Cassie's Corpse

Chapter 6

Entry 3
    Do humans not realize how incredibly dumb they are? Their stupidity continues to astound me. Cassie's family is fine, of course, although sometimes Anna tries my patience, but as a whole they are much more tolerable than their self-absorbed, simple-minded fellow Homo Sapiens.
I don't think I will ever go into town with Reese again. Too loud, too bright, too chaotic. Children screaming and adults yelling and complaining that the store didn't have organic grass-fed chickens, when even I knew that chickens didn't eat grass. I think I angered the grass-chicken lady when I brushed her shoulder and informed her that her existence upon this Hellhole was short enough, and she'd be wise not to waste it worrying about the diet of fowl, and that maybe if she would stand still long enough to actually think about what she was saying she wouldn't come across as such a brain-dead fool. Judging by her expression, I'm guessing this was not a socially acceptable thing to say.

Entry 4
      The summer has come and gone. Sorry I haven't written much. Nothing to report. It is getting colder and the leaves on the trees are falling. I think I could learn to like it here. Anna decided to stay for the entire year after Reese and I begged her. I really would prefer to leave, but I know Nicolai will always follow. I still don't like food, but I think I could get used to Rowland's homemade cookies....

Entry 5
      Nicolai made an appearance today. He was in the corner of my room, laughing, with more blood than usual running down his jaw. He said he would hurt them if I didn't go with him. I don't want him to hurt my family.

Entry 6
     He hurt Rowland.
............
  October 18, 5:11pm: I came downstairs to find Rowland in an armchair, rubbing at his shoulder. He looked strained.
  "Are you alright, grandpa?" It was strange, calling him by that title. In my head he was known as 'Rowland: tall, thin human. Old. Annoying.' I felt I shouldn't call him that and instead forced myself to refer to him as Cassie would have.
  He smiled at me, and I noticed his skin was pale. "I'm fine, dear, just a bit sore. Must have strained my shoulder." His easy tone dismissed my worries, as it always did, and I headed into the kitchen to make dinner. Anna had come down with a bad case of the stomach flu and Reese was taking care of her. I'd barely seen the two of them in days.
  To be honest, I thought I was a pretty good cook. At least that's what the three people who ate my food told me, and I began chopping vegetables for a pot of soup.
A few minutes into my slicing and I heard Rowland call Cassie's name, weakly from the other room. I set the knife down, dried my hands on a paper towel, and headed to see what the fuss was about.
He was still in the armchair, but now he didn't look quite so relaxed and he had a hand on his chest. "Hey, Cassie," he whispered, beckoning me closer, "don't panic, okay? I'll be fine, but I'm having really bad chest pains and I need you to take me to the hospital. I don't want to worry your mother, but I think I'm having a heart attack."
  Panic flooded my veins like ice. One: I didn't know what a heart attack was, but it did not sound pleasant. Two: Rowland was old. This man, who didn't even know me, was my rock. I liked him. I took comfort in his presence. I didn't want him to die. Three: I didn't know how to drive.
  But I told Reese we were going shopping, I helped Rowland to the car, and I managed to start the engine without causing a major explosion. Actually driving, now that was a different story. I'd seen Anna and Reese and Rowland do it often enough that I had a basic understand of what I was doing, but I was also a wavelength of celestial origin possessing the reanimated corpse of a dead girl while her grandpa had a heart attack in the passenger seat. I wasn't exactly the world's most calm and collected driver at the moment.
  If Rowland wasn't already having a heart attack, my reckless driving certainly would have caused one. I rushed him into the hospital, where he was rushed to a back room, and I called Reese and she and Anna rushed over, but Reese had to take Anna back home because she kept puking, and Rowland was rushed to a different room and my thoughts were rushing around my head and then he was in a hospital bed and I was sitting next to him and everything stopped rushing suddenly and it was calm like Heaven but it felt like Hell.
  He was stable, the doctor had said, but he had had a pretty bad heart attack and would remain in the hospital for a few days. There was an IV drip plugged into his arm. He was awake, but quietly staring out the window, and his eyes looked so dull and dead and his hands, I noticed, were so pale and bony in my own.
  I wanted to help him. I could leave my vessel and possess him for a short time and help him heal, but doing that could prove catastrophic. Pure Angelic energy, not contained in a vessel, would send a beacon to Heaven. I might as well just hold up a neon sign reading "I KILLED GOD, COME GET ME."
  Rowland wouldn't speak, or he couldn't. I didn't try to engage in conversation. I was permitted to stay, though hesitantly, and I didn't leave his side for five whole days, even when he slept. I didn't sleep. I didn't shower. I didn't eat (although I didn't mind). I just sat, and the hours singed together like cigarette smoke settling in my lungs, cloudy and burning and I felt almost like an Angel again, a good Angel, an Angel up in Heaven who followed orders and did the right thing. But this good thing was for Rowland, not God, and that made it better.
  Reese came up, tried to get me home, but I wouldn't move. Eventually she gave up, went to check on Anna, and still I sat.
I sat inside my vessel, curling away from everything the way cigarette smoke curls out of an addict's  mouth, with want of one last breath and a desperate need to exhale.