Her scent was like a fireplace with hints of cinnamon. Hunter woke up with his head laying on Marcie’s shoulder, still making slow rounds on the carousel. Only now, they were seated on one of the benches. The sound of ocean waves bringing up seafoam on the beach of Redwood Cove had a subtle calming effect.

Hunter had completed his mission, but now sitting beside her was unreal. He’d been so focused, so single-minded, that he never stopped to think what it would feel like to have her back. Have her there with him. So he nuzzled into her cold shoulder. She was comfortable.

“You don’t…regret being brought back. Do you? The choice you made…I don’t want to go against your wishes. I just don’t want you to hate me for doing this. I’m sorry.” The words came out of him like a waterfall.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Marcie said, “You did so much for us to be together. I…”

“Yeah?” Hunter had to pull himself together. He knew there was more behind her words that faded away. She never hesitated saying how she truly felt, so why did she have so much trouble sometimes? This time, he’d stay. Stay long enough for her to take her time telling him.

Marcie caught herself, “I’m gonna need help getting off of this thing. I’m not used to walking on it.” She laughed, pointing to her skeletal foot, “it was a pain in the ass just to get you to the bench.”

Hunter spat a thin laugh, “Pff, you’re such a baby.”

“Am not!” Marcie pulled back and feigned shock and offense.

He raised his eyebrow inquisitively.

“Okay fine, I’m a little baby for being a little unstable after being resurrected from the fuckin’ dead!”

“And?”

She sighed and exaggeratedly slouched, “And I love you or whatever.”

They both leaned in. He felt her shallow breath, ignoring the burnt odor, as he closed the space between their lips. But a burst of sound made both of them jump. A wailing woo-ahp of a police siren rang from the top of the cliff. A car door slammed soon after.

Hunter had spent so much time, so much mental energy planning out the night he’d resurrect the love of his life, and thereafter convincing himself that he wasn’t delusional or mentally unstable, he hadn’t quite considered what came next. Of course, the music and lights on the beach would be pretty alarming, considering the carousel had been defunct for the last decade and a half. Though, a noise ordinance was the least of Hunter’s crimes that night.

He rushed to grab the urn, the book, and then hoisted Marcie’s body from the bench.

Her eye wide, she didn’t resist, but still yelped, “Hey! Be gentle.”

From the point at which her forearm met her elbow, he saw the joint pop and bend at a very wrong angle. She didn’t seem to be in pain, only startled by the way her body could contort.

They ran clumsily towards a corner behind a rock wall, where Hunter deposited the items and helped Marcie down. She had trouble balancing on her foot of exposed bone.

“Wait here,” he told her.

There was a silent panic that passed between both of them. Whether or not Marcie had put it together, Hunter had certainly run through the mounting evidence against him. What would Marcie do if he was arrested? No matter.

“I’m giving you five minutes. Or if anything goes wrong, I come out and I spook the motherfucker,” Marcie glared with utter sincerity.

“I’ll handle it,” Hunter reassured her, as he saw the bobbing brightness of a flashlight walk down the path to the beach.

When he returned to the carousel, he knelt down and feigned obsessive interest in the wiring of the control panel. As soon as the officer came into view, Hunter knew this night was going to be much more complicated.

“Hunter?” the officer asked. When he spoke, Hunter fell back into his familiar melodic baritone. He, on the other hand, seemed lost when he saw Hunter, sunk deep into what they both shared. Grief, regret.

He pulled his thoughts back and flashed a smile. The kind of smile he used to show to soften any conflict. “Officer Portillo.”

Officer Portillo was young, for a father. Hunter never asked him directly, but he figured he was about forty now. He looked far beyond that. He seemed even smaller than the last time he saw him. His face was still soft, but it was accented by worry lines and a perpetual furrow of thick brows. And at that moment, the lines of his face seemed to deepen. It seemed they were both in a problematic circumstance in which their masks had fallen.

Hunter contemplated telling him exactly what had just occurred. Maybe he deserved to know that only meters away his daughter, who they both lost, was alive again. What would happen if Marcie burst from behind the rock to embrace her father? If she does, it would only end in disaster. A second death, an investigation into Hunter’s research, government experimentation or something worse.

Mr. Portillo, as Hunter knew him, was the first to speak. “I heard you were back in town.”

“I’ve only been back for a couple weeks.” True.

Nodding up at the carousel, Mr. Portillo asked, “¿Qué está pasando ahí?” Soft, but no less interrogating.

“No es nada.” Definitely a lie. Hunter hated lying despite how easily they could dance off his tongue.

But the response received a sympathetic turn of the officer’s head.

“It’s where we first met,” Hunter admitted. Not a lie, but definitely a bold-faced misdirection. “I figured I could breathe some life back into it. I thought since it's far down the beach—and the speakers are pretty blown anyway—I did my research, this is technically public land. But, if you need me to pack up…”

After Hunter trailed off, none of Mr. Portillo’s unease waned. “I got reports of lights on the beach. I need you to turn it off Hunter. It’s too dangerous and you can’t be disturbing people at night like this.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Hunter nodded respectfully, “Understood sir,” then turned to shut off the generator.

Still in his presence, Hunter was beginning to sweat. It had been more than five minutes and Marcie hadn’t shown herself. That didn’t allow him to breathe any easier. There was no way she couldn't have heard their conversation.

“Somebody stole her urn,” the man said, almost in passing, like it was some idle thought to pass the time it took for Hunter to flip a couple switches. He froze.

“I’m sorry Hunter,” Mr. Portillo continued. “We haven’t been able to identify a culprit, but a couple months ago, someone vandalized her grave.”

“What?” Hunter’s surprise was genuine. When he was there, when he dug open the burial plot, the only things out of place were of his doing.

“Seems like whoever it was took it too far this time,” the officer said, matter of fact as he could manage.

Hunter said no more, hoping that was the end of it. He hit the final switch that powered off the carousel. The music crackled into nothingness, the lights flashed a couple times, then the beach was dark again.

“You can’t bring her back, mijo. She made her choice.” Mr. Portillo concluded.

A sound like a soft whimpering came from behind the rock formation. The officer looked inquisitively around Hunter, who in response held his gaze on the officer.

Mr. Portillo took a step forward. Just one, but it was still one too many. “You came alone tonight?”

Hunter stood his ground. “Yes sir.” Which wasn’t technically a lie. “Probably just an animal or something.” Also, in all technicality, not a lie.

Hesitantly, the officer went at ease. “I don’t wanna catch you out here again. Yeah?”

“Yes sir.” Hunter nodded. And with acknowledgement solidified, Officer Portillo flipped on his flashlight and made his way back up the cliffside.

As soon as he heard the police car drive off, he ran back to where he’d left Marcie. When he turned the corner, he nearly screamed. She really did look like a corpse and more than just the visual signifiers. Even the way she sat, her body idle, appeared as if she had no vitality in her muscle. Her chest didn’t rise or fall with a breath. Her stillness was absolute. Whatever energy was keeping her alive now was inhuman. He knew that logically, but seeing it was something altogether different. Her limp, seemingly lifeless self was, in fact, still alive. Alive and angry.

Marcie contained a growl. “I can’t believe he’s back on the force.”

“I–” Hunter started.

“–And does he really believe I’d fucking kill myself?” Marcie forcefully threw her own urn, much harder than any regular human could without destroying their body. It clatter down the sand. She popped her dislocated shoulder back into place. And something he thought very sturdy and incredibly certain inside Hunter broke for the first time that night. Partially at least.

“Wait, you’re saying you didn’t…? All this time I thought…Why didn’t you tell me?” Hunter asked.

Marcie screwed up her face. “It’s not like I didn’t want to. You never asked! And it’s pretty hard to start a new conversation if all I could do was slam drawers and throw cups around. For the record, and seriously, write this down, it’s not my fault you went and bought more ceramic mugs after I already broke four of them. Take a hint and get plastic or metal or something!”

When she was alive, or at least the last time she was, they could get like this. For the next hour or so, they’d refuse to look at each other. Marcie thought he could sometimes act like a robot or a golem under a directive spell, unable to pull himself away from procedure to have one goddamn emotional conversation. It was frustrating for both of them for him to have such trouble conveying his inner thoughts. Hunter wanted to be better, convey himself better, so eventually they’d both realize they had misunderstood one another somewhere along the way, then they’d be fine. Then it would happen again, and again they’d be upset. And then he lost her. So now, Hunter couldn’t do anything but look. He couldn’t do anything but understand. When their eyes met, anger drained from them both.

“I’m sorry,” Hunters said, kneeling to scoop her up again. “I didn’t mean to blame you for something you didn’t have control over.”

“It’s okay.” Marcie reached her arms around Hunter’s neck and allowed herself to be hoisted off the ground. “I could have tried to figure out a way to tell you. I’m sorry I lashed out.”

Hunter sat her down on the lip of the carousel while he packed the rest of his equipment. He ran down the beach and found Marcie’s urn with a sand flea inside it. He lifted her up the hill to his car and then went back down for the wagon. The book still glowed faintly red.

“Can I ask,” Hunter said as he got onto the main road, “how did it happen?”

Marcie stared out the passenger window of the old family Honda CR-V, lost in her mind somewhere. She sat in the seat next to Hunter criss crossing her legs so he could see her bare bones clearly.

“It’s all hazy,” she said, distantly. “I remember looking out towards the water. And the feeling of a hand on my back. Then, the feeling of falling, and that I didn’t want to be. Everything else, it’s kind of a blur. Being up there. Upstairs. It really changes you.”

She hadn’t changed. Memory or not she was still Marcie. Body in one living piece or not, she was still Marcie.

“You don’t think, maybe, it was…you were…” he hesitated speaking the word aloud. The word exonerated him of a responsibility. And how could he let go of that now?

“Murdered?” Marcie said. And Hunter realized it wasn’t what lay outside the window in the dark night that she’d be staring at, but her own reflection in the glass. She touched her face and drew the outline of her empty eye socket, “Maybe.”

At last, he made one last turn onto a private road. The house that sat at the end of the lane was stark white, lit by fluorescent LEDs and moonlight. Its imposing size had for a long while made Hunter feel small and unbecoming of it. But, it was home.

“Maybe it’s for the best you don’t remember something so painful,” he said.

Then he saw disagreement wash over Marcie’s face. The raise of her brow and that look that said ‘if you make this an argument, you’re about to lose.’

“I want to know what happened, Hunter.” The resolve in her eye was intense and equally inviting, like she had already made him her accomplice in some scheme with a single stating of her desire. She was always like that.

Hunter sighed. He’d pulled the break in front of the guest house. The moonlight casted a glow on her through the window, illuminating all the small things Hunter thought he lost. She was so beautiful. Even with otherwise gruesome parts of flesh missing.

“Then I’ll ask around,” Hunter said. “I'll figure it out.”

And that, too, felt like lying.