be strong, although she figures she can always wander into town later and drink a cold bottle of mineral water while watching life go past in the town square. That'd be almost the same.
“It's the simple things,” she tells herself. “Just focus on the simple things.”
Glancing over at the cottage, she can't help but wonder whether Anna is still at home. She's still hurt by Anna's words from earlier, but more importantly she's worried that something's seriously wrong.
Hearing the unmistakeable sound of the main gate clinking open, she turns and looks across the cemetery. An unfamiliar man has entered, wearing a slightly-too-formal-looking charcoal suit. He looks around as if he's not quite sure which way to go, but finally he spots Sam and starts walking toward her.
“Great,” she mutters. “I just hope he doesn't stand downwind of me.”
“Samantha Marker?” the man calls out with an American accent.
“Yeah;” she replies cautiously. “Who -”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he continues, without even waiting for her to finish. As he gets to within a few meters, he stops and grins at her. “My name is Charles Raven.”
“Charles...” After a moment, she realizes that she has seen the man before after all: he was onstage the night before, in charge of the revival show. Without the overzealous lighting and make-up, and especially now that he lacks the old-fashioned suit he'd been wearing onstage, she simply hadn't recognized him at first glance. “Mr. Raven,” she continues, trying not to sound too flustered, “I'm... surprised to see you here.”
“This is the only cemetery in Rippon, is it not?” he asks, walking past her and stopping to take a look at Ruth Havershot's freshly-dug grave. “Looks like you've recently been welcoming a new arrival.”
“Actually, we -”
“So what are you, like some kind of apprentice?”
“Apprentice?”
He turns to her and smiles.
“Your boss gets you to do all the work, does he? Sends the girl out to keep her busy while he puts his feet up after a long day of grave-digging.”
“I don't have a boss.”
“Everyone has a boss, honey.”
“I don't,” she says firmly, resisting the urge to tell him not to call her 'honey'. “I'm the gardener here, I'm in charge, and I dig the graves.”
“You're in charge? Of the whole cemetery?”
“You find that hard to believe?”
“Kinda. A little, yeah.” He continues to smile, but it's clear that his attention has been drawn to the hilt of the knife sticking out from her head. “If I might ask, Ms. Marker, is that some kind of headband?”
“No.”
“A special effect?”
“No.”
“Part of an implant?”
“If by 'implant' you mean 'knife', then sure,” she replies. “There was an accident.”
“Some accident. Doesn't it... get in the way of things?”
“Like the connection between the left and right sides of my brain?�
� She pauses. “I was lucky, I guess. It must have gone through in a very particular way that meant I didn't suffer any lasting damage.”
“Forgive me for suggesting the obvious, but have you ever tried pulling it out?”
“I'm in charge here,” she tells him, hoping to steer the conversation back toward a more comfortable topic. “I run everything.”
“Is that right?” Making his way around the grave, Raven can't quite manage to wipe a faint smile from his lips. He seems strangely amused by the entire situation, almost as if he believes that he's talking to a child. “Tell me, who actually digs the graves?”
“I do.”
“And who -”
“Me.”
“So you do everything, huh? My God, what do they put in the drinking water here in England?”
“It's not so bad,” she replies. “Most of the time it's mainly mowing and weeding, cutting back dead foliage, just making sure that nothing bad happens. Rippon isn't usually the busiest place in the world, either, so I can pick my own schedule. There's always something to do, though. It's not like I'm ever bored.”
“Hiding from something?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just a question. I was wondering why you hole yourself up here so readily.”
“The pay's good,” she replies through gritted teeth.
“And I guess you don't want the residents waking up, huh?”
“That'd be inconvenient,” she mutters darkly.
“Ever had it happen?”
“No,” she replies. It's a lie, but one she hopes he'll swallow. “Of course not. They're all dead.”
“What did you think of my show last night?” he asks, stopping at the other end of the grave, just by the spot where the headstone will be put in place once it arrives. “I saw you there in the front row, and you kinda had this look on your face that made me think you weren't totally blown away. I felt you were studying me, and none of my usual tactics seemed able to break through. I must admit, Ms. Marker, that I began to feel rather intimidated. You have a very powerful stare. Hell, if you could bottle that stare, you could probably sell it to the United States military.”
“I was skeptical,” she admits.
“You were more than skeptical,” he replies. “You looked at me like you thought I was some kinda big phony.”
“Aren't you?”
“You think so?”
“It's just a magic trick.”
“Anything can seem like magic,” he replies, “if you don't know how it was done.”
“Your show didn't exactly go off without a hitch,” she points out. “I like the way you pretended that something went wrong. It made things seem more real. I've got to admit, you threw me at the end there. I was expecting that guy to get up and start dancing.”
“So was I. Well, except for the dancing part. I sure as hell didn't expect him to burst into flames.”
“It was a good effect.”
“It wasn't an effect,” Raven replies. “What you saw last night was real, Ms. Marker. A dead man, commanded to come back to life, instead ended up spontaneously combusting. How exactly do you explain that?”
“Maybe I'll come again tonight,” she tells him, “and take another look. And the night after that as well. Just so I can work out how the trick is performed.”
“I fear you're going to be disappointed,” he replies. “That was no trick, and as for its cause, I'm afraid I'm just as much in the dark as everyone else. I fully expected Mr. Shaughnessy to rise from the dead, but something interrupted the process. Since I have conducted the very same process many times over the years, I can only assume that the problem was caused by something right here in this otherwise delightful little town.”
“Pull the other one,” Sam mutters.
“There will be no performance tonight,” he continues. “The show must remain closed for the time being. I need time to investigate the problem.”
“Sounds like a marketing strategy,” Sam tells him. “Drive up demand and curiosity, and then re-open for one final night, with ticket prices at ten times their usual cost.”
“I cannot risk having another incident,” he replies. “If word got out, I'd be ruined.”
“What about the fact that you claim to raise people from the dead?” she asks. “If you really have that power, how come you're not the most famous man on the planet?”
“I prefer to keep myself out of the public eye. Besides, there would be no purpose. I use my power where I can, but I sure as hell don't have the capacity to expand it to cover all the unfortunate souls of this fine globe. I find that it's better to keep a low profile and help out here and there.” He pauses for a moment. “I can't risk another failure. Mr. Shaughnessy undoubtedly suffered a great deal, as did his wife, and I refuse to have such a thing on my conscience. I simply must find out what caused the procedure to go wrong.”
“So that's why you've come to see me?”
“When one is seeking things that might have siphoned away one's regenerative powers, one naturally looks to a place where the dead are gathered.”
“You think something here sucked your powers away and used them?”
Raven makes his way around the grave until he rejoins her.
“Has anything stirred, Ms. Marker? Perhaps something large, like a house, or small like a mouse?”
“I...” Pausing, she thinks back to the sparrow. “What exactly should I be looking for?”
“Anything dead that suddenly comes to life. Or perhaps you should be listening carefully at night. Scratches from below the soil, calls for help, anything that seems out of place.”
“Well, I...” Pausing again, she thinks back to the unusually healthy glow she noticed when she was talking to Anna earlier. “So then what? If I find something, what happens next?”
“You must come and tell me immediately.”
“So you can do what?”
“Alleviate the situation.”
“How?”
“Some dead things,” he replies, “are meant to be dead.”
“And you get to decide?”
“I didn't say that. I merely wish to know what creatures or creatures benefited, and whether this is a good or a bad thing.”
“So what if, say, a little bird had come back to life? I'm not saying one did, but just in theory... What if a bird had come back to life and flown away? What would happen to that bird?”
“I imagine it would live on as normal,” he replies. “It could still die, of course, if it suffered an accident, or if it reached an old age, but it would essentially be restored to life. The question would be how it managed to divert my powers, and why.”
“So it's not an inherently dangerous process?”
“It's a process that I wish to monitor very carefully,” he tells her. “When one has powers, one also has responsibilities. Besides, I do not believe that a sparrow could funnel my restorative abilities in this way. It would have to be something much stronger.”
“Something evil?”
“Possibly.”
Sam stares at him for a moment, trying to work out if he can be trusted.
“I'll let you know if I notice anything,” she says finally.
“See that you do,” he replies, forcing a smile. “Something in this town was able to interrupt the show last night and steal the energy that was supposed to help Mr. Shaughnessy. I'm quite certain that this particular 'something' is connected to the cemetery, although...” He pauses, staring at Sam with a curious expression that hints at a degree of suspicion. “I could tell from the look in your eyes at the show that you were different. You're not a local, are you?”
“I've been here for a while now.”
“Still...” He looks past her for a moment, toward the vault, almost as if he senses that deep below the cemetery there might be something of note. “I've delayed you for long enough,” he adds finally. “Forgive me, Ms. Marker. Please, get back to work.”
As he turns and heads back toward the gat
e, Sam watches him.
“Did you bring the ravens?” she calls after him.
“What ravens?”
“The ravens that attacked me.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
She waits until he's all the way out of the cemetery, before turning to look down at Ruth Havershot's grave. Something about Charles Raven has set Sam on edge, and she doesn't believe for a second that his arrival is a coincidence. After a moment she looks up at the sky, still expecting to see a vast swarm of ravens circling above her. The fact that the sky turns out to be crystal clear and blue, however, doesn't allay her fears. She can feel that something bad is on the way, and the worst part is that she can't ask anyone for advice.
All she can do is wait.
Five
“Die, you goddamn zombie bastard!” Anna shouts as she mashes her fingers against the video game controller and waves it at the screen, where a CGI zombie is being split down the middle by a chainsaw. “Damn it, that was like the worst one yet!”
“Wait 'til you get to the next zone,” Scott replies, smiling as he watches her progress. “Those zombies'll make these zombies seem like a bunch of little girls. Seriously, you're only on the first zone at the moment, and there's like ten of them in total. You're not gonna believe what it's like later on.”
“Isn't there just, like, a giant pit of them I can jump into?” Anna asks, keeping her eyes focused on the screen as she moves her character along the corridor. “I just want to do some cutting.”
“This is so different to yesterday,” Scott tells her.
