Life Among the Tombstones

by H. R. Boldwood

  My breath billowed out in a frosty plume as Doc guided us to Vega’s body. The ME’s office kept the morgue at an even forty degrees to slow decomposition. Doc strolled to the middle table and pulled back the crisp white sheet, uncovering the body of Alejandro Vega. A collective gasp rose through the room.

  A gaping slash in the corpse’s throat smiled up at us. Amid the gore glistened a tantalizing bit of white. Vega’s vertebrae. C1 or possibly C2.

  I glanced at Doc. “Could the elevator cables have done that?”

  Doc shrugged. “Normally, no. Those cables are a twist of steel wire, coated to protect them from wear and tear. But the building was abandoned for a while. The cable lubricant is long gone. With vermin gnawing on them, and no one servicing the elevator, who knows? There’s a lot of metal in the bottom of those shafts, too. He may have fallen in the dark and landed just right, or just wrong, depending on your view. It’s also possible someone might have done a Sweeney Todd on him. Gave him the old Columbian necktie. That’s what we need to find out.”

  Long salt and pepper curls corkscrewed around our vic’s face, framing a scraggly, predominantly gray goatee. He had chiseled features, pocked translucent cheeks, and a thin-set mouth. Dead isn’t an attractive look for anyone, but Vega’s face radiated something akin to harshness. Couldn’t blame him really. Nobody wants to go out like that.

  “Who was this guy?” I asked. “What do we know about him?”

  “He’s in the system,” Doc said, pulling up Vega’s record. “A low-level thug, busted several times, mostly for petty shit. But he also served a ten-year stretch at Huntsville for drug trafficking.”

  “Anything violent?”

  Doc checked his file. “He had a few scuffles in the joint. Put one guy in the infirmary with a shiv in his side. Why?”

  “Because if he was a mean ass mother in life, he ain’t coming back with a smile on his face singing Sweet Caroline. He’s going to have a ginormous ’tude. Actually,” I said, frowning at the wad of shredded pulp that used to be his throat. “He isn’t going to be singing anything. Or talking. He’ll have to write his answers down on a pad of paper.”

  Harry snorted. “Can zombies write?”

  “Hell if I know. You got a better idea?”

  “I’m way ahead of you,” Doc said, pointing out twin rows of tiny sutures deep inside the wound. “I sewed his vocal cords back together for you.”

  A perfect solution, assuming it worked. So why was I still feeling five kinds of hinky about raising the guy? I gave Doc a chance to change his mind.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? Vega is a freshie. Raising a recently deceased corpse is…unpredictable. Bad things can happen.”

  Doc stared at me like I had three heads. “You, Harry and Cap are all armed. If the damn thing gets feisty, just take it down.”

  Spoken like someone who’d never seen a raising go south.

  “Fine by me, Doc. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I centered myself, placed my hands over Vega’s body, and summoned the preternatural power that would deliver him from the world of the dead. The searing heat in my palms morphed into energy and arced from me into Vega.

  “Alejandro Vega, in the name of God, I command you to rise.”

  His lips curved, forming a nearly imperceptible grin, but otherwise, he remained still. A grin. That was something new. The dead are seldom amused at being awakened. Confused? Yes. Disoriented? Absolutely. But amused? Little Allie was curiously unsettled. So was I.

  Closing my eyes, I breathed deep and held the air in my lungs, letting it oxygenate me, cell by cell. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I exhaled, opened my eyes and tried again.

  “Rise, Alejandro!”

  His eyes fluttered open. The subtle curve of his lips remained, giving him an oddly relaxed look, as if I’d just awakened him from a nap.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions, Alejandro. You need to answer them as best you can.”

  He grunted and sat upright, causing his head to flop back and double-dribble against his shoulder blades. His body faced me, but his head faced the wall behind him. I moved to the rear of the autopsy table into his line of sight. He was looking at me upside down. This was the most bizarre raising I’d ever done.

  “Alejandro, why were you at The Crosley Building last night?”

  A string of guttural grunts and groans gurgled from his neck. Apparently, when Vega’s head flopped back, Doc’s stitches had given way.

  Perfect.

  As if the whole shit-show hadn’t been challenging enough, Vega did the one thing I prayed he wouldn’t do. He twitched. Hand to God, folks, I always end up with the twitchers. It’s like they chat me up on their Dead Web Facebook group.

  “Retreat. Retreat,” I yelled, motioning for everyone to get out while they still had the chance. “Biter blowout imminent. Repeat: Biter blow out imminent.”

  The morgue attendant screamed and broke for the door, knocking the autoclave to the floor. Her exit was blocked by DA Farragut and two police officers who had just arrived on the scene.

  “Arrest that woman,” Farragut ordered, pointing to me.

  Vega sprang from the table and landed on his feet, whipping his body upright. His barely-connected bobblehead bounced against his shoulder blades, severing the tenuous connection between his skull and spine. His body crumpled into a twitching heap at the foot of the autopsy table, while his head did a double summersault, landing face-up at the morgue attendant’s feet. She fainted on cue, like one of those little baby goats.

  Vega’s head rolled toward the DA like a bowling ball, gnashing its teeth and making wet, sucking noises as the pulpy flesh of its throat slapped against the floor. When Farragut pony-stepped sideways, the head purposely followed him. The bastard was making a run at my least favorite DA. For two cents, I would have let the roly-poly rotterhead have at him, but the brain bitch would have imploded.

  I played follow the bouncing head, pulled my 9mm and fired a single round of ballistic therapy into Vega’s brain, splattering gray matter across the morgue in an angry arc. That’s when I noticed Opie in the doorway, eyes wide and mouth agape.

  “What?” I asked, holstering Hawk. “Nobody likes ankle biters. Right?”

  Cap, Doc and Harry, Opie, the DA and his minions all stared past me in silent disbelief.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Vega’s still failing body was floundering on the floor like a beached fish.

  What the actual fuck?

  “That’s not supposed to happen, is it?” Harry muttered.

  “I…No that’s not supposed to happen!”

  Harry shrugged. “Maybe he’s like one of those headless chickens, flopping around, after it gets…you know.”

  Vega’s body pinwheeled on the white tile floor like an undead breakdancer. Somehow, despite my head shot, his brain stem was still intact. I drew Hawk and brought him to bear.

  It’s not easy shooting a pinwheeling, breakdancing deadhead directly in the apricot. It took me six shots to nail the 2.5-centimeter target at the very top of his neck. And with every squeeze of my trigger, more of Vega’s tissue splattered the room.

  Doc, saucer-eyed and slack jawed, scanned the carnage. His cheeks blazed. His breath came in jagged bursts. The formerly immaculate morgue would require massive doses of biohazard remediation before he could get his operation up and running again.

  That was his problem. I told him raising a freshie was unpredictable. He needed to man up and embrace the suckage.

  Ignoring Doc’s meltdown, Cap reached into his pocket and produced Vega’s evidence bag. He held its contents out for the rest of us to see: three grand and a truck rental receipt from Hebron, Kentucky. “I’ll bet the bastard drove to tent city and rousted some rotters, baited them into the truck, and then deposited them in the warehouse.”

  Harry nodded. “That would explain the horde. But who had paid Vega and why?

  Good question.

  Talk about scre
wing the pooch. Surrounded by a headless corpse and a corpse-less head, we had no more information now, than when we’d started the raising. The only thing we did have was the change in Doc’s attitude. He roused his traumatized attendant from the floor, then inspected the trail of zushi slathered across his operating theater, courtesy of seven 9mm bullets and Vega’s bowling ball head. Doc’s face instantly morphed from royally pissed red to fuck-you fuchsia. I girded my loins for the tirade coming my way in four, three, two, one —

  “Never again, Nighthawk. You hear me? Never again. Not in my morgue. Look what you did! You—”

  “You asked me to, Doc. You called me and specifically asked me to come here and raise—”

  “I was backlogged as it was. If the press finds out about this, they’ll have a field day.”

  Cap and Harry pulled me out the morgue with Doc’s rant following us like a rancid fart down the hallway. I hadn’t known Doc very long, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t like me much.

  I can’t imagine why.

  Farragut followed me into the hallway and shoved his finger in my face. “You should have quit while you were ahead, Ms. Nighthawk. That’s two corpses you’ve raised without the consent of the DA’s office.”

  “Not true,” Opie said, exiting the morgue on Farragut’s heels. Opie handed our notarized agreement to the DA and did his best to look intimidating. “We got our authorization, sir. We just went around you to get it.”

  “That’s a dangerous game, Mr. Andrews.”

  “Not as dangerous as sticking your finger near my mouth.” I snapped my teeth and slapped Farragut’s hand away from my face.

  Farragut’s eyes turned icy. “Careful, body snatcher. I’ve got a nasty bite myself.”

  Convinced that I’d caused, created seen enough mayhem for one day, I turned on my heel and headed out the door to the parking lot for a breath of fresh air.

  Big mistake.

  16

  Run This Up the Old Flagpole

  No sooner did I hit the sidewalk than Jade Chen rushed me, microphone in hand, and wallpapered herself to my hip. “Miss Nighthawk, is it true you raised yet another corpse without securing a court order?”

  Freaking news floozy. “No. In fact, it is not true.”

  “But our sources—”

  “Yeah? Well. Your sources suck rocks,” I said, resisting the urge to cram the microphone down her tiny, perfect throat.

  Opie pushed through the doors behind me and stepped into the melee, making a beeline for Jade. “Ms. Chen, I’ll be answering your questions today.”

  The media hive swarmed Opie, leaving me behind faster than yesterday’s sushi.

  Harry strolled alongside me and whispered, “I’ve never met a real, live cadaver diver before. Can I have your autograph?”

  “Bite me, Harry.” We walked to the parking lot in silence, listening to Opie finesse the media. “He’s not half bad,” I said.

  “Especially since he’s free.” Harry opened the door to his Crown Vic and ducked inside. “I’m headed back to the office to check out Veronica’s phone records and bank balances. You working tonight?”

  “Six to closing,” I said, peering into his passenger window. “Got a couple Guinness’s with your name on them. See you then?”

  “It’s almost like you know me, partner.”

  I left the morgue feeling proud of myself. It was only one o’clock, and I had successfully alienated two asshats who considered themselves my superiors: Doc hated my guts and Farragut wanted me in jail. With all the excitement, I’d forgotten to check in with Cap. I hadn’t earned a place on his shit list yet, but given my track record with authority figures, it was only a matter of time.

  I shifted my Lowrider into neutral, coasted up the driveway, and waved across the yard at Mrs. Nussbaum, not because I could see her peering out from behind her curtains but because I could feel her there. The last thing I wanted to deal with was another skirmish in the Battle of the Bushes. When I slid my key into the back door, it drifted open.

  I froze at the threshold and glanced around the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place.

  Little Allie whispered, Where’s Headbutt?

  True to form, he was lying on the register vent, snoring. Snoring deeper than I’d ever heard him, with an empty burger wrapper inches from his nose.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I slid Hawk from his holster, took a step inside and whispered, “Headbutt?”

  No answer. That dog may have been kinetically challenged, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing. Asleep or not, he would have roused at the sound of the door, let alone my voice. His snores stopped. I watched his chest, hoping to see it fall or rise. It didn’t. I scrambled to his side, took his head in my hands, and whispered his name. And then the world went dark.

  “Mrs. Nighthawk? Mrs. Nighthawk?” A resounding crack pealed in my ears. The side of my face blazed. I opened my eyes to find Mrs. Nussbaum pulling her arm back to deliver another slap. Even semiconscious, I was fast enough to grab her hand and stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life. For future reference, slapping someone in the face to wake them up after they’ve been knocked unconscious is a poor choice.

  “Mrs. Nighthawk? Are you all right? Mrs. Nighthawk?”

  Oh, my freaking head. I rolled onto my side and tried to sit up. A wave of nausea washed over me and sent me crashing face-first to the floor. Headbutt. “Where’s Headbutt?”

  “Big ugly golem right here.”

  The smell of dog breath wafted up my nose and a large wet tongue slurped the side of my face. I opened my eyes and sighed. “You okay, boy?”

  “He seem to be.” Mrs. Nussbaum wrapped one arm beneath my shoulders and helped me sit up. “He wobbly when I get here, like too much whiskey. Better now.”

  “What happened?”

  “Earlier, I just happens to see man on your porch…”

  “Uh huh.” As if she isn’t glued to that freaking window watching every move I make.

  “Then I see you come home and go inside. Later, I look and back door is open. I come. See you on floor, with dog on top like big furry blanket.”

  I stumbled to my feet, ignoring the pain in my head. The room whirled a few times before sliding to a halt. My eyes came to rest on the empty burger wrapper. Somebody drugged my dog. That was the only way they’d get inside without losing an appendage. Whoever it was had thrown a tainted burger through the door and waited until Headbutt passed out to break in.

  But why? Why break in here? Unless the bastard had a taste for Ramen noodles, he wouldn’t find much. I bent over to pick Hawk up off the floor and instantly regretted it. My head throbbed. I opened the cabinet door above the stove and groped for my bottle of Tylenol. A sideways glance into the living room made me moan out loud. The place had been tossed.

  Mrs. Nussbaum clucked behind me like a mother hen. “You call police. Yes?”

  “Absolutely. You bet.” I walked her to the back door, silently inviting her to leave. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Nussbaum. But in the future, if you think I’m in trouble, you should lock your doors and call the police. If anyone had still been in the house, you could have been hurt today.”

  She gave me a worried smile, and as she waddled across the yard to her house, I wondered how I knew for sure that someone else wasn’t still in the house. I hadn’t cleared it.

  Hawk drawn and at high ready, I moved from room to room, double checking my stash of munitions and napalm ‘golf balls.’ Thankfully, they were still locked safely away. Headbutt and I were alone — alone with all our questions. Who broke in? And why? Was it just my luck or was I being targeted? I called Harry and told him about the break in. He said he was on his way, which gave me twenty minutes for a quick shower before he arrived.

  I slipped beneath the hot water and let it pulse against my skin, washing away the bio-chum from the earlier raising (which seemed like days ago), soothing the tension from my neck, and dulling the ache in my head. I didn�
��t want to get out. But I needed to get dressed. I walked to my closet and pulled out some clean jeans, giving Headbutt a kiss along the way. He’d scared the crap out of me. Covered me like a big furry blanket, did he? He was protecting me. I don’t know why I was surprised. He was a hell of a zombie hunter. And I’d have done the same for him.

  Harry’s knees creaked as he squatted to pet Headbutt. “Somebody slipped you a mickey, fella. Gotta keep your head in the game. Don’t let it happen again. Capiche?”

  Headbutt lowered his head, slunk to his register vent and plopped into napping position.

  Harry turned his attention to me. “How’s your head?”

  I ran my fingers across the walnut-sized lump on the back of my skull and winced. “I’ll live. Thanks for asking.”

  A couple of detectives wandered through my house checking for prints and trace evidence. They were none too happy that I’d showered and changed clothes. One of them mumbled something about me “knowing better.” He was lucky I wasn’t in the mood to dance. I picked up my dirty, zushi-stained clothes, threw them at the officers, and watched them recoil in disgust. One of them stuffed the clothes into an evidence bag and I groaned. Great. One more set of clothes donated to the black hole, otherwise known as the evidence room. An industrial hazard in my line of work.

  I scooped up the rest of my dirty clothes and mounded them into a pile to create a path for Harry. He toured the house, room by room, and asked several times if anything was missing. There wasn’t.