The Beautiful Dead (7 page)

“Vegetables.”

I laugh. I
don’t think he meant to be funny, but I laugh anyway, then say, “Yes, well. Far
as I know, I’m not a vegetable. I’m a person.”

“You’re not
that, either.”

I bite my
lips, look in yet another direction. I’m very actively choosing
not
to
be insulted, once again, by this awful, insensitive, breathing being in my
house.

“No,” I
finally agree, keeping my tone level. “No, I’m not a person like you. I’m very
different.”

“An
abomination,” he murmurs. “That’s what we call you. Crypters. Wraiths. The
Soulless. Unholy of the Flesh. We have lots of names for you.”

“We?” I look
at him finally. He stops chewing. “We? There’s more of you alive out there?”

He doesn’t
answer, his face frozen. I get the sense he didn’t mean for me to know that, no
matter how logical it is—obviously there’s more where he came from.

Maybe he still
thinks I want to eat him. “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” I say. “Surprised
because—well, because I was given the strong impression that there were no
people left in the world.”

“It’ll do you
best to keep that impression,” he mutters.

“How many more
of you are there?—and where?”

“Nowhere.” He
returns his attention back to the basket, inspecting it for something else
edible. “It doesn’t concern you at all.”

“Yes it does!”

“Over my dead
body will I reveal where my brethren live, where fiends like you can take their
lives too.”

“I AM NOT A
FIEND!”

Knock, knock.
Both of us spin, watching the door as though it were a monster in the night
about to leap on us. We peer at each other, locking eyes. I’m not sure who is
more terrified, the one in the room with the racing pulse or the one without.

Knock, knock.

I motion for
him to go to my room. “
Under the bed, under the bed!
” I half-whisper,
half-mouth to him. He doesn’t hesitate a second to comply, scrambling to my
room and sliding under my bed like a stowed away trunk. Snatching the basket
and placing it on the table like a civilized person, I steadily move to the
door, take a relaxing breath—again, that illusion of being alive I need to let
go of—then calmly turn the handle to meet my fate.

Grimsky’s
anxious face meets mine in the doorway. “Hey there. You alright?”

“Just fine,
why?” I ask, then realize I sound too on edge. “Why do you ask?” I try, a bit
more evenly.

“I heard you
talking.” He chuckles, his face softening. “Like, through the walls. Are you
sure you’re okay?”

I frown.
“That’s not normal?—talking to yourself? I better get that checked out. Does
this town have any psychiatrists I can schedule an appointment with?”

“Actually it
does,” he says matter-of-factly. “There’s a few shamans that live downtown, and
a witch doctor. Oh, and have you met Collin, the surgeon with the gym-nut
brother? I’ll introduce you. Tomorrow, maybe?”

“I was
kidding,” I say, regretting making the joke.

“I wasn’t.” He
chuckles. “Can I come in?”

“Bad timing.”
I nearly begin to shut the door in his face, then stop. “It’s been a long day,
what with the strange incident at the tavern and the whole getting-impaled
thing …”

He studies me
for a while, dimples crushing either side of his face as he smiles endearingly.
“I can’t wait for you to grow into yourself. You are going to love the
possibilities that open up to you here in Trenton when you embrace your new
foreverness. Possibilities like never needing to sleep. Ever. Never needing to
rest, never tiring, never getting sick, or old, or—”

“Sounds
wonderful, Grim. Good night.” I try shutting the door again.

He playfully
puts his foot in the way. “I wanted to say one other thing. It’s really
super-duper important.”

I sigh, roll
my eyes. “What?”

“This.”

And he kisses
me.

His cool, soft
lips on that long mouth, that snarky mouth that curls. He kisses me. With those
lips that surely spun poetry a lifetime ago. He kisses me, lip to lip, cool
currents of electricity touching me somehow. The surprise of it, the
unexpectedness of it, the little bow tied to the end of a very curious day.

He kisses me
and then it’s over.

“Good night,”
he tells me, then steps off my porch and heads for his own, vanishing from
sight.

I close my
door, lean back on it and hold my chest. A smile finds my face. I have no idea
what just happened, but I want it to happen again straight away. I can’t stop
smiling.

“Seems
dashing,” the Human says, having emerged from my bedroom.

The moment
crashes to the floor like a chandelier. “Okay, listen,” I tell him. “If you’re
going to be staying here—and only for a little while—we need to lay down some
rules.”

“Not for long.
Soon as I’m 100%, I’m gone. There’s people depending on me back home.”

“Great,
fantastic. First rule,” I start, then realize I don’t have one.

“First rule,”
the Human picks up, taking a step into the room. “No eating me.”

“Second rule,”
I say, taking back control. “No trying to kill me. Apparently we can’t die
again anyway. I’ve been impaled with a sword and didn’t so much as feel a
pinch.”

“Good to know.”

“Third—”

“Third rule, you
will help get me food. Real food, not just garden throwaways. And—”

“Hey! These
are my rules, not yours.”

“Why would you
help me anyway?” he asks, his tone changing. “What’s in this for you?”

I haven’t
thought on that. Why
am
I helping him? It’s totally against Trenton law,
as far as I understand. Why don’t I kick this man out onto the street, force
him to run away and fend for himself? Why these random acts of kindness,
putting myself at risk for this vile, crude, disrespectful man-person?

“Because
maybe,” I say, hesitate, then finish, “maybe you can find a way to make me
alive.”

He squints at
me, unsure how to respond.

“This world is
changed,” I go on. “There’s so much I’ve yet to see or learn … Maybe there’s
more to it than either of us realize. Maybe I don’t have to be this way forever.
Maybe I can—Maybe I can live once more.”

His eyes
survey me from top to bottom, head to toe, before caring to respond. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” I
agree.

“Fourth rule.
Can you get me some meat next time?”

I lower myself
into a chair, my eyes idly drifting over to the candle flame, the beautiful,
eternal, burning show of lights and colors that the Human cannot see.

“Better food,”
I agree. “I’ll try for better food.”

Slowly, he
crosses the room, sits in the chair opposite me at the table. It’s the closest
to me he’s dared to come since we first met.

“You’re
Winter,” he says. “I remember. You told me your name in the bathroom at the
bar.”

I nod. “Winter
is the thing they call me, yes.”

He very
carefully puts a hand on the table, perhaps with the intention of offering me a
handshake, but then retracts it, changing his mind I suppose. His eyes falter,
then he murmurs, “John.”

“John,” I
repeat. “Not what I would’ve guessed.”

And this is
how the Human’s long day, in magical candlelight, at last comes to a kind and
timely end.

My days will
never end.

C H A P T E R – F I V E

Because we
Undead require neither sleep nor comfort, I let John have the bed.

Whenever I
leave, I tell him to keep the door locked and to never go out under any
circumstance. Should be needless to say, but we make it an official rule
anyway. More than just his life is at stake, should he be found. When I come
back home, in a playful tone I sing, “It’s a fine day to be dead,” as I
approach the door. We came up with this little audio signal which tells him
it’s safe to unlock the door and let me in. This is also to avoid the awkward
circumstance of knocking on my own door to be let in, which would look quite
suspicious in the case of any onlooking neighbors. Should I instead sing
something to the effect of, “Is it summer yet?” then John knows not only to
unlock the door, but also hide because I’m not alone. His assigned (and only
possible) hiding place being, of course, under the bed.

The routine is
tedious, but necessary.

“Such a fine
day to be dead,” I halfheartedly sing, approaching my porch. Like clockwork,
there’s a little click at the door and I seemingly let myself into my own
house.

“The code,” he
tells me irritably as I come in, “is ‘
It’s
a fine day’ … not ‘
Such
a fine day’…”

“I’m tired of
singing the same old thing.” I set down the bag I’m carrying on the table. “I
feel dumber every time I sing it.”

“There’s a
reason we do it the same every time. You can’t get careless. My life’s at
stake.”

“Yes, daddy,”
I sing mockingly, which very visibly annoys him. “Seeing as you haven’t lit any
candles, I assume it’s still daylight outside?”

He frowns.
“You really can’t tell?”

Doesn’t matter
how many times I tell him, he won’t believe me. “I got you a fresh kill of a
bird of some kind. Just assume it’s chicken, should be safe enough.”

“Last week’s
wasn’t chicken.”

“You get what
you get.”

I make my way
to the bathroom as he tentatively approaches the bag, poking through it. There
are no doors in the house except the front one, so he understands to keep away
from the hall as I change. Out of the tattered blue dress I wore today, I slip
into an evening cocktail-thing, black and satiny. My favorite.

After a poke
and a dab in the mirror, I emerge from the bathroom ready to go. John gives me
a once over out the side of his face, smirks. “Another date?”

“None of your
business. Find enough in there to eat?”

He shrugs
halfheartedly. “It’ll do.”

“Know when
you’re leaving?”

“Once I get
what I need.”

“Not soon
enough, in other words?”

“I need more
things.”

“You’ve taken
my comfort and joy,” I tell him dry-humoredly. “You want more?”

Pulling out a
long stalk of something from the bag, he bites the end off with a vicious
crunch and, while chewing in all manners of a loutish, uncivilized man, says,
“Food. That’s what I need. Lots of it. And a good plan.”

“Plan?” I
squint at him. “A plan for what?”

“To find
Garden,” he says, like I know what the hell he’s talking about. “Then I gotta
find a way back home and, well, home’s a whole other thing …”

“Why’s that?”

He smirks,
chomps off another hearty bite of his crunchy whatever, says, “Not so sure my
homecoming will be a welcoming one.”

“You left on
bad terms?”

“Doesn’t
matter,” he decides, suddenly switching off, chewing away. He does this, hot
and cold with me.

I’m still
persisting. “And Garden? … What’s Garden?”

“A place,” he
answers dryly, turning away to tend to the rest of his dinner.

I guess that’s
enough chat for an evening. “Alright. Well, take care of yourself. Don’t choke
on dead chicken. Or pigeon or housecat or whatever I got you.” I move to the
door, draw a strand of white hair behind my ear and steel myself for a night on
the town with Grimsky.

“Don’t die
either,” he says, suddenly right next to me, ready to lock the door after I go.
“I kinda need you.”

I squint at
him. It’s a bit of work sometimes, learning to tolerate one another’s existence.
For whatever reason. For whatever need, spoken or not.

“Sure,” I say
gently, then leave.

A night on the
town awaits. Grimsky, looking dashing as a silhouette with a face and wearing
his fitted black button-down—tonight with a clever cream tie—meets me at the
Town Square. At the sight of me, his handsome smile appears and he shakes his
head. “I’ll never get used to you on a Saturday night.”

“Saturday?
Today’s Saturday?”

“Every day’s
Saturday.” He grins. “You ready to see what I’ve to show?”

The way he
talks, every sentence is like a little poem. “Yes! Let’s see what you’ve to
show.”

He takes my
hand, which I wasn’t expecting. So we’ve advanced to handholding now. The pair
of us tread a narrow path into the heart of Trenton. Somewhere between a row of
tall buildings, there’s a little girl curled up next to a door watching us walk
by. Her hair is pulled back into a long black braid and her eyes are big deep
oily pupils that peer up sullenly at me. Instantly I feel awful about
something, seeing her face. I’m compelled to stop.

“Hi there,” I
say to her, making myself smile. “What’s your name? I’m Winter.”

The girl
doesn’t say anything back, of course. Creepy as she already is, she has to make
herself creepier by just sitting there, unresponsive, staring with the eeriest
tar-pit-for-eyes expression. Not even her lips stir. The dead are very, very
good at playing statues. We could sit still for hours, for days and weeks without
flinching a finger or batting an eye. As if we’re not odd enough.

“Are you
alright?” I try again. Grimsky, he’s standing patiently at my side, but makes
no effort to address the girl like I am. Confused, I turn to him and whisper,
“What’s wrong with her?”

“No idea,” he
admits under his breath, though I’m pretty sure the girl can hear us clearly.
“It’s probably better we leave her be. Could be the result of a Waking Dream.”
He squints. “Or she’s just disturbed.”

YOU DID THIS
TO YOURSELF.

“Goodbye,
little girl,” I say, not sure what else to say, then continue hand-in-hand with
Grimsky down the narrow path. Yes, the girl with the long black braid keeps
watching us as we leave, silent as a stone.

After that
offputting encounter, the mood of the night is a little changed. We arrive at
the destination, a tiny “formal” restaurant at the end of town. Grimsky opens
the door for me like a true gentleman. Once inside, I’m surprised at how—how do
I put this?—“normal” the interior appears to be. Waiters garbed in vests walk
the tranquil restaurant checking guests. A man sits at a piano in its center
playing romantic tunes and other couples are seated at the tables, listening.
One family sits in the corner of the place, two children and the
pretend-parents, the four of them politely enjoying an upscale meal.

We’re seated
at a small table-for-two, complete with tablecloth and candlelight. “This is
quite a treat,” I finally say, overcome with the change in atmosphere. “I
didn’t know places like this existed anymore.”

“There’s a lot
here in this town,” he says, laying a cloth napkin across his lap. “Hidden in
every corner, a precious thing. You just have to know where to look.”

We both order
from an admittedly limited menu. The waiter goes off, and we’re left in
sparkling candlelight and soft music emanating from the piano, enveloping us.
I’m already putting this at the top of my very short list of favorite nights in
my Final Life.

“Oh no.” I
turn the other way.

Grimsky
frowns. “What?”

“Over there,”
I mumble. “Don’t look, but the table right next to the piano, there’s Helena
Trim. She’s my Reaper. The woman doesn’t like me at all.”

Grimsky
chuckles emptily, covers half his face to disguise his attempt at sneaking a
peek. “Yeah, I think I see her. Don’t know her, but she doesn’t look like my
top choice for a Death Mother.”

“When do you
think she lived? Like, in her Old Life? Maybe she came from an era when people
were really uptight. Maybe she’s from a stuck-up mess of royalty.”

“Maybe,” he
joins in, humoring me, “she was next in line for the throne … before her
untimely death. Now she spends her afterlife bitterly resenting the queenship
that never was, forever and ever.”

“We’re awful.”
I laugh, maybe a touch too loud. I try a quick glance over my shoulder.
Helena’s made eye contact with me. I look away. “Crap, I’m caught.”

“Just ignore
her. Ignore her to death.”

I peek again
and Helena’s turned away, busied with a forkful of salad. I hate her instantly,
I can’t even.

“Don’t let her
ruin the night,” Grim asks of me. I try on a smile, forcefully batting my eyes
at him.

Then I’m all, “What’d
I ever do to her except exist?”

“Well. No one
wants to be a Reaper. It’s too much pressure, even being one of our only
responsibilities in Trenton. But once the Mayor calls upon you …”

“The least she
could do is look at me.”

So fast it
happens, the waiter’s already brought our food. Placing a surprisingly
attractive plate before the both of us, I thank him kindly and comment how
lovely it smells—which is hilarious, since we Undead smell nothing, not even
the air—but he takes the sentiment anyway, apparently used to it, and plays
along by saying, “And it tastes of heaven, ma’am,” then walks away.

I look up at
Grimsky, suddenly curious of something I’m surprised I never thought to ask.
“Where does it go?”

He’s taken his
first bite already, looks up. “Hmm?”

I point at my
plate with a fork. “Where does the food go? Our bodies don’t really function,
so …”

“To our
stomachs,” he replies. “Just like a Human.”

“Oh.” I’m
still confused, peering down at my delicious plate I can with no sense of smell
or taste enjoy.

“Of course,”
he goes on, chewing, “unlike a Human, it goes nowhere else.”

I blink. “So it
just … sits in there?”

He nods once.

“And,” I go
on, predicting the answer to my next unsettling question, “once you’ve eaten
enough, I assume you pay a little visit to the—”

“Yes,
Refinery,” he finishes for me, “to … you know.”

“Take it out,”
I finish for him, finishing for me.

And then I’m
finished before I even start, dropping my fork to the table.

The piano
still plays such moving music, but all I hear are Grimsky’s last words over and
over. All I see in front of me is a plate that might as well be made of wax,
that might literally
be
wax—How could I tell otherwise? And it’ll be
stuck in my bowels until an act of surgery—if one dares to dignify it with the
word ‘surgery’—extracts it from my inoperative system.

“Winter?” He’s
put down his own fork.

I can’t look
up at him. I’m equal parts angry and embarrassed, being in the middle of a
restaurant full of Undead who so easily play along with this whole eating
façade. I would feel like a horrible person just getting up and leaving,
ignoring this full plate before me. I mean, there’s starving children in the
country of wherever.

But even starving
children don’t eat wax.

“Look,” he
whispers, being sure that only I can hear him. “We can leave. It’s perfectly
fine. I understand if you’re, even still, not ready to—ah—participate.”

Even Helena’s
eating, just like the countless Undead around her, around me, all of them
fake-eating like this is totally normal. Like there’s nothing wrong with
pretending to enjoy plates of who-knows-what. And I’m the odd one out here. The
freak in a room of freaks.

Somehow, I’m
the one that’s wrong.

“Winter. We
can go.”

“But you haven’t
finished yet.”

“As if I ever had
an appetite,” he teases, playing along with me instead of this restaurant
smokescreen he knows I find ridiculous to the core. He’s known this about me
since day one. “The waiter won’t take it personally. He can serve your dish to
the next fool who orders it … though I fear it may be a tad cold.”

I break a
smile. Grimsky, the only entity in this world who can lift my spirits in a
pinch. The one who saved me from the cliff, who saves me over and over again.

When we get up
to leave the restaurant, I’m not too distracted to catch Helena taking notice
of me, her beady eyes narrowing as she watches the two of us leave the
restaurant hand-in-hand. Yes, Helena. I’m leaving before finishing my dinner.
For all you know, I’m taking Grim home. I just couldn’t contain myself in this
restaurant full of well-behaved normal dead people.

I’m such a
bad, bad, bad little dead girl. Shame on me, Helena. Take it up with the Judge
for all I care.