Only Human

by Meredith Katz

  The flickering lights and patterns of symbols in the air didn't make any sense to him, but they seemed to make sense to her. They weren't making her look any happier, which wasn't making him feel any happier.

  She eventually sighed and looked up him with an expression less grim than he was expecting after all that. "Mr. Jastrow, what's been done here is certainly a curse. There are two ways to break it, I'll tell you that up front."

  "Okay," Saul said, saved from panicking at the last moment. "But what even is it?"

  "It's a necrotic curse," Richardson said, nose wrinkling slightly. She adjusted her glasses and then took a seat next to the examination table. "Mr. Jastrow, it's also a sexual curse. It will cause your skin to slowly decay unless you—well, there's no pleasant way to put this. Unless you put dead flesh into your body in a sexual context."

  The world swam, briefly. "Excuse me?"

  "It goes far beyond a simple prank," Richardson said grimly. "If left untreated, it could kill you. But," she added, "don't worry. I promise we can take care of this. You'll be just fine."

  Saul forced himself to draw slow, deep breaths. "Why?" he asked plaintively, and regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth. It wasn't like she could know.

  She seemed to take the question seriously regardless. "I'd like to know that myself," she said. "Do you know who may have done this to you? The use of magic is strictly regulated, and magic that can harm or kill others… I have a duty to disclose it to the authorities if there is a reasonably suspected practitioner."

  He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose and regretted it immediately as he got another good look at one of the darker splotches on his skin. "I… I don't know," he said. "I had a hookup recently, and this started shortly after that, so I talked to her, and she said she had a jealous ex, but he apparently wasn't very good at magic. I don't know if it's coincidence or if it means anything. It's probably nothing? She said she hadn't seen him at the bar that night, so it seems unlikely, but…"

  "I see," Richardson said neutrally. "Well. Let's put that aside and talk about curing you."

  "Please," he said gratefully.

  "I should be able to have that spell broken. It may take a little set-up, but shouldn't require too much from you. I'll need to work in tandem with a curse doctor, as it is both necromantic and a curse in its nature, and I'll need to get some supplies from you to make a decoy to transfer the curse to, but it should only take a week or two to set up, and the rate of decay you're exhibiting will give you a year or more before any irreversible effects settle in. I suspect the curse was set to humiliate you, not kill you, so we have that to be thankful for."

  Saul nodded jerkily. A few weeks didn't sound so bad in the overall context of things, and he almost asked for that option right away, but something else she'd said came back to mind. "You said there were two ways? What's the other?"

  Her expression became oddly neutral. "You could complete the curse's requirements. It would then break off you and alert the caster that their spell was a success. The disadvantages to that method are clear. In fact, the only real advantage is that I would be able to put a tracker on the curse and would have admissible evidence of who the caster was and that they'd cast maleficia."

  He heard himself make a strange noise. "Which… would get them in trouble. Prevent them from doing this to someone else. Or recursing me, for that matter."

  "Precisely so," Richardson said. "However, my first obligation has to be to your health and comfort. I won't recommend that course of action for you, but if it's something you have no issue with, then it may be viable."

  Where have no issue with meant… "Necrophilia is a crime too," he pointed out, and laughed, weak and forced. "Isn't there… any way around it? A dead flesh capsule I can swallow? That'd get it into me…" He almost asked, too, why it would require something put inside him, but left the question unasked. If the spell was meant to humiliate him... well, whoever cast it would have had no way of knowing he was bi. The intention was what mattered.

  So he's probably homophobic as well as a sexually harassing, black-magic-wielding douchebag. Why am I not surprised?

  "Magic, unfortunately," she said wryly, "tends to hinge its workings on circumstances. The spirit, rather than the letter. A capsule seems logical, but the curse wants something within a specific context. Ah, and it's not illegal if the corpse is able to consent. But that doesn't make it much more desirable to most."

  No, and he'd heard what people said about those who dated zombies. Sex with the Resurrected was, as she'd said, absolutely not illegal; they were consenting, thinking beings able to choose their own ways of living—or unliving, more accurately. It wasn't even particularly unsanitary, not with magic preserving them. But it was certainly frowned upon—perverted, disgusting, taboo. If he'd do that, what else might he do? How much does the corpse have to move, that's what I'm saying. He'd heard enough of that sort of thing at college.

  More to the point, it gave him the creeps.

  Still, thinking that this guy might be out there, knowing too that Jill was dating someone new who might also be a target—if it was her crazy ex, anyway—made him hesitate.

  "Can I… think about it?" he asked finally, hardly believing he was saying it. "If it's moving that slowly, do I have time to decide which is better overall…?"

  "Of course," she said. "In fact, I can get the tracker on you now, so if something happens, I'll get the information, and can also start the process of acquiring materials for removal of this curse."

  Red-faced, he nodded. "Thanks," he said. "If it's no trouble to do both…?"

  "Of course not."

  Relief and embarrassment made him light-headed. "And I don't suppose," he said, with a twisted smile that he hoped would get the attempt at a joke across despite his wobbling tone, "you can give me the number of any cute zombies?"

  "Patient confidentiality, Mr. Jastrow," she said, but smiled back to show she understood what he was doing. She traced something on Saul's skin; it sank in and vanished. "I've applied the trace. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to call. Theo can help you make a follow-up appointment up front. Even if we haven't got the materials together yet, or if you haven't come to a decision, let's keep an eye on this."

  "Theo—your, ah." He stopped himself and rephrased. "Your receptionist?"

  "That's right."

  Saul nodded, slowly. "Thanks," he said. "I'll see myself out."

  By the time he'd made it to the front shock had largely turned into anger. The only terms he could put this in were complete bullshit—nothing else seemed quite evocative enough. Still, hurt continued to linger under the anger, and his mixed emotions must have been showing.

  "Hey," Theo said, concern on his mottled gray face. "You okay?"

  "I was cursed," Saul told him sharply, heedless of patient confidentiality. Nobody else was in the waiting room anyway. "To sleep with a corpse? Like, that's a thing? That's apparently a thing."

  Theo winced a little, though Saul wasn't sure, really, if it was his terminology or the situation. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jastrow."

  "What am I supposed to do?"

  "Well," Theo said, and stopped, rubbing the back of his head. "I couldn't make suggestions. Whatever you do, it should be what you're most comfortable with. Anything else is unacceptable. Your life is your own, and what you choose to do with it is your own too. Okay?" And then, as Saul stared at him, he smiled again, the expression polite. "Can I set you up a follow-up appointment?"

  Saul nodded—and then shook his head. His thoughts were a mess, and he couldn't bring up his mental calendar at all. "I'll call. I'm not sure when I'm free."

  Theo's smile relaxed a little, became—Saul was suddenly aware—more genuine. His teeth were very white and straight. "Of course," he said. "Stay strong, Mr. Jastrow. This isn't your fault. And for what it's worth, I assure you we're all fairly normal people, us corpses."

  The reality of who he was talking to, and about what, came rushing back i
n at that pointed us corpses putting a division between himself and Theo. Embarrassed at his own outburst, he felt himself going red. "I'll—I'll keep that in mind," he stammered, and almost fled out the door.

  *~*~*

  Saul called into work sick the next two days and—reasonably, he felt—spent the entire time eating whatever he felt like and watching bad TV reruns. When he got tired of TV, he played video games. Somewhere about a day and a half in, he stopped fluctuating between depression, feeling sorry for himself, and anger, and settled instead on a sort of aggravated determination. Because, he thought, seriously, fuck this. Fuck them for doing this to him, fuck this for happening, but he wasn't going to let it drag him down.

  On the third day, Saul stayed home from classes and called Dr. Richardson's office. Theo picked up, which he had simultaneously been hoping for and wishing wouldn't happen, so when Theo gave the standard doctor office greeting—"Dr. Richardson's office, Theodore speaking, are you looking to make an appointment?"—he didn't answer right away.

  It wasn't until Theo said "Hello…?" in the tone of someone expecting a telemarketer or cold call dead air that he was galvanized into speaking. "Hey, Theo, this is Saul Jastrow. We met a couple of days ago."

  "Mr. Jastrow, yes," he said. "I remember you. Are you looking to make that appointment now?"

  Theo sounded sympathetic again, kind, his voice a warm rumble. Saul thought about Theo's height, his smile, the white picket fence of his teeth in a mottled face.

  He definitely could do worse, he decided. If he was thinking about finding a zombie anyway, might as well go for the one he'd already met. In for a penny, in for a pound. Worst-case scenario, he could just never show his face to Theo again and would have to visit the necromancer hiding behind a hat or something. "Actually," he said, "I was wondering if you were interested in getting together sometime."

  This time, the too-long pause was on Theo's side.

  "Sorry if that's out of line!" Saul blurted after about a second and a half, unwilling to wait to see if it grew longer. "I know that's probably a bit, uh, I know how it sounds, under the circumstances, which you know about, but no, legitimately, if you'd rather not, no biggie, I just thought—I mean, you're very handsome and friendly—"

  "Um," Theo said. He sounded a bit uncomfortable, though more cautious than outright disapproving. "I get off work at eight?" And then he laughed, the sound awkward and uncertain. "Though that's a bit… it's a little immediate, isn't it? Maybe another time would be better."

  It was only four o'clock, which wasn't what Saul would call immediate, but it was also the same day, which, yeah, maybe, he thought.

  Theo added, "I mean, tomorrow's the weekend, and going for coffee is probably a little less intimate than meeting in the evening. I'm not… against… but, you understand, I don't know you. I can hardly be sure we're looking for the same things."

  Saul closed his eyes, willing his throbbing head to calm down. More than anything, he felt humiliated. By himself, though, not by Theo, so there was that. He heard his voice come out sulky. "Yeah, coffee'd be good—"

  "Ah," Theo said, in a tone of realization. "Unless you'd rather not meet somewhere public. I'd understand."

  This was absolutely backwards from most 'less intimate' dates. Normally a public date was the safe option, the 'if this doesn't work we're in public and neither of us have to be worried about danger' option. It actually took Saul a moment to clue in.

  Theo was worried that Saul might be ashamed to be seen with him.

  That realization hit him like a brick to the face, and he spared another moment to be angry at the curse—not just that it had driven him to put himself in this embarrassing situation, but because of the shitty attitude it reflected to even cast it. Of course anyone would be ashamed to get together with a zombie. It was humiliating, it was wrong, it was gross. That was the reason the curse was cast, wasn't it? Making him have to at least consider sleeping with something a lot of people considered not just taboo, but horrifying.

  And the curse was on Saul, sure, but how did Theo feel about that kind of curse?

  "Coffee would be fine," he said firmly.

  *~*~*

  They did, in fact, get stared at while they were out for coffee. He could feel eyes on them from around the room, and couldn't help but notice people leaning in to whisper to each other. It took on a very specific, very pointed meaning.

  Theo was well-dressed and handsome in a nice vest over a dress shirt, a pair of nice slacks, and a hat, and there was a lot about him that was traditionally good-looking. The broad shoulders, the strong jaw. But it was still perfectly clear to anyone who looked at him that he was some kind of zombie. Obviously, the way he looked stood out to Saul too—for one thing, he wondered how the hell Theo bought clothes that fit him at his size—but mostly he found himself getting annoyed on Theo's behalf.

  Initially, it seemed Theo didn't even notice the reactions, chatting with him over coffee. They had discovered they were both watching the same TV show, Death and the Deep Dark Sky, and Theo had asked him what he'd thought about the last episode's cliffhanger. It was going to be the finale next week, and they thoroughly disagreed on whether or not the aliens would actually be involved in the ending (Theo's view), or whether the threat would turn out to be human all along (Saul's).

  But the longer they talked, the more little cues he picked up that Theo was aware of what was going on around them. It was in the way he framed his body to have his back to the room, the tenseness of his smile, the occasional lag before jumping back into the conversation. Saul tried to put him at ease with his own posture, leaning back comfortably, body language open, but he was pretty sure it wasn't working despite his best efforts.

  Maybe they shouldn't have had coffee after all. But turning it down would have seemed like a rejection of another kind, wouldn't it? That'd go back to not wanting to be seen with him. So Saul, too, pretended he wasn't seeing the other people around them, and asked Theo about himself.

  Theo had met Dr. Richardson when he was revived, he explained; she'd been the practitioner doing the work. She had summoned his wandering spirit, though his body had disappeared some time ago, using belongings his family had provided and a corpse put together out of otherwise useless parts. "I don't actually remember how I died. I headed out for a hike from my family's summer cottage up in Muskoka and just... kept going. That's all I know. After that, I was just wandering endlessly through a fog. You'd think I'd remember what happened in there, but there you go."

  "Dying must be pretty traumatic," Saul said carefully. "I'm not surprised. So your family asked for your resurrection?"

  "That's right. Since they were calling a particular spirit, if I hadn't been dead, then the body would have remained just a pile of parts, but since I came… well, that answered whether I'd just gone missing." Theo said it easily. "I was given the offer to return to rest, but this body seemed just fine to me, so I decided to stick around."

  Saul smiled at that. "Must have made your family happy to get you back."

  "I wish I could say they were," Theo said neutrally, and sipped his coffee. The mug looked small in his hand, made smaller suddenly by how he'd leaned over it, shoulders hunching. His tone came out light and empty. "I guess I wasn't really the closure they wanted. They don't talk to me anymore."

  "Ouch," Saul said.

  "Yeah," Theo said, and shrugged. He looked up at Saul again briefly, a little lost, golden eyes distant. "Well, Dr. Richardson got me a job, obviously, and it hasn't been so bad. I'd rather be alive—or as close to it as I can come—than dead."

  Something about it still seemed raw, so Saul pushed on, trying to find a subject change that wasn't too obvious, keeping it about them, about him, but not about that. "Does it feel weird, being in a body that wasn't yours? Or… anyone's, really."

  "Being a mish-mash, you mean?" He said it lightly, but Saul wondered if his attempt to save things had hurt Theo even more. It was impossible to tell—he was still smiling. "No
t so much now. But early on, when I'd first come back, I hit my head on everything! I was a good deal smaller before," he added, in a tone like he was sharing a secret.

  "Why'd they make you so big? Finding shoes must be a pain."

  That made Theo laugh, and it sounded real. "I don't think it was deliberate. Homunculi-type zombies often end up strange sizes. The original word means 'little man', did you know?"

  "I did not," Saul said. "You are anything but little. I would not have guessed that."

  Theo grinned. To Saul's relief, it felt like the darkness that had been hanging around him had finally dispersed. "I get that a lot."

  Silence lapsed. Saul cleared his throat, which felt thick and raw, and then winced at the reminder of his situation. Of all the things he didn't want to think about right now, that was pretty up there. "So, we've covered TV and invasive personal questions," he said quickly, and earned himself another chuckle. "Got any other hobbies?"

  Theo ducked his head a little, but this time it seemed almost shy. "Nah, you'll laugh."

  "Promise I won't," Saul said. "It sounds like a good one?"

  "… I write murder mysteries. It's not that I'm particularly good," Theo added, "but I keep at it. I haven't had anything published, but I write every night anyway. I don't sleep, so something has to fill the hours."

  "I think I'd go crazy if I didn't sleep," Saul said, sighing. "I'm an over-sleeper. Whenever I stay up, it's like, wow, this'd be a great chance to do something productive… but then I don't do anything anyway, and get sick of myself. If I stay up past one, I end up depressing myself. Sleeping early avoids that problem."

  Theo laughed softly. "Yes," he said. "That's why I started writing. I'd get sick of myself, wonder if this was a good choice. I don't regret I jumped on the chance to stay around, but it makes those moments when you're alone with yourself… it doesn't have any foreseeable end. You can imagine those days like that going on and on endlessly. But when I'm doing character dialogue or plotting out scenes, I'm focusing on little details, making new people." He paused, then smiled again. "Well, I'm not sending it anywhere, so it's not got a lot of meaning to the world, I suppose. But for me, it's still a relief in those quiet hours."