The Corpse Whisperer

by H. R. Boldwood

  Rico stopped and swung his flashlight in my direction. “Captain Dorsey said you’ve already discussed that with him. You’re not in the budget.”

  “Really, De Palma? It’s not smart to screw with the one person who can keep your ass from getting corpsified.”

  “That’s Cap’s call, not mine,” Rico said, taking off with long, powerful strides toward the gravesite.

  The backhoe had done the hard work. I stared at McCoy’s low-rent casket shining in the moonlight and gave Rico one last chance to bail.

  “You know, this isn’t as easy as I make it look. Raising a rotter is a lot like doing a rain dance. You might get a drizzle or you might need a freaking ark. McCoy’s a freshy. He hasn’t even been dead a week. Raising him will screw with the cognitive function of his brain—the part that processes information. He won’t be capable of lying, that requires deliberation and intent. But whatever else happens is anybody’s guess. You sure you want to do this?”

  “She’s six years old, Nighthawk. We don’t have a choice.”

  “Open the lid.” I closed my eyes and let the power surge through me, like God’s own hand.

  Make no mistake, the ability to raise the dead is a God-given gift that comes with a moral obligation to protect the living and the dead. The gift itself isn’t evil, but misuse of that gift is as ugly as it gets.

  The mortician had done an impressive job, given the circumstances. McCoy looked like he was napping, like his eyes could open at any moment, and he’d be confused by his surroundings. Sometimes appearances aren’t deceiving.

  “Cephas Allen McCoy, in the name of God, I command you to rise!”

  Cephas moaned, low and steady.

  I spread my hands over him and whispered a single word. “Awaken.”

  Tiny rivers of light streamed from my hands into his body, causing him to pitch and thrash. Teeth clenched, limbs flailing, he sprang upright and opened his eyes—crazed, animal-like eyes that showed fear but nothing else.

  He grabbed the edge of the casket and leapt to the ground above. Shit. That’s what I’d been afraid of. His muscles still had memory. The .32 he took to the heart hadn’t caused peripheral tissue damage. Climbing out of that grave, for him, was no more difficult than climbing out of bed to take a leak.

  We stood, face to face—almost. He looked about six-two, giving him a good eight inches on me.

  “Cephas, stop!”

  He froze and stared at me, like he was trying to figure out who I was, trying to use the cognitive part of his brain that no longer worked.

  Then he twitched.

  God. I hate when they twitch.

  “Cephas, where’s Twila Harris?”

  He growled and drooled on my feet.

  “Answer me, damn it!” I pulled the bag of barbecue chips out of my pocket, opened it, and waved it under his nose. “Tell me where she is and they’re yours.”

  Rico’s eyes went wide. “Potato chips? You’ve got to be—”

  “Hey. You mind? I’m working here.”

  Cephas grabbed at the chips and slurred, “Duck blind on Lake Chetac. Shush…it’s a secret.”

  Now for the tough question. “Is Twila still alive?”

  “Yes. Yes. Pretty. Go play with her. Need to play. Need her.” His mouth quivered, and a long string of saliva that dangled from his lip bounced like a bungee cord.

  Then he snarled, snatched the chips out of my hand, and bolted across the cemetery.

  “Ah, shit!” I took off after him, the freaking twitcher.

  Cephas hadn’t gotten a big head start, but he was running on freshy legs, making me work to close the distance between us.

  When Rico started to run with me, I yelled, “No, go get the girl! I can handle McCoy.”

  I was so busy keeping Cephas in my sights, I didn’t notice the plastic tarp in my path. It gave way beneath me into six feet of nothingness.

  The air whooshed out of my lungs, as I did a face plant into the open grave. My hands absorbed some of the impact and probably saved me from a broken nose, but my left wrist jammed when I landed.

  Son of a bitch.

  Did I happen to mention I’m left-handed?

  Something warm and sticky ran down my face—blood bubbling out of the top of my head. Alone, hurt and six-feet under, with no easy way out…perfect.

  Kulu’s words came back to haunt me: box-o-rocks. She’s an insightful little bitch.

  A large, titanium flower vase stared down at me from the gravesite, as if mocking my stupidity. An idea began to form.

  I stood beneath the vase, faced sideways, then pushed my back against one dirt wall and my feet against the other. I inched up the walls, feet and shoulders in tandem, doing a horizontal mambo toward the top. When I got to the surface, I reached over and grabbed the vase, which was anchored into the ground, with my right hand.

  What I did next looked pretty much like my 5-Minute No Flab Ab routine, trying to rock myself up and over to the ground. Sound easy? Not so much. By the time my body made it out onto the grass and I rolled to my feet, pain washed through me in waves.

  Cephas couldn’t have gone far. The stucco walls around Rose Hill Cemetery were a good twelve feet high, built for privacy and protection. And the gate was locked. That’s why we’d scaled the wall.

  I caught sight of my deadhead across the grounds, in an older section of plots—only there were three of him, moving in perfect synchronization. So, I focused on the Cephas in the middle, as he backed himself into a corner, between the wall and Louis Kapiniski’s mausoleum (which I have to say was impressive, as mausoleums go).

  I eased down, onto a concrete garden bench across from Louis’s crypt, and checked my aching wrist. That sucker had swollen to twice its normal size. No way I could pull Hawk, let alone fire him. Hawk was going to have to keep his pants on. So much for Plan A.

  I didn’t have a Plan B.

  I looked around for inspiration, but the pickings were slim—tombstones, grass, backhoe. Backhoe. Parked on the service road, across from Cephas’s grave, it was big and powerful, simply waiting for the next hole that needed to be dug.

  Cephas paced back and forth like a brain-dead pinball, bouncing from the perimeter wall to the mausoleum, and back again.

  I whistled to get his attention. “Yo! You and me, pal? We’re not done. Be right back.”

  Closing my left eye to streamline the double vision, I trekked across the grounds toward the backhoe. Pulling myself up to the driver's cage with my right hand was a piece of cake. Removing the control panel screws was a challenge. My right hand didn’t recognize the feel of my knife. Turning the screws felt awkward, but after finally exposing the wires, I bypassed the ignition and twisted them together. The backhoe roared to life.

  What happened next was collateral damage. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

  Sometimes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. If the damage scale begins with a single egg, think of mine in terms of a big-ass, family-sized frittata. Just because I could hot wire a backhoe did not mean I knew how to operate it. And trying to do things right-handed didn’t make it any easier.

  There were a few additional incidents, as I drove across the grounds on my way back to Cephas.

  Barely worth mentioning, really.

  He hadn’t strayed far. I wrangled him with the bucket of the backhoe, moving him toward the Kapinski mausoleum. He snarled and snapped, gnashing his teeth, scrambling to get at me. I tried to run him over, but those freshies are so damn agile.

  He grabbed hold of the bucket and hoisted himself inside it. Next thing I knew, he’d launched himself from the bucket onto the driver’s cage, and was gnawing on the bars.

  Shaking Cephas loose was like trying to shake gum off the bottom of my shoe. I made a sharp right turn, then jerked the wheel to the left, throwing him off the backhoe.

  When he fell to the ground, I raised the bucket as high as it would go and stared into his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to chew of
f my face. And I wanted nothing more than for the night to end.

  Once I yanked the control lever down, the bucket smashed into his head with surprising speed, spewing brains, bone, and embalming fluid outward in an angry arc. The bucket continued downward, pile-driving him into the earth. When it came to rest, an odd arrangement of arms and legs protruded from beneath it.

  Juicy, but effective. I just put ‘em down. I don’t get paid for clean-up. The maintenance workers were going to have a meltdown.

  I said the only thing that can, or should, be said at a moment like that. “Rest in pieces, Cephas.”

  I needed to get to Lake Chetac fast and all I had was my Harley. Once I got it into gear, my right hand could take over. But using the clutch was going to be a bitch. So, I pulled out the duct tape and wrapped my wrist.

  That bike and I must have hit a thousand bumps as we tore up the road to Lake Chetac. Rico had called in the cavalry to search every duck blind, cabin and outhouse on the grounds. They found Twila Harris right where Cephas had said she’d be. He hadn’t had time to play out whatever sick fantasy he’d had in store for her.

  Rico walked toward me with Twila cradled in his arms. I’m not sure who was holding on tighter.

  She was alive and in one piece. Sometimes miracles do happen. And maybe, sometimes, bending the rules, even my rules, was the only way to make them happen.

  Rico’s eyes twinkled. “I was right about you. I knew you'd come through.”

  “You just impress the hell out of yourself, don’t you?” I asked, doubling over, feeling like I might hurl.

  “Go ahead. Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Say, Rico was right.”

  “Rico’s an asshole.”

  Our debate ended when the Deerfield Township EMS arrived for Twila. When the paramedics saw my bleeding head and swollen wrist, they nodded curtly, tossed me a band-aid and an ace wrap, and then moved on.

  Rico tried to call them back, but I cut him off.

  “We’ve run into each other before,” I explained. “They value their lives too much to screw with me.”

  A television news van pulled up and a low growl hummed in my throat. “If it isn’t my good friends from Channel Ten.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Rico said. “Cap warned me about this. Nighthawk. Retract your claws.”

  I cracked my neck from side to side to loosen up, producing an audible pop from my spine. The fun was just getting started.

  Jade Chen and her pet cameraman, Rip Sacca, burst out of the van.

  Rip grinned and raised his camera to his shoulder. “Hi, Allie. You can run but you can’t hide.”

  Hide? How hard was it to find us?

  The press monitored the scanners, and CPD had the place lit with so many search lights, it looked like a used car lot. Still, I was a little surprised to see them. Jade had the journalistic instincts of lint.

  She flashed her pearly white caps at the camera. “Good evening, Cincinnati. I’m Jade Chen, reporting to you live from Lake Chetac. We’re here tonight to follow two breaking stories. The recovery of young Twila Harris, kidnapped just days ago. And the escape of a freshly risen corpse, Cephas Allen McCoy.” Jade turned to Rico. “Detective Rico De Palma, of the Cincinnati Police Department, what can you tell us?”

  “Only that Twila has been recovered alive and well. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, I’m not at liberty to discuss specifics at this time.”

  Jade tucked a strand of long, black hair behind her ear, and squeezed his bicep, clinging to him like a barnacle.

  “Thank you, Detective De Palma. Greater Cincinnati is fortunate to be protected by such a brave and dedicated officer.”

  Her nostrils flared as she turned to me. “Ms. Nighthawk, Cincinnati’s resident cadaver diver. It appears things got a little out of control tonight. Someone took out the north wall of Rose Hill Cemetery with a backhoe. What can you tell us about that?”

  “No comment.”

  “Can you explain why the Kapinski Mausoleum, the resting place of the city’s founding father, is now a pile of rubble?”

  “No comment.”

  “Did you obtain a warrant to raise McCoy’s corpse? The ACLU has issued a statement condemning your actions tonight as desecration of a corpse. Would you care to comment?”

  “Yeah, sure. You should use a smaller trowel to pack on that eye shadow, honey. You look a little like a corpsicle—”

  “Nighthawk!” Rico whispered from off-camera.

  Jade smirked and addressed the faithful viewers at home. “This is Jade Chen for ABC news affiliate, Channel Ten, dedicated to giving you yesterday’s news, today.”

  Rip lowered the camera and gave her a look that wiped the smug off her face.

  “Crap,” she mumbled. “Cut. Take two.”

  Rip gave her a thumbs up and started rolling.

  “This is Jade Chen for ABC news affiliate, Channel Ten, dedicated to giving you tomorrow’s news, today.”

  What a freaking moron. Rip moved in tight for Jade’s signature closing.

  “May I never appear on your doorstep, microphone in hand, searching for the truth. Goodnight, Cincinnati.”

  Rip lowered his camera. “Cut. And that’s a wrap.”

  Jade quickly regrouped and batted her onyx eyes at Rico.

  “Looks like your partner’s going to be on the disabled list for a while,” she said, side-eying me. “If you get bored, text me.”

  She slipped her hand into his jacket and pulled out his cell phone. He froze as she punched in her number, and then slowly slid the phone into the bottom of his pants pocket.

  “I’m on speed dial, sugar.” She winked and walked back to the news van, working her ass like a curve ball.

  Jade and Rip left with no more details than they had when they arrived, yet their story was destined to headline the eleven o’clock news. They’d pull a forty-three percent market share, thanks to the draw of deadheads and Jade’s Double-D’s.

  Pulitzer Prize, my ass.

  Rico magically rediscovered his ability to speak when the van drove out of sight. “Jesus, she’s hot!”

  “If you go for the annoying type,” I said, feeling a little green.

  It was time to change the subject.

  “She was right about one thing. I am going to be out of commission for a while. That’s why I asked for full benefits. What the hell am I supposed to do for money, while I’m laid-up? You’d better tell Cap to stick a crow bar in that budget, De Palma, and pull something out other than his thumb. I want salary plus three weeks paid vacation, full medical, disability, and expenses. Small arms ammo and flamethrowers don’t come cheap, you know.”

  I tried to punctuate my point with a finger to his chest, but missed his body completely.

  “Why are there three of you? Stop moving around!”

  Rico laughed. “You might be able to bulldoze the EMTs, but not me, Nighthawk. You’re going to the emergency room, even if I have to carry you.”

  “Feeling froggy? Go ahead and leap, Mister ‘I Drew the Smallest Straw’. I can take your scrawny ass.”

  I swung so hard, I spun full circle and nailed the air with a deadly left cross. My follow through would have ended in my second face-plant of the day, except that Rico ducked beneath my outstretched arm and rolled me over his shoulder.

  “Jesus, you’re exasperating. I’ll get back to Cap about the budget. I’ve got some other connections, too. We’ll find you some kind of paying gig while you’re off work.”

  Though I couldn’t see it from my vantage point, hanging upside down over Rico’s shoulder, I heard the smile in his voice.

  Despite the pain in my head that throbbed with his every step, I flashed a little grin of my own. Three of the finest asses this side of the Ohio River were bouncing in my face. Even concussed, I was fairly certain they were his, not mine.

  That bimbo reporter, Jade Chen, might have been hot, but I was Allie Nighthawk, the best of the bad-ass zombie hunters. And I
was exasperating.

  The last things I remember before everything went black, were Rico cursing when I puked into the back of his shoe, and wondering what the hell kind of light-duty options would be available for a zombie hunter.

  3

  You Can’t Fight City Hall

  About a week after the Rose Hill Cemetery debacle…incident…case, Captain Dorsey arranged for me to cover Zombie Combat with the cops of the 51st Precinct. He scheduled the lecture in an auditorium at City Hall. It sounded like the perfect restricted duty gig, given my sprained wrist. I’d never held a training session before. But how hard could it be?

  With all the chairs set up, the room felt a little tight. It had to be ninety degrees in there. My hands turned sweaty and then my stomach went south. I started fidgeting with my notes and dropped them on the floor.

  Relax, I told myself. Everything will be fine.

  Since Cap offered to pay me, I went all-out and brought a visual aid—a deadhead chained to a two-wheel dolly, with a catcher’s mask strapped to its face. Eighty cops rose to their feet, locked and loaded.

  I stepped to the left. Far, far to the left.

  So, sue me if I got a little creative. I had their attention, at least for the moment.

  “At ease, officers,” I said, moving to the lectern. “I brought my friend…Hannibal…along for show and tell. Say hello, Hannibal.”

  Hannibal growled. Strings of slobber clung to the bottom of his catcher’s mask and swayed back and forth. The left side of his forehead was gone, but his brain was functioning. You could see it peeking out from between the metal bars of his face-plate.

  “Notice he’s parked on an eight-by-ten sheet of white plastic,” I said. “By the end of our session, it won’t be white anymore. I hope that won’t offend your delicate sensibilities.”

  Great line, I thought, looking out into the audience. And then…my mind went blank.

  One-hundred and sixty eyes—one-hundred and sixty-two if you count Hannibal’s—stared at me, waiting for me to speak. And I didn’t have squat.