An Undead Boy

I have not been to school for the rest of the week. When I came back home after Danielle turned me away, there was no one there. I don't know where my mother went but ever since I almost bit her, she's been avoiding me more than usual. I'm sure she doesn't realise that I tried eating her but on some level, she must know something terrible could have happened. I think, for lack of a better term, she has the creeps around me. I wouldn't even be remotely surprised if she is hiding out at Grandma Thelma's, as serious as the situation is.

Alone in the house or not, I still shut myself in my room and never, in all my time being undead, have I wanted to crawl away into the darkness so much.

My plan for a seaside escape has gone out the window because I don't think I ever, truly entertained the thought of being without Danielle. On reflection, I thought she was going to forgive me. Maybe I pushed her too far this time. She was sick of me offering her no explanations, sick of me turning away from her all the time, sick of being my friend.

For the past three days I have not moved from my bed. I'm still wearing the clothes I had on when I last saw Danielle. I just didn't see the point anymore - I still don't. With enormous effort, I raise my face from the pillow I've been trying to suffocate myself with all this time and peer around my dark room with bleary eyes. It could be early morning or it could be the beginning of night but what does it matter when time is an inconvenience, nothing but a waiting game that refuses to quit?

I'm tired of the game though and I want out.

Heaving myself from the bed, I move through my room slowly to absorb everything about the person I was. The stacks of books, although an incredible solace and appreciative discovery during my time as a zombie, are merely glanced at. When I was alive, I had no time for books so I skip past them to pick up dusty computer games and old photographs of my friends that I never had the heart to put away. Holding them, I try and recollect how I felt back then but not even the slightest glimmer of those days remain. I'm a whole new Charlie now.

Sure, I can guess at what I used to be like from looking around my room, at the discarded items I bought because they were popular at the time or the broken headphones that I never got round to replacing. I was a tornado, ripping through everything because I never had the time to slow down; I wanted to do it all at once and could never wait for anything. I guess in one respect, I'm still like that.

I head towards the bathroom but stop every now and again to examine a lost CD that I impatiently threw to the side years ago or to scoop up a pair of socks on the floor that I could never be bothered to send to the wash. I don't want to be known as a slob.

Before I reach the bathroom door, I stop to brush a finger against the photo frame Danielle had made me for Christmas. It is still empty, the opportunity for a photograph never really presented itself. I consider taking it with me but decide against it. I don't want to ruin the one good thing I've had in all these months by tying it to some sort of grim connotation. The dead boy with the purple photo frame in the bathroom. I nearly smile, thinking how much it sounds like a game of Cluedo even though to find anything funny at this moment is crazy.

I half shrug at the frame, as if it were Danielle, wishing that it can understand why I'm doing this before I turn away and enter the bathroom.

The light blinks on and I squint my eyes, unaccustomed to any brightness these past three days. The movement from my reflection in the mirror catches my eye and because I won't have the chance to do it again if I am successful in my task, I stagger over to it and perform the morning ritual, even though it may or may not be morning right now.

Inhaling, that floral scent of the soap is still there and despite everything, I feel a pang of happiness to know my sense of smell is intact.

I do not need to shut my eyes when I greet myself now. I came to terms with my condition long ago, regardless of whether I am okay with knowing it, so instead of shutting off, I drink up every detail of my face as I talk.

"Hello, Charlie." I say in a low whisper.

Same cool complexion, same purple bruises beneath my eyes. My hair is mussed; it's knotted and unkempt from going so long without care. I suck in my cheeks, unable to tell if I've become thinner, bonier since I last really looked at myself but it doesn't matter because I'm too busy searching my own eyes. They have life in them, glittering blue under the bare bulb in my bathroom. Is this how Danielle could stand to be around me so much? That although the idea of me seemed frightening, when she looked at my eyes, she saw the way they contained so much vitality and refused to believe a person with these eyes could be a monster?

With this in mind, I relay my mantra confidently to the mirror as if I never stopped repeating it.

"You are you. You can think and experience and feel. Don't believe anyone else."

This provides me with the doubt and hesitation I need. My fingers grip the sink edge as I talk myself out of doing, or trying to do, anything drastic.

Is 'out' an option for me after all? Did I really think it could be? It certainly never was and I thought it never would be but life without Danielle, without anyone, seems a little too hard to take. There's the question of how I'm going to do it because I don't even know. How can you kill what is already dead? Should I pay any attention to the horror films, use the information from them as a sick checklist? Head shot, decapitation, take out the brain and the creature will fall.

My hold on the sink becomes tighter as I wonder if I'm cowardly enough to do what it takes, to take the easy route out of my problems.

"Charlie..."

She is behind me and the sound of my name chases all the thoughts from my head. I don't turn around though, only trusting my own reflection in front of me. It can't be real. I'm lying to myself, imagining things. There is no one there and you did not hear that voice.

"Charlie!" There it is again, more persistent this time so I whirl, ready to obey the voice and do what it wants. I lean against the sink for fear of falling over in shock, my knees like jelly.

Why has she come back?