She headed for the chapel. Kevin and her sister were interred in his family’s plot, not too far from it. Once upon a time, prime real estate. Now? You got charged extra to be buried here, but only because of the hassle associated with getting the machinery in. The backhoe, the earth mover. The casket winches.
All to do a job her great-grandfather had once done by hand.
Formerly the cemetery's centerpiece, the chapel lay in ruin, standing on the verge of collapse, backlit by a pale, quarter-full moon. Aileen made a beeline for it, consumed by guilt. Last week, she’d promised Charlie that she would bring him to visit his parents’ gravesite, and reneged on that promise. The trip had slipped her mind, that was all. When he’d reminded her after dinner, it was already too late. Pete was on his way over, and after all, she’d only be postponing for a day, right? She’d felt guilty about it at the time, but more so now. They’d gone about their grieving differently, she and Charlie. She’d spent the past two years trying to forget. He’d spent the time fighting to remember.
She poked her head in and got a whiff of piss and stale beer. Occasionally, vagrants slept one off up here, which concerned her. She didn’t like the idea of Charlie crossing paths with any of the local drunks, or the teenagers who sometimes used the chapel as a sanctuary for pot-smoking and keggers. The thought of her nephew hooking up with the next generation of the crowd she’d run with not so long ago made her stomach churn. She’d been a teenager, for chrissakes. Charlie wasn’t even in middle school yet.
She was about to move on when she heard something. A clunk-swish, clunk-swish sound coming from inside the chapel. She hadn’t seen any lights, and would’ve assumed it was empty if not for the noise.
She squatted down, taking a closer look at the door saddle. There were footprints going in and coming out, but too many patterns overlapped to tell if any were Charlie's.
Clunk-swish, clunk-swish...
"Charlie?" If he was in here, he was probably hiding, afraid that she’d give him hell for pulling this stunt. Later, maybe she would. Or maybe not. Right now, all she cared about was finding him, and getting him home safe. Maybe she’d even make them each a bowl of ice cream.
She stepped into the gloom, the light unable to completely penetrate the nave’s webwork of shadow. No pews remained, and the spot where the altar had been seemed impossibly far away. The air stank of smoke and vomit, of body odor and something else, something Aileen couldn’t quite put her finger on. She swept the lantern to the right. There was nothing there but the boarded up windows where once, stained glass had been.
She held her breath and listened.
Glurgle-thwick.
Was his nose running? Could that be it? It sounded like it might have been a sniffle.
Shit, maybe Charlie hadn’t planned so well after all. Maybe he’d come in here because he’d gotten cold, and heard his no-doubt righteously pissed-off Aunt coming for him. The aunt he'd had to come live with even though she wasn't ready to raise a kid. Not ready, but forced to. Because she was the only living relative he had, and the alternative...
The alternative had been unthinkable.
"Charlie, it's okay. I'm not mad," she said into the darkness. "Really. Come on, we're here. Let's go do this. We’ll visit them together.”
Glurgle-thwick.
No, not a ten year old boy’s runny nose. Not a sleeping vagrant’s phlegmy snore. Not some pushy high school jock getting sucked off by his sophomore girlfriend.
Glurgle-thwick.
Not…even…close…
What rose from the shadows at the back of the apse chilled her to the core. It was a man, but like no man she’d ever seen before. And, not just because he wasn’t a local. Dunkill wasn’t so small that she knew every one of her fellow townspeople, but that wasn’t it. This man wasn’t just a stranger—no way could he have ever passed for human among them. His eyes were half-shriveled, too small to fill their sockets. Nubs of bone split the shredded flesh at his fingertips. His nose was gone, nothing left but a gap in the center of his face where the nasal cavity yawned wide. He held something in his hand, and for a heartbeat, Aileen thought it was a knife. But he didn’t wield it in a threatening manner, merely brought it to his mouth to suck on its ragged end.
Glurgle-thwick. Glurgle-thwick. Glurgle-
He tossed it aside, finished with it. Aileen watched it skitter out of sight. She didn’t get a very good look, but she’d seen enough to know what it was. A bone. A human rib.
She lifted the lantern. The hideous thing’s face was lipless, smeared with gore. In his hands he held the splintered remains of his victim’s rib cage. As she watched, he snapped one off, and began the process of sucking out the marrow.
Glurgle-thwick. Glurgle-thwick.
The thing eyed her curiously, in no rush to trade his grisly prize for what she might offer. His head movements were jerky, like a patient in a mental hospital plagued with strange tics. She wanted to run. Her brain was screaming for her to turn and flee, but she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she knew.
She sidestepped, not quite moving closer, but shifting enough so that she could see what lay behind him. The zombie’s stench washed over her, making her gag. Acid rose, hot in her throat. She felt its bitterness on her tongue.
Another step. She held the lantern in front of her now, both to extend the reach of the light, and to have at the ready in case the monster decided to make a move on her. It pushed back the shadows, revealing the rear of the apse to her.
The body looked like something you’d see in a war movie, the victim of a land mine or rocket-propelled grenade. He’d been eviscerated. His midsection was a patchwork of shredded tissue, nothing more. The heart and major organs were gone. A tract of vertebrae glistened. The rib cage…well, she already knew what had happened to the rib cage. Whoever he’d been—Aileen wasn’t sure she would have been able to tell even if it was a friend of hers—stared at the ceiling with a single, dull eye. Most of his face had been gnawed away. He hadn’t put up much of a fight, and it was easy to see why. His throat had been torn out. Aileen assumed that’s where the cannibalism had begun. Her gorge rose again, and she took a tentative step back, away from the creature and the carnage, a silent mantra running through her head.
It isn’t Charlie…It isn’t Charlie…It isn’t Charlie…
Bone snapped. Aileen glanced over at the living dead man, who’d exhausted his supply of rib bones. The light seemed to pain him, and when she turned toward him, he shrank away from it.
Something squelched. Aileen stumbled back, the lantern jerking wildly. Shadows danced across the walls like unseen demons. Her eyes found the source of the noise. She couldn’t stifle a cry.
The body on the floor. It was moving.
Its lone, lifeless eye fixed on her as it struggled to push itself up. When its pelvis shifted, a trail of loose bowel spilled onto the chapel’s filthy floor.
Aileen screamed. The sound echoed off the walls, and in the rafters, winged things took flight, screeching in disapproval. Two dark forms hurtled past her, one so close it beat against her hair.
She turned to run, but the moment’s hesitation cost her. The dead thing was upon her, pulling at her sweater, throwing her off balance.
“Get away!” she shrieked, wheeling around and driving the base of the lantern into the flesheater’s soft head. The zombie reeled, but didn’t relinquish its hold on her. The lantern glass shattered.
The base exploded, unleashing a scorching trail of flame. Kerosene sprayed in all directions, setting off a dozen tiny fires. The monster’s hair caught, going up like a torch. Behind it, the gutted thing pulled itself closer, its useless legs dragging behind.
Aileen collapsed under the weight of the burning corpse. Bone stubs stabbed into her as the dead man forged on, ignoring his own immolation. Aileen tried to wriggle free, but the zombie had her pinned, the fire so hot it burned away her eyebrows and lashes. She rolled over in an effort to avoid the flames, hoping that she could claw her
way to the door. A singed hand brushed her cheek. Leathery fingers fastened around her throat.
And then it was all gone. Unimportant. The denim, melting, fusing to her skin. The foul odor of incinerated flesh. The creature’s blazing kiss as his teeth found her exposed shoulder. None of that registered. Not when the fire licked its way up the wall by the door, showing her something she hadn’t noticed earlier. Something that broke her heart, and sapped her will.
The size six work boot, laying there discarded, was the image she took with her into death.
UNMARKED
Warren Bigelow knew a thing or two about waiting. He’d gone to the grave, in fact, a patient man. Of course, he’d had no say in the matter. Nor, truth be told, had he actually gone to a grave. Not a true grave, at least. Just a hole in the ground. A hastily dug one, at that. Spitting distance from the plant, and only a short drag from the car trunk where he’d briefly been stowed before being dumped.
Dumped. Just like a sack of garbage. That was about the size of it, he thought, considering the circumstances of his murder and the way his body had been discarded. No way Elaine was going to be able to bury him now...
He’d been wrapped in heavy-duty plastic, first. Probably SoilPro control-sample bags. Those didn’t have any print or markings, nothing that would tie them to the plant. And, those sons of bitches were thick, all right. You didn’t keep fifty pounds of high-grade fertilizer from spilling out in Heftys.
Empty fertilizer sacks. Of all the…
Warren was not about to overlook this indignity, minor though it was in the grand scheme of things. Like dragging him from the car instead of carrying him. Surely, these were things one could get past when compared with the worst of what had been done to him.
But Warren Bigelow didn’t see it like that. Getting past things…well, that just wasn’t his way.
Oh, it would have been easy enough, he couldn’t deny that. To gloss over how they’d set him up, or to forget about how those involved had lured him to the plant. Far less painful to focus on the cold, calculated brutality of his murder. So much simpler to just fast forward, to skip past the ugliest parts, and zero in on what came next. A lesser man might have opted to do just that. But Warren refused, instead replaying it in his head over and over and over again, trying to recall every last detail.
Which was what he’d done in the hazy darkness, trying to hold it together, before rough hands had stuffed him, face-first, into the bags.
There had been three gunshots. They sounded just like a cap pistol he’d had when he was ten—A genuine Lone Ranger replica six-shooter. They echoed in his memory, hollow and tinny. Then he was going down, fading, fading…
Rewind. Back to the beginning. The slide being pulled back, jacking a round into the chamber. Him slowing, half turning to face the man behind him. Then the thunderclap, and white-hot pain as a fist-sized hole appeared in his gut.
Another explosion. His chest blowing open. Spitting blood. Spitting it, breathing it, choking on it. He remembered being aware of his very essence draining out of him, his life force being expelled with each beat of his heart.
Slow-mo. The final shot tearing out his voice box, blood staining the collar of his freshly-pressed white Oxford.
"You look just like George C. Scott," Elaine had commented while he dressed for work, kissing him on the cheek before sending him on his way. Elaine had a thing for George C. Scott...went back to Patton. Could’ve been worse, he supposed. She could’ve had a thing for Karl Malden. And god knew, Warren didn’t have the nose for Malden.
He’d kept to his routine. Cup of coffee, black and sweet, from Lynne’s Breakfast Nook. A bear claw and the morning paper from Roadside Rick’s—which had great bear claws, but coffee that tasted like it could’ve been brewed with wino urine. Had shown up at Kettner with his notes and reports, prepared to recommend that the company terminate its relationship with U.S. Bioplex & Agriculture, and instead move forward with their own line of new products. It was a business no-brainer. There was still half a year until planting season, and there were plenty of cornhuskers and buckeyes and middle-America farmers who’d jump at the chance to cut their fertilizer and pest control costs in half. It was still possible. If Kettner got its shit together, put its focus back on agribusiness instead of fantasy farming pharmaceuticals, they could finish the testing on SoilPro 4000 and get the financial monkey off their back.
But things hadn't played out that way. He’d first voiced concern following the launch of the company’s genetic modification division, and those concerns had been well founded. Warren had been waiting for months for the money pit to collapse in on itself, for the bean counters to address the drain they were pouring millions of dollars down. Once the deal with Bioplex ended, they would be able to get back to their core business, to products like SoilPro 4000 and their promise to farmers to do what the SoilPro team had set out to do: produce a combination fertilizer and pesticide that would both reduce their workload and significantly cut costs. SoilPro 4000 would be a godsend to farmers. Could possibly even put Kettner in position to corner the '83 market and turn the family owned and operated business into one of the top three agriculture companies in the country.
With proof of the gen-mod division’s failure in hand in the form of a white paper ready to deliver to old man Kettner himself, Warren was about to be vindicated. And, not a minute too soon. His position hadn’t been a popular one. U.S. Bioplex had deep pockets and the inside track when it came to the movers and shakers in Washington who handed out lucrative government contracts. Lobbyists. Congressmen. Rumor had it, even a current cabinet member. They’d been able to ease some of Kettner’s cash flow problems when SoilPro 4000 hadn’t made it to market the previous season. As a result, some people believed favors were owed. Warren Bigelow, however, wasn’t one of them.
The three bullets had changed all that. They’d silenced him—permanently. No room for rebuttal, Warren, no white paper necessary. They’d left him laying there on the sawdust-covered floor, helpless and dying, while Ed Collins and his smart-assed kid duct-taped his arms and legs, wrapping him up tight for the trip down into the weeds.
Warren had still been alive, trying to suck air into his ruptured lung, when the world turned upside down. He dropped into the shallow grave the men had prepared for him, nerve endings ablaze with fresh agony.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, unable to do anything about his predicament. All the while, the dirt continued raining down on him, filling the hole. Burying him alive.
SoilPro bags. Clear plastic. A small blessing, that. He’d seen Ed Collins, standing behind the shovelful that had erased the last glimmer of light. Then, there was only darkness, and the weight of turned earth pressing down on him. His air gradually running out, blood oozing from wounds that hadn’t managed to kill him outright, Warren Bigelow vowed to pay them back.
“If it takes forever,” he wheezed, swearing on the souls of his wife and children. “I’ll get you for this. Every one of you worthless bastards. Every…last…one of you…”
The plastic against his cheek was torn. Tree roots had slithered through the rents, attaching themselves to places where flesh had once covered bone. Warren couldn’t see in the dark, but he knew things had changed. He no longer felt any pain, no longer needed his blood or the flesh that had fallen away from his corpse. He widened a hole in the plastic, allowing grainy soil to pour in. He gnashed his teeth, feeling them give, unsteady in his jaw. He turned his face away from the cascade of earth, and continued to tear at the tattered plastic. Time and weather had dried out the duct tape. It peeled away like ribbons.
Warren shrugged free of his plastic casket, pushing his way through the roots into the open, feeling the night breeze but impervious to its chill.
He searched his face with stick-thin fingers. Teeth. Loose, but accounted for. Cheekbones. Sharp and pronounced, paper-thin skin stretched to the point of breaking. And finally, his eyes.
There was nothing. Nothing there bu
t dirt.
He dug in and scraped them clean. Worms and beetles tumbled out, leaving behind empty sockets. They, or their predecessors, had eaten his eyes.
Warren extended his hand, felt the leathery bark of a moss-covered tree. He stood, using the big old oak for support. He tried to get himself oriented, allowing time for the shakiness in his legs to dissipate. He was in a small hollow, the ground rising away from him. He sidestepped, avoiding the pitfall of his former resting place. Four steps. Five, then something hard, and cold to the touch.
He wrapped his hand around it. Icy, square and solid. Wrought iron. Which could only mean one thing.
He was in the old cemetery. He considered that for a moment, then nodded his approval. It was a good spot. No, a great spot, to hide him. No one would ever come looking for him down here. What better place to hide a corpse?
Now, he had a starting point. If he could make it to Hollyback Road, then he could find his way…
Where? Back home? What good would that do? How long had he been gone? The flesh he’d retained since his unceremonious burial was barely enough to cover his bones. Collins and that dumb-ass kid of him had wrapped his body in plastic. And still, he’d rotted away to almost nothing. It stood to reason that he'd been gone a long, long time indeed.
Questions bounced around in his head. Would Elaine still be living at the house? Would she still be living in Dunkill? Most unsettling…was she even still alive?
Other thoughts intruded. How could he possibly consider such a thing? His little girls didn’t want to see their daddy after all this time, certainly not like this. No, the old adage was true—you couldn’t go home again…especially if you’d just come back from the dead.
Dead Meat Page 4