After all his years of work at the cemetery, Roy had no interest in or empathy for the deceased, their families or friends. The only spirits he knew of were the ones with names like Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, or Johnny Walker. There was no afterlife as Besnick talked of; bullshit, just bullshit.
Nah, it was a job, just a fucking job.
He took the shoe box and moved over to the grave, sat down, put his feet over the edge, and slid down on top of the coffin. He wavered from side to side as he stood upon the coffin. Not the easiest platform to stand upon but much worse when you’ve had a gut-full of beer, a quantity of an unknown concoction, and the grave is littered with empty beer cans--it was decidedly treacherous. With care, he waded through the cans but stopped about halfway from the top—a movement in the corner of the grave, behind the coffin, gave him a start.
A rat, a snake, a lizard?
Roy hated the first two with a passion and wasn’t fond of the third. He felt the panic worms squirm inside his guts and his throat tighten. He eased back and reached up for the edge of the grave with his right-hand while he cradled the shoe box in his left. Walking backwards and keeping his eye where the movement was he stood on a beer can and stumbled. He couldn’t hold his weight with just one hand and started to fall backwards. He threw himself forward to straighten up, which only made it worse. He crashed down face-first on top of the coffin.
Chapter Two
The Return of Vladimir.
* * *
The hard contact dazed Roy. When he finally raised his head, he saw through blurry eyes a great deal of blood in front of him. His blood! The pool of red ran across the top then seeped into the sides of the coffin. Vladimir’s coffin.
Ah, crap!
His right leg had slipped into the narrow space between the coffin and the side of the grave. Roy felt a sharp pain in his leg as he struggled to free himself. It was difficult to breathe, as if a set of weights had been placed on his chest. Worried he’d seriously injured himself and might be stuck in the grave, he took great care to shift his leg and rise to his knees. Slowly getting to his feet, Roy monitored every ache in his body for serious injury while he wiped blood from his nose on the back of his brown shirt.
The concern for his health was short-lived, though, when he saw the shoe-box had come apart in the fall and the contents spewed across the top of the coffin. Jewelry of all kinds lay scattered before him; nearly all appeared to be gem-encrusted gold and silver pieces. There was also a wad of $100 bills, at least two inches thick, and that interested him the most.
Roy was sure the jewelry in front of him was real. There was no doubt the money was. There was a small fortune scattered across the coffin, among the beer cans and the blood.
"Who in their right mind would put all this into a fuckin grave?" he said, his bloodied nose all but forgotten.
He grabbed the roll of hundreds and counted it as fast as possible.
“Shit there’s twenty-seven hundred bucks here!” He quickly gathered up the treasure and placed it all back in the shoe box and re-tied it. The thought of filling in the grave briefly crossed his mind.
What kind of a fool would do that?
Roy got to his feet slowly and peeked over the edge of the grave. He made sure the coast was clear before he took the shoe box out and sat it down near the pathway, then prepared to hoist himself out.
Before he did, he turned and took one more look at Vladimir's coffin. "Well, Vlad, where you're going you won't need this," he waved the wad of cash defiantly, "so I'll just relieve you of it and the contents of the box. And speaking of relieving…"
Roy had a mischievous grin on his face, as he unzipped his pants and urinated all over the top of Vladimir's coffin. "Here, have one more drink on me!" he then laughed out loud almost triumphantly. As he turned to ready himself to jump from the grave, a peculiar sensation passed over him-much like the feeling he got from Besnick and the others. His eyes darted from left to right, but couldn't see anyone, but he was sure there were eyes upon him.
The need to get out of the grave suddenly became urgent. Despite the pain, he had to get out and fast. He pushed the shoe box further up the gravel pathway then steadied his hands on the edge to heave himself up when a dull pounding emanated from behind him—and below. His entire body locked up tighter than a bank vault, and Roy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, as a shiver of ice ran the length of his back. Roy’s disbelief in the hereafter were about to receive a wake-up call.
Roy saw a rising mist in his peripheral vision and felt the damp around his legs. In all the graves he’d dug, he’d never seen or felt anything like this. Cold as the mist was, droplets of sweat formed on his brow. A foul stench began to fill the grave, and it didn’t belong to him—he hadn’t shit himself just yet.
It was far worse.
It was the odor of death—he’d smelled that before. Roy started to shake uncontrollably; his heart thumped against his ribcage as he drooled and whined like a baby. Though his pulse throbbed like a flooding river through his ears he was still able to hear a scratching sound. Like the rats that scurried about his apartment at night. The sound came from below—from the coffin on which he stood.
What the hell is that? What, is this shit? Roy’s mind was a confused mess.
The cheap pine coffin shifted under his feet. First a creak, then a loud crack echoed through the grave's narrow confines as the top of the coffin burst apart. Fragments of wood flew through the mist, splintering into Roy’s back and legs. He yelped like a dog afraid of the wind.
His entire body trembled with fear, spit ran from his bottom lip, tears from the corners of his eyes and piss down his leg. Just as he thought death was about to take him from this world, he recalled the words of Besnick. “He will not rest—he will not pass to the afterlife until he is, at rest, do you understand?” Oh, he understood all right. Frozen with fear, he forced himself to think.
What can I do, what can I do?
He was shaken from his motionless state when he was grabbed just below his right knee. The grip as strong as a vise, the pain intense and immediate.
Oh, my, God that hurts!
"Get off my leg, get off my fuckin leg!" He screamed out, his voice high and shrill like a young child.
Roy looked down into the mist that surrounded him and saw a large, bony hand, with strips of dead and dried skin holding onto to his leg. He became hysterical with fright. In desperation, he kicked out wildly, he didn't want to die here—not in a grave he’d just dug! The flesh—torn hand ripped Roy’s pants and the grip eased, that was all the invitation Roy needed. He was up and out of the grave like a greyhound on speed, the shoe box full of ill-gotten loot abandoned on the path behind. He looked back into the grave one last time, long enough to see the bloodshot eyes of a dead man, bulging with hate and anger.
A dead man. A fuckin’ dead man’s starring at me from a coffin!
He didn’t linger and ran like he never had, his alcohol level not affecting him now. He hadn't gone far before the shoe box—and more importantly—the valuables within, flooded back to his memory. What little sense remained screamed, “Fuck the shoe-box!”, but all that money and jewelry was more than he'd ever held in his hands at once. The greedy part that composed most of his soul won the argument and he turned back. Mist still rose from the grave as Roy returned; the shoe box was where he'd left it, near the foot of the rectangular shaped pit. He dashed forward and scooped it up just as Vladimir's tattered arm groped over the edge of the grave. The dead man was out of the coffin now.
"Is this what you want? Is it? Huh?" Roy screeched. Scared shit-less, he still somehow managed to find a sliver of bravado now that he'd escaped the clutches of Vladimir.
Trembling, he kicked a clump of dirt into the grave toward the walking dead then, when he turned to flee, saw the bottle of homemade grappa on the ground nearby. Hell, he wasn't scared, he would prove he wasn’t. Dead men didn't get out of their coffins; it had to be a case of the DTs, or some joke— e
veryone that worked at a cemetery thought of themselves as practical jokers. He snatched up the grappa bottle, pulled the cork, and took a swig.
Instant courage, just add liquor. It didn’t say so on the bottle but should have.
"You want it, you zombie bastard? Then you come and get it!" Roy taunted. His words were brave, but urine continued to run down his leg. A prank, DT’s, or an hallucination brought on by the foreign concoction he’s consumed? There was no way of knowing but it was time to get out of here, pronto.
The treasure he’d acquired was real, and that was all that mattered. He spun on his heels, with a precision that would have impressed a drill—sergeant, tossed the grappa bottle over his shoulder and sprinted for the employee’s car park and to his faithful old Ford F-150. Time to get out of the cemetery—for good.
The old pick up started right away, and he praised himself for not skimping on the maintenance as he zipped out of the car park lot like an entrant in the Indy 500.
Roy’s apartment wasn't far, hallelujah, because if he had to travel any distance at this speed he'd have been stopped by the cops and an explanation of being chased by a corpse wouldn’t go down all that well.
He came to a sudden halt out front of his apartment complex, grabbed the shoe box, and ran up the stairs to his unit—keys in his hand, ready to jam into the lock. Safe at home, he slammed the door behind and dead-bolted it. A man's home was his castle, and the undead couldn't enter without an invitation, right? Roy saw in a movie somewhere. Salem's Lot! That was it, the kid at the window, who floated like a balloon at a parade, as he asked his brother to let him in so he could drink his blood. Roy shuddered at the thought.
Could that thing want the same from me?
The dead couldn't come in without an invitation. Oh, and they couldn't cross a line of salt, either. He grabbed a box of Morton's and laid a thick unbroken line of the coarse grains across the threshold, then did the same for the kitchen door. There. He was safe. Might be better if he had some garlic to hang up or something, but they couldn't come in through the windows; they were all shut tight and painted shut. Yeah, he was safe.
He put the shoe box on the couch and stopped to gather a breath. He needed time to cool down and think. For one thing, he wanted to know how a dead man came back to life. He wanted to know what to do next. He wanted to, to…
Hell… he wanted another beer!
A six-pack later, Roy was passed out on the couch and slept until just after midnight. The image of Vladimir's ashen face, and bloodshot eyes that bulged like tennis balls as he peered from the shattered coffin, woke Roy with a jolt. He was covered in sweat, his hands trembled, and the smell of urine was strong.
A nightmare, just a bad dream, he told himself… until he saw the shoe box.
Chapter Three
Alone
* * *
Roy sat up, looked around the room, to every corner and to the windows. He no longer felt he was alone. Nausea crept up in the pit of his stomach to replace the fear. As the seasoned drinker he was, he knew he had to move and move fast! He was about to be sick. He staggered along the short hallway to the bathroom and slumped to his knees in front of the toilet bowl as the first gush came over the edge. A miniature Niagara Falls. He was violently ill several times and the constriction in his gut worsened with each heave. Roy blamed it on the “foreign grappa”. Couldn't have been caused by good, clean American beer. Had to be that awful homemade crap.
He was physically exhausted as he got up to wash his face at the sink. It was quite an effort to get back to his feet. After washing the spew from his face, Roy took a towel to dry himself, then peered out the window which overlooked the alley behind the apartments. He’d all but forgotten the day's events as he threw up the contents of the day’s liquid diet.
There were times when Roy thought of giving up the drink, and that was always when he was sick—from drinking. He’d made this promise to himself on such a regular basis it was as close to futile as it would get. It was practically a custom for almost every heavy drinker in the world. Roy instantly stopped thinking of his drinking as the day’s events rushed back to him. There as he saw, outside in the alleyway, under a streetlight, the undead creature from the cemetery—Vladimir. In the few hours since he'd run from the all-too-real apparition, the appearance of the zombie, had deteriorated drastically—not that the looks of the deceased are supposed to improve. The hair was sparse and matted, the skin on one side of his face torn and hung loosely, flapping in the breeze. His lower jawbone was visible to the naked eye, as was the bones around one eye. The clothes he wore were a disheveled, bloodstained mess.
The creature had also spotted Roy at the window and held both arms out, and squeezed its fingers and turned its hands in an odd motion. Roy's heart pounded, as he gasped for air, he felt decidedly unsteady on his feet. It didn't take a genius to understand what the creature wanted, but Roy had never been mistaken for one in his entire life and took him a few moments.
The shoe-box. It wants the fucking shoe-box!
He looked back toward the couch where it lay. Well, fuck that.
Roy wasn't about to just hand it back. He ran into the living room and snatched at it with both hands then headed back to the bathroom and opened the window, “Is this what you want, is this it?” Roy held the shoe box aloft then asked, “Or is it me you want?"
The creature, Vladimir, thrust its arms ferociously at Roy when it saw the shoe box an angry growl that sounded like it came from hell itself filled the night air.
Chilled to the bone as he was, Roy still summoned enough courage— his body still contained enough of it in liquid form—to torment the demon. “You can't have either one! You hear me, you ugly fucker?”
Roy snatched at the window and closed it tight. "How did that son of a bitch find where I live?" he asked in a whisper. "And how did it get here without being seen? It's a nightmare —it can't be real!"
Roy was in the beginning stages of hysteria. The day’s events, would have anyone in a panic, but especially a heavy drinker of suspect moral standards. All Roy could think of the riches contained in the shoe box. "Oh shit!" he cried. "What the fuck do I do now?”
He considered the possibilities when a shattering howl came from outside his apartment.
“Shit! He’s here!” Roy stared at the back door, his eyes as big as saucers.
A heavy pounding followed at his back door, then a cracking sound as Vladimir applied pressure to the door. That’s what bones sound like when broken, Roy remembered. Roy scooted down the hallway toward his front door—his escape route. He was in such a state of fear, urine dribbled down his leg once more as he ran.
The fucker came up the back stairs! He’ll be inside the apartment with him in a second, invitation or not!
Roy, with shoe box under one arm, grabbed a black jacket that was hanging on the front door, and rushed outside. He locked the door behind him, a futile gesture for sure yet he hoped it would slow the creature long enough to aid him his escape. He ran for his faithful 150 but felt a spasm of pain in his leg just as he did—right where Vladimir had grabbed him. He stopped in a single step when he saw his pickup truck. Vladimir had trashed it-but good. The windows, the headlights, the upholstery, all shredded, and the wires underneath the dashboard had been ripped out. The steering wheel torn out and tossed across the car park.
A powerful display of strength it was—not that Roy needed any reminder.
"The fuck?" Roy cried. "How the hell did he know which was my truck? Or even that I drove a truck?"
The sound of Roy’s front door being ripped from its hinges and flung into the night brought his attention back to the more immediate. The metal screen door came down on the roof of a neighbor's Mustang; sending the alarm into a shrieking panic. The red hazard lights flashed bathing the parking lot in an eerie color which Roy was sure was that of hell. Vladimir stood on the balcony outside the apartment and stared down in Roy’s direction, his arms raised in victory.
Sh
it, he looks like Rocky Balboa at the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, Roy observed with some amusement. The realization this beast was not going to stop, brought another stab of pain to his leg.
Roy retained a small drop of defiance in him—courage out of a can. " If you want me, you ugly shit, then you better catch me!"
By the look on what remained of Vladimir's face, that was more than fine with him.
Roy turned and hobbled away, the pain in his leg increased, slowing him down. His breathing was strained, like a wet towel had been tied around his face. He gimped his way across the parking lot to the low brick fence at one end. Getting over it wouldn't have presented a problem in the daylight, but in the dark, with a bad leg, it would be a challenge. Well, fuck, right now everything was a challenge. Add a hangover, a battered nose, nausea, and least of all an undead zombie in pursuit, life becomes pretty fucking challenging indeed. And what do you do with a challenge? You re-frame it as an opportunity. That was what the big square-jawed man on the infomercials always said: ‘re-frame every challenge as an opportunity.’ Well, if Roy ever got out of this, he would re-frame the hell out of his life. Fuck digging graves. Fuck foreign traditions. Fuck zombies. Hell, fuck the booze even. Roy jumped the fence without any trouble; the landing, however, left a lot to be desired. He crashed down heavily onto the pavement below and injured a knee in the process. “Shit!” he cursed winded and sore, he was lucky not to have re-framed a few teeth.
The shoe box fell from his grasp as he landed, a small metallic cha-ching on the concrete drew his attention. A jewelry piece had fallen out. Well, fuck that, too. He would change, and for the better, but only after he hocked the contents of the shoe box and got his money! He didn’t intend to lose any of it, not after all the effort he'd put in to get it. He got onto his knees and searched in the dark, he had to find it before that creature got closer—before Vladimir got a hold of him.
A Grave Matter Page 2