S. James Nelson
Keep Mama Dead
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Keep Mama Dead
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen Nelson
Cover art by Arthur Nelson. Contact him at [email protected].
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
First edition: November 22, 2011
Dear reader,
Thank you for purchasing Keep Mama Dead. I absolutely love this book, and had a ball writing it. Every time I’ve revised it, I’ve grown to love it more. I hope you find it just as enjoyable.
I would love it if you stopped by www.sjamesnelson.com and let me know what you think of the book. In addition, I invite you to leave a rating and review of the book on Amazon.com. I would be much obliged if you did. Thank you.
Also--in case you haven’t already read it--I have another book out, called The Demigod Proving. It’s a fantasy novel, geared toward the same crowd that likes the Wheel of Time, Mistborn, and Runelords. I’d say it’s worth a read if you’re into fantasy novels.
Thanks, again! Enjoy Keep Mama Dead!
Best,
S. James Nelson
For Liesl, who has ever supported and loved me beyond my comprehension.
Table of Contents
Part I: The Fading
Chapter 1: A replacement for magic
Chapter 2: Dead Soon
Chapter 3: Magical Implements
Chapter 4: Zombie raisers
Chapter 5: First time in twenty years
Chapter 6: Rescued
Chapter 7: The benefits of marriage
Chapter 8: Helping Mama
Chapter 9: Cries of desperation
Chapter 10: An invitation to court
Chapter 11: Home invader
Chapter 12: Risks of resurrection
Chapter 13: The unfelt wind
Part II: Across the nation
Chapter 14: An unexpected proposal
Chapter 15: Making a stand against zombies
Chapter 16: Human, once
Chapter 17: A blown opportunity
Chapter 18: Guilty intentions
Chapter 19: A secret not meant for family
Chapter 20: A resolve is born
Chapter 21: Turned opinions
Chapter 22: A solution involving flames
Chapter 23: Damned
Part III: Angel’s Landing
Chapter 24: Undead infestation
Chapter 25: Desecration of holy ground
Chapter 26: How to create a tornado
Chapter 27: Time to run
Chapter 28: The third gift
Chapter 29: Mama’s scent
Chapter 30: Battle on the brink
Chapter 31: Chosen to save
Chapter 32: Worst shot in sanctuary
Chapter 33: Thomas’s sacrifice
Chapter 34: Pokes in the soul
Chapter 35: Over the edge
Chapter 36: Freedom from bonds
A note from the author
Acknowledgements
Part I: The Fading
In 1871, Henry Stanley traveled to the African jungles to find David Livingstone, who taught him about the natives’ mystical practices and rites. I cannot help but wish they’d left those mysteries there.
Chapter 1: A replacement for magic
Thomas needed to help Mama die and stay dead, but first he had to save his little brother’s second life.
So, he followed Franky out to the front porch, where Papa had already assumed his place in the rocker. Only a miracle—such as some unexpected victuals—would get him out of the chair before lunch. Thomas jumped down all three porch steps to the dirt, and stopped.
"Where you going, Franky?" he said.
Near the corner of the house, fourteen-year-old Franky stopped but didn’t turn. "Same place I go every day.”
"That so?" Thomas said.
“I ain't going to use magic. I promise.”
"Then where's your fishing pole?"
"I'm going to make one."
True, no doubt. But he always crafted puny fishing poles that broke, unless—thanks to some idiot at the hatchery near Zion’s Canyon—he cast a spell. Sure, it made the fish lighter on the line, kind of lifted them toward the water’s surface, but it cost some second-life days, and using second-life days for that was like trading gold for dirt.
Problem was, Franky didn’t know any better. He just wanted to catch fish; the spell helped, so he used it. Thomas could imagine the expression Franky would make when he realized he just couldn’t cast any more spells.
So, to prolong the coming of that day, Thomas had prepared a little surprise for Franky, and left it in the barn.
"Before you go," he said, "get me the hoe out of the barn."
Franky's shoulders slumped. "You ain't even had breakfast yet."
Thomas raised his eyebrows.
With a scowl, Franky turned and started to trudge along a narrow path of beaten red dirt. Worn smooth by twenty years of daily use, it ran about fifty yards from the house to the barn. To the path’s right, sunlight crept up the field that stretched a hundred yards downhill to the barbed-wire fence and dirt road. Thomas knew it was a trick of the morning sunlight, how it called out the reddish brown hues, but the field seemed to beg for planting, for the chance to expend its strength in nourishing life. It had thus begged many mornings for two years.
Thomas hoped to appease the pleas over the next few days. He wanted to get his hands in that soil. Turn it, lose himself in that work. Nothing made him happier than that.
To the path’s left, the morning light, shooting at a narrow angle over the land, cast shadows in the furrows that Thomas had plowed the day before. Brilliant red lines of turned soil extended out parallel to the path, separated by the shadowed furrows. That field extended west, to out behind the house, where the ridge steepened. Franky wanted to head that direction, toward the reservoir. But he would never get there shuffling along like that, in defeat.
“I’m going to need that hoe before tomorrow,” Thomas said. “A little speed in your step wouldn’t hurt.”
Franky glared, but began to run along the dirt path. Twenty feet along, Stanley darted out from the side of the house, barking and leaping near Franky.
"Shut that mutt up," Papa said. "Your Mama can't take that kind of noise in her condition. Doc'll tell you the same."
Thomas didn’t look at him. He knew what he would see. Papa slumped there, gut bulging against his overalls and gray shirt, straw hat pulled low over his brow. Soft hands gripping the rocker arms as if to make sure he didn’t fall off, and feet rocking from heel to toe, heel to toe in the purest form of unthinking habit.
Franky reached the barn and pulled the door open. Stanley yelped and started to run back up the path at the hinges' wailing. They needed oiling as surely as most of the boards needed replacing. They’d long since blackened and cracked. The entire structure’s two-story frame leaned to the right, downhill, like it wanted to assume Papa's frequent horizontal repose. Many of the wooden shingles on the roof had curled and warped, had lived long past their expected life.
“That dog will make her sicker with that yapping," Papa said. "She needs some peace so she can get better."
Get better? Not likely. She already walked with the dead.
Franky entered the barn. Stanley headed back up the path, toward Thomas. Due to a recent cow kick to the head, the dog ran a bit crooked. Mud and water darkened his brown fur, matted his legs and belly.
Thomas turned to look at Mama. She stood in the kitchen’
s open window, just to the left of the open front door. The rising sun's light hit the back of her colorless dress straight on, and lit up the entire front of the house. The usually black boards glistened silver in the light—all except for two below the kitchen window. Last year Thomas had gone to St. George and bought those to replace some that had simply fallen apart from being leaned on so much. Light brown and un-warped, the new boards looked like the bandages they were.
The window’s shutter—three boards nailed together with a diagonal slat—lay open against the house, next to the glassless window. The creak of that window opening had awoken Thomas ten minutes before, just like it did every morning. He would never oil those hinges.
Usually, Mama’s voice accompanied the screech of the window. Get up, Thomas! The day’s half gone by now and you’ve got work to get to!
On the window’s left, a second window, to Mama and Papa’s room, also hung open. From his angle, Thomas could only see the wall and ceiling to that room. To the kitchen window’s right, the front door hesitated like an old man that couldn't quite get inside. Down low, at the wooden threshold, dust motes played in the sunlight. Further to the right, a gray sheet of fabric covered an otherwise open window. The fabric had once been white, and hadn’t had any holes, but Thomas could barely remember those days.
Above it all, a porch stretched along the entire length of the house, with a simple pole railing in front, split in half because of the three steps in the porch’s center, directly in front of the door. The porch sagged in the middle, where it got most of its traffic—although Papa spending most if his time nearby surely worked to wear down its structural integrity, day after day, year after year. Above it, the roof of the house extended out, so that Papa could sit most of the day in the shade. Just not in the morning, when Mama worked in the house.
Thomas had first sensed her imminent passing two days before, when she'd stopped making eye contact and started moving slower each hour. Soon, she'd fallen silent, and about then her eyes slid clean over you like you weren’t even there. And to her, you probably weren’t.
She got sick, sometimes, but not like this. Usually it only lasted a day or so, and she would sit in her bed, weary and half-dead, but ornerier than usual as she berated the family and ordered Thomas around more than usual. This was different.
Thomas had heard of this. When he was kid, his friends had talked about it late at night, or out in the deep forest, to try and scare each other. It was called the fading. It was what people did who had used up their second-life days. They became walking corpses. Zombies who had not yet died, expiring over several days.
As he’d realized this—that his Mama was fading—a creeping melancholy had grown on him.
No, Mama wouldn’t get better. Her body wasn’t sick. It was her soul that ailed. No one could do anything for that.
All anyone could do was help her die faster.
Just inside the door, Clara May sat at the table, still prattling on about gathering eggs. Her voice hung over the rhythm of Mama kneading her dough, leaning over the counter as she worked, moving slow, like she thought real hard about every motion even though she'd done the same thing every morning for two decades. That sound of her folding and working the dough, the smell of that flour, and the light angling up the hill across the fields—they defined morning for Thomas.
It was time for her pass on. She'd suffered enough for any one person. She deserved a long rest, deep in the ground. And she wanted it. He knew her well enough to know that.
Problem was, how to make sure she got it? Because if Thomas knew his family, the Bakers—and he'd spent nineteen years getting to know them—they would try to resurrect her.
He felt wetness at his hand.
"Still afraid to go into the barn?" he said.
With his moist nose, Stanley nudged Thomas’s hand again, rubbed his body up against Thomas's leg. He wuffed.
"I don't blame you," Thomas said. "Getting kicked by a cow will make grown men afraid of barns."
He scratched Stanley's back, and the dog gave him a grin. His shaggy fur needed trimming.
Franky emerged from the barn. “Look at what I found!”
He started back toward the house, this time with enthusiasm in his step. In one hand he held a fishing pole and in his other a whole lot of nothing—specifically, no hoe. It didn’t matter, though. The hoe had been a ruse to get him into the barn.
He lifted the fishing pole as he ran, his face turned up as if he’d just bested a hundred foes in battle. Never mind his bare feet, his overalls with holes in the knees and the cuffs turned up, and lack of a shirt—he still looked like the victor of a war. Stanley ran toward him, barking.
“What’s that?” Thomas shouted. He removed his straw hat and scratched his head. “Is that—is that a fishing pole?”
Franky hooted as he ran back up the path, toward the house.
“Quit your bellering!” Papa said.
Thomas raised his voice. “That looks like a brand new fishing pole.”
Franky laughed. His eyes shone beneath his brown curls as he skidded to a halt by Thomas. He stood a full head shorter, and had the straightest teeth in the family.
“You’ll disturb Mama.”
“Where’d that come from?” Thomas said.
“Found it by the tools. Think I could use it?"
“I bet," Thomas said, "that with that pole you wouldn’t have to use magic to catch fish. It's probably already got magic that keeps it from breaking.”
“You think a pole like this could catch a big fish?”
“Probably one as big as you. Without you casting your spell. Maybe you should go see.”
“You think so?”
“Head on up to the reservoir. But listen. That pole is so you don't have to use your second-life days. Understand?”
Franky had already turned and started sprinting along the path. Stanley ran alongside him, and before they disappeared around the house, Franky tried to kick him.
"Get away! You scare the fish!"
"Don't use your magic,” Thomas said. “Understand?"
Franky disappeared around the house. Stanley, too—but after a moment the dog came back.
“You need to keep that boy quiet,” Papa said.
Meaning to respond to the ridiculous request, Thomas turned his back to the rocker, so he could look down the lane that extended out from the house, separating the northeast and southeast fields. He would rather look at that field than Papa any day. Horses he hadn’t noticed before passed inside the barbed-wire fence, turning up the lane as if riding the rays of sunlight. The sound of their hooves rolled up the hill.
His retort to Papa never came out, for on one of the horses rode an angel.
* * *
She wore a white dress. The still-rising sun hit it so she glowed. Her blonde hair bounced behind her, turning the morning light into a halo around her head. Even from a hundred yards out, Thomas could see she moved in a comfortable rhythm with her mount, with grace and ease. The dust rising behind her horse hung yellow in the air, a trail of stardust.
Thomas stared, not paying the other rider much heed.
He'd kissed a few girls back before his friends had all gotten married, but never considered courting one. However, the mere sight of how this girl moved and glowed—even at the distance—tempted him to rethink.
She rode at a gallop up the sloping lane toward the house, up past the field Thomas planned to fertilize that day. Only when she reached house and the second rider dismounted—and Stanley jumped up on him—did Thomas realize who her companion was: Mr. Robert Milne.
"I got word," he said. "Caroline isn't well."
"A man can't get ahead in this life," Papa said. "She took sick two days back. We sent for doc and he said that barring paying customers, he'd come today."
Mr. Milne fought Stanley down without the usual laugh, and lashed his horse to the rail in front of the porch.
"I need to see her."
"She's inside,"
Papa said.
But she didn't stand at the counter anymore. And the pounding of dough had stopped. Clara May had also disappeared from the table. They'd probably gone out back.
The girl dismounted by flipping one leg back over the horse like a man would have, revealing long stockings up to her knees. Most women wouldn’t ride a horse like she had, let alone in a dress, and certainly none would dismount without a little help from a man. From her horse's saddle she pulled a folded white parasol and opened it. She held it upright, so its shaft didn’t touch her shoulder. At that angle, the sunlight snuck in under the parasol’s frilly edges.
Thomas had never seen Mr. Milne carry a gun, but he removed a rifle from his horse’s saddle and lighted up the three steps of the porch, skipping the second.
He motioned at the girl before going into the house. "This is Miss Sadie. My...guest."
Stanley followed Mr. Milne into the house.
Papa paused his rocking long enough to lift his bottom out of the chair about two inches, and bobbed his head. Then he collapsed back down with a grunt. Miss Sadie stood at the bottom of the steps.
"It's true," Papa said. He rubbed his hands along the top of his overalls and squinted at the horizon. "A man can’t catch a break, I tell you. Not a single break. Ain’t nothing gone right in my life since the day I didn't get my blessing.”
Miss Sadie turned to face Thomas. She looked seventeen. Maybe eighteen. About the same age as Clara May. Just a year or two younger than him. Tanned skin like everyone else's, but smooth like a child's. Freckles stretched over her nose. And long lashes framed green eyes.
“That’s my son, Thomas,” Papa said. He gestured by lifting a hand about an inch from his thigh.
She gave Thomas a smile unlike any he’d ever seen. Not flashy and all teeth, and not looking down or away. But directly at him, closed-lipped, the right corner of her mouth rising more than the other, and the left eyebrow lifting a little.
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