Nether

by Jason Beymer

  “I won’t tell. Honest.” Her manic eyes swam back in her head. “Memory bad.”

  “Right. You don’t remember getting your throat slit, or Max using you as a pincushion.”

  “Max? Who’s Max?”

  Burklin flipped the woman over and went to work on her buttocks with the bar of soap. “Come on,” he said. “You’re messing with me right?”

  “No,” she said. “I woke up … in trunk.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  Her face fell into the water and struck the bottom of the tub. Burklin lifted her by the hair.

  “Nothing?” he asked again. “Maybe why your blood is so weird?”

  “Who are you?” she squeaked.

  “I … I don’t know if I should say. I’m nobody. I spend all day watching TV. Motor sports mostly. The movement around the track relaxes me. I’ve always fantasized about attending one of the races, but I can’t take Pearl to social gatherings. She bites. Actually, she does more than bite.”

  The woman gurgled, expelling bubbles.

  “Oh,” Burklin said. “I’m boring you back to death, aren’t I? Sorry. I had an interesting personality back when I had a”—he bit his lip—”a life. I was a badass, like Manson without the worshipping groupies.”

  The woman stopped moving and went limp. Burklin surmised she was A: relaxed, B: dead again, or C: lulled to sleep by his monotone voice.

  Through the closed door he heard Pearl yell, “It’s C! It’s C!”

  Burklin reached over and pulled the drain plug. The pipe clogged immediately. It would take at least five gallons of Drain Purge to clear out the gunk.

  He lifted the woman, soaking his apron with her wet, dead weight, and dropped her onto the tile. When he opened the bathroom door, Pearl’s voice continued.

  “… clog up the drain. But do you listen to me? No.” She clucked her long tongue. “Oh, there you are. So what’s the plan now? Groom and a pedicure?”

  Burklin covered the woman in bath towels. “Read my mind, dog.”

  Pearl went silent, then whispered, “Ooh, that’s not nice at all.”

  Burklin carried the chilled body to the circular table near Pearl’s crate. He pulled out a chair and positioned the woman in it. She leaned to the side, but before she could fall, Burklin planted her elbows on the tabletop as if staging a photo shoot: Dead Body Wrapped in Terrycloth.

  The woman’s torso hung over the table, her forehead flush with the surface. She made a purring noise in her throat, and flattened her dainty, bluish feet against the linoleum. He would need a strong needle and several spools of thread to close up those holes.

  “Cocoa,” he said. “Nothing’s more comforting than that, right?”

  Burklin opened the cabinet above the sink and removed two packets of cocoa powder. Both had exceeded their expiration dates, but so had the woman at his kitchen table. After mixing the water and powder in two mugs and nuking them in the microwave, he set one in front of her. The steam rose inches from her forehead.

  “See?” Burklin said. “Isn’t that nice? Breathe in the steam. Steam good.”

  “Who are you?” She pulled the wet towels around her shoulders. “Where … Max?”

  “Max? I thought you said you couldn’t remember anything.”

  “He—he killed me, didn’t he?”

  Burklin crooked an eyebrow. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to explain that part to her.

  The woman’s left arm twitched, and she elbowed the mug. It tumbled to the floor and shattered.

  Burklin waved it off. “Don’t worry about the mess.”

  “Yeah,” Pearl said. “It’ll blend right in.”

  Burklin glared at the dog.

  “Not too late to dump her,” Pearl said. “Are you prepared to risk everything on this tasty zombie? You’ll never take it all the way. You’ll puss out, and this time Garrick will kill us both.”

  “Garrick …” the woman at the table said. “Tell me about … Garrick.”

  Burklin rubbed his chin. “You’re asking a lot of questions for someone with a bad memory.”

  “Maybe her brain thawed,” Pearl said. “When someone comes back to life, their synaptic pathways start firing off a little at a time.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I saw it on pay-per-view. These zombies overran a mall. Then some humans caught one and stimulated its brain with electricity. The zombie ran off and hit up Gap for a pair of carpenter jeans. I guess a person’s fashion sense returns first. Then again, maybe that was bad product placement.”

  “Garrick,” the woman said.

  Burklin crossed his arms. “Garrick is complicated.”

  “You’re not supposed to discuss the trinity,” Pearl said.

  “She’s scared.”

  “Why are you getting so matronly? Bathing her? Giving her hot cocoa? I’ll bet this has something to do with your sexual dysfunction, something about not getting it up for two years. Are you desperate enough to bring home dead girls? There are mail-order brides for that. Third-world countries beg impotent, antisocial white males to pick up a catalog and dial toll-free. Most of them won’t even care about your limp thingy.” Pearl pulled her lips back in a grimace. “Wait. Is this about humping dead girls?”

  “What? No.”

  “Necrophilia? I’m just saying. If that’s all it is, you can get a night job at the morgue. Nobody can know about the trinity. Remember what Garrick did to that psychiatrist after you blabbed to him?”

  “Yes, but this one is already dead.”

  “Talking dog?” the woman asked.

  “See?” Burklin said. “She heard you talk. Why not tell her the rest of it?”

  Pearl huffed.

  Burklin sat at the table across from the woman. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  She raised her eyes and sniffled. Her forehead struck the tabletop again.

  “Well,” he said. “My name is Burklin.”

  “Wanda. My name … Wanda.”

  “What a beautiful name.”

  Pearl barked. “Ask her what her sign is.”

  Burklin threw a shoe at the crate. “You should drink some cocoa, Wanda. Here, you can have mine.”

  Her forehead remained fixed to the tabletop.

  “You want me to tell you about Max and Garrick?” he asked.

  She grunted an affirmative.

  “Max is sort of a demon lord. He’s young, still considered a seedling. But he’s strong, and when he gets angry, well …” Burklin motioned to the six-inch gash across the woman’s throat. “He gets aggressive. It would be far easier to lock him in a box and release him on his eighteenth birthday, but according to Garrick, we can’t. He says demon lords need social interaction and roots to this world to fully develop, or something like that.”

  “Garrick?” she said.

  “I’m getting there. You know that mental filter most people have? The one that makes us hesitate before we say or do something stupid? Max doesn’t have a filter. Garrick is in charge of keeping him alive into adulthood. I work for Garrick. Not willingly, of course.”

  The woman spit something onto the table and muttered, “Lorr-Lorraine?”

  “Yes, she—” Burklin raised an eyebrow. “I never mentioned Lorraine.”

  “Must have seen her.”

  “No, you were pretty dead when we threw you in the trunk.”

  “You—” She coughed again and looked up at him. “You love Lorraine.”

  Pearl sang from inside her crate, “Bingo.”

  “She’s my ex.” He looked away. “She’s part of the trinity, too. Whenever Max is in trouble or about to murder someone, Garrick gets a vision. Sort of a psychic flash. He gets it, and it tells him everything. The location, the timeframe, a list of witnesses to kill. All that stuff.”

  “Garrick,” she moaned.

  “Right,” Burklin said. “Sorry. It’s just a relief to discuss this with someone else. I mean, I tried to speak to a psychiatrist, but he
… fell out a window. Anyway, it’s nice to have a conversation with someone who isn’t a connoisseur of her own feces.”

  “Hey!” Pearl shouted.

  “Garrick,” the woman said again in a low moan.

  Burklin nodded. “We dispose of the bodies behind a diner Garrick owns. Once we get them in the Dumpster, the old man calls a trucking company to pick them up. Then, poof, the evidence disappears.”

  “Trucking …”

  “I’m not sure what to call it. It’s more of a janitorial service that works for us. I saw the driver once when I arrived a few minutes late. He was three feet tall, with a blond mullet. Oh, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt, of all things.”

  “Where do … where take bodies?”

  Burklin shrugged. “I’m not sure where they go.”

  “Into the Nether,” Pearl said.

  “You don’t know that for certain.”

  “Garrick says they go to the Nether.”

  “Oh, so it must be true, right?” Burklin rolled his eyes. “Garrick knows all. Oh, wise Garrick.”

  “Nether …” The woman moaned the word, hitting the R hard. A spark entered her left eye, and the pupil retracted. She rattled off words, each one progressively more garbled. Burklin caught snippets. “Lord Avnas … invocate …” She whipped her head up at Burklin, her lips curled. “Where is Garrick? Where is your … father now?”

  “My—my what? He’s not my father. Why would you think—”

  The woman swallowed noisily and cut him off. She extended her pasty, wet hand and set it on top of his.

  “Oh,” Burklin said with a shiver.

  She clenched her teeth. “Get my bag.”

  “Bag?” he and Pearl said at the same time.

  “Yes. I need it. Bring me bag.”

  Burklin lifted the woman’s hand and set it aside, suppressing the urge to vomit. “Where is it?”

  “Max’s house.”

  “What’s inside the bag?” Pearl asked from the crate.

  She took a while to answer. “Don’t remember.”

  Pearl barked. “My bullshit detector is ringing.”

  Burklin settled into the chair and watched the woman decompose. Perhaps she hadn’t been honest with him. He considered calling Lorraine.

  “Don’t even think it,” Pearl said. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but it’s important. It’s about Lorraine.”

  “I don’t care.”

  The dog yawned. “Then I’ll provide the details unsolicited. When you ran back into Max’s house, doing your best Maria the Scrub Maiden impersonation, Lorraine sat in the Eiffel right next to my crate.”

  “I don’t have time to play Scooby Doo. If you have something to say, say it.”

  “She used her cell. While you ran back inside the house, she made a phone call.”

  Burklin moved to Pearl’s crate and knelt down. “She did?”

  “Oh. So now you’re interested. Yes. She called the old man. And they weren’t sexting, either.”

  “What did she tell him?”

  “She said … “ Pearl licked her lips. “Jeez, I can’t recall. Maybe a bacon treat will jog my memory.”

  Burklin removed the lid from the ceramic jar and pulled out a square bacon wedge. He pushed it through the grille of the crate. Pearl nearly bit his fingers off.

  “More,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Tell me about the phone call.”

  “My ears are good. Fantastic, actually. I heard both sides of their conversation. Lorraine said, ‘He’s not here. He went back inside.’ And Garrick told her to leave you behind and drive the corpse to the Dumpster herself.”

  “But she didn’t. Lorraine came back into the house.”

  Pearl sighed. “Pay attention. Garrick didn’t care about the policeman. He didn’t care that you were still inside. He told Lorraine to put the stiff in Black Beauty’s trunk, leave you behind, and dump the body.”

  Burklin almost said, “So?” but stopped himself. “Wait. Lorraine disobeyed Garrick?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point. My point is Garrick really wants that chick in the Dumpster. He’s so desperate that he ordered Lorraine to leave you behind.”

  “And Lorraine disobeyed him.”

  The dog barked. “That’s not my point! I’m telling you we need to drive the Asian to the Dumpster before Garrick—”

  “Pearl, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Because I know how you feel about Lorraine, and I knew if—”

  “I should call Lorraine.”

  The dog sighed. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you sooner.”

  Call Lorraine, he thought. Ex-wife or not, she would know what to do. “Good idea, Pearl.”

  “No, you can’t call her. She’s your ex for a reason.”

  “Who else can I talk to? I can’t call Garrick and tell him Wanda came back to life.”

  “Why not? He’ll forgive you. By the way, when did we start calling the victims by name? Wanda? Really?”

  “Lorraine wants to be free from the old man, too.” At least he hoped so. Her words from earlier that evening made him less confident. She’d suggested he confront Garrick, force him to return his soul. Did she mean it? Or was that part of the old man’s loyalty test?

  “Lorraine brought it up again,” he said. “Confront Garrick.”

  The dachshund stretched inside the crate. “See? She wouldn’t have done that if she still had your back. She knows how spineless you are. Oh, wait. Is this one of those fantasies you come up with while you’re watching them have sex through the window?”

  Burklin stared at the pseudo-corpse, his mind awhirl. While the woman hadn’t moved much, she’d made an incredible mess. The churning sound in her chest transformed into a rattle. He had watched people die, too many to count, but had never witnessed this sort of putrefaction. Once, as a boy, he’d discovered a three-month old tomato beneath the refrigerator. It looked similar, except the tomato hadn’t expressed concern over being raped.

  Burklin set his hand on Wanda’s shoulder and stared into her half-closed eyes, trying not to breathe the horrible scent.

  “Cold,” the woman said.

  “Why were you at Max’s house?” he whispered.

  Wanda’s blue lips parted, but she didn’t answer.

  “Finally,” Pearl said. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

  Burklin kept his eyes on the woman. “We’re leaving,” he said.

  “We are?” Pearl asked.

  Burklin ripped off the apron. “I can’t believe I’m listening to you.”

  “It’s about time,” she said. “Wait. What are you listening to me about? The mail-order bride? Adopting a fat, succulent pig for me to truss? Getting me un-spayed?”

  “Your idea about not involving Lorraine.”

  “Oh, that. What changed your mind?”

  Burklin didn’t answer. In the end, it came down to one question: how much faith did he have in Lorraine? It wouldn’t take long for her to find the Dumpster empty. And when she did, she’d probably come here. She might already be in the carport for all he knew. Lorraine would enter his apartment and discover Wanda’s body slumped over the table. Would she help him? She’d disobeyed Garrick earlier that night, but how far would she go? Burklin couldn’t take the risk. He couldn’t allow Lorraine to abscond with Wanda and his one chance at getting his soul back.

  Burklin located a handcart in the corner of his apartment. He had only used it once to remove his court-approved possessions from the house—all two boxes’ worth. Now the cart doubled as a coat rack. He stripped the handcart bare and rolled it to the table.

  “No way,” Pearl said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I can’t put a lampshade over her head and hope Lorraine doesn’t look too closely. Do you have a better idea?”

  “Let me eat her.”

  Burklin peeled the towels off the breathing cadaver. They had adhered to the woman’s body, and made sickly sounds as he tore
them away. “Wanda,” he whispered.

  “Uhh,” she grunted.

  “Are you still in there?”

  “Uh-huh. Can’t speak. Get bag.”

  Burklin looked at Pearl’s crate. “She’s getting worse,” he said.

  “Worse?” Pearl said. “Considering she died an hour ago, I’m not following what that word means. Is she getting deader?”

  “I need to wheel her down to the car. My back hurts from carrying her up here. I’d never get her down the stairs without a cart.” Burklin found another Max, Inc. t-shirt and pulled it over Wanda’s head. Then he wedged her legs into a pair of yellow snow pants. They fit too loosely, but looked less gruesome than the floral skirt. He slipped both hands beneath her armpits and lifted her. Wanda’s flesh slickened, and he lost his grip. She flopped back into the chair and her head cracked against the tabletop.

  “I think she’s been sitting too long.” He unlatched Pearl’s crate. “Find rope. There’s some by the mattress.”

  Pearl licked her lips and stared at the woman’s feet.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Burklin said.

  He picked up Wanda, jamming his knee against her buttocks, and pulled her torso backward. The woman’s spine snapped and she straightened. The dog galloped to the far side of the room and returned with an expanse of rope trailing from her mouth.

  Burklin tied the woman to the cart, starting with her ankles and finishing with her chest. He pulled the ropes taut until they dug into her flesh.

  “Not bad,” Pearl said. “Are you going to wheel her around with a scary mask too? Good thing most of our neighbors are strung out on meth, huh? Maybe they’ll think you’re performing a mating ritual. Um, that’s not what this is, is it?”

  “What?”

  “A mating ritual?”

  “No.”

  Burklin slung a plastic bag over Wanda’s head and lowered it over the cart. When he finished, Wanda resembled a five-foot bag of garbage, except for ten pedicured toes at the cart’s base.

  “What’s the plan?” Pearl asked.

  Burklin slipped into a brown winter coat. “I’ll take her down to the car.”

  Pearl’s expression changed, as though working a math problem in her head.

  “Stop it,” Burklin said. “You know I can’t carry both you and the cart, but there’s no time to make two trips.”