Chapter 5

Vanessa's eyes widened as the realization hit her. She was the main character of the ghost story. She started taking steps backwards, away from the mass if corpses crowding below the stage. They did not look like normal people anymore.

Nice necklace. The corpse Vanessa had complimented earlier mouthed at her. Her hands were in the hilt of the knife. She pulled it out. This was too much for Vanessa. She turned and tore the clothes on the walls of the stage frenziedly. She had felt a door handle when her back was pressed against the walk. From the fluffs if silk coming free under her clawing fingers, the diir handle appeared. Vanessa grabbed it and twisted. The door squng open outwards.

Vanessa froze.

At the other side of the door, an exact replica of the hall was visible. Every body was in exactly the same position they were in the hall. Every body except Vanessa. Mike's corpse was on the stage if the replica hall, but there was no second Vanessa. The bodies, as if controlled by a single puppeteer, turned to look at Vanessa. Vanessa swallowed. Once again, it did not go oast her throat. She turned to look across the hall she was in. The door leading into it was open. And all the bodies were looking through it, in the same exact positions of their replicas in the other hall.

Then they turned to look at her. Vanessa swirled to face the door she had just opened again. Panic was swirling through her now. The corpse in the other hall continued looking at her.

They are no more replicating this hall! Vanessa managed to string together in her swirl if thoughts.

The corpses in the other hall started moving across from the stage towards the door. And thise below the stage started going up

Vanessa's head swiveled swiftly between the two mass of bodies closing in on her. She thought if a way out. She saw a side door and weighed her chances. Perhaps she might reach a side door before the mass if bodies in the other hall reached the connecting door, if she ran fast enough. But if she runs down the stage, she would be running right into the mass if bodies coming up. She quickly made up her mind.

Vanessa pushed the connecting door fully open. She was two steps into the hall when she froze again. Her eyes formed saucers. Fear dilated her pupils. Her mouth opened in a big O. No sound came out.

Somehow, the bodies has managed to reach the door, from both sides. Only one second before, the group across the replica hall had still been way across the hall. Now, they formed a ring around her. On both sides of the door. In each if the halls. Vanessa took two involuntary steps backwards. She was now standing right under the door frame, right in the middle of the two halls. She was trapped. If she moved forward, she would enter the hall from the entrance. If she moved backwards, she would enter the hall from the backstage door.

"The middle of nowhere." Mike's corpse grinned. "That was where my ghost story began a year ago."

The lights went off. Three candles floated down from nowhere, unsupported by anything. They ghivered midair. They cast eerie light on the faces around Vanessa. Faces with no palor. Faces with no life. Dead faces. The faces of death. Death by hanging. Death by stabbing. Death through gunshot. Death by drowning. But all were suicide. Death glowered back at Vanessa from dead faces. Were they going to force her to kill herself? Vanessa wondered. She decided she would eat her innards before she committed whatever would out her in the same condition as them.

"A year ago," Mike voice sounded eerie. Voice of the dead. "I was in the middle of nowhere. I had just swum through my broken windshield. I could not hold my breath any longer. Water had entered my lungs. My blood lacked air. It was the lack of air that had sent me to the middle of nowhere. Do you know what the middle of nowhere was like?"

Mike's corpse stopped. It looked into both halls, now darkened by lack of light. It grinned. The pus on his lips had a weird glow under candlelight.

"Yeah. It was dark. But in the darkness were things you want to run away from. And also things you want to have. Life receded, illuminated by the eerie glow cast by my longing. Your kiss darkened, its reflection of things I want to escape from.

Death.

I was dying. I couldn't face death. I desparately grasped at the eerie glow caused by my longing. Your kiss darkened, its reflection of the other things in the dark. Things I wanted to run away from. Death. I was dying. But I couldn't face death. I desparately grasped at the eerie glow and darkening kiss. I gasped for air, life. And I suckled in vain. I was in the middle of nowhere, between life and death. But I knew I wouldn't be for long. I was going to die. Unless I could grab the elusive, wispy receding glow of life.

That was when my fellows came. Otheres that had gone before me. They offered me the life of a zemri. Life in a dead body, with a dying soul. But it was life nonetheless. All I had to do was to catch your kiss, before it darkened to nothing. I did.

Now, I was living on borrowed time. I had exectly a year before death. Unless I made the kiss permanently mine.

It was a zemri's life. You kill yourself. Then you kill the cause of your death. So you have no cause to die anymore. You live on in the middle of nowhere, not quite dead, not quite alive. Both in body, and in soul. That's a zemri, a dead walking body, with a dead living soul. Vanessa, you are my passport to the clan of zemris."

"Will you be my wife?"

"You promised. You promised to go anywhere with me." Mike's corpse whispered.

Vanessa suddenly saw her matrimonial bed. It was not exactly the kind she wanted.

"No!" Vanessa screamed.

The zemris laughed.

"My cause wasn't as good sport as this." Melinda said. And Vanessa suddenly realised. Miss Melinda's friend had gone missing exactly a year after Miss Melinda's death. She then knew who owned the last skull on the line in the foyer. And she knew whose skull us the 'new mask for our foyer.'

"No!" Vanessa screamed again. The zemris laughed again.

"Now, be a good sport, will you?" Miss Melinda cooed. The zemris laughed.

Vanessa blanched. It was time for entertainment, and once again, she was it. She was the ghost story. She was the entertainment. Will she be the item seven too?

Vanessa suddenly heard what they had whispered in the kitchen. As if they had only just whispered it. In her mind, she was going up the stairs again. She could smell the stale blood. She pushed open the door. She saw 5hw intestines frying on a gas stove. She saw the zemri put the livers into the oven. She knew who owned those. And she knew who owned the ones the next guest at no.12 Ahmad street, Marquis Estate would see.

She looks nice...

She came along just in time too...

We'll make a nice dish of her...

&No!& Vanessa screamed again.

She made to grab a candle.it dodged her hands. They laughed. She grabbed again. And again. At last, she held one. She closed her eyes and dashed through the zemris. She passed through them like they were air. She ran out of the hall.

The entertainment was on.