VooDoo Follies

by Butler, Christine M.

  "Seraphine Rose LaLande!" My mom's shriek pierced through the room. I nearly dropped my cell phone and watched as Stephen jumped up from the chair he had been sitting in.

  "What?" I asked it innocently enough, because I had forgotten all about having a boy in my room. In that moment, Stephen was my zombie hunting partner which seemed entirely more important than the fact that he was a boy sitting in my bedroom.

  "What?" Oh no, things never went well when she began mocking me like that. "You have a boy sitting in your room at one o'clock in the morning and you have the audacity to ask me, 'what?'"

  "But mom, you don't understand."

  "I understand you better get up and out of my house, right now!" She was looking at Stephen now, who kept his cool and walked over to my door. He sheepishly waved good bye to me while my mother walked him to the front door and let him out. I had followed behind them, which probably wasn't the best idea. As soon as the door closed behind Stephen my mom turned on me and smacked me right across the face. That smack stung more than she would ever know. I couldn't remember the last time my mom hit me and here it was over something so innocent, but she couldn't see that.

  "I was sixteen when I had you and here you go, sneaking boys into your room like this is a hotel. And you, sitting there trying to be cute and pretending every thing’s all innocent!"

  "It's not like that."

  "No, then do tell, what's it like?" Roger came around the corner when he heard my mom yelling even louder.

  "He saw us walk in the house." I was pointing at Roger now. "He waved at us when we came in." If I thought my mom turned on me quickly I hadn't seen anything yet. She was turned and facing Roger in the space of a heartbeat.

  "You allowed her to bring a boy into this house and take him back to her room?"

  Roger's eyes were as big as saucers now. It felt kind of good to have an accomplice. Maybe he could take some of that wrath she had been directing at me.

  "What?" He managed to stutter out. 'Great,' I thought, he's going to sit here and lie about it so he doesn't have to share in this with me.

  "Is everyone else in this house confused tonight? I swear to the both of you if I hear the word 'what' come out of someone else's mouth tonight I am gonna loose my damn mind!"

  "Angelique, Seraphine didn't bring a boy in this house tonight. At least, not that I knew about. I know how you feel about that. Remember, we talked about it when we first moved up here."

  Damn, he was going to sit there and lie to my momma. Another heartbeat and she was focused on me again. "So, not only do you have a boy here, in your room, in the middle of the night, but you're going to lie to me? Roger's been nothing but good to you and you're gonna stand there and lie to me about him?" I was shaking my head no. I couldn't believe she would take his side so easily as all that. My own momma would choose to believe this man over me. I think that hurt worse than the slap she had placed across my face earlier. What could I do? I just hung my head and listened as she raved at me about how irresponsible I was, how disappointing. My momma believed in kicking people when they were already down. It kept them from getting back up and she was certainly doing a good job with me. I just nodded my head periodically and kept my mouth shut. Finally, she was winding down, but not before she snatched the car keys that were hanging out of my front pocket. "You want to act like you lost your damn mind, Seraphine? Well, you lost your car instead." I started fiddling with the phone in my hand, which was not the smartest thing I could have done, because it drew her attention to it. "Oh no, you don't get a phone either." She snatched it out of my grasp and powered it down. I wondered briefly if Auntie Perrine was still on the line when she did it, or if she had the sense to hang up when she heard my mom's ranting voice coming through the other end. The two of them didn't get along that well, so it wouldn't have bothered my mom to hang up on her sister anyway. "You, young lady, are on restriction. Don't even think about going anywhere outside of school for a long while!" I didn't even wait for her to finish, if there was anything else, I just turned and walked to my room.

  I had to get some sleep. I would worry about how to find a zombie-bum with no car tomorrow. For tonight, I needed sleep to come take me away from my world of troubles.

  ***

  Truth Be Told

  I woke up later in the morning thankful for the dreamless oblivion I had fallen into. I listened as Roger left the house for work. My mom must have been getting ready still because as I walked into the kitchen I found my cell phone sitting on the counter. I snatched it up and left the house just as quickly. I wasn't really sure where Stephen lived and I couldn't remember getting his phone number. I was wondering how in the hell I was going to find him when he popped up beside me scaring me nearly to death. "Holy crap, Stephen!" For his part, he looked sorry that he had startled me. "You nearly scared me to death!"

  "Sorry," he mumbled under his breath, "I didn't mean to."

  "It's alright."

  "Did you get in a lot of trouble last night?"

  "Yeah," I held up my cell phone, "and I'll be in more trouble later when she realizes I grabbed my phone before I left. We're gonna be car-less as it is, I didn't want to go without a phone." It suddenly occurred to me that Stephen might have a phone of his own and I could have saved myself the trouble. "Do you have a phone? I keep forgetting to get your number."

  "I don't have one." He shrugged at me again. It was his thing, he seemed to shrug when he was unsure of things and sometimes just because he was a little nervous.

  "Well, I don't have my car either and not enough cash for a cab, so we're gonna have to walk." I shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough I was skipping school today to get this done, but now I would be walking through downtown Baltimore with a back pack full of voodoo supplies, just begging to get caught.

  "So, how long are you grounded?"

  "Till forever, or until I move out of the house at 18, which ever comes first." I rolled my eyes as I looked over at Stephen who was grinning back at me. His smile was infectious and I couldn't help but smile back. "What hurt the most last night was that Roger denied knowing you were there. He said I came in by myself last night, and my mom took his word over mine." The smile quickly dissolved from my face as I remembered my mother's betrayal. "My mom and I have always had this thing between us. You know? It just hurts to have her treat me like a liar when I know he waved at us when we came in the house."

  "Seraphine, I need to tell you something." The look on Stephen's face had gone sour. That gorgeous smile was now hidden behind a wash of his light brown hair. He seemed pained by something and I hoped he wasn't about to tell me that we couldn't be friends anymore, because I wasn't sure I could handle any more betrayal at the moment. Not that it would be betrayal on his part. I figured it might be coming. What kind of sane person wanted to hang out with a girl who brought kids back from the dead and then had to chase down zombie-bums? Even I would run away from myself this week, if I could.

  "Stephen," before I could say anymore my cell phone began ringing. I picked it up without even checking to see who it was and then was thankful when I heard my Auntie Perrine on the line.

  "I'm so glad it's you." I said into the phone without thinking.

  "Yeah, well, as soon as you find this bum you might want to see to it that your mom gets the cell phone back. Put it in a drawer or cabinet or something, so when she accuses you of having it and you don't, she'll go searching for it and think either she or Roger moved it absent-mindedly."

  "Thanks Auntie."

  "Don't thank me, if it weren't for this zombie business I would be on your mom's side. A boy in your bedroom at that time of night..." she paused for a moment, "girl, you're lucky you can still walk. I can't imagine Angelique not flipping out. I heard her screaming through the phone all the way up until she hung it up."

  "Yeah, well, then you know that Roger is a liar and she took his side."

  "Love does funny things to people, little one, but I didn't call to talk about your mom. I
have news."

  "Please, let it be good."

  "It's not." Auntie Perrine didn't mince words, so softening the blow of bad news never really occurred to her. "infected zombies can definitely infect more people and create more zombies by feeding on humans. Seraphine, I can't tell you how important it is for you to find your bum and anyone else he may have infected."

  "Oh, great." It was all I could manage. I looked up at Stephen and he seemed to know just by the look on my face, he nodded his head and picked up the pace a bit.

  "If you haven't found him by tonight, I will be on a plane first thing to come help. The longer he's out there, the more potential victims and those victims can create more. Things can get out of hand really quick."

  When I hung up with my aunt I explained to Stephen what she had been saying. It wasn't good news and we found ourselves planning our route. We would start over by the Bohemian Cemetery again. He had been lurking around there to begin with, so we figured we would spread out in the area and hope he was still hanging around.

  When the area around the cemetery didn't pan out we took off for Patterson Park. We split up to cover more ground, checking for unusual bums. Yeah, I know, with all the mentally ill people running around the streets you would think that unusual and bums went hand in hand, but with the economy's downturn, you could find perfectly normal looking and acting people on the streets. Zombies could never be accused of acting normal.

  Patterson Park ended up being a bust too. So, we took off for Broadway. If you want to find a bum in Baltimore, your chances are pretty good down there. We were walking down Eastern Ave. headed for Broadway when Stephen started talking again. At first, I was so lost in my thoughts, I wasn't paying attention.

  "We never did get to talk, because we keep splitting up or the phone rings."

  "Oh, sorry," I was saying, but something across the street caught my eye.

  "Seraphine, I need to tell you about..."

  "Hey, look," I interrupted. "I think that's him." I was pointing at a bum across the street with a shopping cart. Before Stephen could get a word out I was crossing the street and yelling for the bum. "Hey! You!" The bum looked back and then looked all around him, as if I couldn't possibly be talking to him. Then he started walking faster with his cart. "You, stop! I need to..." He took off in a full out run with his shopping cart rocking precariously in front of him. "Stop!" I shouted after him.

  The cart he was pushing so haphazardly hit a crack in the sidewalk and tipped over. He stopped to try to pile all of his belongings back in. "Wait, I just want to talk." I was saying as he was scooping up his belongings.

  "No, no, no." He swatted at me. "Go away, you can't have any." He swatted again. By now Stephen had caught up with me.

  "That's not him, Seraphine."

  "Then why did he run?" The bum was still swatting at me, so I backed up a bit.

  "Umm, because he thought you were trying to steal his stuff." At the sound of the word 'steal' the bum all but tossed himself over his cart to shield his belongings.

  "Go away!" He swatted again, and began moving away from us.

  "I don't even really remember what the zombie-bum looks like. It was dark and he was a lump of dead nastiness. How am I supposed to find him like this?"

  "Seraphine!" Stephen was not about to let me get distracted again. "Seraphine, listen to me. I can help, but you need to hear me out first."

  "What? I know, don't go chasing off after bums with shopping carts. It's dangerous, gotcha!"

  "No, well, I mean don't do that either, but I really need to tell you something." he looked so completely serious I couldn't help but stop and listen to him. "I can find the bum for you."

  "How are you supposed to do that? Did you get a better look at him?"

  "It's what I have been trying to tell you.I have an affinity for the dead, I can sense other dead things. That guy," he pointed to the bum who was now a block away with his shopping cart, "is not dead."

  "Wait, you what? Oh," it dawned on me that maybe I wasn't the only one who could tap into other-worldly stuff. "You see dead people!"

  "Uh, yeah, something like that."

  "That's weird, how do you do it, then?"

  Stephen cocked his head to the side and looked at me funny before he said, "you tell me."

  "How should I know? I don't see dead people."

  "You see me."

  "Of course I see you," my words cut off mid-sentence as some things started clicking in place. Stephen had never touched me, not even to accidentally bump into me. He had never, to my recollection, even touched anything else around me, aside from sitting in my car or on the chair in my room. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing when we first met. I wondered now how it was that I hadn't noticed before, but then I thought about what we were doing out here on the streets in Baltimore and I understood that I had simply been too busy and stressed to notice.

  "But how?"

  "The accident, with Adrianna. I didn't die right away, but I sort of left my body and couldn't get back. My parents pulled the plug on my body and next thing you know I bump into Adrianna outside of the school. Then, you could see me too. At first I thought maybe I was alive and it had all been a bad dream, but then you explained about Adrianna and what happened, and she felt different than you did. Kind of like a dimmer energy radiating off of her. I figured you being able to see me was voodoo magic and that you knew what I was, until the other night with your step-dad."

  "But my mom saw you too!"

  Stephen shrugged at me again. "It runs in the family, I guess. Didn't you say you came from a long line of witches?"

  "Voodoo practitioners, but it doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't she tell me she could see dead people? Ghosts?"

  Stephen shrugged at me again, his sandy hair flopping down over his eyes again as he did so. "Maybe she just doesn't realize she can do it. You didn't know until now either." Stephen stopped talking and started looking around the street. "I think we should find our zombie and talk about all this later. We don't want too many of those things running around eating more people."

  "You said you could find it?"

  "Yeah, remember I said Adrianna gave off a different energy than you did. I have come to realize that the gray kind of energy is that of the dead while the colorful stuff that swirls around you represents the living."

  "Wait, my aura?"

  "I guess." There was that shrug again. I wanted to throw my arms around those shoulders and cry with him because he was dead. I wanted to have him hold me and tell me everything was going to be alright. I wanted my only friend in this part of the world to not be dead, but before I could even think any further about what I wanted I had to find a zombie.

  "Do you sense anything."

  He held up his finger, asking for a moment while he started spinning in slow circles, taking in the world around him. I had no clue what he was doing or how it would work, but after a minute or two he started walking and I followed.

  ***

  Command and Conquer

  We wandered a little ways further down onto Broadway. We were heading up the road when I saw a bum walk into an alley. Stephen saw what I was looking at and nodded to me. We found our zombie. Now, I just needed to convince it to come back to the graveyard with me.

  I was hoping that the zombie had just kept to himself while he had been wandering around, but when Stephen called out to him and he turned around my hopes were dashed. Blood streaked his face. Some of it looked dried out, that was the stuff that stuck on him up closer to his eyes. The blood staining his mouth was fresh and still dripped a little from his chin. I looked around quickly, hoping to spot the other corpse before someone else did. It was mid afternoon in Baltimore now. The last thing I needed on my conscious was a full blown zombie outbreak as everyone was getting off of work and heading home for the weekend.

  At first, the zombie looked as though he would run from Stephen. I suppose he could sense on some level that the boy wasn't human. Then the zo
mbie-bum sniffed the air and looked right at me. Before I could even move he was coming at me. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to say, nothing. I stood, frozen to the spot. Panic was like glue to my feet, keeping me firmly in place as the zombie-bum charged towards me. My only friend in the world was a ghost and could do nothing to help me.

  "Stop!" I screamed out, not thinking the blood-crazed monster would listen, but he did. He stopped dead in his tracks, so fast in fact, I thought he would topple over from the inertia that was still pulling him forward. I wasn't sure if it was just the scream that startled him or if he was listening to me, so I thought I would take a chance and test it out. "Move forward three paces." I commanded the zombie to do my bidding, but as I did so Stephen was nervously shaking his head. Three paces would put the zombie within arms reach of me. "Don't worry," I told him as I watched the zombie come closer with each step.

  "Seraphine, this is not a good idea." Stephen came closer to me, positioning himself to step in front of me, as if that would do any good.

  "Stop," I commanded the zombie again once he took the third step. I freaked out a little as he stood in front of me licking his lips. "Where are the others that you have killed?" The zombie raised his finger to point behind me. "Take us there." Before the zombie began to move I amended my command with, "and you are not to harm a soul while we travel, including me." I could have sworn the zombie-bum groaned at me, but I chose to ignore it, because it was just too creepy to think of this creature on the same level as a child who had just been told no more candy.