Stalked by Death

Chapter 3

I went for the door and opened it, not wanting to see how much this corpse was willing to destroy to get into my bedroom. His body probably would’ve crumbled to pieces before he got in, and I had no clue how to get dead guy out of the carpet. I swung the door open and faced the guy Leticia had raised in the cemetery. Normally, a corpse honed in on the person who had summoned them. It was a revenge thing, a desire to rip apart the one who pulled them out of wherever they were. But this guy was staring right at me.

Leticia whimpered on my bed. “What do we do?”

“We have to release him.”

“I thought you already did that. Did you leave him in the cemetery or something?”

“No. I released him, but when I went back to bury his body, he was gone.”

“Yeah, well, you found him. Now get rid of him.”

I knew I could easily send him back to Hell—I was quickly becoming convinced that’s where he’d come from—but I glanced back at Leticia. “You want to give it a try?”

“What? No! Get rid of him.” She squeezed my pillow in front of her, like that was going to stop a zombie from ripping her heart out.

“Come on, Leticia. You summoned him. You need to release him.”

“But I didn’t summon him. You said you released his soul. Someone else must have summoned him.”

I looked at the guy. He glared at me, waiting for a command.

“What’s he doing? Why is he just standing there?” Leticia’s voice cracked.

“I think he’s waiting for orders.” This had never happened before, but he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. How was I controlling him without knowing it?

“Then you raised him?” Leticia got up from the bed and walked over to me. “What’s going on, Jodi?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t raise him. At least, I don’t remember raising him.”

“You don’t remember?” Leticia looked back and forth between the corpse and me. “That’s impossible.”

“Jodi!” Alex rushed into the doorway, stopping short of the zombie. He looked at me with wide eyes. “Whoa, is that—”

“In the living dead flesh. The question is, how did he get here?”

“We know how.” Leticia was looking at me like she wanted to scream in my face. So much for our heart- to-heart. “You told me you would never raise a zombie again, but here’s one now. Did you plan this?”

“Leticia, no!” How could she even think that?

“Leticia, go to your room and calm down. Jodi and I will figure this out.” Alex stepped aside so she could leave.

“Wait.” I reached for Leticia, but she sidestepped me. “I swear I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. Everything I told you tonight was the truth.”

She paused, considering what I said. I silently pleaded with her to believe me. To stay and hear me out. I had to get her to listen. To stop running away from me.

Without warning, the corpse reached out and grabbed Leticia. She shrieked as he locked his arms around her. Alex tried to pull Leticia from the guy’s grasp, but all he succeeded in doing was breaking chunks of flesh from the corpse’s arm.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Let her go! Now!” The guy let go of Leticia, and she ran for her room without looking back.

Alex stared at me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. This guy thought I was the one who’d raised him. Was that possible? I had to know. The thing about zombies was, they didn’t talk until you told them to. They were pretty much mindless beings unless an Ophi commanded them. They followed directions, and if there were no directions to follow, well, they’d try to eat the thing nearest to them.

I took a deep breath and looked the zombie in the eyes. His pupils were a pale blue color and one eyeball oozed a greenish liquid. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my dinner from resurfacing. “Tell me who raised you after I released your soul.”

He pointed a bruised finger at me. “You.” His voice was scratchy, like—well, like someone who’d been dead for a while.

“This can’t be happening. I didn’t raise you. I didn’t raise anyone.” My body was shaking, and I felt the blood in my veins mixing.

“Jodi, calm down.” Alex put his arm around my shoulder, but he practically jumped back the second he made contact with me. “You’re burning up.”

“I’ll be fine. I just have to relax, but that’s hard to do when I have no idea what’s going on.” I turned to Alex, looking for help. “I didn’t summon anyone.”

Alex wrinkled his forehead. “Maybe you did it when you blacked out earlier. Can you raise souls when you’re only semi-conscious?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Nothing was making sense. All I knew was I had to get this zombie back in the ground. I faced him. “I release your soul. Go back to wherever you were before…” I stumbled on the words, “before I raised you.”

The corpse shuddered as his soul left, and the body fell limp to the floor.

Alex reached for the guy’s arms. “I’ll get him out of here.”

“I’ll help. If what he said was true, and I brought him here, then I should be the one to put him back in the ground.”

Alex let go of the body and took my hands. “Jodi, you have to stop taking on all the responsibilities yourself. Look what it’s doing to you. You’re stressed out. You blacked out earlier, and now this. You’re summoning souls without knowing it. That’s dangerous.”

He didn’t need to tell me how dangerous it was. I knew. If I could raise this guy when I wasn’t aware of it, I could raise more souls, and that would send Hades straight to me.

“I’ll talk to Medusa. See if she can help me sort all this out.”

“That’s great, but you still need to let the rest of us help you more.”

“You do help me. Tony is teaching classes. Arianna is cooking and cleaning. You’re keeping me sane.” I gave him a weak smile.

“What about Leticia and Randy? You’re treating them like they can’t handle anything. All you let them do is train and go to classes.”

I didn’t think Leticia could handle much more right now. I wasn’t even sure she could handle training with me anymore. Not after what had happened today—or tonight. And Randy? His father was taken to the underworld with the others, too. He wasn’t exactly emotionally stable either.

Alex wrapped his arms around me. “Stop trying to protect them, Jodi. They’ll never learn to handle all this if you don’t give them the chance to.”

I nodded and looked up at him. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

“You don’t have to.” He smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

“But I do have to bury this body, and this time, he’s staying buried.”

It took an hour to dig up the grave. We didn’t bother burying the bodies too deep. With our training every day, it was easier if the corpses didn’t have to dig too far to get out of the ground after we raised them, and reburying them was easier if we didn’t have to dig six feet down. Still, it was hard work. By the time we were finished, I was sweaty and covered in dirt.

“That’s a nice look on you.” Alex playfully bumped me with his shoulder as we headed back to the mansion.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about bottling some of the stuff and selling it as an alternative to perfume. I’m sure the smell of the dead would be a big seller.”

“Sorry our night together had to be spent digging a grave. I was hoping—” He stopped. I knew what he was hoping, but I wasn’t exactly ready to have that conversation. It had only been a couple months. In his mind, that probably equated to years.

“I’m going to take a really hot shower and go to bed. Chase should be here for breakfast, and I want to