Awakening

by Catrina Burgess

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise--I was in the morgue, but at the thought that there were dead bodies just a few feet away, I felt a totally irrational urge take me over, I had to see the bodies. I don’t know why the thought crossed my mind to look at the bodies, but once it did I felt compelled to take one step, and then another, toward the tables. I realized I wasn’t full of dread or fear. I should have been, but instead I felt empty.

  My mother had been a healer, and I had seen dead bodies before. I had in the past, when confronted with the dead, felt sadness, a heavy mourning for the loss of life. The person that passed no longer had the chance to feel the breeze on their face, they would never again hold a loved one in their arms. Death, loss, sadness these were things that I had been trying to come to terms with as I took on the role of a healer. I had watched my mother fight against death--do battle to save her patients’ lives. And yet, I had just moments earlier helped someone die. I had forced Anna to the other side. I kept waiting for remorse to set in, kept waiting to feel regret, but I didn’t. I just felt numb.

  Not completely numb, a sudden undeniable urge to see what was under that sheet washed over me. The urge was so strong, I wondered if something was controlling me, but even as I had the thought, I couldn’t seem to stop myself as my hand reached out and grabbed a corner of the material. One hard pull and the cloth fell away.

  The body on the table was a man’s. I couldn’t tell his age. Something had crushed part of his skull in. On one side of his head was a gaping hole--a mess of protruding white bones and red tissue. The other half was still intact. I could make out a straight nose, a wide mouth with pleasantly shaped lips and one good eye. He was naked under the sheet, but thankfully I had only pulled part of it down, the sheet lay bunched up against his stomach. There were no other injuries, at least that I could see. His arms, his hands, his chest seemed fine. Whatever had happened to him, the trauma had only impacted his head. How had he died? Was it fast? Did he have time to realize what was happening? As I was asking the question in my head, my body inched forward and my hand reached out, and I touched him.

  I don’t know why I did it, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. My hand acted almost on its own. My fingers brushed against cold clammy skin, and as my fingers made contact with him a bright orange light flashed, more like it exploded. The light was so bright I was momentarily blinded and with the light came a rush of sound and a barrage of images. I stumbled back, falling almost to the ground. When I got back on my feet I looked at the table and something totally unexpected was happening. The dead man was slowly sitting up. I blinked trying to take in what I was seeing--my mind was reeling with what was happening.

  The dead man sat up, and his lips began to move. “Girly, where am I?” It was Wanda’s voice. Wanda’s voice was coming out of the mouth of the corpse on the table.

  “Girly, what’s going on?” The corpse’s hand lifted and began to frantically wave around. “I made it, I’m back with the living again!”

  I backed up and spun around, falling flat against the second body. I scrambled away, but as I moved part of the sheet came with me. My hands grazed across a cold cheek. There was the exploding light again, another rush of images and noise.

  The second body was a woman. Her head was all there, but she was missing an arm. It looked as though it had been ripped off, the edges were jagged, and pieces of flesh were hanging down. I watched as the woman’s eyes popped open. Her mouth moved, opening wide, and she let out an unworldly scream.

  My hands went to my ears. I backed up, and backed up some more until I fell against something solid.

  Strong arms encircled me, and Luke’s voice spoke into my ear, “What have you done!”

  Me? What had I done? I hadn’t done anything. I had just walked into the room. I had looked at the bodies, barely touched the bodies. Whatever was happening had nothing to do with me. Did it?

  Wanda’s voice screamed out, “Girly, undo it. I take it back! I don’t want to be alive no more, not in this rotten body!” The man’s body tumbled from the table onto the floor.

  The woman’s body was rising. She was getting up off the table. The sheet dropped onto a pile on the floor. She was completely naked. A large jagged open wound ran down her left leg. The cut was so deep I could see all the way to the bone. Pieces of tendon flapped dangling down from the wound. The woman’s eyes focused on us, and she let out another eardrum busting screech. She took an awkward step, her good arm reaching out toward us.

  And there was Wanda’s voice again, moaning from the floor. “Girly, what’ve you done to me?” The body on the floor was moving, inching forward, trying to rise. I could hear finger nails scratching and digging against the tile.

  These things seemed focused on us. They were moving closer in our direction. Could they hurt us? I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.

  Apparently Luke felt the same. He shoved me behind him and yelled, “Move!”

  Out the door we both scrambled. I stood in the hallway, not sure which way to run, and that’s when the mob appeared around the corner. They must have been searching for us throughout the hospital. By the looks on their faces they weren’t about to give us a warm reception. At the end of the hallway was a sign with the word ‘exit’ in large red letters. I started toward the sign, Luke close behind me. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder and what I saw made me stop in my tracks. The mob had seen us and was following, but as they passed the morgue they ran smack dab into the dead bodies. High pitched screams were followed by a frantic scrambling for weapons. A handful of members of the mob were now wailing on the dead bodies with IV stands and oxygen tanks.

  I could hear Wanda’s yells of, “Help me, get off me, you idiots.” Echoing down the hall.

  I don’t know how long I would have stood there looking on in astonishment at the rumble, but Luke grabbed my arm and pulled and we both ran flat out down the hallway and out of the hospital. I came to a halt only when my fingers gripped the handle of the car door.

  Luke opened the driver’s door and slid in. He unlocked the car, and I jumped in. Before I could speak he had the car started, and we moved down the street.

  “What happened back there?” I asked, still breathless.

  Luke didn’t answer.

  I spoke louder this time. “I wasn’t hallucinating. You saw it, right?”

  Luke turned and gave me a brief look. “Why did you go into the morgue?”

  I sat staring out the window trying to make sense of what I had just seen. “I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to go inside.”

  “Was there anyone else in there?” Luke asked.

  “No, the place was empty except for the bodies.”

  “You didn’t feel any spirits?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t. I just felt this urge to go in and then I had to see what was under the sheet.” How could I explain the strong desire that filled me at that moment. “I didn’t mean to lift the sheets, I didn’t mean to touch them.”

  “You touched them, and they came alive?” Luke sounded shocked.

  We’d been through a lot together, but up until this point, with all the strange stuff that had happened, nothing had fazed Luke. His shock meant that whatever was going on was bad. How did those bodies come alive?

  “That was Wanda’s voice I heard coming out of the dead man’s mouth.” I paused and took a deep breath. “I know it was Wanda, the spirit that had possessed me during the second ritual.”

  Luke shook his head. “Impossible. Restless spirits possess the living, not the dead.”

  “It was her!” I’d never forget her voice, that terrifying moment when she’d whispered to me in the darkness. It was Wanda, I was sure of it. She’d even called me ‘girly.’

  “I heard the scream that’s how I found you.” Luke looked in the rear view mirror.

  Did he think they were following us? Could they? “That scream sounded like one of your banshees.”

  “Impossible. Those
bodies were dead. All you did was touch them. You didn’t say any words, you just touched them?”

  “No words, my fingers grazed across their skin and then I saw a bright orange light, and there was noise. Images that rushed by, I’m not sure what the images were. It all happened too fast.”

  “A bright orange light?” Luke demanded.

  I nodded my head. “So bright it blinded me.”

  “That sounds like death dealer magic. But how could the dead come alive?”

  I realized Luke wasn’t asking me the question, he was asking himself, but I answered anyway. “Not alive, they were possessed.”

  “Impossible!” Luke pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. We sat there on the side of the road, neither one of us talking for a long while. When Luke finally spoke he said, “I remember my grandfather talking about an old folktale.” He tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “What was it? The old man used to tell us old stories. Bed time stories to scare us…” He slapped the steering wheel. “It was a Draugr!”

  I raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

  Luke turned and looked at me. “The Viking’s believed Draugrs were ghosts that animated the bodies of the dead. These things could roam around. They could devour people’s flesh. They would cause anyone around them for too long to go insane.”

  This time I was the one sounding shocked. “You’re saying they were Draugrs, something like zombies?”

  “There are no such things as zombies,” Luke answered.

  He could say that all he wanted, I had just watched a man with a gaping hole in his face crawl across the morgue floor. “And spirits can’t possess the dead, yet I swear Wanda was in that man’s body.” What happened to the bodies after we left? Were they still making their way out of the morgue? “Should we have left them there?”

  “What would you suggest we do with them?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know, buy an axe, go back and chop off their heads.” That’s what they did with zombies in the movies.

  Luke’s expression turned serious. “I’ve never seen or heard of that kind of magic. I don’t even know if they are Draugrs. Draugrs are just something old folks tell the children to keep them from roaming the streets at night. Old bedtime horror stories that they tell in order to scare and entertain gullible children.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook his head. “They can’t be Draugrs. There are no such things.”

  “But those bodies were dead, and now they’re crawling and walking around. You were there. You saw the same thing I did, I wasn’t hallucinating.”

  I wasn’t seeing things, not like before. That ointment had done a number on me. It had set my body on fire and filled my head with visions. Could this have something to do with the devil’s berry? Maybe it had something to do with the last ritual. Dead bodies walking around, that was not something that was going to go unnoticed.

  “That mob was in a fight with those creatures. Those people saw us coming out of the room ahead of those…things.”

  As I spoke a look of horror filled Luke’s face. “They know we’re death dealers. They’ll blame us for what happened.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “We have to figure out what happened. If you did do something, what was it? And how did you do it?” His grip tightened. “We already scare the general populace. They know that we help people who are sick pass on, that we can raise spirits and that we have banshees do our biding. Those things scare them enough that they already treat my kind with disgust. But this…” his voice broke, “…if they think that we can raise up the dead…if they think we can create walking corpses…Draugrs…zombies…whatever those things are, people won’t just despise us, they’ll start to hunt us.”

  “It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t do anything. I swear.”

  He turned away and looked out the window. We sat in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. “There has never been a healer turned death dealer.” He looked back at me. “I knew that you had some magic of your own, that you could heal, but I never imagined what your natural abilities and the power you got from the rituals might combine and create.” He let go of my hand. “You’re something no one has ever seen before.”

  “You think I can create zombies…these Draugrs?” If I did create them, did that mean I had a way of destroying them?

  “The people I could ask are at the retreat.” He shook his head slowly back and forth. “I should never have agreed to teach you. Maybe when I did the rituals I messed them up. Maybe I did something wrong.”

  He looked so distraught that I put my hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t mess up--I survived the rituals.”

  “You did. And for that I’m thankful.” He reached out and caressed my cheek. “But…” he left the thought hanging.

  Suddenly I could read what he was thinking on his face. “But what if you turned me into some kind of monster? Some kind of abomination?” I moved back, away from him.

  “That’s not what I was going to say.” His voice was soft.

  “What if you did?” I demanded. I looked down at my hands. “I touched the dead body and Wanda somehow jumped into it.”

  “You’re not a monster,” he said pulling me into his arms.

  I rested my cheek against his chest. I closed my eyes and tried to think the whole thing through. If Wanda jumped into the dead man, what jumped into the woman? She screamed like a banshee. “Tell me more about the banshees.”

  Luke’s hand came up and stroked my hair. “The spirits we bind for banshees, they’re spirits that have been around a long time. People that were murdered, died tragically, or died suddenly. Their spirits are unable to come to terms with their deaths. They can’t move to the other side. After years of roaming the in between they go a bit mad.”

  “You only bind spirits of the dead that have been around a long time?” I asked.

  “It would be wrong to take someone that just died. They need to have a chance to come to terms with their death. They need a chance to move into the light and over to the other side.”

  “If my mother…if she stays like she is…” my voice choked up.

  He pulled away from me and looked in my eyes. “She won’t stay like that. She’ll eventually get over her grief. One day she’ll find her way to the light, I’m sure of it.”

  How could he be so sure? He told me many spirits he came across never found the light. My mother was out there now roaming the in between, mourning the loss of her family. If I could see her again, communicate with her, maybe I could help her find the light. When this was all over, when Darla was safe, and we found the men who killed my family, when I avenged their death, I’d try and find my mother and help her move on.

  Luke pulled away from me and turned the car back on. “We’re going back to Pagans place.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But you said they trashed it.”

  Luke nodded his head. “They did, but the books I need to try and figure out what’s going on are at Pagan’s. They didn’t destroy all the books. They ripped out the pages of some of them and smashed anything that was breakable.”

  “But it’s not safe, they found us there before.”

  “I still don’t know how they did that, but we’ve no choice but to risk it. I have to see if I can figure out what you did in the morgue.”

  “And those creatures we left in the morgue?” I asked.

  Luke’s expression turned grim. “We can’t go back there. Not until we know what we are dealing with. If we go back now, they’ll string us up without asking any questions. No one has strong enough magic to fend off a mob.”

  “And what about Darla?” I demanded.

  “It’s two days until the dark moon. I know she’s still alive, I can feel it. If they haven’t harmed her yet, they won’t until the dark moon.”

  “Freddy said he’d help us.” Three of us against, who knew how many?

  “I won’t go back on my promise. I said Freddy could co
me and he can.”

  “So we go after Darla in two days?” It wasn’t long enough. We needed more time to prepare.

  He shook his head. “I’m not waiting that long. Tomorrow night we go in. I know that doesn’t give us any time to check out the layout of the mansion, but I know the place I’ve been there once before.” He looked over at me before turning his attention back to the road. “I figure we go up and see if we can get her out. If they’re too heavily guarded, or it’s not safe to go in, we’ll come back to regroup and go in the next night. But if we leave it until the night of the dark moon…”

  I finished his sentence. “By that time it might be too late.”

  “These lunatics are doing human sacrifices. Whatever they’ve planned, whatever spell they’re trying to power, it’s old. I found some references in Pagan’s books to the type of rituals they might be trying to perform when I was studying the spells for the last ritual.” His voice turned angry. “Whatever spell they’re planning, it has to be something that’s truly dark and powerful. Something that hasn’t been seen in a hundred years. If they succeed, I don’t know if even the eldest in my guild could fight the type of magic they might raise.”

  “So we save your sister and then what?”

  “And then we wait until my clan comes back and we take on the whole pack of bad guys.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But…there were other people being held there. Sarah showed me in her visions a group of people being held hostage in the room with her. If we save your sister, they can always just sacrifice someone else.”

  Luke looked back over at me. “There’s no way the three of us can save all those people.”