There is a new craze sweeping the streets this bloody summer. It is cool and hip and misrepresented. Rumours flood the nightclubs and bars: gossip and hearsay and edgy tensions.
There is a cult of secrecy and illegality around this new dynamic. Trying to discover the truth beneath the mountain of talk is harder then trying to get the address of an illegal warehouse party or trying to find a reliable source of smack in a foreign city. Unless of course you are one of the kind of people to whom these kind of facts and truths come easily: a rock n' roll star or just a lucky sonofabitch. Anyone else who wants in has to be trusted or the right kind of desperate or a talented insider, to even know which clubs you need to go to or to find the shady fixer you need to cut a deal with. Even then you won't really understand what is going on, you will find yourself on the edges fumbling for illumination.
In short, what you'll hear in ninety-nine percent of conversations of the self- styled gurus is no more accurate then the words you'll read in the newspapers or in the police spokesperson's statement. The club-goers and fashion-followers are tantalised by the same whiff of dangerous unknown that the police and government regard as a threat.
It is not a new kind of music. It is not a drug. It is not a religion. It does combine elements of all three. It is about the walking dead.
That's the spin. The whisper of concerned mothers and worried ministers. The press releases of the directors of fashionable again zombie movies. The talk of the street hustlers and the gospel "swear on my mother's soul" of the wannabe necromancers. They all want in on the secrets and the danger. They want to dance with the dead, talk with the dead, fuck with the dead. Experience the mystery.
The truth is much more prosaic.
A living room in a student house between Meanwood and Headingly. The house has bicycles in the hall, rotten food in the fridge and threadbare carpet on the floor. Dead Cathy is lying on the sofa, watching an Australian soap opera on the tele and shouting up the stairs: "I am dead, I am dead, make me a cup of tea!"
The biochem student "Laura" and the English graduate "Ben" are out and Patricia is too stoned too hear. However, there are footsteps on the stair. It is Samuel in his black T-shirt with fictitious arcana scrawled across his chest. Unlaced chunky boots stomping on the wooden risers, his right hand covering a yawn while his left scratches his pillow tousled hair.
Samuel, who works in a shop in the Corn Exchange and is a street sorcerer in his spare hours, doesn't look good first thing in the afternoon; not before his triple espresso. He heads to the kitchen and the kettle.
He is tired, has been tired ever since he brought Catherine back as Dead Cathy. It is because he gave a little of his soul, his life force, that slim green bar that slowly goes from full to empty in an arcade game, to bring her back. It is also because he has been working hard ever since Dead Cathy came back. Extra shifts at the record store, hustling small spells and charms in the clubs at night. Sam is earning for two.
You see the dead, animated or otherwise, don't get tax rebates. The Inland Revenue does not miss a trick or two. Dead Cathy has no pension, no income and no entitlement to Jobseeker's Allowance. She is dead. They don't care that she can still turn up at the Benefits Office and walk and talk. If they did they would probably just arrest her anyway.
So the zombie girl, who was once a lawyer, fresh out of law school with a glittering career ahead of her, now sits on a threadbare purple sofa, in charity shop cast-offs and her lover's faded T-shirts. Watching mindless pap on a thirty-year old TV while her nephew installs her DVD player and carves nu-metal sigils in the antique rocking chair that she inherited from her grandfather.
At least she died young, from a drug overdose, not old and feeble in a nursing home. The NHS doesn't give hip replacements to the dead. There again hougans and necromancers and priests of the dead don't reanimate old men with irritable bowel syndrome.
There is tension between her and Samuel now. The balance of power has shifted. She was the successful one with a career ahead of her while he would have made store manager and bought some more records if he had been lucky.
Now she has no job, no rights, no nothing. Samuel has to earn the cash that pays for the rent of this measly, shared hovel. One fact hangs over their heads like a battle-torn flag, full of smoke and holes and faded glories.
He brought her back from the cold and the dark. He held in her in his arms while she lay naked, frozen and raw with the winds howling around the attic room. Without him, she would not be here. Without him, she has nothing, would be nothing, is nothing. He holds her afterlife in his hands.
It scares both of them.
Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to relationship trauma. Especially when it is mixed with love and precious memories of what went before. The dead should rest quietly and the living should mourn. It is not supposed to be like this.
A steaming hot mug of tea arrives in her lukewarm hands. Samuel sips at his coffee. "Coming out tonight?" he asks. She remembers. It is club night. They will head to some dark cellar or warehouse where most of the crowd dresses in black or PVC or fishnet and leather. The music will be loud; a mix of; metal, nu-metal, punk and obscure 80s hits.
It used to be fun when she was alive. Now most of the clubbers will stare at the beautiful dead girl. Not that she looks that different, a little paler perhaps and maybe she sweats less, but enough of the crowd knows. They'll be whispers and people pointing her out with hands over their mouths, The word will spread and by the end of the night there wont be a clubgoer who doesn't know who she is. She'll be the centre of attention. The walking miracle in the crowd's midst. Her every move studied her every motion stared at. At one time she wanted that celebrity, now she just wants to lose herself in warm bodies and that wont happen ever again. She's a freak: unique and alone.
But Samuel needs her. She is a walking advert for his talents. He'll sell many more charms if she is there. Make enough cash to get by for another week. They will be some other dead folk: zombies and ghouls and vampires. Just enough of the animated dead to give the club the right kind of taste for the living. A reminder that they are truly alive and on the edge of the world.
"I'll go," she says reluctantly. His smile reaches his eyes in a supernova glare of delight. Dead Cathy realises that she is being too hard on this guy. He more then needs her to sell trinkets. He needs her love as much as he loves her. He nearly gave his life for her. He didn't quit on her while she was doing the drugs and everything was going bad. He reached out for her and held her close in a wind-shrouded attic.
But, fuck!, he makes her feel guilty. And that is hard.
The club is every bit as bad as she thought it would be. She walks around in a short leather skirt, fishnets, corset and FMBs: everyone stares. Someone asks Samuel where he can get one. Samuel tells them she isn't for sale but that he can sell them a love potion that will get a live girl just as pretty. The punter buys the potion but looks disappointed.
A fat guy with unkempt hair and beard asks her for a kiss. Others will ask her how much she'd charge for a hand-job or a blowjob or a quick screw in the toilets. She's dead. No longer alive, she must be inanimate, a thing for hire or sale. The dead have no feelings. They can't be hurt. There's no consequence. She looks good and everyone wants to boast that they fucked a dead girl.
She smiles at them all and tells them that they can't touch her. Then she nods at Samuel seducing customers in a corner. She's somebody else's property. Now there is cause and effect and consequence, They blanche with fear. Death is contagious when you offend a necromancer.
Not all of them want to touch her. Rebecca, who she used to score with, ignores her, hides her eyes as she entwines her mouth with a guy who has a face full of too many piercings: as much metal as flesh.
She sees Miranda, a girl who was her friend back before the days of Dead Cathy, before the days of Heroin Kate, Miranda, who was a friend with Catherine the Hotshot Law Student. Dead Cathy waves at her, smiling for the first time tonight. Miranda catches her eyes and grows pale beneath her eyeliner and make-up. She whispers to her friends and then grabs her spiky PVC handbag. She leaves escorted by a male friend in a leather trenchcoat. Her other friends gaze at Dead Cathy with naked hostility.
"Hiya love, do ghosts still need to score?" asks a voice. Simon, her dealer from the bad days, peddling for business, just like Samuel.
She looks down at her arm. The bruises and track marks still show in the white flesh. Dead flesh does not heal. No matter how able it is to drink a cup of tea or how much it wants a syringe.
Decision times always come like this. A half-known tune playing in the club, her lover's back turned for a minute. An eager to please smile when she is in need of absent friends. She can feel the urge flowing through her veins.
Then Samuel turns and smiles briefly, catching her gaze over Simon's shoulder. Then his back is turned away again, swapping a trinket for cold hard cash.
She remembers lying in bed, the rain drumming on the roof. It was the first time they had made love since Samuel had brought her back. It was the only thing that had made her feel warm again. They were naked, curled up underneath a duvet and blankets: eyes watching the candlelight and hands passing a roach back and forth.
He had told her about finding her. Vomit in her throat and around her mouth. Leather belt around her arm and glass crunching under foot as the syringe was crushed beneath his motorcycle boots.
He had despaired then. Thought that she was beyond the reach of his not inconsiderable and growing skill. She remembered the hollowness of his voice as he talked about a pain that was as raw to him as the grave was to her.
She remembers the supernova flash of delight in his eyes as she told him that she would come out tonight. She knows that they will dance together later on this evening.
And maybe if she is lucky she can phone Miranda and apologise and try and rebuild some bridges.
"Nah," she replies casually, having been silent too long; "I don't need to score tonight." The music swirls around her painfully loud.
"Alright love, you know where you can find me if you need me," says Simon.
She nods: hungry and afraid to speak. He buggers off to flog his wares elsewhere.
For the now, Dead Cathy is safe and happy. Not happy ever after, but who believes in fairy tales anyway?