Ghosts of Christmas Present: A Dead Detective Short Story (The Dead Detective)

by J. R. Rain

  As I hoped like hell, something rustled in the undergrowth nearby. I think I peed myself a little.

  “Relax, Billy,” said Tommy. “It’s just a squirrel or something—look!” He pointed to the screen, and I could see it too. A bluish blip had appeared within the greenish circle, in a direction that indicated it was to our left. “We’ve got our first ghost!”

  “Yay,” I said, and I might have sounded less than enthusiastic. Still, I looked over to my left. There was nothing there, of course. Just a lot of darkness.

  “Let’s talk to it,” said Tommy excitedly. “Let’s ask it some questions.”

  Asking it questions was suddenly about the last thing I wanted to do. Then again, I was pretty sure these ghost radar apps were full of shit. Maybe. On a night like this, though, in these conditions, with Tommy’s face aglow and a bluish ghostly blip nearby, it was suddenly very easy to believe that the ghost radar was real and that we were in some serious shit.

  Damn my overactive imagination.

  With a heavy sense of foreboding and a strong need to empty my bladder, I started the recorder, using my own phone app. “What do you want to ask it?” I asked.

  “Don’t talk to me,” said Tommy. “Talk to him.”

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “Well, it’s a blue dot… just feels like a boy, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know,” I said. I took in some air and, already regretting the words that were about to issue forth from my mouth, I asked: “Is there anyone, um, here with us?”

  “Geez, Billy, could you sound more like a downer? Put some more umph into it.”

  “I don’t think ghosts care if there’s umph in it or not.”

  “They feed off our energy, man. They know when you don’t really want to talk to them.”

  “Well, I don’t really want to talk to them.”

  “You did earlier.”

  “Earlier we weren’t in a cemetery. Earlier we were sitting in my bedroom.”

  Tommy nodded. “Earlier your mom was making us cookies.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “I like your mom,” said Tommy, then quickly added: “I mean, she’s a cool mom.”

  I looked at him sideways. Truth was, my mom was still a knockout for her age. I always suspected my friends had crushes on her. “Yeah, she’s okay,” I said. I raised the recorder. “How about this: You ask it something, since you’re the expert.”

  “Fine, give it to me. You hold mine.”

  “That sounds gay, man.”

  “Well, we’re not gay, so let it go. At least, I’m not gay.”

  “I’m not either,” I said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Settle down, Seinfeld.”

  We switched phones and Tommy went on to ask a series of lame questions, all of which were meant to establish whether or not someone or something was with us in the cemetery. We next played the recording back, listening closely to the silence between the questions… and got exactly nothing. No ghostly voices. Nada. In fact, even the blue blip disappeared.

  “This sucks,” said Tommy. “It’s not like the TV shows. Man, they’re always getting voices and shit.”

  “Well, too bad,” I said. “We tried. Hey, are you hungry?”

  Tommy was always hungry, and he was always game for food. My question was, of course, well calculated to get our asses the hell out of the cemetery and over to the local McDonald’s. No luck. Tommy ignored me, his face aglow as he studied my cell phone screen.

  “Hey, look at this,” he said. “It’s another app. Google is recommending it. Probably because you bought the ghost app.”

  “What app is it recommending?” I asked.

  “It’s called Raise the Dead for Fun and Profit.”

  “Fun and profit?” I asked. “How the hell do you make a profit on raising the dead?”

  “I don’t know, but let’s get it.”

  “Oh, hell no,” I said, knowing I was going to have to act fast. Once Tommy had his mind set on something, there was no way in hell I or anyone would ever get him to back down. “Man, I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry?”

  “There!” said Tommy excitedly.

  “There, what?” I asked, mildly horrified.

  “I just downloaded the app.”

  I reached for my phone. “Jesus, Tommy… I don’t have any money—”

  Tommy pushed me away. “Relax, it was free.”

  And he kept holding me away as he read up on the app. As he did so, he started laughing. “You’re not going to believe this, Billy.”

  “That you’re a douchebag. I believe it.”

  He unleashed a wicked charlie horse on my upper arm that finally got me to retract my hand. “Hey!”

  “That’s for calling me a douchebag. Punch for a name. You know how it goes.”

  He was right, of course. That was our thing. If any of us called the other a name, the other got a free punch.

  “Anyway,” he said. “It says here that this app is guaranteed to raise the dead.”

  “Guaranteed how? The app was free.”

  “Whatever,” said Tommy, now mostly ignoring me. “The instructions are pretty basic.”

  “What are they?” I asked, still nursing my sore shoulder. Tommy had a punch like a Mack truck. Mostly, I regretted like hell for asking Tommy what the instructions were. Stupid curiosity.

  “Find a graveyard, sit comfortably, and then press play.”

  I didn’t like how this was adding up, and was just about to grab the phone back, when Tommy, anticipating my move, held it away from me… and at the same time, pressed play.

  Almost immediately, a voice speaking in another language issued out.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Tommy.

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “Sounds like gibberish.”

  “No,” I said, “it sounds like an incantation.”

  “What the hell is an incantation?”

  “It’s a spell, dumbass.”

  “Like a witch’s spell?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “except I can’t understand what he’s saying.”

  “Sounds trippy,” said Tommy.

  “Maybe we should turn it off.”

  “Why? He’s just getting started.”

  Truth was, I was getting very, very creeped out. A shiver had started working through me, a shiver that I was having a hard time controlling. In fact, if I wasn’t careful, my teeth were going to start chattering soon. And it wasn’t even that cold out for December.

  “I’m being serious, Tommy.”

  “Uh oh. Billy’s getting serious. I’d better turn it off or he might throw a hissy fit.”

  “Or, more likely, he’s going to kick your ass.”

  “I’d like to see you try it.”

  Tommy and I were always challenging each other. Of course, never once had we actually come to blows, but we’d been close. “Just turn it off.”

  “Why don’t you make me?”

  It was at that moment I saw red.

  Maybe it was the cemetery setting, or the fact that I was already on edge, or the creepy monotone that was even now emanating from my phone, but I’d suddenly had enough of Billy and his jabs and, well, his stupid face.

  With a growl and a few choice curse words, I lunged at him… surprising the hell out of him—and me—in the process.

  I grabbed him around the neck as he swung wildly at me, and soon we were rolling around on the grass and dirt under the Ghost Tree, just two clowns with too much energy and time and testosterone.

  One of his elbows got me on the lip and I instantly tasted blood, which I spat out.

  And as we continued rolling around, now further away from the big tree and closer to the actual burial plots, as both of us spent some time with our heads pressed against the thick grass, Tommy quit muttering curses at me and said, “Do you hear that?”

  “I hear your stupid face talking,” I said. No, not the cleverest comeback I�
��d ever muttered. Then again, I had Tommy’s hand presently clawing at my face.

  “I’m serious, man. I hear something.”

  “I don’t hear any—”

  I stopped fighting Tommy. I stopped and sat up and cocked my head, listening hard. Yes, I heard it, too.

  Digging.

  Now we both had our ears pressed to the ground.

  “What is it?” asked Tommy, and for the first time tonight the cockiness was gone from his voice.

  “Shh,” I admonished.

  I pressed my ear harder. Jesus, it sounded like something was coming up through the ground directly beneath us, scratching desperately. I lifted my head, confused.

  “Moles?” asked Tommy.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  It was at that moment that I realized that the creepy voice was still intoning from my phone. A phone that Tommy was still holding. “Give me,” I said and grabbed it from him. I promptly shut the app off, and the voice stopped.

  A very strange silence fell over the cemetery, a silence that was punctuated with the sounds of digging.

  “Billy,” said Tommy, and I noticed he had scooted closer to me. “Billy, it sounds like it’s coming from, you know, all over.”

  I knew what he meant. The sounds of scratching and digging most certainly weren’t coming from solely below us. It was coming from everywhere. Throughout the entire cemetery.

  “Jesus, Billy, you don’t think those are dead people coming up, do you?”

  He was the first to voice it, and, yes, I was thinking the same thing. Except I couldn’t bring myself to say it, couldn’t form the words, in fact. The words were too unreal, too foreign, too horrific. Except… except I was certain we were hearing digging from beneath us, a sound that was now getting louder and…

  “They’re getting closer,” said Tommy.

  “What’s getting closer?” I said, and was shocked that Tommy had almost thrown himself on me. So much for Mr. Tough Guy.

  “The undead, man! Just like the app said. It raised the dead.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, Billy. I’m talking about zombies, and they’re getting fucking closer. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I didn’t know what the hell was happening, but I was certain—no, I was positive—that I was dreaming. There was no way in hell this was really happening.

  Okay, Billy, you can wake up any time now. Go on. Time to eat breakfast. Mmm, waffles!

  Hell, I was even looking forward to school. School suddenly seemed like the least of my problems.

  Tommy was already on his feet and pulling me up. “Geez, man. Get moving!”

  Dream or not, I was still here, in the cemetery, and something was coming up from the ground. And they were coming up quickly.

  I scrambled to my feet with Tommy’s help, and we had just stumbled forward when we both saw it.

  “Oh, hell no!” screamed Tommy.

  There, glowing in the faint moonlight and starlight, not far from the Haunted Christmas Tree, was a skeletal hand, protruding up from the grass. Chunks of soil fell from it as it waved and clawed at the night air.

  We ran.

  We ran like there was no tomorrow, we ran like the wind, like our lives depended on it, like our hair was on fire. Mostly, we ran and screamed and pissed ourselves as if the dead were rising around us, which they actually were.

  Dozens of them.

  The clawing and scratching sounds we’d heard had now turned into a deep rumbling as dozens and dozens of the undead clawed their way to the surface. Unfortunately, we were on the surface, too.

  Now, as we scrambled to the SUV, many such bony hands were protruding from the surface. All waving. All digging at the earth around them.

  The closer we got to the SUV, the more the hands turned into arms… and some were now even shoulders, as the dead were getting ever so close to pulling themselves free. Tommy was always the better athlete and a faster runner, and soon he was pulling away from me, deftly sidestepping the waving, bony, sometimes leathery hands.

  Myself, I wasn’t as fleet of foot, or as quick on my feet. While Tommy wove his way through the field of the dead, like Barry Sanders through the Bears’ defense, I was mostly plowing through them, stepping on some, and breaking through others. Some managed to actually grab hold of the hem of my Levis. I kicked these off me, screaming like someone who had lost his mind, which I might have very well done.

  At one point I stumbled and fell. As I reached down to break my fall, I actually clasped a bony hand. It yanked me forward… and nearly caused me to totally lose my balance. Most amazing was its bone-crushing strength, no pun intended. How a pile of old tendons and bones with no muscle mass could be so damn strong was beyond me.

  Except, I knew how it could be so strong.

  The dead were fueled by supernatural means, whatever that meant. And there were no rules when it came to the supernatural, or to raising the dead. At least, not many.

  But shedding blood in the middle of an incantation… always a bad idea. Everyone knows that. Betcha that little bit of my blood was all that was left to summon the zombies, which I unwittingly provided. The last ingredient, if you will.

  I pulled my hand back, my high-pitched sounding foreign even to my ears, and promptly emptied my bladder. As warmth permeated my jeans, I finally yanked my hand free. I was moving again, dodging more of the hands and arms and shoulders… and now heads…

  Yes, heads.

  A skull pushed its round, bony mass through the dirt and lifted its face into the night sky, catching the moonlight, as dirt fell free from it. I saw deep into its eye sockets as it turned and looked at me… and opened its mouth…

  Oh, sweet Jesus!

  I leaped over it as it reached for me with a mostly bony hand. Some tattered skin still hung from it. Luckily, I just missed it… and continued on.

  Tommy was already waiting at the truck, which was a safe haven. No hands or heads within twenty or so feet. But the hands and heads were now becoming torsos as the fucking things were pulling themselves out of the ground.

  “You pissed yourself!” said Tommy, pointing.

  “Really?” I said. “We fucking raise the dead, and that’s all you can say? And, by the way, you pissed yourself, too.”

  Tommy looked down. “Well, I’ll be.”

  Sounds of digging filled the air. Mixed with the sounds was something else. Gnashing. I turned in time to see some of the skeletons—and even those that weren’t quite skeletons—lurching to their feet. The gnashing was from their opening and closing jaws.

  “Oh, fuck, man!” I said. I felt my bowels loosening next. I definitely didn’t want to shit my pants, almost as much as I didn’t want get eaten by a zombie. And yeah, that’s exactly what they fucking were. Zombies. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “Far away from here, man.” Tommy ran around to his side of the truck and yanked the door open. I did the same and soon we were sitting together on the bench seat. Through the side windows and windshield we could see that more and more of the undead had found their feet. And more and more had turned toward us. Many were skeleton, but dozens were recent dead, too. Old people, mostly, with their wrinkled pale skin draped over bones.

  Tommy patted his jeans, then his jacket pockets, then repeated the process. “Oh, fuck.”

  “No,” I said. “Oh no. Don’t say it.”

  “I left the keys by the tree.”

  “Why the fuck would you leave them there?”

  “My jeans are too tight, you know?” He motioned down to his lap… a lap that was currently wet with fresh urine. “And there’s only room for one bulge, if you know what I mean.”

  Tommy had an epic key ring, filled with all sorts of doodads and souvenirs and bottle cap openers, and you name it. The gnashing was growing louder and now some of the undead had made their way into the parking lot.

  “Never mind that, you idiot,” I shouted. “Go get them.”
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br />   “I… I can’t, man.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t? They’re your keys. You left them!”

  “You’re going to have to get them.” And as he spoke, I saw it… he was literally pissing himself again. Although I didn’t blame him, I saw the bigger problem. Tommy was scared shitless. Well not shitless yet, but give that a few minutes. Or seconds.

  No, if we were going to get out of here, it was going to have to be me who got the keys.

  “Fuck it,” I said, and opened the door.

  And I wasn’t even the fast one. Or the quick one. Both were assets that I could have used right about now.

  Back in the cool Christmas air—air that was now filled with a musky, mushromy, vomitous stench of the putrefying dead. I spied the the Ghost Tree and started running.

  The zombies had found their feet.

  And now, with me out and about, some of the zombies oriented on me, although many still lurched toward the truck. Tommy was going to have a shit fit.

  Luckily, the creepy things weren’t very fast… there were so goddamned many of them. Lord, how many dead were buried here? Hundreds? I didn’t know, but as I ran and slid and juked my way through the cemetery, it felt like there were thousands of them. Behind me I heard Tommy screaming. The windows were up, but it wouldn’t be long before one of the undead put a bony elbow through one of them.

  Before me was a young girl… presently bloated and leaking dark fluid everywhere. She reached her hands out toward me and the look in her eyes was—well, the look in one of her eyes, as the other was still sewn shut—something I would never forget. There was a tiny light just behind her eyes. A glow, in fact. Now, as I scanned all of the dead facing looking at me, coming toward me, they all had the same glow.

  It was, I suspected, the light of life… or whatever was animating these corpses, whatever was giving them drive and purpose and strength.

  It had to be evil… and it wanted me. And Tommy, and maybe the whole town, and maybe the whole damn world.

  Jesus.

  Now, I was back in the cemetery proper, off the temporary safe haven of the parking lot—temporary because some of the undead had lurched their way onto the loose gravel. About half of these zombies were skeletons, while the other half had some form of skin hanging from them. All had the devil light in their eyes. And the three closest to me focused that devil light onto me. Lucky me. All three were dressed in their Sunday best. Two males, one female. Only one of them had any skin to speak of, the female. She was dressed in a flowing dress with a floral design. The dress was covered in dirt. The skin around her ankles had fallen down like old socks.