The Daredevil Corpse (The Departed Book 2)

by Sean Arthur Cox

  I burned for eternity, body ablaze for who knew what reason and all the while, I castigated my soul, evaluating every bad thing I may have done, every shaman and witch I may have angered that might set such a curse upon me.

  And then one day, it stopped and I could open my eyes again. I could move my limbs, but not well. I tried to stand but only rolled and flailed in the dirt. The grass and trees had grown tall and when I tried to crawl through them, I could only grasp at nothing, too weak to even look around.

  “Help me!” I tried to cry out but heard only the garbled cooing of a babe as the unfamiliar tongue in my mouth refused to cooperate. Again I screamed, but it was not my voice I heard. It took some time to realize what had happened. Whatever had befallen me had turned me to an infant, cursed me to live my life over.

  Then the wolves came, drawn no doubt by my feeble cries. They looked so great and terrible standing above my tiny body, as big as bears to a body my size. They devoured me alive, though I cried for help, cried for some hunter, some guest at that long-forgotten inn.

  Then the flames returned, the burning, the endless miseries. Then I was an infant again and soon the predators once more devoured me. Then flames. Then infancy. Then ants and starvation. Then flames. Then predators. Then infancy. I do not know how many times this cycle repeated. Then one day, I came out of the flames into darkness and pressure all around and I could not breathe, and soon the fires overtook me again. Then the cold darkness, the smothering, then flames. Someone had buried me. I flailed as best as my infant arms could, barely displacing the dirt that surrounded me. Then the wolves heard my muffled cries, dug me out, and devoured me again. When finally a wandering hunter found me and took me home, I wanted to thank him for ending my misery, but I could not speak and I had grown quite mad besides. It took me years to regain my wits, which the huntsman and his wife attributed to my infancy and having been abandoned in the woods.

  Years later after I had grown considerably, I learned those woods were cursed, they said. There was a legend of a baby abandoned in the winter long ago, a babe devoured by wolves. They said sometimes you would find the child’s ghost, little more than a skeleton, but if you came to visit the bones later, you would find not a skeleton, but a half devoured infant. Sometimes, they said, you could even hear the child’s cries. They said those who wished to abandon their children due to illegitimacy or deformity would leave them in those woods, confident that people would dismiss the cries as nothing more than the ghost.

  It wasn’t until much later, long after I began to understand my condition that I understood what had happened during those years. I had died an old woman, and while I burned, my body reverted to its original form, good as new and infantile. I awoke from the flames exactly as I was when I first came into that body. And the wolves would eat me. As I lay there dead, my soul plagued with the fires of Hell, my body would try to reform, and the wolves would come and feast, like the prey that kept giving. I was the ghost, and their fears kept them from saving me. By the time the huntsman found me, my daughter had grown old and died, and her grandchildren were now coming of childbearing age. Sixty years of suffering over a superstitious ghost story.

  And when I grew up too smart, knew too much, far more than a mere child should, when I talked about wanting to see my children and when I told them stories of our lands and people impossible for someone my age to know, they declared that I was a witch, that I was a demon in child’s form. They cursed my name and said they never should have taken me from that haunted place. Then they killed me, and I was reborn as an infant once more, alone in the woods.

  Immortality had always been a curse.

  These were the fever dreams that ran through my head as I disappeared into myself, shutting out everything to hide from the pain the Monkey Woman had inflicted upon me and the desperate need to disappear into blissful oblivion that Dan Germany stuck me with.

  I was only vaguely aware of voices around me, and I was too lost to know if they were echoes from my past or the Monkey Woman back for more. I tried to speak, but I was too weak, my mouth too dry to form sounds. Instead I hung there limply like the walking dead that I was. At some point, I felt a sharp pain in my thigh, and I howled an incoherent sound that I was too far gone to even attempt to turn into words. A fight broke out around me. Faces. Didn’t know who. It was all too much. Then a cold sting at my throat and a flowing, sticky heat coated my chest. Motion blurred, and I rasped for something but I didn’t even know what anymore. A distant thud, a crash. Everything got brighter, and I felt the old familiar burn of death. This time, strangely enough, it almost felt like the agony started just a little bit too early, the blistery pain taking over before the world went dark.

  Chapter 22

  OLIVIA

  WITH A DEAD MAN BY MY SIDE

  The wait is interminable. Being stuck half way between Winfield and Independence, Kansas, a place I have never heard of, a place so remote the roads don’t even have names, staying in a place like that for a week with no one to keep you company but a heroin addict who is elbows-deep into withdrawal and a corpse slowly putting itself back together, it can drive a girl a little crazy.

  At first, it’s not so bad. I clean my guns. I go shooting. But the thing about places like this is, there’s no Internet. There’s not really TV either. It’s pretty much just woods and shooting. I visit the nearby lake and swim a little, which is nice, but it doesn’t fill a day, let alone a bunch of days. We’re holed up in an abandoned farmhouse, so there’s not even power or running water. Just this weird hand pump and a bucket. I send Dan into town for food because I figure the chances of him finding anything here are pretty slim. Of course, what do I know? There’s nothing else to do here. I’d probably take up a drug habit if I had to spend my life living in the country.

  He comes back with a bunch of soup which we can’t heat and some peanut butter and jelly, which we can’t keep cool. Sure, jelly isn’t refrigerated when you buy it, but the lid clearly says you should keep it chilled once you open it, and who am I to argue with a lid? I let Dan Germany know what a dumb thing he’s done, but apparently, he’s fine with cold soup straight from a can, and he says the jelly will stay perfectly cool if we keep it half buried in the lake.

  “Just make sure you seal it good and tight first,” he says.

  It’s so crazy, it just might work. “Where’d you come up with that one?” I ask.

  “I grew up in rural Idaho,” he says. “Sure, it gets a little colder in winter, but other than that, it’s not much different from here. You can find the middle of nowhere just about everywhere.”

  He takes a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and smiles deeply. It occurs to me this is probably the happiest I’ve seen him since I’ve met him. “Thanks for picking this place,” he says. “If I’m going to get clean, this is the place to do it. It’s so peaceful.”

  “If by peaceful, you mean boring, then yeah.”

  “If by boring you mean not rushed everywhere, bombarded by distractions, then yeah.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “What’s the appeal? It takes forever and a day to get anywhere. I can’t go online. No forums. No YouTube videos. No Netflix.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “You’re free to take your time. You can catch your breath. You get rid of all of those people yelling in your ear saying buy this, watch that, you can really get to know yourself. Find out what you want and not what they want you to want. I doubt I ever would have become the man I am today if it weren’t for places like this.”

  “Really?” I say, more teasing than serious. “Why? Did you get bored as a kid and drive off a cliff figuring anything is better than this?”

  “Sort of,” he says and takes another bite. “You play in the woods. You climb trees. And you fall, and it doesn’t kill you, so you get a little braver. You build a rope swing into the river, and one day the branch breaks and it comes crashing down on you while the river tries to sweep you away, and it doesn’t kill you, so you get
a little braver. You drive your four-wheeler over that hill, not realizing the rains washed out the road, and you crash and it doesn’t kill you, so you get a little braver. Then one day you’re with your high school buddies and you’ve had a few beers and all that bravery says, ‘You know what? I bet I could do that dumb thing.’ And you do it, and maybe you get injured and maybe you don’t, but it doesn’t kill you. And people are talking about that thing you did at the party Friday night, and people are saying ‘Man, I’d pay ten bucks to see Danny do this other dumb thing.’ And maybe you want to take Mary Sue or Bobbi Jean to the movies next weekend and you could use that ten bucks. Scratch is scratch. So you do that dumb thing too. Pretty soon you have a reputation. You’re doing shows for your friends. For county fairs. For state fairs. For local TV specials. You’re on national TV. You’re on lunch boxes and t-shirts and cartoon shows. All because you grew up in a place like this.”

  “So how does that put a needle in your arm?” I ask, hoping it doesn’t come off as mean. “Is that because you’re from here too?”

  “No,” he says. “That’s because you stop being brave. You get scared. You stop working, and now maybe you don’t believe in yourself so much anymore. And then you’re scared that’s all you ever were and all you ever will be because you aren’t on TV anymore. Someone else is on lunch boxes. And you’re watching the news one day and you see some guy was killed by his neighbor and you realize you’ve lived in your apartment for ten years now and you don’t even know what the lady across the hall looks like, and you get a little more scared. And everyone has forgotten you and you’re holed up in your apartment and you’ve forgotten who you are too, and it hurts because something’s wrong. Something’s missing, and the TV keeps trying to sell you things to fill that hole, but it never goes away, until one day someone says, ‘Here, do this dumb thing, it’ll make you forget all about that hole,’ and you do that dumb thing and it does. And when you come out of it, that hole is a little bigger, but that’s okay because you can forget about that hole too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “The first few days were the worst here, but it’s better now. I’m used to the quiet. I can hear myself again. I can get to know myself again without someone else shouting in my ear who I am.”

  “Good,” I say, and I find that I genuinely mean it. “That’s good to hear.”

  Dan’s cell phone rings and I nearly jump out of my skin from shock. I deliberately picked a place near a cell tower so his mysterious stunt coordinator could reach us when everything was ready, but I’ve gone so long without contact from the outside world, I have almost forgotten it exists.

  Dan fumbles with the lock screen for a moment. “How do I make this confounded thing work?” he asks.

  I unlock the phone for him and answer. “Hello?”

  “Who is this?” says a man’s voice.

  “This is Dan Germany’s assistant,” I say. “How may I help you?”

  “His assistant?” asks the voice. “I loaned him money to pay for necessities. Not assistants. Put Dan Germany on the phone.”

  “Uhhh, I’m afraid he’s not available right now,” I say, and give Dan the oh-crap-we’re-screwed face.

  “What’s going on?” Dan asks.

  I cup my hand over the microphone and whisper, “He wants to speak with Dan Germany.”

  Dan gives the hand-it-over gesture and I do, more than glad to let him handle it. I hate double talk.

  “Hello, Calvin Watkins… Yes, it’s me… More like a bodyguard than an assistant… I’m sure you’ve seen the news, what with the shooters and the car accident and everything... Well that’s good to hear… Not yet, but really soon… I don’t know. Really really soon… We’ll head on over then… Sounds good… bye.”

  He tosses me the phone. “Hang that up for me.”

  “What was that all about?” I ask, pressing the hang up button for him.

  “Stunt’s all set up and ready to go except for the explosives and that immortal woman. I told him she should be up for it soon.”

  “She?” I ask.

  “Yeah. The person pretending to be me, all that magic I was telling you about? It’s some woman who does it.”

  A woman? It was a man last year. Could there be more of them? “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “She said she recognized you from last year. Said you killed her a few times. Said you were good at what you do. After seeing you in action, I’m inclined to agree.”

  “Thanks.”

  So, it was him. Or her. Whichever. I don’t know why it should be such a surprise that he could be a woman. I knew he was magical, that he could turn into anyone, but it never occurred to me he could be anyone anyone.

  “Anyway, I was checking out the body this morning. The toes aren’t all the way back, but other than that, she’s recovered. I figure we can probably sit her in the back seat and prop her head against the window with a pillow, make it look like she’s sleeping. I know I wouldn’t want to wake up in the trunk of a car after everything that happened.”

  He wasn’t wrong, and though I objected until the cows came home, it was ultimately settled that he or she would ride in my car. Dan Germany made the convincing argument that if there were any rogue seekers still out there, they would be looking for his car, not mine. Some days, he’s too smart for my comfort.

  I load Dead Dan into the back seat and lay him down, buckling him in enough that I won’t get ticketed, but not so much that it would be impossible to believe he could be comfortable enough to sleep. Dan and I fuel up in Independence and grab some road food, then hit the open highway, determined to drive straight through the night until we arrive at the stunt site. Young Dan wants to make sure everything is in order well enough to make it past an insurance claim, but still complicated enough that we can be sure Old Dan will stand a good chance of not making it out alive. Based on the way he’s described the stunt and the total lack of training Old Dan has had, I have little doubt that he or she or whatever the undying Dan Germany is will die.

  Dan and I agree that I’ll take the lead on the road trip, since I have a GPS and the knowhow to use it. It’s his idea that if we get separated, the person in front will pull into the first gas station they see and wait as the person behind continues on, checking each gas station they come across until we get back together. Not wanting to offend, but also not wanting him to get out front and think he’s behind and just keep on going, I insist we pick up the cheapest, simplest prepaid phone we can find and let him hold onto it, just in case. I take Old Dan’s phone, since the body will be in my car, allowing me to text their mysterious coordinator the moment the old man is alive. Plus, I don’t trust Young Dan to figure out how to answer the phone anyway.

  The drive for the most part goes smoothly. Oklahoma disappears in our dust like so much asphalt beneath our tires. Just to be safe, I’ve plotted our route so we’re cutting through the smallest part of Texas. I never like driving through that state. There’s always something awful. Maybe it’s traffic or construction or highway patrol ambushes, but I’ve never had any luck with that place. I think it was Davy Crockett who said, “You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.” To me, that was always the same plane ticket.

  We cross the state line and I do my best to keep within the speed limit, but it can get difficult. You have those speed trap towns where the limit drops from sixty-five to twenty-five for a ten mile stretch and no good reason for it. If your town relies on tricking outsiders into breaking the law so you can survive off of their fees, you aren’t a town, you’re a bandit camp. It only figures, then, that just on the other side of Shamrock, not even fifteen miles into the state, I see the old familiar flash of lights in my rearview. Damn it. Dammit, dammit, dammit!

  I’m sweating bullets right now. Busted in Texas is bad enough. Busted in Texas with a dead body in the back seat is even worse. I kill the AC and roll down the windows so I can at least try to pass off my perspiration as that s
weltering Texas heat and not the fearful sweat of a criminal in trouble. I quickly grab my license, registration, and proof of insurance, hoping to make this stop as brief and unremarkable as possible. Young Dan drives on as I brace myself for the unpleasantness to follow. He gives me a look that says better you than me but not in a dickish way. I can’t blame him. I’m driving legal with all my licensing in order. At least there’s a chance I can get out of this unscathed. He has no ID, no papers on the car. If they busted him, he’d have been screwed something fierce.

  As Young Dan disappears down the highway, the police officer strolls up to me, kicking dust as he comes. Between his swagger and his mustache, I feel like I’m being pulled over by every cop from every ’70s movie. Even the dead body makes it feel a little like wacky movie hijinks. You know, except for the fear of prison of course.

  “License and registra-”

  I have the papers ready to go before he can even finish speaking. He does not seem to like this one bit. His lips purse beneath the caterpillar he’s grown under his nose. I’m sure his eyes are equally suspicious, but I can’t see them behind those huge sunglasses that must be standard issue to guys like him.

  “D’you know why I pulled you over, ma’am?” he asks.

  Knowing how these places work, it could be anything.

  “No, sir,” I say, wiping sweat from my head.

  “No clue at all?”

  “Was I speeding?” I ask. “I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the speed limit.”

  “And just how fast did you think you were going, little lady?”