The Call Of The Grim

Nariah absently rolled a loc of her hair and squinted at her textbook. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee… what?” It wasn’t even old English, it was like, Greek trying to pass as English. Badly. She propped her head up and blinked at the sonnet again. “Shall I compare thee…”

Nariah muttered the lines to herself as she reviewed them again. The desk in her room bathed in the yellow glow of a single spotlight lamp. Her bunk bed, the white-painted flaking dresser under it, and the rest of the room sprawled with yesterday’s clothes and tomorrow’s stunning art projects fell into eight pm shadows. She hated working on homework this late, but after school she had choir, and then tennis, and by the time she got home the sun had already set. She never had any time to herself.

So in the yellow lamp, surrounded by the dark, Nariah grumbled at her English textbook. She checked her phone, but Odessa hadn’t texted her back yet and Nariah didn’t want to get into another fight with Kaiden over something stupid—he’d lost his mind since he started dating that boy, Larence or Lance or whatever.

She sighed heavily, leaned her cheek in her hand, and tapped her pencil on the desk. That left English. And Shakespere, which might as well have been Greek.

Something tugged in Nariah’s chest: a sensation like yearning, but with direction and intent. That was far better than analysing Shakespeare. “Mom!” She scraped her chair back on the wood floor and snatched a coat from her bunk bed rail. Nariah bent to grab a pre-packed duffle from beside the dresser and stormed down the stairs. “Mom! A grim just woke.”

Nariah’s mother stood in the kitchen, tossing a flaming something in a saute pan in one hand while holding a baking dish with an oven mitt in the other. She was short, slim, and softer than the sharp corners at her eyes implied. The kitchen counters were littered with casserole dishes and tupperware full or about to be.

“Mom, Mom!” Nariah slid to a stop on the tile floor, her bag hanging off one shoulder.

“I heard you. Get your shoes on. I’m not dropping another meal half-cooked.”

“But, Mom—”

“Shoes, Nariah,” her mother snapped. “Then help me put some of this food in the deep freezer for church this weekend.” She set the baking dish down on the island. “What direction is it.”

“Ugh…” Nariah closed her eyes to feel the tug and pointed to the back of the house. “That way.” There were grim buried all over the city, in every graveyard, sometimes even on public grounds, but Nariah was one of only a few that could sense them. She’d never met anyone else who could.

“Call Odessa and let her know we’re picking her up on the way.”

Nariah tapped a button on her phone and yanked the laces up on her shoes. “Call Odessa,” she told it. Her friend picked up on the first ring.

“Hey.”

“There’s a grim in your direction, Mom wants to pick you up. Can you be ready?”

“Yes, that’s more like it—” Then from a distance, Odessa’s voice called, “Mom! Nariah’s picking me up, we gotta go help a grim.”

Nariah could sense them, see them, speak with them, but that was about the extent of her power. Odessa on the other hand, could do much more.

In the distance, Odessa’s mother said, “Not unless you’re done with your English homework.”

Odessa groaned, “Aw, fuck—”

Nariah’s mom barked, “Watch your language, missy!”

Nariah winced. “Sorry, you’re on speaker. I’m changing.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Boyd. Nari, can you help me with English? This stupid sonnet doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, we can study session at your place when we’re done. I’ll grab my papers.”

“K, I’ll be outside.”

Nariah raced up the stairs to throw her homework together into her backpack. By the time she made it back down her mother had shut down the kitchen and was sliding into her jacket.

Together they piled the tupperware in the deep freezer in the garage.

“Ready?” Mom asked as she closed the lid.

“Yeah.” Bookbag over her shoulder and heavy duffel in her hand, Nariah piled into her mother’s minivan, squeezing past the workbench on the way. As she shoved her things into the back seat, her mother added her tennis bag to the collection. Nariah looked up, “You think we’ll be out that late?”

“I don’t know, but if you sleep over at Odessa’s you won’t have to stop here in the morning for it.”

Nariah smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her mother smiled back. “Buckle up.”

—//—

At Odessa’s house, her mother stood out on the walk with her arms crossed and the kind of frown that made anyone think twice. Nariah had faced that frown before. She grabbed her book bag and hopped out of the van.

Miss Caldwell was taller than Nariah’s mom by a lot, and bigger all around. She was the kind of woman who would play football with all the dads at church and had enough strength to move one of the pews by herself. Nariah offered the woman her bag.

“Miss Caldwell, I know Odessa’s not done with her English homework so I wanted to trade her for mine. I’m not done either. We’ll do a study session afterward, I promise.” She tried not to fidget with the growing pressure under her sternum. The grim needed help.

Miss Caldwell’s lips pressed into a line. “Third time this week, Nariah.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Nariah didn’t have anything to say, it had been the third time. And there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t control when the grim woke, she could only help when they called.

Miss Caldwell took her book bag and grunted at the weight. “What’s in here?”

“Shakespeare.”

Miss Caldwell humphed. “Odessa!”

Her daughter sprinted from the doorway, a duffle bag of her own over one shoulder. She was dressed and ready, as anxious as Nariah. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of Miss Caldwell.

“You both have your crosses on you?”

Odessa pulled out her necklace and Nariah held up her wrist where a cross dangled on a bracelet.

“Be safe. No heros in this family.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” They said together.

Miss Caldwell’s eyes softened a bit. “You get into trouble, you call me. I’ll start the round-robin.”

Nariah could see the grim and Odessa could fight what woke them, but sometimes it took a group of adults to take care of business.

Nariah nodded. Miss Caldwell kissed her daughter’s forehead, then Nariah’s. And that was the signal they were looking for. Nariah and Odessa sprinted for the van and clambered in over the duffle bags.

Nariah’s mom leaned toward the window. “We should be back in a couple of hours, Edith. I’ll have the girls text you.”

They all waved goodbye.

—//—

Naria hunched over her phone, zooming in on the map. “Drive past Catholic Cemetery, Mom. If it’s not there, it’ll be at the Magnolia.”

They cruised down the freeway and as the little dot marking Catholic drew up beside them, Naria knew. “It’s here. Definitely.”

Her mother pulled off the freeway and made a sharp right to avoid a line of excavation equipment lined up along the road. They pulled into the cemetery parking lot. Odessa and Nariah slid their doors open and unzipped their duffels from the seat.

Nariah’s bag was packed full weapons: maces and claw hammers, mostly. She slid two small hammers into the loops on her pants and another large one into its sling on the left. Her favorite mace, a long handle with a ball of spikes at the end, she hefted with a grin. “This never really gets old.”

She grinned at Odessa who waggled her compound bow. Odessa slung a quiver of arrows over her shoulder and counted them under her breath.

Nariah’s mother pulled a long machete out of the trunk. “You dipped your arrows, Odessa?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good.” She pressed a button on her key fob and all the doors eased closed. “Nariah, lead the way.”

Nariah took a deep breath of cold air and held it, letting the throb of intent under her breastbone speak louder. It thrummed with energy, with the assurance that only a grim could have. “This way.”

She lead them between the twisted remains of a mangled fence and across the graves toward a hill in the yard. An old oak decorated the peak and from there she could see the grim. The huge dog, like a cross between a mastiff and a rottweiler with twice the mass, sank his teeth into the decayed arm of a zombie and tore it apart.

“Yuck,” said Odessa. “That’s the grim doing that, right?”

“Yeah, he’s here,” Nariah confirmed. “Alright. I’m seeing one grim, two zombies are up and it looks like three more are on the way.” She pointed down the hill where the dirt was rolling. “We also have a crypt back there, so potential vampire.”

Odessa’s expression soured. “Goodie.”

“We should come down the left side and team up with the grim. Push across this way. Pick up the zombies as we go.”

Nariah’s mom nodded. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the field. You have another zombie rising.” She pointed. “And sweeping across puts your back to the crypt.”

Nariah shrugged, “Well the vampire hasn’t risen yet.”

“But it might.” She put a hand on Nariah’s shoulder. “Be smart. I’ll direct you from here.” She wiggled her phone. “Make sure you’re on walky-talky.”

“Right. Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too. And you, Odessa.” She bent to kiss their foreheads.

“Love you, Mrs. Boyd.”

Nariah hefted her mace and broke into a loping jog. Odessa followed right behind her, the quiet hiss of an arrow sliding out of her quiver.

They paused at a tall headstone and Nariah watched the grim shoulder into a fresh zombie, knocking it down to rend limbs apart more easily. The grim were guardians of the dead and living. Before Nariah started hearing their calls—or feeling them in her chest, more like—they’d taken care of any zombie problems by themselves. That was why they were buried everywhere, the first line of defense.

Odessa notched her arrow, stood straight, and pulled it back. She let it fly. Nariah saw the grim look up at the sound. Odessa’s holy water-tipped weapon lodged in the remaining flesh of a zombie. It turned toward the girls. Then it burst into living flame and fell in pieces to the ground.

“Nice shot.”

“Thanks.”

Every week when they attended church, Odessa dipped her arrows in a bowl of holy water she blessed herself. If Nariah tried to shoot them, well, first she’d miss since she was lousy with a bow, but if she did hit, nothing would happen. There was something about Odessa—the pastor at church said a touch of God lived in her.

“Don’t shoot me, please.” Nariah hefted her mace again and lunged toward the battlefield. The grim barked, a deep echo of sound, and ripped the femur from a fallen zombie. He rushed toward Nariah with his gift. She tried not to touch it.

“Who’s a good boy, Grim? You’re a good boy.” She gave him a hearty scratch, then turned away with a kissing noise. “Come!”

The grim kept his bone, but bounded ahead of her into the next zombie. He play-bowed over the struggling corpse, his nub of a tail twitching rapidly. Nariah swung her mace from above, crushing the zombie’s head and neck. Wet things splattered over her shoes and jeans. She grimaced. “Dangit, I just got the blood out of these.”

A zombie burst into flames, throwing shadow and light in odd directions. Odessa downed a second one, lighting up the graveyard and exposing a dozen new rising corpses. The grim growled and crunched the bone in his jaw.

Nariah marched forward. “Come, Grim. Let’s bury some bones.”

The grim barked. Odessa nodded at Nariah’s glance and together the three of them moved forward. Together with the grim and hours of tennis practice, Nariah’s mace made short work of the next round.

Through the phone-turned-radio, Nariah’s mom said, “One rising behind Odessa.”

Nariah let the grim bound ahead of her as she checked on her friend, but Odessa had things under control. She took a breath, aimed, and another zombie burst into flame.

Carefully, Nariah, Odessa, and the grim worked their way from one end of the cemetery to the other. Miss Caldwell’s warning stayed in the front of Nariah’s mind. There were no heroes in this family. It meant no one was allowed to run off and save the day by themselves. They worked together as a team and if things got tough, they needed to rely on Nariah’s mom and, in emergency, the round-robin team of parents Miss Caldwell could rally at a moment’s notice.

There were systems in place to help them if the needed it, but with Odessa at her back, and Mom watching from the top of the hill, they didn’t need anyone else.

Nariah smashed her mace through the torso of a zombie, then crashed the iron down on its head. The grim barked and danced around her, just delighted to have friends to play with. As Nariah wiped her mace on the grass, Odessa came up beside her.

“Is that the last of them?”

“I think so,” Nariah agreed.

Then the grim crunched his bone and growled. Nariah glanced at him.

Mom’s voice chirped from the phone, “Mist is pouring out of the crypt. Odessa, move up the hill behind one of the big headstones for cover. Nariah, stay to the right.”

They followed directions immediately, splitting to keep eyes on the crypt and whatever was about to come out of it. From the hillside Odessa had a clear line of sight. Nariah put her mace down in the grass and hefted one of her claw hammers instead. It was heavy on the head, not at all balanced for proper throwing, but Nariah had been practicing with them.

Mist around the crypt thickened and boiled like steam from a pot, then a creature appeared to float out of the white clouds. The crypt door remained sealed somehow, but Nariah hadn’t fought a monster that she couldn’t hit, so she took aim, stepped forward, and threw her claw hammer with full force.

The creature watched her movements, saw the hammer fly, and… shimmered out of place. It seemed to blink forward several steps, right past the hammer, which impacted the crypt with a dull thump.

“Definitely a vampire!” Nariah shouted. She groped at her side for the mace, unwilling to let the vampire out of her sight for a blink. “Grim? Grim, go get him!” They’d never faced a vampire before, only seen photos and video from others around the world, and Nariah found her earlier flippancy lost in the knot of her stomach. It was fast. She didn’t expect it to be teleport-fast.

The dog barked and charged forward.

Odessa released an arrow. It hit the distracted vampire square in the chest, sinking in several inches, but it didn’t seem to care, and no flames rose up to burn it to ash.

The grim lunged for the vampire, growling and snapping. The vampire shimmered to the side, then again, circling the dog with a curious look. Another arrow sank into its back, but still no flames.

Nariah hefted her mace and bounced on her feet, eager to get into the fight, but cautious. If vampires could move faster than anything, faster than Nariah could see sometimes, then it was better to let the grim do the heavy work up close while Odessa made it resemble a pin cushion.

But the grim couldn’t get a bite on it, and Odessa’s arrows didn’t seem to matter. “Down to five,” Odessa said, concern in her tone.

Nariah jumped into the fight. She followed the vampire’s circle around the grim and made an educated guess. When it shimmered away for its next movement, Nariah swung the mace up where its head was going to be.

Her guess was right. The vampire appeared right where she expected it, but the shaft of her mace hit something solid and stuck there before she could hit. The vampire had caught her weapon in its thin, bony hand. It didn’t look that strong, but Nariah yanked on her mace and nothing budged, not the weapon, not the vampire.

The grim whirled around and caught the vampire’s leg in its jaws. The vampire used Nariah’s mace to slug the grim in his side and fling him several feet away. The dog landed roughly and tumbled. The vampire dropped the mace and turned on Nariah. For the first time, it smiled, and Nariah felt the blood drain out of her face at the sight of dozens of pointed teeth.

She scrambled at her belt for the second claw hammer, when one of Odessa’s arrows punched through the vampire’s throat and stuck. No blood came with it, but Nariah squeaked in surprise, and staggered backward several steps.

The vampire yanked the arrow out of its throat and tossed it to the side. The hole left behind began to knit closed as Nariah watched, wide-eyed.

“Not good,” she said. “Help!”

“Already on my way,” Mom said through the phone. “Hang on.”

Nariah got a hold of her second claw hammer and held it up, feeling suddenly very outmatched. The grim wasn’t getting up, the arrows weren’t doing any good, and the vampire moved too fast for Nariah to hit.

She pressed her lips into a line like Miss Caldwell, determined to win this. Mom was on the way. Odessa still had some arrows, how could she use them?

“Odessa, can you shoot it’s foot?” She shouted.

“I can try!”

The next arrow came whizzing into the grass. A miss.

But the vampire looked down, then across the cemetery where Odessa was perched out of range. It was going to change targets.

“No!” Nariah shouted. She lunged at the creature with her claw hammer and scored a hit! She struck its collar bone, breaking something inside, but more importantly, she kept its attention off of Odessa.

The creature hissed, darting for Nariah faster than light. It grabbed her around the neck and threw her to the ground. Nariah screamed and tried to scramble back.

“Nariah!” Odessa shouted. Her arrow glanced off the vampire’s thigh, but it was well and truly focused, now.

Its gleaming teeth dominated its pale, gaunt face, as if the rest of the skull had shrunk in order to give them more room. They were all Nariah could see. She gasped for air, pinned by her neck and unable to move. There was something in her left hand.

The claw hammer! She swung it at the vampire’s face, digging the claws into its cheek. It shook her off and snarled. Terrified, Nariah struck again, and this time the vampire’s entire head went flying off to the right.

Mom stood over her, grimacing, both hands tight on the handle of her machete. She kicked the monster over and only then did it finally burst into flames. Note for the future, remove the head.

Nariah scrambled to her feet with a gasp and rushed to her mother, who hugged her tight. A second later, Odessa came running down the hill and joined them. Mom released one hand to hold her close too, and Nariah wrapped an arm around her friend.

“Oh my God, that was terrifying. I thought it was going to eat you.”

“Language, Odessa,” Mom sighed.

“Sorry, Mrs. Boyd.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Odessa gasped, “Wait, what happened to the grim?”

“Oh no, Grim!” Nariah pulled out of the group and ran to the prone figure in the grass. The dog wiggled his nub of a tail to see her, his tongue lolling out to one side, but it was clear why he hadn’t rejoined the fight. Nariah’s mace had done serious damage to his ribs and shoulder. A lot of things were broken and torn. He didn’t look good.

Nariah shoved her arms under him and, staggering under the weight, picked him up in her arms. He tried to lick at her face but she dodged.

“Eew, zombie breath.”

“That can’t be good news,” Mom said as she and Odessa joined Nariah. She nodded at Nariah’s bent arms.

They couldn’t see the grim or feel him like Nariah could, but that didn’t make him any less real than the zombies or vampires he helped them kill.

“He’s in bad shape. We need to get him back to his grave so he can heal.” Nariah said. She jerked her head away from another lick at her jaw.

“Where’s his grave?” Odessa asked, shouldering her bow.

“Southwest corner,” Nariah said.

“That’s the parking lot,” Mom added.

They headed back up the hill with the oak and across the cemetery. Nariah carried the grim the entire way, doing her best not to get licked.

They had to pass the line of construction equipment in order to reach the southwest corner and Nariah pointed out a section of the cemetery that had been recently dug up nearby. “I bet this is why the zombies rose, they’re disturbing hallowed ground.”

Odessa peered into a taped off section of the dig. “Does this mean zombies will keep rising until they’re done?”

“I don’t know,” Nariah said.

In the furthest corner of the cemetery they found a disturbed square of ground without a headstone. Nariah set the grim down on top of the loose dirt.

Immediately, the dog began to wiggle into the dirt, a delightful grin on his face. He dug in with his nose, shrugged under a patch of sod, and quickly buried himself. Nariah helped top him off and patted the resulting mound fondly.

“Sleep well, Grim.”

“That’s all he needs?” Odessa asked. “No like… grim veterinarian?”

“Nope, he should be ok by tomorrow.”

“The easiest part of the night,” Mom said. “Ok, pack it up. Let’s get you home, Odessa.”

Nariah grunted. “What time is it?”

“Nearly ten,” Odessa said, already typing a message to her mother on her phone. “Mom’s not gonna be happy.”

Nariah needed a shower. And they still had English homework to finish up. If they got to bed by midnight, they’d be doing pretty well. Nariah groaned as she climbed into the van and Odessa echoed her. They smiled at each other over the tennis bag in the middle of the bench.

It was hard finding time and energy to answer the call of the grim, but Nariah knew it was important. She’d catch up on sleep this weekend.

“Kaiden just invited me to a party at Luke’s place on Saturday, apparently he has a pool. Did you get invited?”

Nariah checked her phone, but no messages were waiting. “No, but we had a fight a few days ago.”

Odessa clicked her tongue. “Jerk.” She hit a few buttons. “I deleted it.”

Nariah reached across the bench and gave Odessa a high five. “Thanks.”

“Chicks before dicks.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, Mrs Boyd.”