Dan takes a handful of the blood water, holds it over the bowl for a couple of seconds, letting it drip.
“Rise,” he says, then flings the pink water at the tarp.
He has no idea what to expect.
What happens is very anti-climactic. There’s no gush of wind, no flames going out, no roar or bang or any other sounds.
The tarp bag simply stops moving, and the zombie stops groaning. It’s like an electric toy having its power cut.
For several, long seconds, they all just stare at the bag.
“Shit,” William says, breaking the silence. “Something definitely happened.” He looks at Dan. “Do we check?”
“Let’s wait a little longer,” Dan says. “We’ll give it five minutes. If he still hasn’t moved or said anything, we’ll open the bag.”
William is about to say something, when he notices Ozzy. The dog slinks over to the tarp, sniffing it. His hair isn’t bristling, and he doesn’t look particularly alert, more like curious.
“That’s a good sign,” William says, smiling tentatively. “Ozzy doesn’t seem to consider the guy a threat anymore.”
“God, what if it really worked?” Liv breathes. “What if this is the cure?”
Dan nods slowly. “It seems promising. Let’s give it a little more time. If he really is dead in there, we’ll try it on the zombies outside.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Dennis feels very funny. In fact, with every passing minute, he feels more and more so.
It’s a strange sensation, one he’s never felt before.
Except that’s not entirely true. He has felt like this before, only it was a very, very long time ago, almost too long to remember.
Is this what grief feels like? Is this a normal reaction when you lose someone you love? Dennis isn’t so sure about that. It doesn’t feel like an emotional reaction, more like a change taking place in his brain.
Something’s happening to me, a thought prods him.
He gets to his feet. The others are still in the living room, talking. Dennis heard them use the potion, and since he can no longer hear the zombie groan in there, he assumes it worked. Dennis cares very little about that for now, however; his attention is consumed at what’s going on inside him.
He goes to the window and stands on his toes to look over the heads of the dead people. He can just make out Mom behind them, at least her white gown is visible in the darkness.
He feels a deep stab in his heart region.
There’s the emotion, he thinks to himself. And he’s kind of glad it’s there. The heartache means he’s not losing his mind.
Still, whatever else is going on with him is different from the emotional reaction, he senses that very distinctly. He feels almost light-headed, like a fog is lifting from his mind.
What is this? Please, I need to know …
“It’s all in here.”
Mom’s voice speaking from his memory. She touched his chest when she said that. Dennis reenacts the gesture with his own hand, and he looks down to see the gris-gris between his chest and his palm.
Dennis frowns. He thought Mom was talking about his heart, but maybe … maybe …
Dennis takes off the gris-gris and studies it. It looks the way it has always looked; just a regular leather pouch. Dennis knows it’s empty, but he still opens it, hoping against hope to find something inside. Something Mom has left for him.
There’s nothing, though. The gris-gris is empty.
But just as he’s about to close it, he notices something that he’s seen a hundred times. The engraved letters on the inside of the flap. Dennis has never known what the words meant; he’s never been interested in them before. But now, they suddenly seem very important.
Some spells only end with the one who cast them.
Dennis reads the line, then rereads it. It’s only after reading it a third time that he realizes how easy it is. Normally, he struggles to put the letters into words and the words into meaningful sounds.
Dennis looks around for something else to read. There’s a piece of paper sitting on the door to Holger’s fridge. It’s a manual for something technical, a water pump or something. Dennis goes and looks at it. His eyes automatically begin reading. There are a lot of difficult words, yet he reads the whole thing with no problems.
And what’s more: he understands it too.
“What’s going on with me?” Dennis whispers, feeling his heartrate go up a little. He looks around the kitchen, and suddenly everything seems very clear, almost painfully so, as though his surroundings have grown sharper. He sees them more clearly. He hears them. All the impressions reach his brain without any delay, without anything to take the edge off. His thoughts are like that too, crisp and loud in his mind. Nothing slowing them down.
“You okay?”
Dennis turns to look at William standing in the doorway, looking at him with a worried expression.
“You look a little pale, dude. You might want to sit down.”
“It’s okay, I’m just a little … I don’t know,” Dennis hears himself say. His own voice even sounds clearer to him.
Liv and Dan both appear next to William.
“How are you feeling, Dennis?” Dan asks.
Dennis shrugs. “I feel fine, really. I feel … present.” The word slips out before Dennis can think about it. He’s never used that word before; he never even knew what it meant.
“You sound different,” Liv remarks.
“No shit,” William says. “He sounds ten years older all of a sudden. What’s happening to you, dude?”
Dennis shakes his head and looks down at his hands. “Something is changing. Or changing back, actually.”
“Changing back?” Dan repeats. “What does that mean, Dennis?”
“I … I don’t know. It’s very strange.”
“He’s going into shock,” William says. “Poor guy couldn’t handle losing his mom.”
“It’s not that,” Dennis says. “It’s got nothing to do with—”
He was going to finish the sentence by saying “Mom,” but something holds him back at the last second. Because this does have something to do with Mom. It’s got everything to
