Crazy people wander graveyards in the rain. They come right up to the caretakers' cottages and peek into the windows. Usually the shades and drapes are drawn. The wives and children of caretakers like things snug, especially at night. Prayers are said. Lamps turned on. Televisions tuned in. The phone rarely rings after dark. Families and friends of those inhabiting caretakers' cottages know how loud it sounds, so they call early. A knock at the door is a dreaded occurrence.
But sometimes those unburdened by sanity caper about in midnight downpours. They blind rabbits and sing with crows. Then, later on, with the first gray light of dawn, they sneak back to beds in other places.... The nighttime revels of lunatics.
Children lie still as stone, mummified in blankets, listening to the dust-like whispers of voices down stairs. Floorboards creak. Cupboards open. Clocks tick backwards. Footsteps... barely audible footsteps...The faintest hint of illumination washes up the stairwell... What's down there?... Please, God. Please, God. Please, God, don't let them come up.... Yet in the morning nothing is amiss. The carnival glass treasures in the breakfront are there. The knives in the kitchen lie straight in their drawers. But the terror was real... and so were the whispers.
I am but a voice. Don't ask me more. The one you call Billy types this... all alone in a dark, shadowy parlor 'neath a small, yellow pool of light cast down from an old wrought iron floor lamp. Edith knows. From her porch in the Pine Barrens she knows. And the ghosts know and the Zombie Princess, Opal knows.
Magic is but the apparent manipulation of life and death. Oh, you know what death is. You've been there... back before you were born. .... I am a disembodied spirit... like Mister Never You Mind, yet far less avuncular. And I bleed through into your world.
Vampires, witches, zombies... What are they but unusual individuals?.... Storied bloodlines trickling through history since page one. And the truth is, no one knows. Unchanging reality is but a conceit. Edith knows. She told you last time, there on her porch in the haunted Pines.
Tick, tick, tick... you're morphing right now. Where are you going? Does it matter? How does it matter?Direction is but a convenience too. But we knit 'beliefs' to keep us warm... Tomas, the dead vampire, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi knows that. He wants to come back. Perhaps he will?.... Perhaps a mouse will gnaw through a wire and burn you as you sleep? Or a dead, gray, wraith thing will silently climb the stairs and enter your room? Doors are but atoms ... like mist... like dust... that's all.
What is that sound? Is it the refrigerator? Is it the pipes? A stifled cough? Laughter?
Nobody lives alone....
.... Next time we move on.
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Edith took her time. She thought and considered. Then she went on..... The problem is - she said - reality is fluid. There is no 'now,' just what we see, or think we see at any given instant..... Please know she spoke to the cool, night air. As a witchy-woman, she knows we're reading this. She knows the one called Billy Kravitz channels it out through a slightly dated lap top. She knows many things, though essentially a very modest woman.... And as she speaks out into the dark, Piney ether, Mister Edith, plus their two or three Red Paint People guests, rock and nod. Red Paint People don't say much anyway. An old, abiding culture they are. Some consider them to be surviving vestiges of original Cro-Magnon stock. Males tend to favor Captain Jean-Luc Piccard of The Star Ship Enterprise. Females bear a striking resemblance to Olympic Skier Picabo Street. Not as children. When they're older, I mean.
Getting back to Edith, she said - Think about a river. If you stand on the bank and look at the water (well, how can I say this?) it's never the same water. Different molecules of hydrogen dioxide (for that's what water is) flow by every second. Other things flow by too, dissolved bits of former animals, urine from various sources, tiny, water smoothed , shards from a long forgotten skull, gray, stringy fish turds.
Life is like that. It has no beginning. It has no end. Birth and death are but dams. When we're born, life flows out from life. When we die, part of that force is diverted. We slide down a sluice gate into a holding tank, perhaps the 'tunnel' of light' people talk about, and wait there, preserved and safe for as long as it takes. But each soul is a discrete repository of unique information and nature doesn't waste a thing.
For everything there is a season. A time to live. A time to die... And to be truthful, a time to live again. Tomas, also known as Jonathon, wants to live again. He's not different. That's nothing new. Many souls resting in the clear, cool pools of eternal joy and contemplation want to climb out onto the deck and run around a little. And they do. They get that chance. It's called reincarnation. But every time they step out onto the stage of the living, memories are wiped clean. Maybe it has to be that way. Otherwise death would be but a momentary hiccup and physical life would truly be eternal? I don't know all the details - said Edith. Just some. And if Tomas is brought back, we have to create another dam, or another sluice gate that will bring his essence back to us in this part of the world between Philadelphia and the South Jersey Shore. some call that act a 'ransom.' Some call it a 'diversion.' Words are just words. It's spirit and power that counts.
Then she got up, went into her little house and came out with a basket full a little bottles of liquor, like what they used to give out on airplanes. Mister Edith said - Give it here... She did. He fished around for a bottle of Jack Daniels, took it out and passed the rest over to the Red Paints. I don't know what they picked out. Who cares? Edith didn't take any liquor for herself. She had a pouch of Capri Sun. Witchy-women ain't no big drinkers. They go whoop-dee-doo other ways.
For now they just sit and rock and drink... a few people on a cozy little porch, lit by a handful a small candles, deep in the middle of the spirit-filled woods.
Pin Head Mel and his best friend, Horsey Skeezix, watch from the darkness. but that ain't no big deal. They always snoopin' 'round.
Next time we hike up them skirts and show you more.
If you like, google the NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENS. These woods is real... and they are out there.
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I left the townhouse. It's me, Edith, the witchy-woman housekeeper. Baylah left the city too, like she does every summer. Went with her rich mortal boyfriend to his place down the shore. Sarah stayed, though. And I don't know who else. She likes warm summer walks in the dark. Goes down pitch black streets and everything. But that's her. I like the Pines. Go back to my cabin. Set out late at night with Mister Edith and maybe a couple Red Paint People. Haven't talked about it much lately, but these here woods is the biggest, densest, thicket east of the Mississippi. Go ask somebody. Google it. You'll see. Got Philadelphia at one end and New York City at the other. If you wanna know, it's a miracle we still here. Like all the rest a humanity just flowed right around us.
Trees can talk, you know. Not so you hear. Not with your ears anyway. But they're smart and they know things. Stupid, dope scientist might say - Yeah? Well, where's their brains?.... (rolls eyes) Thing is, every little piss-ant shithead knows all they is, is brains. Whole thing is brains. Every bitty cell goes - I'm a tree. I'm a tree. I'm a tree. And I feel the wind. I taste the rain. My roots tickle the dead. Birds crap all over me. but I live and I live and I live...... Pines what we got here (not all pines, just mostly) talk to other trees. Trade secrets with hardwood trees in Brazil and Banyan trees in Central Africa.... I say - Trees, how goes the world tonight?... And they tell me.... 'Bout girl what got herself raped and killed in Siberia and boy in Chicago Land building bombs out back his house. Know of a body being 'et' by snapping turtles in that almost Canadian part a Michigan and terrorist-extremists dripping down through British Columbia - Washington border... They talk 'bout good things too. 'Bout a forty seven year old lady what thought she never get married getting pregnant by her boyfriend in some park in Philadelphia. And he's the boyfriend what won't run away. So they gone get married, buy baby furniture and everything.... Trees is sad that most all furniture comes from murdered family. That's why Mister Edith (and practically everyone else 'round here) say - Dear Lord, thank you for this child a Yours what grow in the ground... every time they kill one.
Trees know 'bout Jonathon (also known as Tomas) too. Taste his ashes when he die. He wanna come back and they know that. Trees listen to dead folks, 'cause who else will? I don't mean showbiz 'your-dead-granny- say-she-love-you' bastids what tell lies (or semi-lies) for money and play games on afternoon talk shows. I'm talkin' bout the real thing.
Trees know 'bout that zombie girl. Teacher what got et had itty-bitty Japanese bonsai tree (fifty years old, I think it was) growin' in a tray top her dresser and it tell two peach trees outside. Peach trees like sweet stories, but they very truthful just the same. Ain't got no flesh-eaters in the Pines. Not now anyway. All we got is ghosts and Jersey Devils ('bout eight or nine families... Guy from weirdnj (yeah, it clickable) say eight or nine families necessary for stable breeding population) and Red Paint People and pin-heads. Some pin-heads can do magic, but some can't. I can do a little bit a magic. Ain't no 'born witch' like what kill Jonathon. Just pow-wow witchy stuff I learn from 'round here. We not talkin' witchy stuff now. We just talkin'. Whisperin' actually... Me an' Mister Edith and them Red Paint People. Cabin got a porch. Porch got rockers...homemade wood ones (sorry trees) painted red. Red scare off negativity. I do not know the scientific reason for that, but so what? Who cares? We eatin' peanuts. Red Paint woman brung 'em. Talkin' 'bout family what taught squirrels to talk. They was Dutch, though. And that was more'n three hundred years ago. Some squirrels still talk Dutch. Not real Dutch, but a dialect they make up 'mongst theyselves. Piney folk what spent time in Philadelphia or New York City say it sound like Yiddish. I ast a squirrel-lady, but she don't know.
Ten yards off this porch (maybe less) is the woods. Some nights ghosts glide out a there and walk right through like we never here. Mister Edith and me don't care. We just let 'em. Once in a while one wants to talk. But that just once in a while. Guy what got duct-taped by racketeers and suffocated talk some. Gimme a good way to make pasta gravy. Say his mama wear same kind a scent like I do... I say it Jean Nate an' wanna give him some. But he say - Don't tease me, bitch. You know I can't hold nothin'! ..... I say I sorry. He sniff back ghost tears and nod.
Red Paint People hummin' songs now. Old songs from back when all humanity speak almost the same language. Sound like Cherokee clog dance to me.
I miss Jonathon (also known as Tomas) real bad. Gonna maybe 'ransom' him..... June crickets chirp real nice....
I tell you 'bout that 'ransom' part tomorrow. .
Ooh, look! There go a ghost...
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It is I, Jonathon ben Macabi. Death destroyed my body, but could not touch me. I speak to you from the Realm of Spirits. I could identify it as The World To Come, or Paradise, or Heaven, or The Bardo. The place has many names. But I chose the most neutral to include you all.
Know that death is not eternal and I will be back. How that will transpire I cannot say. Not because I'm a secret keeper, but because I don't know. We are each domiciled according to our needs in this place. Young mothers become child guardians standing night watch over orphans. Fallen soldiers stand by surviving brethren. Artists of all types inspire the living.
I am an ecclesiastic by nature. Would that I could have served among the Holy Orders of Levites at The First or Second Temple. I am not that particular. A medieval academy of Godly scholars, or perhaps a snug, little country wooden synagogue painted with birds and flowers. Such wondrous sanctuaries they were. Most of the surviving ones were burned seventy years ago.
And my labors?... I talk to clergy. I whisper in their ears. Denominations mean little to me. Wait til you pass over. You'll see. Rabbis and imams and nuns, oh my. Other teams too. I talk about 'we are one, because God is one.' I do this mostly while they're sleeping, or drinking coffee, or watching Andy Griffith reruns. I'm told he's even big in The Emirates.
But listen to me making much of 'no denominations' and all that, while I pine for the faith of my childhood. And not 'here.' I could have it here, with hummus to die for (well, you know what I mean) and cantorials worthy of Andrew Lloyd Weber, or the guys who wrote Les Miserables . Death does nothing to improve memory. I try to recall interesting little places I'd pass on our midnight rambles (with Sarah, I mean), yet I can't... not always.
It's funny. When we lose ourselves... our mortal selves, I mean, discrete, episodic memories mean little. It's all a multi-dimensional matrix...all things... all places... all everything... And I do (what would the word be?) abandon myself to that every once in a while. But I still miss my trim, little leather bootlins and the black jeans and how I'd make these little sparks shoot up from my heels when I scrapped them on the sidewalks just so. No vampire magic that trick. Just metal taps. An old fashioned shoemaker on Ranstead Street did it. Hey, 'shoemaker on Ranstead street,'.... I remembered.
I want to come back. I miss the townhouse and Edith and Baylah. I miss long, cool, subterranean sponge baths with Sylvia and Aura (daughters of the mole people king). you remember them. And I miss Sarah. Some opt for reincarnation. But I don't want to wait that long... Well, since most of the people I miss are vampires or witches I could. You know, the supernatural life span and all that.....
Oh, I don't know. Death can be so confusing. I mean I'm absolutely awed by the radiance of angels. I could stare for hours. Some of them don't like that. Makes 'em nervous. Start sucking their teeth and making like all of a sudden they gotta go do something for God... Yeah, right. Like He doesn't have other angels. Bastards.
I'm gonna go to the seventeenth century, Earth, London section of Heaven and play my guitar.
Bet Doctor Franklin could do something. He did it for Grigori Usipov. I know. I remember.... Look, am I 'bad' for feeling this way?
I don't want to talk any more. I'm gonna go help change diapers on newly dead old folks... Takes 'em a while to realize they can give up all that piss and bowel movement crap.... Humble myself and make amends. Then I'll go play my guitar.
Hasta la proxima, mis amigos viviendos.
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thank you. please comment. look, I was gonna channel Opal and her little zombie pals, but Tomas said I owed him, considering his story started the blog, so I let him commandeer the 'air waves' for tonight. I think he wants to make it a regular thing.
This is Opal and I don't even know what day it is. Madam Blavatska don't let me watch TV or nothing. Gives me all these books to read. Zombie stuff. I don't think you can buy 'em in Target or whatever other place they sell books in. Flesh-Eaters get 'em off the internet. Sometimes rich zombies buy a whole mess of them and give 'em out to poor zombies that don't have no internet, or else f#ckin' asshole zombies that don't know how to use it. I'm starting to think we got a lot a those.
This place is big. The Penthouse, I mean. Got like three floors. Secret zombie crap gets kept downstairs. They don't call it 'secret zombie crap.' I forget the real words. Think it's in French, or some kind a German, or something. They let me go pokin' 'round by myself up here, 'cause all the good crap is somewhere else. But I found this little room. Real cozy... like an old fashioned library. I know, because I seen one once on Channel 12. That's PBS. Sherlock Holmes was in it. He's like a cop and a druggie and a gay guy and an English guy. Might be a warlock too, 'cause I think all English people can do a little magic. My grandmother was English and she blew smoke rings real good, but that might not be real magic if you're gonna get picky about it.
They had this book in that room... a real old book. Said it was printed in 1865. All the pictures were plain, little drawings. Not stick people. The guy who drew 'em would a got like an 'A' in art. 'A's' in art is what they give weird kids to stop 'em from pickin' at their faces til they bleed all the time. But some teachers just let 'em bleed.
Book said Queen Zombies give birth to 'young ones' in a larval stage. Had a picture of a lady who looked like a naked Statue of Liberty with big maggots plopping out a her pee-pee. Said that way births happen on a fortnightly basis. Didn't say what 'fortnightly' meant. I gotta look that up, 'cause that part scares me a little. What if I'm on a bus and a maggot comes out? That could be embarrassing.... 'No, I don't want it. That's not mine. You can have it. Look, your little girl's already playin' with it.' .... Ever see what an 'after birth' looks like? But that (being a zombie) I could eat.
Do I feel bad 'bout eatin' my old teacher? Shut up. I don't know. Don't ask me. Feel a little bad 'bout eating her husband, though.
Before all this zombie-ness I used to want to be on the Broadway Stage. Probably be hard now, 'cause like on 'hungry' nights I'd be jumpin' out into the seats and eatin' people. And most producers would probably not like it, 'cause if people heard they might feel funny about buyin' tickets.... When I talk to Madam Blavatska about that she gives me a look. Says I should be proud to be Zombie, 'cause flesh-eaters help get rid of a lot of crap. ... I go - Ewww, you're a racist..... But she says she ain't against no big group, just shitty people in general. Says she's particular. Says sometimes the world needs a good haircut and we're just the hairdressers..... OK, I can see that. Just don't wanna give it no mullet.
Saved that old zombie book, though. Wanna see what Zombie Kings is like...
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Opal entered the house. Basement windows are easy. Kick right in. They had some kind of metal security bar, but I don't think the manufacturer considered zombies when he designed it, because Opal smashed that too. Squeezed through and slid down onto an old sofa. Place was like a little Smithsonian for discarded suburban paraphernalia ... a thirty year old Mac, basically a toy by today's standards... stuffed 'Alf' thing... chorus line of mangled, sometimes headless Barbies. Guess they got fashion doll zombies too. Creatures like Opal can see in the dark. Not magic. Just a keen ability to detect photons. We told you. Vampires got the magic, not 'fleisch essern.'
She got down on all fours. Quieter that way. Divides the weight. And scurried up the steps. Any creepy-crawlies sneaking about got out of her way real fast. First floor was typical. Pergo in the family room. Ceramic in the kitchen. Not granite. Just Corian. But it was alright. Better than what Opal's family had before she ate them. Well, she didn't eat all of them. Topaz got away. Tall clock ticked in the living room. Opal wondered what the husband did.
She went upstairs.....
Carpeting needed cleaning. Almost made her sneeze. A few of the treads squeaked real bad. Somebody snorted. Opal froze. Then the bed squeaked too. Night noises are mostly pops and squeaks and creaks. Houses live too, you know. We just crawl around inside their guts. Seven heartbeats later the somebody who snorted mumbled - Shit, gotta go pee..... It was her. It was that teacher. Opal pressed her body down onto the steps. She couldn't really see into the master bedroom from that angle, but she heard the woman get up, enter a room (guess in was the master bath, or the en suite, or whatever they call it now.) go in and close the door. Hubby kept snoring away. Our ninth grade zombie silently scrambled into the room and slid under the bed. Then she just waited amid old slippers, dog toys and whatever other crap was under there. The dog was dead, but luckily they didn't leave it under the bed. Him they had cremated. After a few minutes the woman came back. Had a rule in this house... No pee-pee flushing during the night. But she did wash her hands. Few greasy, little farts. Gonna be dead soon, but she don't know that.
Opal waits til the snoring starts. Then she slides out, carefully climbs up onto the bed, straddles the victim, pins her arms and immediately goes to work. The wicked teacher starts screaming with the excision of the first dollop of flesh..... Ed! Ed! Ed! - she goes. Get the gun! Get the gun! G-g-get the gun! ....... Ed goes - Whatsa matter!? Whatsa matter!?...... Zombie! Zombie! Zombie....... Flesh is flying. Blood splatters everywhere. Sheets like a slaughter house in hell. But Ed can't find that gun. Keeps shaking and going - Oh my god! Oh my God..... Opal keeps grindin' away like the Tasmanian Devil.... Just like a strong, little ninth grade zombie buzz saw. Teacher done talking. Mostly trembles and gurgles now. Ed watches, slack jawed and helpless.... Lungs go. Heart goes. And with the last spark of tortured life the wicked teacher has, Opal leans over and whispers in her ear~ Don't you wish you let me get my drink?.... Then it's over....
Ed says - Is she gone?..... Opal goes - Yep..... Ed asks - You gonna kill me? Opal spits out an eyeball, that bounces off his stomach and goes - What do you think?.... With that he darts 'round the bed, grabs something off the dresser, runs into the bathroom and slams the door. Locks it too. Must of grabbed a cell phone, 'cause she hears him making a call.... to the cops. And they don't cotton much to zombie free for alls in these parts. So she crashes through the door, grabs his head and like a cartoon beaver grinds through a tree, shears that ugly sucker right off and drops it in the urine filled, unflushed toilet.
Eleven heartbeats later she's out on the dark, dark street. Soon after her ride glides by, she jumps in and they're off.
Madam Blavatska will be very pleased, indeed.
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First of all, subscribe to lampyman101 on You Tube. But if you're waiting for THE GREEN INFERNO Eli Roth's film on September 5th 2014 (which does look exquisitely horrific) have a taste of this morsel representative of the birth of the genre via 1970's and 1980's Italian exploitation movies which were, in a very real sense, the founders of the feast.
Enjoy.
Our own little zombiella returns tomorrow.
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