Read The Beautiful Dead for Free Online Page B

another, done
in by someone’s wildly swinging fist. Skulls and bones, an unsettling but impressive
touch. Among them, shattered glasses and spilled pools of waste decorate the scene.
    This is an
impressively disturbing tableau of undeath. I’m genuinely taken aback by its …
horror.
    “Is everyone
okay?” I ask carelessly, looking around. “A little bit overdone, don’t you
think?—this scene? I didn’t know the dead could die. Seems silly, the thought.”
I blink. “So … Anyone getting up anytime soon?”
    “No,” the
young man murmurs, quickly locking the front door of the tavern—no idea
why—then whipping over to the bar counter and inspecting it, looking for
something.
    “Is this
normal? Bar fights? Is this what I have to look forward to for all eternity?”
    “No,” he
mumbles again, agitated, opening cabinets, rummaging through drawers.
    “I’m Winter.
That’s the name they gave me.” I watch him scavenge through every drawer behind
the counter, curious. “What’s the name they gave you?”
    “No,” he says,
slams something shut, tears open another cabinet, a vein jutting out of his
forehead with his face scrunched up in frustration. “Not a drop of anything,
anywhere. Not even—Not even—”
    “What are you
looking for? Wait,” I say, listening carefully. “Do you hear that?”
    He stops his
hunting and stares at me now. I meet his eyes, pointing up at the ceiling where
I think the sound is coming from. “Do you hear that? It’s like ... a gentle
drum.”
    “No,” he
whispers, the sound barely making it from his lips this time. “I hear nothing.”
    “Do you think
whoever it was that started this is coming back? It sounds like footsteps, or
some kind of drum, or ... Wow, I can’t believe you can’t hear that. Just listen
...”
    I draw closer
to him, thinking the noise is coming from the counter. Then I cross around the
counter and notice him stepping away from me.
    “Wait,” I tell
him. “Just listen … Listen.”
    His back is
pressed against the wall. Before I realize how closely I’ve come in pursuit of
the strange sound, I’m standing right in front of him.
    Then I hear
it, clear as a spoken word. A thumping. A drumming.
    The horror
returns to his eyes. Thumping. Thumping.
    Drumming.
Within him.
    A heartbeat.
     
    C H A P T E R – T H R E E
A L I V E
     
    Neither of us
move.
    “Are you gonna
eat me now? ” he asks, his voice breaking.
    Distracted, I
say, “Answer’s still a resounding hell no.” But I can’t help staring at his
chest in a total stupor. How hadn’t I noticed sooner? “Is that—Is that a
heartbeat? Are you alive?”
    “Stay away
from me.”
    “You are alive!”
    He edges his
way around me, hops back over the bar counter. I let him. What else am I going
to do ... keep him cornered like some captured kitten?
    “Hey,” I call
out after him. “Answer me! Are you—”
    “Keep your
voice down!” he breathes, hardly able to keep his own. “What are you trying to
do, get me killed?”
    He’s searching
the tables now—for what, I could only imagine—when at once there’s a banging at
the front door of the tavern. Someone outside shouts to be let in.
    The Living
man, in an instant he’s dived back behind the counter, his eyes peering up at
me beseechingly. “Make them go away!” he breathes. “Don’t tell them I’m here!
Get them gone!”
    “Oh,” I say,
annoyed. “ Now you want my help.”
    He yanks open
all the lower cabinets, unsuccessful in finding one that’ll house his big
muscular body. He turns to me once more. “Look, I’m begging you.” But he hardly
sounds like he’s begging for all the disgust in his tone.
    “Tell me how you’re
alive,” I say. “Tell me and I’ll help you.”
    “I haven’t
died yet. Is that answer enough?”
    “No.”
    Now the person
outside is urgently pounding the door. They very, very much want to come in.
    “Please,” the
man whispers, squishing himself as best as he can under the