Jace and the Undead

A confident man would have stood tall, would have looked at the layer of mist over the graveyard and believed every step forward was the right step.

Jace was not a confident man.

Jace was a man with hope in his heart driving him onward past gravestones adorned with poinsettias, wreaths, and mini Jul trees that held battery-powered lights and all colors of shimmering ball ornaments. 

He wasn’t confident, nor was he proud. He’d stolen a jar of life energy. Rhyss held the swirling blue goo in his hands. It was beautiful, powerful, and special. Jace had Wicca now. He had the power to bring his mom back, to save her from her fate.

They’d make up for it: save some lives, replenish the stock. It’d be great. Fine. Totally cool, as long as they handled it before anyone noticed, like if they found the kidnapped dude with the blue life goo. That could take days. Until then, Jace and Rhyss had a mission: save his mom.

The scent of cut grass, soft with midnight dew and a hint of frost, and old poinsettias—musty, sweet, and mushroomy—filled the air. Stone accented it all, moss covered and old. Fresh soil uprooted the previous night wafted towards Jace. Old lanterns lit the night like beacons for the living, or maybe a guide for the dead.

He used them as a guide to find the grave.

Her grave.

Jace’s mor had chosen New York, even though it was far from her home in Denmark, to be laid to rest. She wanted to be close to Jace and the band. There was no rot in this cemetery, not as far as your nose could tell.

Jace set a bouquet of white flowers on her gravestone. He set the flowers next to the poinsettia he’d placed a few days ago. “Hey Mor.” He sat in front of the headstone and crossed his legs. “This is Rhyss. He’s…” He glanced at Rhyss, tall with dark hair and broad shoulders. “He’s my world. Turns out.” He cleared his throat. “And he has some cool magic. I hope you can forgive me for doing this.” He took in a deep breath and stood.

Rhyss handed him a shovel.

Together, they dug deeper and deeper into the soil.

Rhyss rested his hand on the top of his shovel for a moment, his breaths heavy. “How do you know where her head is?”

Jace looked at the dirt. “Ah.” He scratched his head. “I figured the graveyard people put the head at the headstone. But I guess no one usually checks, do they?”

Did it even matter? They’d open the casket up and figure out which end they needed after.

“Let’s just make sure we don’t hit her head,” Rhyss said.

Jace looked at him as he shoved his shovel back into the dirt. It thudded against the wood casket. Rhyss moved his shovel to scrape the dirt away. “There’s a box?”

“Ja. It’s a casket. How do you bury dead people in Sylem?”

“If you want them dead, you burn them. If you don’t, you don’t let them die.”

“Huh. I’ll let the people in charge of death know.”

Rhyss laughed, and together they got back into the work. A few more shovels full and it was time. Jace wiped sweat and soil from his brow. She was here.

Nausea gripped his stomach like heavy lead.

Rhyss put his hand on Jace’s shoulder.

Jace leaned back into Rhyss and closed his eyes. “Thank you. For everything.”

Rhyss kissed his cheek, the touch becoming soft and familiar. How could someone new to his life feel like he’d always been there?

“Okay. Spell time.” He shoved the lid off the casket and immediately retched. His stomach rolled as he looked at her bones. “Mom.”

Beside Jace, Rhyss unscrewed the lid of the jar. “I dunno how much we need. Maybe we just pour the whole thing on?”

Jace shrugged. “Sounds good to me. Maybe it’s stored by how much you need to use.” He took the jar from Rhyss and dumped it on the remains.

“Okay. What do we say now?” Rhyss asked. “Wake up? Open sesame”

Jace tried to remember the spell they’d read, but he came up blank. “Aren’t you the Wiccan?” he teased. They were a duo of chaos. But they’d figure it out. They had to, for his mom.

“Um…” Jace tilted his head side to side. “Abracadabra, come back alive!” He swooshed his hands around like Eddie did when he was conducting. The body started reforming, like that was the real spell. Did the words even matter? Or was it an intention or something? Either way, his mom was becoming, and Jace had to look away.

Suddenly, a voice came from the casket. “Hi?”

It wasn’t his mom’s voice. He looked down and there was a woman with white-blonde hair and soft blue eyes. She was incredibly tall and slender, and not at all like his mom.

“Oh shit, it worked.” Jace stumbled back. “Oh shit, who the fuck are you?”

“Did we dig up the wrong grave?”

Jace’s eyes darted to the headstone. Gemma Birky. “This is hers. I even picked the casket out with my far.”

“Hi?” the woman said again, her blonde hair falling all over her shoulders. It was platinum blonde, almost like some of those fairies. “Where am I?”

My mom’s grave. “The wrong hole in the ground. Who are you?” His heart beat a tattoo of panic and anxiety. Where was Gemma Birky?

“Or the right one,” the woman said. “If you consider being un-deaded lucky.” She sat up, stretching like she’d been napping on the base of a canoe. “I’m Lindy.” She offered her hand to them.

Jace shook it, unsure what else to do. He helped her out of the grave where she shook Rhyss’ hand too. “Any chance you know where my mor is?” Jace asked. “And…is there anyone else in there with you?” He looked around her. The casket was empty.

She looked too and gasped. “This is disgusting. Was I in there?”

Rhyss and Jace nodded in unison.”Ja. You should take a shower,” Jace said.

Jace reached for Rhyss. He had no other anchor, and he needed something to hold on to. Someone had done something, moved his mom or lied. “Where the fuck is my mom? How did you get in there?”

Lindy shrugged at the same moment the surrounding ground rumbled. Muffled sounds and thumping noises, like a hundred mini earthquakes, thundered from beneath them. She moved closer to them. “I was…no one. Okay! Let’s go find your mom.” She put her arm around both of them and started leading them away, but some of the dirt bubbled beneath them. A muffled voice called out before a hand pushed through the dirt.

Lindy screamed. Jace screamed louder. Rhyss grunted and fell back, landing on his hot ass.

“My mor!” Jace exclaimed. He started digging and reached for the hand. He pulled the body out of the dirt and prepared to hug his mom, at last. Someone had stolen her casket, but she was here.

Except she wasn’t. A man was with dark hair and a chiseled jawline and why did a dead guy have a six-pack? “Hey. Thanks.” He looked back at the ground.

“Where the fuck is my mom?” Jace’s voice cracked. He shook his hands out, trying to get the anxiety off him. Other hands were popping through the ground, and the banging and mini-quakes were becoming desperate and loud.

The guy looked at the ground and started digging at another grave, pulling a kid out from the soil.

Jace scanned the cemetery through mist and dim lights and Christmas trees and realized, with a gut twisting panic, they’d used too much blue life energy stuff.

Way too much.

He looked at Rhyss as three more bodies crawled out of their final resting places, all of them naked, all of them confused.

And then the world was slipping, slipping and sliding, and sideways and upside down, and Jace…Jace had fainted.

He lay arrested in a field of the undead.