Fear, Loathing, and Zombieasaurs in Las Vegas | ONC 2021

A Deadly Request

Greg was no stranger to the dead showing up on his doorstep. Just as often they'd appear in his kitchen, his bedroom, and sometimes the bathroom too. Wherever Greg went, the dead followed.

He'd done his best to encourage them not to show up at his work. While being a Medium was officially part of his job, according to Gertrude Steel, owner of The Guiding Light Psychic Emporium, he was also supposed to be a general psychic, fortune teller, and store clerk depending on what kind of customer walked in the door. It was easiest when he could directly commune with the spirit a customer was trying to contact without having others trying to get his attention. But occasionally mistakes happened and he was always more than happy to help those spirits looking to patch up relationships with loved ones, or complete unfinished business when it was in his power. Like Ms. Steel said, "Customers always come first." It was a motto to live by, and he did his best. But sometimes his attentiveness to death got in the way of life.

Ellis's bachelor party is case-in-point. He thought, rolling over and rubbing his eyes. He should have been waking up this morning with a terrible hangover because he'd stayed out drinking all night with his friends from college at 35. He'd hurt all over and have lots of regrets about how he should have known better. He was sure Ellis's other friends were doing just that. He, on the other hand, had gone home hours before midnight at the behest of a very friendly and very insistent spirit who really just wanted him to call her granddaughter and couldn't he just find it in his heart to help a poor old lady with her last request when he had so much more of his life to live, and her time was already up.

How could he say no? How could any kind-hearted person refuse such a request? And how could any person with his abilities tell their very normal friends the truth?

So he did what he always did, fake a phone call from work and claim there was an emergency and he needed to go in.

His eyes felt prickly. He'd seen the way Ellis looked at him. He could read his thought from a mile away - the, "I just knew you'd flake like this," look. Ellis hadn't even tried to get him to stay, even though he knew the night was important to him. Some days his secret felt like a mountain was sitting on his chest. He scrubbed at his face, feeling it grow hot.

"No, Greg," he told himself. "You're not going to do this today. You liked helping that lady. You did good work last night and you made someone's life, and someone's death, better because of it."

Sometimes he gave himself these little pep talks. It helped a little.

Greg rolled over and threw himself out of the bed with a yell. There was a very large human-like figure in a black cloak with rows of pink braids, what he decided were feminine features, and eyes which were bottomless pits of darkness standing in his bedroom holding what looked to be a very sharp scythe.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?"

"Oh, yes, good morning. I didn't realize introductions were necessary given..." she looked down at herself and then at her scythe. "Anyway, I'm Death, nice to meet you..."

"Greg," he responded when he'd recovered from the feeling of being doused in ice water and having his stomach attached to a bungee line and thrown off a bridge.  "Greg Wraithbury."

"Really?" she said, cocking her head. "Wraithbury? A little on the nose there?"

He was confused for a moment and rubbed his nose. Was there something on it? What had she said? He tried not to stare into her eyes, but it was a habit impressed on him by his very proper mother over decades, and every time he looked into them he got dizzy and forgot what was going on.

"Your name," she said, dryly. "You're a Medium. You talk to the dead - wraiths. And people who are buried. Wraithbury." She peered at him and he colored with embarrassment as he laughed a little too loud.

"Wraithbury. Right. Yeah, no that's my stage name. My real surname is Zyjechisney. Gregory Zyjechisney. It's Polish, and most people can't pronounce it. I'm third generation, but my dad's parents were really insistent nobody changes the last name to be more American, even though..." he cut off his rambling. What was wrong with him? He needed to pull himself together. "Mostly I go by Greg. You can call me Greg, if you want to call me something. If you need to call me at all," another high-pitched laugh escaped him again and he looked away from her. Focus on something else, anything else. Not her eyes.

He looked at the long, sharp blade of the scythe she held. A tiny shaft of sunlight peeking through his curtains glinted on its edge and he forced himself to swallow the bile that crept up his throat. Okay, not the scythe.

He glanced at his dresser and his eye caught on the photo of him and Ari he hadn't had the heart to put away yet. His chest burned unexpectedly and he gasped with the pain and sat on the corner of the bed. He'd never quite understood what the spirits he helped really felt, dying with so many regrets. Now, looking at Ari, he wished he could have one more chance. A chance to tell her the truth. A chance to put her first, and show her just how much she'd meant to him.

"Are you ok?" Death asked. "I know I can be a lot for most people to handle, because usually when I appear it means they're about to die. But I would have thought, being a Medium and all, that you'd have a better handle on things."

Greg looked up, startled, hope blooming inside, "What do you mean 'Usually' they're about to die?"

"Oh, well I'm not here to kill you. Couldn't if I tried right now, actually," she chuckled to herself like she made a good joke. "I'm here because I need your help, Greg."

He wasn't going to die? He fought the urge to do another awkward giggle. "What could you, Death, possibly need my help with?"

"You mean you really haven't noticed?" She pointed toward his closed curtains. "Take a look outside."

Greg gulped. What hadn't he noticed? What lay outside his curtains?  Slowly he grasped the chain and pulled. Eastern light poured in, blinding him momentarily and he threw up his hands to shield his eyes, shutting them at the glare. He was not prepared, when his eyes adjusted, to see his back yard neighbor sprinting across their back lawn only to be snatched into the air by a Pterodactyl. Suddenly, as if a bubble popped, the sounds from outside assaulted his brain. Screams, sirens, the pop pop pop of shots going off.

A deep vibration shook the house once, then again, making the water by his bed erupt in tiny waves. Greg watched it vibrate again, then sprinted to the front door and threw it open in time to see a T-Rex with half its shoulder blasted off stomp past his house. His mouth was open, and he made no attempt to close it. Cars screeched in the intersection trying to avoid the T-rex and it roared in anger, making his ears scream. Quickly he stepped back inside and closed the door, letting out the breath caught in his chest. He placed both palms on the door, and hung his head between his arms, breathing deeply through his nose.

"There are dinosaurs in my neighborhood," he said.

Death was next to him. "Yes."

"There are real, live, dinosaurs, in Las Vegas." As if saying it again would make her laugh and say this was all a joke and he was having an insane dream from actually having stayed out with Ellis after all.

"Well, they're not technically alive," she said, sucking air through her teeth. Greg vaguely wondered why Death needed teeth, and then decided he didn't want to know what she looked like without them so it didn't matter. "Technically, they're just reanimated. They don't have souls. Well, they did. They just not anymore. Do you have some tea?"

Greg was confused about the quick change of subject, but pointed her in the direction of the kitchen, preferring to stay firmly against the door.

"So what you're saying is, there are Zombieasaurs in Las Vegas."

"That's right," she called from the kitchen. "And I need your help to stop them."