Awaken

For Desi - 

Making a zombie is actually way harder than it sounds. Marcus looked at the corpse that was laying on the floor of his bedroom. Even in death, Callie was the epitome of “popular.” She was beautiful with her long blonde hair and blue chiffon dress and tonight was going to be fantastic as long as he could find the right spell. He sat with numerous worn leather bound spell books trying to find the right incantation to reanimate her. He had tried three already and despite a little finger twitching, the body had done nothing. Marcus was growing frustrated and running out of time.  He looked at his watch. “One hour left,” he uttered to no one. He couldn’t be late in meeting his friends, but the second hand kept moving as if to taunt him.

He knew his parents did this kind of thing all of the time. They were private detectives and it was common for them to bring the recently deceased back to life to ask them questions about their deaths. It definitely came in handy when trying to solve murders, but this was important too. He looked down at the girl from his cross-legged sitting position on the bed. Living, dead, or undead, as the case may be, his friends would be jealous. Marcus scanned several more pages, carefully turning each one as if they’d rip in his hand, then tapped the title, “Necromantiae.” This has got to be it, he thought to himself. Marcus read through the lines, took a deep breath and slowly let it out to center himself. If he’d learned anything from his parents, it was that concentration and calm were key to any good casting.

“From your dreamless slumber, I call you forth,” he spoke to the realms.

“To the shackles of flesh, I command thee.” His hair fluttered in an unearthly breeze and an energy began to pulse in his veins pushing him onward to finish the last line. “Excitare, Excitare…Awaken, Awaken.”

He watched as the breeze settled upon the body on his floor and waited impatiently for a sign that it worked. A minute passed by and…nothing. Marcus slammed the book shut in frustration and got up from his bed to pace. He ran his hand through his thick black hair and wondered why he had even bothered getting dressed for tonight. He turned to look back at the body and pulled loose his bow tie. “Ahh,” he yelped as the girl he had tried so desperately to resurrect now stood in front of him. Her head seemed to have a slight tilt to the left and her eyes were a little bloodshot, but that would get better with some time. She was perfect. A little groan escaped her lips followed by a raspy, “Where am I?”

Marcus looked around his small bedroom, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t cleaned up better, then replied, “That’s not important. My name is Marcus and I’m taking you to prom.” She looked at him with a blank stare as if trying, with great difficulty, to process what he had said. He watched as the comprehension of his statement caused a lopsided smile to grace her lips. Marcus would have said that her face lit up, but her muscles were a little too stiff for that. She shuffled closer to him and tried to fix his tie, but she became frustrated by her lack of dexterity. “No worries,” he said as he pulled the tie off all together. “I hate wearing bow ties anyway.” She let out a wheezing laugh as he dropped it to the floor.  “May I?” He asked holding out his arm for her. She smiled and gladly took it as she found it difficult to walk. He beamed at her with pride. “My friends are going to be so jealous when they see you. I can’t wait to see their faces. None of them thought you’d say yes if I asked you to prom, but even though I was sad when I heard you died, I knew when I found out that I had a shot.”