A. Lee Martinez - Strange Afterlives

Oh, hell, said Tim. I didnt think that could happen here.

Nobody does. The exterminator scratched his rough chin and tapped the wall with his knuckles. Regular mice are no problem. I could get rid of those for you, but enchanted mice, those are tricky.

How?

Have you had any wizards move into the neighborhood lately?

Theres just that old hippy down the block. Long beard. Always hanging out in his garage with the weird music and the multicolored smoke coming out of his windows. Tim groaned. Well, this is his fault.

Most likely, but, word to the wise, I wouldnt go filing a complaint with the homeowners association just yet. Not unless you want to end up with a curse on your head. Wizards dont take well to things like that.

So what am I supposed to do? Ignore them?

Wouldnt recommend it. Enchanted mice only get worse. At first, theyre crawling along in your walls. Then they start getting more ambitious. I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who was offered up as a sacrifice to whatever unholy gods mice worship. Mind you, thats a worst case scenario. Usually, theyll just mesmerize you to make them sandwiches or burn the house down trying to turn lead into cheese.

I didnt think mice actually liked cheese.

Enchanted mice do.

Theyre be that dangerous?

Sometimes. Its a crapshoot. Maybe one in a ten thousand enchanted mice has any significant power, but the ones that do... throwing a little cheese their way isnt going to keep them satisfied for long.

Tim did not need this hassle. His divorce was barely finalized. All he wanted to do was revel in the relief of it. Now he had magical mice carving runes in his walls and mixing potions with pilfered cleaning supplies.

Ive got something in the back of the truck that can help, said the exterminator.

He returned with a small, wooden sarcophagus.

Whats that? asked Tim.

Enchanted mice. You need an enchanted cat.

Im allergic to cats.

Doesnt matter with this one. This one is as low maintenance as you can get. You dont have to feed it or clean its litter box. You just put it in the corner of a room and forget about it.

Tim tried opening the sarcophagus, but it was sealed shut.

It opens and closes on its own, explained the exterminator. All you need to do is put on this necklace and recite a short chant.

Im no good with magic.

In college, Tim had tried animating a doll in an aptitude test. His doll had taken a single step before exploding. Twice.

Its fine, said the exterminator. This is hardly magic at all. A baby could do it so long as the baby could read ancient Sumerian.

I cant read Sumerian.

The exterminator chuckled. Im kidding. Its all phonetically broken down for you already.

Tim hesitated.

Youve got two choices, pal, explained the exterminator. Use this cat or move. But good luck selling a house with an enchanted mouse infestation.

Tim wondered if Maureen knew about the mice, and if that was why she hadnt fought him harder for the house. Probably not. They had their problems, but shed never been spiteful.

He took the cat.

He put the necklace on. The ankh warmed against his skin and the sarcophagus rattled ever-so-slightly. It didnt open. It didnt do anything else. It only sat there. Tim placed it by his refrigerator, where hed seen some mice, and promptly forgot about it until bedtime.

When the house was quiet, he could hear the mice crawling in the walls. Sometimes, he heard the little explosions as they performed secret magics. The paint on one bedroom wall had spontaneously peeled away one night, and there was water damage from when a tiny rainstorm had drifted through his living room.

He rolled over, closed his eyes, and tried to get some sleep.

He awoke a little while later with a chill running through him. Some unnamable terror seized him. He sat up, but he didnt turn on the light. Something told him he shouldnt dare.

In the darkness, a thing slipped across his dresser. The shadow, silent and black, stared at him with two bright green eyes. Eyes that held him in their hypnotic grasp. The malevolent, unnatural power within them caused him to break out in freezing sweat. The thing turned away, slinking from the room, and only when it was gone did Tim have the will to reach for the light switch.

He didnt flip it. Not right away. He didnt want to risk seeing the thing in the light. When he finally did, a pile of dead mice were stacked on his dresser. A dozen corpses offered up to him by his dreadful servant.

It wouldve been nice if the cat had eaten the mice, but the undead probably didnt eat. He cleaned up the mess, and while throwing away the corpses in the kitchen trash, he nodded to the sarcophagus, now sealed for the night.

Glad youre on my side, buddy.

Within a week, things were looking up. He still heard the mice, but they were quieter, more cautious. No miniature explosions. No weird supernatural goings on.

He did start to feel bad about the mice. He wasnt sure how intelligent they were. Most experts agreed that they werent sentient. They just had a knack for magic and did these sort of things by instinct.

Even if that was true, it didnt always sit well with Tim. He had nothing against mice. He didnt want them living in his house. He didnt want to end up sacrificed. He told himself it needed to be done, but it still bothered him sometimes. Especially when he found a mouse corpse wearing a tiny cape and pointed hat.

He turned around and glimpsed the thing lurking silently on his dresser.

Okay, he said. Good job. As always. Shoo now.

The undead minion stayed put.

Something scurried at the cats feet. A mouse. Still alive, somehow. The cat ignored it.

What the hell?

The cat turned and vanished. He lost sight of it, but it mustve gone back to its resting place. Maybe the magic was winding down.

Tim turned on the light. There wasnt any offering this time. Instead of a small mound of corpses, there was only a single, living mouse, twitching its whiskers, holding a silver ankh in its paws.