inherit the earth

by Hunter

  He had eyes that made Clint Eastwood at his most bad-ass look like a wounded puppy. He had a stare that would make Hannibal Lecter cough up his wallet with a whimpered apology. He had a look that made a crocodile seem like a snuggly pet in comparison. He had the eyes of a dead man.

  It worked out well, since that was exactly what Carpenter was.

  He hefted the hammer, enjoying the feel of it in his hand. It felt like a part of him, a natural extension of his body. And right now it was the only thing keeping him anchored in the living world, inside the dead body in which he dwelled. • • • •

  Lupe stretched and took a deep breath, noting the time with faint surprise. She’d been poking at all this for too long. Time to get on the job, pick up some fares, make some money.

  She powered down the computer and headed for the door, grabbing her automatic and shoving it in the pocket of a windbreaker along the way. She was on the streets a few minutes later, the sign on the roof of her taxi indicating that she was In Service. Her mind was still on the latest and possibly most unusual of monsters she’d yet encountered in the hunt.

  Lupe wasn’t as gung-ho as some hunters. Oh, sure, she went balls-out against a clear threat. But she agreed with some folks like Bookworm. Evil wasn’t always easy to figure. Some of these walking dead were tortured souls; they might deserve her compassion instead of her anger. Most of the time that still boiled down to sending them back to the grave, but Lupe didn’t normally shoot first and ask questions later unless someone was in immediate danger.

  Of course, some of the bastards were so tough that you could shoot first and they’d still be plenty able to answer questions after.

  Anyway, this Carpenter. She knew he was a zombie — a walking corpse, a rot, one of the undead. But he’d gone out of his way to give her and her fellow hunters a lot of useful information on how to take down things like him. So why would he do that? Why give your enemy a loaded gun and help him point it at your head?

  And then there was that cryptic ranting message he sent just before he vanished from hunter-net. Was it a warning? A prophesy? Or one last jerk-around, a dramatic exit so they’d be appropriately awed by his mystery and power.

  Lupe knew plenty of guys like that. She’d dated enough of them to recognize the type in a heartbeat. Full of themselves, had to lord it over everyone else. But insecure, too, had to keep proving how impressive they were, shoving it in your face. Men. Most were just overgrown kids with half a brain, and that was in their dicks.

  She cruised up Michigan Ave, wondering idly about the sex drive of the undead. She imagined they didn’t have any to speak of, being walking corpses and all. Ultimate kind of impotence, probably not even a dose of Viagra big as Texas could trigger a response. Lupe remembered this guy, Hi-Lo, she saw a little while in the days before her time in the joint. He was funny; she’d liked that he wasn’t always Mister Macho bad-ass like most of the crew. But he’d changed when they were in the sack. He was urgent, almost angry. But then he couldn’t get it up. He’d gotten furious. She hadn’t thought it was a big deal, even laughed about it. He could always take a joke, right? But Hi-Lo had yelled, called her a cheap bitch and what did she think was so funny? He’d thrown things, ranted and raved. He’d struck her. Lupe had kicked him in the nuts and gotten the fuck out of there, pulling on her clothes as she stormed through Hi-Lo’s parents’ living room.

  That was the end of her and Hi-Lo. He’d never said anything about it, whether embarrassed about getting nailed in the nads by a girl or fearing Lupe might spill about his little “difficulty, ” she didn’t know. Didn’t much care, either. Nobody hit Guadalupe Droin.

  Didn’t much matter in the long run, though. Hi-Lo got his gray matter sprayed all over the front window of a convenience store three weeks later during a hold-up.

  Lupe shuddered at the memory of the life she’d been in. But think about that rage, that embarrassment. Hi-Lo was just a punk kid who couldn’t get his dick up one night and he went ballistic. Think about some shambling thing out there that can never get it up again. Hell, can’t do any of the normal things people take for granted, like eat and shit and maybe even sleep. That had to create some serious anger, especially getting out in the world and seeing everyone around you all happy and alive. Make a body mad enough to kill, you know?

  • • • •

  Carpenter realized he had no idea what time it was — hell, not even what day it was. How long was he out? Since he’d slipped into this body he’d never been able to sleep as such. Closest he got was a kind of hazy trance state. It wasn’t restful in the real sense of the word, but it did the job. It also left him aware enough to note the passage of time, at least generally.

  This bizarre collapse was different. Everything was a blank for… well, he didn’t know for how long. Kind of the point of why he was wondering, right? Details were slowly returning, though, the curtain slowly being pulled back to remind him who he was and what he was doing.

  He called himself Maxwell Carpenter. He used to be a Chicago gangster in the Prohibition days, a thug, one with potential. Then he got killed, betrayed by the woman he loved. His body was destroyed but his soul lived on, the pain of betrayal too strong to let go of the living world completely. Then he saw that bitch marry a rival, a punk so mewling and weak he didn’t even have the stones to kill Carpenter himself. Had somebody else do it; just stood there and watched. The pain inside Carpenter — the pain that was Carpenter — curdled to hate. That hate fed on itself, and soon it wasn’t enough. Carpenter began feeding on the hate of others, the pain of betrayal making it all go down easy. Hate and pain were his fuel, they kept him going through the years in the spirit world, planning his return, planning his revenge.

  And then something happened in the spirit lands. Carpenter didn’t know what it was; didn’t care, truth be told, except that it gave him the break he was looking for. The shroud separating the worlds of the living and dead weakened enough that he broke through, found a physical vessel as a substitute for his original, long-lost form.

  He was in the living world again, and the time had long since come to exact his vengeance. Carpenter worked up to it, slowly destroying the world his former love had made for herself, letting her come to realize as those around her fell to strange “accidents” and “random attacks” that something was coming. That payback was coming. Frail and weak from the passage of years, she could do nothing but see all that she had slip through her fingers, could merely wait until the time came when she would face the specter of her own death.

  Then the bitch had to go and die of natural fucking causes before he was ready!

  Carpenter gripped the hammer so tightly the wood creaked, almost snapping. His memories were clear now. He’d been online, trying to manipulate those simple-minded “monster hunters” into helping him advance his agenda. Been going fairly well, too. They found out what he really was, but he’d had enough honesty on the hook that they were willing to listen while he reeled them with the lie. He looked at the headset. Used, whaddayacallit? Voice-recognition software? So he wouldn’t have to type. Hated typing. Pain in the ass.

  Anyway, getting ready to bring the whole plan home when he’d felt a spiritual earthquake. At the same time, a surge went through him, like grabbing the third rail and mainlining the juice. The combined pain and pleasure of it all was impossible to describe. But he knew the source, knew it as intimately as he knew his own thoughts: The bitch was dead.

  Annabelle Sforza was dead.

  • • • •

  Lupe made the rounds on autopilot. Working the cab was pretty easy, for the most part. Being a woman could’ve been a problem but she wasn’t some naive soccer mom or anything. She knew the supernatural weren’t the only monsters out there; growing up on the streets in Chicago had made her tough and foolish and her time in the joint had smartened her up considerably. Most recently, her time on the hunt had tempered her resolve, giving Lupe the inner strength to stand up to most any threat. Some punk figuring
she was an easy mark for robbery or rape had only to be on the receiving end of her cold stare to make alternate plans.

  That kind of excitement didn’t happen often, though. Today was proving to be pretty quiet, which was fine by her. She knew her subconscious was trying to unearth something important about this Carpenter. She had to decide whether she should hunt him down or not, and whatever was scurrying around under the floorboards of her mind was more than likely the key to that decision.

  While her subconscious went about its work, Lupe continued pondering the motives of the undead in general, with Carpenter as a representative sample. Were the dead pissed about being dead? Lupe figured more than likely. From what she’d seen, most of them just wanted to rest. They couldn’t in their current conditions, though, and that drove them to do some pretty fucked-up things.

  She wasn’t one of those bleeding heart hunters willing to excuse the monsters because they weren’t responsible for their condition. That was bullshit, far as Lupe was concerned. They might not have planned to be what they were, but they had no right to prey on the living, terrorizing normal folks for God only knew what kind of fucked-up agenda.

  Lupe wondered what Carpenter’s agenda was. Specifically, why had he contacted the hunters? Given them so much information on how to destroy zombies and ghosts and vampires and the like? Because he was stuck here maybe, couldn’t go to his final rest unless someone sent him on his way?

  No, that didn’t ring true.

  Lupe wasn’t a psychologist, but Carpenter didn’t seem like the type to suicide, which is essentially what that kind of approach amounted to. So what did that leave?

  Her thoughts were interrupted as she pulled the taxi up to a funeral home. She’d nodded distractedly when her fare, an older couple, gave her the address. It was seeing all the outrageously expensive black sedans around the place that roused her from her reverie. Must’ve been at least two dozen automobiles — it seemed insulting to call them something as crass as “cars” — of the foreign and domestic variety. Made her road-weary taxi embarrassed to be there.

  Lupe shot a look in the rear-view. The old couple seemed a little out of place, too. Their clothes were well cared-for but obviously very old, years out of style. The couple was Italian, which if

  Lupe was prone to stereotypes would make her think maybe the whole funeral was mobbed up. Watching a couple head in from some German roadster in the funeral home parking lot, she figured she might not be out of line with that assumption. If that guy’s sedan was worth more than Lupe’d make in two years, the suit he had on had to cost what she’d bring home in six months. The cost of the jewelry glinting on his wrist and fingers wasn’t even worth calculating. Then there was his dolled-up trophy wife, looking more like she was ready for a night on the town than a funeral.

  She took another look at her fare, he digging his wallet out of threadbare pants to pony up the $12 for the trip. Maybe they were distant relatives, outside the business. Explain why they took a cab instead of riding in style. Lupe chided herself. Italians were a close-knit bunch, much like her own people were. Didn’t make them all Mafia.

  Then she remembered who sure as hell was Mafia, back in the day. On a hunch, Lupe asked the old woman, “Excuse me, who is the service for? ” The woman smiled, a world-weary grimace that conveyed sorrow and polite warmth and made Lupe feel unaccountably guilty. It was a knack grandmothers had; Lupe figured she might learn the trick if she ever made it that far. “My cousin. Annabelle Sforza, ” the Italian lady said. • • • •

  Carpenter flicked his left wrist to reveal the Rolex he wore. He was less concerned about the time (just after noon) than he was the date.

  Checking the little window in the watch’s face, Carpenter saw it was Saturday, almost two full days later than he last remembered.

  He’d been dead a long time, and had picked up quite a bit on how the whole life after death angle played. Now that his thoughts were finally clearing, Carpenter had a good idea what’d happened to him.

  Annabelle Sforza was his strongest link to the living world, his anchor to reality. The strength of his feelings toward her was the main thing that kept him going. When she’d up and died on her own, it’d shattered Carpenter’s ties to the physical world. He’d been in danger of plunging into the Shadowlands, dragged down by his ties to the bitch just like some poor bastard in cement boots tossed into Lake Michigan.

  The bitch might’ve been his strongest link to reality, but she wasn’t his only one. Carpenter had held onto the physical world thanks to his old, worn hammer.

  The tool had started out as a handy chance implement on an enforcement job early in his career. Danny Emilio was nobody special, just one of those lower-level guys always around to lend a hand. Problem was, being around like that he saw a lot. Emilio was trusted — as much as anybody ever was in the Syndicate, anyway — so there was nothing to worry about. Then came the word that Emilio was giving the squeal to Ness and his crew. Johnny Sforza had been sent over to find out what Emilio was really up to; Carpenter went along to help jog Danny’s memory. He wasn’t “Carpenter” yet back then, though. No, that was the early days, when he was plain Dennis Maxwell.

  Carpenter scowled, remembering the good old days and his pal Johnny the Stick. Fucker helped bump him off and took his woman as his wife. If he hadn’t already been dead by the time Carpenter returned — killed by another made guy for putting it to his underaged daughter — Carpenter would’ve loved to have worked good ol’ Johnny for a week or two.

  The shitbird never had the guts to do any rough stuff himself. When Emilio wouldn’t give it up easy, Sforza gave the word for Carpenter — still Maxwell then — to give him an incentive. Sweating a snitch was tough work; you’d think it’d be easy since they squealed so quick to begin with. A lot of them went and got stubborn on you, though, thinking they could dodge the bullet if they clammed up.

  The usual stuff wasn’t working, so Carpenter had cast about for a new tactic. They were in the workshop in Emilio’s garage, and Carpenter grabbed the first thing that caught his eye: an old hammer and a handful of sheetrock nails. He’d gone to work, hammering a nail into the flesh in between the bones of Emilio’s hand each time the squealer lied or played dumb. Had to give him credit; he was a tough little bastard, Carpenter remembered. He put in three nails on Emilio’s left hand and was two into his right before Danny gave it up.

  After they found out what they needed to and took care of Emilio for good, Dennis Maxwell kept the hammer. It was a stupid thing to do, even if there was no way to tell how Danny Emilio finally bought it (if the body ever got found in the first place). Carpenter was about to throw it down the well after Emilio’s body, but something stopped him. There was something strangely comforting about the hammer, its heft, its balance. It felt… right that he should keep it. So he slipped it into his jacket pocket when Johnny the Stick was puking. The guy had no stomach for the rough stuff.

  Work out of the way, they hit one of the local joints for a late dinner and drinks. They were great buddies back then, Johnny the Stick regaling the other fellas about Dennis Maxwell’s performance. “Like a fuckin’ carpenter he was, y’know? Holding fresh nails in his mouth while he brought the hammer down! Just missin’ the pencil behind his ear, y’know? Shoulda seen him, boys! ” The nickname was a foregone conclusion at that point.

  So along with the nickname, Carpenter kept the hammer. He’d used it a time or two since, but it really wasn’t an effective weapon. Not unless the other guy was willing to hold still and let you get a good, solid swing at his melon. Carpenter kept it as a trophy, an indication of his status in the Syndicate.

  By the time he was killed, he’d felt more comfortable being called “Carpenter” than he ever had “Dennis” or even “Maxwell. ” He’d been transformed, and the hammer symbolized the change. When he’d returned from the grave, it was the first thing Carpenter hunted down. He would’ve been surprised the thing still existed if he hadn’t always known it, had pro
tected it as best he could during his years as a ghost.

  Next to Annabelle Sforza, the hammer was Carpenter’s strongest link to the physical world. If he hadn’t been able to grab it reflexively when the bitch died, he probably would’ve been lost. With her gone, it became his strongest anchor.

  Carpenter looked at the hammer again, contemplating the significance of that thought. Annabelle Sforza was dead. He felt it in his soul, but suddenly that wasn’t enough. He had to see it with his own eyes (or, more correctly, the eyes of the body he possessed). Days had passed; was she already buried? Easy enough to find out. He was intimately familiar with her burial plot.

  • • • •

  Lupe barely heard herself thank the old guy for the meager tip and offer them both her condolences. Synapses fired as Lupe made the connection between Annabelle Sforza and the recent subject of her thoughts. After Carpenter started spouting off all his expertise on the undead, Lupe had researched him. Like the others on hunter-net, she hadn’t realized what Carpenter truly was at first. Interestingly, it was another of the dead who spilled the beans on the guy. A ghost actually approached another hunter, Witness 1, and revealed that Carpenter was a rot. She wasn’t predisposed to believe the word of the supernatural, though, so Lupe did some digging. Using what Witness learned, along with the hints Carpenter’d already dropped in previous posts, she poked into the guy’s past. It wasn’t easy, but it helped that Carpenter was so full of himself. Even when he was talking about the habits of zombies and ghosts, he couldn’t resist bringing the topic back around to him — his savvy, his experience, his skill — the guy was quite the egotist. It took a week or so of Internet and library searches, but Lupe finally put the puzzle together. Not a bad piece of work for an armchair detective, if she did say so herself; her time as a hunter seemed to have developed some handy sleuthing skills.