Love After Life After Death

Hey all, one of the things I'm doing for my Patreon is writing a story based on a prompt suggested by the Patrons. Wanted to put it here for feedback before I sent it out to them! Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions. The prompt was: A Dating Guide for the Recently Resurrected.

Love After Life After Death

Dating was awkward for Taylor long before he was killed by a metro bus, but it certainly hadn’t made things any easier. He checked his watch. She was fifteen minutes late and the waiter was beginning to throw him pitying glances whenever he passed. It wouldn’t be long before he was getting awkward stares. To pass the time, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small handbook.

     Love After Life After Death was a short read by any stretch of the imagination, but it had given Taylor hope in what had otherwise seemed like a bleak situation. “Whether you’re a shambling corpse resurrected by a necromancer, or some science experiment gone horribly wrong, your love life doesn’t have to be over,” he repeated the words under his breath. It was the opening line to the manual, written in big, friendly letters. The vision of the resurrected wasn’t the best, so big print helped.

     “Taylor?” asked a distinctly female voice.

     Taylor jumped and looked up into the eyes of a beautiful woman. He stumbled to a stand, shoving the book in his pocket, and held his hand out to greet his date. “That’s me,” he mumbled, a little awkwardly.

     She took his hand and shook it. “So formal,” she chided.

     “S-Sorry,” he stammered. “I just haven’t been on one of these in a while.” Her hand was cool to the touch. Is it really possible? He wondered. In the book, it had listed several key phrases to look for when trying to find a resurrected partner. Adeline’s profile had used three of the five. Taylor recounted them in his head as he sat back down.

     ‘Recently returned from a long trip.’ If the manual was to be believed, that meant she had been dead for quite some time, but looking at her face, he saw no signs of it. Her skin was pale, sure, but in the Pacific Northwest, that wasn’t an indication of anything. There were no abnormal lines in her makeup betraying the marks of an autopsy either. Did I misinterpret things?

     ‘Looking to meet someone fresh, but not too fresh.’ That was signaling her level of decay. One of the key rules laid out in the book was the Rule of Descending Composition. The author advised to approach people who were at or below your current rate of decay. This prevented those who looked mostly normal from being approached by a bunch of shambling zombies reciting love poems. Apparently, it caused some issues back in the day.

     Finally, she had said: ‘Let’s not bring our parents into this.’ That meant that she was likely the result of a necromancer and didn’t want to meet someone raised by the same means. Necromancers tended to fight with one another when encounters occurred between their creations.

     Adeline cleared her throat, peering over a menu at Taylor.

     Shit, how long have I just been sitting here? He had been so focused on figuring out if she was undead, he had forgotten to say anything. “Sorry… again.” It felt lame, and came out lame, but she smiled at him and his tension eased.

     “No need to be so nervous.” She laid the menu down on the table.

     Even as he tried not to, he assessed her face again, scanning for anything. By all accounts, she looked alive, and that wasn’t a good sign for him. Luckily, before he could make more of a fool of himself, the waiter came by.

     “Can I offer either of you anything to drink?”

     Taylor looked to Adeline.

     “I don’t know, Taylor, think a drink might loosen you up a bit?”

     Ever since his resurrection, drinking hadn’t been the same. Occasionally after four or five beers, he would start to feel a tingling sensation, but it passed just as quickly as it arrived. Nevertheless, he grinned and said: “It’s worth a shot.”

     “That’s the spirit.” Adeline looked over a small drink menu and ordered an old bottle of wine.

     How old is that bottle? Does it mean something? Probably not, right? No matter how hard he tried, Taylor couldn’t seem to get out of his own head. He ran through the guide’s list of questions to ask on a date and pulled one out at random. “So, Adeline, where are you from originally?” It sounded corny as he said it, but at least he was talking.

     “It speaks!” she exclaimed, bright mischief burning in her eyes.

     Taylor felt as though he would blush but knew he couldn’t. The woman who had brought him back had fucked up his facial capillaries. Without tastefully applied rouge, he looked like he was suffering from a fatal disease.

     “Central Romania,” she answered. “But I’ve been here for a long time.”

     Central Romania, well that’s a good sign. If there was anywhere known for ghosts, ghouls, day walkers, and the undead, it was Romania. Taylor quickly shifted to the next obvious question. “Are you close with your family?” if she really was undead, he was coyly asking about her master, or raiser as it were. If not, it was a simple question with a simple answer.

     “Not so much.” There was a twinge of sadness to her voice. “Let’s just say the man who raised me was more than a little mad.” Her eyes briefly went to the table, but quickly returned to meet his.

     Taylor’s heart did a somersault. That all but confirmed it. She was a member of the recently deceased.

     “Taylor,” started Adeline, “Would you like to ask the question that’s really on your mind?”

     Her gaze was piercing and froze her heart. “What would that be?” A tremor had crept into his voice. You’re blowing it, man.

     “I think we both know…”

     “Are you,” he started, but she interrupted and finished.

     “Yes, I’m a Capricorn,” she replied, throwing up her hands. “I know, you’re a Libra, and things can never work out between us.”

     The look of confusion on Taylor’s face must have been easy to read, because a smile spread across her lips.

     “Relax,” she said. “I’m fucking with you. I was raised by a necromancer about five years ago. This isn’t my first time on one of these.” She motioned to the table. “So, why don’t we just relax, have some wine, and we can dig into our afterlives a little bit later?”

     “Okay,” said Taylor, grinning from ear to ear.

     The waiter arrived and poured them both a glass. Adeline raised hers, winked and said: “Cheers to our Love After Life After Death then.”