The Day of the Undead

Aaron lived in a ghost town.

Nestled on the side of an endlessly long road, with more houses than people and overrun by foliage. Reclaimed, more like. Grass was knee-high and barbed like tiny harpoons, vines crawling up the side of buildings, slowly edging out the mortar from between bricks until they lost their structure, one by one. A thick canopy blocked so much sunlight it was hard to differentiate between night and day.

His own house hadn’t escaped the grip of nature. The windows were boarded, they always had been, but they did little to stop vines from nudging their way through. The air was sneeze-inducing –not from dust, but from all the spores that had settled on all the surfaces of the house. A tree had erupted from beneath his floor, pushing through the wooden floorboards and up through the roof of the house. The occasional splatter of rainfall managed to dart its way through the canopy and leech into the ground, causing mould to consume it from within.

‘Morning, Eve,’ Aaron muttered as he stooped out of his bed, accidentally kicking something small and metal across the floor. Eve, short for evergreen, was what he had named the tree that jutted through his kitchen. Aaron gently picked a ladybug off Eve’s trunk and flicked it towards the door, which was really just a slanted wooden slate that had long since come off its rusty hinges.

The tree groaned in response, a deep creaking from somewhere buried within its trunk. Aaron seldom saw another person living where he did –well, except for the three in the basement, but they didn’t count –so he’d accustomed to talking with the plants. His favourites were Eve, Triffid in the petrol station –named because of its resemblance to the carnivorous plants from The Day of the Triffids –and Oak, the plant that ballooned Aaron’s skin into angry, red pustules –which were almost unnoticeable compared to the rest of his skin.

Aaron downed a dirty can of something he could only assume was peaches and slipped out of his house. The ground was moist, droplets clinging to his legs as he trudged towards the road. He passed the water well on his way, which was a small contraption with a slanted tin roof and a bucket that lowered down on a rope into a dark abyss, with only a glint of inky black liquid at the bottom.

It was a short walk –maybe this town had been tight-knit, once upon a time –to where the road joined onto the petrol station and small grocer, nestled between shops that had once been bakeries for weary families on long road trips. There was a park, too, but the slide had a hole in the middle and the monkey bars had long since lost their paint, now an ugly coppery colour with jagged protrusions of metal jutting out of them, waiting to slice open the soft skin of someone’s palm.

There were a few houses scattered nearby, like Aaron’s, but they were all occupied by plants, not people. He didn’t like them as much as he liked his own, even though they were in slightly better shape. His had memories.

Aaron stopped short when he saw a car pulled into the petrol station. The station hardly looked functioning –the building had long yellowed, budding with moss, windows smashed in and pumps dangling limply from their cords, and Aaron wondered what kind of driver would bother to pull over. Desperate, maybe. He was still inside, easing the slate-grey car forward, his brow pinched in concern.

‘Hey, excuse me,’ Aaron called. His voice fractured and unease leeched into the cracks. It had been a while since he talked to another person. ‘Sir. The servo isn’t functional. There’s another a good half-hour down the road, if you can make it that far.’ It felt like an intrusion, the man’s presence.

The man didn’t seem to hear him. He stepped out of the car, wearing heavy-duty boots and a brown vest. His face looked weathered –like it had been creased one too many times, his skin leathery and puffy beneath his eyes. The man ran a hand through his thinning hair, wedging his phone from his pocket.

‘Hey, mind giving me directions? It seems I’ve gotten myself lost,’ the man said, eyes glued to his screen, chuckling dryly. ‘Been here before, but not for a long time. It’s a ghost town, now.’ There was something familiar about the way the man spoke, an almost untraceable accent which had been washed over after years of living in Australia, an intensity in his eyes, the way his head sagged from his shoulders. Had Aaron met him before?

‘Of course, mate,’ Aaron said, pushing the thought aside. ‘If you’re looking for another pump, you’ll have to head half an hour,’ he squinted, pointing down the endless stretch of road, ‘that way. If you can’t make it, I think there’s an emergency –’

‘Oh my God,’ the man suddenly spluttered. Aaron’s gaze flitted back towards him, now blanched as white as a sheet. ‘N –no. No, it can’t be. You can’t be.’ He stammered.

Aaron’s jaw tensed. He ran a hand through his hair, over his arms, and watched flakes of blood spiral to the floor. He could’ve cleaned up better, but he lived alone. The man shouldn’t be so damn judgy to a stranger who was trying to give him directions. He then folded his arms across his chest, studying the man’s face. He felt his fingertips brush against the bullet hole in his chest –and he realised, yes, he did know this man.

‘Colin,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘You died,’ Colin said, shaking, which looked strange for a man of his stature. Like he could topple over at the faintest breeze. ‘You died, Aaron. You’re not real. You died.’

Aaron chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes steely. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said slowly. ‘I forget what happened, exactly. Water under the bridge, now.’

He hadn’t forgotten, not entirely. The house where he lived was a constant reminder –the three in the basement, the bullet capsule that lay on the floor, the one that had punctured his heard.

‘No, no, you’re dead. I saw them shoot you. Right through your –’ his words fell short as Aaron’s arms dropped to his sides. ‘—Heart.’

‘They tried, didn’t they?’ Aaron laughed bitterly. ‘Still in my house. In the basement. No one came to get rid of them. No one comes at all.’

Colin looked ready to throw up. He pressed a palm to his stomach, his breath quickening.

‘God, Aaron. They’d be rotted by now. Just bones. Did no one come to clean it up? I –I thought I sent someone. Maybe I –’ he stammered, ‘—maybe I didn’t.’

‘It’s fine. The smell left ages ago.’ Aaron said. It was time for Colin to go, he decided. Talking with him brought back too many uncomfortable memories. ‘Anyway. Bygones.’

‘How are you –’ Colin muttered. ‘How are you still living?’ His eyes raked over Aaron’s body. His flesh, that looked almost as green as the plants, his hair, that had grown patchy and fallen out as his skin lost its moisture and drew back. He didn’t have fingernails, and there was the bullet hole in his chest.

Aaron shrugged. ‘I just am.’

‘Jesus, that’s,’ Colin started. There were a lot of ways he could have finished it: incredible, or amazing, or a miracle. But he said none of those. ‘Jesus.’ He repeated.

‘Yeah.’ Aaron said, shifting in place. Why wasn’t Colin leaving?

Colin then edged closer towards him, the sort of movement that kids who were scared of dogs did when they spotted the neighbour’s canine beside their fallen paper plane. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said slowly. Uneasily. ‘It’s –it’s unbelievable.’

It was a sense, maybe. Something that told Aaron exactly what was going to happen. Or maybe it was how well he still knew Colin, after so many years. With his legs coiled and rigid, his arms twitching by his sides.

Suddenly, Colin bolted. A blur of movement past Aaron, towards the trees, towards his house. Aaron darted after him, his muscles instantly aching. They’d been wasting away for too long, and Colin instantly vanished into the greenery. But Aaron knew exactly where he was going. And he knew a shortcut.

Swerving, Aaron ducked beneath a fallen tree trunk. He couldn’t hear Colin anymore –the thumps of his feet against the moist undergrowth, his ragged breathing, the rustling of the grass. But he was gaining on him. Through the foliage, he could see where Colin was going: the well.

Colin spotted him at the same time. ‘No,’ he gasped, sprinting faster. Too fast. He slipped on the wet grass, and the small contraption he was holding flung from his grip and landed on the stone ridge next to the well.

A monkey’s paw.

‘No, Aaron, please,’ Colin pleaded. His pants were soaked through, and a smear of mud had made its way onto his cheek. ‘You don’t understand. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, and I didn’t mean to bring you back. It was just –the guilt –’ he stammered.

Aaron almost believed him. He almost believed how Colin had sent him into a rigged house by accident, where three armed men were waiting for him. Where he took out two, and the third sent a bullet that landed in the middle of his chest. And how Colin had run in at the last moment, enough to hold Aaron’s dying body but not to save him.

‘You brought me back,’ Aaron growled, reaching the paw. He knew what Colin had wanted to do with it: wish him away. He held it over the water, and slowly let it drop. Colin’s face shifted from pleading to devastated in the blink of an eye. ‘Now we’re even.’

‘No,’ Colin whispered.

Aaron glanced down at the water, which, for once, wasn’t jet-black as it consumed the paw. He could see his own reflection in it –skin sunken to show the outline of his bones, one bloodshot eye, a ring of blood around his mouth, which was full of yellow-black teeth.

There was nothing else to describe Colin’s look when Aaron turned to face him, whatever was left of his lips curling over the decaying nubs in his mouth.

Terror.