House of Skin

FRIEND TO THE FRIENDLESS

In the house he was renting, Eddy Zero was drinking and plotting out his next move. Spider was dead now, but his body was in the next room. Eddy had all the necessary materials to resurrect him now that he’d looted his flat, but actually going about it was another matter entirely. Spider’s notebooks spelled out in detail how it had to be done. But, of course, it was madness.

And Eddy wasn’t mad.

Just as corpses never live again.

The Shadows were mulling around him, excited at the prospect of a dead body rising up.

(bring him back eddy then we’ll have a place to call our own)

“It’s rubbish.”

(try it try it anyway)

“Not bloody likely. I’ve better things to do.”

(you promised him we heard you promise him you’d do it if he died)

“Leave me alone.”

(you promised)

“Fuck off.”

He started to pour himself another drink when he heard the front door open and close. He set his bottle down and sat silently. A thief? A looter? His fingers closed on the knife in his pocket and he turned off the lights. No one knew about this place but Spider and he. No one alive, that was.

The door to the living room swung open.

He saw a shape in the doorway.

“What do you want here?” he asked calmly.

There was no answer. The shape stood its ground.

“Well?”

There was a whisper of motion as the shape stepped into the room. “Turn on the light,” it said. “I’m a friend.”

That voice, that voice—

He turned on the light.

Cassandra stood there dressed in a skirt and blazer. His heart skipped a beat and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether he’d laugh or scream. He did neither. He just stared. She’d come back to him… not in cerements stained with grave dirt, but in skirt and blazer. Like a woman on her way to the office. There was something damnably funny about that—walking dead, business elite class.

“Don’t ogle me, Eddy. I’m not here to haunt you.”

“Then why… how?” He could barely speak. The words seem to rattle on his tongue.

“Unfinished business,” she said, sitting on the sofa and crossing her legs. “It’s rather irresponsible to die before your affairs are put in order.”

“I murdered you.”

“You did.”

“But you were dead, I saw—”

“Yes, yes, I’m dead, all right. Quit making a scene about it for God’s sake, will you?”

“I’m must be going crazy.” Feeling light-headed, he sank into a ratty chair. “Yes, that’s it. I’m a fucking lunatic.”

Cassandra laughed. “Of course you are. Like father, like son.”

“Maybe it’s really taking hold now.”

She laughed with a throaty croaking sort of sound. “Oh, I’m real enough, Eddy. Dead as a bag of drowned kittens, but real enough.”

His face was hanging, slack and sallow. “But how… how did you do it?”

“It’s a long and dreary story. Suffice to say I’m here and I forgive you for killing me.”

“It wasn’t my fault, the Shadows made me kill you.”

(you killed her because you wanted to we only unlocked your desires)

“You made me do it! You didn’t give me a choice!”

(don’t be such a baby be man enough to take responsibility for your actions your father ALWAYS took responsibility for his actions)

“I’m not my father!”

(pale imitation)

“Shut up!”

(The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree but this one has a worm in it)

Eddy clutched his hands to the side of his head. “Sometimes they won’t fucking shut up.”

“That’s some baggage you carry, darling,” Cassandra said. “Daddy’s pets, are they?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. They won’t leave.”

(give us spider’s body and we’ll leave you alone)

“It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” Cassandra said. “Give them the carcass and they’ll be happy.”

Eddy looked up at her. “You… you can hear them?”

She nodded. “Of course. The dead can hear the dead just fine. Now tell me about Spider’s cabalism and alchemy. There’s nothing like a good resurrection for laughs.”

Eddy outlined the plan to her and showed her Spider’s books and notes. It was very detailed stuff. She studied them over for a time as she pulled off a cigarette and he wondered how it was she looked so good. Why, he could barely see a hack mark on her anywhere. Amazing, is what it was.

“Bright boy, our Spider,” Cassandra said. “Let’s give it a whirl. Where is he?”

Eddy brought her into the next room. She set to work, handling his cadaver with the sort of respect only the dead have for their own. It was a lengthy, gruesome process opening him up and replacing his vitals with bags of herbs and salts and spices, injecting odd chemicals in certain locations. It took some time.

Eddy watched her as she worked. “Why did you come back?” he asked.

“For you. Who but me can take care of you? And you need looking after, you know. You’re making a real mess of things.”

Eddy didn’t contest the fact.

No man is an island.