The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman (33 page)

Jasmine Stewart was tidying up the breakfast
nook after her usual sausage, eggs, and toast, and she placed
everything in her plate and carried it to the sink. But, as she
turned, her daughter was looking in through the window. She was
shocked enough to drop the plate and contents, but lucky enough to
drop them in the sink. But as she jumped back, the girl was gone.
She decided quickly that it was guilt more than anything that might
be construed as a permanent mental derailment. She smiled to
herself and nodded, then turned to leave the room and Lavidia was
standing in the doorway. She was nodding too.

"You! You're..."

"Dead?" the little girl said. "I should have
done this years ago! It feels great!" She walked toward her mother
and her mother walked backward until the wall stopped her escape
and she was forced to endure whatever the little girl had in store
for her. Surprisingly, Lavidia stopped. "I'm hungry."

"I... I can fix more eggs," Jasmine said. "Gooey
like you like them, with toast?"

"Funny, but I seem to be hungry for something
else, now," she said. "Flesh."

"Like p-pork?" her mother stuttered.

"Not exactly," Lavidia said. "I
will
need
to feed soon, though, in order to keep this form."

"You're a zombie!"

"I'm not a zombie, mom!" she said with a smile.
"I'm the same little girl you always knew."

"Oh god, no!"

"Ha!" the child said. "Good to see you've kept
your sense of humor, what with the tragic loss of a child and
all."

"This just can't be happening!" Jasmine said.
"Even
you
weren't evil enough to get kicked out of
hell!"

"God, who writes your lines?" Lavidia said. "I
didn't get kicked out. I was politely asked to leave." She smiled.
"Hey, where's Buttons?" She thought for a moment then held up a
finger. "Ah, yeah, I remember."

"You can't stay here!" her mother said.
"Everyone thinks you're dead. They'll know you're a demon now if
you suddenly show up."

"Now mom, stop lying. I know you didn't tell
anyone anything. It's only been a couple of weeks," she said.
"They'll just think I've been sick. Besides, this
is
my
home. Where else would I go?"

"But, you were buried," she said. She slid
across the wall and made it to a chair and sat down. Her hands were
shaking as she played around with the napkin rack. "You look the
same."

"Oh, well, actually, I look like this!" she
said. Suddenly, who whole body changed; her flesh was dripping off
her face in a mixture of pus and blood, and maggots worked their
way in and out of holes and caused the loose skin to move and
undulate. Her eyes, too, changed to solid gray and dried up like
raisins. And as she opened her mouth, still more worms fell out,
clumped together in a slimy lump. Even her clothes had changed to
rotted rags. Then she suddenly changed back and was once again a
perfect little girl in a pink, frilly dress.

Her mother stared at the girl for a moment, eyes
opened wide, then fell over face first and banged her head on the
table. "Oh god!" she muttered, and then banged her head again.
There was the sound of a siren getting closer and she suddenly
jerked up.

"Oh, reminds me," Lavidia said. "Mary Jo Thomas
is dead."

"Oh god!" Again she banged her head on the
table.

"Oh, relax, she had one foot in the grave,
anyway," the little girl said. She walked to the refrigerator and
took out a small plastic bottle of orange juice, opened it, then
chugged it down. "Aah!" She wiped her mouth with the back of her
hand and burped.

"So, is that why you came back? To kill everyone
in town?"

"No, of course not," she said. "We're going to
need more juice." She walked behind her mother and patted the top
of her head. "Not everyone, just the ones on my list."

"Oh god!"

"You're going to hurt yourself if you keep
banging your head like that."

"Am... am I on your list?"

"No," she said. "I need you. You're not on the
list, you're going to help me take
care
of the list." She
grabbed her mother's hair and yanked her head back so that her face
was only inches from her own. "Right mommy?" Her body instantly
became the rotting corpse again and a mouthful of worms and rot
fell on Jasmine's cheek.

The girl let go and Jasmine reluctantly nodded.
"Whatever it is you are, it's my fault."

"You know, I was thinking that, too," Lavidia
said as her visage again renewed itself. "You
did
bury your
sweet little child in the basement. Little known fact, I was still
alive when the first shovels of dirt covered my face."

"Oh god!"

"That's right, mommy, you could have rushed me
to the hospital and I might have been saved! Funny, huh?"

"But, why a list? Isn't it just me you should
kill?" Jasmine looked up, and then lifted herself to her feet and
took a deep breath.

"Well, there will be time for us to work out our
little differences later," the girl said. "But, let's just say I've
made my way through town the last few days, finding out who has
been naughty or nice, and who was rejoicing over my death."

"And the ones who were happy are on the list,
huh?"

"Yep, well, plus a couple others I just don't
like," Lavidia said. "Hey, fix me up a big breakfast! I can't wait
to get started!"

"And I help you, how?"

"Well, oddly, I still seem to have the needs of
a child," the little girl said. "I need a mother to cook for me,
clean for me, protect me from danger... you know, the usual family
shit."

"Just like before you died?"

"Exactly... except for a lot of very violent and
brutal murders, followed by feasting on their flesh," she said and
smacked her hands together. "It'll bring us closer as mother and
daughter! Bonding!"

"Oh god!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

Tim Wellman was born and raised in
rural West Virginia. He attended Marshall University for four years
as a Creative Writing major, and won several state and school
awards for writing. He then gave it up after college to become a
failed comic book artist. After a short career marked most notably
by starvation and extreme poverty, he decided to come back to his
first love, writing.

Several recent stories have been
published in anthologies, and he has so far authored 3 novels for
younger readers, and one steampunk novel for adults, called, Milk
Of Ruin. Learn more at http://dreadly.net