Chapter 3: UnDead Girl by Stephen Simpson
No! No! No! Eating people was not who she was. She lifted
her hand to touch her forehead and it was cold and hard to the touch, like
marble. The slight fever she had this morning was gone and her skin felt
different, weird.
“I’m
dead...” she mumbled, and then quickly pushed her lips together. Saying the
words out loud might make them true.
She glanced at the front door, took a deep breath out of
habit and a step forwards.
When Genesis walked into the house, it was quiet. She walked
down the long, carpeted hallway to her room and dumped her backpack on the
floor, before she headed back down the hall in search of her mum.
Her mum was in her office, staring intently at the computer
screen in front of her and letting her fingers tip-toe softly over the letters
on the keyboard. She worked from home as a Content Editor for a local radio
station and always insisted she did not want to be disturbed when she was
working. Genesis and her dad had to pretend her mum was working away from home,
worked business hours.
“Mum?”
Her voice was soft and tentative.
“Yeah?”
Her mum did not look away from the monitor.
Genesis swallowed hard. “I need your help.”
Her mum immediately looked in her direction, her mossy-green
eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong, Gen...” Her words froze on her pale
pink lips. “No! Not yet,” she exclaimed, and pushed her black leather chair
back quickly as she stood.
“What
do you mean, not yet?” Genesis asked and walked closer to her mum.
Her mum made a wretched sound as she turned to the phone and
mumbled, “I have to phone your dad.”
A feeling of apprehension filled Genesis from the bottom up.
It started in the pit of her stomach, and the queasy feeling quickly rushed up
her body until it got stuck in her throat. Her mum had never before regressed
from being in control to having to phone her dad.
“Mum,
please. What’s happening to me?”
The worried look in her eyes was quickly replaced with a
look of fear as her mum pushed the numbers on the phone with quick precision,
and at the same time, she pushed the black leather chair on its coasters so
that it was between Genesis and her. She waited for a couple of seconds and
then she said, “Peter. Come home.” She ended the call, pulled her hand through
her light-brown hair and then looked back at Genesis. “I am so sorry, Gen.” As
if she only then realised, she had pushed the chair between them, a look of
sadness washed over her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess, although I knew
this day would come, I did not realise how afraid I was that it would come.”
“What
would come?” Genesis asked with a frown between her eyebrows and a hint of fear
in her voice.
“I think it would be better if we waited for your dad. He would be able to explain it a lot better than I could.”
