One Stiletto in the Grave (Reapers in Heels)

by Jason Krumbine

  "Cold?" Danielle asked.

  I shook my head. "Just a little creeped out."

  She nodded. "I know what you mean," she smiled, "Cool, isn't it?"

  Sitting down, I rolled my eyes. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were enjoying this."

  She tossed me a sandwich and said, "I guess you don't know any better."

  Things were okay for next several minutes. We ate and chatted mindlessly about things that weren't really all that important. While taking a sip from my Coke, I noticed Danielle rubbing her bare arms.

  "Getting cold?"

  She nodded. "Yeah. You?"

  "No, not really. But then, I'm wearing extra layers. Here," I took off my blue, longsleeve shirt and handed it to Danielle, leaving me with just my red T-shirt. She was right, it was getting cold.

  Dani was putting the shirt on over her tank top, when we heard a loud noise. It sounded like someone had dropped something very heavy on the marble floor.

  Danielle looked at me. "What time is it?" she asked.

  I glanced at my watch. "Little after eight-thirty. It was probably the caretaker. I knew we shouldn't have done this," I rubbed at my own arms, feeling goosebumps popping up. "I don’t remember hearing anything about a cold front coming through."

  I looked back at Danielle. Her mischievous smiled had returned.

  "Oh, I know what you're thinking, and the answer's no," I said quickly, waving my hands. "You may have gotten me to come out here after dark, but you are not going to get me to investigate some weird noise."

  She apparently didn't listen to me, because as soon as I was done talking, she stood up and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me in the direction of where the sound had come from. "Come on, Mikey, we're already here. Might as have some fun."

  "Fun, right," I muttered and followed her. I wondered when we were going to get to the part with the icepicks.

  We were close to the other side of the building before we found the cause of the mysterious sound. The cover plate of one of the tombs had fallen off. It lay on the marble floor split into two pieces. Danielle and I exchanged looks and stepped forward.

  I knelt down and turned one of the marble pieces over to see who the tomb belonged to. "James Wolfe. Born 1886. Died 1986. Wow, one hundred years exactly. Not bad."

  "Well, if you're impressed with that, you'll love this," Danielle's voice had a weird, bouncy edge to it.

  I stood up and peered inside the tomb. The good news was that the coffin was still there. The bad news, however, was that the end of the coffin facing us had been busted open—from the inside.

  I looked back at Danielle. "Okay, I’m not genius, but that’s not supposed to happen."

  “Maybe it was rats?” she suggested.

  “Rats?” I repeated. “Seriously? That’s what you’re gonna go with?”

  There was a light whistle as a cold breeze ran down the corridor. Dani and I both turned sharply, expecting to see a dead guy creeping up behind us. But the corridor was empty. We were alone. I felt goosebumps popping up over my goosebumps.

  "I'm thinking," I said in a near whisper, "maybe we should leave."

  Dani shook her head. "I'm thinking you're a coward."

  I nodded. "I'm thinking you're probably right. Can we leave now?"

  "No."

  Danielle started walking back down the way we had come. I looked back at the open tomb and felt another cold shiver run down my back. Oh, yeah, this was so much fun.

  I followed Dani, noting that it had grown cold enough to see my breath. This was getting ridiculous. Strange noises and strange cold fronts? Did I miss a memo?

  Our footsteps echoed loudly down the empty corridors of the mausoleum. Yep, it was just me, Danielle, the dead, and a restless dead guy or super powered rates. What more could you ask for on a romantic evening such as this?

  Ahead of me, Danielle rounded a corner and stopped. I didn't notice this until I had almost run into her. "Whoa, what's up? Traffic jam?"

  Danielle didn't reply. I followed her gaze to the end of the corridor and felt my breath catch in my throat. A figure stood at the entrance to the mausoleum, silhouetted by the full moon. Judging by the broad shoulders and height of the figure, I assumed it was a man. I hoped it was the caretaker.

  "Hello?" I said, stepping out from behind Dani.

  The figure didn't reply. He raised his arm and lit a cigarette. The flicker of light from the Zippo was quick and brief, but in it I was able to make out some definite features. The figure was definitely male. He seemed to be mostly bald, save for a few clumps of white hair. He also seemed to be missing his lips, as well as half the skin on his face.

  I tilted my head towards Danielle and asked quietly, "Did you see that?"

  Danielle nodded, a look of amazement etched into her face. "Yep. Cool, huh?"

  I gave her a look. "We need to talk about your definition of the word ‘cool.’"

  The man exhaled a puff of smoke and spoke, "Well, don't you two make a pretty little couple," Voice had a definite British accent, although it did sound kind of broken and gravelly. But, I suppose being dead will do that to you.

  "Great," I said, "The first zombie I ever meet and he turns out to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, in America no less!"

  "Hey!" the dead man snapped, "Bonnie Prince Charlie was a bloody Scot. I'm British. Also, I'm not a zombie. I don't want to eat your flesh, that's disgusting and insulting to suggest. I'm just undead. Get yer bleedin’ facts straight."

  "Sorry," I muttered.

  The dead man took another drag from his cigarette. "Yeah well, that's the problem with the educational system today. They get all the facts messed up," he exhaled. "What do ya call yourselves?"

  I blinked. "Excuse me?"

  “Your names,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a slightly retarded child.

  "Danielle Widgon and Michael Cray," Dani replied.

  I looked at her. "Excuse me?"

  I couldn't see the dead man smile, but I heard it in his voice. "Perfect."

  I whipped my head back to the shadowed figure. "Excuse me?! What's that supposed to mean?"

  The dead man flicked his cigarette to the ground. "It's Friday the 13th, on a leap year. Plus, it's a full moon."

  "And that's supposed to mean . . .?"

  "That if we sacrifice two young people, male and female, we get to roam the city at our discretion," the dead man explained calmly, as though he were giving directions to the nearest gas station. "By the way, the name's Wolfe. James Wolfe. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Ready to die?"

  LIKE IT?

  BUY IT HERE:

  Amazon US

  A GRAVEYARD ROMANCE

  Amazon UK

  A GRAVEYARD ROMANCE

  And now, an exclusive excerpt from FRUITBASKET FROM HELL, the first installment in the Alex Cheradon Series, by Jason Krumbine

  ABOUT THE BOOK:

  Steven Raines (you know, the man who made billions making an operating system that out-Microsoft-ed Microsoft?) has hired Alex Cheradon(private investigator) to look for his missing daughter. Good news: It's a million dollar payday. Bad news: she may be a Satanist hell bent on bringing the Devil to Earth.

  The dead bodies are piling up. Vampires are crawling out of the woodwork. And there's something named Pookie that's lurking around the corner.

  Breathtakingly paced, the jokes and wisecracks fly fast as Alex races against the clock

  to save the day.

  WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE ALEX CHERADON SERIES:

  “…a certain quirkiness reminiscent of Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" series” - Grace Krispy - http://gracekrispy.blogspot.com/

  Chapter 1: Mr. and Mrs. Higgins

  “YOU KNOW,” I said, standing there in the living room, my head tilted at one of those angles that would indicate one’s confusion, of which there was plenty for me at the moment. “Suspicious wives usually call me before they kill their husbands.”

  I was greeted with dead silence.
/>
  I looked up from the former Mr. Higgins to the now widowed Mrs. Higgins. “That was a joke,” I said.

  Mrs. Higgins gave a nervous titter, something akin to a laugh, I suppose.

  “But still,” I continued, looking back down at the deceased Mr. Higgins, because, quite frankly, Mrs. Higgins was just too freaky for my tastes. “Dead bodies usually fall under the jurisdiction of our illustrious law enforcement. Normally.”

  Another nervous titter. “Well,” she began. She had one of those annoying nasal voices. God help me, what was I thinking, prompting her to talk? The woman should be kept silent at all costs. I must think of the well-being of my ears. I opened my mouth to cut her off, but then she said something interesting, “I don’t really think the police need to see this.”

  I closed my mouth. My sixth sense, the same one that told me to dump Marie Antoinette back in the eighth grade just before she introduced me to her other boyfriend, “Bubba,” was tingling. Just to clarify, this was not a good thing.

  I regrettably tore my gaze away from Mr. Higgins He had a fascinating Van Dyke beard. It looked good on him, dark gray, sprinkled with bits and pieces of white, all blending into his meticulously styled hair. Had it not been for the bullet hole in his forehead, I’d say that Mr. Higgins looked good for his age, which I really don’t know much about, except that it was probably “old.” But hey, looking on the bright side, at least he wasn’t going to get “older. I focused back on the borderline hideous Mrs. Higgins.

  I know, if you don’t have anything nice to say, blah, blah, blah, and so forth. But really, there’s a line and she is way over it. Way, way, way over it.

  For such a rich person you’d think that Mrs. Higgins could have hired someone to dress her and put her makeup on. But no, she had to be inconsiderate of those around her and do it herself. She had some ungodly light shade of blue surrounding her eyes (which were, by the way, always squinting. I had yet to glimpse her eye color, although I’m sure it clashed terribly with her eyeliner). Her brown hair, almost assuredly dyed, had this almost unnatural curvy, buoyancy to it (not that this was really a complaint, just an observation. Although, I was pretty sure it could be certified as a flotation device.) Then, there was her dress, which looked like some expensive potato sack, done up in bright, perky purple and then shrunk to a size too small for her, allowing certain bits of flesh to bulge where flesh should just not be bulging. This, of course, was just the start of a long list of visuals about her that disturb me, including, but not limited to, her disco ball earrings, awkward bone structure, and the glaring hot pink nail polish she was wearing. If there was any justice in the world, she would have been arrested and placed in an institution for people who are mentally not well and beyond all hope.

  “Just so that we both understand each other,” I said, trying to find some part of her to focus on that didn’t offend my senses. Her left nostril seemed normal enough. “You’re saying that you don’t want the police here?”

  There was another dead silence and then, slowly, she nodded her head. She gave me what I think was supposed to be a reassuring smile. Instead it looked like she was getting ready to puke all over the living-room floor. And also, I feel compelled to say that while her hair did all bounce with the nod, not a single strand fell out of place.

  A cold shiver ran down my spine.

  I fell silent and looked around the living room. I had a feeling that Mrs. Higgins hadn’t decorated it, mainly because everything matched. White walls, some dark, antique white furniture (I don’t really know what antique white is, I just heard some decorator guy use it once), there was a brown bookcase along the east wall, filled with a lot of knickknacks and a few books. Yeah, I think it was safe to say that the Higgins’ weren’t much for reading. There was a vase with some floral prints next to a doorway that looked like it led to a hallway. A couple of pictures hung on the walls here and there. They were all of Mr. and Mrs. Higgins. Although there was one picture of a shih tzu that kind of stood out for no good reason.

  I was stalling. I admit it. I mean, how does one appropriately respond to Mrs. Higgins’ awkward nonverbal response?

  I looked back at her.

  “You killed him, didn’t you?” Which probably wasn’t the appropriate response I had been looking for.

  Mrs. Higgins’s eyes went wide in surprise, yet somehow remained squinting. The only logical thought was that she had some kind of plastic surgery or she was using Botox. Either way, she should sue.

  “Heavens no!” she exclaimed, seriously overcompensating the indignity of the suggestion in her voice. I mentally rolled my eyes. It really wasn’t that farfetched an idea. The guy had a fresh bullet hole in his forehead. Mrs. Higgins was the only one here, and if you smelled carefully enough, you could detect a slight trace of gunpowder. “Well,” she added after a moment, “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?” I repeated.

  Mrs. Higgins started wringing her hands together, her little hot pink nails popping in and out of my line of vision.

  Nervous much?

  I looked back at Mr. Higgins. He looked remarkably peaceful for a man who had been shot in the forehead thirty minutes ago, or thereabouts. His perfect Van Dyke beard was flecked with blood; it stood out sharply amidst the gray. He was dressed in an expensive suit. My own shopping needs tended to lean towards Kmart and Target so I wasn’t really familiar with the make. It was dark, it was sharp, and it tastefully matched his gray hair and his brown eyes. His skin was pale, maybe too pale for a fresh corpse, but then I don’t really hang around corpses all that much, so my experience here was limited to what I had picked up from CSI and CSI: Miami and CSI: New York and CSI: Yo’ Mama’s Bedroom. Some of the blood from his forehead ended up on his hands and cheeks. Bright red on pale white. Very Andy Warhol-like.

  I also noted with some interest the general absence of any copious amounts of brain matter or blood surrounding the body. (Thank you, Discovery Channel.)

  I returned my gaze to Mrs. Higgins.

  “Okay. There’s some definite confusion here,” I said. “Did you or did you not kill your husband?”

  Mrs. Higgins continued wringing her hands together, looking everywhere except at me. Hey, I know I wasn’t beautiful, but still . . . Kettle calling the pot black and all that.

  “Well, it’s funny that you should ask that . . .” she said.

  Oh, yeah, I could see that. Here I am, just cracking up. I kill myself.

  “Look,” I said, “this isn’t a difficult question. Simple yes or no. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking it, why don’t you just write it down? You know, like a secret ballot.”

  She looked at me, chewing on her lower lip.

  This was getting old real fast.

  And then, I heard a growling noise.

  I turned around and found currently deceased Mr. Higgins jumping to his feet in one fluid motion. His dead brown eyes had gone all red and his mouth had opened to reveal four new, and might I add, very sharp-looking fangs.

  He lunged at me.

  Of course, this explained everything.

  Mr. Higgins was a vampire.

  Chapter 2: Vampires and Me

  BEFORE I CONTINUE, there’s just a few things I want to clear up.

  Firstly, vampires. There is no such thing as a “good” vampire. Vampires, like all other demonic creatures, are evil. Pure evil. Evil through and through. And soulless, too, most of the time. No rehab, no consoling, no Ritalin for these guys. Once a vampire, always a vampire. Hence the term, “demon,” meaning demonish, meaning evil, meaning not your friend!

  So, really, what I’m trying to say is that if you should ever come across a vampire, don’t take him (or her) in like a sick little puppy, put him down like a rabid, killer dog (Which, I know, is kind of redundant, but it sounded really dramatic.) or even better yet, just run away in the opposite direction.

  However, if you’re not the cowardly type, here are five major ways of killing a vampire:

  Stab him (
or her) in the heart with a wooden stake, everybody’s favorite classic. Not as easy as it sounds, do you know where your heart’s located?

  Behead him. Far easier, although slightly more graphic. It’s widely known that vampires have weak flesh. They’re dead; the only thing keeping them from decomposing is the demonic spirit that’s possessing them.

  Douse them with holy water. Not the quickest of solutions. Takes a while for the holy water to burn through, thus giving the evil vampire time to kill you. Also, really, incredibly graphic.

  Sunlight. Which means having to lure them out of whatever dark corner they’re holed up in. Which normally isn’t too difficult, considering that most vampires are pretty stupid, but still . . .

  Make them watch the Olsen Twins for forty-eight straight hours. (Actually, there’s no actual proof backing this one, it’s just a personal dream torture device of mine.)

  Secondly, I’d like to talk to you about me. After all, it wouldn’t do you any good to go through the rest of the story wondering who this idiot was. This idiot would be me, Alex Cheradon. I’m twenty-seven years old, five seven, with short black hair and green eyes. I have a relatively slim body, and I think about working out every morning for about an hour. (I was blessed with an increased metabolism. Hollywood, eat your heart out.) I enjoy long walks along the beach, sunsets, Italian food, and mocking old black-and-white films made fifty years ago with budgets that couldn’t have bought me a Coke today. And I’m a private investigator.

  I don’t specialize in the supernatural. In fact, I’ve been working on new ad campaigns that would get me away from that clientele. Honestly, I don’t go looking for vampires and demons. They find me. Gets really annoying actually.

  So that’s me and that’s vampires. Now we can continue.

  Chapter 3: Mr. and Mrs. Higgins Pt.2

  ANYONE WHO TELLS you to just stab a vampire in the heart with a wooden stake and be done with it has never actually fought a vampire. How can you tell this? Simple, they’re standing there very much not dead and wasting your time with their stupid theories.