The New Dead by John Connolly, Various

rest.’
     
    ‘Jesus Christ, Tori,’ I shouted. ‘A wrong number? You are giving me shit about a wrong number? Have you lost your mind?’
     
    I stormed upstairs, and she didn’t follow. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I figured she was going to sleep on the couch. Just as well. It gave me time to figure out what the hell I was going to do with Maisie, who was now calling my house. She must have done it during sex or right after sex or while stabbing herself or something. The point was that someone might have seen her do it. This someone might not have understood this time, but what about the next time or the one after?
     
    Two days later I went to the Pine Box and paid for Maisie. I brought her over to the apartment, and I left her there. Everything was fine for about two months. Then it fell apart.
     
     
    After the incident with the flowers, I decided I needed to visit more regularly. The next time I went over, she had newer flowers, and on the mantel she’d placed a goldfish bowl with two fish. There was a little tube of fish food next to it. Maisie herself was still and lifeless, as she usually was when I walked in.
     
    ‘Maisie,’ I said, ‘do you want something? Do you need something? Is there anything I can get you that will make you happy?’
     
    She didn’t answer.
     
    ‘I like your fish,’ I tried.
     
    Nothing.
     
    ‘Maisie, I order you not to leave this apartment.’ Her head moved, just a little. Nothing else, but I knew that deep down she was laughing at me. This dead thing was laughing at me, and she meant to fuck up my life any way she could. Christ, the flowers, the fish - she was toying with me, torturing me. She could ruin me any damn time she wanted to, but she wanted to draw it out. She wanted revenge.
     
    The next day at work was a nightmare. Crap from my boss, fatigue from lack of sleep. As soon as I got out I drove over to Maisie’s apartment. Nothing new happened. Maisie seemed like any ordinary reanimate, and I began to think that maybe I had panicked for nothing. Maybe it was a bad patch and now everything had blown over.
     
    Then, on Tuesday, everything changed.
     
    I was halfway through another crappy day when the receptionist rang. ‘Um, Walter, you need to get out here. There is someone here for you.’
     
    ‘Who is it?’
     
    ‘Christ, Walter, just get out here.’
     
    I went to the reception area, and there was Maisie, uniform on, mask off, her hair and eyes wild. She stood in front of the receptionist’s desk, one palm out, raw and bloodied. The other hand held a piece of glass. She brought the glass down into her palm. Around her were the receptionist, one of the agency creatives, and a guy from the mail room. They were just staring.
     
    ‘Ahh,’ she cried. ‘Walter. Walter Molson. Walter Molson.’
     
    Now here was Xander, my boss.
     
    ‘What the hell is this, Walter?’
     
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’
     
    ‘Get that thing out of here,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re into, but take your perverted, illegal shit somewhere else.’
     
    I managed to get her into the elevator - empty, thank God - and into my car. I shoved her in the back and drove her to her apartment. I put her in the bedroom, and I called a locksmith to change the locks to the kind that had to be opened with a key even from the inside. I wasn’t supposed to change the locks on these doors, but I didn’t give much of a shit at this point. We were into the endgame now. I knew it. I had to get rid of Maisie, and I knew just how to do it.
     
    Once the locks were taken care of, I called Ryan to get the number, and then I called Charlie.
     
    ‘Hey,’ I said to him. ‘How often do you have those little parties?’
     
    I could hear cloth scraping as he shrugged against the phone. ‘Two or three times a year, I guess.’
     
    ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I have a unit—’ I didn’t want to talk about reanimates over the phone. You never knew