Dead Men Scare Me Stupid

by John Swartzwelder

  I knew from my previous visit that the facility was well guarded, so gaining access wouldn’t be easy. I would have to be tricky.

  Accordingly, I presented my body at the main gate as an employee who was ready to start his eight hour shift. I balanced lunchboxes on my body as props. Unfortunately, my body didn’t have the proper security badge, nor did it know the day’s password, though, with my invisible help, it made over 150 wild guesses before the guards said it couldn’t have any more. 150 was the limit. We were turned away.

  Then I tried passing off my body as a visiting 4-star general, here to inspect the facility. The problems here were: this wasn’t a military facility, I still had no security badge, my body wasn’t wearing a uniform of any kind, and the guards remembered me from before.

  Then I decided maybe I was trying to be too tricky. My experience with the government is there’s always somebody who isn’t doing his job. Maybe I should just look for the gate that that guy was guarding.

  I found it on the west side of the facility, near the back. The guard was snoring away like a steam engine next to an open gate. Teenagers were running out of the facility past him carrying cases of government liquor and saying “Yes!” I edged past him and was in.

  But I wasn’t home free. There were guards on the inside of the facility too. Thousands of them. And they wouldn’t all be asleep.

  My ghostly self could get past any guard easily enough, of course. It was the slowly dragged corpse I had with me that was hard to get past the guards unseen. It took me an hour to negotiate one turn in the hallway. My right eye kept getting caught on one of the corners. I started to hate that eye.

  All that afternoon, each guard in turn would watch, with narrowing eyes, the corpse that was slowly coming towards him, and listen, with narrowing ears, to the unearthly grunts that were coming from something invisible nearby. When my corpse finally got close enough to the guard for him to be able to challenge it without leaving his post, he would order it to halt. It would halt. The guard would then approach the corpse and prod it with his bayonet, demanding to see its security pass. After he got no response he would then invariably bend over my body for a closer look. That’s when he’d get the fire extinguisher in the head. Then it was on to the next guard in the next corridor.

  In this way I worked my way deeper into the facility towards the Clarence machine.

  On the way, I passed by a number of storage rooms, which were packed to the rafters with secret new gadgets the government had been developing. I looked into each of these rooms briefly, partially out of curiosity, partially because that’s the way my face was pointing anyway, but mostly because I couldn’t remember exactly where the Clarence room was.

  Finally, after I had dragged my corpse nearly half a mile through countless corridors, and up and down hundreds of concrete steps, and worn out three fire extinguishers on the guards, I got to the heavy iron door I remembered from before. Behind this door was the Clarence machine. I expected to have trouble getting in, but the door was unlocked this time. And a quick check confirmed that no one was inside. That was a relief. That meant I could do what I came to do with no interruptions. I started dragging my corpse into the room.

  All machines have their little idiosyncrasies, but they all have one thing in common – they have to be turned on. Getting Clarence turned on took me nearly an hour, during which time I broke several dials, accidentally unscrewed one of the legs, and spilled mustard on the motor. But I finally got the thing started up.

  I figured I’d better get the hang of how to operate the machine before I hooked my valuable body up to it, so I started twisting various dials and flipping switches to see what they would do. To my surprise, as I twisted the dials, things around me started changing. One dial, turned to the left, made the room very cold. The reason for this was apparent when I looked out the window and saw all the ice covering our planet. I turned it back to where I thought it had been before and mushroom clouds started sprouting everywhere. I was glad I had decided to practice for awhile first. One dial, when turned slightly to the right, fixed it so JFK hadn’t been killed, and now all the instructions for the machine and the posters on the wall were in German. Well, he told us he was a Berliner. We just didn’t listen. I turned that dial back in a hurry.

  It took awhile, but I finally got everything back to pretty much where it had been when I started. I was relieved. So was the dinosaur in the window.

  At this point I figured I knew about as much about the machine as I ever would, unless I read the instructions, and that’s not going to happen, so I hooked my body up to the machine with every loose wire I could find and turned it on full blast. Nothing happened. I began turning each of the dials, first one way, then the other. Then I yanked on all the levers, pressed all the buttons, and opened and closed all the little drawers. Still nothing. The world around me was changing all over the place, but I wasn’t getting any reaction from my body at all.

  I cranked up the power, diverting massive amounts of electricity from the rest of the facility so I could really give my body a blast. I really socked it to myself, as the kids say. Still nothing.

  People who have heard me tell this story down at the coffee shop have speculated that the machine couldn’t fix it so I had never been killed, because it had already fixed it so I had never been born. In order to fix it so I hadn’t been killed, they told me, I should have reversed the not-being-born part first. When I asked them where they got all this information about a machine they’d never seen, and didn’t really know existed – they only had my word for it, after all. And I lie all the time - they said sometimes they just knew things, that’s all. So I guess that’s what happened. Anyway, whatever the reason was, the damn thing didn’t work.

  Finally, when the machine started shorting out, and smoke started rolling out of my body in places where there should be no smoke, I realized it was no use. I’d given my body everything the machine had. And it wasn’t enough. Sadly, I pulled the plug on myself. I would have wanted it that way, I figured.

  I unhooked my body and started dragging it back home. I was tempted to just leave it where it was. The hell with it. I was tired of lugging it around. Let the cleaning people deal with it. That’s what they’re paid for. But I decided that wouldn’t be respectful. I’d been through a lot with this body. I should take it home with me and put it in a place of honor. Then when I got tired of it I could dump it somewhere out back. A place of honor out there. I owed it that much.

  I started dragging it back out of the facility, muttering about the whole thing being bullshit, which it was, and vowing to get revenge on somebody for this, which I never did. Getting out of the building was easier than getting in, because all the guards were pointing the other way. So I didn’t really need to hit them with fire extinguishers. But I did anyway. I guess I was just in a bad mood.

  I made my way out past the sleeping guard. As an afterthought I went back in and stole some stuff. Might as well. Everybody else was doing it. I put the stolen stuff in my body’s pockets and under its shirt until it looked like a covered wagon. At least I had finally found a use for it. At least it was good for something.

  Just as I got my body back out onto the street, clouds began forming over my head, thunderstorms began racing in from all directions, and lightning bolts began furiously blasting my corpse. Apparently, assert my friends at the coffee shop, who seem to know everything about meteorology as well, my body had been zapped with so much electricity, it had become the greatest lightning conductor of all time. It was being hit by every lightning bolt west of the Rockies. My body was being blasted all up and down the street.

  And the lightning wasn’t all. I could have gotten used to that. But the furious winds that accompanied the thunderstorms were picking up all the loose debris in the area, including me, and hitting my body in the face with it. And my ghostly body kept being picked up and blown half a mile away and having to walk back. So, like I said, it wasn’t just the lightning that was the
problem.

  When the storms finally started to subside, and I was just starting to think the worst was over, I felt myself being sucked towards my body by some powerful unseen force. I didn’t have time to think of what to do. There was no time to think. There was only time to act. I turned to run away, but the irresistible force was pulling me in. I realize now that I wasn’t thinking clearly at this point. I shouldn’t have been resisting. I should have been running delightedly towards my body, not away from it. But in the end it didn’t matter which way I tried to run. The force was too strong.

  Suddenly, with an unpleasant “thuck”, I was sucked back into my body. And if you’re looking for an uncomfortable experience, I’d recommend that. It’s kind of like being sucked headfirst into an ATM machine, if you’ve ever done that. Anyway, that’s what I’d compare it to. That’s what it reminded me of.

  Once I was inside my body again I tried to look around, but everything was black. I wriggled around a little bit until I had repositioned myself enough so I could see out the eyes. Then I wriggled a little more until I heard a small click. That did it. My spirit and body were one again. I was alive! I wriggled some more to see if I could get back out, but I couldn’t.

  I sat up and checked to make sure I was all there. I wasn’t. Two of my toes had been blasted off, and a small unimportant part of my skull was gone. I saw a squirrel running off with that. Plus, it looked like some asshole had filled my shirt with liquor bottles. But I figured it was close enough. I was mostly back the way I used to be. While I was checking myself out for any other damage, and looking for a kneecap that had rolled away somewhere, a car ran over me.

  After a few more lightning strikes, I came back to life again. I got out of the street quicker this time.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Frank Burly is back from the dead and raring to go!” That’s what my advertisement in the next day’s paper said.

  That enthusiastic headline was a bit of an exaggeration, to be honest. I wasn’t completely back. I was still 20% dead. But I figured that was close enough. My left nostril and right eyelid didn’t work. Which meant I didn’t take a good flattering picture anymore. So I mostly handed out old pictures. People looked at them and asked who it was a picture of. I usually told them to just take the picture. It’s a free picture, isn’t it? Just take it. What do you care who it’s a picture of?

  My upper lip was on the fritz too. It drooped down over my mouth and flapped disconcertingly when I talked, often standing straight out towards the client when I was alarmed. Sometimes I had to lower my rates a little to get clients to put up with this. Sometimes I just had to give them a pocket calendar.

  I knew I wouldn’t win any beauty contests looking like this, but I had never won any before either. I guess I should stop entering them. I should start being more realistic. But I didn’t see why my looks should affect my detective business. I don’t solve cases with my face. So I didn’t worry about it.

  I tried to get my landlord to lower my rent since I was 20% dead and presumably wouldn’t be using all of the office anymore, but he said the remaining 80% of me should drop dead too. Everybody’s a wise guy. Everybody has a sense of humor.

  You’re probably wondering how I could even be a detective again - I still hadn’t been born, I still didn’t have a valid PI license, I wasn’t bonded, I didn’t have any of the documentation you need to operate a detective agency – but after all I’d been through I just figured the hell with the paperwork. If City Hall or the Logic Police wanted to kick up a big stink about it, they knew where to find me, presumably. Meanwhile, I had to make a living.

  To my surprise, I didn’t get any flak from the authorities at all. It turned out City Hall had bigger things to worry about than technically nonexistent detectives like myself. The mass hallucinations that had been plaguing the city for months had stopped coming and going. Now they came and stayed.

  Among other things, Central City now seemed to be ruled by a small army detachment from Peru, under a Captain Hernandez. Citizens were being ordered to “Bow Faces In Mud” when the Captain came by. If that wasn’t possible because of the lack of mud, they would be ordered to “Make Mud”. Plus, all of our lakes and mountains – remember them? – were gone. And there was only half a sun in the sky. These changes did not make the voters happy. Quite the reverse. And there was an election coming. So City Hall was frantic.

  And the problems weren’t just confined to Central City. The whole country was a mess. The federal government, which had spent the entire year doing nothing but brilliant things suddenly couldn’t do anything right. The dollar collapsed overnight. So did the penny. And that, I’m told, had never happened before. One of our inalienable rights disappeared, even though the Constitution said that was impossible. And the day after I came back from the dead, somebody noticed that one of the Dakotas was gone. The best one, too.

  Government spokesmen were spinning these events for all they were worth, making it sound like the President meant for that to happen, and it was good, it was part of his Bold Plan For A New America #6, but nobody was buying it. As a result, the incumbent party was looking pretty bad heading into the election season. And I was glad. I had lost confidence in the current administration. They shouldn’t have erased me from existence like that. And the meat they shoved through my bars shouldn’t have been lamb. When you do things like that to me, you lose my vote.

  It was while I was reading in the paper about the latest government blunder – something about trading landmarks for hostages - that Ed and Fred arrived in my office demanding to know how I did it. They wanted to do it too, whatever it was.

  “How did I do what?”

  “You’re alive,” said Ed. “You’re not a ghost anymore. Tell us how you did it.”

  “And what on Earth happened to your upper lip?” asked Fred.

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” I said, self-consciously covering up my droopy lip with my hand. “Piss off.”

  “What!”

  “You heard.”

  I hadn’t forgotten all the trouble they had caused me in the past. I don’t forget things like that right away. You have to wait awhile. A few weeks, anyway. I didn’t feel I owed them anything. I got up and opened the door, repeating my request that they piss off, and indicating that this was a door they could conveniently piss off through.

  “You’d better tell us,” said Ed, dangerously.

  “If you don’t, there could be trouble,” added Fred.

  I opened the door a little wider.

  “Piss off,” I reminded them.

  They left, vowing revenge, which, as you know, is how I usually leave places. But I almost never come back. I’m usually bluffing. They weren’t bluffing. They did come back.

  A few hours later, I heard distant screaming in the streets, and the soft pattering of people fainting onto concrete. I looked out the window. Thousands of ghosts were coming up the street towards my building. Many of them were wearing ghostly army helmets. And they had gotten a ghost cannon from someplace.

  I locked the door to my office and put a small chair under the knob.

  The ghost army stopped in front of my building and began firing cannon shells into it. The shells passed harmlessly through the building - they were as insubstantial as the ghosts - but they were loud, and they were scaring the hell out of everybody. Once the ghosts felt that their target had been properly softened up, they charged into the building with an unearthly yell, and started up the stairs towards my office.

  I went to the back window, with the idea of going down the fire escape, and never coming back, maybe making a new life for myself in a different building, but there were already ghosts climbing up the fire escape towards me. So that was out.

  I thought for a moment, then put an additional chair against the door, and one on the fire escape.

  The ghost army reached my office door and rattled the knob. It was locked. They paused and then rattled it again. Still locked. They discussed
this development with each other in low tones – I distinctly heard the words “It’s locked, I tell you” and “try it again, Sergeant” – then, after some more knob rattling and another pause, they started oozing through the walls into my office.

  It was an uncomfortable position for me to be in. As insubstantial as ghosts are, they can still pack a wallop. They had killed me before. They could do it again. Even easier this time, because there were more of them. And they had artillery. I couldn’t give them what they wanted – tell them how to get back into their bodies the way I had. I didn’t even know how I did it. I think I just got lucky. Plus, they didn’t seem to have any bodies to get back into. I wasn’t sure what the rules were, but I was pretty sure you needed a body for something like this.

  As I backed up away from the ghosts, who were yanking at the cannon, trying to get it through the wall, my glance happened to fall on a newspaper on my desk that was covered with headlines about how incompetent the government was. That should have given me an idea, but it didn’t. Which was too bad, because I needed an idea right now. I looked around in the drawers of my desk. No ideas in there. I asked the nearest ghost if he had any ideas. He didn’t. He didn’t even know he was supposed to be thinking of any.

  Finally I decided to just fall back onto my old standby plan – the plan that I always use when I don’t have any ideas. Stall. Play for time and running room. I would promise to give them what they wanted. I knew I wouldn’t be able to deliver on that promise, but that would be a long time from now. Time I could spend being alive.

  I stopped backing up, faced the army, and held up a restraining hand. They stopped and looked at me suspiciously. A few fired shots at my hand. I put it in my pocket. The firing stopped. A few of the ghosts watched my pocket in case that hand came out again, while the rest lowered their weapons and listened to what I had to say.

  I told the ghosts that I was touched by their plight and promised that I would show them how they could become real men again just like me.