Crooked Words Read online

Centrelink listening to folk mutter about hir under their breath when they weren’t pointing and staring. DAAQS should be better, but how did ze know that for sure?

  This will be fine, Pat told hirself, in what felt like a ridiculous attempt to bolster hir courage. If ze had summoned up the courage for hir last job interview—and Pat thought ze would have gotten it despite being undead if ze felt remotely inclined to try and pass, something that annoyed hir job seeker support officer no end—then ze could summon up the courage to do this. This should be easier than a job interview!

  Pat took a breath, choked as ze realised for the umpteenth time that breath was no longer necessary, and pushed open the front doors.

  Inside, the pub seemed quite cheery, despite the worn red carpet and yellowing photos on the walls. ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ played on the stereo, and three ghouls clustered around the pool table to make bets on a match between a vampire and a mummy. Dull reddish lights made the room comfortable for the photosensitive amongst them without being too dark for everyone else, and Pat almost smiled when ze saw two zombies slurping brains from a sundae glass at the bar. The tables and chairs scattered down the sides of the room—leaving a dancing floor of scratched parquetry in the middle—were old-fashioned and a little dinged-up, but the place had a laid-back, homey feel, rather like Pat’s grandparents’ house.

  Well, before hir grandfather refused his zombie grandchild entry.

  “Hello! Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Society!” Pat jerked as a mummy, wearing a pink satin party dress over hir bandages and a jaunty blue fez, walked up and grabbed hir hand. “You’re Pat, right? Pleased to meet you, Pat. I’m so glad you came!” The mummy pumped Pat’s arm up and down a few times before letting go. “There’s a table over there, go grab a name-tag and come join us at the bar … they tell me the Cranium Crush is just delightful.” The mummy patted Pat on the shoulder. “I’m Louisa, and it’s she, please. I mean, my name is longer and complicated and Egyptian, but I’ve always wanted to be a Louisa, and nobody can pronounce my name anyway, so why not? Such a pretty name, don’t you think?”

  Pat managed some kind of agreement and headed for the table by the door, set up with coloured sharpies—the big, thick kind—and oversized clip-on tags. The size of the pens and the tags made it easy not to shake too much as ze scribbled hir name in green on the closest tag. Ze’d spent hours in post-death occupational therapy, and Pat was rather proud of the fact that ze could write almost as well now as ze had when living—but glad that someone had thought to provide appropriately-sized sharpies.

  Ze clipped the tag on hir shirt pocket, swallowed and headed over towards the bar.

  Louisa, now twirling around on a bar stool, waved hir over to a seat. She grinned broadly enough to show her non-existent teeth; Pat could only marvel at her confidence. “Bartender, get Pat a Cranium Crush! And put one of those cute skull umbrellas in. They’re really good here about the ambience, aren’t they, Moon?” She slapped a zombie sipping from a glass on the shoulder, the motion followed by a dull thudding noise; the zombie turned and nodded, only looking slightly put out that Louisa had smacked hir arm off at the shoulder joint and onto the bar. “Moon, meet Pat. So tell me, Pat, how long have you been part of the DA community?”

  Pat pulled out a chair on Louisa’s other side and sat down at the bar. An array of bottles filled the shelves behind the bench, many of them filled with blackish, clear or crimson liquids, the labels turned outwards. “Six months.”

  The bartender, a sallow-looking vampire in a miniskirt and waistcoat, placed a cocktail glass on the counter before Pat.

  “Gracious, you’re looking remarkably well adjusted for a new starter! Don’t you agree, Moon? Coming out on hir own and everything? It took me fifty years to get up the courage to escape my pyramid … of course, the fact that everyone would have been a little concerned about the re-emergence of a past Pharaoh had something to do with it, and it wasn’t like my son wasn’t doing a decent job of it all…”

  Moon nodded and twisted hir arm up through the sleeve of hir shirt. Pat watched, a little embarrassed to see hir do something as intimate as reassemble hirself, but impressed by the fact that Moon didn’t even bat an eyelid, as if this were nothing more awkward than scratching hir nose—when was Pat ever going to get that kind of confidence? Moon seemed to notice, for ze raised hir eyebrows and shot a glance Pat’s way as ze straightened out the sleeve of hir blazer.

  Pat gulped—but Moon didn’t scowl, and Pat couldn’t tear hir eyes away even in a pretence at shame, for ze had never seen a more beautiful zombie. Moon’s skin held a perfect grey-blue sheen, the sutures holding hir right cheek together lovely and thick; Pat could just imagine their fibrous, textured feel under hir fingertips. Moon only wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a blazer, all in black and navy to highlight hir complexion and the blue streaks ze’d dyed through hir hair, braided and tied off with a collection of skull-shaped beads. Did ze not care about all the looks ze would inevitably get when out on the street?

  Sorry, Pat mouthed, but ze wasn’t, not really.

  Moon turned hir head, rolled hir eyes at Louisa and grinned. Hir teeth were sharp and pointed, just perfect for breaking open skulls and sucking out brains—not that any zombie did, these days, but why shouldn’t Pat find it attractive that Moon could?—framed by delicate cyan lips. “Hey, Louisa, did Martin just score over there?” Moon gestured towards the pool players and broke into an even broader as Louisa leapt to her feet and ran over to the table, slapping the closest ghoul on the shoulder as she poked her head into the fray.

  “Sorry.” Moon gave a shrug, but ze didn’t stop smiling. “She’s really enthusiastic, so…”

  She was easily distracted as well; Louisa started flirting with two of the pool-betting ghouls at once. Pat gave an easier grin and reached for hir Crush. “She seems to have done a good job at organising this whole thing,” ze said by way of trying to sound conversational. The crowd wasn’t large, but in a way that was nicer; it made everything smaller and companionable. The music wasn’t so loud that ze didn’t have to scream into Moon’s ear just to speak, Pat didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of speaking to many folk at once, and the Crush was almost as good as fresh, ripped-right-from-the-skull-cavity brains. Pat made a mental note to ask the bartender what kind of preservatives she used and took another sip.

  “One of the vampires told me that she bullied the owner of this place into letting us come for an evening,” Moon said. “We’re lucky.”

  When ze was sitting right beside a stunning zombie, free of stares or muttered comments, sipping the best drink ze’d ever had in hir post-mortal existence? Yes.

  “Uh. Do you come here often?”

  “It’s the inaugural meeting,” Moon said; ze raised both eyebrows and took another sip from hir glass.

  Of course. Pat cringed and wondered what ze could have said to make the situation worse. Ze had the most gorgeous zombie ze had ever seen sitting right beside hir, and yet ze couldn’t say anything but the most banal of comments? Pat took another sip as well—no, it wasn’t just fresh brains, as the bartender had added something that was starting to make hir lips tingle—and wondered just how stalkerish ze would sound if ze commented on Moon’s beautiful sutures. “What are you here for, then? I mean … I mean I got told by my psychologist to go out and live again, so…” Pat grimaced. “I don’t think she’s used to DA folk. Breathing privilege and all that … should’ve checked that at the door, right?”

  Moon took a gulp of hir cocktail and then set it on the bar; bubbles of brain fluid snorted through hir nose and onto hir chin and lips.

  “But she was right, even if she could use better words. So, you know … angsted for a few days, spent ten minutes hovering outside worrying … but it’s nice in here. Not weird at—” Pat stopped just before it occurred to hir that ze was as good as calling Moon weird. “Uh, I meant the pub. You know, not weird for being right by the red light district. But that’s not bad either, I mean... A
nd this—this is delicious.” Ze picked up the cocktail and took a big swig just to shut hirself up. “What’s in it?”

  “I think some kind of formaldehyde blend. And peppermint schnapps.” Moon reached up and wiped the blood from hir nose with a serviette. “I’m saying that to my family next time I see them—the breathing privilege thing. They just keep on about it: get outside, get some sunshine, get off the computer, why don’t you volunteer, why don’t you do this or that, life’s only what you make of it…”

  “Ouch.” Pat grimaced in sympathy.

  “I know.” Moon grinned. “I work from home as a web designer, just to make it more frustrating.”

  Pat hadn’t thought about working from home—hir social worker was set against it, and, really, ze wanted to get to know someone who wasn’t hir post-death support team—but on reflection, it seemed like an increasingly brilliant idea. Nobody would ever know what ze looked like; nobody would ever judge hir on dietary requirements and how many breaths ze didn’t make per minute. If ze had the skills to be able to create something and sell it without leaving the house—and could join a group like this to get out every so often—it might be the perfect solution to pose to hir job network advisor.