FLYING DEAD: REBELECTRIC ZOMBIE
ZELTERGEISTS RISE AND RESCUE (I)
written by: MZ CLARKE
@zoeandme
I. LANGOUROUS LIMBO
I was exhausted from the months of funerals and burials
Now the hundred skeltergeists settled into their souls’ fertile soil
at least for now
I wondered about my undead life
as a rebel zombie
a vegetarian, no less
I did not want to bite flesh
instead I wanted to honor the dead
be in service of peace
not jagged revenge
and fulfill the dreams I never had time to
when I was alive
Suddenly a preternatural moan
I shuddered and crawled into a corner as if I was a child again
hearing my father in a drunken stupor creaking down the hallway
about to bash my brains in for doing homework in the dark
too scared to sleep?!
Even as a ghost he prowled in preternatural rages fists pounding
from eternal darkness of evil
and that was just family
what sound was this that had my heart racing trying to escape my chest?!
a crackling of grains of bone breaking or unbreaking
or was it a burning fire from a mausoleum in hell
ghostly ghastly hands frantically hammering
trying to get from the underworld to this one
I could almost hear their bodies slowly detaching
from their temporary resurrection for vengeance
for justice
now in languorous limbo
gaining strength for their return to life
They entrusted me with the task of converting their
ghostly beings
into zombies
so they could travel the world as I could
Visible
almost human
almost alive
my only fear was — what if I couldn’t help them transform
into zombies?
What then?
Too late to think as galloping thunder tore
through catacombs of clouds
raising a century of bone dust as unholy halos above my head
outside my window
a rumbling
under my feet
Suddenly
I was being summoned
Satan’s choir was singing in a corner of my mind
as a gory gospel spilled a scripture of blood and new flesh
breathing with the lungs of the dead
It was time for the skeltergeists to rise again
and become a new kind of monster
a new kind of terror
I did not know the name of
I shuddered and felt faint
a force from hell lifted me and threw me against the wall
like a rag doll
however
this time I would not crumble
II. NEW MONSTER RISING
Since my house burned down
I was living under a tree
in the cemetery
where the skeltergeists began to rumble
from six feet under
I had to work fast
find the bridge between a ghost
a skeleton and a zombie
to create a new army of monsters
stronger than all three combined
with the war paint of death streaked
across our faces
nothing could stop us
but how I wondered
as the clouds gathered as lost souls
in search of a new home
thunder cursed its fate of announcing
the grand appearance
of lightning scarring the sky
Wait – that’s it
if I could harness lightning
and to use the power lines
rerouting their electrical currents
into my veins and my hundred newborn
monsters
we would be invincible
I had one full battery pack of energy
coursing through my dead veins
I got up and started climbing the power pole
a forest of dreams for the undead
to harvest
I would use myself as a guinea pig
feeling weaker as I climbed
I needed a big jolt of electricity
and enough to alchemize a hundred skeltergeists
into a more tangible undead force to be reckoned with
I unhooked the wires in my wrists
and twisted branches of wires into the wild wind
of the brewing storm
I laughed at the freedom of knowing
I didn’t know anything about living
until undead
until now
I taunted the Devil and bullied the lightning
then suddenly a bolt of lightning struck
my branches of wires
and I flew like an electrifried bird
into the sky
The lightning blasted me several miles away
my skin sizzled with heat
singed and sore
but I didn’t care
I had ten times my usual energy
so I ran as fast as the wind
back to the cemetery
with a jar of lightning under my arm
Now my research had to pay off
How could I bring one hundred skeltergeists
back to life or at least an undeath
with movement
my hope that they could retain all of their powers
that I witnessed
to walk through solid surface
invade the dreams and nightmares of humans
help humans still alive who may be in danger
by other humans
I wondered who were the real monsters?
We were all unjustly killed
or unjustly left to suffer death without a proper burial
would the lost soul of each skeltergeist return to its host
was mine still intact?
I felt it was as what else could be guiding me on this new path?
I called on my electrifried mice for help
I started doing stem cell research
watching the cells multiply
tiny sparks of electricity luminated the cells
I injected the stem cells into my burned skin
it caught on fire
I jumped up running around
then suddenly the flames turned into a kind of melted bandage
My skin was healed!
Now it glowed with a new bluish-tinged light
I decided to create a skeletal structure that would
feed a steady flow of electricity for ease of movement
if I could fly two miles on a tiny lightning volt
how far could I fly with a full engine –
like a plane – hundreds perhaps thousands of miles?
The earth shook under an apocalyptic moon
I fell down and watched the shallow graves push their inhabitants
above the ground with such force some bodies flew up several feet
before falling back onto the cold ground
A hundred undead rose from the earth reaching for someone to help them to their feet
Me
Finally a face I recognized the most – the leader – Oah – rose up completely
now appearing before me. He was still translucent — I could see his skeleton – the broken bones rattling within him. I could see the pain they must have caused him.
“Hello, Lucy. Thank you for burying us. We have rested enough. We must proceed with our plan. My children and grandchildren are crying in their dreams to me for help. We must rescue them from their captors.”
I fumbled for words but none would suffice except –
“Of course. I’m ready.”
But of course so far I had been the only one to fly with the bottled lightning and I needed more information.
“Show me your process – to become —”
“A zeltergeist. All the abilities of a poltergeist, a skeleton, and a zombie rolled into one. I’m hoping the lightning I captured will help you fly to your destination as fast as the wind as I did.”
Oah smiled, pleasantly surprised.
“You flew?! Like a bird? This would be beyond my dreams. I must get to my family. They are being held hostage in Ghazzlia.”
“I’m sorry — I don’t know where that is.”
“Better you don’t — but it is thousands of miles from here.”
“I– only flew two miles– I doubt there could be-”
“One step at a time. Forgive my impatience. My grandson is sick and I need to bring him back for medical care. Please, if you would, charge me up with this electricity.”
My electrifried heart was beating so fast, nearly jumping out of my chest. I thought my ribs were breaking I was so nervous. This was the moment of truth.
My hands were trembling as the other ninety-nine skeltergeists looked on from a few feet away. Somehow I managed to steady my grip. Fear and failure were no longer options.
There was no more need for words as I threaded the wires throughout his body stitching into and around his ribs, sometimes realigning his broken bones to strengthen his structure.
Then I injected areas of bone and flesh with stem cells to bridge the gap between skeleton and ghost to a tangible zombie – three dimensional – solid in form
An oozing sound sizzled as it had on me creating a kind of bandage of flesh filling in the spaces outward from the skeleton yet under the ghost
under the spirit which now made a sound like white static
as the buzzing of a million angry bees
Oah cried tears of blood then tears of blue
“It stings! My body is a hive of activity!”
I started to panic overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry, should I stop?!”
“No, no, Lucy, this is the sting of life – a rebirth. A magnificent healing I never felt when alive!”
My hands were cramping and I felt faint – but I kept going
Then I hooked him up with a portable electrical generator
Oah seemed to be in a meditative state, praying words I could not understand except they must be words of hope
and promise
I must help fulfill
I flipped the energy switch to the generator – ON
I gasped as I could see the bluish white electricity flowing through his body – sparks orbiting around him as he became a planet with his own constellation of stars
His body bolted into the air.
I held him by the generator cord like a kite string as his blue light radiated a fantastic spectrum of light and shade through his body
He was quite stunningly beautiful. A new kind of moon and bird in one – literally a body electric
Oah screamed into the night
I worried we might wake the living or more of the dead
“Oah, how do you feel?”
“My bones are virtual tuning forks. My heart is a giant resonance box. And I’m flying! Let me go, Lucy, I’ll go right now and get my grandson.”
How could I reason with this supernatural being now stronger and more powerful than I was?
“You need an army, don’t you? You can’t go alone. Come down now. We must go step by step, right? Even one more day, please, so I can electrify the others.”
“Yes, you’re right of course. I’d just like to fly for a bit though.”
He scooped up the sky and I ran to follow him as I rose above the earth too. A perfect test flight.
Lightning in a bottle was a perfect potion
But Mother Nature as cruelest teacher
refused to be contained
the night was dressed to kill
clouds were dressed for death
as a lightning bolt as wide as
an electrified highway
bolted into the graveyard
shocking the earth and buried
jolting all the remaining dead
upright
their tombstones shooting straight up
like granite rockets
their names smashed then swallowed
down the sadistic moon’s mouth
Lucy and Oah stood petrified
in a deep freeze of fear
as one by one
the newly undead rose
in shades of unholy reds and grays
boiling blood and smoky haze
moving slowly toward them
as a constellation of Hell’s damned stars
ready to claim raised earth as their new darkest kingdom
and slay all forces in their path
and one finally spoke as thunder breaks silence
and eardrums
“We’re here to replace you
and return you to your unmade graves”
Behind a blackened billow of deadly smoke
on which Lucy and Oah began to choke
stood John in a newly electrified blue glow
a smirk of satisfaction in the air’s undertow
He steps forward first rubbing his tortured skull
scratching away at singed skin now sputtering sparks
holding red and blue wires
“I’m undead again, sis. Rigged the graveyard with wire waiting on a lightning storm. Boom! Instant electric graveyard!”
as Lucy stepped back grabbing Oah’s crumbling bone of shoulder
She hands Oah the portable generator
“Go now, Oah, before he gets any closer!”
Oah desperately tries to move his ghostly feet but is frozen in place
“I can’t move. There’s an electrical field holding me. Go, Lucy, find my family–”
He takes her hand and opens her palm, quickly drawing a deep circle which cuts into her flesh like a knife
Lucy looks down – like a window into an abyss
Oah holds his head in agony, gasping, struggling to form words
“It’s a Coracle – a telepathic compass and oracle. It will guide you to my family. Go before
you are frozen too. I’m losing my memory – how to remember to speak”
Oah is now completely frozen, red ice crystals sprouting from his body like weeping red sores
Lucy glares at her undead brother.
“Don’t hurt them.”
John laughs as sinister as the devil himself, his eyes more wild and glowing as never before
“Who, me?! I just brought back two hundred and thirty-seven of this town’s deadest residents. What harm could I possibly do? I do plan on making a withdrawal from the bank. Time to build a new house. Pre-haunted this time. I bring the ghosts with me now. My eternal evil entourage”
Marie Scampini aka MZ Clarke writes poetical fiction, poetry, horror and scifi, currently writing the 'Rebelectric Zombie' series as a TV pilot entitled 'Flying Dead', and 'Zizadore' as a screenplay.
- ZIZADORE XIII - August 30, 2019
- ZIZADORE XII - July 18, 2019
- ZIZADORE XI - June 1, 2019
