by Zari Reede
“Liotte need not tell the demon-less. He has direct control of them.”
“So, what’s Demonville like?”
“If you refer to my realm, it’s different.”
I bit back a smart-ass response. “In what way?”
“For one, no weak, squishy creature like you would be sentient. We would farm you like eslettes.”
“What’s an eslette?”
“Food--a delicacy. I relish the way they squirm and squeal as I chew them.”
“I like my steak rare too.” Not quite that rare, though. “Are you the only demon here?”
“No, but only a handful exist. Perhaps Liotte doubts his ability to handle more, which is wise of him. But I predict he will become overconfident and entrap more of us.”
“Not real bright, is he? I mean, no way would I mess with you.”
“Perhaps you are not as stupid as I thought. Somewhat above the intellect of an eslette.”
“You ever ask Liotte why he is yanking you to Ortharos and sticking you into a corpse?”
“The first command was that I was never to oppose him. I am only to speak when answering questions and taking orders. As to why not leave me in my corporeal form instead of transferring me to this corpse, he would be unable to control me. If I were free of this rot, I would destroy him like this.”
A cockroach, perhaps the same one I saw earlier, vacated Meechelo’s wrist. He snatched it between his thumb and forefinger. Like a prestidigitator, he wove the insect between his fingers then pinched it, slowly squeezing until its legs waved frantically. Tweaking off its head, he sat it on the horse’s remaining ear where headless body ran in circles before finally tipping over.
I cringed. “How about this? I want to get back to my world, you want to get back to your world. Why don’t we work together?”
“How can you help me? You are Liotte’s plaything.”
“Okay, don’t get pissed off, but aren’t you too?”
Meechelo hit my shoulder so hard that it would be black and blue. “You walk a fine line, Jim.” He pulled one of my hands from the mane. I fisted it and tried to pull away. He jabbed a finger in my wrist. My hand convulsed open and went numb. He yanked my arm back and bit into the fleshy part of my palm just below my thumb.
I struggled. “What the hell?”
“Stop, Flesh.”
“You bit me, you asshole.”
Meechelo pulled up on my twisted arm. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“If we will have an alliance, the corpse I am trapped in needs nourishment. The undead feed on the living. Be grateful I am strong enough to resist the urge to tear out your throat.”
He sucked more on my hand and when the bleeding stopped, gnawed.
“Man, this fucking hurts,” I whispered through gritted teeth, trying to will away the pain, but knowing there was nothing I could do to overpower my captor.
“And with your flesh and blood, your pain adds to strengthen me.”
“What about my strength?”
“You are too weak to matter. You are sly and cunning, I admit. Perhaps you can cause Liotte to falter by disarming him with your ingenuity.”
About the time I feared I would hurl or pass out, he stopped and, with surprising skill, tore the cuff off my shirt and wrapped my hand.
“I tell you this to seal our alliance. Something happened. I do not know what, but Liotte lost some of his control. Not enough for me to break free, but some of the demon-less he controls are corpses once more. He is unaware that when his emotions are strong, his thoughts are more visible to me.”
I was finally bonding with the zombie-demon, and I tried not to get too caught up in the excitement of saving my own ass. I am not a total fool. I knew this demon would wax the valley with my soul as soon as this control Liotte had over him vanished. As for Liotte, nothing that guy planned was good, so I certainly wasn’t waiting around to become one of his demon-vessel pin-cushions.
“Since I treated you to dinner, do you think I have earned the right to ride side saddle?” Probably a useless request, but I needed to give it a whirl.
“Dinner? If you had treated me to dinner, you would not be talking to me now. What I took from you, in blood and flesh, was a sustenance snack!” Meechelo’s voice gave out during his rasping laughter. He enjoyed my humor and toyed with me, like a cat toys with food before gobbling it whole.
Using the incredible strength of his dead muscles, his hands clasped onto my back and lifted me high enough to swing both legs to one side of his mount. Filled with surprise, I almost regretted what I planned next. The hilt of his broad sword peeped over his shoulder, but, I couldn’t fetch it quick enough to use the fine steel. He wore a solid steel dagger with a skull emblazoned on its hilt tied against his leather-clad calf. The leather throngs had deteriorated over his time underground, and bounced precariously, as we trotted along. When he pulled me up, I relieved it from its bindings and stuck it into my own borrowed hessian boot. A massive castle appeared on the horizon. No doubt it was the dreaded keep of the necromancer. No time like the present.
“Holy sheep ship! What is that?” I gave it all I had and prayed that the two semesters I taught a theater class paid off.
I watched a lot of zombie movies to keep up with my students, popular culture, and the one thing those movies taught me was to kill a zombie, take off its head. Lore or legend? I was about to find out. As Meechelo looked over his left shoulder where I had pointed, I grabbed the horse’s mane hard and wrenched myself around. Aiming the dagger toward his rotted neck, I dug it in hard, until I heard a resounding snap.
“You! Weak Flesh!”
The torment in his voice gurgled out with shock and anger. He pushed me to the ground. I hung on and we both tumbled off the tall, dark steed. We rolled along the valley’s lush, green carpet, and I found myself beneath his powerful, stinking flesh. I released the dagger which was lodged between the neck’s vertebrae. His hands encircled my throat and I struggled to breath. He crushed my windpipe and I started to lose consciousness. I braced hands on either side of his head and retaliated with all my might. His stinking breath fanned my face, and his heavy un-dead form squashed my bruised muscles. Then I felt nothing except a softness beneath me that cradled my shaking form.
I recognized the familiar smell of the freshly laundered sheets. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear that my guess was untrue. I prayed I was home and would soon be with my beloved wife. Relief washed over me as I took in the familiar space, then I sobbed with uncontrolled fear for our little Sammy, left alone on a world at war with the undead. I rocked back and forth on our bed and let the tears flow. How could I face my wife when I had failed to protect our only child?
Chapter 57
The Brownie
My hand wound tightly around Little Miss’s, as we made our way quietly through the large open doors of the Winter Palace’s throne room. It suddenly occurred to me. Since I could no longer transport to the king and queen, if I thought hard of Mums, perhaps I could return to Earth with Little Miss. Then we would both be safe.
“Little Miss, do you want to do a little magic?” I asked with a broad smile, weighing about the possibilities. “Perhaps if we imagine your family, we may return to them. Would you like to try?” I asked the dear child.
Sammy suddenly looked overwhelmed and tired by this adult gathering. She looked at me with full, watery eyes and nodded fervently.
We stepped into the grand corridor and I seated us in a stone alcove with a window overlooking the lake.
“Now, there.” I patted Little Miss’s leg. “Just stare out into the misty waves of the lake, and imagine your parents, love.” I winked in reassurance.
We held hands, both of us picturing our home and then we sat in the palace no longer. However; home we were not. The light of a roaring bonfire illuminated a rustic campsite with thatched-roof houses and canvas tents. I observed the remnants of the Cyclops people and the bandaged, tattered queen.
Upon further inspecti
on, I sniffed and realized the bonfire burned not only wood, but also the dead. I barely recognized the crisp form attached to the burning pyre, poor soul. The queen’s beheaded sister’s remains lay at her feet. Tears shimmered in Fjodes’s eyes. The Cyclops Queen desired this not, but the laws of her people must be followed. Kwong and S’nik committed murder and treason. S’nik’s remains would be left for the animals. Anyone who buried her would be beaten. The law seemed barbaric, but Kwong and S’nik’s actions killed half of their people and must be dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly if their society was to succeed.
I placed my hand over Sammy’s eyes, but feared it too late. I knew not why we transported here. The only access to Earth may be through Blinking and the Little Miss must have envisioned her father. She had last seen him with Fodjes, but why weren’t we with Jim? This part perplexed me. For now we were safe and needed to engage the queen with our news, sharing the details of our last transport. Perhaps she could shed light in our darkened world.
Chapter 58
Jim
After what seemed like a lifetime of nursing my wounds in our large, empty bed, feeling sorry for myself, dread washed over me. With renewed anger, I sprang to the floor and waded through my closet looking for clothes. The familiar, worn Levis, blue-checked flannel shirt, and navy down vest felt like heaven. I treated my wounded hand and replaced the cloth with a large bandage. The apartment had been silent for a long while. Mindy must be working at ISMAT. I hoped she too hadn’t Blinked. Frizzy had mentioned the Blinks becoming ever more frequent.
I would catch the trolley car to her work and tell her about Sammy, the necromancer, and the war waging on Ortharos. I checked for the morning paper at the stoop to find the date. The apartment didn’t look so different from the night of my disappearance, so I figured I hadn’t turned into Rip Van Winkle. A pile of papers lay by the front door. No one had been here for days. The sound outside reassured me that the world continued without me. Mardi Gras racket floated up from the street. I pulled the rubber band off one of the papers. On the front page, I saw a sketch of a woman who resembled Mindy with a much bigger rack. Forgive me for saying, but she was a little too picture perfect to be my wife. The headline read, Woman’s Beauty Causes Hot Dog Throw Down. The event occurred the day after my Blink. I picked up another paper and it showed lightning over the construction site of the Superdome. It read, Electrical storm illuminates the Big Easy. I remembered a similar lightning storm on the horizon outside of the Cyclops fortress. I breezed through articles about disappearing loved ones and found a picture of six covered bodies tagged DOA on the cathedral steps. Blinks were speeding up on Earth, and I experienced a surge of urgency to see my wife and warn ISMAT. I tore off the sketch of the Mindy-look-alike and stuffed it into my pocket. I then scribbled a note and left it under a magnet on the fridge. In bright red ink it said, Honey, I am home. I grabbed my keys from the hook next to the door and pulled it shut behind me.
Throngs of people surged through the Quarter. The Bacchus Parade marched in route down Royal. Perfect timing, as usual. Jackie Gleason waved from the circus-themed boat. He nodded, winked, and threw me a doubloon, which I caught, and pocketed. I realized, this meant that the trolley car would not be running for a while during the long festivities. Unless you were driving a float, nothing with a motor and wheels would be allowed down any of the main thoroughfares for many blocks. Crap, I would be walking a long way. I sprinted into the crowd, elbowing my way through the claustrophobic throngs of clowns, monkeys, grown men in baby clothes, and old women in S&M leather bikinis with too much lipstick. Struggling through, it seemed like I was in some warped psychological nightmare and I longed for someone to wake me up.
A sharp smack stung my bottom making me jump. As I looked back, the eighty-year-old, leather clad twins waggled their riding crops and one deemed me a very naughty boy. I threw a glare, and the old lady’s painted lips pursed in a kiss. The other pushed her false teeth out then sucked them back in. “No lumps, no bumps. Ya want a smooth blow job?” she cackled. I cringed at the thought of the poor soul who drank too much tonight, and woke up between them. I sidled away from the snap of the other’s whip, shook my head no, and backed farther into the crowd, protecting my posterior.
I needed to move west, and a throng of parade floats blocked my way. I couldn’t run between them because of timing and proximity. I waited for the marching band to pass. They stopped every so often, and there might be enough room to quickly switch sides. During the parades, police officers frowned on jay-walking. It was the only law actually enforced during the chaos, so I would have to be quick. I kept wading through the waves of people, trying to avoid getting caught up in costume play. Mardi Gras was the one social occasion where civilized rules didn’t apply. I saw a woman and man engaged in fellatio as people walked around them, glancing with interest. I might have watched too under different circumstances, but right now I wanted no part of this non-stop circus act.
A band strode in sight, and I hurried to where they marched playing a steady stream of jazz. The great music had the crowd going wild. I squeezed my way to the front, pushing between a man with a woman on his shoulders, flashing her breasts, and a father holding two little ones. I didn’t have time to contemplate the lack of parenting skills in our fair city or wonder how this would affect the children a decade from now. As the woman lifted her small t-shirt to expose her jiggling rack, the float in front of the band let loose a stream of beads and doubloons that nearly knocked me out. I reached up to fend off the heavy plastic assault to my face, and my hands sank into something soft and squishy, like water balloons. Suddenly a fist slammed into my glass jaw, and I went from standing to my new position on the pavement instantly. I quickly deduced that I must have accidently grappled the woman’s breasts.
Dropping, I did a low crawl that would have made GI Joe proud. Half way across the street, between float and band, I heard a policeman’s whistle. The man with the woman still sitting astride his shoulders shouted, “Catch that pervert!”
I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder and couldn’t believe my crap luck. The man calling me a pervert wore an open trench coat with an overlarge, prosthetic penis waving between the folds. The woman’s top was still lifted above her breasts, but sure enough, the cop saw me jay-crawling and rushed after me like lightning. His whistle alerted the other bored officers. I needed a new route. I pushed my way to the center of the marching band managing a few apologies as I sent the tuba player into the drummer which led to a domino effect. I could hear the missed notes and random thumping of offbeat drums. People in the crowd shouted various versions of arrest him and others chanted for me to run and lose those pigs. At that moment I found humor in the fact that I faced three little pigs in costume. Only a short giggle escaped, because the three officers closed in, and I didn’t have many avenues left.
I leapt onto an oncoming float with mermaids sitting astride acrobat bars. They twirled and sat, twirled and sat, and then swung through the air swapping places. Men dressed like alligators gyrated to the float’s loud music and I tripped over a tail. As I made my way to the end of the float, I accidently grabbed a mermaid tail, as she swung to meet her merman partner. She fell on top of me, then flapped around squealing. I rolled her off me with an apology, but kept moving. Now, three officers, a merman, and two costumed gators chased me. I might have laughed, if my lungs didn’t burn from the impromptu cardio adventure and my jaw wasn’t swelling like a tennis ball.
Chapter 59
The Witch
As I fed a bit of stale bread that Max found to Yon Yon, the apparatus shook less. The energy that had been pouring in slowed until only a thin thread entered the cylinder.
“Seems to be cycling down,” Max said.
I tugged his sleeve. “Take me to it! During this lull I should not be affected as strongly. I can examine it and discover a way to shut it down.”
Max started to lift me. I let him, though my knee was probably strong enough to bear my weigh
t. Yon Yon chattered and curled her hand around my thumb.
“Oh, Yon Yon. I may have need of my hands,” I said.
Max eased his open hand to Yon Yon. “If you let me,” he murmured, “I can carry you too.”
Yon Yon released me and reached for Max. He lifted Yon Yon and perched her atop his shoulders. The little imp chirped and clutched Max’s ears.
As Max lifted me, we heard the pounding of many footsteps flooding the stairwell leading to our own destination. Our exit was cut off.
“Princess, we are out of time.” Max headed for the only other door.
“No, Max! Take me to the apparatus!”
“They will kill us. I won’t watch you die.”
“Max,” I said caressing his cheek, “They will find us. We would only delay the inevitable. Perhaps I can shut off the necromancer’s power source. If so, my death would not be in vain, but have a noble purpose.”
The undead’s clatter grew louder. Max rushed to the identical cylinders and set me before one. I put some weight on my leg and was gratified to find it only twinged a bit. I examined the levers and workings of the complex and confusing apparatus, as I clung to an odd wheel the size of my hand. Putting my weight on the wheel, I turned it counter-clockwise and, as I did, an arrow on the cylinder’s gauge lowered. Beside the arrow along the cylinder, I observed a line of vertical dashes. The top dash, where the arrow had originally been, had a small circle filled in black beside it. The lowest dash had an uncolored circle beside it. Next to the center of the line, there was a half-colored circle.
Could it be this simple?
As the undead filled the doorway, more energy began to zigzag from the orb, ratcheting the noise louder. “Max, go to the other cylinder. When I tell you, turn the wheel hard left as far as it can go.” I experimentally twisted the wheel. It was stiff, but moved. As soon as Max reached the other cylinder, the energy rushed in faster and again, I felt weak and dizzy. “Now, Max, Now!”
