Undead 3, Undead and Unappreciated - MaryJanice Davidson

MaryJanice Davidson- Undead 3, Undead and Unappreciated

Prologue 1: Secrets

Once upon a time, the devil was bored, and possessed a not-very-nice pregnant woman, and ran that woman's body for about a year.

The devil still drank and smoked, but only in moderation. The devil was good about taking prenatal pills but grumbled about the inevitable constipation.

And eventually, the devil gave birth to a baby girl.

After a month of diapers, night feedings, colic, laundry, spilled formula (the devil hated to breast-feed), and spit-up, the devil said, "Enough of this," and went back to Hell, which was infinitely preferable to living with a newborn.

The devil's daughter was adopted and grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her name was Laura, and she liked strawberry ice cream, and she never, ever missed church. She was a very nice young lady. But she had a terrible temper.

Prologue 2: Problems

Thunderbird Motel

Bloomington, Minnesota

8:57 p.m.

"Okay, guys, let's set up here… Charley, you okay here? You got light?"

Her cameraman looked up. "It's shitty out here. Should be better inside."

"We won't film out here… we'll go inside the conference room. So, you're sure this is okay?"

The representative, who was smooth and sweatless like an egg, clasped his hands together and nodded slowly. Even his suit seemed to be free of threads or seams. "People need to see that it's not a bunch of chain-smoking losers who are afraid to go outside. There's doctors. There's lawyers. There's"—he stared at her with pale blue eyes, pilot's eyes—"anchorwomen."

Subtle, jerk. "Right, right. And we'll put all that across." She turned away from the AA rep, muttering under her breath. "Fuckin' slow news days… give me a war update anytime… okay! Let's get in there, Chuckles."

Charley knew his stuff, and with the new equipment, setup was not only a breeze, it was relatively quick and quiet. The conference room looked and smelled like a thousand others; sparse and scented of coffee. Interestingly, none of the room's inhabitants looked at them directly. There was a lot of coffee drinking and low chatting, a lot of nibbling on cheese and crackers, a lot of quiet milling and sideways glances.

They looked, the newswoman thought to herself, exactly like the man said. Respectable, settled. Sober. She was amazed they'd agreed to the cameras. Wasn't the second A supposed to be for Anonymous?

"Okay, everyone," the rep said, standing in the front of the room. "Let's get settled and get started. You all remember Channel 9 was coming tonight to help raise awareness… someone watching tonight might see we're not all villains in trench coats and maybe will come down."

"I'll start, and then we've got a new person here tonight…"

Someone the reporter couldn't see protested in a low yet frantic voice, and was ignored—or wasn't heard—by the rep. "I'm James," the rep continued, "and I've been sober for six years, eight months, and nine days."

There was a pause as he stepped down, then a rustle, a muffled, "Oof! Stupid steps." Then a young woman in her mid-twenties was standing behind the small podium. She squinted out at the audience for a moment, as if the fluorescent lighting hurt her eyes, and then said in a completely mesmerizing voice, "Well, hi there. I'm Betsy. I haven't had a drink in three days and four hours."

"Get on her!" the reporter hissed.

"I'm tight," Charley replied, dazzled.

The woman was tall—her head was just below the no smoking on these premises sign—which put her at about six feet. She was dressed in a moss green suit with the kind of suit jacket that buttoned up to her chin and needed no underblouse. The richly colored clothing superbly set off the delicate paleness of her skin and made her green eyes seem huge and dark, like leaves in the middle of the forest. Her hair was golden blond, shoulder length and wavy, with lovely red and gold highlights that framed her face. Her cheekbones were sharp planes in an interesting, even arresting face.

Her teeth were very white and flashed while she spoke.

"Okay, um, like I said, I'm Betsy. And I thought I'd come here… I mean, I saw on the Web that… anyway, I thought maybe you guys would have some tricks or something I could use to stop drinking."

Dead silence. The reporter noticed the audience was as rapt as Charley was. What presence! What clothes! What… Were those Bruno Maglis? The reporter edged closer. They were! What did this woman do for a living? She herself had paid almost three hundred bucks for the pair in her