What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Zombier (9 page)

And then I’ll be free.

Something is scratching on the wall.

It’s driving me crazy. Night and day, it scratches.

I can’t rest, I can’t sleep.

It’s like a dozen mice. It scratches, it squeals.

That sound, that horrible sound.

And I’m here all alone, in this empty house.

I can hear it even when I’m in my room, at night, it’s muffled but it’s always there.

However, when I come down here, in the living room, it’s where it becomes unbearable. Like nails on a chalkboard.

It penetrates my brain, makes my teeth grind. It’s sharp like a blade through my ears.

I should leave this house, but I can’t. Because of you, my sweet Caroline.

It’s been ten years since we moved in here. You loved so much these old walls.

The furniture, the tapestry, the velvet curtains.

And I loved you.

You were so wild, and restless. With your big rounded eyes always wandering around the room.

Your white crumpled clothes, the way you walked with your bare feet, your messy hair, the way you screamed at nothing and clawed my back when I held you.

I miss you so much, my Caroline.

Still now I’m here, alone, with this obnoxious scratching sound coming from the living room wall.

I loved you, sweet Caroline, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I had to bury you alive.

But I’m sure this scratching will go away, eventually.

“I’ve a very bothersome backache, could you take a look?”

“I don’t see anything strange, except for the knife.”

She was running in the forest. The man with the white mask was on her tail.

She rushed through the dark trees, her pace cracking on dry leaves and roots.

The night was coming.

The unknown man had been following her since the edge of the woods. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. Just a pale mask and a black cape. But she felt his whistle and his thirst for blood.

In the red sky of the dusk, she spotted a small house. She reached the door and started knocking, desperately, crying.

A man opened; he was pale and skinny, with brown hair and big rounded eyes, deep like pits.

“Help! Help! The mask, he’s following me!”

“Stay calm, young lady.” His voice was thin and gentle. “Come inside, I’ll make you some tea.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she cried with grateful tears.

“Have a seat,” said the gentle man, warming the teapot.

She sat down, still shivering.

A sudden sound made her gasp. “What was that?”

“Just my old cat.”

She stood up and went to the next room. The door was open, a bedroom.

“There’s nothing to see there,” shouted the man.

On a chair, rested a black cape and, above, a pale white mask.

There was no other way out, when he closed the door.

“What’s that gloomy face? Here, let me fix it.”

He took the scalpel and drew her a new smile.

When her turn came, Mary walked briskly to the door of the public office. “Hello, I would like an S17 form.”

The gray-haired municipal employee, with thick glasses on his nose, made a snort and rummaged in one of his drawers. “Have you brought your identity card and the notary deed?”

“Yes,” said Mary, placing a stack of papers on the counter. “And here is the clearance of my religious community.”

The employee handed her some pink pages in duplicate. “Please fill in with your data and preferences.”

Mary grabbed the chained pen and began to write her name, social security number, the date of that day. She looked at her watch: it was 4:15 p.m., so she wrote 5 p.m. as the planned time. She checked the various boxes on the questionnaire, then gave the papers back. Her hand was trembling a little.

“It’s 137 dollars,” said the employee as he examined her answers. “Oh... I saw you chose the option 232. This leads to an extra charge of 46 dollars. You know, for cleaning up... later.”

“Sure, sure,” replied Mary and promptly paid in cash.

The clerk put a stamp on each page and handed her a copy of the form.

“Thank you and have a nice day,” said Mary with a smile.

Singing and tapping nervously her fingers on the steering wheel, she drove back home.

First she opened the hot water to fill the bathtub while she undressed. Then she took a large knife from the kitchen.

Back in the bathroom, she looked at the time: five o’clock.

Happy for having completed all the bureaucratic assignments on schedule, with a piece of tape she hung on the door a copy of the “Suicide Application Form - S17.”

She plunged in the hot water and cut the veins of her forearms.

In a sea of red, she passed away with no regrets, like a good citizen.

“Look! There’s a giant locust behind you!” said the guy.

“Ah-ah. Very funny,” replied the other guy, right before the mutant insect chopped his head off.

“You’ve been like a father to me,” said Lucy with her voice cracked by tears.

In the dim light of the room, her slender figure was approaching Steve’s desk.

The writer stood up, the pen slipped from his fingers, his eyes wide open. “How is this possible? Is it really you?”

Lucy, her blond hair combed into pigtails, a white and pink dress with lace and ribbons, got closer. “I trusted you.”

Steve stared at that pretty thing with a grip to his heart; he said nothing, he was too stunned to formulate coherent words.

Lucy, so sweet and innocent, the stuffed bunny in her left hand and the right one shyly hidden behind her back. She walked until the desk lamp lit her face, which was lined with tears, distorted by a deep agony. “I was so
happy
,” she went a bit out of tune on her last word, “before you introduced me to Mr. Barton from the discount store. Before
you
made me follow him in the back.”

“I...” managed to say the writer. “You’re just...”

Now she was near enough to touch him. She was tall for her age, she looked almost like a grown up, but she was only twelve.

Steve saw her creased dress and the blood running along her legs. He stepped back and bumped into his chair, which moved with a squeal.

“It’s you. You made him do
those things
to me!” she moved her right arm showing what she was hiding: a big butcher knife. With a quick gesture, she stuck it into his guts.

“He entered in me. Like
this
. And
this
. And
this
.”

And each word was a stab tearing Steve’s belly, mauling his body.

The writer collapsed to the ground and, while a puddle of blood was spreading on the floor, he whispered, “You’re just... a character.”

Nowadays is not easy to be a writer.

On one side, there you are, quietly trying to make yourself a name; on the other, there are the vultures, the ones peering at you and judging your every single move.

At the times of Dante or Shakespeare, when everything was made by hand, there was no Internet, and the pirates needed time and patience to copy something.

Now a couple of clicks is enough
et voilà
, the file with your precious manuscript is already traveling around the world, available for everyone.

But she shouldn’t have done that. She picked the wrong person to offend.

I wrote ten years ago my trilogy,
Pitch Black
, and I printed it with a little publishing house, half-unknown, because nowadays not even if you’re a demon you have some chance to make yourself a name in the publishing industry.

Obviously, I couldn’t tell my editor that I was a creature from hell. No one knows it, neither does she.

Who’s she? A silly girl all chats and web. A wannabe writer that plays the Goth, posting on her live journal pictures with her friends, posing like cute kittens, writing ill-formed fan fictions about the idols of the moment, crazy in love with some Edward Cul-
something
– a sparkling vampire, oh boy.

What did this fool do? She found my books on a second hand stall, and she thought to scan them and spread them through the net, among her “emo”
I-wear-black-and-cut-myself-cuz-I’m-depressed
friends, and above all, she claimed to be the author.

As if a stupid illiterate brat would really be able to write three sublime and deep black pearls like my manuscripts are.

Grim night
,
The bottom of the pit
, and
Apparent death
are not only three horror books. They speak of the hellish torment of my dimension; they speak of violence, obscurity, blind terror. All things that a little girl like her can’t even imagine.

But she will find out eventually; she will be aware that the journey of the main character through the stages of pain and depravation, until he becomes a demon of a hellish dimension, is not just a fantastic tale. It’s a true story. My story.

She won’t be so lucky; she won’t have the privilege I had, an immortal life and unimaginable powers, devoted to evil and pure violence.

I stare at her with satisfaction, while I rub my red-hot tools.

I chained her to a board, and she looks at me with her big startled eyes, so wide open that they seems to be bulging out of their sockets, her panting breath, tears transfiguring her face.

I approach, showing my grin, a blade of light on a dark impenetrable face. No one can stand my sight without slipping into madness.

I can already feel in my mouth the taste of my revenge on the one who dared to profane my holy art.

I’m on top of her. I plunge my tools.

And her scream gets lost in the darkness.

The purple grass should have been a clue.

And the fact that she was walking in an open field without knowing how she ended up there. Just a skeletal tree with brown bark that stood out in a yellow and cloudy sky.

She was barefoot; the purple grass was soft in contact with her naked skin. She was immersed in a static, unnatural silence.

It was all so odd.

The slight slope was a sign that she was on a hill, and the tree marked out the top. It was strange, at first she thought to be in plane.

She turned around; behind her there was a dark wood. Not knowing which direction to take, she went toward the lonely tree.

“
Amanda...”

Someone was whispering her name.

She continued to go uphill. From the black bark something moved, like a shadow.

“
Amanda...”

She shivered, while the figure became more distinct, small and black, he moved a skeletal limb, pointing his claws toward the girl in a weird sign of greeting.

Amanda froze.

She turned around to go back. She didn’t want to reach that place; she only wanted to go home, in the warmth of her bed.

“
Amanda...”

* * *

She opened her eyes wide with short breath, covered with sweat. Underneath, the reassuring softness of her bed. She looked at her room: the chest of drawers with the mirror, the closet, clothes, and stuffed animals scattered around, the window from which came in the morning light. She was home.

She sat down rubbing her eyes. Just a stupid dream.

She stood up, went to the bathroom, brushed her hair, got dressed for classes.

* * *

Cynthia was waiting for her at the main entrance of the University, red curls into the wind and her usual smile. “Hey, Amanda! What are you doing? You look terrible. What happened to you?”

Amanda gazed at her, surprised, like they hadn’t been together the night before, like she wasn’t there too, dancing and going crazy all night long at the club. “How could you withstand it so well? I feel awful!”

“You’re such a wreck, and you even wanted to go home in advance.”

“Yes, I know. It’s just that...”

Soft lights, lasers, music at full volume, the heat, shaking bodies, and that black figure near the column. Was it just a shadow, an impression? Yet she noticed him due to his low height and because he made her feel watched, spied... She felt a cold shiver down her spine.

“Come on, we’re going to be late!” urged Cynthia walking toward the stairs.