by Jim Butcher
I wasn't thinking clearly, obviously, but I wanted to buy some time. Bert's wife would be home from work in another hour or two and I didn't want her, or anyone else, to find the body until I had a plan. I collected Mrs. Williams, who was perfectly docile now, and put her in the backseat. It was taking a chance to drive Bert's car but I hoped to have it out of sight before anyone took particular notice. Five minutes later it was inside my garage, and I had closed the curtains on the windows so that no one could look in and see it. No problem.
I went inside to look for some clothesline, intending to restrain Mrs. Williams, but before I could find any, the doorbell rang. It was Gus Robinson, who wanted to tell me that a squad car had stopped by looking for me.
"Why are they looking for me?" My voice trembled.
Gus shrugged. "He didn't say, just asked me to tell you that he'd stop back later." Gus seemed to want to talk, maybe hoping I was privy to some delicious secret, and I didn't want to make him suspicious by being too anxious to have him leave, so it took another couple of minutes to get rid of him. Even so, I was forced to be rather abrupt, and there was an odd look on his face when he left. I found the clothesline and went out to the garage.
Mrs. Williams was gone.
I ran quickly from room to room and noticed that the patio doors were open. I was sure I had closed them so I went outside, resisting the temptation to call her name. She wasn't likely to respond to it anyway, and someone might hear me. I ran around to the side yard, slowed when I saw Gus across the street. I didn't think he'd seen me, so I retreated around the corner of the house quickly. Then I went next door, climbing the fence so I couldn't be spotted, and searched the cottage. There was no sign of Mrs. Willliams.
I went back inside, telling myself that it wasn't a problem. If she was gone, I could just revert to my original plan. She'd collapse in a few hours anyway and there was nothing to connect me with her death. Bert was a separate problem. As soon as it was dark, I could drive the car to Breakneck Hill, prop him behind the wheel, and send him over one of the drop-offs, then set fire to the wreck. It would be a long walk back, but I could stay in the woods for most of that distance. No one would be likely to see me there. No problem.
Once I'd decided on a plan, I felt better, but then I started to worry again. What about rigor mortis? What if the body was so stiff that I couldn't get it into position? Maybe I should prop it up in the passenger seat now. I started for the garage.
And heard something move.
Was it possible that Bert hadn't been killed after all? I opened the door to the garage with my heart in my throat, then felt a mixture of relief and shock. It wasn't Bert who was moving; it was Mrs. Williams. Somehow I'd missed her and she'd come back. She was standing at the rear of the station wagon, staring down through the open rear window at Bert's inert body. I walked around to stand beside her, already working on a new scenario.
Something glittered in her right hand. It was a hypodermic needle. One of mine. In fact, it was the same one I'd used to inject her with serum. I'd only used half but it was almost empty now.
Bert rolled over and sat up.
My chest began to hurt and I realized that I was laughing, great gasping sobs of laughter. I forced myself to calm down. Bert's body seemed content to remain where it was, so I turned to Mrs. Williams, relieved her of the hypodermic, and led her away. She didn't struggle while I tied her to the tool bench. I would have to find some way of restraining Bert next, but I'd barely begun to consider that problem when the doorbell rang again. I went into the house, closing the garage door behind me.
It was Officer Tremblay again. "Would you mind if I came in a moment, sir?"
I offered him a seat, which he politely refused. "I'm following up on your neighbor, Mrs. Williams. You haven't seen her since your first report, have you?"
"No," I lied.
"Well, we've had a call from a Mrs. Pereira a couple of blocks from here. She said an elderly woman who fits the description walked past her house about two hours ago. She said the woman had blood on her face and seemed dazed. If she'd called in at the time, we might have been able to find her, but she kept quiet until her conscience started to bother her. We just wanted to make sure that we're not looking for two separate women." He read a
description of Mrs. Williams's clothing from his notebook and I confirmed that she'd been dressed identically when I'd last seen her.
"Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Franken."
"I just hope it helps," I said with mock sincerity. Officer Tremblay turned toward the door and I started forward to open it.
There was a loud thump from the garage. We both heard it, but I pretended not to. "Are you alone here, Mr. Franken?"
"Yes, I am, officer. Something must have fallen over. It's nothing to worry about."
"I'm sure that's the case, but I was wondering if it might be the missing lady wandering again."
"The garage door is locked." Something in my manner must have betrayed me because he was immediately suspicious.
"Would you mind if I had a look, sir?"
I searched for a rational reason to object, but Tremblay didn't wait for one. He started toward the kitchen and I was forced to trail along in his wake. My heart sank and I knew this was the end. He'd see Mrs. Williams as soon as he stepped into the garage.
He wasted no time and I saw the way his head snapped up as the door opened. His hand was dropping to his weapon as he spun around to face me. "Please raise your hands, Mr. Franken."
I slowly began to do as I was told, but I never completed the movement. A crowbar flashed through the air, bouncing off his skull, and Officer Tremblay dropped like a stone. It was Bert, of course. Even dead, he hated the
police with a passion. The crowbar rose and fell twice more before I ran forward and took it away from Bert. By then Mrs. Williams had untied herself, and she was staggering around the garage, apparently trying to stab Bert with the hypodermic, which she'd retrieved from the shelf where I'd put it.
So there I was with three dead bodies, two of them still moving around, and two cars to dispose of, one a police cruiser. I sat down for a while to think things through and decided that the first priority was to get rid of the cruiser. I couldn't carry Officer Tremblay's body down to it in the daylight, so I'd have to dispose of that separately. No problem. Bert was still wandering around, so I found some more clothesline and tied him to one end of the bench. He didn't seem to mind. By then Mrs. Williams was stabbing the dead policeman over and over with the empty hypodermic. I took it out of her hand and she sat down heavily. The serum was obviously starting to wear off.
I was just catching my breath when the doorbell rang. It was Gus from across the street.
"Hi. I saw the cop car out front and wondered if there'd been any news about Mrs. Williams."
I didn't invite him in. The noises from the garage had stopped, but I had a dead policeman and two reanimated corpses to deal with. It wasn't an appropriate time for
entertaining.
I opened my mouth, intending to tell him that there'd been no news, that Tremblay was using the bathroom and it wasn't a good time, but before I could say anything, his eyes widened and he looked past me. "Mrs. Williams! We were all worried about you."
Somehow she'd found the strength to come into the house. I was paralyzed with indecision, and of course Gus decided to brush past me.
She didn't like Gus particularly, either, so she stabbed him with the hypodermic. He gave a surprised little cry, dropped to his knees, and fell headlong. There was no more serum, so at least he wasn't likely to get up anytime soon. I decided to consider that my luck had finally changed for the better.
Mrs. Williams had collapsed by the time I had finished dragging Gus into the garage. Officer Tremblay was moving around a little; apparently there'd been enough of the serum left to cause some reaction, but he couldn't stand up. He was pawing at his weapon and I took it away from him just to be safe. I carried Mrs. Williams out next. She barely
moved, so that was no problem.
It was later than I had realized. The day had gotten " away from me. As soon as it was fully dark, I was going to carry the bodies next door, then move Bert's car out onto the street. I'd set fire to the house, wait until it was going pretty well, then call in the alarm. Let the police interpret the four bodies however they wanted after that.
By the time I was willing to risk it, Mrs. Williams was completely still, and the other two were obviously winding down. Tremblay was still pawing at his holster but he couldn't stand up, so I ended up carrying all four of them, one at a time. Then I went down to the basement and arranged some rags and other combustibles near the oil tank. It was harder to get the fire going than I expected, but eventually I was satisfied.
I decided to have one last look around upstairs before leaving and that was my last mistake. When I stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, I felt something brush against my leg.
There was a click and I looked down just in time to see Officer Tremblay fasten the free end of a pair of handcuffs to the foot of Mrs. Williams's antique cast-iron stove.
The other cuff was around my ankle.
I stood there, astonished that he'd been able to crawl all the way from the opposite end of the kitchen, and by the time I understood what had just happened, he'd moved beyond my reach, finally slumping inertly against a row of cabinets.
He and the handcuff key are out of my reach. The stove is too heavy for me to lift or move. There are wisps of smoke drifting up from the basement and I can hear the flames licking at the steps.
I think I have a problem.
Old School
Mark Onspaugh
"And arise!"
Everyone stood back from the corpse except Meg, who wanted to see whether the eyes would pop open like they always did in the movies.
The dearly departed, a crossing guard who had been struck down by a school bus, just lay there, like . . . well, like a stiff.
We waited thirty minutes, which seemed more than enough time for any self-respecting necromancer, then Dean hit Mal with his cap.
"Fuckin' retard—I knew that book was a load of shit." The book was old and covered in stained leather that Mal had promised was the skin of some wizard from fourth-century Persia or some such nonsense. He had gotten it off eBay from a dealer in Bakersfield. The fact that it was written in English had made us doubt its authenticity. It wasn't even Old English like Chaucer or something. More like that Robin Hood-speak you hear in bad sword and sorcery flicks. Lots of "thee" and "thou" and "ye."
"Let's get her back to the office," I said wearily. "My boss has a nasty habit of dropping in after nine."
We loaded the battered civil servant into the back of my Subaru. Dean had put pennies on her eyes, which only he had found funny.
I smiled at Meg, but I could see she was disappointed. She was the only reason I had agreed to this in the first place. There was something about her pale skin and bat tattoo that made me feel feverish. The way the chrome stud in her tongue winked in the sun. The hints that her pale flesh held even more wonders hidden from prying eyes. Marvels that I had yet to be privy to.
The starter made a grinding noise and the car finally started with a belch of exhaust. The thing was a piece of shit but none of the others had a ride. We bounced off the dirt track that led to the Carl Milton campground and back onto the main road to Baylor Brothers Funeral Home, where I worked part-time.
The moon was coming up as we passed the cemetery, and Meg's skin looked silver and luminous. I tried to think of something clever to say, something that might eventually lead me into her cool embrace.
She beat me to it.
"There're a lot of fresh graves out there."
I looked, and saw several holes in the earth. But not the fresh excavations of men with equipment and a practiced hand. More the frenzied eruptions of someone making their way . .. out.
I stopped, which turned out to be a major mistake, and demanded to look at Mal's book. Nervous, he opened it to the resurrection spell and handed it to me. The dome light on my car had burned out long ago, so I used a lighter. The spell read as he had recited it, up until the end.
... and arise---------!*
Dropping down to the bottom of the page, I read: *Recite here ye name of the deceased, lest thee raise every corpse within the sound of thy voice. "You didn't follow the asterisk?" I asked. By this time, Meg was screaming at the shapes looming outside, just as Dean was trying to subdue the surprisingly strong crossing guard.
"What's an asterisk?" Mal asked, his brow crinkling in a road map of confusion.
As the car began to rock under the assault of the hungry undead, I regretted many things.
I regretted I would never taste Meg's tongue stud as it clicked across my teeth.
I regretted I would never take that surfing trip to Australia.
I regretted being so close to a large cemetery like Forest Lawn.
But most of all, I regretted we had attended such shitty public schools.
The Sound of Blunder
J. A. KONRATH AND F. Paul Wilson
"We're dead! We're freakin' dead!"
Mick Brady, known by the criminal underground of Arkham, Pennsylvania, as "Mick the Mick," threw the remains of his shrimp egg foo yung across the cellar, then held a shaking fist in front of Willie Corrigan's face. Willie recoiled like a dog accustomed to being kicked.
"I'm sorry, Mick!" Willie said through a mouthful of General Tso's chicken.
Mick the Mick cocked his fist and realized that smacking Willie wasn't going to help their situation. He smacked him anyway, a punch to the gut that made the larger man double over and grunt like a pig.
"Jesus, Mick! You hit me in my hernia! You know I got a bulge there!"
Mick the Mick grabbed a shock of Willie's greasy
brown hair and jerked back his head so they were staring eye to eye.
"What do you think Nate the Nose is going to do to us when he finds out we lost his shit? We're not going to be eating takeout from Lo's Garden, Willie. We're both going to be eating San Francisco Hot Dogs."
Willie's eyes got wide. Apparently the idea of having his dick cut off, boiled, and fed to him on a bun with a side of fries was several times worse than a whack to the hernia.
"We'll... we'll tell him the truth." He shoved a handful of fried noodles into his mouth and crunched out, "Maybe he'll understand."
"You want to tell the biggest mobster in the state that your Nana used a key of uncut Colombian to make a pound cake?"
"It was an accident," Willie whined. "She thought it was flour. Hey, is that a spider on the wall? Spiders give me the creeps, Mick. Why do they need eight legs? Other bugs only got six."
Mick the Mick realized that hitting Willie again wouldn't help anything. He hit him anyway, a slap across his face that echoed off the concrete floor and walls of Willie's basement.
"Jesus, Mick! You hit me in my bad tooth! You know I got a cavity there! Hey, did you eat all the duck sauce? Is duck sauce made from duck, Mick? It don't taste like duck."
Mick the Mick was considering where he would belt his friend next, even though it wasn't doing either of them any good, when he heard the basement door open.
"You boys playing nice down there?"
"Yes, Nana," Willie called up the stairs. He nudged Mick the Mick and whispered, "Tell Nana yes.'"
Mick the Mick rolled his eyes, but managed to say, "Yes, Nana."
"Would you like some pound cake? It didn't turn out very well for some reason, but Bruno seems to like it."
Bruno was Willie's dog, an elderly beagle with hip dysplasia. He tore down the basement stairs, ran eighteen quick laps around Mick the Mick and Willie, and then barreled, at full speed, face-first into the wall, knocking himself out. Mick the Mick watched as the dog's tiny chest rose and fell with the speed of a weed whacker.
"No thanks, Nana," Mick the Mick said.
"It's on the counter, if you want any. Good night, boy
s."
"Night, Nana," they answered in unison.
Mick the Mick wondered how the hell they could get out of this mess. Maybe there was some way to separate the coke from the cake, using chemicals and stuff. But they wouldn't be able to do it themselves. That meant telling Nate the Nose, which meant San Francisco Hot Dogs. In his twenty-four years since birth, Mick the Mick had grown very attached to his penis. He'd miss it something awful.
"We could sell the cake," Willie said.
"You think someone is going to pay sixty thousand bucks for a pound cake?"
"I dunno. Maybe. Some people ain't so bright."
Truer words were never spoken, Mick the Mick thought.
"No junkie is going to snort baked goods, Willie. Ain't gonna happen."
"So what should we do? I—hey, did you hear if the Phillies won? Phillies got more legs than a spider. And you know what? They catch flies, too! That's a joke, Mick."
"Shaddup. I need to think."
"Okay. I don't think I like the Phillies anymore. Are they called Phillies because they're all named Phil? I think—hey, we got fortune cookies. Lemme see my fortune."
He cracked open a cookie and pulled out a slip of paper.
"Look, it says, 'You are very wise.' I always think it's funny to add 'in bed' after a fortune. That means mine is, 'You are very wise in bed! Ain't that funny, Mick?"
"A freakin' riot, Willie. Now let me think."
Willie tossed Mick the Mick a cookie. "Open yours, Mick! Open yours!"
"How about instead I open your skull with a ball-peen hammer?"
"Do I got a fortune in my skull, Mick?" Mick the Mick cast his eyes about the basement for some sort of bludgeon, but the basement was unfortunately bludgeon-free. So he decided to open the damn cookie. Anything to shut Willie up. "What's it say, Mick?" " 'You will change the world.' Yeah, right." "No!" Willie shouted. " 'You will change the world in bed'!" Mick the Mick couldn't think of an appropriate response, so he rabbit-punched Willie. Even though it didn't solve anything.