The Ghosts of the Zombie Apocalypse (6 page)

  The crowds applause died down as everyone felt crest fallen.

  "I don't think I have another story that could measure up to that." Someone said followed by a few others conceding the same fact.

  "Is there some other way we could pay you?"

  "I don't know." S.M. Mike said a little shocked and taken aback by the notion. He couldn't think of anything that he could get from anyone else besides more stories and gossip. "I'll have to think about that."

  Henrietta got back to the cottage around mid day in a huff. She found Mist still tending her garden in the back.

  "What's the big idea messing with my head!" Henrietta burst out as she rapidly approached Mist.

  "What's that now sweetie?" Mist said in the calm tone of a person who is paying a lot of attention to carrots.

  "Don't you think I’ve had a hard enough time just being dead than to-to-to be questioned!? I was...I was happy not knowing! And then you had to go and tell me how crappy it was to watch my corpse kill everybody! Well I'm dead! I died! And I can damn well do what I like!!!"

  Mist didn't move much more than what was required for weeding, and she did it silently. Henrietta stood there fuming angrier at her for how calm she was. Mist shear calmness made her feel so livid and that made her
wish...so much
that she could just wipe that serenity right off her face right then and there. But there it stayed. Henrietta felt helpless.

  "I'm sorry." Mist said as she continued down the line pulling weeds.

  Henrietta stared silently at her, waiting. "Well?"

  "Well what?" Mist asked as she paused in her work.

  "That's all? Just sorry?"

  "Yes."

  Henrietta stared angrily at Mist as Mist looked back at her with a peacefully kind expression. It cut Henrietta's heart like a knife, and it made her angrier that she didn't know why...Why she was this angry, why she felt angry at this kind old woman, why anything! Everything felt like burning in her ghostly body as she couldn't contain herself. She screeched at the world as birds burst out of a nearby tree while Mist stayed calmly still.

  Henrietta fell to her knees wishing she had a body that was capable of crying. Mist then stood up dusting off her garden apron.

  "I'll go make us a cup of tea." Mist said before she made her way inside the cottage.

  Henrietta stayed on the garden ground hugging her knees for a bit before she conceded and got up to follow Mist inside.

  "You want us to do what now?"

  "I want you all to go out and bring me a ghost." S.M. Mike said

  "I don't understand. We are all ghosts. I'll just go over to Harry and bring him over shall I?"

  "I mean another one. Someone who is not in this group."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know...it was the only thing that came to mind that you all could do for my stories. You all wanna hear more stories don't you?"

  The crowd was a sea of nods.

  "Well then go and bring me another ghost."

  The crowd hesitated.

  "What's wrong?"

  "It's just...What are you going to do with them?"

  S.M. Mike paused to think for a second, which is no easy task for an entity that has a real issue with being able to making things up.

  "Make
them
...tell us stories? We
are
running out of them. Each of us only have so many. And...um...there
is
safety? In numbers, I mean."

  "What is there for us to be safe from? We're all dead."

  "Getting...lost?"

   If S.M. Mike could sweat he would have been from all the effort he put in from this inquire. For a ghost this was genius level creativity, even if what he said was true. Being a leader needed a certain level of creativity and S.M. Mike was suspecting that he was quickly becoming a leader. Either that or he was learning how to control everyone. But the more he tried to think about that the less he could see any difference, mainly because he needed a bit more creativity than he had to be able to see one but he wasn't about to admit that to anyone not when he had them doing what he wanted.

  But that was the thing. Why did he really want another ghost? He made up the reasons on the sort of fly for the sake of the crowd but where was his motivation when he came up with it? Maybe it was because he realized the only other commodity out here besides stories are ghosts with more stories. He was vaguely aware that someone was asking him another question.

  "Hmm?"

  "I said how are we going to find others without getting lost ourselves?"

  "And how are we going to bring them back with us?"

  "I say...we try. We try and figure that out. There are other fallen out there, let's try and get them."

  "But how?"

  Mist took the kettle off the flame and set it on a cozy in the middle of the table. Henrietta had been sitting quietly in her chair watching Mist like a cat. But that was a lie Henrietta told herself in order to sit still. In between the silence when Mist put the kettle on to her taking it off Henrietta had been trying to avoid the fact that she had broken down out there in the garden. She sat miserably frustrated that she didn't know what to do with herself anymore. It was like being a toddler who knew they did something wrong and was squirming because they
knew
someone was going to yell at them, except Mist wasn't yelling at her. She stayed peacefully calm as she seeped some herbs in a cup.

  "Henrietta," Mist said, making Henrietta jump "would you be so kind and see if your friend would like to join us?"

  "Wha...What?" Henrietta said taken off guard by the request.

  "Go and wake him up. He should still be sleeping."

  "How do you suppose I do that? I'm a ghost. I don't even know how I'm talking to you?"

  "People are more susceptible to other things when they are asleep. It lets them slip into other worlds through their dreams. He'll notice you, but he probably won't remember it. Takes training to do that."

  "So you are saying you're asleep right now."

  "Just go wake him." Mist said dryly "That is a conversation for another time."

  Henrietta shrugged then flew upstairs through the ceiling. Mist then turned to the cupboard to put back some herbs and take out a tin full of dry tea leaves. She counted under her breath to five before a blood curdling scream bellowed out from upstairs followed by what sounded like a heard of stampeding elephants crashing through a china shop as a set of bagpipes squealed for no reason. Mist sighed to herself as she tipped a spoon full of tea into the pot.

  "I thought I put those away..." She said under her breath as she sat down.

  The man limped carefully down the stairs as Henrietta followed closely behind him with a look of bewilderment skewed on her face.

  "Care for some tea?" Mist said deliberately but not unkindly as she poured a cup out for him.

  The man hesitated.

  "Yes I mean you. Have a seat."

  Slowly and cautiously the man took a seat as Mist placed the cup in front of him. He stared at it as if it were poison.

  "Come now." Mist said as she poured out a cup for herself. "If I wanted you dead you'd already have a big gaping hole where you're head use to be."

  Mist then set the herb tea cup in front of Henrietta then took a sip from her own cup. She looked up to see the both of them staring at her.

  "Well now, isn't this nice. The three of us sitting down to tea."

  The man tensed up at her words and looked as though he wanted to run. This startled Henrietta, who still had a bewildered look on her face, making her knock over her tea cup. The man then fell back over his chair and rolled to his feet in a very gracefully ungraceful manor, like a crab attempting a somersault backwards. Henrietta in turn jumped back just as frighten by her actions obliviously knocking her own chair over.

  Mist was the only one who stayed perfectly calm as she took another sip of tea. Carefully she put her cup back on the table before she went and up righted the chairs. She then picked up Henrietta's cup and refilled it with hot water. Setting the cup to the side, she went into the cupboard for a towel leaving Henrietta stunned and the man on the verge of hyperventilating.

  Curiosity overpowered Henrietta as she went and inspected the cup closely before she poked her finger through the cup making it rattle in its saucer. The man let out a whimper then ducked under the table to look underneath it before rushing over to pick up the cup, spilling more tea all over the table.

  "It's not a trick." Mist said coming back with a few towels. "For either of you."

  Mist took the unresisting tea cup from the man's hand before setting it on the table and mopping the dripping tea up from the floor. Uneasily the man staggered back and sat down heavily in his chair.

  "I imagine there is a lot you can't tell me," Mist said from the floor "because you can't talk."

  The man's body stiffened

  "I don't know when you lost your voice or if you ever had one," Mist said as she stood up and wrung the towel out over the sink. "And I'll bet you haven't had much company for a very long time."

  Mist turned back to look at him with a sharp look in her eye as he looked back at her like a deer momentarily frozen in head lights.

  "I can't be sure if you are alive, dead, or somewhere in between but you
do
know how to listen."

  The man remained unchanged

  "Well as long as I have your ear then you should know there is a whole lot that goes on that we don't get told about. And you being special like you are I'll bet you don't get told much of anything."

  Mist sat down and sipped her tea "So, here is the deal. You mind your manners, keep an open ear, and help out, then you and your friend here are welcome to stay."

  Mist finished her tea before getting up and placing the cup in the sink. "You're not a prisoner here. But with the world as it is right now it seems everywhere is a prison for everyone. Take some time to think about it. I don't need any help from no one that can't commit to the chore at hand."

  Mist glanced at Henrietta

  "Especially with the way life is right now."

  She then turned back to look at the man who appeared to be cowering while standing strait up.

  "If you're still alive, we should get those bandages changed. Either way you need a bath. If you’re going to be a zombie you might as well be a clean one. The solar heater should have the water nice and warm by now. Go and get cleaned up and I'll have you something to eat by the time you're done."

  The man seemed to relax a little.

  "Henrietta, meet me in the garden when you’re ready."

  Mist got an odd look from the man.

  "No not you. That's your friends name there. I'm going to have to figure out something to call you, but later. Now off
you
go."

  The man hesitated for a moment then slowly went upstairs where the sound of running water gradually came through the ceiling followed by the sound of someone slipping and the breaking of some glass. Mist winced her eyes at the sound.

  "I really liked that vase too." Mist said under her breath "Oh well. Come on out when you are done being bewildered, dear."

  Mist then left Henrietta alone in her aforementioned state of bewilderment. Henrietta looked around at the quiet room then back at the cup she had knocked over. Words escaped her. She couldn't even think the words to describe the feeling of not having any words. It was an awkward and vexing place to be before she thought

  Well that's a good way to describe it.

  Henrietta chuckled to herself awkwardly out of tension before she remembered Mist beckoning call and followed her out in the garden. This was turning out to be a very unusual day, even for being a ghost.

  "What do you mean you can't find anyone?" Mike said

  "Well a few of us went over there just within view but we couldn't see anyone over there so we came right back."

  He couldn't be mad at them. You couldn't blame them for not having any imagination to try and look further but what it came down to was that they were all afraid of getting lost and rightfully so. They all secretly knew that as soon as they couldn't see any of the other ghosts that they would get lost. It's not that they couldn't remember how to get back or what direction they had gone
[9]
, it’s just that they needed something to hold on to, something other than themselves close by for them to be able to go anywhere. Unfortunately that use to be their own corpses.

  When they didn't have anything they just stopped and couldn't decide anything anymore. Like a switch went off. Honestly that terrified everyone. No one wanted to get turned off like that but it
did
happen.