EXTRACT FOR
Dark Tales - Volume 2
(Author Unknown)

Necrotic Epiphany (Paul Edwards)

    

    Eyes like cigarette burns. Black hair streaked with green dye, hanging in scraggly ribbons. Dr Freudstein, the undead surgeon from The House by the Cemetery, reaches out a bony hand on his chest.

    Natalie skips and flits across the dance floor to sit beside him on a bench. "The House by the Cemetery rocks!" she says, nodding at his T-shirt.

    He flashes her a smile. "Yeah? although I prefer The Beyond." He slots a Marlboro between his lips. "You got a light?"

    "Sure," she says, fumbling for her lighter in her jacket pocket. She whips it out and sparks up his cigarette. "Nothing beats the intestine spew in City of the Living Dead, right?"

    The smile returns to his lips. "Name's Alex."

    "Natalie."

    They shake hands, beads and charms chattering around his wrist.

    He's so handsome, she thinks.

    The DJ spins This Corrosion by The Sisters of Mercy and the Goth-kids with their bone-white faces and kohl-streaked eyes fill up the entire dance floor.

    Alex tucks a flap of black hair behind his ear. "So, you live near here?"

    "Ten minutes away. It's an old place. Used to be a Methodist church."

    He nods absently, his gaze flickering around the club. "And you're alone?"

    "Oh, don't worry," she smiles, touching the pentagram on a chain around her neck. "I'm more than capable of looking after myself, you know."

    

***

    

    Alex moves to the window, rubbing condensation away with the palms of his hands. On the windowsill are stacks of worm-eaten books with weird sounding titles. Al Azif. Vodoun. Dark Moon Mysteries. Cultes des Goules. Witch's Master Grimoire. He looks down into the weed and nettle-infested graveyard, catching the hollow stare of a crumbling stone angel.

    Natalie steps out of the shadows behind him, arms wrapped around her lithe, milk-white frame. "You like me then," she says.

    "Yes," he replies. "Very much so."

    Something in her hand glitters and glints, reflecting the glow of the moon through the window. "But how do I really know that?" He turns his head only to see something sharp flash toward his throat. "They're only words," she says, cutting deep, slicing true, "and words alone mean nothing."

    

***

    

    Her boy.

    Her lover.

    Her sweet, adorable Alex.

    She likes nothing better than to hold him, to kiss him, to tell him he's all she wants and all she'll ever need.

    On black, starless nights they'll curl up and watch DVDs together. Horror movies like Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Serpent and the Rainbow, La Maschera del Demonio, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, The Black Remote, Zombie Creeping Flesh.

    The five-pointed star she used in the ritual remains chalked on the floor, next to her open Book of Shadows and a box of black candles. Love potions wear off; this, she hopes, will be permanent. 

    Late one night she wakes to find him facing the mirror on the back of the door.

    She sits up in bed, clawing her hair away from her eyes. "Alex?"

    His reflection hangs in the mirror's dusty, filthy darkness. He reaches up, touching the crude stitchwork in his neck.

    Natalie's heart thumps and thunders. "What?" she says. "What is it, Alex?"

    "I'm not like you," he says in a low, unemotional voice. The words hang in the air and she thinks ? he can't know.

    "It's late," she says, patting the space on the mattress beside her. "Come back to bed."

    He turns away from his reflection at last, shuffling obediently across the room and into her eagerly enfolding arms.

    

***

    

    Natalie draws the curtains and slots Hell of the Living Dead into the DVD player. "This movie's a rip-off of Dawn of the Dead," she says, "but it's still a pretty good watch."

    She sits beside him on the sofa, fingers splayed out on his leg, gently squeezing and rubbing his knee. Alex, as still as a statue, stares silently at the television.

    Halfway through the film she senses his eyes on her. She turns to him, smiling. She leans forward, pressing her mouth to his, feeling his cold hands clasp and then squeeze her face with their hungry fingers.

    Then ? pain.

    Awful, searing pain.

    She tears free just as Alex emits a sound which might have been a laugh, her open, now-tongueless mouth trying so hard to scream. 

    Alex grips her shoulders, severing her jugular with the jagged remnants of his rotted teeth. Natalie's body jerks and spasms before falling backwards through the coffee table with a loud, bone-splintering CRASH!

    Alex chews and drools and swallows, his eyes black as pitch. He blinks slowly and stares at the living dead as they devour a young girl on TV.

    A gory smile splits his face in two.

    Moments later he's on his knees, his arms outstretched, his crimson-coloured hands pawing at the TV screen. Through a mouthful of blood and lumps of half-chewed flesh he groans excitedly to his kind, his own, his kin?