[Tyst]

Silence is my favorite noise.

When I talk about silence, I do not mean the silence of absence, of emptiness, the stillness inside a vacuum that no one can hear.

No, the silence I love is different.

It is what you hear between two people not talking, the air thick with all the things they do not say.
It is the ghostly symphony of an orchestra not playing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the heavy, oppressive melody of a library, and the bitter-sweet, floating song of those who do not have anyone to hear them.
It is the silence of speechlessness, of secrets kept, the warm comfort of a love that needs no words, and the painful emptiness of having nothing left to say.
It is the silence of those who chose not to speak up when they might have.
It is the silence of those who listen.

The older woman is listening. I like her already.

I have chosen to be a Veronika today, and I am currently waiting tables at a high-class restaurant.
I am also one of the Undead, and tonight, it is my turn to hunt.

That woman will be my prey.

***

I have been many things since the day I died.
It is the nature of the Undead.

All the things that we once were must stay behind when we die, so that we may rise from our graves unburdened. Else, we do not rise at all.

All I am, all I will ever be, must forever be devoted to the Hunt.

I like it that way.

Others have struggled, have failed. They secretly held on to what was long dead, thinking, they could reclaim it one day.
But you cannot trick Fate, and soon, those people found themselves back in their graves never to rise again.

Not me.

The Hunt is my life.

And I love it.

I do not miss the things that died that day, tied to the stretcher in that gray cell.
None of those things were worth having.
None of what I was, was worth keeping.

Instead, I kept a silence.
The most beautiful silence of them all.

The silence of my death.

Today, I am a Veronika.
For the Hunt, I have been a Kyle, a Sam, a Jonas, a Lilly, and so many others, that I do not remember.
I have the face for it, and the slim, athletic build, that can pass as either gender.

I came into this world a Tracy.
I lived and died a Tracy and rose from the grave a Tyst.

***

When I was still one of the living, my life was one of contrasts, of loud noises and even louder silences.

My father's angry shouts and insults, my mother's silence.
The silence between each punch connecting with her flesh or mine and the noise of weeping and begging.
The silence in the cupboard where I hid with my baby brother, who at four years old still would not speak and her angry drunken screams as she looked for us to punish us for 'destroying her life'.
I loved him for his silence, this tiny wide-eyed creature, and I hated the policemen and ambulance drivers for defiling his memory with their noise and their sirens when they came and took his corpse away.

It was always the noise that broke and hurt me. I lived my life in the small, beautiful silences in-between.

Later too, when I had managed to switch my abusive, loud parents for an abusive, loud husband, it was the noise that tormented me.
His shouts and slurs, the dull "thud!" of his punches, the sharp "whack!" of his belt.

And it was the silence, that made me blossom and bloom, that gave me life.

The silence of his unconsciousness when the golden liquid I had dissolved in his vodka finally took effect, and the sweet, sweet sound of his silent shouts and screams when he woke to find himself bound to the bed, his vocal cords severed with a single, precise incision.

I had always wanted to be a surgeon.

Neither my father, nor Jake, however, approved much of women with a career, and so, since the only thing they liked less than a successful woman was having too little money, I was allowed to become a veterinary nurse instead.

Being a veterinarian myself was out of the question, but a nurse, a nurse knew her place, since she would only be assisting, while a man did the important work, as was right.

I enjoyed his silence for a long, long time, making sure my husband came to appreciate my clean precision and steady hand.

I'm sure, in the end, even Jake would have agreed, that I would have made an excellent surgeon, but by that point, he was already long dead.

I paid an extensive visit to my father and mother later the same day, before going on the quietest, most discreet killing spree in history.

It took the police ages to even notice what was going on, and the press never got wind of it.

I was apprehended two days and twenty-one silences later.

I did not come quietly.

I was too small, looked too innocent and unthreatening, acted too compliant.
They underestimated me, and twenty-one silences became twenty-two.

They caught me eventually.

Tracy Foster was tried, found guilty of twenty-five cases of First Degree Murder, and, at the tender age of twenty-three, was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
She died on the 21st of October at 4:33 pm and thus, I crossed over into the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Which, in this case, happened to be Sweden.

***

Fate awaited me when I awoke.

"Tracy Foster is dead," she greeted me. "Are you Tracy Foster?"

I considered this for a long moment, as my senses returned and the pain in my head and limbs slowly receded.
"No Ma'am," I finally concluded.

"Good answer."

Fate rose from her chair.
She was a small, homely woman, slightly chubby and with a teacherly air. She wore dark brown cotton trousers and a sensible blouse, her graying, blond hair bound back in a ponytail.
She had the look of someone on their way to becoming the perfect, modern Grandmother.

Except for her eyes. Fate's eyes were a faded green and piercingly cold, shrewd and calculating.

Fate saw everything.

I know today, that even in those first hazy moments of waking, had my answer been a different one, I would not have left the small, barren room I had found myself in.

"I have no use for Tracy Foster," she continued.
"Prisoner Number 999-736-229, Tracy Foster, is scheduled to be buried in-" Fate consulted her notes, "...the Texas Department for Criminal Justice's Captain-Joe-Byrd-Cemetery in Huntsville this afternoon, with, I believe, Chaplain Morrison in attendance, following yesterday's execution.
All that Tracy Foster was and felt and thought and believed will be lying dead in that casket, along with everything else that made her.
All except one thing.
The thing that is sitting here in front of me, living and breathing, plucked from the grave, the one thing I have use for, is her skill. And nothing else."
She looked at me sharply.
"I have no patience with useless things. And what I cannot use, I dispose of.
Are we understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good. You may refer to me as Fate. Tracy Foster is gone. For now, you will be known as thirty-seven.
Should I find you useful, you will receive a name and join the ranks of "The Undead".
We are a highly efficient, specialized force, and you will be charged with a single task, which is to be performed with skill, precision, and absolute discretion:
You will devote the remainder of your "afterlife" to the detection, hunt, and disposal of creatures, who are just as dead as you - but a lot less human."

I proved to be very useful indeed.

(1314 words)