CHAPTER#81

"This is an interesting clock you have here." Daryl was turning the mimic over in his hands, inspecting it carefully. "And you said Mr. Radley wanted you to fix it?"

"Yeah." Dana sat next to Daryl in the back of the town car, which was on the freeway now. She was envious of the other drivers who passed them by, oblivious to just how awful life could actually be. Also, the smell of the freeway was absolutely dreadful. It was a mixture of fuel, asphalt, and the body odor of everyone who drove by.

"Tell me everything about it that you know." Daryl was inspecting a maker's mark on the bottom of the clock. "And keep in mind I can tell when you are lying."

"Why do you think the clock is so important?" Dana didn't like being forced to cooperate with Daryl, even if it did mean being allowed to pass on. The mimic had been willing to help her, and she didn't feel that that was info Daryl needed to have. "I mean it looks like a clock."

Daryl gave her a look, then opened a panel on the back. Inside, the gears slowly spun around each other. "He wanted you to fix it. Why?"

"I was delivering him a pizza when I spotted it inside the house. I thought it was really cool, because I love how clocks work." Or at least I did, she thought. Enthusiasm seemed to be another emotion lost to her as well.

"Hmm. I sense a bit of confusion in your words." He hooked his fingers inside the clock. "You said you spent hours fixing this, but if I were to rip these out, it wouldn't bother you."

"Well, it would... I guess."

Daryl laughed. "Consider this one of the side effects of being dead. You see, I needed your body and mind in perfect condition so as to not arouse suspicion. Take my driver for instance. I just needed his body, his will is completely my own. I could tell him to hold onto a grenade, and he wouldn't know any better. But you, you would take convincing. However, the one thing that takes the most energy to preserve is emotions. I allowed you to keep only a couple, the ones that apply to your dear, departed Alex. Love, despair, loss. I'm afraid that you won't find much enjoyment in any of your old hobbies."

"It's not like I'll have much time to pursue them," Dana said. "I plan to give you what I want so you can give me what I want."

"That is true. I may be many things, but I am definitely a man of my word." Daryl handed her the clock. "But to clarify, let me tell you what could happen if you disobey me."

Dana frowned. She wasn't sure she needed to hear this.

"There are many stages of being undead. For example, my driver is just a meat suit that takes orders. You, however, are a different case. By leaving you with your mind, I am unable to exert willpower over you. As popular as it was to be a vampire a decade ago, why do you think nobody romanticized being a zombie?"

"Because zombies suck." Dana looked back out the window. "In the movies, they are mindless brain eaters."

"A popular trope, I can assure you. You see, your mind has control over your body - for now. You are, however, very dead, and as you begin to decay, you will find yourself with some uncontrollable urges. It's like being on a diet, and having to live in a house full of cookies. Eventually, you will snap, and bite into anything you can catch."

"Is that when I start eating brains?"

"Brains are best, to be fair. A person's very life force resides in the mind. The heart would be a close second. Once your appetite is sated, the decay process will reverse itself, and you will find yourself as you are now. However, I can tell you hat the process of murdering and eating another human does put quite a stain on your soul." Daryl chuckled. "You also run into the issue of being unable to die."

"I thought a bullet to the brain killed zombies."

"At best, it severs the connection to the body. Have you ever heard of somebody who gets a brain injury and survives?"

"Phineas Gage, right?" An infamous case she had learned about in high school, railroad worker who accidentally blew a hole through his skull with a railroad spike and lived.

"You got it. Imagine that you can't die, that you are trapped inside a decaying mind. You will simply exist, driven insane by a brain that can no longer feel any connection to itself. As long as a single piece of you exists, you will feel eternity pass you by until the universe is eventually eaten up by the Old Ones." Daryl stared wistfully out the window. "And by then, your soul will belong to them."

"Sounds awful." Dana fought the scream of terror inside of her, the thought of an eternity rotting away. Apparently Daryl had left her her sense of fear.

"That's underselling it. Or perhaps you manage to survive until the last human dies, forced to wander the hellscape of Earth until the sun finally burns the place down. You have all sorts of options."

"But I plan on helping you," she said. "Because then you'll let me move on."

"You've got it." Daryl's phone rang. "Excuse me, I must take this." Daryl turned away, sticking a Bluetooth headset in one ear. "Hello? Sebastien, please, you are shouting entirely too much. I am on my way there now. No, I don't know why she wont answer her phone, Kali does what she wants. Oh, tunnel ahead, gonna lose you." Daryl touched a button on the headset, tucking it into his pocket. "Someone is being a drama queen."

"Trouble at the office?" Dana asked.

Daryl ignored her, staring out the window. Dana focused her attention on the clock, running her fingers over its smooth features. This whole nightmare will be over soon, she told herself. She pictured Alex standing before her on the balcony, staring out toward the ocean, the sunlight making her skin glow.