Wake Up Dead - an Undead Anthology (9 page)

From behind him, Al heard Billy stirring.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

"Take a look," replied Al.

Billy walked over to where Barry's body lay. He looked down, and an expression of nausea washed over his face.

"Aw, man. Why did you have to kill him?"

"Just go see about Joey, you friggin quiff."

Billy obeyed and helped Joey. Joey was limping and complained about his leg until he saw Barry. Joey didn't say anything. He just looked at Barry's dead body.

"Now that I taught the nigger a lesson, I'm gonna teach that fag boy a lesson."

"No, c'mon. Let's just get the hell outta here," pleaded Joey.

"Yeah, Al. Let's get out of here fast," Billy said, putting his hand on Al's shoulder.

Al shrugged it off and said, "Nothing doing. He's dead."

Al pressed the little silver button on the side of the switchblade.

Billy started, "Be care..."

"Son of a bitch!" said Al.

Randy saw the thin, tiny stream of blood from the wound on Al's finger. The stabbing pain did not return, but a little strength did. Randy gripped Al's wrist with his left hand and Al screamed.

Pulling himself up, Randy applied more pressure.

Al dropped the knife, stunned at the resistance more than the pain. He drew back his left arm to deliver a blow when Randy sank his teeth into Al's wrist.

The arterial blood squirted out like a geyser before Randy began to feed.

Al was screaming for help, but his friends were shocked.

A few seconds went by before Billy grabbed the tire iron and tried to save Al.

"You crazy son of a bitch!" said Billy.

Randy was enraptured by his feeding, and his mouth was pressed to Al's wrist like a leech. Only the second blow from the tire iron dislodged him from Al.

Once he was freed, Joey tied a bandanna around Al's wrist.

Billy continued to strike Randy, who was already unconscious from the blows to the head.

"Billy, come on. We got to get Al to the Emergency Room."

Billy threw the weapon down and ran toward the back of the alley and into the car.

Driving out, they made sure that they ran Randy over, which they did, over both of his legs.

***

Randy was lost in a myriad of images. In them, he was his old self again, and nothing hurt. Nothing. However, he eventually woke up several hours later.

It was five-fifteen a.m., and the city was still dark.

The euphoria of his feeding began wearing off, and the pain was all that he felt. The right side of his face was caved in, and he could not see out of that eye. His whole left side was smashed and broken. Part of the bone stuck out through the skin. His legs, however, were worse. They had been driven over. Every inch of them was splintered and shattered. The pain was unbearable. He did not know what to do.

Looking up at the roof he saw the sky was betting lighter. He was scared. He knew he could not get back home in time.

He tried to move, but the slightest fraction of movement sent bolts of pain throughout his ruined body.

Then he knew what was going to happen, and smiled. He hadn't seen the sun in over two hundred years. Today he would see it again.

Looking over at Barry's dead body, which was already attracting flies, he said "We're off to a better place, my friend."

At five-thirty-two Randy saw the sun rise. At five-thirty-four he died for the second, and the last time.

VOODOO CHILD

Caitlin Gunn

Adisa walked slowly back to the camp, knowing that the night would be long and painful. Before morning, though, she would hold her child for the first time, and that was enough to settle her mind and ease the terrible aches from within her belly. She had spoken with Acua'ba – the Goddess of fertility – and had been told that the birth would be horrifying; she would wish herself dead, according to the great Goddess. Yet, she knew that all would eventually be well, and her child would be the most beautiful she could ever wish for. It was that mentality that would get her through.

She hoped that Acua'ba was wrong, somehow. Her pain was already intolerable, which was one of the reasons why she had not ventured far from the camp.

'Adisa!' a voice called out. She turned to find Nkechi, her brother, looking more than a little concerned. 'Where have you been? You shouldn't be walking around in your state. You have given father a headache with your mindless wandering.'

Adisa smiled. If she hadn't been in so much pain, she would have laughed aloud. 'Father has a headache because he drank too much,' she said. 'I needed to walk. I can't just wait.'

'But you must,' Nkechi said, leading her back to the camp with a hand on her shoulder. 'No harm must come to you, or the child. You know how important it is.'

She did, but she couldn't help thinking too much was being made of her fertilization. Her husband was the reason, or had been before he had been executed. If Aloozo had been normal, there would have been no such fuss made; Adisa would have been seen as nothing more than another pregnant girl in a world full of them.

'I will be grateful when she is born,' Adisa said, accepting Nkechi's help crossing a particularly rickety bridge.

'She?' Nkechi said, confused. 'You didn't ask the Goddess of the sex?'

Adisa did laugh, now, but it hurt too much and she cut it off. 'Of course not,' she said. 'It is forbidden, and I will find out soon enough. I just know, Nkechi. It is a girl.'

'How can you know?' Nkechi asked. 'Aloozo came from a long line of men; he only had brothers. The chances of you birthing a girl are little.'

'That might be true,' she said. 'But I can feel her, and I can hear her thoughts inside of me. That is enough, Nkechi, for me to know.'

He shook his head, not accepting her ridiculous theory. 'It will be a boy,' he said. 'Like Aloozo, only hopefully not like Aloozo.'

She shuddered at the thought. Things had not been right with her husband, right up until his beheading at the centre of the camp. It had not always been like that, of course. When she married him, he had been relatively normal, one of the best warriors in the tribe, but something happened, something that made him lose his senses.

He had tried to kill her in the dark of the night, like some maniacal assassin. Yet, as he snapped for her with those fierce teeth and glassy eyes, she had seen that he was not well, that something had afflicted him.

Stricken.

With a plague.

'My daughter will be nothing like Alooza,' Adisa finally said, forcing herself from the nightmarish reverie that had momentarily returned to taunt her. 'She will be strong, stronger than even Alooza had been before...before...'

She couldn't finish; she had no idea how to.

He had been a good man, and yet he had raped her, taken her like a savage beast, and then tried to bite her. His anger was such that the mere thought of it made hackles rise on the nape of Adisa's neck.

Nkechi shook his head. 'The only good thing that man ever did was give you this child,' he said. 'He paid for his betrayal with death, and now you must forget about him and focus only on tonight.'

They reached the camp and Nkechi escorted her to the tent in which she was to give birth. Small, cramped with people who were to assist, she felt claustrophobic almost as soon as she lay down.

'How are the pains?' the midwife asked. Juralem was beautiful, without actually having notable features. Her nondescript face possessed something that couldn't be explained, something preternatural.

Adesi pushed herself up onto her elbows; the makeshift bed creaked beneath her bloated frame. 'I feel like she will be here soon,' she said. 'I am suffering every twenty minutes, now.'

To her, that meant that the baby was imminent. To Juralem, who sighed, that meant nothing.

'Just try to relax,' the midwife said. 'Think of something nice to take your mind off the pain.'

Adesi closed her eyes and tried to conjure up pleasant memories, a time before the madness had infected Aloozo, a time when she had been truly happy. It was difficult, too difficult, and she found herself instead thinking of the future, a bright future with her daughter. It was a utopian vision, one that she looked forward to with every inch of her soul.

As a new contraction racked her body, she clenched the bedclothes, gasping, practically begging Juralem to somehow magic the pain away. The midwife simply smiled, as was her wont, and tried to settle her down onto the bed. She hadn't realised but she had been arching her back to an extent that only her head and feet were making contact with the sweaty sheets.

'Is she close,' a voice asked. Adesi didn't need to open her eyes to recognise her father's voice.

'Not long, now,' Juralem replied. 'Try to relax; she will be fine.'

She opened her eyes just in time to see her father shaking his head and looking on with a concerned expression. The contraction had passed, and she could finally speak once again.

'I am fine, Father,' she said, unsure of how much truth she spoke. 'She will be with us soon, and she will be the most beautiful child ever to grace the world.'

Her father smiled, yet there was still an element of apprehension upon his face. 'I know that you speak the truth,' he said, trying to fight back tears. 'I just need to make sure.'

Adesi didn't know how to respond to that. Make sure of what? What were her father's concerns?

Before she had time to push further, he turned and headed off out of the tent, leaving Juralem staring down at her with that beautiful smile of hers.

'He is just worried about his daughter,' the midwife said in a feeble attempt to comfort Adesi. 'You will find, one day, when your own daughter is lying on this bed that you will feel exactly the same.'

She nodded, relaxed a little and awaited the next contraction.

When it arrived, Adesi could only think of her father and what he had said. The pain coursed through her, curling her toes so violently that she was almost certain to have broken them. I just need to make sure...

Somebody – one of the assistants, she guessed – placed a wooden stick between her lips and instructed her to bite down. She duly obeyed, and broke one of her back teeth in the process, but it did help, a little, and as the agony faded she lowered herself back down onto the bed once again, the boiling-hot sweat puddling beneath her suddenly very uncomfortable.

Adesi didn't dare to open here eyes, but she could feel Juralem trying to work the baby free using as many fingers as she had on both hands. Once the midwife was certain of the cessation of the contraction, she stopped and whispered something to one of her aides.

'What?' Adesi asked, suddenly panicked by the silence that had fallen over the tent. 'What is the problem?'

'There is nothing wrong,' Juralem said, wiping sweat away from Adesi's brow using her own sleeve. 'We are almost done here. I just need you to really push with the next one; don't stop until I tell you to. Do you understand.'

Adesi nodded. She understood just fine, though she didn't like what she was hearing very much. When Acua'ba had told her that she would pray for death, she had taken it with a pinch of salt, for wasn't that what all post-natal women say. The Goddess had spoken the truth, though, and the last three contractions had caused her to welcome death with open arms, though it never arrived.

'I can feel it,' Adesi gasped. A tear rolled down her cheek. 'Oh, please, I can feel it coming...'

'Puuuuush!' Juralem cried. 'Don't stop, remember. Keep going until I tell you to stop.'

Adesi pushed, gave it everything that she had, and prayed for death at the same time. She could feel blood trickling out of her, oozing down her legs. How much blood was she losing?

How much more?

She panted, screamed, and pushed, and Juralem shouted at her. She bit down so hard on the wooden stick that it splintered her tongue before snapping into three. She pushed. And then she heard the crying, though it wasn't the screech of a baby that she heard.

It was something else.

She opened her eyes, and wished that she hadn't. Juralem was staring down at the thing lying between her legs, her expression was one of utter revulsion, and then she ran out of the tent, screaming at the top of her lungs. It all happened so fast that Adesi didn't have time to comprehend. She could feel it squirming around between her bloodied thighs, could feel it scratching at the inside of her legs, and as the tent emptied, she knew that Acua'ba had meant it literally: You will pray for death.

She hadn't meant during the birth.

She had meant after.

Her father appeared in the opening; just behind him was Nkechi, who was holding something in his hand, something that terrified Adesi.