When Graveyards Yawn ta-1

by G. Wells Taylor

  Despite this, I still managed to retain reserves of optimism. I was feeling hot to trot, injured but high on adrenaline. My hunches had played out well. I wasn't happy with the way the last act was shaping up; but it didn't really matter that people knew justice was done-so long as justice was done. Of course, I knew a lot of people would go unpunished, officially, for their crimes; and I was likely to suffer severely for my involvement. Times like this I had to be philosophical. There was no point to getting upset about how nice it would be to put someone behind bars. Perhaps Greasetown had evolved away from that type of justice or devolved toward the primitive law of the jungle. Certainly, the crimes that had been committed were capitol offenses. Since there were no judges or juries that I could trust, perhaps in rather democratic fashion, justice had returned to the individual. One vote. Life or death. Right or wrong. Did we need a committee for everything? If I could, I would see that someone paid for the murders. Likable or not, Conrad Billings was an innocent. He certainly didn't deserve to die. Then there was Julie Hawksbridge; she had the right to live her own life. No one should be able to turn her into a baby-making machine. Then there was the baby if it really existed. I got the creeping fits just imagining the process the King of the Dead intended to inflict upon it.

  There was still the possibility that evil existed. There was a chance, however small, that it wasn't simply a poor innocent driven by social or familial turmoil to act out against his fellows. Perhaps evil could still be done. Were our social compacts our downfall? The scientists had sold our souls, objectified us. Not that the soul was an angel without wings or a devil minus horns, but the spiritual unknown inherent in religion gave us something. It allowed for justice; there was the possibility for balance. Science would not allow evil, nor would it good. It pushed us into a gray area of vulnerability. People locked their doors because of their compassion. The odd farm family sacrificed a daughter to rape and dismemberment in the hope that one day a criminal would get help. It was just a mistake. Choices, good or evil had nothing to do with the immortal soul. They were just factors in a sociologist's equation. I had to think. I had to get rid of my emotion. There was too much chance of screwing up, slowing down, if my feelings got involved. Justice was justice. It was a cold thing like the barrel of a gun. I knew what justice was. I had to see that it was done.

  My optimism came from the fact that already the wheels had begun to turn. Adrian had paid horribly for his crime. Cane died for his abuses. Was that the best justice? Let the criminals devour each other. I had to believe there was another way, especially when I gauged my own position. When criminals consumed one another, they did so with violence that ravaged the innocent as well. I had to sharpen my edge. The emotion had to go. I had to hug justice to my breast, and force it into my flesh. Things were going to happen fast.

  The transport screeched to a halt. Its heavy iron walls were hot, and they groaned against the speed of the rapid deceleration. The impetus forced me hard into one of the uprights. Luckily, it was my right shoulder. My left, and the arm attached to it, was still numb-throbbing intermittently. They seemed to be coming around a little, but behaved like broken radio-controlled toys. Willieboy growled at me. "Come on."

  He walked half-crouched to the rear of the transport, and then twisted a handle set in the steel. A light flashed, a horn droned quietly. The door levered open forming a ramp. Outside, night was falling fast. A heavy fog hugged the walled-in courtyard. A wave of exhaust hit me, made me nauseous. Suddenly a pair of Enforcers appeared outside the door. They carried auto-shotguns. Both were strangely at home in the darkness that enveloped the world. Their facemasks glinted demonically. Willieboy stepped out of the transport to relay some orders. "Take the hamburger to the lab." He gestured to Adrian's remains. "Then fortify the gate. Trouble's coming." They disappeared with Adrian into the gloom. Willieboy turned to me.

  "Come on. Let's get this over with." He reached in and grabbed my left arm. It almost came off. He should have just shot me. I winced and let out an angry hiss of air. "God damn it. Last time I take a drive with you…" I mumbled against the pain.

  The King of the Dead lived in a castle-it was a three-storied mansion about two hundred feet wide built of large brown stones. Copper-roofed towers rose into darkness on the north and south ends of the structure. I spotted movement in the shadow of their open windows. We had come to a stop well inside the tall stone wall that circled the perimeter of the castle courtyard and grounds. I could remember rumors of a huge wooded acreage that enclosed the manse supposedly containing a herd of man-eating boar. I looked around and saw silhouettes along the battlements on the outer wall. There was an open lawn before the castle that contained a crushed gravel drive one hundred feet long flanked by topiary knights on leafy steeds. I cast a glance back down the drive toward the stark iron gates. Guards moved back and forth in a glaring spotlight against the black bars of a portcullis. Smaller stone towers stood on either side of the gate. Authority Transports with cannon mounted on them patrolled the grounds.

  "Get going!" Willieboy shoved me. I stumbled. My clothes were in shreds and let the cooling air in. It was refreshing, but irritated my scorched skin. We approached a pair of heavy iron and oak doors set deep in the face of the mansion. I saw that a little bridge ran over to them, crossing a moat about fifteen feet wide. I looked down; the dark water dimly mirrored my face.

  "A moat?" I asked Willieboy. "You've got to be kidding." He shrugged and pushed me on. We entered a high vaulted hallway. A huge stag's head with an eight-foot rack of antlers hung on a heavy shield on the wall opposite the entrance. Below that a pair of battle-axes were crossed. An intricate suit of armor sagged under these, looking tired. A stone hallway ran to my left and right. The manor had been designed in gothic fashion, punctuated with many high-pointed arches. The buttresses disappeared in shadow over my head. Willieboy pushed me painfully down the hall to the right. We passed works of art sporadically placed along its length. On one stand was the noble brow of Caesar Augustus, on another Hannibal. Farther down the hall was a portrait of Napoleon, farther still King Henry VIII. I turned to Willieboy, raised an eyebrow. He kept his eyes straight ahead. The muscles at his jaws bunched. This place was not to be mocked.

  Willieboy pushed me up a broad flight of stairs, ending at yet another tall set of doors. A life-size human skeleton in armor was carved on each mahogany door, wooden broad swords in bony hands. Willieboy knocked on a shield carried by one of the skeletal guardians. Seconds later, the doors swung inward.

  My nose hairs tried to crawl up into my brain the moment the doors opened. Formaldehyde. Sour, sickening formaldehyde. A mist of it hung in the air-or its scent had been added to the clammy fog that swirled in the motion of the doors. Willieboy gestured with his head. I entered. The fog settled on my skin like airborne excrement, and soaked into my clothes. I resisted the urge to retch on a point of etiquette. It just wouldn't do to vomit at that time. I was a guest.

  The doors thudded shut behind us like dirt dropped from a gravedigger's shovel. I shook with a chill-blood loss, and the fact that the place was easily a balmy 55 degrees. Ahead of me were broad circles of light running the length of a long damp Indian carpet. Through the stinking fog, I could just make out a raised dais. I detected movement from within its faint illumination.

  "Do come in, Mr. Wildclown." A voice as cool as the room spoke from the mist-shrouded dais. "You may approach."

  We approached. Willieboy showing some hesitation. The cold voice spoke again. "Excellent work, Mr. Willieboy. Excellent. I would prefer to have Mr. Adrian in speaking condition, but accidents happen. Wildclown will do if what you reported is true. Most unfortunate Mr. Adrian's demise. Most unfortunate. I am certain Mr. Wildclown will be only too pleased to help us locate our property. If, as you say, he knows."

  "I saw them talking," Willieboy said. "During the gun battle. I saw them talking." Sweat gleamed on his brow. "He sure acts like he knows."

  I approached a great foggy tub a
bout ten feet in diameter. In front of it were three wide steps. They were carved from a dark, polished marble. I hesitated, trying to pierce the masking mists. I could see movement within. A round pale head, skeletal arms moved wraith-like. I walked up the steps. I saw now that the King lay in a gigantic tub. Powerful whirlpool jets churned the surface of its contents: formaldehyde, and something else that reeked of sulfur.

  When I looked into the tub I almost went back on my decision not to vomit.

  Chapter 61

  The King was deathly pale where he floated in his bath. Despite the preserving fluid, his corpse had a desiccated, rotten look to it. His features were sharp and gray-veined; his body wasted by age. Stitches of dark green cord held him together. The King had been a rich man at the time of the Change, but he had met with a violent death. It was obvious from looking at the corpse that he had been reassembled. As his limbs moved in and out of the fog, I noticed that his skin hung on him in patches that were slightly different shades, and that on one hand, he had two mismatched fingers. He only wore two things: a ridiculous brown wig that clung to his head like a drowning cat and a golden crown over that.

  He was so contemptible I wanted to laugh. Was existence so precious that he would cling to such a battered and run-down excuse of a body? I caught myself, remembering the body I had borrowed. The King paddled around his shallow pool, alligator-style. My guts jumped when he unconsciously drank a long draught of the liquid. Little puffs of vapor blew from his withered nostrils. He looked like something that had crawled out of a rusty can.

  "Mr. Wildclown. I would like it very much if you tell me the whereabouts of my property. After that, you may go." He leaned against the rim of the tub. I noticed that a console of buttons, dials and video monitors was built above the rim.

  "If you don't mind taking a walk down a two-way street. I'd like to know what happened to Owen Grey." I tried to search my battered pockets for cigarettes. My left hand moved out of sync. Willieboy produced a pack and handed me one.

  The King squinted at Willieboy.

  He paused while lighting my damp cigarette. "He was the private dick hired by the Hawksbridges to find the girl."

  "Oh, yes." The King's dead face registered real delight. "I remember him now. A dinosaur. They are rare, you know, so it troubled me to have him killed." His features froze. "Now, where is my property?"

  "I don't usually use language like this but fuck you."

  The King showed broken teeth. He was used to dealing with hard cases. He pressed a panel under the console. A drawer eased open. His gray hand reached in and retrieved an automatic-something old and powerful from Smith and Wesson. The smile had remained dead upon his face. "Now, shall we do this while you can still draw a breath? Or will we do it when each injury precipitated upon you will become an eternal scar that will not heal. A hole or tear that remains open-jagged-baring your raw red secrets to every prying eye. Do not toy with me. I have an understandable contempt for all things living. One look at me should dispel any doubts about whether or not I will take great joy in killing you."

  I smiled. He was correct. His dead face held secret anticipation. "What do you want to know?"

  The King sighed two clouds of formaldehyde gas, set the gun down on the edge of the tub beside him and shook his head. "Where is my property?"

  "Look, I'm not stalling or anything. I just don't think I'll be around long after I talk. Would it be possible for you to explain how Grey met his end?"

  The King smirked. "You posses hubris, Wildclown. I'll give you that." He sighed. "Grey became a nuisance. He was pestering me, and, he was drawing the attention of one or two factions in Authority. Now, the Hawksbridges are not of my stature, in wealth, but they did have enough pull to cause me minimal damage. I couldn't have that. So I encouraged Mr. Willieboy to hire a gun to take Grey out. Who was it?"

  "Some psychopath. Wiry little guy called himself Jimmy Jay. I don't know much about him, but that he talked a mean streak about religion, and the end of the world. He was in an asylum before the Change, killed his little brother, or some soap opera. Drank like a fish, and oh shit, there was something…" Willieboy rubbed his chin. "Can't remember. Anyway, he was homicidal, pure and simple. Kill at the drop of a dime. He did Grey for a hundred dollars. Something must have happened to him, because he never collected the money. Grey was out of the way though. I saw the body. Jay called me, told me where to find it. Fucking psychopath. Grey was burned up pretty good."

  "Why did you pay Grey's bills?" I was beset with weird images of Grey's ignoble end. The gasoline dousing the body. The vapor igniting. "It's not unusual for someone, especially someone in Grey's line of work to welsh on a bet, or skip on the rent."

  Willieboy smiled. "That was the King's idea."

  I turned to him. "Bought you time."

  "Certainly. I didn't know how much trouble Grey had already caused, or whether or not he actually enlisted some aid. If his bills were paid, the chances of someone missing him were fewer." He laughed, "As it turned out, he didn't have a friend in the world. But, I don't believe in taking chances, and his bills were so small as to be nonexistent. It was an excellent investment."

  "Who made the call to the Hawksbridges?" I stared at Willieboy. "Why kill them?"

  The King spoke to my back. "They had become a nuisance as well. I believe Grey convinced them that they could find their daughter if they looked hard enough. They turned out to be a larger threat than Grey. Mr. Willieboy called." Willieboy gave the King a dark look.

  "What did you do? Fix their brakes, or just run them off the road?"

  "That's inconsequential. They pushed hard at something that was bigger than they were, and it rolled back on them. It's simple physics," the King chuckled.

  "And the girl. Is she alive?" I turned to the corpse.

  He shook his head. "You're boring me." The King bobbed in his tank. "Now it's your turn to answer a few questions."

  Transition.

  I was floating over Tommy's head. I immediately tried to possess him. He was a wall. I tried again. Below me Tommy had dropped into a catatonic state. His jaw dropped. His lips seemed to try and work around a word. "Where am I?" He winced as he experienced his wounds for the first time. He reached up to his left shoulder, hissed.

  I watched the King. He stared, fascinated, and then swam in for a closer look. Perturbed amusement writhed over his crosshatched features. "Wildclown?" The clown's face had become feral, apish. The King frowned. "Oh God! Willieboy would you look at…"

  But Tommy was already moving. He leapt up the remaining steps and landed on top of the King-pushing the dead monarch beneath the surface. His hand moved lightning fast onto the gun by the console. It whipped up, pointed at Willieboy. Willieboy had his half out of his holster. He froze-a queer smile on his lips.

  "Now, just a minute…hang on Wildclown. We're both bit players here. This is perfect!"

  I watched as the King's hands climbed spider-like, up and down Tommy's legs. Tommy looked down. He murmured. "Spiders…" Then he looked up. Willieboy had used the split second to get his own gun clear, but he hadn't moved fast enough. Tommy fired six shots into Willieboy's chest. The. 44 slugs tore his rib cage to pieces. The gun almost kicked itself free of Tommy's damp grip in the process. Willieboy staggered back, vomiting blood until the volley ended. He stood in place a moment looking down at the ruin that his chest had become, befuddled. He looked up-anger gripped his brow, then he grinned. Willieboy sat down with his legs crossed. His head fell forward. Blood spilled from his mouth.

  Tommy threw the gun onto the stairs, then looked down at the King's scrabbling hands. "What have we, what have we? Demons from the pit?" He reached down and grabbed both arms by the wrists. He yanked the King up and out of the formaldehyde. The corpse hung there looking grotesque and fragile. Fluid poured from its orifices. His face was an inch from Tommy's.

  "You can have anything. Anything." Formaldehyde spattered from the dead King's lips. Tommy held him higher. The King's legs
had withered and atrophied in the constant bath. They were bowed and twisted like driftwood. I realized in a moment, how ridiculous his notion of a new life was.

  "Please," the King's said, voice was soft. "Please, I will pay you any sum. I will give you anything."

  "You stink…" Tommy sniffled.

  The King smiled, chuckled even. "Oh, yes, oh yes, I do. That's right I do. Just tell me what you'd like. I'll do whatever you want. Just let me go, that's all I ask."

  "I killed your friend." The clown roughly twisted the King's head toward Willieboy's body. The cadaver's neck clicked audibly.

  "Oh, that's all right. He and I weren't close. I didn't even like him. That's okay, what you did. I'm not angry, Mr. Wildclown." The King forced a ghastly smile.

  "He was your friend," Tommy said, then with righteous fervor rising. "You're disgusting!"

  Tommy pulled the King's left arm off. The body was fragile, and the shoulder tore like boiled cabbage. The King shrieked. Tommy took the arm by the wrist and mashed it against the console. The King cried aloud. Tommy tossed the severed arm, wrapped his own around the King's torso, and then with a loud twisting wrench pulled off the King's right. He nonchalantly dropped that member into the bath-it bobbed, fingers twitching. Tommy sat on the edge of the tub panting, bewilderment on his features. His right hand held the King's body by its neck. He bent the King's rubbery legs and sat him on his right knee. The phone started ringing. Tommy looked at it, sneered.