Sitting at work trying to think of a Thing for today, I had the thought, "How come Holy Water works on vampires, but not zombies." It's kind of a dumb thought.

So, I decided to take that sentence and make it the first sentence of a horror story. That's how today's Thing started out, I wouldn't expand on the thought until I sat down to write. It's sort of a creative writing exercise. After about two hours of writing, I realized I have a two-parter. So part-two will be tomorrow.

The micro story is called Minus One.



Minus One

How come Holy Water works on vampires, but not zombies Brown thought. They're both the unholy undead. God surely would punish both with his blood. Must be the movies.

Brown made a small cross with the water on the man's now cold forehead. It seemed rough, gritty, like old makeup. He pushed the cork back onto the oily beaker, slipped the beaker back in the small pouch on the table and rubbed his thumb and forefinger along the corner of his thick, black overcoat. He rubbed until some small fibers dislodged as was his habit. The black work coat had a lighter rim around the cloth's edges.

Two days ago, it happened. Brown awoke feeling less. Just less. There wasn't a gaping maw or an emotional chasm or even an ache. Just less. He never really understood faith, but knew he had it and now it was less. As he pumped and pumped on his stationary bike, he thought I feel cheated. This ain't right. The faith didn't come from angels on high in the first place. The was no epiphany moment where one minute he was eating Doritos on the couch and the next he was snuggled in the bosom of God, free of worry, free of doubt. Angels heralding and spirits souring. He'd overheard so many people bragging about their epiphany.

O thank you, Reverend. O thank you. I've been transformed. I've been changed. I was dead. Now, I'm alive! Hal-lay-lu-yah!

No, faith was sort of a measure of math. One plus one equals some. Plus one equals some more. People around him acted as if he'd been plus one his whole life. They'd nod and smile and clasp his hands. They knew and at the very least he wanted to mirror their faces and hands and rituals. Rituals added lots and lots of plus ones to his faith, he figured. The way he swept and mopped, the precise movements, the repetition of action, the focus must have been pleasing to God. Certainly, the slavish obedience to daily life must be plus one. Do it long enough and then it is.

The two days ago, less. No sudden raging chasm of hurt. No crippling tragedy. No hidden knives in the middle of the night. He'd overheard that part of the equation as well.

Why, Reverend, why? I've been a good Christian, and then this....Why?

Brown figured, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Minus one. This doesn't really change the routine. Stationary bike, shower, masturbation, orange juice and eggs, half an hour of TV, walk to work.

Brown usually walked to work, head mostly down and with a perceived sense of purpose. But feeling less had thrown him, had him starting the day doubting. The over bright, yet pale morning forced him to look around as he walked out the back door of his first floor apartment.

That man. Across the alley. Slumped against the trash cans. Had I seen him before? Was he there yesterday? Yeah, probably. Was that the same man who he heard at night slurring some tuneless song at the moon. The same man with the bony girlfriend. Yeah, probably.
He could smell the piss and shit and vomit and rotting meat across the alley. And the man wasn't moving. Not sleeping not moving, but not moving. Brown edged along the tan fake paneling of his apartment building until he was parallel to the man, about twenty feet across.

Hey, he said softly. Then a little louder. Nothing. No movement. Are You okay, buddy? Buddy. Half steps toward the man. The smell now had a stale quality. Hey, you need help? Wake up, buddy. Wake up. Nothing. No movement. Dead?

Brown was to his surprise about an arm's length away. The man's chin cut into the top of his chest, small slivers of blood and a black liquid snaked from his mouth and eyes and pooled to the front of his ratty sweat shirt. The liquid trapped tiny blonde hairs, fibers to his shirt. His black greasy hair was matted with sweat, blood and bile. He was painfully thin. He might have been twenty, twenty-five, but his pale greyish skin made him look older, anemic, dead.

Brown slowly lifted his hand, trembling, to the top of the man's head. He took a slow breath to calm himself and let his hand drop to his shoulder. Nothing. No movement. Maybe five seconds passed, maybe thirty. No movement. Nothing. Where did everyone else go? Shouldn't others be on their way to work?

He dropped to one knee and positioned his palm a few inches away from the man's mouth and nose. No breath. No movement in his chest. Brown pressed two fingers through the red black liquid against the man's neck. No movement. No pulse. Brown fell backward and he found himself jumping up.

He's dead. What does God want me to do? What do I do? Surely the police will blame me. It's my apartment. This is a test. God's test. He's probably not even dead. I'm not a doctor, but there was no pulse, no breath. What do I do?

Pulled, pulled toward the alley, toward the street, Brown found himself just walking away, ever faster, ever head down, ever with a perceived sense of purpose. No eye contact, head down. Ten blocks.

He has Risen. Reverend Jaspers must be having some kind of morning service, maybe a fundraiser or Bible study. Right there, right out in the main church area. Brown slid into a pew, head down rubbing his own prayer cloth at the end of his coat. Words just washed over and over him. They seemed disjointed and foreign. In English, but in an English he didn't understand. The pattern and cadence and ritual of the words slowed his breathing, smoothed his brain.

After about half an hour, someone poked his shoulder and said he'd better get to work. Yeah, probably. The ritual was always the same, same length of time. Sweep. Clean. Mop. Lobby, main, bathrooms. 152 strokes in the lobby. 235 in the main church. 45-70 in the bathrooms, depending on the mess. He wasn't allowed in the Reverend's study or the administrative office. Or the confessional. He never asked.

By the end of the day, Brown still felt minus one, but calmer at the prospect. Only on the walk home did he remember the dead man in the alley and the calmness faded quickly. By the time Brown reached the alley behind his apartment, just going home felt like a dare, a test. He didn't know what a panic attack felt like, but he was sure he was having one.

The man was gone. Surely, someone else must have noticed and called the ambulance. But there was no police tape. There was no sign of anyone else having been in the alley. The trash cans hadn't moved. No man on the other side. Brown walked to the dark circle on the other side of the trash cans, where the man had been. The smell of stale piss and shit and vomit and rotting meat still hung in the air. Besides the black sticky pool, no sign of the man from the morning. Brown looked in the trash can. Newspapers, rotted food, tubing, bags. A carcass. A small yellow blood stained carcass. A cat carcass. Chunks of flesh missing from the middle and legs stripped of skin.

The man had eaten the cat. Raw. That explained the blood, the black liquid and the smell. Brown heaved into the trash can, reflexively. On the cat carcass. Seeing the greenish, reddish chunks, he threw up the remaining thin gruel of his stomach.

Tags: fiction