Joe Coffin Season One

by Ken Preston

  “What’s wrong with Shania Twain?”

  “She sings bloody, crappy commercialised pop, that’s what. Shania Twain wouldn’t know a decent song if it smacked her in the face.”

  “You’re telling me you don’t like Man! I Feel Like a Woman!?”

  Pierce grinned. “You do realise what that song is about, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I do, it’s about getting all dressed up to go out partying.”

  “That’s what you think. Sooze, you should pay a little more attention to the lyrics, then you’ll get the deeper meaning.”

  “The deeper meaning?”

  “Yeah, sure. All songs have a deeper meaning to them, you’ve just got to listen carefully, pick out the subtext.”

  “Okay, Vaughan, tell me. What’s the subtext to Man! I Feel Like a Woman!?”

  “It’s all about Shania Twain declaring herself a lesbian.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Vaughan!”

  Pierce spread his hands out. “It’s true, it’s all there in the lyrics, out in the open. She says she doesn’t need romance, and to forget that she’s a lady, she’s going to start wearing men’s shirts, it’s all there Sooze.”

  Suzanna shook her head. “Seems like a stretch to me.”

  “Oh yeah? How about when she sings about doing it in style, or getting in the action? No inhibitions and doing what I dare? Besides, if you don’t believe that, all you’ve got to do is look at the song title. Man! I Feel Like a Woman! That’s like me saying, man, I feel like a beer, or man, I feel like pizza. She wants to get it on with another woman, that’s what that song is all about.”

  “Vaughan, you are a complete idiot. Besides, if you hate the song so much, how come you know so much about the lyrics?”

  “Because you forced me to listen to it about a million times over the last few days. I don’t think I’m ever going to get that song out of my head again.”

  “Idiot,” Suzanna muttered.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Pierce said, and looked back down at the body. “Right, how are we going to get this damn thing off his head?”

  “You think maybe we can prise it apart with just our hands?”

  “Let’s give it a go.”

  “Careful of the teeth,” Suzanna said. “What if we hold it by the edges here, down by the hinge?”

  They both gripped the edges of the mantrap jaws.

  Pierce looked up at Suzanna. “One, two, three!”

  They pulled together, but the iron jaws hardly budged.

  “I think we’re going to have to get something to leverage it apart,” Suzanna said.

  “No, wait,” Pierce replied. “Think about it, these things need to be opened up again, if they’re going to be reused. I bet there’s a quick release switch somewhere, there must be.”

  Pierce leaned over and examined the bottom of the pressure plate, ran his fingers around the edges.

  “Here, this is it.” He got his thumb under the lever and pulled. It shifted slightly, flakes of rust falling to the floor. Pierce inserted another finger behind the lever and pulled again.

  The lever shifted, and the jaws loosened.

  “That’s it, you got it,” Suzanna said, slowly prising the jaws apart.

  The wounds made a slight squelching noise as the teeth came free. Pierce helped Suzanna lift the mantrap over and off the corpse’s head, and place it on the floor.

  “You’d think there would be more blood,” Suzanna said.

  Pierce gazed at the corpse. “I guess so, yeah, there’s some, but those teeth in his neck, you’d think maybe he severed an artery, or something, and the corpse would be lying in a pool of blood.”

  “Well, the autopsy will sort all that out. Come on, let’s get him strapped on to the stretcher.”

  They stood up. Suzanna stretched, the white plastic of her bio-hazard suit crackling as she moved.

  “You know what?” Pierce said. “I’m gonna have another cigarette before we load him up.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I’m serious.” Pierce started walking up the cellar steps. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He got to the top and halted when Suzanna shouted up after him.

  “Hey!”

  Pierce turned around. Suzanna was standing at the bottom of the steps, grinning.

  “What are you grinning at?” Pierce said.

  “Straw Dogs,” Suzanna said.

  “Straw what?”

  “Straw Dogs. That’s the name of the film where a guy gets his head caught in a mantrap. I remembered it!”

  “Good for you, Sooze,” Pierce said. “Who knows, it might be our first clue.”

  Pierce walked through the house and back outside. Most of the crime team had left. A policeman sat in a car on the drive, keeping a watch out for any curious thrill seekers, with a desire to go exploring a murder scene.

  Pierce pulled a cigarette out and stuck it in his mouth. He shivered. The match flared bright in the darkness, and he held the flame to the tip of the cigarette. It was about time he gave up smoking, he’d been promising himself for years he would.

  Maybe next year.

  Pierce smiled as he thought about how he had teased Suzanna over her taste in music. She was a nice girl, but she got wound up so easily, Pierce could never resist teasing her. And her trying to remember the name of that film? Pierce had known all along what it was called. Pretending not to know had been much more fun.

  Maybe there were two pleasures left in the job, after all. The chance to sneak out for a fag. And the opportunity to tease his partner.

  Suzanna was a sweet, funny girl. If there wasn’t such an age difference between them, and Pierce even thought he had a cat in hell’s chance with her, well…

  Pierce turned at the sound of a crash from inside the house. Sounded like one of the lights in the cellar tipping over.

  Pierce walked towards the front door. “Sooze?”

  Another crash. Pierce dropped the cigarette and ran up the steps, into the house.

  “Sooze, what’s happening?” he shouted, as he ran down the hall.

  He stopped at the top of the cellar steps. The sounds of things falling over had stopped. The light coming up from the cellar was dimmer now, but there was still some. Maybe two of the four lights had fallen over.

  “Suzie, you okay?” Pierce said, as he walked down the stone steps.

  He froze at the bottom. Suzanna was on the floor, her biohazard suit ripped to shreds, thin streams of blood winding across the floor, and running down the sides of the hole. The naked man, apparently dead just a few moments ago, was hunched over her, sucking at a jet of blood spurting from Suzanna’s neck.

  The man paused in his feeding and looked up at Pierce.

  And grinned.

  stump and corpse

  Traffic on the M6 was at a standstill. Tom stood on the covered, pedestrian bridge, gazing through the scratched, filthy Perspex at the three lanes of stationary headlights, snaking back down the motorway as far as he could see. The window began misting up in front of his eyes, obscuring his view. Tom had rested his forehead against the cool surface, as though the effort of keeping it upright on his shoulders was too much for him, and he had to give his neck muscles a rest.

  The smart comment about the Travelodge had been just that, a stupid joke. Something to say, when he couldn’t think of anything to say. But when it had come down to it, where the hell else could he take them?

  Back to River View Gardens? Right, he could just see that. Hi, Laura, I’ve brought a couple of friends back with me, they’re going to be staying with us for a while. You might recognise one of them, she used to be your friend, Steffanie, but now she’s a dead, blood sucking, nymphomaniac, who kept our son locked in a cellar, and drained his blood so that this decrepit, fucking creature over here, could drink it.

  Tom closed his eyes. Maybe he should have taken them back to the nightclub. Steffanie always had been a star attraction. Might kind of ruin the atmosphere though, if sh
e leapt into her adoring audience at the end of her act, and started trying to eat them.

  And the Boris Karloff lookalike would turn everyone away.

  So here Tom was, standing on a bridge over the M6, whilst Steffanie and that corpse they called the Father, hid in a family room at the Travelodge.

  A young couple walked past, arms around each other, giggling. The boy had his hand stuffed in his girlfriend’s back pocket of her jeans. Tom watched them as they walked, the girl’s round bottom wriggling in her tight jeans. She nuzzled her head into his neck as they walked.

  Tom hoped they weren’t headed for the Travelodge, too. The last thing he needed right now was for a horny young couple to book into the room next door to Steffanie. If she heard them in the night, she would probably tear down their door and join in.

  Tom turned his attention back to the motorway and checked his watch.

  They were late.

  No surprise, really, looking at the traffic. But he didn’t like keeping Steffanie and the old man waiting. Steffanie was growing agitated, had this hungry look in her eyes. It had been hours since either of them had drunk any blood, and in their hurry to get out, they had left the holdall of blood bags behind.

  Even the corpse was twitching and moaning.

  If their new supply didn’t arrive soon, Tom hated to think of what might happen.

  Tom pulled a battered, crumpled cigarette packet out of a pocket, and opened it up.

  Shit!

  It was empty.

  He tossed it on the floor and walked across the bridge. He needed a fag right now, help him think, sharpen him up. Once he had accepted delivery of the blood, and Steffanie and her pet corpse were all tucked up warm and cosy for the night, he needed to get back to the hospital. Laura would probably throw a fit when he returned, wanting to know where he’d been, demanding to know why he hadn’t been at his son’s side.

  And having totalled his own car after installing Steffanie and the freak show at the Travelodge, Tom had had to borrow Laura’s car to drive back here. Fucking thing drove like a tank, but it was all he had left. He’d made up some vague reason for having to leave, but he would need to be a bit more specific when he returned to the hospital.

  And thinking up an excuse for his absence over the last few hours wasn’t his only problem. Once Jacob woke up, he was most likely going to start blabbing about how it was Steffanie Coffin had kept him prisoner the last few days.

  Nobody would believe him, of course. But it would cause a stink, and that was the last thing Tom needed.

  Although he’d seen her regularly over the last couple of weeks, Tom could hardly believe Steffanie was alive, still. Except she wasn’t, was she? What was she now, one of the undead?

  A fucking vampire?

  Yeah, that’s what she was.

  Unfuckingbelievable.

  Tom ran down the steps two at a time and walked through the crowded service station until he found a WHSmith. He joined the back of the queue.

  Joe would freak out if he knew what had happened to his wife. All the more reason to try and keep him in the dark. Tom wondered if Steffanie remembered her husband. If she still had any feelings for him?

  How much could she remember of anything? What did she recollect of her old life, when she was alive, and not this creature of the night? She’d recognised Jacob, remembered him. But that hadn’t stopped her from slicing his arm open and bleeding him dry. So if Steffanie and Joe bumped into each other, what would she do? Try to slice and dice him?

  What would Joe do?

  How far would he be prepared to defend himself against his wife?

  The queue moved forward a little.

  Tom folded his arms, clenched his teeth. He wanted to start shoving people out of his way, scream in the face of that crying kid, go absolutely ape-shit. How could the motorway be so jammed with traffic when it seemed like everybody and his fucking mother was in this service station?

  Steffanie would murder Joe without even thinking about it. The last year or so, she hadn’t been that hot on Joe anymore, everyone could see that. Except for the big gorilla, he was so besotted with her, he was blind to the looks she used to give him, the cutting remarks.

  So in that sense it didn’t much matter how much she could remember. When it came down to it, Steffanie didn’t give a flying fuck about Joe Coffin, when she was alive, and now she was…not alive.

  But what if she could remember other stuff?

  Like, what if she could remember where the hell she had hidden that USB stick?

  Tom had thought plenty about asking her if she remembered where she had hidden the damn thing over the last few days. But the sight of her unsettled him so much, he could never go through with it. Maybe things would be different now that Abel was dead.

  Tom needed to try and get the damn thing back before he had another phone call from that scary fucker, wanting to know what was taking so long, why it wasn’t done with yet. He knew they wanted to appear as though they had no involvement, but he could tell their patience was wearing thin. If Tom didn’t get hold of that USB stick soon, he was a dead man.

  He’d done a quick search of Steffanie’s house shortly after she took it in the neck from Abel, but come up with nothing. If he got chance, maybe he’d go back soon, and try a more thorough search. But he would have to be quick, before Coffin decided he wanted to go back home, after all.

  Why the fuck did the prison have to let Coffin out of jail so early?

  And why the fuck was it taking so long for this queue to move?

  Earlier, in the Travelodge family room, while the corpse sucked on a piece of raw steak that Tom had picked up on the way over, he’d told Steffanie that Joe had killed Abel. It was the last thing Tom had wanted to do; he thought she would go wild with grief, or anger, or something. But no, she took the news with a casual indifference.

  They’d sat on one of the twin beds while they talked, like two lovers talking about maybe doing it for the first time. Except that Steffanie kept arching her back, and writhing around like she was a cat in heat. Tom would have found this a huge turn on, but the corpse in the corner was grunting as it slobbered and slurped over the bloody piece of meat clutched in its clawed hands.

  Kind of ruined the romantic atmosphere.

  The queue moved forward some more. The mother with the crying kid, who had now gone into complete meltdown, decided she’d had enough and left.

  Good fucking riddance, Tom thought.

  As he stood almost within reach of the counter, just behind the man being served, Tom heard people muttering and complaining in the queue behind. Sounded like some impatient bastards were pushing their way to the front of the line. Tom didn’t bother turning to have a look. It was none of his business.

  Unless they tried pushing in front of him, of course. In which case, he would deck them.

  Tom finally reached the front of the queue.

  “Twenty Benson & Hedges,” Tom said, pulling a rumpled £20 note from his pocket.

  The young kid behind the counter slid the panel back to reveal the rows of cigarette packets.

  Tom’s hands were shaking, and he dropped the money.

  “Which pack do you want?” the kid said. “The Gold King, Gold Urban, the Sovereign, or the Silver Slide or Silver Flip Top?”

  “Just give me a pack of fucking cigarettes, will you?” Tom snapped.

  The kid looked confused. “Um, do you want the cheaper ones?”

  Tom ran a hand over his face and through his hair. It was taking all his self-control not to leap over the counter and pummel the kid’s spotty face in.

  “Turn the fuck around and face the cigarette display,” he said.

  The kid hesitated, then did as he was told.

  “Now, lift your hand up, and grab a packet of cigarettes. I don’t care what brand, how much they cost, or what fucking colour they are. The packets can be shit coloured, as long as they’ve got cigarettes in them.”

  Tom looked down at the floor,
trying to find his money. He couldn’t see it anywhere. He squatted down and peered between the legs of the people surrounding him. There was more commotion, people shifting, bumping into each other.

  Where the fuck is my money?

  When Tom stood up, the kid had turned around, a packet of cigarettes clutched in his hand, and was staring wide-eyed over Tom’s shoulder, at something behind him.

  “You beened and goner and mislosted summerthing then?”

  The £20 note appeared in front of Tom’s eyes, held by the dirtiest, scabbiest fingers Tom had ever seen.

  “About fucking time!” Tom said, turning around.

  A man and woman had pushed their way through the line of waiting customers, ignoring grumbled complaints, until they had got to Tom.

  The man, tall and skinny, wore a black, stained and ill-fitting suit. The sleeves were far too short for his long arms, and his stick thin wrists protruded from the cuffs, adding to his bizarre appearance. His trousers ended well above his ankles, revealing a pair of dirty white sports socks. His head was badly shaved, patches of stubble growing randomly on his flaky scalp, and his dark, sunken eyes flicked nervously from side to side.

  There was a story that Corpse had once been known as ‘The Undertaker’, because looked like an undertaker in that dark suit he always wore. But then one day someone happened to mention that he looked more like the corpse than the undertaker, and the name Corpse had stuck. If Corpse had ever had a real name, nobody could remember it.

  Not even Corpse.

  The woman was about as wide as Corpse was tall. There was a permanent sheen of sweat on her pudgy upper lip. Her black, greasy hair was tied back in a lank ponytail. Her belly strained at the waistband of her black leather trousers, and she wore a long, black trench coat, and wraparound sunglasses. Tom had often wondered if she thought she was Neo, from The Matrix. But he’d never bothered asking.

  Her left hand, sticking out of the frayed jacket cuff, was stiff, solid plastic, like a mannequin’s. Her left arm ended as a stump just below the elbow. Rumour had it that the hand really did belong to a mannequin once. Stump had been passing a clothing store one day, and, upon seeing the mannequin in the shop front window, took such a fancy to the hand, that she just had to have it.