She lifts a hand and my husband, my dead husband, leans his cheek against her skin.
I stand, quickly, chair toppling to the floor. Outside, tires skid to a stop over dust and gravel.
The Hunter knew the zombie was there before Chase saw it in the hallway gloom. He grabbed Chase with one hand, pulled him back, forced him behind, and drew his blade with the other. Didn’t even give him the chance to find his gun, but then, what was the point?
But the creature didn’t rush at them. Stooping in the doorway, it turned and grinned with half a face.
The Hunter breathed in sharply.
“Let him through.” A crackly voice commanded, and the zombie stepped aside to reveal a small, ancient-looking woman.
“Who are you?” The Hunter edged forward, sword extended, voice tense and clipped. Chase held back. He fumbled his gun out of its holster and held it high.
The crone laughed. “Come looking for your Necromancer, have you?”
The Hunter stepped onto faded plastic tiles; Chase hung in the darkness of the hallway. One hand clung to the doorframe. The derringer’s barrel was cold as he leaned it against his cheek, the only way to ensure he held it steady.
The Hunter’s blade twitched between zombie and old woman. “How do you—?”
“She’s right here.” The old lady gestured. A younger woman stood by a wooden table. Her face was ruddy with sunburn; she was dressed in tattered jeans and a filthy shirt. Her hands shook, and she clasped the edge of the table as though that was all that kept her upright. “That’s your Necromancer, Hunter. Aren’t you going to do justice for all those her undead killed?”
The young woman shook her head. Straggly blond hair caught in sweat on her forehead and chin. “No.”
The Hunter hesitated. His sword pointed at her, and the young woman closed her eyes. Slowly, the Hunter turned back to the little old lady. “I know Necromancers. I can feel them. She is no Necromancer, although she stinks of the dead.”
The blond woman’s eyes snapped open. They were sharply blue. “Now you.” The Hunter straightened his arm, leveling his sword with the old woman’s smiling face. “You I can feel. But . . . you’re not quite right.” Chase could hear a scowl in the Hunter’s voice.
The old woman cackled. “Pity.” She clutched at a pale handbag, fiddling with the clasp. “If you don’t want to play, Hunter, you should leave. You’re out of your depth here. Can you feel that?”
“I do not think so.” The Hunter raised his sword. “Tell me what you are.”
“Too strong for the likes of you.”
The zombie lurched forward, hands outstretched, and the Hunter spun. The young woman screamed as his blade shot out, as the zombie fell, headless. The old woman was laughing again, hand in her bag. She withdrew a single, white stone.
“Don’t let her—!” The young woman shouted.
Chase jumped forward, aimed at the small, old woman, and pulled the trigger. The derringer clicked, hollow and empty, and Chase realized he had never reloaded it. He just hadn’t remembered.
The Hunter gave a gargling cry as his sword turned back in toward his own, living, neck.
I watch David fall; watch his head hit the ground a moment before his body. Even under all that laughing, I can hear it “splat” against the floor.
I need to go to him. I need to hold him and know that he is truly dead. I hope that he has, perhaps, found a kind of peace now. After I denied it to him.
But I can’t. I shout as the old woman pulls a stone from her bag, as the man’s solid face breaks into shock. She will not make me responsible for his death too.
The porcelain shard is sharp, it cuts my hand. But as the man slices at his own neck with his long, strange sword, I don’t care. I grip it tightly, I feel the blood, and I bring it down into the old woman’s shoulder.
Her laughter becomes a shrill scream. The man’s sword clatters to the ground and he staggers backward. I cut her again. And again. Until her fingers release the small, white stone, and she doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t move.
When she is dead she, thankfully, doesn’t rise in my presence. I guess she thought I had learnt my lesson after all.
Standing is too hard, so I shuffle over to David’s body. He doesn’t look right without his head. I arrange it as best I can.
“Who are you?” The man is also on the ground, leaning against the wall while a teenage boy hovers at his side. The boy’s face is pale, his eyes terrified, but he doesn’t say a word.
“Jane.” Not really an explanation.
The man holds a white cloth up to his neck. There is a small nick there, just enough to bleed. I stare down at his discarded sword. So close. “I am the Hunter.” He nods to the boy. “My reluctant apprentice.”
The boy grimaces.
“We have been tracking you. It was you, wasn’t it? Raising the dead.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” I had only wanted to raise one. Just one. That’s okay, isn’t it?
The Hunter looks meaningfully at the old woman. “Stone witch, wasn’t she?”
I shake my head. I’m not really sure. She was the crazy old woman down the street when we were kids, the one we called a witch. When we grew up she had changed in our eyes, become eccentric and a little sad. But you don’t forget those childhood fears, those stories you tell yourself.
And at the worst point in my life, she was there. Door open. Bag of stones in her hand.
“She is. Powerful creatures, much stronger than a Necromancer.” He clears his throat, carefully. “I’m not too sure on them myself. Those stones are supposed to be lives, I heard. The younger the better. At any rate, they are not an easy kill.” The Hunter is staring at me. Grimly, I meet his gaze. His eyes are hard, but thoughtful. “Pretty good for a first kill. Think you’d like some more?”
I frown. “More?”
“You know what it’s like. Seen it first hand now, I’ll warrant. You know why the dead should stay dead, why those who raise them should be brought to justice.”
I picture the petrol-station worker, backed up against the window as the zombies fed. I only looked back that once. Slowly, I nod. “Yes. I do.”
The Hunter smiles. Wrinkles crinkle beneath his stubble, his dark, serious eyes are almost friendly. The boy has gained some color in his cheeks and looks relieved.
“Tell me.” The Hunter catches his sword with the tip of his boot and drags it closer. With a wince, he picks it up, turns it around, and holds the handle toward me. “Have you ever held one of these?”
The Death and Life of Bob
William Jablonsky
Bob Jarmush is dead.
We do not even notice Bob’s empty chair until Marlene tells us, just after eight, when we are all settled in. It happened early Saturday morning, she says, her thin face devoid of its usual condescending smile. Bob collapsed while pruning his hedges, and by the time the paramedics arrived it was too late.
His funeral is on Thursday; Marlene and her executive assistant Cayla will make a brief, dignified appearance. We may also attend if we wish.
We set about erasing Bob from the office. Jeremy, the IT kid, clears his password from the system; Cayla slides the Star Wars statuettes, R2D2 pencil sharpener, and framed picture with Mark Hamill into an empty office-paper box. Bob has no family, so there will be no awkward, somber-faced presentation of the box of junk at his front door. For this, we are thankful.
His voicemail has forty-seven messages on it—deranged school board members complaining that our science textbooks teach evolution, or that our history texts have too few white people. We decide to leave them to his replacement, whoever that may be.