A Boy and His Corpse

by Richard B. Knight

  “You don’t have a choice,” Lucifer said.

  Whenever his father looked him dead in the face, Alan got a sense that his father could actually see him. But just as fast, he saw the virulent hatred gleam in his eyes.

  I’m still here, dad! I’m still here! Alan shouted.

  How many times do I have to tell you, he can’t hear you, Lucifer said from the inside of Alan’s body. His voice reverberated as if Alan’s skull was a cave. Scream all you want, you’re just going to tire yourself out.

  Why are you doing this? Alan asked.

  “I need to clean out Hell,” the Devil said before adding, “And because it’s fun.” It really was as simple as that. The Devil was doing this because he was having a good time, and Alan couldn’t do anything about it.

  On the sand in front of him sat three swarthy men with beards of varying length. They chattered to each other and laughed every so often.

  When Lucifer had peeled the parachute off of him following their jump, which even Alan had to admit was exhilarating, the three men were already waiting there smiling and hooting. Apparently, it wasn’t every day you saw people skydiving into the deserts of Afghanistan.

  All three of them clutched handheld cameras and the one in the middle wore a backpack. Taylor Gint, the burly American in the flannel shirt and sunglasses, set up his big camera.

  With the Devil inside his body, Alan knew all sorts of things he never had any idea about before, like how Taylor Gint was also a member of the Undead Militia, and the three men were part of Taylor Gint’s crew. They had received the call a few hour ago to get ready to rock and roll.

  Alan also knew that Mr. Rovas had a wealth of contacts around the world, and he had the president of Israel, Eli Lampel, in his pocket. President Rosewater was just a go-between necessary for the press. Mr. Lampel and Mr. Rovas had been in discussion about Armand Raad for well over a year now. Hell, Mr. Lampel even knew about Mr. Rovas’ plans to use the corpses as robots in case Herbert wasn’t up to the task of assassinating Raad. But everything escalated after the bombing in Tel Aviv, dashing the robot plans because of time constraints. This new development of infiltrating Alan’s body was a prospect Mr. Rovas had never formulated before, but he gave his body willingly to the Devil to make it a reality.

  All this newfound knowledge settled around Alan’s head like a miasma. He even still heard Mr. Rovas’ voice somewhere deep inside of him, struggling to tell him something, but it was so low, he couldn’t make it out.

  “Besides,” Lucifer said, “We don’t need stealth when we have the only two necromancers in the entire world and a lethal weapon at our disposal. We’re going to head in there and bring the noise!”

  “But with what army?” Herbert shouted. “We can’t take them out without at least a few proxy corpses.”

  “There are several dead bodies sleeping underneath these very sands,” Lucifer said. “I can feel them. There are so many, in fact, that we wouldn’t even need that thing over there you call a pet to help us.”

  His name is Mort, Alan seethed.

  His name is ‘who gives a crap’ since we don’t need him, Lucifer responded in kind.

  “I still don’t think it’s wise to go in full force like that,” James said. “We don’t even have a means to get there. How far are we from Pakistan anyway?”

  “About 70 miles or so,” Taylor Gint said as he continued to set up his camera.

  “Seventy miles?” Herbert exclaimed.

  “Yeah, give or take.” The sun glinted off his sunglasses.

  “Relax, we’re not walking there,” Lucifer said.

  “Oh, no, then how are we getting there then?” Herbert asked. “Are we teleporting or something?”

  “No need. Look.”

  Alan followed Lucifer’s finger to two gray jeeps trundling toward them in the distance. They rocked back and forth in the sand as they came nearer and nearer.

  “What am I looking at here?” James asked. He squinted underneath a hand that he rested above his eyebrows.

  Taylor Gint pointed in the same direction as Lucifer and said something in a foreign language to his men. The one with the backpack flung it off his shoulder and brought it down in the sand. He pulled out a laptop.

  “What’s all this about?” Herbert asked Lucifer. “What are they doing?”

  “Setting up a shot,” Taylor Gint answered for him.

  “Why?” Herbert asked Lucifer again rather than the cameraman.

  “They’re going to record our first big move,” Lucifer answered.”Shock and awe, remember?”

  “But they look armed,” James said.

  “Which will make what we’re about to do them look all the more impressive,” Lucifer said. “Just make sure you don’t get yourselves killed, alright?”

  No! Alan thought, reaching out to Mort and thrusting forth all of his energy to reach him. The push felt like ripping off a hundred Band-Aids on a fresh wound all at once. Stop him, Mort! Please! I’m begging you!

  For a moment, the corpse picked its head up and blinked in recognition. But then, it dropped its head again just as fast.

  Wait, was that me or…?

  Lucifer rubbed his eyes and a searing headache shook Alan to the core.

  If you ever try that again, I’ll put your pet under the ground for good, Lucifer told him. Just try me.

  The two jeeps came closer and closer. Dark skinned men in tan camouflage wearing turbans rode in the jeeps. Alan counted five in each vehicle. They were armed with what looked like machine guns.

  Taylor Gint got to one knee and took aim as if he held a bazooka over his shoulder rather than a camera. He kept it focused at a low level. His men set up equipment on a towel that they took out of the backpack.

  “I don’t like this,” Herbert said, backing up. “We’re totally exposed.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Lucifer said.

  Please don’t get my dad killed, Lucifer. Please!

  That’s more up to you than me, kid, Lucifer said. Give over your body completely to me and don’t resist. I’m going to need everything you’ve got to make this work.

  Alan didn’t like the idea of receding even further into himself, but he didn’t see any other choice. The men riding toward them didn’t look like the sort of men who liked to talk things out over soda and chips.

  Alan closed his eyes and pushed himself deeper into himself until it was like there was a layer of glass in front of him. His entire body felt numb now, but he could still see through his eyes. He wondered if this was what Mort felt like on the inside, if Mort could feel anything at all.

  The jeeps stopped several yards in front of them. The driver in the first jeep shouted something in a foreign language and Taylor Gint walked up to him with his camera. He said something back, but the driver immediately started shouting. The people in the back jeep started shouting, too. Alan saw his hands rise in front of his body and flash green. His father’s hands flashed green, too.

  “It’s showtime!” Lucifer said.

  At the sight of dark magic, the men in their jeeps pointed their guns.

  Lucifer raised his arms over his head. His hands glowed brighter and decrepit arms sprung up from beneath the sand. The armed men screamed and started shooting the ground. James took his opportunity and pulled the men from the jeep as if he were scooping up oysters and snapped their necks in seconds. Snap, snap, snap, snap, crunch!

  The panicked driver in the second jeep threw the vehicle into reverse, but before he could make his retreat, Lucifer raised his hand and the vehicle lifted off the ground entirely. Screams from the men inside the Jeep were cut short when Herbert shot out five green blasts. His power killed them instantly. Their dead bodies fell to the Earth in a short chorus of dull thuds. Lucifer lowered the jeep down out of the air and raised the other hand. The dead men picked themselves up and awaited orders—five new recruits in the Undead Militia, ready for action.

  “Did you get all that?” Lucifer asked the camera man
.

  Taylor Gint smiled and made a circle with his thumb and index finger. “Every last shot.”

  “Good,” Lucifer said. He walked over to the camera and smiled into it. Alan saw himself in the lens. “What you just saw isn’t a hoax, America. Magic is real and you just saw it right for your own eyes. Those corpses you saw before are real, too, and they’re under my control. We’re coming to get you, Armand Raad. Your day of reckoning is here. Stay tuned, America.”

  He nodded to the camera man who nodded back to him, flicking off the camera.

  “Alright, get that footage to the email address I gave you.”

  Herbert’s mouth was practically down to his collarbone, as was James’.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Herbert asked.

  “You just gave away our plans,” James said.

  “Yep,” Lucifer said. “and the rest of the world is going to have a front row seat. Don’t look so shocked. Didn’t I tell you we wouldn’t have to walk? Shock and awe, Herbert. Shock and awe. Let’s go.”

  Lucifer got in the driver’s seat of the jeep, and James and Herbert reluctantly climbed in beside him.

  What about Mort? Alan cried out.

  Do you promise to be a good little boy from now on? Lucifer asked. No tricks?

  No tricks, Alan said. Just don’t leave him here!

  Okay, I won’t, but no more tricks!

  Okay, I promise.

  Mort walked over at Lucifer’s command, and crept into the seat next to Herbert.

  “Alright, let’s move out,” Lucifer said. “To Pakistan or bust.”

  President Rosewater

  “We’re coming to get you, Armand Raad,” Alan Chandler said directly to everybody at home. “Your day of reckoning is here. Stay tuned, America.”

  Rosewater stared at the TV screen in horror. At the bottom of the screen it read, “All a Hoax?”

  “How have you not seen this already?” Tom Mitchum asked. “It was all over the internet an hour ago. The networks must be just picking it up.”

  The footage ended with none other than Herbert, James, Alan, and the corpse that killed Agent Heinzelman, riding off in the jeep together into the morning sun.

  As the reporters came on the screen with scared, baffled eyes, the phone rang on his desk. Rosewater snatched it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Where have you been?” Mr. Lampel asked.

  “I’m busy now,” Rosewater said and he slammed down the phone. Before the phone could ring again, he unplugged it.

  “What did you do that for?” his advisor asked.

  “I need to think,” Rosewater said, rubbing his temples. What he really needed was for Mr. Rovas to fix all of this. But the reality of the man’s death finally sank in. He wasn’t in the recent footage after all, and there was no way in Hell he would he let the secret out. Especially not like this.

  Dammit, Mr. Rovas. What happened after I left?

  “I’m calling the Vice-President,” Tom Mitchum said.

  “No!” Rosewater shouted, much louder than he wanted to.

  “He needs to get out of the air and get over here. We need to discuss this.”

  Rosewater walked over to his advisor, and put his hand on his shoulder. He used the same calm, reassuring grip he used when he pressed Proletariat flesh.

  “Tom, please take a seat,” Rosewater told him. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  The advisor stopped pushing buttons on his phone. He stared deeply into the President’s eyes and sat down.

  “It can’t be real,” a blond reporter said on TV. The banner at the bottom of the screen now read: “Breaking News: Afghanistan Possibly Under Attack”.

  “What’s going on?” Tom Mitchum asked.

  The President exhaled. Where should he begin?

  James

  James sat in the backseat of the jeep with Mort. He turned and looked out the back at the other jeep. Taylor Gint aimed his camera squarely at him as two other cameramen directed their lenses to the mostly flat terrain. The third member of the camera team sat behind the wheel.

  Nimruz Province wasn’t what James typically thought a desert should look like. In other words, it wasn’t like Arizona or Nevada. The air wasn’t as stifling and the sand was a bit “sandier” if that made any sense. There were even some dromedaries walking along the side of the road. It was kind of nice. A light breeze calmed his nerves, and for a moment, it made him think of his last memories with his family. They had taken a road trip and a similar breeze had drifted through the car. But that peaceful feeling dissolved when he remembered where that vacation eventually led him to— Mandolin Arsenal, the bane of his existence.

  James scowled and leaned in forward. “Why’d we leave the main road?”

  The entity looked back and smiled.

  “We’re heading to a cave,” he said, driving with only one hand as he rested his elbow on the back of Herbert’s seat.

  “What do you mean?” Herbert asked. “You said we were going to Pakistan.”

  “We are.”

  “Then what’s all this junk about going to a cave?” Herbert asked. The sand crunched underneath the jeep’s tires. “Raad doesn’t live in a cave. He lives in a mansion just like all the other dictators.”

  “Yes, but he’s probably not there right now,” the entity said. “He’ll likely be at his secret hideout now that we announced ourselves. Don’t you see? We’re drawing him out of his mouse hole.”

  Herbert crossed his arms and grimaced.

  “I’m sorry. Why did we announce ourselves again?” James asked. “I still don’t get that part of your plan. It seems…foolish, if you don’t mind me saying.

  “It’s not foolish at all,” the entity said. “It’s actually the smartest thing anybody could have possibly done.”

  “You mean dumbest,” Herbert said. “They’re going to be waiting for us now, armed to the teeth. That’s if we even make it there.”

  “Oh, we’ll get there alright,” the entity said. “It’s all about the show.”

  “About that,” James said. “Is that nutjob behind us part of the Undead Militia, too?”

  “Who, Taylor?” The entity asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

  James nodded.

  “Yeah. He’s an interesting guy. Mr. Rovas had him on speed dial just in case he had to expose the Undead Militia for some reason. It’s a little fuzzy in my mind as to why he thought that was a good failsafe, but he did. So I decided to give him a call. He got to the base soon enough, less than half an hour after my call, camera in tow.”

  “This plan still doesn’t make any sense,” Herbert said. “Raad’s going to know we’re coming. We’re probably going to get ambushed by the Taliban.”

  “Raad thinks too highly of himself to not blow us away on National TV, now that he knows we’re coming. He’ll likely get all of the Taliban to come outside the cave and help him.”

  “You’re just guessing,” Herbert said.

  “Speculating, Herbert. Speculating. There’s a difference. Raad isn’t the paranoid type like some of the other terrorists you’ve taken out. He likes attention. He thrives on it. You should have seen him laughing his ass off after the Tel Aviv incident. If you had studied him more rather than focusing on your waning health, you would know that by now. Raad likes to make a big show of things, which is why I like him.”

  Herbert scowled.

  “Besides, this will all lead in well with your Undead Wrestling league, or whatever it’s going to be called. And isn’t that what you want for your son in the long run anyway? For him to be happy?”

  “What are you getting at, Satan?”

  Satan?! James knew the entity that had taken over Alan was some evil magic, but he never imagined they were dealing with the Devil himself. He stared at the back of the entity’s head without blinking.

  “First, please call me Lucifer. I detest the name Satan. It’s ugly. Secondly, after we take out Raad, everybody is going to want
to see what else the two of you can do. You’ll have the whole world’s eyes on you before you even have your very first show.”

  James saw the hairs on the back of Herbert’s neck bristle.

  “I don’t trust you,” Herbert said.

  “Your loss,” the Devil said.

  There was a great silence in the jeep until James bolstered up the courage to speak up. So what if it was the Devil? He didn’t seem all that tough.

  “And what about me? You’re going to keep your promise to me, right?” James asked.

  “That depends. Are you going to keep your promise to me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You told me that you were going to kill Armand Raad for me when you got the opportunity. Does that offer still stand?”

  It was James’s turn to scowl. Not because he minded the prospect of killing the man—he just killed five people in less than 30 seconds a few miles back and he had no remorse at all. No, it was because he knew, just like Herbert, that this entity, this Devil, had something up his sleeve.

  If only there was a way I could get Herbert alone so I could talk to him in private.

  “I always keep my promises,” James said and Herbert spat out the side of the jeep.

  “Like the ones you kept to my boy?”

  “Look, I never promised Alan anything.”

  Herbert never turned his face. “When this is all over, I’m going to put you and your family in the hospital.”

  James balled his fists. “Listen, Herbert, because I’m only going to tell you this once. You can threaten me all you like, but don’t you dare threaten my family.”

  “It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

  Careful, James. You still want him on your side, a voice in his head told him, but James was never one to follow his own good advice.

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like you were actually around enough to know what kind of ‘promises’ I made to your son in the first place.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was only out protecting the country,” Herbert said, and as he said it, a look of pure hatred settled in his rheumy eyes. “But I don’t have to explain myself to the likes of you. Like I said, as soon as this is all over, watch your back.”