Ghosts, Werewolves and Zombies: Oh My!

Ghosts, Werewolves and Zombies—Oh My!

SARINA DORIE

Copyright © 2016 Sarina Dorie

Cover Design by Sarina Dorie

Published by Smashwords.

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781311478993

DEDICATION

To Mechelle, my older sister, who I used to give gifts of delicately wrapped boxes of beetles which I left in front of her closed bedroom door. I always knew when she opened these presents because of the sound of her scream. Thank you, Mechelle, for sharing in the morbid with me—even when you didn’t want to. You deserve a dedication.

CONTENTS

1 A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting Humans

2 Zombie Psychology

3 Skinjacking

4 Mr. Kick-Ass Werewolf President

5 Demon Eyes

6 Mrs. Claws and the Naughty List

7 Bite Me

8 Her Delicate Condition

9 Putting the Romance Back into Necromancy

10 Five Tips for Outsmarting Satan—and Your Students

11 Losing One’s Appetite

12 Why Did the Vampire Cross the Road?

13 Worse than a Devil

14 Greener on the Other Side

15 Night of the Living Deadcrumbs

16 Paranormal Personal Ads

17 Nine Ways to Communicate With the Living

A Ghost’s Guide To Haunting Humans

1. Make the first impression a lasting one. Do you really want to be the ghost known for tripping on ectoplasm as you make your big entrance? Take care in planning your first encounter with your mortal ‘hauntees.’

2. Avoid clichés. Creaking stairs have been done. Moaning, wailing, shaking chains, leaving stains on carpets and saying, Waaaaaah! or Ooooooh! isn’t scary, it’s just pathetic. It reeks of amateur.

3. Brown is the new white. Appearing as pale, glowing beings in white gowns is OUT. We don’t need another Casper or Lady in White. Think of creative ways to use mud, root beer or chocolate.

4. Be original. Be unpredictable. No one has ever haunted a sock drawer, possessed a juicer or made a Yorkshire Terrier vomit pea soup.

5. Don’t lose your head. Literally. It’s been done so often humans are starting to notice and wonder just how many ghosts have been decapitated.

6. Be yourself. There are enough ghosts of Abraham Lincoln that these impersonators have to take shifts so they can each get a turn at the Lincoln Memorial. The worst part of portraying yourself as a historical ghost is when some historian sees through the guise and says in a calm and certainly not frightened manner, How curious. Zippers weren’t yet invented in the eighteenth century.

7. Remember, they are more scared of you than you are of them. Do not let your fear show. You are in control. No one can exorcise you if you don’t want them to.

When all else fails, remember, death becomes you. If you are having a bad day, no one can ever take your immortality away.

Author’s Note:

I really like lists. Grocery lists. Stories told in the form of lists. Clickbait lists—to my detriment. At the time I was working on this piece, I was experimenting with the idea of telling a story in a list. I sold this story to Flatiron Publishing’s Origins Issue and later sold another similar list titled Nine Ways to Communicate with the Living to their Ain’t Superstitious Issue. Although the form was an experiment, the material was inspired by many New Age books I used to read as a teenager about paranormal activity. I have been told by some that they enjoy the rules of this world I created, but I really didn’t create this world, the New Age community did. Because lists are such a large part of my life, I thought it was an appropriate way to start and end the collection.

Zombie Psychology

I’d been expecting my ex-boyfriend to show up sooner or later, and when he did, I knew he’d probably want to eat my brains.

When the moaning and thumping started, I ignored it, thinking it was my upstairs neighbor having sex with his girlfriend again. As the moaning grew louder and drowned out the sitcom I was only half watching, I realized the noise came from zombies.

I threw down my Psych 501 textbook and stumbled toward the drafty window, still wrapped in my leopard print Snuggie. I told myself I was ready for this moment. Still, it didn’t make my heart pound any less as I yanked open the blinds and peered into the moonlit night.

Kevin stared at me from the other side of the windowpane. Dirt caked his face, his once-shaggy, hipster haircut matted to his head. The red of his lips stood out against his ashen face. They were either covered with blood or lipstick—you never could tell with Kevin. Now that he was living-impaired, I didn’t expect death to put a damper on his womanizing.

The dark suit he’d worn at his funeral last month was pretty much intact, and his skin hadn’t fallen off yet. I couldn’t say as much for his two friends standing on the lawn behind him. One was missing chunks of face and autumn leaves were stuck to his sweater. The other had an eyeball dangling down his cheek. His jaw was slack and exposed a rotting, black tongue. I’d seen worse-looking zombies back home in Louisiana, but the sight still made the spicy chicken wings I’d made for dinner rise up in my throat.

I covered my nose and mouth with my Snuggie, trying to block out the stench of formaldehyde and decomposing flesh that seeped through the cracks of the closed window. My voice was muffled. What is it this time?

Leticia baaaaby, you know I’d only rise from the grave if it was important, Kevin said, his voice garbled in a slushy moan.

Considering the first time he’d risen had been to crash a football game at the University of Oregon, and the second time had been to crash a kegger, I knew ‘important’ was subjective.

I picked up the bottle of pumpkin spice fresh air spray from the bookcase and spritzed the window so I could breathe. What do you want?

I miss yoooou. I need yoooou.

I rolled my eyes, more annoyed than afraid now. Yeah, you needed me so much you had sex with Sara Palmer in the parking lot of Dairy Queen.

Baaaaby, you’re the only oooone for me.

I’m not your baby, I said. We broke up two months ago. Why don’t you go to Sara’s dorm?

Saraaaa doesn’t haaaaave caaaable, Dangly-Eye said.

Kevin frowned and elbowed his friend, which caused a few of the dude’s ribs to tear through his shirt.

He waaaaaants you for your braaaaaain, too, Missing-Flesh-Face said and then snickered.

Guuuuys, you aren’t helping. Kevin’s raspy voice rose.

I crossed my arms, almost too indignant to speak. Let me get this straight—you came here to watch some stupid TV show?

It’s the big gaaaame.

But you didn’t come to me first, did you? You went to Sara’s. And I assume from the bits of gore on your face you ate her brains?

Um. . . .

Fine. We can do this the hard way, I muttered, turning back to the TV.

I wasn’t a witch doctor or voodoo queen, but I had gotten my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Louisiana, and I had picked up a few things about magic—and men—along the way.

When I pulled the TV over to the window, they gave each other high fives with the best coordination one might expect from zombies—which meant falling all over each other. One of them lost an arm in the process. I headed for the fridge, retrieved the yogurt cup of blood that I’d been draining from packages of chicken wings for the last two weeks, and set it on the bookcase.

All three of them had their faces pressed up against the window, peering at the TV, shouting and groaning what channel the game was on. I ignored them as I scanned the TV listings. I flipped through the channels, their shrieking reaching a crescendo as I passed the game and left the screen on some sickly sweet Hallmark movie.

I yanked the window open and poured the chicken blood on them. Before the placebo of black magic wore off, I said, With this blood I command you: get your sorry asses back to your graves this instant, or your bones will be rooted to this spot forever and you’ll be forced to endure chick-flicks for eternity.

They clutched at their eyes in agony, either because of the pregnant farm girl scene they’d just witnessed or the Tabasco sauce I’d mixed with the blood. They lurched away, stumbling into each other, wailing into the night.

Thankfully, there were some constants on this earth: one being that most men, dead or alive, would do anything to avoid watching girly movies on Lifetime.

Author’s Note:

Zombie Psychology originally appeared in Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. I have resold it several times. Though, I have been told zombies are dead and no one wants to read about zombies, I have found that isn’t true. At the time I wrote this story, I had just returned from Japan and discovered what a Snuggie was. I also discovered how sappy Hallmark-made movies were on the Lifetime channel.

Skinjacking

After dropping candy into each trick-or-treater’s bucket, Dolores watched the gaggle of children run off to the next house. Two children dressed as pirates remained. Neither had buckets. They simply stood there, staring up at her with bright, blue eyes. Dolores stepped forward onto the front step.

I like her skin, said the little girl.

The little boy shrugged. Yeah, it’s interesting.

Dolores touched her weathered face, wondering if this little girl could be serious. She certainly seemed earnest. Was this child saying she thought she was still pretty, even at her ripe old age? Wasn’t that sweet!

I haven’t ever had wrinkles before, the little girl said.

Aren’t you just charming! Dolores laughed, handing them each a piece of candy which they stared at, heads tilted to the sides. Of course you haven’t any wrinkles now, but someday you will get them.

I really would like wrinkles now, said the girl. Would you trade me?

Confused, Dolores held up a mini Kit-Kat. Do you want a different kind of chocolate?

The girl sighed in exasperation. Would you trade me skins?

Dolores eyed the cute little girl in her pirate costume, blonde curls bouncing. Her skin was smooth and flawless as porcelain. Oh, to be young again. . . . Dolores shook her head. You have no idea what I would give to be your age again.

Perfect! The little girl smiled, her grin stretching across her cheeks, growing wider until it reached her ears, every pearl-like tooth exposed in that monstrous grin. Dolores watched in frozen horror as the girl grabbed her upper lip and peeled her face back like it was nothing more than a hood. The child slipped the skin and clothes off in one heap, revealing a bloody lump of a body. Pulsing veins covered sinewy muscle. Glistening globs of fat clung in clusters around pumping organs.

Dolores stood rooted to the spot, unblinking and scarcely able to breathe. Only now did she regain herself enough to back toward her door. The boy picked up the human hide from the ground, holding it out.

The little girl looked to Dolores with the same blue eyes as before. Okay, now it’s your turn. . . .

Author’s Note:

I wrote Skinjacking for my critique group’s holiday reading. The Wordos is a science fiction and fantasy focused critique group whose past members have included elite names like Patricia Briggs, Devon Monk, Jerry Oltion, Jay Lake, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. For the first five years I was a member, my mother thought the name of my critique group was The Weirdos. On the meeting before Halloween and Christmas we read a holiday themed story that is 1000 words or less. I think the writing prompt for this story was trick or treat.

Mr. Kick-Ass Werewolf President

I thought things would be different when they elected a werewolf for president, my wife says.

Considering we’re both shifters, her being a selkie and I a were-panther, we’d been optimistic. President Robert Lupi was supposed to be what this country needed for a political shakedown. He’d promised change. He’d said he would cleanse our country of fascist separatists and the conservative oppression that was holding were-people down.