by Mark Morris
They had had their ups and downs like everyone else, but overall theirs had been a happy life. They had never been rich or famous, never done half the things they had said they were going to do, or been to half the places they had said they were going to go. But they had had a lovely home, and two children they could truly be proud of, and every night they had had food on the table. And they had laughed, and they had loved, and they had never run out of things to say to each other.
And now it was over. Arthur was gone. It was the end of a life extraordinary to no one but himself — and of course to those who had loved him.
Flo was almost surprised to find that the tears were flowing freely now. As her vision blurred she reached for the handkerchief that she’d tucked up the sleeve of her cardigan. She dried her eyes and blew her nose, hoping Mr. Saxilby wouldn’t choose that moment to poke his head round the door. No doubt he had witnessed grief in every shape and form over the years, but none of that meant a jot to Flo. She had always hated people seeing her upset. It made her feel weak, naked. That came from her mother. Although he had been the breadwinner, her dad had always been the blubbering baby of the family.
“We women are the strong ones, Flo,” her mother used to tell her. “Stiff upper lip of the empire we are. The real power behind the throne.” Then she would tap the side of her nose and wink. “But don’t go telling the fellers. Best-kept secret in England.”
Flo wasn’t quite the matriarch her mother had been, but she had inherited a little of her steel. Eyes dry, tears under control, she stood up and leaned forward over the coffin to give Arthur a final kiss.
Her lips were less than an inch from his unnaturally rosy cheek when he opened his eyes.
With a cry of alarm, Flo reared back, the sudden movement making her momentarily dizzy. Her first thought was that this was some involuntary reaction. Poor Arthur’s muscles must be slackening as he ... as time passed, and the slight movement as she rested her weight on the side of the coffin must have been enough to cause his eyelids to spring apart like faulty shutters.
But even as she was thinking this he slowly raised his hands and gripped both sides of the coffin. Flo watched in astonishment as Arthur, his face slack and expressionless, struggled to sit up.
He’s still alive, after all! That was her first joyous response. Almost immediately, however, reality kicked in. Although Flo didn’t know the full procedure for preserving a body after death, she did know enough to realize that Arthur’s resurrection was an impossibility.
They drained the body of blood, didn’t they? They drained it of blood and filled the veins with formaldehyde. And hadn’t she read somewhere that they took out the brain and packed the skull cavity with newspaper? That might have been a myth, but one thing she was certain of was that Arthur had had a postmortem, and she had never heard of anyone surviving one of those!
She watched in fascination as her late husband slowly sat up. She wasn’t scared, not yet anyway. What was happening was so unreal that she felt slightly detached from it. Besides, her Arthur had never given her cause to be afraid of him, and she saw no reason why he should start to do so now. She stepped forward, reaching out as if to help him from the coffin (he had become awfully unsteady on his pins over the past year or so) when the door behind her burst open.
Flo turned. Nigel, who at twenty-one was the youngest of the Saxilbys, was standing there, all of a fluster. His ears were red, his eyes were wide and his lips were quivering, as if he were about to cry. He looked at Arthur in abject horror, which Flo found a bit insulting. As if she weren’t even in the room, he turned back to the open door behind him and shouted in a shrill and chalky voice, “Here too, Dad!”
Arthur had now succeeded in swinging one leg clear of the coffin and was probing uncertainly at the floor with the toe of his gleaming right shoe. Instinctively Flo moved forward again, worried that her dead husband was about to fall flat on his face.
“ What are you doing?“ Nigel Saxilby all but screamed, making a grab for her.
Flo snapped a look at him. “I’m going to help my husband.”
Nigel’s neck, swelling out of the collar of his crisp white shirt, was as ruddy as his ears. “But he’s dead!”
“I’m perfectly aware of that, thank you,” Flo said tightly, “but I really don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
Nigel goggled at her. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Finally he spluttered, “They’ve all come alive, Mrs. Jackson. The dead are walking.”
Flo was not entirely sure how to respond. To be honest, she was a bit out of her depth — although, looking at Nigel, she could see she wasn’t the only one.
Faced with something she didn’t understand, she did what she had always done over the years — she pushed it aside. The bigger picture was not her concern, after all. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that my Arthur needs me.”
She half stepped towards her husband again, who had now managed to plant one foot on the floor and was attempting to lift his other leg clear of the high-sided box. Nigel, however, grabbed her wrist tightly enough to make her wince.
“How dare you! Let go of me!” she ordered.
“Sorry, Mrs. Jackson,” Nigel said, looking as though he truly meant it, “but ... he might be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?“ echoed Flo. “My Arthur?”
Nigel cast a look that was both wary and anguished towards the dead man. “Well... yes,” he said. “I know this is all a bit mad, but... haven’t you seen any zombie movies?”
Unable to trust herself to utter a civil reply, Flo stayed silent for a few moments. She took a deep breath and finally said primly, “I can’t say I have. It’s not really my sort of thing.”
“They eat brains, Mrs. Jackson,” Nigel said miserably.
“Who do?”
“The zombies. The dead. When they come back.”
“I see,” she said. “And that’s what you think my Arthur’s going to do, is it?”
“Well... he might.”
She stared at him. In a quiet but imperious voice, she said, “What utter piffle. Now will you kindly let go of me.”
Nigel looked down at his hand encircling her bony wrist almost with surprise. His fingers sprang apart.
“Thank you,” she said, resisting the urge to rub the aching bones, then turned her back, dismissing him. She walked across to Arthur and took his flailing arm. He was still balancing on one leg, trying to drag his other from the silk-lined box in which he had been expected to remain until his cremation.
Arthur did not acknowledge Flo, but neither did he attack her, as Nigel had warned her he might. Instead the dead man simply ignored her. He seemed completely unaware of his wife’s presence, of her hand on his arm. If he had some sinister motive for climbing out of his coffin, he gave no indication of what it might be. He appeared to be moving simply because, suddenly and inexplicably, he could.
Indeed, Flo couldn’t help but think that her husband’s actions were instinctive, almost mindless. Certainly when she looked into his glazed and slightly shriveled eyes she saw no spark of intelligence or recognition or awareness there. Arthur now appeared to be nothing more than animated meat, and the realization of this saddened her so much that she felt like weeping. There was no miracle to be found here, no dignity. On the contrary, it was awful and degrading and pointless.
Even so, she talked to her husband, coaxed him, encouraged him. “Come on, dear,” she murmured. “That’s it, best foot forward.”
Under Nigel Saxilby’s silent but horrified scrutiny, she helped Arthur clamber from his coffin and totter about the room. He did not lean on her, but she was conscious of his dead weight nonetheless, of the puppetlike heftiness of him, of his stale, slightly chemical odor.
After wandering aimlessly around the room for several minutes, Arthur — whether by accident or design — blundered out of the door and into the corridor. Flo escorted her husband as he ambled like a sle
epy drunk towards the front of the building. In front of them, sunlight angled through the stained-glass windows framing the oak front door, filling the wide hallway with pools and beams of rainbow light.
“Where are we going now?” Flo said in hushed, bright tones, as though to a timid child. “Are you showing me the pretty colors?”
A door opened to the right of the front door, and then quickly closed again behind the man who emerged from it. This was Mr. Saxilby senior, portly and bespectacled, a streak of gray in the swept-back fringe of his otherwise black hair. He was wearing a maroon waistcoat over a white shirt and crisply ironed black trousers. He looked pale but composed, as he glanced first at Arthur and then at Flo.
“Oh dear,” he said. “I’m most awfully sorry about this, Mrs. Jackson. It’s an unprecedented event, believe me.”
“I’m sure it’s not your fault, Mr. Saxilby,” Flo replied. She glanced back at Nigel, who was hovering behind her, and couldn’t help adding, “My Arthur’s not doing anyone any harm, as you can see. He just seems to want to ... go for a little walk.”
“As does the late Mr. Hayes,” said Mr. Saxilby, indicating a door on the opposite side of the corridor, from behind which could clearly be heard the blundering thump of movement.
“What’s making them do it, do you think?” Flo asked, but Mr. Saxilby shook his head.
“I’ve no idea, Mrs. Jackson.”
His attempt at a reassuring smile emerged as a ghastly grimace, and in that instant Flo knew exactly what the undertaker was thinking.
He was wondering, as she was, what would happen if all the dead people in the world had suddenly come alive and started walking about. The police or the army would have to go out and round them all up, she supposed. But where would they put them? In prison? In hospitals?
Her mind boggled at the prospect of it. It was terrifying to consider what a world where the dead refused to lie down would be like.
“What — “ she began, and then Arthur collapsed, simply fell to the floor like a dead weight. Flo cried out as he landed on his face, his head hitting the floorboards with a crack. In the room across the corridor she heard a thump as Mr. Hayes presumably hit the deck, too.
For several seconds she, Mr. Saxilby senior, and Nigel simply stood, looking down at Arthur, half expecting him to twitch back into life.
But he didn’t. He just lay there, looking as dead as could be, his limbs floppy as a rag doll’s, his face flat against the floorboards.
“Is he ...” Flo began, and then found she couldn’t choke the rest of the sentence past the obstruction in her throat.
“I hope so,” Mr. Saxilby murmured, then realized what he had said and hastily added, “Beg your pardon, Mrs. Jackson. No offense intended.”
Flo cleared her throat. “None taken,” she said firmly. “What just happened ... well, it wasn’t right, was it? The dead should stay dead.”
“Amen to that,” Nigel said fervently.
———
Bartle Road, Notting Hill,
London, England
Monday, October 22nd, 11:20 a.m.
“That’s it, son. Get it all up. Better out than in.”
Sergeant Wormley stepped back smartly as PC Firth’s retching finally resulted in an almighty fountain of vomit. He glanced around to make sure he and the rookie weren’t being observed by the knot of curious onlookers gathered outside the unassuming semidetached house on Bartle Road. Wormley was an old-school copper, and had always had great faith and pride in the integrity and professionalism of the London bobby. In his opinion it wouldn’t do to have the city’s finest looking anything other than calm and capable.
Not that he blamed the lad. First time he’d seen a bad ‘un to match this he’d chucked his guts up too. Dead junkie his had been, whose remains had lain undiscovered in his filthy flat for nearly a week. The body had been bloated, the flesh black and slimy like old banana skins. Worse, though, had been the stench and the teeming maggots. Wormley had thrown up so violently he’d thought his stomach was about to turn inside out. He’d barely been able to sleep for the next week. Every time he’d closed his eyes he’d seen maggots writhing in the dead man’s empty eye sockets and in the gaping cavity of his mouth.
He patted the back of the young lad, who was bent over double beside him. Having puked into the bushes which screened them, Firth was now spitting out the remainder of his regurgitated breakfast. Finally he straightened up, sniffing, his face pale and sweaty.
“Sorry about that, sarge,” he said. “I feel a right numpty.”
“Nothing to apologize for, son. Happens to the best of us.”
“Bet it’s never happened to you,” Firth said ruefully.
“Oh yes it has. Man who doesn’t react like you did the first time ... well, there’s something wrong with him, I reckon. Human nature, isn’t it? Shows you care. You might think it’s a sign of weakness, but I think it’s the sign of a good copper.”
“The lads’ll still take the piss out of me when I get back,” Firth said.
“Let ‘em. That’s part of the process too. Bit of ribbing, bit of humor ... it’s a release valve, isn’t it? It’s how we cope.”
Firth took a deep breath. He was recovering now, a little color seeping back into his cheeks.
“Feeling better?”
The young PC nodded.
“Good lad,” said Wormley.
“So what do you reckon about this one, sarge? Gangland killing?”
Wormley shrugged. “Could be. Though it’s a bit over the top taking the arms and legs as well as the head. Usually it’s just head and hands.”
“Maybe the victim had tattoos or scars. Something easily identifiable.”
Wormley smiled. The boy was smart. He was always asking questions, always offering ideas.
“Why dump the body in a suburban garden, though? No attempt at concealment?”
Firth frowned. “Maybe the killers panicked? Maybe they thought someone was on to them? Or maybe they wanted the body found — as a warning to others, something like that.”
“All possible,”Wormley said noncommittally.
“But you don’t believe it?”
Wormley smiled. “Now, I didn’t say that, did I?”
“I can tell by your face,” Firth said, smiling back.
Wormley chuckled. “Let’s just say I’ve got access to the bigger picture.”
“So what bigger picture’s that then, sarge?” Firth asked. “Or is it privileged information?”
“Maybe it is privileged information,” Wormley said blandly, “but as far as you and I are concerned, I haven’t been told it’s privileged. Which don’t mean to say you can go blabbing it to all and sundry.”
Firth mimed pulling a zip across his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
Wormley nodded in the vague direction of the taped-off house, which in the past hour had become a hive of police activity. “What if I were to tell you that headless Harry over there is not the first torso found today?”
Firth raised his eyebrows. “I’d say ... how many we talking about here, sarge?”
“Three,”Wormley said. “All different locations.”
“Close by?”
“Relatively. The other two were Fleet Street and Tavistock Square.”
“All north of the river then,” said Firth, “and in a rough line.”
Wormley said nothing. He could see that the lad was thinking it through. He wanted to see what Firth came up with before he dropped his bombshell.
“Busy public places,” Firth mused,”not suburban like this. Were the other bodies out in the open, sarge?”
Wormley felt like applauding. “Good question, son. Excellent question. Because that’s the thing, you see. The bodies weren’t out in the open. Not like this one. They were found in unlikely places. Impossible places.”
“Impossible how?”
“Secure establishments. Locked offices. The one in Tavistock Square was in the headquarters of the British Medical
Association.”
Firth raised his eyebrows. “And the other one?”
“Inside the premises of the Dundee Courier. And get this — it was a woman’s body.”
“A woman?” Firth blanched.
“Which makes the gangland theory a bit less likely, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hmm.” Again Wormley could almost see the cogs whirring in the younger man’s head. Finally Firth said, “Less likely, but still not impossible.”
“Not impossible, no,”Wormley agreed.
Firth sighed. “So what’s your theory, sarge? What have we got here? Gang war or serial killer?”
“What I think we’ve got,”Wormley said, “is a hell of a bleedin’ mystery.”
“Options open, eh?” Firth said.
“Always,” said Wormley.
Firth glanced over towards the cordoned-off house and fortified himself with another deep breath. “Shall we rejoin the party?” he suggested.
Wormley nodded. “Why not?”
Chapter 1
“Damn fire-worm,” muttered Hellboy, shifting in his seat.
“Still hurts, does it?” asked Liz, keeping a straight face.
The scowl he turned on her had caused lesser men to dissolve into quivering mounds of jelly, but Liz was unmoved. In fact, her lips squirmed as she fought a losing battle to keep her humor contained. If his butt hadn’t been stinging so damn much, Hellboy would have relished her childlike glee. A part of him still did, despite the fact it was at the expense of his own comfort.
It was a constant weight in his big old heart that Liz, one of the few people he cared about most in the world, smiled about as much as she slept — which was hardly ever. Amazing then that her face remained remarkably unlined for a woman in her thirties. What stopped her from looking truly young, though, were her haunted eyes, and the great dark crescents beneath them. Hellboy had seen men cast admiring glances towards Liz’s trim, athletic figure, only to flinch when she turned the bruised intensity of her gaze on them.