A new life

There is only darkness when I open my eyes. Total, engulfing, strangling darkness. I blink once, twice, thinking this must be a trick, an illusion. Nothing happens. No matter how much I strain my eyes, forcing them to see past the blackness, desperate to find a single speck of light, it is still dark. I raise my hands, trying to rub some life in my eyes, but half-way up, my hands hit something. A twinge of fear starts weaving through my heart. 

What the hell is going on? 

I try to get up, but my head slams against something hard and unyielding. My hands explore the surface on the left and right, and I can feel a soft, silken material glide against my fingertips. My arms are quite close to my body, and I find out I can’t spread them further than a couple of inches. I raise my hands up once more, this time more carefully, and soon I feel the same silkiness in front of me. I spread my legs as well, but again find out I can’t move much. 

My first thought is that I am kidnapped, tied up and placed in a box somewhere. The thought is negated a second later - my arms and legs can move freely, in as much space as they have. I try to remember the last thing that had happened to me, yet nothing comes to mind. The only thing I see in my mind’s eye is a blinding flash before I opened my eyes in this void. 

Where the fuck am I?

The fear that buds in my heart slowly spreads through my body, freezing my arms and legs, tightening my throat and causing me to suffocate in panic. I gasp, desperate to inhale every bit of air I have left. The objective part of my brain warns me the more I breathe in now, the less I will have later, but the panic completely overrides and my impulses take over. 

I open my mouth to scream, but no voice comes out. I start thrashing in the confined space, the same hard surface that blocked my head supporting my back. My fists slam furiously in the overhead block, but I feel no physical pain, only the complete terror of being lost and unable to find my bearing. My legs kick hard, left, right, up and down, and I hear a wooden knock each time a part of my body connects with the confines. 

I decide to slam my head as hard as I can, to end the agony for some time at least. I swing my head upwards and instead of hitting the surface again, I glide through the air. 

Before I even register what is going on, a voice startles me. 

“Oy, we have a newbie here. Hey everyone, come say hello to the new body!”

There is a rectangular hole above me, and a rush of air cools my cheeks and ruffles my hair, glitter of silvery stars overhead calming me a bit. I turn around, finally able to see something, anything and a spasm of nausea shakes my body. The top part of a casket is open, the lower part of my body hidden beneath the bottom. A gaunt, sallow face is watching me, lips stretching the skin so thin, it might crack any moment. 

My mouth opens in a scream void of any sound, and my legs start shaking violently, hitting the bottom of the casket. 

“No need to get all worked up like that.” The man, who by now I recognise as a desiccated corpse, offers his hand. “Let’s get you outta that box and out into the world.”

I cringe at the proffered hand, scooting further away. By now, my whole body is racked with tremors, and a nervous laughter bubbles in my throat. I turn around, looking for an exit from this nightmare and finding nothing but straight walls of dark, damp ground. Several more faces peek around the hole, eager to see what is going on.

It’s a grave. I’m in a fucking grave in the fucking ground. What the fuck?

I open my mouth in a desperate attempt to scream, cry, wail. Nothing. Both my hands clutch my throat in a furious attempt to pluck out any shred of sound. I realise I feel no air coming in or out of my lungs. Eyes wide in terror, I cast my gaze at the faces above me.

“Oh, lovey, we’ve all been there,” a smooth, soft voice comes out of one of the faces. It is a woman, or at least, something that used to be a woman before life left her body. “It’s the initial shock of the awakening, and you haven’t regained all your bodily functions back.”

“Yah, it took me three whole days to accept the fact that I wasna alive anymore,” another voice speaks up, trying to encourage me. “Come, take Edgar’s hand and get out of that smelly hole.”

The face that spoke first, what I assume is Edgar, nods in agreement. I am too stupefied to do anything, and the whole situation seems so absurd, so unreal. This must be a bad dream, I decide. It’s the only thing I can accept, in order to keep any shred of sanity I might have left. 

Edgar’s hand is still outstretched and I look better at it. His fingers are bone-thin, all the muscle and ligaments gone, only skin remaining. I can literally see the ridges of the joints in his fingers. My hand, still full and supple, grabs his and I almost recoil from the disgust of touching the cold, dead skin. 

For a corpse, Edgar is quite strong, and I feel other dead hands grabbing me, helping me up. I shiver and spasm everywhere they touch me, my flesh still warm and soft compared to the stone hardness of others. I crawl over the edge of the grave, and take a look at myself. 

I am dressed in a well-tailored grey suit and a white shirt with ruffles around my neck, more ruffles peeking from the sleeves of the jacket. My nails are clipped short, and painted blood red, and black Mary Janes with a short heel shine up from my feet. Whoever dressed me, knew my taste. 

I try to remember anything, anyone, but realise I can’t. The only thing in my head is the blinding flash before the darkness of the casket. I look around at the gathered corpses - no, people, goddammit, they were people too. My finger points at Edgar, the one who I saw first, and he understands the motion. 

“I think the newbie wants to meet us. Welcome to the afterlife, I’m Edgar and I will be your guide for the first few weeks.” Edgar is dressed in a shabby old suit with huge shoulder pads that are now comically hanging from his frame. His hair is thin, limp and sparse, but he looks cheerful and like he is actually enjoying himself. 

“I’m Caroline,” says the woman on Edgar’s right, the one who called me lovey. “I died… well, a long time ago, which I’m sure you can see from the state of my disrepair.” She sounds a bit ashamed, covering her ragged white dress with her thin hands. “I was Edgar’s guide when he awoke, and I’m now only supervising.”

“‘Ello there!” A cheerful voice comes out of the third body, the only one on the opposite side of the grave pit. “Welcome to our merry little company. Me name’s Paddy. Patrick that is.” His skin is heavily hanging from his face and the excess on his cheeks remind me of an English bulldog. 

“What… is… happening?” I manage to croak finally, my voice thin and raspy.

Everybody claps ecstatically, and Edgar clears his throat. “Well, you are dead.” My eyes bulge, but Edgar raises his hands to placate me. “That’s the short answer. Let’s get you up on your feet, and I will explain everything as we move around.”

I have no other choice but to dust my ass off and get up. I look around again and realize I’m actually in a graveyard, tombstones neatly lined all around me, markers of past lives and everybody resting in peace. Well, obviously, not everybody. My grave - I stilt at the thought - lies empty and the fresh, damp earth is piled neatly on the left of the dug out hole. 

I refuse to look at the casket, instead nodding to Edgar to take me as far from the bloody hole as possible. Edgar takes the lead and I follow him, Caroline and Paddy silently in tow.

“So, you must have so many questions,” Edgar opens. “But the important thing is - you are not a zombie. They don’t actually exist.” 

I frown, and Edgar notices my confusion. “We try to keep our existence a secret, but over many years, people have seen us and named us zombies. We don’t eat brains, people or anything for that matter.” 

We pass two people hugging and chatting on a bench. Edgar waves at them cheerfully, and only then do I see they are also corpses. “You will get most of your memories back sooner or later, but be prepared you might never know how you died. That is too traumatic for many of us, and we block it subconsciously.”

“How… am… I here?” I manage to squeeze out, my voice a shade of its former tone.

“If you mean why you woke up,” I nod and Edgar continues. “That’s one of the questions I can’t answer. Some of us never wake, and others wake only to fall to eternal slumber a short while later. And a very few of us remain awake for as long as we want.”

Edgar nods towards Caroline. “She has a theory that only those of us who were strong-willed and ripped out before it was our due time can remain awakened. Others just fade away, and that is if they even wake.”

We pass a wide tree trunk, and I gaze up the trunk towards the branches. I am startled to see a child sitting on a branch humming a song, their legs merrily swaying. The child sees us and waves politely, and I find myself waving back. 

“What do… you do?” I notice my voice is getting stronger with each sentence I force out.

“What do we do?” Edgar repeats my question, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that actually depends on you, what you want to do. You can wander around, try to see and hear what happens in the world of the living, but most of us just enjoy the nights and the stars.”

Edgar leads us up towards a short hill and plops down in the middle of it. There are no graves around, but we are still in the graveyard, and I think I can see my grave from here. I shudder at the thought. My grave.

“We do have some general rules we try to follow,” Edgar’s voice pulls me back in the moment. “And those are: don’t let anybody living see you, don’t leave your pit before midnight and try to get back before sunrise.” He lists the three rules, raising three bony fingers.

Paddy clears his throat, and I jump up, completely forgetting he is with us. “Carrie and I will leave you now, we have some stargazing to do.” Paddy turns to me and lowers his head in a greeting. “Lovely to meet ya, miss.” 

Caroline just waves and smiles shyly, taking Paddy under his arm, her shabby dress trailing behind her.

“Where are they… going?” I force out, the words scratching my throat.

“They have their own plans for the night,” Edgar replies. “We never collect the new ones alone - it is such a shock to them, and we found out people accept the reality easier if there is more than one of us once they wake.” 

“How do you know who wakes?” 

Edgar smiles, happy with the question. “All of us experience shock when we wake, and we start thrashing in the caskets. We look for the moving earth, dig them up and get them out and about.”

My head reels with the information, and the new reality. “Am I really… you know?” I cannot force the word dead out of my lips. 

“As dead as a doornail,” Edgar confirms gleefully. “The sooner you accept the word, the easier it gets to move on and enjoy all the wonders of the new life.”

“I’m… dead.” My voice sounds strange to my ears, and my mind cannot reconcile with the new truth, even though I feel the truth ringing. “But how am I now talking, how am I breathing, if I’m dead?”

“We don’t breathe,” he answers and I realise I haven’t taken a single breath by now, there is no air thrumming in my lungs. “As a matter of fact, we don’t have any of the bodily functions as the living. Our bodies lose the muscle, the tendons, everything that makes us warm and walking - we sustain on the sole will of our minds.”

Everything is too much and I shoot up, nervously pacing up and down the hill. Edgar’s words ring in my ears, and at the very core of my being I know he is telling the truth, yet I find it hard to swallow. 

“I know it’s too much,” he says quietly. “At least it was for me - but you get over it soon enough. Or you lie down, and will to never get up again. It all depends on what you want.”

I stop in the middle of my furious pace, looking at Edgar carefully for the first time - he is so calm, collected and patient, you would think he is hundreds of years old. Yet there is something in him that makes me think he is closer to my age, or at least he was when he died. He pats the grass next to him and I accept the invitation to sit. 

“Just enjoy the beauty of the evening,” he says softly, his eyes gazing up. “It gets easier with every night.”

I follow his gaze, looking up at the sky. The night was crystal-clear, the full moon casting silver light, strengthened by the millions of starry specks. I sit down, still looking up. 

“You’ll get the hang of it, you’ll see,” Edgar says quietly but confidently. 

I turn to look at him, and he smiles encouragingly. Something in me breaks, and I try for a smile myself. “I think I will.” I gaze back up, my wild thoughts quieted by the beauty and serenity of the night. And now I belong to it.