by Joanne Boyd
I started shaking, and not from the cold.
I leaned over and threw up right there on the floor. When I stood back up I was sobbing and I knew I was being too loud. I closed my eyes and concentrated on slowing down my breathing again. I wanted nothing more than to run out of there and go home but I was too close to give up now.
I continued on without speeding up this time, ignoring my racing heart, my icy tears, the biting cold and the urge to throw up again.
Carefully, through the dead bodies. Slowly, toward the orb until finally, it was within reach.
I picked it up and the glass was so cold that I nearly dropped it again. This was it, finally. Just smash the orb and the spirits can escape. Then I could go home.
I held it above my head with both hands and slammed it into the ground.
The noise it made was loud enough for Albertino to hear – that was the good news.
The bad?
It didn’t break.
He was going to stop me before I released any of the spirits.
I heard the Tutu Fiend laugh.
“I can’t believe I was even worried, you’re so incompetent,” she said, “There’s no way he didn’t hear that. Hey, I heard you tell that idiot Jennah you’re thinking of taking up ballet? I have a feeling that when Albertino finds you in here he might let you join after all.”
Annie appeared next to me and I let out a squeal. No point being quiet now.
“You didn’t break it; you didn’t throw it hard enough!” She shrieked.
“I just need to get back to other side of the room where I’ll have more room to swing my arms,” I said.
“You should have done that in the first place, Ella! You needed to make your move as soon as he walked in but you can’t now. Just get out of here.”
“I can’t, I have to help you and Chester!”
“It’s too late now. We’re already dead and he’s already coming. Just get out, someone else will come eventually.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“They won’t.”
I needed to get the orb to the other side of the room where I could smash it for real but now I didn’t have time to be careful. I snatched it up and looked at the dead bodies.
This time, my fear was greater than my repulsion.
I ran for it, ignoring the feeling of frozen corpses brushing against me all over. I would have to freak out later when I had more time.
The Tutu Fiend was still laughing, “Won’t matter, he’s already coming.”
“You shut up, you evil witch,” Annie screamed back, “Ella, just get out. Forget about the orb.”
“Yeah, forget about it,” the Tutu Fiend added.
I could hear Albertino just outside. I grabbed a makeup table and dragged it toward the window, knocking half of its contents onto the floor. The basement door opened and suddenly the entire room lit up as Albertino stomped down the stairs. I was already on the table and rolling the orb out the window.
There was no way I was leaving it behind, not for anything.
Resting my elbows on the dirt outside, I started pulling myself up. It took all of my strength and I could feel the knife in my pocket dig into my leg as I put all my weight against the wall. I was sure that I had cut myself open but it didn’t matter as long as I got away. I managed to awkwardly escape but I paused for just a second trying to figure out my next move.
I felt a hand grip my ankle.
Chapter Six: Wake Up The Dead
It was now or never.
I turned and grabbed onto his wrist and went for the ring. He grabbed both of my wrists with his other hand and pulled me face first back in the way I came.
I landed half on top of him, knocking over the table and smashing my chin into the ground, splitting it open. Makeup supplies poured all over both of us. He grabbed a hold of my hair and I screamed in pain as he pulled.
“So Jennah tells me you want to join my studio, huh?” he said, his voice mocking. “I think we can arrange that.”
Laughing at his own joke again, he pulled tighter so I couldn’t move.
“You’re a murderer too, are you?” I said.
“Not ordinarily but I can make an exception for you,” he said, “You would look too adorable in a tutu. Ella the Bella-Rina,” he sang and started giggling again. The Tutu Fiend laughed along with him, not that he could hear. God I hated my name at that moment.
Annie was freaking out, telling me to get away. I had no idea how I was supposed to do that.
“You’re a monster,” I screamed at him.
“I’m a choreographer!” he screamed back. “It’s not my fault the dancers perform better once they’ve lost their passion for life.”
“You mean when they’re dead!”
“Fine, yes. But living dancers have too much… personality. They don’t conform the way the dead do.”
“That’s only because they don’t have a choice.”
“Now you get it! It’s all up to me! Finally my dancer’s ability doesn’t matter. It’s all about my unmatched creativity.”
“It’s not creative when you’re cheating!”
That made him yank my hair again and I cried out.
“It’s not like it’s easy to co-ordinate a bunch of corpses, you know. I practice all my routines for months before a show.” He calmed back down and his anger turned to laughter, “But that’s just the industry. You’ll find out first hand if you speak a word of this to anyone. My show must go on.”
He started laughing like this joke was unplanned and he just ‘got it.’
“But the dead are supposed to move on,” I said, “You’re keeping them here for stupid ballet of all things.”
He let out a gasp at my insult to his profession but immediately got over it.
“Who says where they’re going is any better? Who says there’s anywhere for them to go anyway?”
I didn’t know what to say to that because I had no idea where they were going. But I did know they didn’t belong here on Earth, and especially not hung up in a freezer. I could hear the Tutu Fiend laughing and Annie screaming at me but I couldn’t move while he had a hold of my hair like that. Desperate times… I retrieved the knife from my pocket and rolled over as much as I could.
I stabbed him in the side.
The awkward angle, the tiny blade and his extra storage of fat, meant that it couldn’t have gone very deep. Still, he screamed and let go of my hair. I crawled off him as he tried to grab at my feet.
The shovel was within reach.
I grabbed it and jammed it into his ribs. He grunted and let go.
I started up the stairs and as I got half way, I heard him call out, “Stop her!”
I looked up to the door expecting to see Jennah open it and corner me but that’s not what happened.
God, I wish that was what happened.
Annie and the Tutu Fiend had stopped screaming.
It was quiet now, except for some rustling noises coming from below me.
I looked down to see that he had forced Annie and the Tutu Fiend back into their bodies. He had forced all the spirits back into their bodies.
Chapter Seven: Knock ‘Em Dead!
As I stood there and watched, the ballerina corpses were undoing their nooses and dropping to the floor one by one. Hanging in a freezer all this time had left their joints stiff so they moved like zombies, though I suppose that’s technically what they were.
Annie’s body was kept right at the bottom of the stairs so unfortunately she was the first zombie to get to me. I apologised to my new friend and then smashed her in the face with the shovel.
She fell down a few steps but the other zombies just climbed right over her and kept coming. Using my shovel, I jabbed one in the forehead and hit another in the chest. I was smashing zombies like they were baseballs coming out of one of those automatic pitching machines, apologising each time.
Jab. “Sorry”. Whack. “Sorry”. Stab. “Sorry”.
I wasn’t hurting them, since they were already dead, but it still seemed… disrespectful.
When the body of the Tutu Fiend came up, she got no apology - just a kick to the gut followed by an upper cut with a shovel. I heard the bones in her face crunch and something snap.
“Not so pretty now, huh? There goes your ballet career, you psycho,” I yelled, fully aware that I was the one who sounded like a psycho.
The next zombie I smashed in the face flew right over the rail and hit the floor below.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry!” I called. But man, was I good at this.
Before I got too carried away taking out zombies, I realised Albertino was back up and on his way upstairs. I turned around to open the door behind me, ignoring the cold, stiff hands trying to grab my shoulders. If I had one thing to be thankful for at that moment it’s that frozen zombie hands don’t have a lot of grip strength.
I sprinted down a hallway, past what must have been Albertino’s office, past a few rehearsal rooms, back through the reception area and out the front door.
Jennah stood up and yelled at me to stop and then a few seconds later I heard her screaming.
“She’s going to ruin my show!” Albertino screamed at her, “My show must go on!”
I was already running around to the back of the building with the zombies following close behind.
“You lot, go around the other way!” I heard Albertino order.
Damn it.
The orb was where I left it but now the zombies were going to come at me from both sides.
This wasn’t like being on a narrow stairway, out here they would have plenty of room to spread out and corner me.
I looked around.
There was no way I could run out the back entrance and through the cemetery, they would overwhelm me. And even if they didn’t, they would keep following me, I couldn’t exactly lead them through the streets.
I looked to both sides and saw that the zombies were closing in with Albertino close behind them, shouting orders.
Now that I had stopped for a second, as ridiculous as it was, I realised how nice it felt to be in the sun after being so cold.
I wiped my face and looked at the blood on my hand, not sure if it was mine or Albertino’s. At least these weren’t the kind of zombies that would eat my flesh.
Unless he tells them to.
The only thing I could think to do now was go ahead with the original plan: destroy the necromancy orb. At least the spirits would escape and screw Albertino’s plans up big time.
I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen to me. After everything I had just been through, I wanted to at least accomplish one thing.
I took a breath and held the orb in one hand, aiming it towards the wall and...
Albertino called for the zombies to stop.
I turned to him, stunned.
He ran through the zombies, as I had done just before in the freezer.
He showed no remorse, no queasiness when he touched them though. Used to it, I supposed.
The zombies just stood still. They had no expressions on their frozen faces until you looked into their eyes.
Their eyes showed their anguish and horror, as they had done the first time I saw them on stage. Was that really only last night?
The Tutu Fiend was at the back and I had messed her face up even worse than I thought. And from the looks of it, I had also broken her neck. In her eyes I did not see pain or even anger. There was nothing there but pure hatred directed at me.
Albertino walked the last few metres and stood in front of them, stopping to bend over and pant for a second. He was clearly not a runner.
When he could stand again, he held his palms outward, a gesture of truce, and crept toward me.
“I’m sorry. Ok. Let’s talk about this,” he said, in between pants.
He wasn’t laughing or screaming anymore. He knew I wasn’t restricted out here.
I felt a calm wash over me.
I pegged the orb at the wall as hard as I could.
Albertino screamed as glass shattered everywhere, spraying the both of us. All the zombies collapsed as their spirits escaped.
Albertino used the last of his energy to charge at me, screaming as he did so.
I squealed and swung the shovel into his shins to trip him over. He was squirming on the ground and grabbing at my feet.
I held the shovel up vertically and brought it down onto his wrist. He screamed out in pain so I did it again. And again.
The next time I brought it down, I aimed for his fingers.
I don’t know if it was my intention to separate them from his hand but that’s what happened. He screamed and screamed.
I held the shovel up in the air like a golf club and swung it into his head, knocking him out, and finally, shutting him up.
I’m not sure but I think I might have been screaming throughout this whole encounter.
I looked down at the unconscious body I had just mutilated. I looked at the thirty or so corpses laying all over the yard in their ballet gear.
This wasn’t over yet.
I picked up the ring and shook out the dead finger.
Then I ran.
Chapter Eight: Dead End
I didn’t stop until I was sure I was safe from Albertino and from any walking corpses that might be following me.
It was unnecessary really, Albertino was unconscious and the dead bodies were just empty shells now.
But I don’t know how long I ran for.
Death and power emanated from the ring and I felt sick just holding it. Of course, it would have been astonishing if I hadn’t felt sick after what I just did.
I placed it on the ground and picked up a decent sized rock.
I smashed the ring, again picturing what I had just done to Albertino.
A swarm of black shadow exploded into the air and spiralled up toward the sky. I collapsed on the ground and cried for a good minute. Maybe two. Then I walked home.
* * *
Gran had made an anonymous call to the police and told them about the corpses in Albertino’s basement so last we heard he was sitting in prison. Or was it an insane asylum?
After everything that happened, as ridiculous as it sounds, I now see my abilities as more of a gift than a curse. Ok, so it’s scary, but look what I was able to do for all those spirits.
Annie never found me so I had to assume she moved on but I would always remember her as the friendliest and most helpful spirit I ever met.
Hopefully I would never see her again.
The Tutu Fiend on the other hand… well that’s a story for another time.
Jennah had later sought me out and apologised for ratting me out, insisting that she had no idea Albertino was that much of a freak. I apologised to her for leading a hoard of zombies through her place of work.
Maybe one day we would laugh about the whole thing.
The important thing now was that the spirits were free and Gran promised never to make me go to the ballet again.
Join Ella’s next deadful adventure in the new twice as long instalment, The PolterHeist…
Chapter One: Deal with the Dead
I drifted off in class again, only to wake up to someone screaming.
I jolted upright, causing my entire class to look at me, something I had become quite used to over the last couple of months, and then the screaming turned into hysterical laughter.
But it wasn’t my classmates laughing, they were used to this behavior by now. It definitely was not the teacher laughing, she was more than fed up with my constant disruptions.
It was a spoilt brat of a ballerina ghost who wouldn’t leave me alone.
“Sorry,” I said to Mrs. Fern who just glared at me and turned back to what she was doing.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” I whispered. I was sure that some of the other kids must have heard me but they didn’t even turn around to look.
“You know why,” she said in response.
Unfortunately, I did, but that didn’t make it any easier. A few months ago, I thought I was doing the right thing when I went into a ballet studio and saved the spirits who were being forced into their corpses and made to dance on stage by a crazy necromancer. But his little cult follower and the brains behind the whole idea, the Tutu Fiend as I called her, didn’t see it that way.
Beside me, someone knocked on the window, making me jump again. I got another glare from Mrs. Fern.
“Hey, you,” the perky brown-haired boy of about 13 standing outside said, “Can you hear me?”
I didn’t respond. He was clearly a ghost.
“I saw you jump, don’t try and pretend!”
I looked down at my work.
“Please, no one else will listen to me, I need your help!”
I sighed and raised my hand.
“Miss, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Forget about it, Ella, you use that one every lesson.”
And of course today of all days was the one she finally caught on.
“I’m sick,” I said.
Mrs. Fern, the English teacher who used to like me, narrowed her eyes for about the tenth time today.
“Fine. But hurry up.”
I got up and went outside, but couldn’t see where the ghost had gone. I looked around and spotted him on the school oval, of all places. I pointed to the girl’s toilets and began walking that way. He looked appalled.
He was young and he was going to be difficult.
I couldn’t just yell out to him or my teacher would hear me so I walked like I was going to the bathrooms but went around a building and towards the oval, which was extremely easy to see from the class I had just ditched. I would need to be quick before anyone saw me. I ran over to him.
“Look, I’m sorry for pretending not to hear you. Any other time, I would be happy to help. It’s what I usually do but I just can’t do it right now. It’s hard enough keeping my sanity with this one hanging around,” I said, motioning the Tutu Fiend.
“She’s another spirit I thought I was helping but ever since I met her, she’s been harassing me and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even know who she is, other than a vicious, vengeful witch intent on ruining my life.”
“That about sums it up,” Tutu Fiend said.
I looked over my shoulder towards the classroom and saw some kids were already looking outside.
