Dirty Deeds

by D V Wolfe

  “Leaving us so soon, Bane?” Noah snorted.

  “I know it’s past your bedtime and you get cranky without enough beddy-bye, but I need you to stow the sass and search,” I said.

  “Why a cemetery? Does it matter which one?” Noah’s voice had changed from teasing to worried as fast as the yellow to red of the traffic light we rolled through.

  “Because that’s where the huntsman will be holding his recruiting drive and it’ll probably be the cemetery closest to the witch, so start on Vine and work your way out.”

  I pulled into an all-night gas station to fill up while Noah searched. I had to make sure the clerk was distracted before I put my palm on the digital screen and closed my eyes. The digging feeling came, moving up from my gut, down my arm and through the palm of my hand. I leaned forward on the pump and as soon as it beeped I jerked my hand away. I collapsed back against Lucy while the tank filled and tried to shake the weakness from my arm. It felt like it was getting more intense. I probably hit some kind of ‘platinum limit’ downstairs and now it was extra painful. Goody. I turned and looked in at Noah. “Any luck?”

  “Yeah, I think.”

  I leaned in the cab. “Hit me.” Noah looked up and grinned, cocking his fist back. I rolled my eyes. “You’re the one who’ll be needing the cemetery. Where is it?”

  Noah looked down at the map. “At the end of 7th, there’s this Hilltop Cemetery. Looks old and it’s pretty small on the map compared to the space used for these two.” He pointed to two large green chunks on the other side of the map.

  “Yeah, but witches usually shop close to home. Hilltop it is.”

  The pump shut off. I hung up the nozzle and climbed back in with Noah. We retraced our route and were soon cruising down 7th Street.

  “There’s Vine,” Noah nodded at the street sign as we whizzed by it. He turned to me. “So, how do you kill a headless zombie?”

  “Not a zombie,” I said.

  “Fine, huntsman, or whatever it is. How do you kill it?”

  “You don’t,” I said.

  “So we’re what? Gonna have a chat with it? I think the conversation might be a little one-sided,” Noah said.

  “If sass were money, you’d be minimum wage tonight, Noah,” I said.

  “Fine. Seriously though, do we shoot it? Or uh…”

  “Slice and dice,” I said.

  “What?!” Noah said.

  “Really the only thing you can do to something that’s already dead, been re-animated and has no head, is to neutralize it and put it back in the ground. So we cut it’s legs and arms off, find a nice hole in consecrated ground, and put the parts in it.”

  “What about burning the corpse to ashes so it can’t, you know, rise again?”

  “Like the Black Knight in Monty Python or something?” I asked, a smile crossing my lips.

  “You know what I mean,” Noah said.

  I nodded. “Yeah but depending how close to the city this cemetery is, the smell of burning flesh in the middle of the night tends to carry. And you need a pretty hot fire to turn a corpse to ash. That’s why we usually take the corpses to crematoriums. And remember, our friend is pretty fresh.”

  “Right,” Noah said.

  The cemetery had a great view of nothing really, there was a scraggly stand of pines and a bald hill sprinkled with dead grass like a bad comb-over on two sides and the nearest houses were a little too near, for my taste.

  “We’ll have to do this quietly,” I said, nodding to the nearest house which had a light on behind sheer curtains in one of the windows.

  “So, quietly slice and dice,” Noah said.

  I nodded and cut Lucy’s engine. We climbed out, both of us wincing as Lucy’s doors squeaked. I popped open the toolbox and pulled out my machete. I only had the one. I dug around looking for anything else that might work for Noah to use. Noah still had my penlight so I was digging in the dark. My fingers touched something cold and rubbery. I closed my eyes. Apparently, the black garbage bag had ripped and in my search, I’d managed to stick a finger up the severed head’s nose. Perfect.

  “Noah,” I whispered. “I need a light.”

  “You mean flashlight or hands?” Noah asked, coming around the truck.

  “Penlight. Jesus, fire is the last thing I need right now. I think I still have some spilled gunpowder rolling around in here.”

  The penlight appeared and we both looked in at the head.

  “Did his face always look like that?” Noah asked.

  No. It didn’t. One eye had caved in and his nose and upper lip were squashed upwards like he’d been pressing them to a window.

  “Rigor set in while he was rolling around in here,” I said. “Sorry dude,” I said to the head. I tugged the bag back around it as best I could and pushed it to the side. My hand fell on a handle and I grinned. Rosetta’s hedge clippers. I was planning on going to Lou Dugan’s to get my knives sharpened and Rosetta had strong-armed me into taking them with me as well. I hadn’t made it to Lou’s yet, but they still looked pretty sharp to me. I tugged them out and handed them to Noah.

  “Hedge clippers?” Noah said.

  “Yep,” I said. “Just pretend our friend, Headless, is a really nasty rose bush.”

  I closed the toolbox and we started up the hill. The night was quiet around us.

  “Are you sure it’s out here?” Noah asked quietly.

  “Nope,” I said. “But we’re gonna look.”

  The cemetery was flat in front where we’d parked but sloped down and out of sight after the hill crested. There was a little line of mausoleums on one side and what I supposed was a shack that the riding lawn mower lived in, to our right. We walked a wide circle, shining light around, listening for the sound of dirt being disturbed.

  We started down the backside of the hill and motion caught my attention off to our left. I grabbed Noah’s arm and swung the penlight over towards it. We couldn’t make out much at this distance but there was definitely someone there.

  “Showtime,” I said. And I headed towards it. I could hear Noah breathing hard, the penlight bouncing as he dodged around headstones. We were jogging, but I had a feeling Noah’s labored breathing was partially due to fear. I couldn’t blame him. We were about to try to hack up an animated corpse that would try to throttle us while we were doing it. I slowed down as we got closer and watched the sight in front of me. “This is just pathetic,” I grunted to Noah. The corpse had a shovel in his hands and was trying to get it into the ground but the angle was too shallow and he kept just skimming the top. He’d stop, try to re-adjust, and then do it again.

  “What the…” Noah started.

  “First night with a new body. Doesn’t look like she’s quite figured out how it works yet.”

  Suddenly the body turned in our direction.

  “I know it can’t see us,” Noah said, his voice cracking. “But it feels like it can see us.”

  “She can see us,” I said. “Remember she’s the head now.” I drew the machete and Noah dropped the penlight into the grass to two-hand the hedge clippers. The narrow beam of light in the grass was next to useless in pushing back the pitch-black darkness around us. I could hear Noah breathing and whimpering softly next to me. The sound of the shovel banging off of concrete and stone echoed through the night as the corpse stumbled towards us. Something solid caught me in the chest and I was knocked backward. The back of my legs hit a headstone and I fell over it on my head and neck.

  I heard Noah call out, “Bane?”

  “Over here,” I wheezed trying to suck back in the air that had been knocked out of me. “Forgot to mention that under her spell, the huntsman is about ten times stronger than he was in real life.”

  I heard the shovel ring out as it hit stone again, somewhere just to my right.

  “Definitely helpful information,” Noah called.

  I rolled to my side and did my best to scramble upright. I saw a shadow move in my peripheral vision and I side-stepped around a headst
one. I was trying to force my eyes to adjust to the dark while watching for any glint of metal that could be the shovel blade sailing in my direction. The outline of the shadow lunged at me again. Something else moved behind it and the corpse jerked.

  “Damn it, Bane,” Noah spat. “These things are freaking dull!”

  The corpse was stumbling around and it managed to step on one end of the penlight which briefly illuminated the sight before me. Noah had tried to snip the corpse’s right arm off. Skin and muscle were falling down its forearm like a sleeve that had been ripped off of a shirt. The muscle that remained had been hacked into but the blades hadn’t been able to finish the job. It was swinging the shovel, making the loose skin and muscle flap around and it was now, even more uncoordinated.

  “That’s disgusting,” Noah said, watching the sight.

  I had to get the shovel away. It could still pummel us and try to strangle us without it but at least it would be disarmed...before we, literally, disarmed it.

  “You have to aim for a joint, Noah,” I said. “Neither one of us is going to be able to cut through bone.” The corpse seemed to have just realized that the attack on its arm had come from behind it and it was now lumbering around to face Noah. Perfect.

  I stumbled around the headstone separating us and aimed my machete for the shoulder on the wounded arm, just as it was raising the shovel with both hands. Luckily, my machete was fairly new and still had a better edge on it than Rosetta’s clippers. I saw the arm go slack as the sliced tendons separated under the blade. The arm fell to the ground but the shovel was still in full swing. I heard the thump of metal hitting bone and the sound of something falling to the ground.

  “Noah!” I shouted. Nothing. Silence. Something hot was burning in my chest. If I just got the kid killed over this stupid necro-witch… I hauled back and sliced low this time, hacking into one of the thing’s legs. I felt it turn again, back towards me, now dragging its weak leg. It raised the shovel in its remaining arm and I moved to the side, trying to stay out of range. I wasn’t entirely successful and I felt the shovel blade come down on my shoulder, sinking me an inch or two into the packed dirt. Shockwaves went down my spine but I locked my knees to keep from falling. I had to finish this. I had to see if Noah…

  I swung my machete again. I was too close for it to get a good swing at me with the shovel in its remaining arm. I heard the shovel drop as I hacked through the shirt and into the muscle. A cold, dead hand was at my throat now, squeezing. I hacked faster. I just needed this to be over, quick. I still hadn’t heard any sounds of movement on the ground behind it.

  Please be ok, Noah.

  My vision was starting to go, what little I had in the dark. I sawed faster. I knew I was making progress as the fingers began to loosen around my throat. I felt the blade hit bone and the corpse shoved me back. I felt the back of my legs hit a headstone and I leaned forward to keep from falling. Unfortunately, it meant I leaned forward right into the corpse. If I could just take its arms away, it wouldn’t be much of a threat and I could get to Noah. The corpse was leaning back into me, trying to force the machete blade back towards me. I tried to lock my elbow keeping it at arms length while I sawed but the damn corpse was heavy. The arm finally went limp and I hacked at the remaining muscle, the weight of the arm and bones helping to rip the remaining tissue and skin. I heard the dull drop when it hit the ground and I pushed off the headstone, sideways. The corpse barreled forward without me to stop it and flipped over the headstone. I snatched the penlight off the ground and went to find Noah. He was sprawled spread eagle, with a cut on his forehead, bleeding steadily, where the shovel blade had caught him. It didn’t look deep, but head wounds always looked like the end of the world. His eyes were closed.

  “Noah,” I said, dropping down beside him. He didn’t move. Something horribly familiar clawed at my insides. Another one. Another Gary. But worse. Gary at least had been a hunter. Noah was an innocent. I heard the corpse moving nearby, struggling to get to its feet. What a shitty way to die. Shovel to the head by a headless corpse.

  Noah’s eyelids fluttered. “What the fuck…”

  Relief washed over me and I smiled down at him. “How ya feeling?”

  “Like some headless jackass just shoveled me.”

  “Good,” I said. “Saves me the trouble of filling you in.” Noah sat up and held his head in both hands. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re going to have one bitch of a headache in the morning.”

  “Oh good,” Noah said. “I think I’m meeting her sister right now.”

  I held a hand out to him and helped him to his feet. We both turned to look at the pathetic sight in front of us. The corpse was rolling around, trying to get up without the help of arms.

  “It almost seems...wrong,” Noah said.

  “It is wrong,” I said. “The dead aren’t supposed to rise.”

  “Not that,” Noah said. “To kill it. It’s like a...wounded animal or something.”

  “Never thought of it like that,” I said, as we watched the corpse plow neck-first into another headstone as it tried to get to its knees. I felt a pang of something like annoyance at Rosetta being right. The kid wasn’t cut out for this. He still had a heart. A soul. Rosetta could do it because she only ever hunted to help a friend or protect her community. She didn’t actively seek this shit. She had a soul too. But it was hardened, calloused, like everyone else I knew. I glanced at Noah who was staring at the corpse’s progress, his face reflected in the penlight. His expression was a mixture of horror and amusement. He still had a chance to be normal. Maybe the hands thing would just go away one day. Maybe if he was away from all of this supernatural bullshit, it would just fade along with puberty and pimples.

  I glanced back at the corpse. “Should we end this embarrassing display?”

  “After you,” Noah said. “Some asshole gave me a pair of dull hedge clippers to work with.”

  I rolled my eyes and started across the cemetery to the corpse. It had managed to roll over to its belly and was trying to inchworm up to its knees. “It’s not the clipper’s fault. You aimed for the middle of a bone.”

  “Aren’t clippers supposed to be able to cut through branches? I mean solid wood…”

  “Is not bone,” I said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  The corpse was desperately trying to scoot away from us now on its knees, partially dragging its injured leg. “See, here,” I pointed to the spot I’d already cut into, just below its hip. “You gotta aim for the tendons where the bones connect and kind of cut around the bones and through the cartilage. Here, you try.” The corpse was still moving away and Noah was having to sidestep to try to keep up with it. “Hang on,” I said, moving in front of the corpse. I grabbed it by the shoulders to hold it still.

  What was I doing? I was encouraging him to dismember a corpse. I was going to put him on a bus home and this was the last memory he’d have. Me, making him cut the legs off of some poor dead bastard. “You know, I can do this one, Noah,” I said.

  Noah dove in with the clippers. “No, I got this.” He put all his weight on the clippers, growled with the effort, and finally managed to pinch them together. “There!” He said as the leg went slack. He snipped again, the clipper blades reluctantly cutting through the jeans it was wearing, and finally, the leg fell off.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Bane,” Noah said.

  I looked at him. “Yeah?”