40 | Psychopomp Magazine
The effect was immediate: the Handle shone like a glow-stick, and little Sammy’s skin shook like mad. Once the shuddering of his pale flesh had intensified into rippling spasms and a muttering came from Sammy’s lips, Jimmy switched off the generator.
Sam slowly stood up, swayed like the unsteady toddler he was.
Then, with surprising control he stepped towards the generator.
Looking at Jimmy with a swirl of yellow sparks in his eyes, he said, “Thank you, my fraternal companion, but I need more.”
When Mrs. Bell came downstairs to make some Chamomile tea to remedy her insomnia, she almost tumbled over her dead younger son, sporting a coppery tan and chewing on a darkly freckled banana, skin and all.
“Sammy’s back with the living.” Jimmy helped his mother up. “But he’s not quite the same.”
Shock doesn’t begin to describe what Mrs. Bell felt, but that calming influence of the Handle must have already been working on her too—she just stuttered and stared.
Minister Davis from St. Paul’s came to visit Sammy late that night too. He knew Mrs. Bell from high school. The Minister feared the shock of her son’s death might lay her so low that the Enemy would take advantage. He’d heard William had already been seen out late at the tavern.
He knocked on the door. Opened it himself when he heard the quaver in Mrs. Bell’s voice.
She gave only a beseeching glance to the man of God who frowned those ruddy brown caterpillar eyebrows and wiped the back of his hand against his rusty sideburns while Mrs. Bell turned back to her strange little son, who continued to enjoy a steady diet of bananas—skins and all—despite the offer of other foods.
“Oh h-honey, d-don’t you want something tastier than those nasty old