Addicted to the Dead

by Shane McKenzie

  Paco sat up suddenly when he heard the metallic clicks outside the door, then he backed up on his hands and knees as the door swung open.

  “Hey there, little man,” Jake said as he stepped inside carrying a steaming tray. “You hungry?”

  Paco couldn’t meet the man’s gaze, couldn’t make himself answer him. He eyed the door, which was standing open, and bit his lip.

  “Come on, kid. I know you’re mad, but there’s not a thing you can do about it now. It is what it is. Get the fuck over it and enjoy your new life. Behave yourself and shit doesn’t have to get ugly.” He set the tray down on the bed, gave it a long sniff. “Brought up a juicy steak and a loaded baked potato for you. Best beef in the city, melts right on your tongue, I’m tellin’ you.”

  In a flash, Paco jumped to his feet and shot toward the open door. He was almost there, could have reached out and touched the doorframe, but the next thing he knew he was flying backward with the collar of his shirt pressing into his throat. The back of his head slapped the floor and black spots twinkled in his vision. His throat burned with agony and he rolled from side to side and kicked his legs.

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m up here tryin’ to be nice, you know that? You go and piss me off, and you’ll see how mean I can be.” Jake gripped Paco by the shoulders and forced him to sit up. Paco still winced and struggled to find air. “Besides, if you got outta this room, where you gonna go? What you gonna do?”

  “F-find…Sophia. Save h-her.”

  “Too late for that. Some very important people should be here any minute to pick her up. The best thing for you to do now is forget about her. She died, right? So move on.”

  Jake picked up the tray and slammed it into Paco’s lap, flinging hot grease and sour cream into his face. “Now eat. Tomorrow is a new day, little man. We’ll take your new bike out for a ride, yeah?”

  “You…you killed him. You killed the doctor.”

  “Sorry, kid. My job is to follow orders, and that’s what I did. But I’m not happy about it either. I’m not big on killing, but what had to be done was done.”

  “He, he was going to help us. And now…now…”

  The doorbell rang and Jake turned toward the hallway. Paco slowly rose to his feet.

  “Well, I guess they’re here. Those fuckers are fast—”

  Paco heaved the tray into Jake’s face, then followed that with a hard kick to the man’s groin. Jake gasped and fell to his knees, and Paco was out of the room and sprinting down the hall toward the front door.

  A maid was cleaning a mirror, and when she saw him coming, she got into a linebacker position, but Paco’s momentum knocked her backward and he trampled her as he continued toward the doorbell which rang a second time.

  Then he saw her, standing between Mr. and Mrs. Harrell, her lip sticking out and trembling.

  “Sophia!”

  She turned and locked eyes with him, reached out for him. The doctor stood next to her, mumbling and spinning in place.

  Mr. Harrell frowned, but hurried to the front door and opened it. “Gentlemen. Please…please come in.”

  “No! No, they can’t have her!”

  But before Paco could get anywhere near them, a strong grip squeezed the back of his neck, kept squeezing until he thought his head would pop right off. His feet left the ground and kicked madly as he did everything in his power to free himself.

  Then the men stepped through, the one in front with patches of pink skin all over his black face.

  ***

  Calico ignored the skinny man at the door and looked toward the screaming boy. The Ughs and Grunts piled in behind him, spoke to the man and his invalid wife. The boy was in the grasp of a large man with the build of a defensive lineman, was kicking his legs and thrashing about.

  “What’s the problem with the kid?” Calico said. He turned to the man and woman who seemed perplexed by his question. That’s when he saw the girl, standing between them with her gaze aimed at the floor. She was dead, there was no question, but he could tell by the look of confusion and terror on her face that she was very aware of what was going on. Beside her stood an idiotic fat man’s corpse—just another of the regular dead, the kind that brought none of themselves with them into death.

  “That’s not really why we’re here—” started one of the cronies.

  “I’m not fucking talking to you.” Then Calico directed his attention to the man. “I haven’t seen a living child since by daughter was alive. What did he do to deserve that treatment?”

  The man’s mouth opened and closed a few times, a sheen of sweat rising on his face. He turned toward the linebacker and the boy. “Jake, put him down! He’s my son, for crying out loud!”

  Jake started to argue, but just nodded and set the boy down. When the boy tried to run away from him, the big guy reached out and held the kid there with a mitt the size of a bear’s paw. The guy was thick with muscle, but his face had that sunken look to it. The boy winced and fell at the man’s feet, wiped the tears and mucus from his face.

  Calico looked over at the girl again, had an urge to rescue her, to slice open everyone in the room, take the kids out of there. Take them somewhere safe. He had a million questions for the girl, wanted to know how she became the way she was. Wanted to know if the same could be done for Beauty.

  “And you have what we discussed with Mr. Fleet, yes?” the woman said to one of Fleet’s men.

  “Got it right here,” Bunny Rabbit said. “Let me just make sure there’s no funny business, all right?”

  Calico watched as the man got on his knees and inspected the girl like she was some kind of prize sheep. He held her cheeks in his hands, stared into her face, but she wouldn’t look back.

  Bunny Rabbit met eyes with Calico, gave a slight nod. “Looks good.” And he handed the man and woman the suitcase, then waved at one of the cronies outside the door who brought in the girl—Sky. She groaned slippery gibberish, her body bruised and torn, her face a blackened mess of flesh and teeth. The Grunt handed her over to the skinny man who ran his hands over her body and chuckled. “It’s all there,” Bunny Rabbit said, pointing to the suitcase. “The meat you ordered and the DVD, an even trade for the girl. But, to show he appreciates you calling him first, Mr. Fleet has added some bonus money.”

  Calico glanced momentarily at Sky, and his muscles tightened. Nothing I can do for her now, he thought. She seemed oblivious to her own existence anyway, and for that, Calico was thankful.

  The skinny man nodded, licked his lips. “Yes, we happen to have a bonus for your boss as well.” He pointed to the dead fat man beside the girl. “This one…stumbled into our custody. And we have no use for him. We wouldn’t even know what to do with meat this fresh. Please, as a token of good faith, take him with you.”

  Bunny Rabbit shook the man’s hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

  The men began filing out of the door, but Calico turned back toward the large man and the boy. As the little girl was shoved along, the boy screamed for her, reached out to her, and cried like a newborn baby. The big man roughed him up a bit, tried to make him stop screaming, but it only made things worse as the boy tried fighting him off.

  Calico stomped toward them.

  “Is there a problem?” he heard the woman say from behind him, but he didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Calico, let’s go, man. We’re all done here.” Bunny Rabbit’s voice.

  But Calico only had eyes for one man. And knuckles. Just before his fist smashed into the big man’s face, their eyes met, and Calico saw recognition there. This man knew who he was, and he did nothing to stop the oncoming punch. The boy fell from the man’s grasp as Calico’s fist met his nose, but the guy didn’t fall. He stumbled back, wiped the blood from his face, looked at his palm, then smiled as his tongue drank the rest.

  Both men stood there for a moment, observing each other. The boy was getting to his feet, and the man started to reach for him again, but thought better of it.

 
; A pair of hands grabbed Calico’s shoulders, and he threw an elbow behind him on reflex. Bunny Rabbit ducked, and when he came back up, he had both palms out.

  “Relax, man. We need to go…now.” He turned toward the emaciated couple. “Sorry about this, Mr. and Mrs. Harrell. He’s a passionate man, that’s why he’s so good at his job.”

  The man smiled. “No problem at all. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

  “We’re all good,” Jake said, his eyes still stabbing Calico in the face. “Heard a lot about you, Mr. Calico. It’s a pleasure.” He said the last part in a whisper.

  After another few moments of their staring contest, Calico turned and followed Bunny Rabbit out the door. He turned and faced the Harrells, gave a slight bow. They smiled nervously, then both of their gazes fell to the floor and to each other.

  Fucking heartless bastards.

  Back in the SUV, Calico forced one of the cronies to move so he could sit next to the dead girl. He tried to smile at her, but she refused to look at him. She smelled pretty fresh, probably had only been dead for a few days.

  “Hello,” he said as he buckled her in. “My name’s Calico. Try not to be scared, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  Her head lifted and her big, sad eyes landed on him for a moment before finding the floor again.

  Calico knew he had just lied to her. He still didn’t know what Fleet wanted with this girl, but whatever it was, it was bad news for her. Where she needed to be was with doctors, scientists, someone who could figure out why she is the way she is. Maybe figure out a way to “cure” death, so to speak. There has to be more to this than selling her for meat, he thought. She’s far too unique for that. Calico could only hope Fleet wanted credit for finding the only talking dead person that existed, and that he would eventually hand her over to qualified professionals.

  “Yes, we’ve got her,” Bunny Rabbit said into his cell phone. “It went…pretty smooth. Everyone’s happy.”

  “Why is your skin like that?”

  Calico started when he heard the squeaky voice of the dead girl. Fantasies of having conversations with his daughter flashed through his mind. “Vitiligo. It’s a skin condition, but don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”

  She reached out and touched his face, ran her cold fingertips over his forehead and cheeks. Calico let her do it, smiled at her with the softest face he could muster.

  “Wouldn’t matter if it was contagious, anyway. I’m dead…I can’t feel anything,” she said. “Does it hurt?”

  “No, no it doesn’t hurt.” He wanted to ask her so much more, find out what it was like to be dead, but he decided to just smile down at her and keep his questions for a later time.

  Bunny Rabbit, with the phone still pressed to his ear, shot a quick look into the rearview at Calico as he nodded. Calico could just barely hear the voice on the other end, but it was too muffled for him to make anything out.

  “Yes…yes, sir. Of course…there’s no problem.” There was a long silence after he snapped the phone shut.

  “Where are you taking me?” the girl said. She removed her hand from Calico’s face and crossed her arms. “I just want to go home…the doctor was going to fix me, and then we were going home. Me and Paco.”

  Calico couldn’t find the right words to answer her, so he patted her knee and stared out the window. He reopened the wound on his tongue with a scrape of his teeth, chewed on the bloody gash as they sped back toward Fleet’s.

  ***

  Jake had his attention on the door as the man called Calico followed the other men out of the house. The second the door shut, Paco ran for it.

  “Where are they taking her? W-why are you doing this?”

  Mr. Harrell pressed his body against the door and held out his hand to signal for Paco to stop. There were no more fake smiles, no more gentle, friendly voices. “Your sister is unique, but she’s dead. No matter how you look at it, she’s still dead. We have no use for a dead child.”

  Mrs. Harrell’s chair whirred as she spun to face Paco, her frail hand holding the mutilated dead girl’s wrist. Dark juice seeped from the corpse’s multiple wounds over her purple and black body. “You have nothing to worry about. This is still your home. You are still our son.”

  “Fuck you!” Paco spat a wad of bubbling spit into the woman’s face to follow the harsh words. “Bring her back… Bring her back right now!”

  Mrs. Harrell was frozen with her mouth agape, as if the spit were made of liquid nitrogen. The mucus ran down the bridge of her nose and sucked it in and out of her nostrils as she breathed. She let go of the dead girl’s wrist, and the corpse shambled away, groaning and slurping as she walked into a wall.

  “You little shit!” Mr. Harrell slapped Paco across the face, then followed that with a back hand. “Get to your room…and stay there until I say. Do you understand? I’m your father now, and you will obey me!”

  Paco touched his face where the man’s bony hand had struck him, but he only stared back. His skin stung, but he refused to shed a tear, refused to give this man the satisfaction. “You can never be my father.” He shook his head and spoke through clenched teeth. “My father’s dead. I’m not your son…won’t ever be your son!”

  Mrs. Harrell snorted and clicked her tongue as she wiped the spit from her face. “Ungrateful little shit. You don’t have the slightest clue…” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, then was wheeling toward the stairs.

  Paco sized up Mr. Harrell, wondered if he could force his way past the scrawny man and get out the front door. But in all the excitement, he’d forgotten about Jake, who stomped forward and took hold of his arm before he could even attempt an escape.

  “Take him to his room, lock it up tight,” Mr. Harrell said, his voice like the growl of a starving dog. “And he’ll get no food until he learns how to behave himself.” After a long scowl, he walked across the room and seized the corpse woman by the arm, pulled her along as he followed his wife up the stairs where the three of them disappeared behind the slam of a door.

  “Let’s go, little man. You heard him.” Jake wiped more blood from his nose and chortled. “That motherfucker can hit, boy. Heard Calico’s the meanest son of a bitch in the city, kill you without breaking a sweat.”

  “You can’t let them do this…you have to help me,” Paco said, stopping in the hallway and facing Jake. “We have money…we can pay you. All of it.”

  “Sorry, kid. I get paid plenty right where I’m at.” He shoved Paco along, then forced him into his bedroom. He leaned against the wall and scratched his chin. “You knew your sister was dead all this time? So that’s what the smell was.”

  “She needs help! She’s special…we have to do something!”

  “Cuz I was wondering how a little shit like you could score some meat that fresh. Just didn’t seem right.” His eyes lit up and he smiled at Paco. “You every try it? Meat, I mean?”

  Paco kicked the train set into scattered debris. “You’re not listening to me! Please, I’ll do anything. Just let me go. Let me help my sister…” He collapsed on the spot, buried his face in his palms.

  There was a crinkling sound, then footsteps. “I got something here that’ll make you feel better, little man. All your pain will melt away.”

  Then Jake’s hands were on Paco again, and no matter how hard Paco fought back, there was nothing he could do to stop what was happening.

  Jake stretched Paco’s mouth open, nearly tore the corners as he forced it wide. And he didn’t place a hunk of dried meat into Paco’s mouth, he forced it down the boy’s throat, made sure he couldn’t spit it out. It wasn’t until Paco felt the meat sliding down his gullet, wiggling on its way down, that his face was released. He rolled onto his stomach, shoved his fingers down his throat as far as they would go. Dry heaves racked his body, but the meat was already swimming in stomach acid.

  “That’s the good shit, too. You don’t want it fresh, you see. Gotta eat too much of it to get that real good high. But this shit? Aged to perf
ection.” He chuckled and strolled back across the bedroom. “You have a good night, kid. You might wanna think about behaving for your new parents. They’re not so bad once you get used to ’em.” He stepped into the hall, then turned back with a wide smile, the blood from his busted nose staining his teeth red. “By the way, little man. I lied to you before. You’re not the first kid the Harrells brought in. Plenty of snot-nosed brats just like you and your sister have come and gone. Everybody’s got a price, even for their own kids. Ain’t that some shit? You don’t even wanna know what happens if Mr. and Mrs. Harrell think you’re a bad fit for their family. So play nice and you might live.” And with that, he slammed the door behind him and was gone.

  Paco slammed his fist against his stomach, gagged as he tasted the gamey flavor at the back of his throat. A tickling sensation in his stomach made him scream out, and he could picture the slice of meat crawling around inside of him.

  But suddenly, a feeling swept over him, like stepping into a hot tub on a cold day. All at once, he had trouble remembering what he was angry about as the good feeling intensified and continued to spread throughout his body. A giggle escaped his lips, and he didn’t know where it came from, then another came and another. Paco slapped his hand over his mouth, remembered that his parents were dead, that his sister was just kidnapped, that she was taken somewhere and he didn’t know where, didn’t know how to help her. But more laughter followed, and there was nothing he could do to keep it from pouring out of him. He felt like he was lying in a pool full of tickling fingers. As he touched his face, chest, stomach, and then legs, it was as if his fingertips were electrically charged, each prod exploding with a euphoric sensation at the point of impact.

  Paco crawled across the floor, managed to hoist himself into the bed where he engulfed himself in the cool sheets and cackled into his pillow.

  Sophia’s face subliminally flashed in his mind, and panic slammed into his stomach like a sledgehammer. But the potency of the meat took over again, and he lost himself in the high.