Unexpectedly Undead

Unexpectedly Undead Chapter 10

-Adjustments-

"What is wrong with my eyes?" Olivia asked the group once more, this time in a firmer tone of voice.

"It's nothing." Macon offered nonchalantly as he stood up from the chair. He wiped his sweaty palms on the front of his jeans, before glancing nervously at Samuel and Caroline.

"Samuel?" Olivia beckoned, knowing they had an answer that they just wouldn't share. He smiled, yet it was Caroline who lowered her head.

"We don't know." She whispered.

"Don't give me that 'we don't know' bullshit. You all expected me to trust and join this train wreck of a lifestyle after a one hour conversation, yet I am getting left in the dark..." Olivia began to rant. She was interrupted by a calm and sincere sounding Macon.

"The thing is, we really don't know."

*****

Ms. Anna sat alone, locked away in her study -like she had been for the past few hours- trying to find even a trace of what this 'new arrival' was. She had scoured through many an ancient tome whose words were a history of her kind, and of zombie kind. Books dating back thousands of years ago lay open and strewn across her oak desk, yet none held the words she seeked.

"What the hell." She whispered aloud throwing one of the last remaining books her eyes had not met on to the pile. "This can not be a first for us, it just can't!"

Ms. Anna cleared the desk of the books and papers with her arm in a overwhelming and sudden fit of vexation, knocking them all to the cold marble floor. However this did not satisfy her need to rid herself of this frustration, but only scrambled and prolonged her efforts in finding an answer. She sighed before rising from her chair to retrieve the books.

While gathering them off the floor, a picture caught her attention. It was a crudely drawn illustration placed on the inside back cover of one of the few books she had yet to thumb through.

The art depicted two ghouls standing around a large slab of granite shaped and positioned like a sacrificial table underneath a starry sky. They were dressed in black hooded robes, their eyes ablaze with a crimson glow. A dark haired man was laying on the table, bound by ropes and chains with a look of panic upon his face.

"Son of a bitch." Ms. Anna whispered as she noticed the bound man's eyes. The were vibrant and a luminous shade of blue.

She quickly picked the book from the pile and -leaving the others behind- returned to her chair. She scanned the pages of the tome front and back for nearly an hour, yet no words were written inside of the blue eyed man. There was only the picture.

Ms. Anna moved her reading lamp closer to the the back cover of the book as she stared intently at the illustration. A name -she noticed- was inscribed on the bottom right corner.

RIOMATA

Ms. Anna thought a moment, trying to remember if the name belonged to a ghoul she had meet during her vast span of existence. It didn't, she was sure. Nevertheless, as she invisioned face after face of ghouls she had met in her time, one was difficult to push from her thoughts.

She realized then that her best chance of discovering the secrets of the illustration and what it depicted would be to contact the ghoul that plagued her mind's eye in that moment.

She stood from her chair and walked about her study, dimming the lights and lamps to a near nonexistent glow. She sat with her legs crossed atop a comfortable overstuffed pillow on the floor and began taking slow deep breaths.

It had been quite a long time since she had contacted another ghoul with the use of her mind, yet she felt in this instance it was necessary. Focusing her thoughts for several minutes, she began to enter a trance-like state, and her eyes were slowly engulfed with their vivid red hue.