Once upon a time, in an ordinary… In fact, scrap that, I am Logan Carter, and I am a necromancer. For those who don’t know, that means that I can reanimate and command the dead. To put it crudely, I am a zombie machine. I can make anything happen with them. They can fly; become invisible; move objects without touching them; burn thin; freeze anything; cause explosions or storms; create illusions or anything else I want them to do. Physics mean nothing to them, If I tell them it doesn’t. I guess I thought I was all-powerful, but I was wrong. This is my story, how I got my powers, how I used them and how I fought. It all began on my thirteenth birthday, so I’ll start a bit before then. 10,000 years before then.
“I’m sick of it, you can’t do this to us!” The farmer shouted. The figure before him was old and scowling. He wore a black diamond crown and wielded a heavy sword, which he carried with ease, in one gauntlet. He wore a basic cloth T-shirt, black. The unremarkable, unwashed pieces of clothing on his torso and his legs, were made up for by his cloak and shoulder pads. They seemed to amplify his burly physique, made him taller, stronger. He glared at the farmer, the high son clouding up behind him. He spoke slowly, venomously, spitting each word as if he were cursing.
“Sick- Of- What?”
The farmer practically imploded with fear. His wife, rushing over with a basket of fruit, tried to intervene.
“I’m sorry, sir, he’s always like this when-”
She screamed. An invisible creature revealed itself before her, a man of grey flesh and foul breath. It had a missing ear and it had no fingernails, but surrounding its’ wrists, like cuffs, were a ring of claws, growing from the skin. There was blood on its' mouth, and his back was arched. It darted forwards and pulverised the basket, leaving only the handle, which she flung away. When she looked up, there were monsters! The man drew himself upwards.
“Haven’t we discussed this!” He roared in fury, “You never, ever question me, or my dead friends here will eat your brains!”
From another person, this threat would be mocked and put down, but not by Aage. The man, despite his masculinity, shrieked and turned tails, fleeing from his tormentor, who laughed cruelly.
“Kill them.” He commanded, and his undead terrors, his zombies, attacked. The poor people tried to run, but the slightly larger wife fell behind, and felt her feet ripped from her legs in one savage slash. Her anguished death cries rang out at such a high pitch that Aage frowned and covered his ears. She was dragged backwards, the zombies dicing her up with expert precision, keeping her alive. Her husband was running back for her, hoping to save her. He dived into the fray flailing like a dry fish.
“Hurry up, will you?” Aage growled impatiently, and the job was finished with the zombies living up to Aages’ threat and ripping their cranium, brain and all, away from their heads.
Aage grunted with satisfaction and scanned the horizon.
“Where are you?” He growled at a foe, one who he had pursued for so long…
“Where are you?”
*
I, of course, was oblivious to the cruelty of Aage. In fact, I thought that he was some kind of amazing hero. So did my entire family, even my distant relatives. It’s all because of the family book. Our family has always cherished them and it is tradition for parents to give one to their children. Every member of the family has their own biography in there, their date of birth and date of death (assuming they are dead) and references to their close family, siblings, parents, children, marriages. Of course, this means hundreds of pages, and every time a new person gets one, It will have changed slightly, may that be that there is a new addition to the family or a death or simply something to add to the biography. When somebody dies, how the person died will be added to the biography and their date of death. The “True” lineage of the family keeps the original book, created about ten thousand years ago. It is only taken out when somebody dies, and then it will be written in.
*
If you asked me, I would call them fanatics. Our family is split into the German line and the English line. According to the book, Aage had migrated too England and liked it there, so settled down. For some reason, the two halves of the family are rather distant. It was as if something had formed a schism between them, and I always doubted that it was football, but I hoped it was. My parents were unavailable when I asked them about our relatives and my grandfather starts swearing, opinionated and eccentric as he is. He is from my mothers’ side, the “Aage” side as my dad calls it. Aage himself was in the first page of the family book, and some say that he wrote it and gave it to his children. It describes him as a necromancer, the one man who could make life out of death and a man who had the power to do anything. It says that he used them to do great good, rebuilding villages attacked by bandits and armies, stopped conflicts between man and man or country and country. He had a loving family who all thought the world of him and other things that really don’t bother me. As cool as necromancy is, I have heard enough, thank you very much. My elder brother, Chris, has had his book for years, since he was thirteen and never once lost it. At that time, I was so excited to be getting the book that I accidentally skipped into school the day before. That was horrific, especially seeing as Clara was there. Clara… It was a weird feeling being near her. I always imagined talking to her but could never do it. I try to make her notice me, but I am never brave enough to do anything more than laugh loudly at a bad joke. Not good. My feelings for her are strange. Sometimes I am doing something completely normal and I will suddenly get an image of her in my head, watching everything I do and reading my thoughts, and be unable to get rid of it. I knew that I would be getting some pretty cool presents, but nothing could ever have prepared me for what would happen on the day that I turned thirteen.
I enjoyed it.
