Once, Make Out Barn had been a haven of teenage activity. Wholly living up to its name, the worn old building played host to regular sessions of heavy petting and awkward groping. There were even one or two acts of genuine sex on the premises, though not nearly as many as locker-room boasts might lead one to believe. The barn was a place for certain people, namely those of surging hormones and acne-induced angst, preferably in groups of two, to get away from the endless hell that teenagers tend to perceive their lives to be until they grow up and realize that real hell generally strikes around middle age, when one discovers that life is either far too short or far too long.
Tammy put an end to that.
Every priestess needed a temple, someplace to practice her forbidden arts in peace and quiet. The first time her mom almost walked in on her as she conjured the spirits had proven that. To that end, Tammy had taken Make Out Barn for her own. It wasn't hard. All it took was some carefully controlled arson and a simple rite of the Dreadful Aura. Her temple had been left alone ever since, making it perfect for her needs. She could study up on her destiny, raise the dead, and leave corpses to soak up black magic without having to worry about kids looking to enjoy the pleasure of swapping various bodily fluids and adults hoping to interrupt such pleasures.
She shone her flashlight on the bodies. The ritual demanded they be buried in shallow graves, and so they sat in inch-deep holes in the ground, covered from head to toe with a thin layer of dirt. The Mark of Those That Inhere Within the Smothering Shadows were carved into their foreheads. The first stage of the magic had taken effect. The fetid flesh of the corpses had become a pallid green, and their teeth had become rows of razor-sharp fangs. Thick, black claws had grown from their fingertips. They were still dead, but soon they would rise to serve her.
Gleefully grinning, she removed the occult odds and ends from her backpack.
Chad shone a light on a dead face. "Uh. . Tammy?"
She ignored him. Tammy did not exist once she and Chad went through the doors of the temple.
"Mistress Lilith."
"Yes?"
He tiptoed a wide circle around the dead people. "What are we doing with these guys?"
"We?" She chuckled at the pronoun. As if Chad were an equal partner in her destiny. "We are raising the dead."
"Oh. Okay. Like zombies, right?"
"Sort of."
The ritual shared certain elements of zombie-making, but these were a far more dangerous breed of walking dead. The spell itself even entailed some risk to the casters. It was the most difficult feat of black magic she had yet to attempt, and if something went wrong someone would have to be torn apart when her minions first rose. Chad had volunteered for the duty if the necessity arose, though he didn't currently know it.
He reached for the black candle she'd set out. She slapped his hand away.
"Don't touch anything."
"Okay." He cast a nervous glance toward the nearest dead guy. "So do we have to get naked again?"
"No."
"Oh. Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Okay."
"Oh, alright," she sighed.
He smiled stupidly as he stripped off his clothes in fifteen seconds flat.
"Your turn, Mistress Lilith."
Chad leered while she got undressed. It wasn't necessary, but it made things easier. Chad would do just about anything as long as they were both naked while doing it.
"You didn't really like that old dude, did'ja, babe?" he asked as he posed and flexed.
"No. Of course not," she replied.
Tammy organized her supplies. There wasn't much to it. She just had to call forth the shadows to enter the corpses which involved a quick incantation. She had Chad lay out his mom's good silverware and her dad's camping tent stakes. She lit the black candle and began. Chad knew enough to sit quietly in the corner while she worked.
"I conjure thee, from the endless night, from the icy hearth of forever quiet, from the shadows which cannot be banished, I conjure thee!"
She put her finger to the page to mark her place and grabbed her pocketknife. After another five minutes of steady incant-ing, she pricked her index finger.
"Ose-thay at-thay eyeth-wray in-ay arkness-day. Eyes-ray. Eyes-ray. Eyes-ray!"
She flicked a drop of her blood on the black candle. The flame flared, spewing an unnaturally thick cloud. Shapes and things terrible and unknowable slithered in the gray smoke. They whispered and cackled, all too eager to be given form in the world of flesh.
"Eyes-ray!" Tammy shouted. "Eyes-ray and-ay obey-ay eye-may ill-way. Eyes-ray! Eyes-ray!" She threw her arms wide. Her flashlight cast fearsome light across her face. A skittering piece of dark crawled over her eyes.
Chad would have been frozen in sweaty horror had he noticed, but he was too busy staring at her pert breasts as they rose and fell as she incanted.
The smoke funneled downward into the mouths and eyes of the bodies. A chill wind blew. The unholy chattering quieted, and stillness settled on Tammy's temple.
Everything was still quiet ten minutes later.
Chad dared speak up. "Mistress Lilith, is that it?"
She leafed through her Necronomicon to find where things had gone awry.
He ventured from the corner and stood by her side. "They're not rising."
"I noticed."
"What went wrong?"
"Shut up, dumbass, and let me think."
He looped an arm around her waist. "I don't know about the dead guys, but I think Big Jimmy is starting to rise."
She was busy deciding which of Chad's body parts to dig her fingernails into when the candle flickered. Five ragged moans rose. Tammy snatched up her flashlight and shone it on the corpses.
Her minions sat up and slowly, clumsily rose to their feet. The four walking dead with two good legs stood in hunched, predatory stances. The fifth one-legged corpse hopped about in an awkward balancing act. Ten sets of beady, milky eyes stared at their new mistress, either awaiting their first command or, perhaps, their first meal.
Chad huddled closer to Tammy, either out of terror or, quite possibly, to cop a cheap feel. Either way, she stomped on his foot to deter him.
She pointed to the door. "Go forth," she whispered. "Go forth and sate your unholy appetites on the flesh of mine enemies."
The corpses shuffled (or hopped) to collect their weapons of knives, salad forks, and camping stakes. They shambled out of the barn one at a time. The last dead thing stopped just long enough to cast a wicked glare at his mistress. And then they were gone.
Tammy raised her hands over her head and giggled the malign giggle of a schoolgirl consorting with the legions of darkness and having a hell of a time doing it.