by Alan Spencer
The call from Doris and Bruce Hamden’s house about the group of dressed-up dead men had already put him at an uneasy alert and now he was dealing with this. Those six idiots set themselves up for potential danger. Doris wanted to blow them away for tramping across her garden. What would the next person do who crossed paths with the convincing group of walking corpses? And now Wayne called to say there was an intruder in his deli. How many weird things were going on in Anderson Mills today?
As he entered the eatery the smell troubled him. It wasn’t deli meats or anything stagnant. It was powerful, though, like the smell of iron in blood. The lights were out, but there was enough late afternoon daylight filtering through the windows to make sense of the shadows. He withdrew his 9 mm handgun. He stepped over to the front counter and combed the area, the gun in his hand.
“Come out with your hands up. You’re under arrest.”
Nobody replied.
A series of noises stopped him in his tracks: drip, thap, drip, thap, ka-thud, ka-thud, and then the grating whir of a garbage disposal choking on its fill, the blade cutting through metal or bones by the sound of it. He observed a hand sticking out from behind the wall, dangling limp on the floor. He hurried to investigate it. Someone was in the back of the store at work, but what work was the operative question. With the scent of blood, the curious noises and then the garbage disposal’s churn, he suspected the worst.
He crept to the wall beside the rack of chips and squatted to check out the hand. Now that he could see more, the sheriff cringed at Wayne’s torso. The blood trail behind Wayne’s upper half made it obvious he tried to crawl away even after he was cut in half.
He dared to peer into the back room. A hanging body dripped from a headless stump. Body parts lined the table top, blood oozing from the edges and streaming into the drain. The meat grinder catcher was heaped full of grainy meat threads and folds of flesh.
Coughing on his own disgust, he forced out the order, “Freeze asshole!”
The intruder popped out at that moment, dressed as Wayne would be on an average business day, a white butcher’s outfit with a black apron over the chest and legs, but this man was burly and well over three-hundred pounds. His black greasy hair was in tangles, and his patchy beard stained in random spurts of blood and flesh. The butcher guided a coil of long intestines into the garbage disposal undeterred by the command and was about to shove a severed foot through as well when he finally paused to study Wayne.
Eyes bulging wide, his face burning with incredulity and venomous anger at the intrusion of his important work, he barked defensively, “MY CUTS!”
“What did you say? No, forget it. Put the weapon down and get your hands up right now. Shut up and do it! Or, or I’ll shoot you!”
The man didn’t register the commands. He brandished a clever and drove it into the body hanging upside down, hacking and slicing until he wrenched out the innards handful by handful—the butcher winning the awkward game of tug-of-war when the pieces seemed to be stuck but finally gave—and slopped them onto the floor. The sheriff noted the pile of clothes at the exit door, and they looked like what the workers at Eddie Stolburg’s slaughterhouse wore.
He’d killed all of them.
“How many people have you slaughtered? You crazy son-of-a-bitch, get those hands up right now! Drop the clever—I said drop it!”
It was in that moment he read the name embroidered on the man’s breast pocket: Jorg.
He insisted again, “Jorg, you do as I say, or I’ll shoot you.”
Jorg didn’t budge at the commands. He stroked his blood-sodden finger down a line of butchering knives and stopped at the twelve inch steak knife. He clutched the handle and removed it from the magnetic strip.
“Put it down—now!”
Jorg’s grin took shape, those awful words ripe with spittle and insatiable hunger, “MY CUTS!”
Wayne pulled the trigger, seeing no other course of action. He was shocked by the damage a single bullet inflicted. A plume of red exploded from the butcher’s chest, and it blew a cinder block sized hunk of flesh from his back that spattered out like wet dough. The skin unraveled along his abdomen as if it was all tied together and the knot had been undone, and the man collapsed in one sickening PLOP. But he wasn’t dead yet. The eyes leered at Wayne, studying him, looking him over. The man clasped tighter to the knife and raised it as if to throw it when the sheriff emptied three more rounds on pure instinct. One shot struck the hand holding the knife, liquefying it into finger and palm debris. The second lodged in the abdomen with little reaction, but the third pierced through the man’s forehead and erupted, spitting a gallon of blood against the wall, finally immobilizing the chef.
Shaken, but snapping out of it, Wayne quickly called for back-up and an ambulance.
Officials from the Green County police department accompanied the sheriff to comb the scene for evidence, the crime scene itself confusing as it was unique. The deli was busy with seven crime techs total, each careful with their steps, the evidence splattered at every corner. Crime scene investigator Kyle Redding stepped up to the sheriff with an initial report. “The assailant apparently murdered the workers at Eddie Stolburg’s slaughterhouse and drove their remains here in a stolen truck to butcher.”
“Was he going to eat them?” The sheriff inquired, shaken at the idea of the overweight man feasting on the flaps of meat heaped in the meat slicer’s tray. “Christ, he cut Wayne in half. What could he have used to do it?”
“Uh…gentlemen.” Another investigator named Frank Garrison approached them, a beefy man much like Jorg but handsome in a rugged, authoritative way. “I believe this is the murder weapon.”
Frank held up a scythe in his gloved hand. The blade was seven inches long and wicked from the glare in the overhead light.
“He must’ve brought it here,” the sheriff suggested, his belly twisting at the thought of it being used on poor Wayne. “Who in the hell is this guy? I’ve got my deputies with your men at Eddie’s slaughterhouse, and they’ve pretty much found the same thing.” He pointed at the body hanging upside down from the ceiling. “More of these bodies were drained of blood like slaughtered cattle, and even the receptionist was murdered. Ironic thing, none of the cattle or money was stolen. The rest of the place was left alone, aside from the workers.”
Garrison added his two cents. “He has no identification whatsoever.” The man’s rotund face turned white. He couldn’t look them in the eye during his next comment. “We haven’t gathered any fingerprints, not even from the knives he used or from his own fingertips. The man’s hands come up smooth, no markings or indentions at all. It’s strange.”
“And impossible,” Redding scoffed. “Maybe he’s put something over his fingers, or he…he, well, I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
The sheriff massaged his eyes, his concern welling up into what could possibly bubble over into a professional breakdown. “I’m going to have to tell Wayne’s wife about this. She’s not going to take it well. Goddamn it anyway.”
Garrison studied the murderer’s head, half of it blown away. “Kyle, look at this. His skull is empty, and we’ve found no brain matter anywhere in the room. You shot him in the head, obviously.”
“Only because he was coming at me after I shot him three times. Crazy lunatic acted like it didn’t faze him one bit. And I saw the exit the wound, and there was no brain or skull material. It’s like nothing was in there. And he kept saying the same two words. My cuts. It didn’t make sense. It reads “Jorg” on his breast pocket. Maybe that’ll help identify him.”
Redding became entranced with the inner workings of the man’s chest. “No remains of the heart either, as if he never had one. The sternum looks ill-formed, cartilage instead of bone. There are no organs, just fatty tissue and muscle. At the back of his head, there’s no brainstem connecting from the spine. I’d like to perform an autopsy. It’s like the body isn’t real. He’s an anatomical anomaly. Any college
professor would love this discovery. What if there are more people out there like this?”
“This is as incredible as the James Ryerson incident.” Garrison was genuine in his remark. “We still don’t know how he grafted those bodies together and mismatched people. And some of those people are still missing. It’s only been eight months. The incidents might be connected.”
“James Ryerson is dead.” The sheriff dismissed their line of thinking. He recalled one of the bodies at the Lawrence nightclub twitching alive with three arms attached to one side of the body, the other side a human head lodged where the shoulder should’ve been. He shot it in the head to end its misery, more out of sheer repulsion than sympathy. “This isn’t connected. I want a better answer than this. A logical one.”
The sheriff recalled how the Hamdens had spotted six men dressed as corpses.
What the hell’s next, he thought. Anderson Mills is really going tits up today.
“The FBI swept the Ryerson incident under the carpet, but the two incidents are within eight months of each other,” Redding said again. “Anderson Mills is about to reach its peak season with tourists. This needs to be wrapped up double quick for their safety.”
The safety of our money, the sheriff thought. “Then what are we going to do about this mess?” He watched another investigator pile organs into a body bag, but the worker couldn’t figure out what parts matched what body and cursed under his breath in frustration. “And is this the only man responsible for these killings? We haven’t asked ourselves that yet. Could one person do this?”
“You two are missing the scientific implications. This man’s body is an oddity.” Redding lowered onto his haunches and pivoted the man’s flimsy head toward them. “There’s no brain, just the components for the man to see and to breathe. He’s fused together by wads of fat, tissue and cartilage. Yes, there could be someone else responsible, and the real question is, are they like this man too?”
The sheriff dismissed the scientific talk. “Just get this place cleaned up. Take the body to your lab, and call me when you’ve performed an autopsy. I’m interested in what you find, yes. All of this unsettles me, though. I pray this man dying was the end of this horrible incident.”
Chapter Six
1
“Shoot the Coors can, and this time don’t miss!”
Jill Hammock lined up the end of the Remington Buckshooter with the Coors can on top of the dock’s wooden post. Her long-time friend and boyfriend, Kevin Brenner, chided her on. “Five shots, this is your last chance. If you don’t hit this, you have to drink another beer. You’re already on your sixth. This game can last all night.”
She ignored his comments. “I’m the best at aiming. My daddy taught me, the fat-ass lush. I’m the master.”
“Judd’s a drunk with an M-16,” Kevin laughed. “It’s impossible to miss with that, drunk or not.”
They’d been drinking and fishing throughout the day, and then Kevin brought out the Remington Buckshooter from the back of his Pathfinder. He bragged that he’d shot down fourteen bucks in a month’s time and that was without hunting gear or a scope. Jill enjoyed fishing, but the idea of hunting was less appealing. The blood and watching the deer die was different than hooking a fish and stowing it in a cooler to later clean and eat. Hunting was barbaric and less skilled than fishing, she believed, plus it was fun for her to dip her feet into the water at the dock’s edge and catch a buzz and talk with Kevin. He left town through the week transporting beef from Eddie Stolburg’s slaughterhouse, but he was on vacation and wouldn’t have to report to work until next Monday.
Jill lined up the can, pulled the trigger, but the bullet went wide.
It smacked the water.
“Hah, hah, hah! Another beer for you.” Kevin reached into the cooler and tossed her another can of Coors. “Drink up, lady. I’ll have you in bed in no time.”
“Screw off. I’ll be too drunk to fuck, and then we’ll see who’s sorry.”
He hooked an earthworm and cast off. He looked up and saw some men filter out from the woods. They shambled about with a limping gait, their shoulders hunched crooked. Jill met his glance and noticed them as well. She counted six. They were dressed in soiled black suits. She couldn’t see their faces because the sun white-washed them out.
“Who the hell are they?”
Kevin scrutinized them harder. “Maybe they’re hurt.”
He walked toward them.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to bother them,” she warned. They were odd-looking. She made out one of their faces, and it was blackened over as if draped in dead skin. Jill couldn’t believe her eyes. The woods’ shadows were playing tricks, she argued with herself. “Don’t be a Good Samaritan. They’re getting around fine, why bother them?”
She wrapped her arms around him to anchor him still. He resisted and shrugged off her attempts, determined to know who the people were. “No, I have to check it out. There’s something suspicious about them. Their faces are strange, like they’re wearing masks. They’re up to something.”
Jill scanned up and down the lake and didn’t see anyone else. She’d feel better if the place was busier, but they were alone. It was at the time of the day where everyone returned to their camp sites and ate dinner. The six continued down the road, plodding to an unknown destination. Kevin jogged to catch up with them. When he was drunk, he lost the sense to mind his own business.
He called out to them, “Are you guys lost? Hey you! Hey you!”
Jill pursued Kevin, though she stayed a distance from him, scared. Wherever the men were going, they obviously didn’t want anything to do with him. They didn’t call out for help or break pace to look their way either. “I don’t like this. Turn back, Kevin—for me, okay? Please. I want to go home now. Kevin, I want to go home.”
“I don’t like the looks of them,” Kevin argued. “Why are six people wandering the woods in nice suits?”
“Quit being nosey, who cares? Hey, we can go back to my place. I’ll do a strip tease. This time, I’ll let you fuck me in any position you want. I have that maid’s outfit. What about the cheerleader one? I can be a schoolgirl. What’s the subject for class today? Come on, Kevin! Please stop this. For me. Please. This is really scaring me.”
Kevin’s interest didn’t wane. They were yards from the group now and making progress. As they got closer, they could see their suits were faded and covered in dried mud. Their hair was scraggly, but the skin was what concerned her—it looked dead and was peeling. She gasped at the sight of a bare skull through a serrated scalp. The worms dangling from teeth and stewing in eye sockets inspired nausea.
“What the hell is wrong with them?”
Kevin’s face hardened. “Hey, what the hell is wrong with you people? Stop for a second, would you? I want to talk to you!”
The group continued to limp to an unknown destination, though up ahead, the road ended in about half a mile and then changed into more woods. It eventually led to the Jennings’ dairy farm, but that wasn’t until five to ten miles north and most of it was an uphill hike.
“Let’s go back, okay?” Jill tugged on his shirt. “Please. It’s not worth it. They’re not bothering us. They’re not bothering anybody.”
“Be quiet!” This time he pushed her off of him hard. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
He cleared the distance between him and the group, determined to get his answers. Jill was about to cuss him out for the way he was treating her, but she let out a scream when the last one in the group suddenly lunged for him. The decayed, sunken face attached to his neck, clamping its teeth upon his trachea with the give of bone and tissue. Kevin’s eyes bulged from their sockets as blood billowed out both sides of his lips. “Graaaaaah!”
The dead man kept chewing through his throat, mincing, gnawing, gnashing, tearing, and turning over the meat in its mouth. Kevin thrashed in place, falling to the ground when he couldn’t breathe, choking on so much blood. The five others surrounded him
and tore at his clothes, each of them digging through his abdomen and wrenching their fingers deeper to remove the skin and his insides. She turned to avoid the rough dissection, unable to process such an attack. Kevin’s blood-laden gargles ended shortly after his torso was exposed and open to the air. She snapped out of it, fleeing from them, thinking about the rifle, hoping to escape and live. She could scare them off and call for help.
The staggering notion repeated in her head as a distress signal. Kevin is dead, Kevin is dead, Kevin is dead…
She raced to the fishing dock, out of breath and sick to her stomach. Tears clouded her vision, blurring her surroundings. She desperately traced the water’s edge for the rifle. It was where she left it, propped against the dock’s post. Running to it, she cradled the stock and sprinted back to where she left Kevin. She kept racing on until she trounced through the puddles of blood. From the puddles, red footprints led into the woods. A distant outline of the figures became smaller as they disappeared behind the dense trees, disturbing the branches in their way. One of them had hoisted Kevin’s body over its shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to pursue them, filled with stone cold terror. It wasn’t until a car drove by and picked her up that she was able to alert the police about what had happened to Kevin.
The two law officials stared down into the hole at Anderson Mills Cemetery and Cal Unger’s mud-caked corpse strewn at the bottom. Their flashlights combed the scene. It was early evening and the sun was on its way to clocking off for the night.
“What the hell is going on in our town?” Deputy Stafford complained to the sheriff. “We keep finding mutilated bodies. This is the worst thing to happen since, well, since ever. Pretty soon nobody will want to live here, including me. Forget vacations and forget the summer tourists. Nobody will want to stay here.”
The sheriff turned to him, a snarl drawn into his face. “We managed to clear the bodies from the slaughterhouse and Wayne’s deli without anyone noticing. Reporters won’t show up unless someone leaks the information. Vincent Freeman is the only one who knows about Cal Unger. He promised to keep quiet. The funeral director doesn’t want bad press at his cemetery. And Cal doesn’t have any family locally. I’ll have to check for next of kin later on.”
