Seeing my distress, Henry jumped off his bed and came to sit down next to me on the couch. He patted my arm awkwardly. Certain that the tears were inevitable, I threw my arms around Henry’s neck and dug my face into his chest.
“This is so weird,” I muttered.
“Which part?” Henry asked wryly.
“I don’t think there are enough hours in the day for me to list them all. I know I’m the same person as before, but it’s…somehow different. You wouldn’t understand.” I unwrapped my hands from Henry’s neck, stood up and started pacing nervously. With a huge sigh, I flopped onto Henry’s bed and covered my face with a pillow.
“Stop being a drama queen and try me. Look, we have to figure out what happened here. What feels different?” Henry grabbed the pillow. “Now talk, woman.”
“Fine. But let me have my pillow. It helps me think.” I pulled the pillow back over my face. “I don’t know. It’s like just a minute ago I figured I was going to burst into tears; I actually kind of wanted to get it out. But it’s almost like I physically can’t cry.”
“And,” I continued in a muffled voice, “when I was climbing over your fence, I scraped the top layer of skin off my knee. Look.” I pointed in the direction of my right kneecap. “See how torn up it is? And I barely flinched. It didn’t even bleed.”
“Wait, are you sure you scraped your right knee?” Henry asked.
“Yes, I still do know the difference between right and left.”
“No, no, something is wrong. Neither of your knees have scabs or cuts or bruises or anything out of the ordinary. They’re the same two knobby knees you’ve always had.”
“Huh?” I shot up into a sitting position on the bed to examine my knees. Sure enough, they looked normal, no sign of any recent trauma.
“Ugh, this is what I’m talking about! Nothing makes sense!”
But Henry looked intrigued. “Can we try something? An experiment?”
“I don’t know,” I grumbled. “Only if it isn’t an experiment on me.” I expected Henry to laugh but instead he gave me one of his classic fake smiles: all teeth and I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t the least bit amused.
“Great, now you really have got me worried. I think I have enough on my plate without becoming a human guinea pig, thank you very much!”
“Rory,” Henry tried to butter me up by using my nickname, “how many years have we been friends? You know I’m trying to help. Now give me a minute and I’ll be right back.”
After Henry left the room, I walked around, looking to see what had changed since I’d last been here. He used to have a picture up of the two of us, taken on a school field trip a couple of years ago. But it wasn’t on the dresser anymore. How long did he wait to take it down after I died?
I hadn’t really stopped to think what impact my death would have had on so many people. It must have crushed Kayla.
Henry returned, obviously hiding something behind his back. “What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.
“Just hear me out before you say no.” Not giving me a chance to interject, Henry continued. “You said it yourself; something just isn’t right. I have a theory and I promise this is a painless way to prove or disprove it.”
I looked at Henry warily. “Go on.”
He revealed what he had behind his back. “Is that a needle?!” I asked incredulously.
“Listen,” Henry said as he started walking towards me. “You said you don’t feel pain anyway. And unless you imagined bashing up your knee, there’s no way it could heal in that amount of time!”
“I didn’t imagine it!” I snapped.
“Exactly.” Henry paused, obviously weighing his next words. “You’re here, but what if you’re not…human?” He gulped nervously.
“So you want to see if I bleed. Is that it?” For every step Henry took towards me, I took another step backwards. I was about to be backed against a wall, literally, if I didn’t do something.
I darted to the left and made a dash for the bathroom, locking myself inside.
“Aurora!” Henry was pounding on the door. “You’re being silly.”
“Whatever!” It was a lame retort, but the best I could come up with.
I heard a defeated sigh on the other side of the door. “Fine, just think about what I said. You know it makes sense. All I wanted to do was prick your finger. That doesn’t even hurt regular people!”
And with that Henry stomped off.
Chapter 4
I walked over to the bathroom mirror and peered tentatively at my face. I looked the same as usual. Same long dark brown hair, green eyes, slightly upturned nose. No worse for wear. And I’ve been in that grave for a stinking year?
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and buried my head in my hands. What if Henry’s right? What if I am a monster?
Well, I could see myself in the mirror, so at least I wasn’t a vampire. I hoped. Vampires aren’t real anyway. Right?
Maybe I had some cool new superhuman power like Wolverine, and that was why my knee healed so quickly. I liked that idea much better.
No longer mad at Henry, I decided to venture downstairs and hope he had forgotten his hair-brained needle idea.
When I got to the first floor, Henry was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room, staring at the computer screen. He looked up when he heard my footsteps. His face was pale. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I couldn’t take much more tonight. I was already on overload!
“Since you vetoed the ‘test’ I suggested, I thought I’d do a little research to see if this kind of thing has happened before. What I’m finding is a little bit disturbing.”
I plopped down on the couch. “Tell me, Henry. I can take it.”
“What makes this case kind of unusual, is, well – “ Henry paused and cleared his throat.
“Yes?” I prompted him.
“Did you know it’s 3 a.m.?” Henry asked.
“Uh, okay. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“What do you want to bet you, er, woke up, right at midnight?” Henry gestured to the computer. “That’s what I was researching. Apparently, this kind of thing isn’t completely unheard of. Check this out.” He turned around and started reading.
“The rise of the un-dead has been a popular theme in movies and fictional stories dating back as far as the 1700s. But what people don’t realize is how many of these stories are based off of documented events. In 1780, it was reported that a woman who had died of blunt trauma awoke one year to the day of her death and went on to kill over 40 people in her village.”
“It keeps going, Rory, but I don’t know if you want to hear anymore.” Henry wouldn’t look at me.
“So what are you implying?” I asked defensively. “That I’m going to go ballistic and take out the entire town?” I was getting fired up again. “I mean, how many years have you known me?”
“It’s not a personal assault on you,” Henry retorted. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
We sat in tense silence until Henry finally spoke again. “That’s only one story. There are others that don’t turn out like that. But the common thread does seem to be waking up at the stroke of midnight on the one-year anniversary. And the jury is still out on whether the ‘new improved’ version that emerges is actually human.”
Henry jumped up from the computer seat. “You sure you’re not hungry or something? I could really use a snack.” He fanned his face dramatically.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m good.”
“But you really should eat something.”
“What’s the big deal? I’m not hungry. You’re the one who fainted; you probably do need to eat.”
“But you’re not thirsty either?”
“Henry, where is this going?” I was getting exasperated. Henry always did this. He would beat around the bush instead of just coming out and saying what he was thinking.
“What?” he asked innocently. “We have ice cream. That used to be your favorite. I just th
ought you might need a refreshment after a year in the ground. So sue me.”
“I just might,” I replied grumpily. “We have bigger issues to deal with and your weirdness is freaking me out.”
“So you don’t have any, um, urges, at all?” Henry pressed on.
I didn’t like where this was going. I couldn’t think clearly enough to engage in the human vs. monster debate tonight, so I pretended to play dumb. “I have the urge to punch you right now. Does that count?”
“Well, I see you haven’t lost your impeccable sense of humor,” he commented wryly. “I was just mildly concerned – I’m sure I’m probably overreacting – but there were more than a few of those stories where the individual who was, um, resurrected from the dead, so to speak, had some unsavory cravings.”
“Like?”
“You know. Like in horror movies. The zombie horror movies, specifically.”
“If you’re telling me you think I’m going to try to eat your brains then I really am going to punch you!” I shrieked.
“Cut me a little slack, Rory. You’ve been buried. In a grave. For a year! You can’t blame me for worrying you might have come back as a zombie. You are undead, after all.”
The truth was, even though I was appalled at Henry’s suggestion, there was a little nagging voice in the back of my brain (if I had one, that was) thinking that he might be right.
I sighed. “Yeah, I guess I can’t blame you for worrying about a thing like that. If it’s any consolation, the thought of eating brains is completely repulsive.” For now, I added silently.
“And I promise to tell you if that changes, hopefully before I eat your brains.” I forced a laugh.
Henry smiled. “Okay, well, I’m exhausted and I need a couple of hours of sleep so I can think about this clearly. My mom and dad get back Sunday night. That leaves all day today and most of tomorrow before you have to stay hidden in the house. Do you want to crash in the guest room?”
“Sure.” I didn’t have the heart to tell Henry that I was pretty certain zombies didn’t need to sleep, either. I’d save that nugget of information for later.
Chapter 5
While Henry slept, I read. And everything I was finding was making me feel worse and worse about the entire situation. Heck, I was almost ready to send myself back to the grave! (Which, by the way, seemed to be a very real possibility.)
I shuddered, but not from the cold. I had figured out that being undead was basically the polar opposite of being alive. Since I no longer had functioning organs, there was no need for food or water. And the weirdest of all: my inability to breathe. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it immediately, it seemed so obvious now. Although I hadn’t found anything online about rapidly healing wounds. Who knows? Maybe I really did have some Wolverine, er, Wolver-zombie type power?
I was about to go wake Henry up so I could fill him in on my findings, but stopped when I heard a noise that sounded like it came from the kitchen. He must be getting something to eat. Can’t believe I didn’t hear him come downstairs.
“Henry?”
Silence.
“Henry?” I called a little louder this time. That’s strange. I’m sure he can hear me.
I got up and headed to the kitchen. As soon as I pushed open the swinging door, I knew something was wrong. There was another door in the kitchen that led to the carport. And it was slightly ajar.
I spun around, looking to all corners of the room, but no one was there. The house was huge, and there was no way I could search the whole thing. And if someone were actually inside, I’d prefer not to confront him or her on my own, anyway. I might be dead, but I was still a wuss.
The door to the kitchen was one of those old-timey swinging doors, the kind you would see in saloons of western movies. I never liked it much. There were a lot of outdated things about the house, and I couldn’t understand why the Matthews hadn’t changed more of it when they bought it. The closed off kitchen was uninviting, and I didn’t like not being able to see into a room before I entered.
I didn’t think that the kitchen door had been moving when I first came through, so most likely the intruder had left via the carport door. Hoping my assumption was correct, I ran to the carport door and locked the deadbolt without even looking to see if someone was hanging around outside. Henry was going to have to come down and check that out with me.
Then, I bolted up to the third floor and barged into Henry’s room. He was sleeping in his boxers on top of his covers. Damn, when did he get so ripped? I hadn’t spent much time staring at his chest over the years, but I knew from the summers we spent swimming at the YMCA that it didn’t use to look like that.
“Wake up!” I commanded, shaking him. I tried not to stare at his tight boxers, although I couldn’t help but sneak a peek. They appeared to be concealing an equally chiseled butt.
Henry was rubbing his eyes in confusion. “What? Is everything okay?”
“Not really! Get up. I think somebody was in the house. I heard a noise in the kitchen and the carport door was open.”
We thundered down the stairs and back into the kitchen.
“I don’t see anything out of place and the door is closed,” Henry said, looking around.
“Well I wasn’t going to go up to the attic and leave the door unlocked, so any psycho off the street could wander in!”
“You know we do have a fence, Aurora.” Henry was starting to look more skeptical by the second.
“Of course I know that!” I snapped. “I had a freaking blast climbing over it this morning,” I added sarcastically.
Henry turned away. I hadn’t meant to take it out on him. It was legitimate that he would question me. After being gone for an entire year, how could I expect him not to be completely dazed and confused at the sight of his best friend, back from the grave but quite obviously not human?
I reached out and touched Henry’s arm. “Hey,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to snap. My nerves are fried.”
“I know. You’ve got to understand what I’m going through, too. It’s been a whole year, Aurora. Everything has changed. We all had to come to terms with you not being around. It wasn’t much fun.”
“That reminds me. You still haven’t told me how I kicked the bucket.” I was hoping to lighten the mood. I had never faced death before, and could only imagine how painful it must have been, especially in the beginning.
“Not funny.” But he was smiling. So it must be a little bit funny.
“I feel like I’m all over the place. First things first: I swear that door was open. But yes, the fence is a bit of an obstacle for getting in the house. I should know. Maybe the wind blew it open? At any rate, I’ll agree to say that it’s been one weird-ass morning and it seems farfetched that on this day of all days someone would jump the fence and break into the kitchen just to have a look around.” Actually, when I put it that way, my freak out just a few minutes before seemed silly.
“Yeah,” Henry said, “I really can’t see anyone going to all that trouble and then just leaving. We even have an alarm; I just forgot to set it after you showed up.”
“Okay, well now that we have that settled, I’m dying to know what happened. Get it?”
Henry groaned. “Enough with the dead jokes! I was thinking, since today is the anniversary of your death, that grave is going to get some visitors. Please tell me you filled in the hole you crawled out of?”
“Eww, don’t say it like that. It makes me sound like one of those things that comes out of the ground in Thriller.”
Why won’t he tell me how I died? It was obvious he was intentionally changing the subject. I decided to drop it…for now. What if I had gotten mangled in some horrible accident? Or maybe he witnessed me die, and he was too traumatized to talk about it. Oh my God, what if Henry killed me?
Okay, so that last thought was pretty dumb. Henry was my BFF. I had known him almost half my life!
“To answer your question, no, I did not re-build the grave. I was ki
nd of in a hurry to get out of there.”
“I hate to say it, but we’d better take care of it.” Henry glanced at the clock. “I didn’t realize I slept so late! It’s almost 8. We need to go now!”
Henry and I rushed to the garage and he grabbed a shovel that was propped against the wall. I pressed the button on the wall to lift the garage door.
“Wait,” Henry said. “You’re dead, remember? You can’t go to your grave without a disguise!”
“And I do look ridiculous in this pink dress.”
“I think you look nice,” Henry said. “I always liked that dress.”
“Well, thanks for the compliment, but you’re right. I need a makeover. And fast. The later it gets, the more likely my friends and family will start lining up to pay their respects.”
We hurried back upstairs. Ten minutes later, I was re-outfitted in Henry’s jeans (cinched at the waist with a necktie) and an oversized (on me, at least) polo shirt. I had tucked my dark hair under a baseball cap. It was a strange look, but at least I didn’t look like me. I decided to ditch my black dressy flats and go barefoot since Henry’s shoes were so big they made me look like I was wearing clown shoes.
“I guess if I step on any glass at least it will heal in like 3 seconds,” I quipped as we walked outside the front door. “Hey, where are you going?” Henry was heading back towards the garage.
“Didn’t you see my car?”
“Oh! I figured it was your mom’s.” Henry’s mom seemed to get a new car like most people got new hairstyles.
He held up a key set and grinned. “Nope. I’m 17 now, remember? Parents finally got me a car. We’re going to the graveyard in style.”
Chapter 6
It was surreal being back in the cemetery. In the light of day, it looked completely different than it had at midnight. It was a huge property that must have stretched miles in length. I turned to Henry. “We could be hours finding my grave!”
“Just follow me.” Henry led the way, walking purposefully, head down. I wonder how many times he’s been here?He seems to know where he’s going.
Living Dead Girl (Vampire Hunter Book 1) Page 2
