Wake Up Dead - an Undead Anthology (13 page)

‘Why?’ asked Frank as he tried to keep his voice as casual as possible. His mind was burning with excitement, maybe the biker had done his job after all.

‘Your attention is needed regarding two of the people you brought in tonight.’

Frank gave a heavy sigh before giving a reply.

‘Why? What is so bad, that I am needed down there? I’ve just sat down after an eighteen-hour shift. My feet are killing me. I’m tired, I―’

‘Your prisoners. Alan went down there to check on them. He found the biker and the other guy…dead. Alan’s not happy, It’s a mess down there.’

Frank brought the glass to his lips, the amber liquid warmed his throat as it travelled down. Frank wiped his lips with the back of his hand before he spoke.

‘Okay, okay. Tell me what happened so I know what to expect.’

‘You really should be down here seeing for yourself. Forensics cannot make a move until you are here. But seeing as Alan’s on his way he can tell you.’

‘Tell me
now
!’ barked Frank.

‘Okay, okay. From how it looks, it seems that the biker has been beaten to death. I mean he was almost beyond recognition, I don’t think even god would have recognised him. The only way we could identify him was by his gang tattoos. An―’

‘The biker's dead?’ Frank could not believe what he was hearing. Weren’t bikers supposed to be big and tough? Frank thought bikers punched out teeth for a living.

‘Yep. Not just that, the other guy has hung himself from the bars by his belt. He’s swinging like damn piñata, there must have been one helluva fight. Quinn had long deep lacerations to his face and hands. We can’t cut him down for further examination till you get here. Somebody really dropped the ball. Get down here as soon as, Frank, we nee―’

Frank closed the phone before the conversation could run any further. The cogs in his turned into over gear. How was he going to explain this one? Who could he pitch the blame on? He should have just let it go. His hatred for Quinn was a mystery to even him. He had to get a grip of himself. Things were slipping. He might as well have been greased up and sent down a steep hill. That was how fast he felt things were slipping. Frank paced the small apartment from one end to the other. Never before had he had a prisoner die like this, let alone two. In the past people had caught beatings, in Frank's mind everyone took a beating at some time. Some even ended up on the back of milk cartons.
They
decided to live that criminal life, it came with the territory.

All he had wanted was his piece of the action. He was in the tightest spot he had ever encountered in his career and there had been some real tight ones. Before, if somebody ever had to disappear, he took a vacation to Vegas where the desert had no memory. Nobody ever pulled over a cop.

He walked back over to the table on which the whiskey sat, and poured himself another glass. The whiskey flowed into the glass, swirling around as it hit the bottom. Before it had any real chance to settle, Frank shot his arm upwards, glass in hand, down the hatch it went. Then another and another. With enough whiskey in his body to settle his nerves, he took a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. A knock at the door reported around the room as he tried to light his cigarette.

‘Hang on, I’ll be there in a second.’ shouted Frank.

He wondered who the hell it was; there were only two or three people who came to his door nowadays. None of them were welcome at this point, if they ever were in the first place. The knock came again.

‘Hang on, I’m putting on some pants.’ he lied.

He made sure he had everything he needed. Gun, badge and a collective of well thought through plans and

excuses. If they mentioned the smell of alcohol, he

would reply;
I was at home, relaxing. Why? How do you

relax after your shift? No, you're right. It is none of my business. So why ask me?
There was no way they were going to plant his drinking as the cause of all of this.

The knocking came again.

‘Fuckin wait will ya!’

Frank approached the fish-eye lens of his door. It was like looking through a drunken telescope. At first there was a flicker of a shadow; there was movement somewhere out there.

‘Who is it?’

No reply came, just the whistle of the wind and patter of rain.

‘Who is it? You’ve been knocking on my door long enough.’

Before he could walk away and get back in his seat, Alan came into view. His entire body was out of proportion in the fish eye lens, little head and large body. Frank's shoulders slumped, heavy sigh followed.
Great
. Here he was to wax lyrical in his self-righteous way about the evils of corruption. Frank considered himself lucky that Alan had not ratted on him. So at least Frank could invite him in, give him a drink and explain everything. Well, everything with a few lies intertwined with nuggets of truth.

He opened the door. Alan stood there, face sullen. Rain dripped off his coat onto the floor by the door. Frank would have greeted him with a used car salesman’s smile, but now was not the time to act pleased.

‘Don’t stand there all day, come in for a minute. I need to talk to you before we shoot off.’

‘Okay.’ Alan muttered grimly as he shook the rainwater from his umbrella. Frank took a step back, allowing Alan to pass. Frank popped his head out of the door to see if there was anyone else out there. Bringing his head and body back in, he closed the door. He turned to Alan, who was still standing, awaiting further instruction.

‘For the love of… Alan, take a seat please.’

Alan hoisted his coat to the sides before he sat, he steadied himself slowly into the chair. His every move delicate, as if Frank was to be treat like a dangerous explosive.

‘Alan, just
relax
. Now we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. I’m telling you now, I never meant for Quinn or that biker to die. It’s tragic. I only wanted for that shit-eating grin of his to be wiped off. I only wanted him to catch a beating. To be taught a lesson. I’ve done a lot of bad things, I know, maybe this is a wake up call. Just back me up on this, one time and I’ll go straight. Promise.’ said Frank, trying to appeal to the humanitarian side of Alan. It had a nasty habit of showing, so it would not be difficult to get him on board. Frank moved to the opposite side of the room where the whiskey sat. Alan’s eyes followed him. Frank could just feel the judgemental look bore into his soul.

He bent down to the whiskey bottle and grabbed another glass.

‘Want a drink Alan?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Geez, you’re cranky. Have a drink, relax, we're on the same page now.’ The words slurred a little from Frank's lips. He turned his back, taking his time to fill both glasses with whiskey. Frank knew half the battle was over; Alan was sat in the chair, his hand soon to be filled with a drink. Now all that was left was to seal the deal. Frank muttered about mounting debts, the stress of the job as he filled the glasses. Frank turned back to Alan, then walked over to hand the man his drink.

Frank walked back over to his own chair, his cogs turning quickly. He made himself comfortable, taking a sip from his drink. He looked Alan in the eyes. It took a moment or two to get his vision right; the alcohol had hit his system harder then he had realised.

‘You’ve cost me a lot Frank; my entire life is now gone because of you.’ Alan said sternly.

Frank took a deep breath, and then said, ‘Don’t worry, Alan, you’ll still have a job. You’ve just gotta trust me okay? I’ll make things right, I’ll make it so that none of this ever gets back to us. Now, where can I begin...?’

‘You can begin to tell me what makes you and me so different?’ asked Alan.

‘Uh?’ Grunted Frank.

Alan leaned forward in his chair, placing his drink on the table before he continued. ‘You know the greatest trick the devil ever performed was convincing the world he never existed…’

‘What the hell are you on about…?’

It left Frank dumbfounded; he looked closer at Alan. A grin spread across Alan’s face. It was a shit-eating grin.
Quinn’s
shit eating grin.

‘No, no, no! It’s not possible…’

Alan raised his hand, took hold of his face, and removed it from his very skull. It peeled away like a band-aid. Alan’s face fell to the floor. All Frank could see was a grinning, skinless mound of contorting muscle and bloody gristle.

‘Oh yes, Frank, It is.’

‘Where..’ Frank tried to catch a fleeting breath, his breathing came in short, quick stabs.

‘What, where the
hell
is Alan!?’

The faceless corpse retorted with an evil, delicious tone. ‘Oh, they’ll find Alan hanging around…forgive the pun.’

Frank’s drink dropped to the ground with an empty thud; the whiskey shot out of the glass onto the floor. If Frank had neighbours, they would have heard his screams pierce the night. If they had came round to his

apartment to see what was wrong, they would have witnessed the greatest trick every performed.

Frank was never seen ever again, much to the joy of those he had oppressed. The old Chinese man would wait to make his weekly payments for a bully who would never return. After a while, the money he put to one side paid for a comfortable retirement.

Alan was given a fitting funeral service. He would be remembered as a good cop, a hero to the downtrodden. The police never could keep those nights' events contained for long. The papers, once they caught wind of the story, went into a feeding-frenzy of theories. Not one story even got close to the real truth.

As for Quinn, he would hunt. He would watch through the windows of his intended prey, with Frank’s dirty money to help fund his new life. Unaware his maker was watching him begin a journey into the land of the eternal.

They were both dead to the world now.

OUTBREAK ON THE COMMONS

Guy James

Matt Sarelson parked his Toyota Highlander behind Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall.

It was still dark.

His head began to nod, and he took another sip of his tepid coffee.

As part of his weekday routine, Matt made himself coffee every morning before he left for work. That morning, Matt had made himself a cup of strong Kona, but departing from his meticulous coffee-making practice, he had committed what he deemed a coffee preparation atrocity.

Matt’s coffeemaker had self-destructed a week earlier, and while he waited for its replacement to arrive, Matt used his trusty French press in the broken coffeemaker’s stead.

On that unfortunate morning, Matt was especially groggy when he forced himself out of bed at ten minutes past four. The grogginess led to an exceptional bout of clumsiness in the kitchen: the French press slipped out of his fumbling hands as he carried it from the sink, and though he juggled the press for a few turns, his circus skills did not save it from shattering on the kitchen floor.

Broken French press or not, Matt had to have his coffee, so he got out a small saucepan, in which he boiled some water. To the boiling water he added ground Kona, and he let the mixture simmer for a few minutes while he stirred it, distastefully, with a wooden spoon. Then he poured off the top layer of the mixture, striving to keep the grounds out of his cup.

But grounds had come, and now, as he sat in the parking lot in his Highlander, he felt the demonic grounds poking around his mouth, mocking him. He wondered how people had done it back in the day before coffeemakers. The thought made him shudder.

Matt swallowed the tinged mouthful and sighed a coffee breath sigh. Imperfectly prepared coffee was just another in the series of sacrifices he made for his job. Letting grounds run rampant in his coffee was bad, it was true, as was the broken French press, but today—getting in early today—was worth all of that.

He opened the car door, got out, and ducked back in over the driver’s seat. He retrieved his coffee mug and tucked his stack of marked-up deal documents under his arm. Matt kicked the door shut with a loafer-clad foot, took a deep breath, and crossed the empty lot.

At the entrance of the dark alley that connected the parking lot and mall commons, Matt paused. It was a creepy shortcut during the day—lined on either side with dim, cavernous recesses—and was even more troubling at night, especially with one of the two overhead lights having burned out. Matt wondered if someone was going to replace that light any time soon. Didn’t anyone work anymore?

Matt took long, tired strides through the alley, and then abruptly stopped in the middle. He had heard something…something that sounded too much like a scream. He couldn’t tell where the sound had come from, so he looked behind him, and, seeing nothing, turned back around and started for the mall again, quickening his pace.

By the time Matt stepped out onto the mall commons, he had put the sound out of his mind. He was too tired to concentrate both on that and on what he had to accomplish at work that day.

The mall commons were empty, save for a smattering of the sleeping homeless, and they were still dead to the world. The place was still.

As Matt walked past the familiar shops, he felt a sting of resentment. All of the shops’ owners and employees were in bed, and he should have been too—not with them but in his own bed—if it wasn’t for that lazy, no good—

He heard a cry, and spun around to face the direction from which the noise had come.

He peered into the distance.

Nothing.

No one.

The mall was empty.

Matt decided it had been a particularly disharmonious bird, or, even if it had been a person, it didn’t concern him. He had extremely important things to do that day.

He resumed his walk and stopped in front of the building, looking up at it.
Bremmer Title Associates,
it said to him—to everyone that passed.

But not forever, Matt thought, gripping his coffee mug tighter, one day, it’ll say
Sarelson Title Company.
It shouldn’t say “Associates” anyway. That was stupid—remarkably stupid. It was a company, and it should announce that fact to all of the potential clients that passed by it.