Read Online When Night Came Calling by Emily Asimov - Free Book Online Page B

Seems more like summer than spring.”
      “We can begin if you are ready.”
      “I’m about to need a towel.”
      The zombie offered the girl a white silk handkerchief from his pocket.
      The girl used the handkerchief to mop her face. “Your real name then?”
      “James the Less. James the Just, if you will.”
      The girl knit her brow. “James Justice?”
      The zombie smiled almost wistfully. “James Justice. That will do.”
      “You weren’t always a zombie, were you?”
      “No,” the zombie answered. “I was born a man in the year three eighty-seven.”
      “Nineteen eighty-seven?” The girl asked to ensure she’d heard the date right.
      The zombie said nothing, choosing to watch the girl instead. The smell of her growing fear was overpowering and even after all these years it aroused a hunger in him. A hunger he fought and pushed down.
      The girl reached out to pick up her purse and recorder, her hands trembling violently. “I’m not sure I can continue.”
      The zombie reached across the table with both hands and grabbed the girl’s wrists. He fixed his cold blue eyes on her warm brown eyes. “The first time I died the year was four eleven. I was twenty-four.”
      The girl looked incredulous, but she did not dispute the point. “You died more than once?”
      “Many times,” the zombie answered. “I was Sir Gawain to King Arthur, Lorenzo de Medici for Florence’s Golden Age, Lieutenant Ichabod Crane in the Revolutionary War.”
      The girl was startled by the boldness of his tone. “How then did it happen?”
      “You mean how did I become what I am? If you are looking for a simple answer to that, there is one but I don’t think you want the simple answer. I think what you want is the real story. I think you want the truth.”
      The girl swallowed hard. “I do.”

 
     
     
    3
     
     
     
    “Good,” said the zombie finally, and slowly he stood. “I knew you would want the real story of how it came about. It’s why I chose you.”
      The girl watched the zombie as he walked to the bar cabinet. Her eyes moved over the finely tailored suit she’d only glimpsed before.
      The zombie started to open another bottle of wine.
      The girl collected herself and her trembling stopped. “I think I’ve had enough to drink.”
      “I know,” said the zombie. “This is more for me than you. I find it helps.”
      “So you’ve told this story to someone before?” she asked.
      “A few times, not recently, and never fully.” The zombie shook his head and looked to the window where a breeze was fingering the curtains. It was the first time the girl saw any trace of expression on his otherwise inanimate face.
      “Is it painful to talk about?” she asked quietly.
      The zombie returned with the wine and set the bottle on the table. He didn’t want to speak of past failures, of his inability to curb his nature long enough to tell the story fully. “I was living in Britain then. East Anglia. This was before Arthur, before the creation of the English nation, before everything really…”
      “Ah, you are British…” the girl said.
      The zombie stared blankly. “Does it seem so?” He started to laugh. “It has been so long since anyone thought of me as British, and least of all me.”
      The girl poured the wine, filling her glass and his. It was a nervous gesture. Something to fill the awkward void. “It’s just that I’ve been trying to place you. I noticed before when you approached me that you weren’t an American. It’s the consonants really.”
      “I have lived in the Americas for more than two centuries.”
      The girl flustered, said quickly, “I thought maybe you were European. I never guessed British. You don’t seem British at all.”
      “Not to worry,” the zombie said to reassure her. “I’m not offended. It’s just that I was a Revolutionary and I sometimes forget that I was an