DEADFELLAS
David Whitman
First Digital Edition
September 2010
Darkside Digital
A Horror Mall Company
P.O. Box 338
North Webster, IN 46555
www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital
Deadfellas © 2010 by David Whitman
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1: Tim, Francis and Lime
Tim Machen studied the brown curls on the back of Francis’ square shaped head as the two walked between the gray tombstones of the Victorian cemetery. The ground was carpeted with a deep layer of dead leaves. “Do you know what you want your epitaph to say?” Tim asked his slightly smaller friend. He spoke with a clipped British accent.
Francis O’Connor stopped dead, Tim almost running into his back. Francis’ chubby cheeks were flushed red from the cold late afternoon air. He smiled, showing off his crooked teeth. He was carrying a small black suitcase in his right hand. “Epitaph? You mean like a statement that you put on your tombstone?”
Tim removed the dark fedora from his head and scratched at his blonde hair. “Yes.” He grinned back, his perfect white teeth gleaming underneath his immaculately clipped mustache. Striking blue eyes glittered mischievously below his arched eyebrows. He carefully straightened and smoothed his expensive, black trenchcoat. “Knowing you, I bet you never even thought of it.”
Francis stared around at the various gothic tombstones, running his fingers absently over his overly thick muttonchop sideburns. His long brown trenchcoat waved around softly in the fall breeze. He had always liked cemeteries. Back in his youth in Ireland, he had spent many an afternoon wandering the graveyards and making up stories about different headstones. Beyond the surrounding iron fence of the cemetery stood a thick forest, the colorful leaves spinning into the air as the breeze took them. He looked down at the nearest headstone and read it:
Willis Mayhue
1823-1890
“No epitaph for Willis here,” Francis said, dusting some of the leaves off the edge of the tombstone with his finger. “So why should I have one? What makes me a more important man than Willis? We’re all worm food when it’s said and done, Timmy.”
Tim kneeled down to study the headstone. “Well, perhaps Willis was a man of very few words. Maybe he was not well read.” He looked back up at his partner. “But you, Francis, you are well read, my friend. You have almost as many books in your personal library as I do. There has to be at least one bloody sentence that you feel touches you.”
Francis thought about it and then broke out into a wide smile, the hot air escaping from his mouth and into the cold air like steam. “You tell me yours first.”
Tim put his hat over his chest and turned to the pink horizon, letting the setting sun reflect theatrically on his face. “And all men kill the thing they love, by all let this be heard.” He paused melodramatically and wiggled his thin eyebrows, forcing a laugh from his portly friend. “Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!” As he said the last word, he lunged his fist forward, miming a deadly stab.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Francis said, a pained frown creasing his round face. “Besides, how the fuck you going to fit all that on one tombstone?”
“What do you mean it doesn’t make sense?” Tim asked, putting his fedora back on his head and adjusting it slightly. “What doesn’t make sense?”
Francis frowned. “Oh fuck all, Timmy! You are a fucking hitman! Hitmen do not go around quoting dead homosexual poets! So what are you telling me? That you love our victims?”“No, I’m not saying I love them. I’ve just always liked that poem, that’s all.”
“It still doesn’t make sense. You love your dear old mum, do you not? Would you kill her?”
Tim sighed. “You take things too literally, my friend.”
Francis shrugged. “I think your tombstone should say ‘I’m an annoying and pretentious wanker sometimes, but other than that, I’m an okay chap.’”
“Ha, fucking ha,” Tim said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Tell me what your epitaph will say.”
Francis started walking again, Tim following just behind. “I want mine to say ‘This fucking sucks’ or ‘I didn’t think it was loaded.’”
They both erupted into laughter as they walked towards the end of the cemetery. They were going to the house of one Adrian Lime, a person they had been paid a good sum of money to exterminate. Lime was a bookie that had stepped on way too many dangerous toes over the last couple of months.
The house was out in the country, hidden away in the middle of the wilderness. Both Tim and Francis knew that everyone would remember them if they took the main road, so they had parked about two miles away and hiked in cross-country.
They exited the graveyard through the creaking iron gate at the rear. It closed behind them with a dull clang and they stopped and looked ahead. The sun was setting in front of them, silhouetting a massive Victorian house on the pink horizon.
“That’s it ahead in the distance,” Tim said, pointing to the house. The sun was just behind it, sinking slowly into the skyline. “I guess we should wait here until the sun goes down.”
Francis parked himself up against the gate, settling in for the wait. “I’m not going to have any trouble killing this bastard. Who the hell deserves to live in a house like that anyway? It’s a bloody crime, I tell you.”
“There are scumbags on both sides of the fence, my friend. I’ve met some rich people with hearts of gold and I’ve met some poor who I actually had to kill just on principle.”
Tim studied the surroundings, noting that the forest surrounded the house. Once the sun had set, they would be able to walk along the trees, coming at the Lime mansion from the side.
Tim joined Francis against the fence and they sat in silence as the sun slowly dropped from sight. It almost looked like the house itself was swallowing up the sun. The air had grown noticeably colder.
They waited until it was completely dark before walking towards the house. Two windows on the second floor were already lit up, like square eyes staring through the gloom.
Tim always checked a house first, as he was the most graceful. If Francis brought his large, chubby form onto the porch he would be creaking the boards and that was something that could be quite dangerous. The trick was to get in and out, usually taking a photograph of the corpse or severed head before leaving.
As they reached the porch of the Lime residence, Tim removed his handgun, and cocked it. He turned his head to the side and listened. From within the house, he heard a woman laughing and the muffled voice of a man.
The first floor window was lit only by candlelight, so Tim crept up carefully and peeked inside. He could see that the room had once been nicely furnished, but now the expensive lamps and chairs were scattered about and overturned. Beyond, a staircase led up to where he could see some light.
Tim looked over at Francis’ portly, shadowy form and pointed rapidly towards the entrance. With the grace of an animal, Tim moved silently towards the door and turned the handle. It was unlocked.
“I’m going inside,” he hissed at Francis. “If anyone comes through the front door, kill them.”
“Will do, Timmy,” Frances said, placing the suitcase quietly on the wooden porch floor, and removing a gun from his trenchcoat.
“And take a cough drop. We don’t want a rerun of what
happened last weekend.”
Francis had a chronic cough, most likely the onset of emphysema brought on by a lifetime of smoking. He had quit a year ago, but the cough remained. Last weekend he had coughed in the middle of a hit and almost got the both of them killed.
Tim opened the door a crack and listened for any sounds, then slipped inside and shut the door behind him. Standing calmly, he scanned the room for any signs of movement. The house smelled strongly of decaying flowers and blood, a stench so cloying that it actually gave him a headache. He walked over to the candle and put it out with his fingers. Sucking in his breath, he moved up the staircase.
The top of the landing was dark and he peeked around the corner, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting. There were four doors along the corridor. Blood splattered the walls, giving the hallway the appearance of a horror movie. He walked cautiously, careful not to take large steps. He could still hear a soft female titter as he moved discreetly across the carpeted floor. Then the laughter stopped abruptly. Up ahead he saw a sliver of light underneath the fourth door.
The house suddenly became engulfed in an unnatural silence.
From behind the door he heard a soft popping sound, like someone pulling a cork from a bottle of wine.
Feeling more nervous than he had ever felt on a job, Tim leaned down and peeked into the keyhole. He could see nothing but the calf of a woman’s leg. Gun in his left hand, he casually opened the door, swinging his gun up to shoot the first thing that moved.
His first thought was that he had gone completely mad. A woman was seated on a canopy bed, frozen in mid laughter, her hand held in the air before her stiffly. A bearded man stood by a table to her left, staring down at her angrily. He too seemed frozen in place like some bizarre mannequin. The woman leaned to one side, away from the man. The man’s hand was drawn back, as if he was just about to slap the woman.
Tim moved closer to study the man. As he did, the man’s dark eyes slowly turned to watch him, but he otherwise remained frozen. Tim waved his hand back and forth in front of the still man’s face and pretended he was going to stab him with a Three Stooges style eye poke. The man remained frozen, not even blinking, though his eyes followed Tim’s movements. Tim glanced at the woman nervously, but her eyes remained on the man.
Tim pulled out a photograph and compared it to the frozen face. There was no doubt whatsoever that the lanky bearded man in front of him was Adrian Lime.
Tim did what he always did when confronted with a complex problem—simply pushed it into the back of his mind and continued his job. The bizarreness of the situation could be dealt with later when he was on safer ground and had more time to think.
He smiled viciously and put his handgun to Lime’s forehead. Lime’s gaze moved up to stare into the barrel of the gun. Closing his eyes to protect them from splattering blood, Tim pulled the trigger, and the exploding sound of gunfire shattered the silence of the house.
The bullet went through Lime’s forehead and out the back of his head, shattering the window behind him.
A neat little bullet-sized hole was drilled in the center of Lime’s head, but he remained standing nonetheless. Tim leaned forward and looked through the wound, gaining a clear view of the shattered window beyond. No blood exited the hole. As he watched with morbid fascination, the wound closed up, leaving no sign of the bullet’s passage through the flesh. The still frozen Lime looked upwards toward his forehead, then back to Tim.
Francis came rushing into the room a few seconds later, brought by the sound of the gunshot. Tim was standing before the frozen bodies in fascination.
“Have I gone mad, Francis?” Tim asked, not bothering to turn around.
Francis touched the woman’s hair and pulled back realizing it was hard, frozen like ice, only it was not so cold. “I don’t like this, Timmy,” Francis said, backing away slowly as if he was standing before a wild animal. “And you know when I say that, bad things happen.”
Tim considered Francis’ statement. It was indeed a true one. The last time Francis had voiced such an opinion it was back on the Frey job in Miami. Francis had lost his brother Colm. It was the fourth time Francis had said such a thing and all four had ended badly.
“Well, if we don’t kill Mr. Lime here then we will be dead anyway,” Tim said, leaning against the dresser. “We already spent half of the fifty thousand we got from Ripley to pay off Pope. There is no way we can just get it back.”
Francis sighed. “Aye, but how in the hell do you propose to kill him?”
“Aye?” Tim looked over at his partner and smirked, arching one eyebrow. “What are you some seventeenth century pirate now?”
“This is not the time for jokes, Timmy,” Francis stated flatly, his eyes never leaving the frozen bodies.
Tim grabbed the suitcase from Francis, set it on the bed, and opened it. Pope had wanted Lime’s head, so Tim had brought a small handsaw to do the dirty work. He pulled out the saw and held it before him, grinning wickedly.
“What, you’re going to just do it while he stands there?” Francis asked, his face filled with horror.
“You have a better idea?” Tim asked, setting the saw against Lime’s neck and mentally readying himself for the surreal act.
Francis looked away as Tim began to saw into the flesh. Surprisingly, the blade cut as if he was slicing through bathroom soap. Within fifteen seconds, the blade was completely through. Tim pushed the head and it fell to the floor with a hollow thud. There was no blood.
Lime’s headless body continued standing where it was, its hand still held in the air. Tim picked up the head with both hands and tossed it on the bed. “This is cleaner than I thought, my friend. No blood, no mess.”
Francis was watching the headless corpse closely. “Look, see it?”
A ghostly version of Lime’s head was forming atop the severed neck. It shimmered slightly, like an old Polaroid, gradually becoming more solid. Within minutes, the head had reformed.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Tim exclaimed, looking back at the bed. The vague outlines of Lime’s body had already begun to form below the head. After about thirty seconds, the body had almost fully formed. It was nude.
They now had two versions of Adrian Lime.
Francis started to giggle, then erupted into full-blown laughter. “This is too rich!”
Tim kicked at the nude body sprawled on the bed. It was indeed solid. “I’m so glad you find it humorous. What in the hell are we going to do?”
“How the hell could you not laugh?” Francis asked between giggles. “Not only did we not kill Mr. Lime, but we created a second version of the bastard. Can you just see us explaining this to Pope? He’ll fucking kill us.”
“I should have taken a photograph of the head. Now I’m going to have to cut off another head.”
Francis looked down at the frozen body. “You can’t be serious. But then we’ll have—”
“Three. Yes, you bloody bastard, I know,” Tim said, his voice full of irritation. He began sawing on the version of Lime that was standing up. Francis watched in fascination as his partner cut through the neck with ease. Tim removed the head, threw it on the bed, and snapped a photograph.
A few moments later and they had three versions of Adrian Lime.
“Okay, let’s get the hell out of here,” Tim said, slipping the camera into his inside pocket and walking towards the door.
“That’s it, then?” Francis said, staring at the three Adrian Limes.
Tim stopped in the doorway. “What do you mean THEN? What else can we do?”
“Well, don’t you think that when, or maybe I should say if he comes back unfrozen, then it might be found out that we didn’t kill him?”
Tim frowned. He knew Francis was the reason he was getting all these unsightly creases in his face. The bastard was making him resemble Hugh Grant—age ninety. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes,” Francis said, joining him at the doorway. “We can burn this place down and then no o
ne will ever have to know we stepped into the fucking Twilight Zone.”
Tim and Francis walked cautiously down the long hallway, both of them expecting a door to burst open any moment. They both breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the stairs.
“This is getting very messy,” Tim commented as they walked quietly down the dimly lit stairwell. “And it seems such a shame to burn down a house as beautiful and delightful as this one.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Timmy,” Francis muttered as they walked towards the kitchen. “We need to find something flammable, perhaps something in the basement.”
But before they even reached the kitchen, they spotted the two dark shapes lurking within. Instinctually, they both pulled their guns.
“Don’t fucking move,” Tim told the shapes as he cautiously approached. In the back of his mind, he knew by the way they stood that the strangers in the kitchen suffered the same affliction as Adrian Lime and his lovely mistress.
When he got to the doorway, he felt the wall for a switch. His heart thumping almost painfully in his chest, he flipped on the lights and felt the air rush out of his lungs in a slow hiss.
Francis’ hand dropped to his side, the gun falling to the linoleum floor with a loud clatter. “What…the…fuck.”
They stared at carbon copies of themselves.
The Tim-double had just pulled the trigger of his gun, sending a bullet through the Francis-double’s head. The splattered blood that exited the left side of his head was frozen in midair like a spidery flower. Francis’ mouth was open in an anguished scream, his tongue protruding slightly. His eyes had rolled so far back into his head that only the whites could be seen. Tim’s face was full of fear and confusion. Francis was falling towards the floor, frozen in mid-air.
“If we get out of this alive, we need to tell Pope we want more fookin’ money,” Tim said, petting the barrel of his gun like a kitten—a nervous habit he had picked up after many a stressful hit. “That’s us, Francis. Frozen in time or something. And why the hell is my double shooting you like that? It’s bloody bizarre.”
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