Habeas Corpses

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  I frowned. "There are no commercial flights out until six a.m."

  "Private jet. Will you walk me to the boat? You could at least do that. For old times."

  I wasn't sure what old times she was referring to but I nodded.

  "We'll both walk you," Deirdre said.

  "There's no need to go to all the trouble."

  "Don't worry, honey. As long as Chris is armed, I'll hang back at a discreet distance. You can whisper all the endearments you like as long as I can keep him in a fifteen-foot line of sight."

  Theresa looked back at me. "I must say, Chris, your fiancée is either very open-minded or very secure in your relationship."

  "Uh, Deirdre is not my fiancée."

  Theresa's eyes widened. She looked over at my Security Chief. She looked back at me. "Really? That's . . . interesting . . ."

  "Isn't it?" Deirdre opined. She turned to me. "Check your clip."

  I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster. "How many times do I have to tell you, it's not a clip, it's a magazine. Clips are loads for the long bores."

  "Long bores, huh? Well, that would be you."

  I ignored that but ejected and reinserted the ammo magazine so she wouldn't keep on. Deirdre picked up her shotgun as we headed out the door.

  Outside, the air smelled fresh and clean, washed clear by the showers of the morning before. The combined stench of T's perfume and decay evaporated but I felt a shiver as her black-clad body disappeared in the darkness, leaving her head to seemingly float through the night like a glimmering apparition.

  "So, who is the lucky lady?" Theresa asked over her invisible shoulder.

  "How about an exchange of information? I'll give you a name if you give me an address."

  In spite of my attempts to match her stride, she still managed to walk just ahead of me. "I'm sure the doctor will send you directions shortly."

  "Tell him to send it snail mail; I seem to be having trouble with my ISP." We reached the end of the front lawn and she started down the stairs.

  I hurried to catch up. One flight down she slowed and leaned back against me as I matched her pace. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to persuade you to come with me?" she murmured suggestively.

  Maybe her brain had starved for oxygen: that approach hadn't worked back when she still had her original body. And, while I might confess to one or two mild kinks in the boudoir, borrowed, putrefying flesh just sort of kills my amorous inclinations.

  "The steps are kind of slippery with the night dew," Deirdre called down. "You might want to use the handrail."

  Theresa took the hint and hurried down the stairs. Mostly to annoy my Chief of Security, I hurried after her.

  The boat moored next to the dock was larger than I expected, certainly larger than a lone individual required for crossing the river for a hasty visit. Suki and her entourage had been lucky: there was plenty of space aboard for them and room to spare, as well. The craft was twin-hulled for stability and that gave her the added advantage of a shallow draft, allowing her to berth so close to the river's bank. A tarp covered a pile of something amidships and I remembered our visitors' luggage. It looked like Suki and Co. had left some of their gear behind. Which meant Deirdre and I would probably have to hump it all up the stairs if Theresa was in as big of a hurry to depart as she claimed.

  The problem was the tarp covered a big pile.

  Worse, the pile was getting bigger.

  The tarp rose into the air until it was as tall as a man standing erect.

  And it didn't stop there!

  "Chris!" Deirdre bellowed. "Get back!"

  Like to where I once belonged and you can call me Jojo: I moonwalked back up three steps as the tarp fell away and I looked up at a vaguely man-shaped silhouette. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone's love child, bottle-fed on steroids and beaten daily with an ugly stick for thirty-some-odd years . . .

  This thing might have been his scarier, older brother.

  "Fall back to the house and I'll cover you!"

  "Nothin' doin', Red," I growled as I squeezed past her and grabbed her belt from behind. "We're gonna run this like a three-legged race!"

  She twisted and shoved me up to the top of the first landing. "Then don't slow me down! Run!"

  We ran but I couldn't keep from looking back. As it stepped over the side of the boat, the dock settled low in the water as if the creature weighed a ton.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked as we turned onto the second landing and started up the final flight of stairs.

  "It came here on that psychopathic bitch's boat," Deirdre grunted at my hip. "She kept it hidden until she could lure you down to the dock. That means it's something very bad!"

  "That's it," I puffed, "she's officially off the guest list for the wedding."

  The thing was on the stairs now, bounding up toward us, taking three steps at a time. The wooden treads cracked like gunfire beneath its ponderous feet.

  I pulled the Glock from my shoulder holster and fired a couple of rounds into the air.

  "What are you doing? It's behind us, not above us!"

  "Thought I'd let Suki know company was coming." We reached the top and nearly stumbled making the transition to softer ground. "Besides, shooting it might make it mad."

  "Let's test that theory." She turned, shoving me behind her, and pumped a shell into the chamber. "Stop or I'll shoot!" she bellowed as the thing reached the top of the stairs.

  The creature stopped and you could see the fear reflected in its eyes—the fear on our faces, that is. It wasn't hesitating; it was merely posing for effect, giving us a chance to really see what we were up against.

  Mary Shelley's description of the creature in her magnum opus remarked upon "its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity . . . the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I (Victor Frankenstein) had given life."

  This thing was bigger and uglier. It wore clothing of sorts, pants and a shirt of some gray canvas material. Its color and the creature's misshapen form were such as to make it impossible to discern where one left off and the other began.

  Then it opened its mouth and displayed a pair of three-and-a-half-inch fangs.

  "Holy shit!" I cried. "Frankenstein meets Dracula!"

  Deirdre discharged the shotgun and the phosphorus load dazzled us with its actinic, bright flash. As my eyes recovered I could see patches of the thing's bare flesh where the ragged shirt had burned away to reveal a crazy quilt of stitch lines and multihued patches of skin. It casually swatted at peppered patches of smoldering hide as if the fiery pellets were mosquitolike annoyances.

  She jacked another shell into the breech but the monster was upon her in two quick bounds and closed its massive hands around the smoking barrel. I saw the muscles bunch in her arms as she tried to twist the weapon out of its gray-green grasp.

  "Guess . . . what?" it intoned in a deep funereal voice.

  "Uh," she said. "Hulk smash?"

  It shook its great, blocky head. "Hulk . . . splash!" And flicked the shotgun to the side so fast that Deirdre didn't have time to let go. She was suddenly airborne and disappeared over the edge of the bluff before she could even scream.

  "Crap!" I said, hoping that saying the word would keep me from doing it. I turned and ran for the house as fast as I could.

  It let me get there first.

  I slammed the door behind me, turned the bolt and knob locks, and slid the restraint chain into position with a fumbled flourish. Technically, it was all unnecessary as vampires cannot cross a private threshold without an invitation—even if the door is wide open. But I wasn't thinking rationally. Something that big and that hideous was bad enough. The fact that it possessed a quick wit and matching reflexes suggested that it was even more dangerous than it looked.

  Maybe it was pen pals with Madame LeClaire, as well.

  I closed my eyes and tried to think past my panic: Deirdre was still out there and, even if she survived
the fall with minor injuries, the thing was still between her and sanctuary. How could I help her? "I . . . hate . . . monsters," I sighed.

  "Well, you're not always so lovable, yourself," Suki said from behind me.

  I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder. She was standing in the doorway wearing an abbreviated silk robe. Her hair was damp and she was barefoot.

  "I took a quick shower," she said in answer to the question in my eyes. "I thought I heard some kind of racket. Where's Deirdre?"

  "In the river, I hope. Where's your security goon squad?"

  As if in answer to my question, Lance came hurtling through the glass window adjacent to the front door like—well—a lance.

  Suki's face changed.

  I had seen her in inhuman form before, but only as a cat. Some Japanese vampires can manifest in feline form, the extra tail being the one characteristic that tends to separate them from the rest of the breeds. But this was different. Asian vampires have a more demonic aspect in their arousal state. Her face contorted into something resembling an ancient ceremonial mask with teeth and tusks and eyes that glowed like fanned embers. Her fingernails grew into curved talons and her robe parted to reveal a Picasso-like distortion of the human form.

  "Who dares?" she roared in a voice that was suddenly an octave below my own. "Who attacks my human servant?"

  I was trying to think of an abbreviated response when the other nightmare voice chuckled just outside the door. "Little pig, little pig, let me in . . ." it singsonged.

  Beau walked into the room wearing a shoulder rig with a handgun that would've made Detective Harry Callahan envious. "What's going on?" he asked.

  "Disney's Fangtasia," I wheezed. "And you're gonna need a bigger gun."

  "How many?" Suki growled.

  "Uh, one." I didn't count Theresa. Hell, the thing out there could have brought a pack of rabid Dobermans and I wouldn't have counted them, either.

  "Then why are we standing here?" She ran across the room and leaped through the broken window.

  "Save some for me!" Beau yelled as he made a detour to the door in order to follow. He should have had his weapon out before he opened the door. That way he might have been ready when the gigantic arm with camo-colored skin reached in and the huge gray-green hand closed around his face. Then again maybe nothing would have made him ready enough: the hand twitched and there was an audible crunch as Beau's skull imploded. As he dropped, I pointed the Glock at the mismatched mass in the doorway and emptied the magazine.

  It must have done some damage. The creature bellowed and hunkered down, turning back to peer in at me as the hammer repeatedly clicked on the empty chamber. Then a guttural but ululating battle cry erupted behind it—someone had been watching way too much Xena. The thing turned around and there was a wet smacking sound that cut the cry off in mid yi-yi-yi.

  There was a serious weapons locker in the basement with a bazooka, rocket launcher, and a couple of heavy-caliber machine guns. I was turning in that direction when the monster turned back and began squeezing through the open door.

  "Hey," I said, "you can't do that!"

  "I can't?" it purred. Purred like a lion, that is.

  "I didn't invite you in!"

  "File a claim with the grievance committee." It was taking some effort: seven-foot doors do not easily accommodate nine-foot monsters. Still, it would be on top of me before I could reach the basement stairs.

  I made it as far as the den, picked up an end table and tore off a sturdy wooden leg. I turned as it crouched to work its way through the interior doorway. As the one arm was momentarily positioned behind him to push against the frame, I darted forward and drove the splintered end of my makeshift stake into the center of its massive chest with all the preternatural strength I could muster.

  It should have pulped the creature's heart. Instead, there was a muffled "clank" and the chair leg rebounded in my grasp. The monster paused and waggled a finger at me as if to say "naughty, naughty." I glimpsed the glint of metal through the ruined patch of flesh in the middle of its chest.

  There was no way I could get to a weapons locker in time, unlock it, and load something that had a prayer of stopping this thing. If I lured it out and into the cemetery it would only make a puree of The Neighbors. I could blow out the pilot-light in the stove, turn up the gas, let it build up, and blow us all to kingdom come—if the monster was willing to wait around for a half-hour.

  Indecision had paralyzed me and now the thing was through the doorway and reaching for me with impossibly long arms. I leaned back and it staggered on its next step forward. A slimy beige band encircled its neck and it grew a second, smaller head beside its own: Deirdre's. Her face and hair were spattered with river mud and a steady trickle of brackish water dribbled behind the monster's massive legs as though her arrival had rendered him suddenly incontinent.

  I grinned through my terror. "What kept you?"

  "What do you mean, what kept me?" she gritted. "Who invited it in?"

  The thing sniffed. "Ah." It grinned. "Smells like team spirit . . ."

  Deirdre moved higher on the creature's back and her other arm came up, a hunting knife in her hand. Before I could open my mouth to warn her, she leaned across its huge shoulder and plunged the knife into its chest.

  The blade snapped off and dropped to the floor.

  "Now that's interesting," she said—just before our Goliath threw himself back against the interior wall. Oak planks covered with plaster snapped like a string of firecrackers and, as it leaned forward, I could see Deirdre was embedded in the wall, pushed halfway through the other side.

  I didn't call to her, asking if she was okay. If I couldn't find a way to stop this thing in the next few minutes, none of us were ever going to be okay again. I turned and ran for the library.

  Kyle was coming toward me from my study, a pair of automatic weapons in his clenched hands. "Down!" he shouted, and I dropped into a home plate slide across the hardwood floor as the Uzis made a thunderous, tearing sound.

  He stepped past me as he emptied his magazines and I scrambled on into the next room. I had no faith that bullets or even grenades could stop our fanged juggernaut. Think! my brain screamed as my gaze darted around the room. How do you stop a two-legged freight train? The bookshelves mocked me. I checked the desk. Letter opener? Scissors? That was it: if I could just get the thing to run through the house with a pair of scissors . . .

  The fireplace was cold: not even a winking ember much less a burning brand to wave in its face. I reached for the heavy iron poker just as the Uzis fell silent and Kyle screamed. It was a short scream, terminated by a sickening crunch. I looked back through the doorway just in time to see his bloodied face hurtling in my direction.

  I went down with his mangled corpse on top of me. He was wadded up like a crumpled piece of paper and it cost me precious seconds to extricate myself from his wet and tangled remains. I was up on one knee and suddenly looking into the face of my own death. It smiled. "Goodness, gracious," it rumbled in a happy voice, "that was thirsty work! I need a drink . . ." Its cavernous mouth opened and its three-and-a-half-inch fangs actually moved, growing another inch!

  Even worse, the daggerlike teeth had the color and reflective qualities of stainless steel, not the ivory hue of natural dental enamel.

  This time there was no war cry, just an abbreviated roar as an Oriental lion stuck its demonic head between the monster's massive thighs. It twisted its fantastic visage upwards and its fanged and tusked mouth snapped shut on Frankenvamp's crotch.

  The monster stopped and stood very still for a moment. Perhaps it didn't have a heart but it did appear to have balls. "That hurts," it announced conversationally.

  As if the rest of its scorched and punctured flesh was mere illusion.

  "Then maybe you should lie down!" Deirdre announced from behind it.

  The thing suddenly pitched forward and only my enhanced reflexes got me out of the way in time. It crashed, facefirst, into the floo
r. Deirdre stood just beyond in the den, holding the bunched end of the carpet runner that led from the den to the study. She glared at me. "If we survive this, promise me that I get to kill that body-swapping bitch! But, in the meantime, run!"

  I didn't run. Where was I going to go? And while I like to think I was loath to leave Deirdre and Suki, it was more likely I was too pissed off to retreat any more. I started whacking the thing with the heavy iron fireplace poker, smashing it down on Gargantua's shaggy head again and again. "Why? Won't? You? Die?" I grunted, delivering what should have been a killing blow with each syllable.

  There was the muffled clanking sound with each blow and the creature's skull retained its general shape despite the repeated punishment.

  Then it started to rise.

  "The question is," the thing rumbled, "why won't you? I have come to gather data and specimens to assist in researching this issue." It reached down between its legs and pulled Suki away. She came reluctantly and with her toothy maw full. As it threw her through the side window I saw a freshet of gore where its groin used to be. The fluids that dribbled forth looked more like antifreeze than blood.

  "Now," it said turning back to me, "we can do this the hard way . . . or the easy way."

  I looked at the trail of gore and structural damage behind it. "The hard way?"

  It nodded. "Thou sayest."

  "Nooooo!" With a banshee wail, Deirdre leapt back onto the aircraft carrier expanse of its shoulders as it reached toward me. She had no weapons and her own superhuman strength was clearly inadequate as she grasped its blocky head and tried to snap its tree-stump neck. I tried to thrust the poker into the wound where its heart should be and was rewarded with another metallic sound as the heavy tool met heavier resistance.

  The creature ignored its redheaded jockey and focused on me. That was its first mistake. As it plucked the poker from my shock-numbed grasp, Deirdre's hands flew to the monster's face, curving into fleshy claws just below its heavy, shelflike brow. Faster than it could reach up to grasp her hands, she plunged the index and second fingers of each into the thing's eye sockets.