An Undead Boy

I arrive home early in a daze, my mind whirring with what happened at school. I didn't walk anywhere else with Danielle, instead I left her in the library on her own. The worst part is that I wasn't thinking about her safety at the time, I just wanted to get away before Mark found me. It was a cowardly thing to do but after seeing the way he reacted to me, I was shook up - I still am.

There is a clatter from the kitchen and I step out into the hallway from my perch on the stairs. My mother must be making tea, or cooking her dinner but I know she hasn't heard me come in. Before any of this happened, she used to hum all the time: in the bathroom, doing the gardening, even watching television. I don't think she was ever really aware of doing it but since it happened - since I died - she hasn't hummed. Maybe she's itching to hum in the kitchen right now and perhaps she thinks it's too cheerful to do anymore, having a dead person around? Maybe she just doesn't feel like it anymore.

What sort of person was she before any of this? I feel like a stranger in my own home, like I shouldn't be here. But maybe my mother shouldn't be here, too. We're not the same people anymore; I don't like this cold, introverted model of her. She might want different things now from what she wanted last year and the only thing holding her back is me. She doesn't know what to do with me but I don't know what to do with myself.

I move to confront her but I'm hit with a scent so powerful, it makes me stumble back into the small cabinet we have in the hallway. The noise must have alerted my mother because suddenly, she's standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a knife in one hand and a tomato in the other. There's the jumble of emotions on her face again, the ones that have tortured me almost every single day but I can hardly maintain my focus on any of that because of the smell that seems to be getting headier by the minute.

My mother steps forward and tilts her head at me, suspicious but wary.

"Why are you not at school?"

I open my mouth with the intention of replying but the scent explodes on my tongue, I can actually taste it in the air. It hits the back of my throat and I choke because of its potency; my hand claws at my neck and instinctively, my mother drops the tomato where it bounces off the floor and she hurries toward me. It only gets stronger, richer and out of nowhere, I feel my guts clench and my insides flare and I'm aware of the absolute need for whatever the smell is - I feel like I am going to die without it.

"Mum - " I gasp but whatever I'm about to say is swallowed back, lost behind my teeth and trapped beneath my tongue.

"Charlie?" she cries, the knife shaking in her hand. I just about note that she hasn't dropped that but I don't care because I know where the smell is coming from - I know who the smell is coming from and she's standing right in front of me.

It's pulling me in and I blink sluggishly, unable to clear my mind. I look up and see the flush in my mother's face, the blue veins under her skin, the small scar on her cheek that assures me that flesh can be so easily damaged.

She's talking again but I don't understand the words, she could be speaking in another language. My hands reach up and before she knows what is happening, I coil my fingers around her wrists. It's like I'm only half awake - I know that this is my mother and I am her son but the scent from her is so overwhelming that I can't stop. This is the closest my mouth has come to salivating since I changed.

I don't know what I'm going to do until I see the way she is glaring at me.

Every time she has looked at me in the past, I have seen fear. The fear on her face right now though is unparalleled to anything I have seen in her face before. My face is reflected in her eyes and as I stare into them, I see the monster that she sees everyday. Pale skin, wide eyes, sunken face. This, if nothing else, motivates me to release her hands and I collapse against the wall.

We're both breathing loud - I am because of my natural instincts - and my mother is the first to jolt out of her stupor, the knife in her hand raised aloft and pointing at me.

"What the hell was that?" she demands, angry and disturbed. "What the hell was that, Charlie?"

I shake my head. The moment has passed but I can't answer her because I don't even know what that was. I lost control of myself and I'm pretty sure that I just tried to eat my mother or at least, I wanted to.

Tripping away from her, I crash to my knees, clutching my stomach as I go. The knot is still there and I'm scared that if I stay this close to her, I'll try and attack her again. Every effort to crawl away is draining, the tie that reels me in towards her will not break despite my head finally being clear enough for me to act sensibly.

I don't want to turn around but I know that she's there, watching me with the knife still in hand. Somehow I fall onto the tomato, its journey along the hallway passage ended, and I feel the cool burst of it on my shirt and under my knees as I force myself to drag my legs behind me. My hand hits the first step of the stairs and I gratefully haul myself up to scramble up them.

My room is the only place I can go and after I've thrown myself into the familiar space, I slam the door shut and stuff a pillow at the bottom of it in a vain attempt to cut off the scent. I can't get it out of my head, the thought of flesh and blood but the stench of tomato lingers in my nostrils and the mixture of that and my own disgust makes me retch against the carpet.

I yank off my tomato-stained jeans and shirt as best as I can, throwing them across the room as far away as possible. It's not far enough.

The world is spinning and I fall onto my back, gazing with dizzy eyes at the ceiling I've woken up to everyday of my life - his life. I'm gate-crashing on the real Charlie's existence, just picking up where he left off but I can't compete - how can I?

I pray that this is a fluke, that I've put too much thought into zombies and film monsters and it's the only reason why I'm losing it. Maybe I've exposed myself to it all and it's lodged itself into my subconscious? I just have to avoid my mother just in case, which after that performance shouldn't be difficult.

Oh God, let this be a fluke.