Twelve years earlier

One of the biggest lies he had ever been told about the life of a ghost, Henry Greene thought as he floated through the countryside, is that they are fundamentally tied to the place where they died.

This was mostly untrue.

While some poor souls were unlucky enough to be anchored or cursed to a certain place for eternity. Most ghosts were free to wander about the earth as they please when they found that they couldn’t pass on to the afterlife. They were, for the most part, completely harmless spirits unless provoked and were generally keen on staying away from humans like all manners of sensible supernatural spirits.

The reason why most ghosts chose to stay around the place of their death, has to do more with sentimentality and familiarity rather than necessity. Simply put, they have nowhere to go and nothing else to do. They would sit on the bed where they die or around the corridors where they were murdered, and pondered deeply on the poor, terrible life choices that led to their (seemingly) untimely deaths.

They would go about the places where they do their daily routine, trying to interact as much as they can with the world around them. They’d float near their grieving and mourning loved ones, unable to console or to comfort them. They’d watch their spouses remarry and their children having childrens of their own, without being able to communicate with them forever. Without being able to be seen or to be heard by them, to touch and be touched.

A handful managed to find peace and move on after a time. Others waste away in their own thoughts and regrets, becoming little more than empty shadows and husks vainly clawing at things no longer possible to them. Some went mad, turning into wrathful spirits that thrashed and raged all over their place, decrying their (seemingly) unfair treatments and, in extreme cases, persistently refusing to believe that they were dead.

Well, bugger those people, Henry thought when he heard about them.

He had spent his life as a penniless salesman doing boring, and, frankly, unfulfilling jobs, for people he neither liked nor respected outside of a professional level. He was one of those people who worked twelve hours a day, receiving a cheque only slightly above the minimum wage requirement, and was not promoted despite decades of exhausting services.

When he died, he died as a lonely man with neither wife nor child to grieve for him. No one attended his funeral outside of his close family and the burial he was given was quite shoddy by burial standard. The priest had been a sputtering mess who could drown a man with his spit, his brother-in-law gave a half-hearted eulogy that he suspected was written only a few hours ago, and they also misspelled his name on the tombstone. How the hell did they manage to get the last one he did not know and did not think he wanted to know.

So when he was given a new chance at (un)life, he decided that he would make the best out of it. He read books he did not have time for back when he was alive, finishing many mystery, science fiction, and fantasy novels he never got to buy. He even managed to read a draft of Winds of Winter and glimpsed the outline of A Dream of Spring when he dropped by George Martin’s house just before season 8 of Game of Thrones came out. He watched new blockbuster movies at the front row seat in the cinema without paying a single dime and sometimes got to watch it alongside the actors themselves.

He travelled around the world, going to places he could only see in his dreams or on the internet. He climbed the pyramids of Giza, floated above the Eiffel Tower, ran a marathon along the Great Wall, and picked on George Washington’s nose at the Rushmore Monuments. He had learned that life was too short to waddle in self-deprecation and depression. So why should he throw away this new chance, this newfound freedom he now possessed?

Currently, he was relaxingly walking -or at least something akin to that when you don’t even have legs- through the York countryside. Summer was still as wonderful as ever. And even though he couldn’t feel the warmth of the sun on his skin anymore, he appreciated the clear weather and the bright atmosphere it gave off. It also allowed him to take in the most of the sight before him. And what a sight it was.

Hills and valleys rose and fell like waves on the ocean, vibrant with life. Emerald green grass and tall English Oak stretched unending to the horizon. Veritable plains of verdant flowers reverberated by the wind as far as the eyes can see; in hues of red and blue and gold. Golden fields of wheat and other crops were neatly and efficiently laid as if placed there just to give an eye candy or some. Above, the sun stood tall and proud and magnificent against a bright blue sky. Around him he could see the farmers going about their lives, cows and sheeps roaming the fields, birds happily singing in the trees, foxes digging holes on the ground, etc.

He’d felt the need for a bit of scenery change after Istanbul, something distinctly European, mountainous and north-European but also a bit sunny. The Scandinavian countries were what came first to his mind, perhaps Norway or Denmark or the Baltic States? Unfortunately he had been to those places before and while they weren’t bad per se he’d encountered some...happenstance.

A most terrible incident occurred involving a priest and a racoon and before he knew it he was floating ragged from an army of stark mad and clearly angry cultists led by a drunken priestess living in the woods bent on sacrificing his lost soul to the great forest god whose statue he’d accidentally destroyed*.

Suffice to say that he’ll probably stay out from any of those countries for about a few decades or so. Plus Norway has too many trees to really enjoy the scenery unless you go up the mountains.

After a bit of deliberation, some research in the library, and more than a few hauntings on a nearby internet café, he decided to pay a visit to the British isles. It was a rather quiet country as far as countries go and perhaps a bit of quietness is all that he needs after all. Plus it was the summer months and he heard very good things about the United Kingdoms in the summer*.

Something caught his eyes as his incorporeal feet tread down from the top of another hill, upon the old road that looked as if they have never been cleaned in centuries. A monstrous black figure stood out against a sea of evergreen and he stood for a while to stare at the grotesque Victorian architectural achievement.

He floated up to take a closer look.

Henry had seen his fair share of creepy derelict mansions in his travels across the world. But this building, which stood out more in the countryside than a big, hairy Viking in a British tea party, was pretty much on the cream ten percent of the upper class when it comes to creepiest of the creepies.

It stood on the top of a lonely hill at the end of an old road with as many holes as a swiss cheese. A tall wall, nine-feet high, surrounded the estate it was in brick and barbed wire. The land around the mansion might have been a very beautiful garden once but now it had fallen to decay and disrepair.

The statues were so broken down you could only guess their previous shape. Bushes and vines and long grass had overtaken the flowers and fields and turned the garden into a hazy maze of undergrowth. The trees freely reigned their branches over the land like would-be tyrants. It was a miracle he could identify it as a garden at all.

He had not even begun with the mansion itself. The walls were old and shriveled and covered in vines. The paints had peeled off in so many places it looked like a cow after being brought to a tanner’s workshop. The woods were so bristled and frail he’d bet money on a sudden wind bringing them down in one fell swoop.

Most of the windows were dingy and drab and covered in dust so thick he knew that they had not been cleaned in centuries. Gnarling gargoyles leapt from balconies and corners, dozens of them adorning the mansion, adding to its bleak and dark atmosphere. It must’ve been from at least the middle of the nineteenth century, Henry thought. Only those old times Victorians could think of such work and call them art*.

And yet, the most terrifying thing of all about the mansion was not the ruined gardens, the disrepaired building, or the gargoyles. But the fact that it was occupied.

No. Really.

A car was parked in front of a mansion. It wasn’t a very old car, not that old anyway by car standards. It was not a car Henry expected to see in a mansion that old. It looked so out of place -more like out of time, really- that it could be compared to a modern car parking outside of a tavern in a wild west setting.

The only things wrong with that sentiment is that;

a) it was not a silver DMC DeLorean but a black-as-pitch 2003 Bentley Continental GT,

b) it was parked outside a derelict has-to-be Victorian mansion not a wild west tavern, and

c) it doesn’t look like it could carry a time machine, not a very big one anyway.

Besides the car, Henry noted the lights, however unlikely and absurdly the notion sounded, coming out from the windows. It was not the bright red and orange of a fire but actual white and yellow from modern electrical lamps. They were only a few of them, sure, but the implication of their existence was critical to his conclusion. At least Henry thought it was.

From outside, he could see vague shapes moving through windows and he could hear talking coming up from the upper floors.

Who would like to live in a place like this?

Nobody, that’s the answer. Nobody sane and in their right minds. A few thoughts came out from the back of Henry’s mind. None of them were good. A coven of witches taking refuge in the derelict mansion. A satanic cabal summoning hordes of demons. Perhaps a few ghost hunters seeking to unravel the supernatural with science and modern equipment.

(The last one was a bit unlikely though, Henry did not see any vans that could carry such heavy equipment for ghost hunting and the Bentley was far too small for that he was sure.)

Now, Henry was curious and he was a ghost, with all the perks and handicap that entail. A curious Henry, his acquaintances will tell you, is a bad thing. A curious and ghostly Henry with not many rules binding him down is pretty much a recipe for disasters.

Sure he could die a second time or something. But it couldn’t be much worse than his first death could it?

He heard muffled sounds coming from the second floor above.

He shrugged. “Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.” And with that, he floated up to get a closer look at the mansion’s not completely sane occupants. As he flew up and up and up several things

He expected to see, with completely justifiable reasons of course, a coven of witches brewing potions in a black pot over roaring pits of fire or huddled around a magic circle.

He expected to see, after a bit more thinking, a satanic cabal or illuminati meeting over a bloody sacrificial ritual intended to summon the Antichrist.

He expected to see, after forcing his imagination to work overtime, an alchemist with a bright red Philosopher Stone turning bars of lead into gold.

He feared to see, not without a very good cause he’d assured you, another bunch of crazy cultists hell-bent on turning his soul into dinner for their incomprehensible masters in the shadows.

What he most certainly did not expect to see was an overworked mother sitting on a desk, one hand on the phone and another hand furiously typing on the keyboard.

She was not exactly a witch. While the disheveled brown hair she has would give that impression, she was only about late twenties to early thirties at the latest. There was no sign of wrinkles on her face, though the way she frowned and scowled and scrunched up her face would probably give her that if she’s not careful in the next few years. And while she wasn’t exactly beautiful, she was most certainly above average.

“But ma’am-” She said in a fast hitched tone of someone who just knows that shits are about to go down and was trying very hard to avoid it. “-We can’t do that! It’ll put the investors on-”

She was cut off by a loud, shrill voice from the other side. Henry imagined a three-quarter aged woman, big and fat, with too much makeup on her face speaking in spits and sputters.

“I understand but-”

“...!”

“Ma’am, please, with all due respect-”

“...?!”

“N-no, ma’am...”

“...?”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

She put down her phone and stopped her typing. A sigh as heavy as the mountains stretched out across her mouth. She sank into her chair down to the pits of despair.

“What am I going to do?” She asked no one in particular, placing both hands on her face. A dejected silence following not long after.

Realization dawned on Henry like a cruel epiphany.

She was a corporate slave. Just like he was.

Beads of ethereal tears ran down his cheek and he felt the need to sniff.even though didn’t have a nose anymore.

He placed a hand on the feeble woman’s shoulder as she slunked down her chair.

“There, there,” He said, tapping his fingers gently so as not to phase through his shoulder. “I know how you feel.”

The woman sunk deeper and deeper.

“Don’t worry,” He said, in the encouraging tone of a general who knows defeat is near and is trying to keep his soldiers from faltering. “It will all be better. I promise you. You just have to woman up and get through this shitstorm, ya hear me? You’ll get through this smelling like roses and perfumes.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He was about to say more but a small, high-pitched sound interrupted him.

The woman raised her head and Henry trailed her gaze towards another side of the room. For the first time, Henry noticed the presence of a small child standing quietly inside a cradle at the other side of the room. He -Henry knew it was a he by the blue clothings he put on- was a fairly small child, no more than two years by Henry’s estimate.

The child poked his head over the bars of the cradle and gave a big, warm smile that seemingly brightens the room.

D’aww Henry thought.

“Y-you’re right.” the woman said, wiping her tears and straightening her back. “I mustn't give up. I’m going to get through this all right!”

And with that she began typing at a speed of a hundred letters per second. Her eyes burning anew with ferocious determination not dissimilar to a small dying campfire being doused with a barrel of nitroglycerin. In the middle of a dry forest. In the summer.

Henry finds it both heartwarming and only slightly unsettling.

He shivered and walked purposefully towards the cradle.

The child was a bit paler than other children his age. Ebony hair thinly covered his head. He wore a blue shirt and a diaper. He looked at Henry like he would any other stranger. With a shy, meek gaze. Henry smiled friendly at the child who, after a time, returned it likewise.

“Well I must tip my hat to you, sir,” Henry said, making a motion just like so. “You’re certainly a more inspiring speaker than I am,”

He nodded his head in acknowledgement which was returned by a bobbled head.

He laughed and turned around, making for the window, stopping just a few steps short to look back at the child.

The child stared at him.

“Take care of your mother, alright?” He said, turning around and making for a cool, badass exit…

Or at least he would have done so had one peculiar thing not occurred to him.

He turned, once again, towards the boy, who was staring at him.

Not staring at his mother.

Not staring at something at a distance.

Staring at him.

...

Henry frowned. He looked past his shoulders to see if there was anything funny going on behind him. When he didn’t find anything. He raised a single finger in front of his face.

The child stared more intently this time.

He moved his finger to the left.

He noted the boy’s head moving at the direction he was pointing at.

He moved his finger to the right.

As he expected, the child’s gaze chased after it like a cat set upon a red laser dott .

Huh.

He strode back towards the crib and stared at the little child bobbing his head up to meet his stare with one of his own.

“So you can see me, huh?” He said.

The child’s only answer was a smile.

Very few people could actually see Henry. Most of them were dead. Most people, living, breathing people simply couldn't notice the presence of ghosts at all. Some were able to perceive just a little bit; hair standing at the back of the neck, a sudden chill pervading in the air, perhaps catching a passing shadow at the corner of their eyes. He had experiences with those people. The majority of them were seances, psychics, occultists or even a witch doctor or two.

For someone to actually see him though?

Well he could count with the fingers of one hand the numbers of human beings still alive on this planet that could see him as well as though he was standing in front of them and not use all his fingers. His thoughts turned reluctantly and inadvertently to the crazy priestess back in Scandinavia.

He shivered. No, this was different. For one, it was a boy. And he looked perfectly sane if looking a bit worried.

He realized, abruptly, that the child’s smile had died a few seconds ago and he was now staring at him strangely in a manner that explicitly asked him ‘Okay now you’re scaring me, sir. Is there something on my face?’

He had never been mistaken for a pedophile in his life and he wasn’t about to start right now.

His first instinct was to excuse himself and make for the windows but if he did that the child will think he was a creep or something! His image of himself will be ruined forever! He could never see himself in the mirror again*. No, if he has to make an exit it must be with style. Like James Bond. Or Clint Eastwood. Or Chuck Norris.

An idea struck his head. His eyes widened. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? If someone were to put a lightbulb on his head it would probably be set alight right about now*.

He looked towards the child in the crib and smiled.

“Hey kid,” He asked. “Wanna see a magic trick?”

Magic trick. Literally one of the oldest tricks in the book to distract people.

The child tilted his head as if to say ‘Go on.’

Hook.

“Watch this,” He said, folding the four fingers of one hand over the lower half of their thumb, and placing it right beside the folded thumb of another hand.

The child looked intently at it.

Line.

Henry grinned. He had watched some videos on YouTube and had been practicing his magic tricks for some times now. He was fairly confident in his new found skills.

With a sudden movement he jerked one arm away from the other.

“What’s this? My thumb!” He cried out, one hand holding what seemed to be the lower half of the thumb while the other holds the upper half.

Sinker!*

Except it wasn’t a sinker. If anything it was floating up faster than a helium balloon in open air.

Henry had expected something akin to awe. Perhaps fear. A cry or a gasp maybe.

He did not expect a confused and slightly miffed look of a customer who’d learned that there had been a discount party in his nearest supermarket.

“Eh? Eh?” Henry asked, holding the two hands near each other. Perhaps the child simply didn’t understand what was happening?

The child yawned. ‘Is that it? Really?’

Henry cringed. “Tough crowd.”

“Oh, that’s a very neat understatement you have right there.” A voice spoke out.

Henry was not startled. He merely felt some incomprehensible urge to jump away. Definitely not startled. No sir.

He turned around to see a ghostly apparition of a woman walking towards him.

She looked like she could’ve been in her thirties or fifties. It was hard to tell with a ghost. She wore a very fine gown of purple silk, handmade and exquisitely stitched with silver and golden threads. Her hair was tied to a neat bun which complimented her features rather nicely. Her face was a bit too long and her eyebrows slightly too large but it didn’t matter overall in Henry’s opinion. An amused smile played across her lips as she looked sweetly at the boy who looked back at her and smiled.

“Interesting little fellow isn’t he?” She asked, standing beside Henry though her eyes remained on the boy. “I wouldn’t bother with that magic ‘trick’ earlier, if magic it truly was. It wouldn’t do much good anyway.”

“Oh?” Henry asked, willing the girl to explain what she meant.

“Indeed, some of the servants upstairs tried to scare him away once. They used everything they have; moving chairs, knocking doors, flying toys. The usual. It didn’t work. The best they got out of him was an interested glance or two.”

She placed a finger on the child’s forehead who tried to snatched it with his hands which merely phased right past the finger.

“D’aww. Isn’t he so sweet?”

Henry shuffled his feet on the floor.

“Who’s the cutest one? Who’s the cutest one? You are, you are.”

Henry coughed.

The woman looked up as if she had just first seen him standing there. “Oh, I do apologize for not introducing myself properly.”

She raised herself up and gave Henry a curtsy.

“My name is Irene Torrington,” She said, her knees bent and back straight as a board in a perfect movement reminiscent of a plie Henry's seen in a ballet. “11th of June 1834 to 16th of March 1869. And you are…?”

She smiled sweetly at him.

If Henry had a face he would blush right about now. It was not his first experience talking to a girl but it was his first talking to one so pretty.

“Uhm the name’s- I mean- that is to say-” Ah! Get a grip, non-existent brain! “My name’s Henry Greene, 4th of April 1987 to-” Henry frowned, searching through the mist of memories. The only thing he came up with was a very intelligent “Err…”

Finally he gave up. “Sorry, can’t exactly remember the exact details but it’s been less than a year.”

The lady, for she was almost certainly one, laughed. “So young, indeed! And don’t trouble yourself, there’s no need. Not many of us can remember the day we die, anyhow. Most simply chose to forget about it altogether.”

She shrugged. “Not something you want to be reminded of, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it kinda sucks.” Henry nodded in agreement.

“There’s an understatement again just now. Though I’m sure the funeral must’ve gone well. It must’ve been cathartic to see so many people care about you, No?”

Henry thought of the spitting priest, on his brother-in-law’s half-hearted eulogy, and the misspelled name on the tomb. “Kind of… so and so.”

“Ah. A bittersweet experience. I understand.” The woman looked at him with a sympathy he was sure was misplaced. “My own funeral went along the same line, as the saying goes. It was hard to see my own family during my funeral. Seeing my children’s tears passing down their cheeks without me being able to brush them aside. My husband’s silent sorrow without me being able to comfort them. My siblings…” She trailed off with a sniff.

Henry wasn’t sure he should be having this conversation.

“Gregory was a big man with his own family but he looked like any lost ten year old left alone in the market. Peter was working overseas so he couldn’t come. Little Anya asked why I was sleeping and why no one bothered to wake me up. It was so sad and yet…” Here she pulled a handkerchief and blew her nose. “and yet I felt a bit of relief, if you will. Perhaps, even happiness, dare I say. You must think me a cruel woman for putting it like so. But the thing is, seeing them grieve for me, it made me realize just how precious I am to them. It made me feel…”

“Loved.” Henry finished. “It makes you feel like you actually did a lot of good in the world. That you left some mark or something in it.”

“Yes,” She nodded. “I knew you would understand.”

Henry did. Kind of. It was actually the opposite, if he was perfectly honest.

There must’ve been something written across his face for the woman seemed abashed when he looked at her. “Ah. I apologize for boring you with my stories. It must’ve been an unpleasant experience. My mother used to lecture me about it all the time. I was too talkative, she said, too much of a blabber mouth. I speak too much and most of them to people who don’t actually need or understand anything I said. I apologize for being a burden and -”

“No,” Henry shook his head. “You’re not being a burden. I can understand the sentiment.” And he really could. Henry was a sixty percent extrovert. He felt that urgent need to socialize and be with a group,talk to someone, anyone about something and anything. It was hard doing that when you’re a ghost most people couldn’t see let alone hear. The only reason he could not show off his extrovertedness back when he was alive has more to do with workload than anything.

“Thank you,” She said, sighing in relief. “I forgot to ask. What brings a ghost like you here to our mansion?”

“Oh! Uhm, nothing really. Was just walking by when I saw your mansion on top of the hill. Thought I’d check it out for a bit. See if there’s anything interesting in it.”

“Yes,” The woman nodded. “Our mansion does have that certain appeal to it.”

She looked sadly at him.

“You should’ve seen it back in its prime. The Torringtons were once a wealthy family. Small but respected throughout the land. This mansion served as our abode and our home. It was a lively place, once upon a time, full of laughter and life. We would host a feast every month in our halls and tea parties every two weeks in the garden tended by our servants and stewards. And the flowers that bloom here, Mister Greene…” She sighed, a soft mournful sigh that speaks of better times. Of endless summer and unending spring.

“Must’ve been an impressive place,”

“And it still is. Though unfortunately not in the way I would prefer.” She shook her head. “But I am getting ahead of myself. Would you like a tour of the mansion, Mister Henry Greene, unless if you’re preoccupied that is?”

Henry thought about it for a moment. It's not like he has anything better to do. And the chance to talk with an actually sane ghost for once, doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend his afternoon.

He shrugged. “Lead the way then, Miss Torrington.”

The ghost lady giggled. “Please. Call me Irene. Such titles make me feel old.”

“Well,” He said, smiling softly and arching his back into as formal a bow as he could muster. “Lead the way then, Miss Irene.”

It was the beginning of something, Henry knew. Something beautiful and wondrous.

_______________

*It was actually a Neo Paganism gathering, Henry had unknowingly chanced upon them in the woods. And the drunken priestess was not really drunk and was not really bent on sacrificing him so much as believing him the lost soul of a Viking Draugr wandering the earth looking to do harm and mischief that needed to be put to rest. Which is only a little bit better. Henry’s terrible grasp on any Scandinavian languages did not help in the slightest.

*Alas, Henry Greene was one of those peoples who’d tragically died without learning of the difference between the United Kingdoms, Great Britain, Britain, and England.

*It should be noted and underlined with great importance that Henry’s knowledge on Victorian people only went as far as a couple of Jane Austen movies, a few novels like; Frankenstein, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, and the many prose and poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

*Not that there was much to see anyway

*Not entirely inaccurate, mind you, some ghosts have been known to emit small amounts of electrical charges, if they try hard enough.

*No, Henry did not know the true meaning of that statement. He simply thought it was cool if he began thinking like that.

_______________

It was still raining when they reached the house.

The street drain and sewers were viciously gulping down the rain with a speed that would not be dissimilar to that of thirsty travellers in the desert downing waters from an oasis and yet puddles still remain on the road and sidewalks. The boy walked in the lead, in quick but careful strides, avoiding any spot even suspected of being slightly slippery. His bare hand held an umbrella and flashlight*. The skeleton followed him like a loyal servant, carrying the shovel on one hand and the other umbrella over his head.

They arrived after a full hour of walking, standing outside of a house in the suburban district. The boy, cold and hungry and tired and soaking wet despite the raincoat and umbrella, the zombie standing impassively without a care or weariness in the world as rain water dripped and hung circles round his umbrella and the stare it gave could make all but the most daring man pause.

The house was a two-floored, japanese style building the color of old yellow, though it might as well be black in this darkness. It was flanked on all sides by a tall fenced wall. There was a sign warning visitor about guard dogs which the boy thought odd since they didn’t have a dog*. It has a wide courtyard and a garden in the back. Bright light glimmered from the numerous windows, promising warmth and comfort to those who would come in.

Home. At last.

Well not home. Not really, the boy thought. That honor would always go to his grandfather’s old mansion that lies on the outskirts of York*. Even so, the japanese house came as a definite second. The room temperature was not too hot in the winter nor too cold in the summer but stayed just at the perfect temperature. It didn’t have an old family library or a mysterious study room or wide corridors and stairs to run up and down on but it did have actual room heating and a state of the art video game console*. Plus the lack of dust meant less chores.

As any fourteen years old will tell you, less chores are always a win.

“So this is my house,” The boy said. “And your new home.”

The zombie stared silently at it for a while.

It suddenly occurred to the boy that the newly raised skeleton might have lacked a few important anatomy to actually make an intelligent comment. He shrugged. At least he tried being polite even if the thing can’t actually understand him. And a gentleman, his great uncle told him, must always be polite.

“Right, let’s just get in.” He moved towards the bell button...and stopped.

He looked towards his new companion.

He didn’t manage to get a good look at his servant back in the graveyard. Now that he did, though, he realized that it might not be in the most...presentable of state. The clothes he was buried with, for one, were not in a very good condition. The body had been in the coffin for so long that most of the clothings had been disintegrated, those parts that didn’t have sort-of meld with the skin and turned a dark shade of green so putrid one could mistake it to be dyed in a vat of human vomit. The skull was missing a few teeths and instead of eyes, a pair of small purple flames danced in its sockets. Its mouth was also consistently opening and closing like a fish out of water.

What would his family do if he brought a dirty corpse like this to the front door?

His mother came to the forefront of that image. He could see her as if she was standing in front of him, eyes twitching with the rhythmic consistencies of a broken clock, staring at him with a glare that would turn ten medusas to solid statues that were not so much as carved stone as rock broken down with a hammer and shaped into vaguely half-serpentine, half humanoid figures.

His stepfather stood besides her, frozen like a snowman in the middle of a blizzard before promptly taking off his glasses, cleaning them with a ferociousness only rivalled by hardcore OCDs, and putting them back on and gaping at him like a fish when the corpse did not dissapear.

His sister sat in the background. Smiling.

He shivered and shook his head. Nothing good will come when thinking about how she would react.

Next question, where should he hide a newly resurrected corpse in his house?

He looked towards the old family shovel he’d procured from the shack held tightly between the zombie’s bony fingers.

He could dig a new grave, ordered the zombie to lie there for the night and then come back in the morning to find a proper place for him to stay...

The puddle gathering around the courtyard put an end to such thoughts.

Even if he managed to dig a shallow grave fast enough through the mud, there was no guarantee that the rain and storm will not wash away all his work while he sleeps. Plus the commotion from all that digging might draw unwanted notice from his household and when his family saw what he’s up to…

He shivered. More violently this time.

Come on, brain, think!

He looked towards his house, specifically towards the light coming down from the windows of his room on the second floor. It wasn’t as big as his old room from the family’s mansion but it was his room. His fortress. His patch of heaven. He remembered something the saleswoman had said to his family when they came to review the house. On the ceiling, just above his very room there was a hatch leading directly to the attic.

Hmm...

“Hey, can you climb?” He asked, genuinely curious. The pages had been very vague on what zombies can and can’t do and he hadn’t bothered to research further, partially because he was too excited at the time, partially because most of the useful notes on zombies weren’t in English or Japanese*. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but for now that would do.

A decaying head stared at him for a long while before walking steadily to a nearby wall. It placed a decrepit hand over them and began to lift…

And fell flat on its back.

The boy sighed. “The back door it is, then.”

Fortunately it was unlocked. Curfew was still an hour away and the boy doubted that his sister would lock the door with the knowledge that he was still outside the house. He’d left a note and all, explaining that he’d gone outside and will probably be home after dinner so she should leave something at the table ready for him.

The back door led directly to the kitchen and the boy opened it with the most silent of creaks. He poked his head in first. He squinted his eyes, struggling to see in the dark. The lights were turned off but it never hurts to be cautious. Finally, when he was sure that the coast was clear, he opened it a bit more, but not all the way through, and pressed himself between the gap. The kitchen was as silent as a cemetery and the lack of light only added to that remark. His footsteps reverberated on the wooden floor, echoing in the halls and corridors of the house.

Safe he thought. Now all he needs to do is open the door and let the zombie in-

There was a flash of light.

The boy covered his eyes with his hands as the sudden brightness invaded his pupils. Having spent the last few hours in the dark, with only the dim light of an old flashlight to guide him, he was unprepared for the kind of light brought by a fully turned-on room LED.

He hissed. Light! Too much light! Too much light! With great efforts he forced himself to look past the light.

The kitchen looked exactly just like the way he had left it. It was quite big and spacious for a kitchen. The cupboard, stove, furnace, fridge, and sink were placed on one side of the room. There was a large table in the room with chairs neatly placed around them. There were four chairs. Three of them were empty. The other one...

He froze when he saw the twenty year old woman sitting on the remaining chair conveniently facing him.

“Hello, Shiro-kun,” Misato Torrington-Amaya said in a nice, sing-song voice so sweet it could give a man a cardiac. It was the only explanation he could come up with on why his heart stopped beating so suddenly when he heard her speak.

Shakily, he raised a single hand. “H-hi, M-misato-chan.”

His sister smiled like a shark.

“Now, care to tell me where the hell have you been?” She asked in English with the fluency of the bilingual she was.

It was the beginning of something. Shiro Torrington-Amaya knew. Something terrible and terrifying.

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*The plastic sheet having been dumped on a recycle garbage disposal he’d found on the way.

*They did have a cat. Though not one that was alive.

*To be honest it was an unfair comparison at best and a rigged competition at worst. Anything less than another derelict mansion with dark secrets in the countryside would pale when put right beside it, in more than one sense of the word.

*As state of the art as a 2006 PS3 could get anyway

*Most instructions on actual summoning of a zombie are written in Latin, Greek, Haitian, a few in ancient Elder Futhark, and a plethora in the many languages of Africa such as; Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Kongo, Tshiluba, Bambara, Fula, Twi, Lingala, Chichewa, Gbe, Wolof, Kikuyu, More, Kirundi, Sotho (including the northern one), Luhya, Kanuri, Umbundu, Tswana, Shona, etc.

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Sorry for the late update. This one was suppose to be posted about a week after the first one but college got in the way so.... yeah. Trying to add a bit of flashback background happenings. This will probably occur in the next few chapters until we finish this Arc.

In the meantime thoughts, criticism, and suggestions are appreciated as usual.