Ante Mortem (19 page)

“
Did you leave Germany to be janitor here in Boston? Is that what your Gramma would consider a better life?”

The old man jammed his lips together and looked pitiful. “When I came to this country I had a career as a broker-dealer. When I was young and carefree. Do you think you are the first student to be singled out by a Fetch? I assure you, Miss, you are not. I have seen them before. I’ve seen the damage they cause.”

He straightened up and stood taller than her now. He grumbled, “Sometimes I wonder if the Fetch followed me here, from the Black Forest. I think… I am to blame.”

“
What should I do?”

“
The apparition doesn’t need your soul. There are two worlds of life and death. There’s the one we see and know, and the other beneath the grave.” He looked at her intently. “It will want to unite with your body… in death.”

“
Screw that.”

“
The creature will insinuate itself within your circle of friends. It will revel in your life, be successful, and gain the admiration of others. Its weakness is its vanity.”

“
How did this happen to me?”

The janitor turned his back on her. “Take care, Miss.”

The girl suddenly thought of Noel, his nose red from a flying plate. “I have to make amends.”

“
You don’t have much time left,” The old man said. “You are already becoming dim.”

A chill crept over her, even though she had no idea what he meant.

The girl tapped at Noel’s door until he opened it.

“
What?” He was dressed in the T-shirt she had given him last Christmas and his favorite grungy gym shorts.

“
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I should never have hit you. I’ll never do it again. Please, forgive me.”

“
Sweet, but not necessary.”

“
Your nose looks okay.”

“
And yours is running.”

“
Smart ass. Aren’t you going to let me in?”

Noel raised his eyebrows. “Bossy, aren’t you?”

“
Hey.”

“
Do I know you? Are we in Kehoe’s class together?”

“
Noel,” she said quietly, “…it’s me.”

“
Hi,
you
,” he said as he looked her up and down.

“
Stop it and let me in.”

“
Thanks, but I already have a girlfriend. She gets very jealous.”

Her smirk withered.

“
Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he said.

The way he looked at her, she knew it, her boyfriend did not recognize her.

“
Go away.”

“
I… must be… mistaken,” she muttered bleakly.

“
Look, go pester Mike next door. He needs a new girl.”

“
I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Noel shut his door. She heard him turn the lock.

The girl went silent as a mouse, although she ached to bang on that door until it split in two. Something went soft inside her. Her head had been pounding all day and she was exhausted.

She did not want to fight with anyone again.

It walks in your own image
, she remembered and shivered.

She turned away and drifted back to her sublet.

She slept for two whole days. On Thursday, she woke at dawn, packed a bag and took the train back to Braintree. She hopped on a bus headed home to Plymouth.

From the bus stop, she walked the four blocks to the neighborhood she grew up in. The Colonial-style homes looked warm and inviting. A heart-shaped wreath still clung to the front door of her house, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped onto the porch.

The door was locked, so she rang the bell. Her mother answered, looking dazed and ill. There was no sign of her terrier, Bugga. He should have been barking his head off in the entryway. Her mother’s eyes were bloodshot and a scarlet wound bloomed on her neck. She stared blankly at the girl and asked, “Can I help you?”

“
I’ve got it,
Mutter
,” a peculiar voice said from the hall. An ashen hand slithered across her mother’s shoulder and pulled her away. The fingers were spindly, its overgrown nails yellowed.

A sparkling engagement diamond adorned its ring finger.

The girl on the porch took a step back as she locked eyes with the Fetch who stood in her home.

“
Happy Valentine’ssss Day
,” Narissa-the-Fetch sneered. Its voice was sibilant, the breath smelling of rancid almonds. Its skin was parched and torn, sloughing off the cheekbones and neck. The slimy hair was infested with fluttering insects. Both eyes were like orbs chipped from coal. It grinned broadly, and bared fangs filed thin, sharp as nails. A trickle of blood speckled its chin.

In the hallway behind the intruder, the girl spotted her mom and dad standing with Noel. All three of them swayed to some hypnotic tune buzzing in their minds and they all looked pale and sickly. None of them recognized her.

The girl backed away from the door, from her own family.

Narissa-the-Fetch seemed delighted. Its torso undulated as it shut the door and bolted the lock.

The true Narissa did not know what to do next. She looked down and a small sound escaped her parched lips.

Her hand had gone transparent. She could see the boards of the porch clearly through the hollow of her vanishing skin.

The following Monday, a ghostly girl watched Narissa as she left her apartment, running to catch the subway to Huntington.

Narissa looked rapturous in the early morning sun; her skin rejuvenated and lice-filled hair gleaming. Her smile spread wide and her fangs were clenched. Not one person she passed on the street seemed to see her as anything but beautiful, happy, one-of-a-kind Narissa.

She seemed full of life.

But the girl, a shadow now, watched the Fetch and saw through its glamour. The girl lived with eternal, wintry chill now, and regrets for the life she so carelessly let slip away.

A life that might have been hers.

The girl dimmed to a wispy apparition. She shimmered and billowed away, across a crowd of students rushing to class at various colleges in Boston.

Floating along until she was no more.

* * * *

Beauty Ritual

John Grover

It was after 2 AM. when the chill slithered into Chad’s bedroom and woke him out of a dead sleep. Gooseflesh broke out over his arms and chest as he sat up in bed, his eyes adjusting to the inky darkness.

Chad’s gaze searched the clutter of his room. Something wasn’t right. Simple cold shouldn’t have woken him, especially after all the mixed drinks he’d downed at the Paradise club that night. He turned to the window behind him. The streetlight outside illuminated the glass in amber, revealing a layer of glittering frost.

Frost? In June?

He was almost out of bed when the tap on the wall stopped him. Chad forgot the window as the tap grew louder. His bed was pushed up against the wall, insuring he would never wake up on the wrong side, or so he liked to think.

The strange thing was his apartment was a corner unit and there was no one on the other side of that wall, nothing but the outside of course.

Chad placed his ear to the wall, listening attentively. A smirk formed on his lips as he figured he was probably just suffering from the effects of a hangover that would undoubtedly render him useless when the sun came up.

Suddenly, the wall shook violently. Chad fell back, stunned, his mouth agape. A fissure formed, shooting right down the length of the wall, splintering like a spider web. Debris shot over the bed and Chad leapt to the floor.

A roar pealed through the room as the wall crumbled, and a creature hurled itself to the floor in a giant ball. It rose slowly to a towering height, its body covered in razor-sharp quills.

Azure eyes pierced the gloom and focused on the terrified Chad, who refused to believe what he was seeing. A scream died in his throat, but his legs sprang into action and he dashed for the bedroom door.

The creature howled and he could see it writhing out of the corner of his eye. Intense pain washed over his back and he fell to the floor, his skin ripe with the quills that lanced his back and buttocks like acupuncture needles.

To his horror, Chad realized he couldn’t move as a poison pumped into his flesh. The pain diminished as his entire body went numb.

He heard the creature scale the nearest wall, then drop to the floor beside him with a thud. It turned the helpless Chad over with spindly claws, leaned its grotesque face into him, and thrust a blunt, wet snout towards him. In the meager light, he could see a lipless mouth open, revealing massive tusks and rows of tiny teeth covered in black foam. The creature took hold of his shoulders and climbed atop him.

Unable to move, Chad watched as hundreds of teeth sank into his chest. Not a sound escaped him, but inside he prayed for death and shut his eyes as the beast ate him alive.

Daniel’s eyes popped open and he reached for Jeremy’s side of the bed. “Jeremy?”
Where’s he gone to now?
He rose from the bed and stepped into the small bathroom just outside the door. After relieving himself, he downed a glass of water and headed down the stairs.

The dining room and kitchen were dark, so Daniel strolled through the living room and stepped into the narrow back hallway. A single door to his right was closed. It was
never
closed. The room behind it was a small, oddly shaped room that Jeremy used as an office. A lot of these old two or three story houses had whacky little rooms that could barely serve a purpose.

Dim light flickered under the door and Daniel heard a groan on the other side. “Jeremy?” he called, thinking his boyfriend was in some sort of distress until he heard a giggle.

He pushed the door open in time to see Jeremy extinguish a candle and close the glossy cover of a rather large book. “Jeremy, is everything alright?” The faint scent of sulfur wafted past his nostrils.

“
Everything’s good, Danny.” Jeremy turned and smiled. He held out his arms and Daniel went willingly into them, the embrace warm and comforting. Over his lover’s shoulder he spotted the book, the title read:
Queer Magick.
There was a subtitle but Daniel couldn’t make it out.

“
Where did you get that book?” Daniel asked with a chuckle. He thought the title was absurd and knew it had to be some kind of joke Jeremy was conjuring up.

“
On the internet,” Jeremy replied. “I thought it was very fascinating. I didn’t even know we had our own magic,” he laughed out loud.

Daniel returned his playful mood with his own. “Sounds really hokey to me.”