Shiny

This story was written for this week’s Trifecta prompt, which was to use the word zombie:  “a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice.”.  I decided to revisit the tale of Constance, recently expired treasure hunter, as I’m fond of serial stories. You can read the prior episodes here. Enjoy!

The first thing she noticed was the light. It was way brighter than the environmentally-friendly curly lightbulbs that she usually had in her tiny apartment. This light went right through her eyelids in a blinding glow. Oddly, however, it didn’t hurt. It felt warm, almost happy, like the one time she had splurged on a vacation and gotten a hotel room with a whirlpool in it.

She might have just enjoyed the light for a while, but then a dim memory flickered in her mind. She had been in a bad place before, hadn’t she? There’d been a treasure, and she’d tried to get to it, and….all at once Constance remembered. Her tether had snapped. She’d gone down. Her last thought had been regret that she wasn’t wearing clean underwear. And now…light. Really bright light. “Oh no,” Constance said. “Oh no, no, no, no no! I’m dead!”

This was just terrific. Here she’d been at the peak of her archaeological career. Now, as Monty Python would have said, she was no more. She had ceased to be. Bereft of life, she rested in piece. She was an ex-Constance.

“So….” she mused aloud, “What am I now?”  She clearly wasn’t a zombie, since she was still thinking lucidly. Constance was quite grateful for that. Her one prior experience with a zombie had been of the alcoholic kind, during an ill-fated dinosaur dig in North Dakota. While plastered, Constance had inadvertently loosed a Velociraptor spirit from its ancient bonds, whereupon it had eaten her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend. She’d also spent three hours puking into a towel the next morning. Between the raptor and the killer hangover, Constance had sworn off zombies entirely.

“Which,” said a voice from behind her, “is actually a point in your favor.”

She spun around. “Who’re you?”

“Oh, I’m Montgomery. I’ve been assigned to help you navigate the process of becoming an angel. It’s not so bad, really, and-”

“Becoming a what?”