Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1) (37 page)

From behind him a soft female
voice spoke. Turning he thought that it was Judy Swan at first, since there had
been a bit of a sexy quality to it, but it was actually Lisa Weise, who was
standing right next to her.
Also
across the way, over by Jahn Samson and
his family. Which meant that his party had two Lisas. Both dressed differently,
which was good, as far as telling them apart.

Sighing, he looked around, and
then shook his head.

"I guess the fun part is
over? Thank you all for coming. You should probably leave now." He sounded
cold, and the other Lisa looked freaked out about having a doppelganger right
there like that. Oddly though, no one ran away. "Um, not to be a pain, but
there's a strange Greater Demon, I think? The Storm?"

The second, slightly better
dressed, Lisa walked over to him, clapping lightly.

"That's right. I came to
give you a birthday present. I'm very kind that way, don't you think?"

He didn't know, actually. Still,
he gestured to the cake, which really did look good.

"Would you like some cake?
We were just about to eat." It was meant as a bribe. Cookies had saved his
life once, it seemed, so cake should work as well, hopefully.

There was a nod.

"Oh, that does sound nice.
Thank you, Tyler. I don't think I'll get to however, since The Rotted is about
to try and come for me. Don't worry, I won't harm my Tyler. Not now that I've
met him again. I won't even take him from you directly. No, I'll just deliver
my present, and leave. This time."

Looking around there was no
little girl there, which must have been easy for a Greater Demon to figure out
as to what he was thinking, even without mind reading. The Storm giggled, and covered
her mouth.

"Don't you see, Tyler
Gartner? Isn't it all plain to you now? Or has even that been hidden from you,
like your true nature? I see that it has. Well, nothing to do for that."
Then, for some reason, she went silent.

Lucy moved over, and touched his
arm. It was a soft thing, and maternal.

"You can understand now, Tyler.
It's all right."

That was bizarre, coming from
her, but his mind worked it all out after that. Bits and pieces of it.

"Wait, you're The Rotted?
Where's my mother?" He felt a fine line of terror running the length of
his spine, as fake Lisa smiled, then took a single step to the right, vanishing
with a bright blue flash.

His mom, or the Greater Demon
that had taken her place, swallowed, and seemed a little nervous.

"It's me, Ty. I was
always
your mother. Ever since your parents died in that accident. I didn't tell you,
because..." She locked eyes with him, her face looking ever so familiar to
him. Every line of it was the same, developed over the years from her constant
work to keep them both alive and fed. "Until a year ago no one knew what a
Greater Demon was. Not openly among the Humans. Telling you before then wouldn't
have helped you. Plus... Well, there's more to it. You know that now, don't
you?"

He couldn't really think at the
moment, and was tempted to run away, but couldn't. His mother, the woman that
he'd known all his life, who had sacrificed her own health and well being for
his... Was a Demon? That didn't even make sense. For a bit he wondered if she
were putting him on. Maybe the others had gotten her to do it, as some kind of
prank or hazing. That
seemed
right. He was the new guy, so they were
making fun of him.

Pretending he was dead, in order
to...

That part didn't make any sense,
but he nodded, the idea coming to him all at once.

"The car accident, when I
was two? But how? I don't understand."

His mother nodded, seeming a bit
troubled.

"Let's go inside? Your
guests should have some cake. Save us some, Zack? It looks incredible. This
might take a while. Come on, Tyler. It's time for you to know. I was planning
to do this later,
tomorrow
, but I really was going to do it. Now...
Well, The Storm isn't a fool. She knows what will come of this. Still, not
going through the motions won't help later, will it?"

Darla nodded, her eyes a bit
tight seeming, as Lucy took him by the hand and led him inside through the
front door. There was no one else there, but it wasn't lost on him that half
the people in the front yard would be able to hear them talking, so there was
really no reason for leaving. Other than the fact that he really wanted to sit
down, suddenly.

He did that with a plop onto the
sofa that probably took half a year from its life. It was like he just couldn't
keep going.

"So... I'm dead? How does
that
work?"

Lucy, his mother, sat on the
other side of the dark thing, and turned her body so she was facing him.

"My powers allow me to bring
the dead back to life. Or at least to something that seems like it. I'd been
about to kidnap your parents when they died. Just to mess with The Storm. It
really
was
an accident. The road was icy, and your father was speeding
like a fool. Thinking that being the slave of one of us would protect him and
his family from harm. It didn't work out too well for him really. He was a
bright enough man, in his way, but too trusting of his master by far. Not that
he had a choice in that." She stopped, and then shrugged at him.

After a moment, a pause meant to
let his brain adjust to the data, he didn't doubt, she continued.

"The whole thing was a mess.
I was the first one there, so removed your body from the wreckage. There was no
way to save your life. Trust me on that. I
tried
healing you. Even your
head had been severed from your neck. You were so tiny back then. Covered in
blood, the spark of life gone from you totally. So I did something very
different, to try and give you something like a life."

Tyler nodded. It explained a bit,
if not enough to make him feel better yet.

"I was dead. But I'm not
now?"

She took a deep breath and then
nodded. It came with a very forced smile. A tight thing that wasn't happy at
all.

"Tyler... You haven't been
alive in a very, very long time. I've animated babies before, of course. Over
the millennia things come up. I've even taken beings from far more damaged than
you were, and returned them to their normal shape. In a way, I'm the master of
all things dead, after all. Hence being called The Rotted. But when I brought
you
back, I had a plan in mind. There was one thing that I'd never done. No one
has, to the best of my knowledge. I wanted to see if I could raise a Human
being to adulthood, who wasn't alive at all."

She clapped once, as if getting
ready to end the conversation.

"It worked. There was... Oh,
no end of effort involved. Every bit of energy that keeps you going comes from
me, for instance. Not that I notice it much, most days. You really
aren't
a burden on me. I've wanted to let you know that for a long time now. It was
hard, getting you to grow, since you aren't alive, but I worked out how to do
it. So, slowly, over time, I took you from a dead baby, to a dead man."

Then she stood, like that was all
he needed to know, or could handle at the moment. The last one was true, but he
wasn't finished. Not even fucking close.

"So, I'm dead. Your
experiment worked. Do I just die now? How does that work?" That kind of
seemed correct to him. Why would she keep going on with a thing like that?
There were plenty of living people in the world, after all. Real ones that
weren't...

"Wait, I'm a fucking
zombie?"

She paused, but after a bit there
was a sigh.

"Yes. A very well
constructed and
special
one, but that's what you are, Tyler. A flesh
eating, undead ghoul, walking the Earth in a never ending quest to repair the
life you never had. A thing made of death more truly than anything that has
ever existed to the best of my knowledge. Death incarnate, would not be too
strong a term for what you are."

He blinked then, and made a face.

"I'm a vegetarian. I don't
even eat
hamburgers
. I mean, sure, I occasionally do go running at
night, but I almost never start calling for
braaains
. I mean, okay, once
or twice,
sure
, but that was just a joke." Like what he was saying
at the moment was.

The Rotted, the only parent he'd
even known, as it turned out, smiled at him.

"I sort of put the whole
vegetarian thing into play. Basically you're my slave, so have to do what I
tell you that way. If not for those orders, you'd be trying to crack open a
skull right now. There are some other things that I kept hidden from you, so
you could have a normal life. For instance, you don't really feel pain. I just
got you to imagine you did, all this time. Also, you functionally can't be
killed. It's a side effect of not being alive like this."

He looked at his own middle,
smooth and perfect already under his old shirt.

"Okay. So, what do we do
now? I'm a monster, so... Kill me with fire?"

She shook her head.

"That won't work. If I die,
you do. Or if I cut your energy off, naturally. Other than that, you're in this
for the long haul. I won't lie, Tyler. There are things that are problems for
you, that other Humans, the living ones, never have to deal with. You really
will
crave flesh, if your orders are ever changed or wiped out. You
can't
die, but you can be trapped forever, if you aren't careful. You won't age much
now. Not unless you talk me into doing that for you, or learn some kind of
power that way yourself.
That's
something to look into. I think you have
great potential to learn new things. There has never really been anyone like
you before." There was a glance back at him, as she moved toward the door
again. "Other than that? You're pretty normal. Hard to hurt, and immune to
pain, but not much faster or stronger than anyone else would be. A few times,
perhaps? Your endurance is better by a lot. Oh, and you can't get fat, so eat
all you want. Or not. It doesn't really make any difference for you. If you do
however, I get part of the energy from it, so it helps,
if
you're
worried over earning your keep with me?"

He just sat there, in shock. Not
because his mother was saying some strange and messed up shit, but because he
could feel it all now. His heart didn't beat, and never
had
. There was a
coldness to him that he'd always ignored before as well.

Tyler Gartner wasn't just dead
though, he had been, his entire life.

"How messed up is
that?"

Lucy moved over to him, and
patted his hand, gently.

"Everyone is different, Ty.
There's no shame in it. If you make this into a big thing, well, it will ruin
your life for a long time. If you embrace it, and actually make a point to
live
,
then you can have a lot more than most ever get a shot at. I was teasing you a
bit, about being a zombie. I mean, yes, you are undead, and the flesh eating
thing without my guidance is totally real, but other than that, you're as alive
as
anyone
. You can't have children, but you can adopt and raise them, if
you want. You
can
create, regardless. Music, and art, new technologies,
or things like your new martial art. That was
kind
of inspired."

That reminded him of a few
things, which got his mother glared at.

"You... Kind of ordered me
to do that. Didn't you? That, and get good grades, and not getting a girl pregnant...
But, if I can't..." He was feeling baffled, and confused, but got a pat on
the back of his hand so he wouldn't lose it and start yelling at her for
ruining his life.

"That was so you'd avoid sex
until you were older and knew about everything. Human girls would have said
something about you being cold like you are. A warm bath will fix that, if you
want to entertain, by the way. Vampires do that sometimes for their Human
friends. In your case laying out in the sun will work as well. Now, you can
keep all this in mind. Don't let it set you back too much. Everyone dies,
eventually. Even Greater Demons do. Not everyone gets to come back, and have a
second chance. Use it, Tyler. Use it, and live."

Then she moved to the door, her
face smiling.

"We need to get in on that
cake. In case you haven't noticed, Greater Demons are all pigs that eat
constantly. On the good side, once you decide I'm not the mother of all evil, I
won't have to hide that from you anymore. I really
do
love you, Ty.
You're my son, as truly as if I gave birth to you myself. Maybe even more than
that. I know you feel like I lied to you, which I
did
. I just hope that
someday soon you'll come to understand that it wasn't a bad thing. That
you
aren't a bad thing..."

Then, his mother, the only woman
that had ever been called that by him that he recalled, walked out the front
door of Calley's house. Tyler just sat there for a bit, wondering what the fuck
he was supposed to do now. To say he was in shock was probably underselling the
whole thing.