Casket for Sale, Only Used Once

by Jeff Strand

  "Kyle, how's your sister?" I asked.

  "She's breathing funny."

  "Theresa, can you hear me? How do you feel?"

  "I hurt..." Theresa groaned, so softly I could barely hear her.

  "It's okay, sweetie. We're going to get you help. I promise." I tilted the rear-view mirror so I could see her. "You're being very brave. I'm very proud of you."

  This news didn't seem to make Theresa feel any better.

  I reached over and picked up the cell phone. If I let the police know exactly where we were, maybe they could--

  "Mommy watch out!"

  I swerved, slammed on the brakes, and tried to remember if I'd fastened my seat belt. Like a television with its electrical cord yanked from the outlet, my world shut off.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  BURNING CORPSES IN the back of a semi: Not good.

  Not fragrant, either.

  Troll was on the side with Roger and Samantha, so I hurried to the front, expecting to find him hovering over them, knife raised, face contorted into a sadistic grin.

  Which is exactly what I saw.

  I'd gotten to the point where rushing at a knife-wielding maniac didn't seem like that big of a deal. I grabbed his maniacal knife-wielding arm and slammed him into another of the corpses strapped to the wall. This one didn't inform us that it would be self-destructing.

  The semi swerved abruptly, knocking Troll and I back into the aisle with the burning corpses. Sparks flew from several of them.

  "You've ruined it all!" Troll shouted. "Mr. Burke is gonna shit a brick sideways!"

  He slashed at me with the knife, missing completely. The smoke was starting to burn my eyes and it had to be affecting Troll as well because his next two slashes were further off the mark.

  He screamed in frustration and flung the knife at me. I heard the thunk of the blade hitting dead flesh behind me.

  Troll coughed.

  The flames grew larger and more intense. Letting Roger and Samantha burn to death after surviving this hellish ordeal was simply not an option.

  I let out a howl of primal rage, or what I figured was primal rage, and ran at Troll. I punched him in the face with my good hand and then my bad hand, not feeling the pain.

  Troll seemed to enjoy the first punch. The second punch, not so much.

  I punched again and again, doing the primal rage howl thing with each one. I pummeled him with force I didn't even realize existed inside of me.

  Troll spat out a large mouthful of blood. "Truce...?"

  I grabbed him by the collar and rushed down the aisle, dragging him along the burning corpses as I did so. This son of a bitch was taking a leap out of the back of a speeding semi. Troll cried out in protest and struggled, but he couldn't get away.

  As we reached the edge at a high rate of speed, I let him go.

  No witty comment was necessary.

  Troll didn't fly out onto the pavement as planned. As he fell, his foot wedged behind one of the metal steps and he pitched forward onto the freeway.

  He tried to use his hands to break his fall. It was not pretty. Troll found himself being dragged face-down behind a semi going about seventy miles per hour, and not much more needs to be said about that.

  No cars were behind us to witness the gory sight. Presumably other drivers didn't want to linger behind a smoke-billowing semi truck.

  I returned to the front, wincing as a particularly nasty shower of sparks got me in the arm. I could barely see Roger and Samantha through the smoke, but I felt my way over then removed Samantha's gag.

  "Are you okay?" I asked her, as I unfastened the straps.

  "Better than I was ten seconds ago."

  "I don't know if this will help," I said, "but Troll's face is currently marking out a new lane divider."

  "That does help."

  "Good."

  After I freed her, I went to work on Roger. "I bet you thought I wasn't coming back for you," I said.

  "No, I thought you'd be here sooner."

  "Sorry. I got distracted."

  "What happened after they took you away?"

  I stabbed my daughter and tried to kill my wife...

  "Nothing."

  Samantha helped me unstrap Roger from his chair, and before long they were both free. Roger scooped Samantha up in his arms and the three of us hurried to the open end of the semi. The fire had spread and engulfed all of the hanging corpses in the center.

  "I'm, uh, sure you've got a splendid escape plan," said Roger.

  I knelt down, yanked Troll's foot out from where it was wedged, and set what was left of his body free. "You haven't had anything to do for the past few minutes. Didn't you think of one?"

  "Extend the ramp," said Samantha.

  I unlatched the metal ramp and Roger and I pushed it out to its full length. It scraped against the pavement with a sound even more hideous than the smell of burning flesh.

  "This isn't going to work," Roger insisted. "Even without the fall, if we hit the pavement going this fast we'll be killed!"

  "We can't stay in here!" I gestured to the burning corpses. Where the hell was Helen when I needed a limo to leap upon?

  One of the corpses exploded behind us, causing several others to drop to the floor.

  "This whole truck could blow up!" Samantha shouted.

  "We can get off this thing," I said. "We just need some kind of padding."

  "What kind of padding?" Roger asked.

  I looked at the corpses strapped to the wall.

  Roger shook his head. "Oh, no way!"

  I stood up and unhooked the corpse of a heavyset male with crossbows for hands and numerous wires protruding from his skin. "You look for some fluffy pillows. I'll take down the dead guy."

  Instead of arguing, Roger helped me take down the corpse. "Oh, jeez, this is gonna be sick."

  "At least they're not maggoty."

  "Shut up. I mean it."

  "Samantha, Goblin is hanging up on the other side. Try to tear off his feet."

  "Say what?"

  "They're wheels! Do it!"

  Samantha nodded and left, scooting along on her knees.

  "This is wrong on so many levels," said Roger, as we released the body. It fell to the floor, landing on its belly. Pushing as hard as we could, we managed to shove it to the ramp.

  "Here they are." Samantha handed me Goblin's foot-wheels. I slammed one of the bloody spikes between the heavyset corpse's shoulder blades and another into its lower back.

  "We need more," I said, pointing to one of the fallen corpses. "That one has wheels, too."

  Roger hurried over to it and tried to pry off the feet. "They won't come off! There's a metal band around them!" He glanced around and lifted the arm of another corpse. Its hand was a hacksaw. "You probably don't want to see this."

  Moments later he returned. I pulled the meat off the wheels and tossed it aside, and then slammed the next two spikes into the corpse's back.

  Another explosion, this one spraying us extremely well.

  The semi swerved violently and dangling burning corpse legs just narrowly missed my head.

  "Let's turn him over!" Roger, Samantha, and I all turned the corpse onto its back, and then maneuvered it over to the top of the ramp, head-first. It didn't roll easily.

  "No way in hell is this going to work," said Roger.

  "It'll be fine," I insisted. "We'll just all hold on tight and go for a ride. You take the front, Roger."

  Roger climbed onto the corpse and sat on its chest.

  "Oh, God ... oh, God..." he said. "I can think of so many things I'd rather be doing right now."

  The semi swerved again, and Samantha and I momentarily lost our hold on the corpse.

  It was long enough. The corpse rolled down the ramp as Roger frantically turned himself around and tried to reach for my arm.

  "Shiiiiiit!" he cried, as the corpse rolled off the ramp and onto the freeway. Two of the wheels immediately went flying in opposite directions. Roger presse
d himself down against the body as it slid across the pavement, its head bouncing up and down and its arms flapping.

  The other two wheels popped out from underneath the corpse, but it continued to slide. Roger remained on top.

  As the corpse slowed and we sped away, I saw that Roger was going to be fine.

  Samantha and I were still screwed, though.

  "Y'know, call me optimistic, but I think Corpse Surfing is going to be the next big fad to sweep the nation," I said.

  Samantha gaped at me.

  "It worked, though, didn't it?" I asked. "Let's just find another cyborg and some more wheels and get the hell out of here, too!"

  The semi turned slightly as we took an exit. This could either be really good or really bad, depending on whether or not Mr. Burke decided to slow down to a reasonable speed or to just plow through everything doing seventy.

  Since I didn't detect any reduction in speed, it appeared the latter was going to be the case.

  "If we die," said Samantha, "I want you to know I've always felt you were a really great person. Roger is lucky to have you as a friend."

  "I've always felt the same way about you, too," I said, somewhat annoyed that my potential final words on this earth had to be a little white lie.

  We took down another corpse. This one wasn't as big as the first and was unlikely to provide as much padding, but we had to make do with what we had. With the thick smoke and dangerous flames, we also wouldn't be finding any more wheels.

  There was a huge jolt as the semi smashed through something. A moment later I saw it had been a thick wooden fence.

  The pavement turned to grass.

  The semi began to slow down.

  We were saved! Even without a handy corpse for protection, we certainly could handle a jump onto grass. What were a few more bumps, bruises, and open wounds at this point?

  I saw Mr. Burke rolling on the grass, obviously having leapt out of the vehicle. That probably wasn't good.

  Another huge jolt.

  Suddenly our view of the grass became a view of the clear blue sky as the semi tilted at a forty-five degree angle.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  SAMANTHA AND I SLID to the front of the semi, past the burning bodies, and smacked into the wall. The ramp dropped back into its chute with a loud crash.

  The tilt of the semi increased. We hurriedly pressed ourselves into the corner as the burning bodies that had fallen slid down the floor toward us. I held on to the leg of the corpse strapped to the wall next to me and kicked the bodies away from us.

  "It's okay, no problem," I said. "We're just hanging over a cliff or something."

  The dangling corpses above us swung violently back and forth, and burning debris fluttered down on us. It hurt to look up through the smoke and I launched into a fit of uncontrollable coughing.

  As Samantha tried to crawl up the slope, the tilt increased again, creating an almost vertical climb, and she tumbled back against the wall.

  "It's okay, really," I insisted, when I could speak again. "They've got to have helicopters around, or maybe Roger flagged somebody down who has a rope, or maybe--"

  "Andrew, stop trying to make the best of this!"

  One of the hanging corpses came loose. It dropped and hit the wall with a thud that caused the semi to shift a few inches.

  "We can still get out of this! We can ... we can ... we can climb the bodies!"

  "What?"

  "We can climb up the bodies that are strapped to the wall!"

  "I can't!"

  "Yes, you can! I'll be right behind you." I grabbed her hand and placed it on the waist of the closest cyborg.

  Another body fell. This one felt like it knocked the semi back a couple of feet. A couple of rounds of what sounded like automatic weapon fire went off as it hit, but I didn't feel any new holes in my body.

  Samantha pulled herself up onto the corpse and I stayed behind her, trying to hold her steady. She screamed as she used her mangled foot to push herself up. I was worried the noise might have an avalanche effect and send the semi over whatever precipice it was hanging over, but I figured she couldn't help it.

  She climbed up onto the second body in the cyborg ladder. I followed.

  Two bodies fell at once. The impact jolted the semi enough that I let out a scream of my own, but we both held on to the corpses and continued climbing.

  "You know, people pay good money to go mountain climbing on vacation," I said, hoping my sparkling wit would distract her from her agony and terror. "This is a lot better. This is going to be the new ride at Universal Studios." Samantha didn't tell me to shut up, so I figured that was a good sign.

  Then she grabbed a cyborg part that wasn't meant to have somebody climbing on it. It came loose and she lost her grip. She fell down to my corpse, grabbed it, failed to hang on, and crashed to the bottom.

  "That's okay," I said. "Let's just try it again."

  She didn't respond, and I could barely see her through the smoke.

  What if she'd broken her neck?

  I climbed down and knelt down next to her. "C'mon, Samantha, you can do this."

  She shook her head. "No, I can't. He tortured me ... I mean, he really ... his knife ... I just can't do it. I've got nothing left. Get out of here. Please."

  "Not without you."

  "You can't carry me! Please, we don't both need to die."

  "Look, I don't have time to get into the details, but one of the few possibilities for me getting a happy ending out of this is for me to bring you safely back to the love of your life. So we're getting out of this together. Don't argue."

  "How are we going to do it if I can't climb?"

  I considered that.

  "I don't know. I'm still sort of hoping we'll be rescued."

  The semi shifted and moved back at least two more feet.

  "Maybe it's a really tiny cliff," I said. "We may be stressing out over nothing."

  "Yeah, I'm sure Mr. Burke jumped out so he could drive the semi over a really tiny cliff."

  "Don't be so pessimistic."

  "Sorry."

  "If we can't climb, we'll just have to..."

  I left that sentence unfinished for a long moment.

  Fly out? Teleport out? Wake up from a bad dream?

  Shoot our way out?

  Which of the corpses was it that nearly shot my foot off when it fell? I searched through the burning bodies as well as I could, yelping in pain about eight times, and found an arm with a machine gun on the end. Sweet.

  I also found an axe with which to lop it off.

  I did so quickly. Then I picked up the machine gun, let out my ninth yelp, and dropped it. The damn thing was hot.

  "Sorry about this," I told Samantha as I took off my shoes and jeans. The next time Kyle questioned that whole "Make sure you have on clean underwear" parental command, I'd have an anecdote to share with him.

  Using my jeans to keep my hands from getting burnt off, I picked up the machine gun, pointed it at the wall of the semi, and pulled the trigger.

  The semi was filled with a deafening ratatatatatatat of machine gun fire and clangs as the bullets struck metal. Streaks of light burst through the holes.

  I hate to admit it, but standing there wearing only my underwear, firing a machine gun, made me feel incredibly macho.

  The bullets continued to chew away at the semi wall.

  The semi slid backward.

  I kept firing, hoping nobody was on the other side (unless it was Mr. Burke).

  The machine gun ran out of bullets and I tossed it aside. We now had a really scary-looking opening with jagged edges that didn't look large enough to climb out without slicing ourselves to ribbons, but, hey, beggars can't be choosers.

  The semi was still sliding. I looked through the hole and saw that we were indeed dangling over a cliff, that it was an extremely long drop to the ground, but that we'd smashed through a metal fence that was now twisted and within our reach. "You first," I told Samantha.

/>   She wasted no time. She crawled over to the hole and I helped her through, removing a long strip of her left leg in the process. She grabbed hold of the fence and scooted toward solid ground.

  The semi slid again, taking the fence out of my reach.

  I frantically began to climb the corpses.

  "Andrew!" I heard Samantha scream on the other side.

  I didn't respond because that would have used up valuable climbing energy. I tried to think happy thoughts. Happy climby thoughts.

  I climbed up the third, fourth, and fifth bodies. Only about a dozen left. No problem.

  As I got halfway there, the semi picked up speed. So did I.

  Helen, Theresa, Kyle, Roger, and Samantha were all alive, and damn it, I was going to join them. I climbed as fast as I could, eyes feeling like they were sizzling from the smoke, lungs burning, but not stopping.

  I reached the second-to-last corpse.

  Don't lose your grip. Don't lose your grip. Don't grab anything detachable. Don't grab anything detachable.

  I reached for the top corpse, accidentally stuck my hand in its open, screaming mouth, but pulled myself up anyway.

  And then I was at the top.

  And then the semi fell over the edge of the cliff.

  And then I jumped.

  The semi smashed into the riverbank about a hundred feet below. I hung from the cliff face, holding nothing that felt remotely firm enough to sustain me. My fingers dug into the grass but I could tell I was seconds away from a nice long fall onto a semi filled with burning cyborg corpses.

  Samantha thrust her hand at me. I grabbed it.

  As she pulled, I tried to use my feet against the dirt cliff face to give myself some leverage. It wasn't really working. But since I hadn't died in all of the other times I'd vowed I wouldn't die, I sure wasn't going to die here.

  With Samantha's help, I pulled myself most of the way onto solid ground.

  In the distance I saw Mr. Burke limping toward us.

  I was pretty sure he was holding a gun.

  "Samantha! Watch out!"

  A shot rang out.

  I tasted several drops of Samantha's blood in my open mouth.

  And then I fell.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Helen's Side

  I OPENED MY EYES to red and blue flashing lights.

  "Where are my children?" I demanded, sitting up in a panic. I was on a stretcher.