Disturb (11 page)

One thing was certain; the weekly deal was shady. It always took place at the back entrance, which was never in use. It always involved an exchange for an envelope full of cash (Nathan never opened it, but it felt like cash). And Nathan was paid for the run off the books, in cash as well.

Nathan patted his pocket to make sure he had the envelope. He did, naturally. If there was one run he didn’t want to screw up, it was this one. Nathan harbored many fears of what would happen if he’d accidentally lost the envelope. He figured he’d wind up in one of those insulated boxes, and his replacement would deliver his parts to DruTech for nefarious purposes.

The door swung open, and Nathan jumped. Sully snorted at him. Pale, hairy, a drawn out face—Sully looked exactly what a morgue attendant should look like. As usual, he wore his bloody apron. Little things were stuck to it on this occasion, and Nathan had no desire to know what they were.

“Got the envelope?”

Nathan handed it to Sully. The dour man stuck it in his back pocket, then bent down and handed Nathan a medium sized Styrofoam box, the lid sealed with tape.

It was steaming.

Nathan held it away from his body, trying not to sniff the rising fumes. Sully laughed.

“Get a move on. You don’t want to have it with you when it thaws and wakes up.”

The color drained from Nathan’s face, and Sully slammed the door. Sully always messed around with him like that. There couldn’t be something actually alive in there.

Right?

Nathan didn’t want to find out. He hurried to his car, placed the box on the roof as he opened the door, and when he went to grab the package it slid out of his hands and hit the ground.

Nathan yelled in surprise. This was the worst thing that had ever happened in his twenty-three years of life.

The package landed on its corner. The impact caused the top to pop off, flapping open like a hinge, the tape still stuck to one edge.

The steam slowly dissipated, revealing the thing inside the box.

Nathan stared down in horror. It was worse than anything he could have imagined. His mind screamed at him to run away, but his legs remained locked and his eyes couldn’t tear away from the nightmare before him.

It was a human head.

The head was severed under the jaw line, packed in smoking dry ice. Two curly wires were stuck in the tear ducts of its open eyes, the other ends attached to a large lantern battery.

And it was opening and closing its mouth.

The scream was in his lungs, filling them, but he couldn’t get it out of his throat. He was so terrified he couldn’t exhale.

There was a soft, rhythmic
click click click
as the head’s upper and lower teeth met, as if it was chewing.

Or trying to speak.

“Whoops.”

Nathan turned and saw Sully standing next to him. The scream finally came out, but it was more like an asthmatic wheeze, so high-pitched only dogs could hear it.

Sully bent down and picked up the box, holding it under Nathan’s face.

“See? You woke him up. Now it must feed on the blood of the living.”

Nathan’s bladder let loose and the blood drained from his head. He was about to pass out.

Sully snapped the lid on and put the box in the back seat.

“You okay, kid?”

“… it’s… it’s… still alive…”

Sully laughed and clapped Nathan on the shoulder. “It’s not alive. Some doctor’s going to use it for experimental research. The battery keeps a small electric charge in the brain so the tissue doesn’t decay, and the jaw moving is just a reflex.”

Nathan began to sob. Sully frowned, clearly embarrassed.

“Look, kid, it’s no big deal. No harm done. You want to come in, get cleaned up?”

Nathan shook his head, his hand reaching into his wet jeans for his car keys. Sully took out the envelope Nathan had given him and removed a fifty dollar bill. He shoved it in Nathan’s vest pocket.

“Here, have a nice dinner on me.”

Nathan mumbled a thanks. It was automatic. He didn’t feel thankful at all.

“If there’s anything left, pick up something for our friend here. Maybe he’d like a pack of gum.”

Sully opened his jaw and clicked his teeth together, doing an eerie imitation of the head.

Nathan climbed into the car, oblivious to Sulley’s laughter. He drove in a daze, way over the speed limit, paying no attention to traffic signals. When he got back to headquarters Nathan quit on the spot, and demanded they remove the box from his back seat and take it to DruTech themselves.

The next day he got a job delivering pizzas.

B
ill had never been to a funeral where it hadn’t rained.

Today was no exception. He huddled under an umbrella, Theena clutching his arm hard enough to bruise it, trying to remain calm while the minister’s droning voice got lost in the wind.

There had been a wake earlier, loud and good natured, pharmaceutical people mingling with politicians, investors, family members. But it was all bad for Bill. The closed casket brought back memories of his wife’s funeral, and several colleagues he hadn’t seen since then felt the need to ask how he was coping.

Theena hadn’t said a word since this morning, when she apologized for not putting on any make-up. Her nonstop crying since then was the reason why.

But he’d managed to stay strong through the wake, for Theena, for himself. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. When he’d learned that the funeral was being held at St. Matthew’s it took all of his will power not to walk out on Theena.

He looked to his right, again, over the rows of graves, to a barren tree on a hill a hundred yards away.

His wife was buried under that tree.

Bill hadn’t visited her once since she’d been interred. The scene had been very much like this one, support people mumbling meaningless words of sympathy in the rain.

A procession had formed before Dr. Nikos’s casket, mourners pulling flowers from an arrangement and setting them on top. Bill tried to ease Theena into line, but she refused to move. The people standing to their left had to walk around them.

Finally, adorned with flora, the coffin was lowered into the muddy earth. Theena wailed, a sound like a tortured ghost, and collapsed onto the ground. Bill knelt next to her, cradling her head, feeling his wife watch them from the hill.

Several people came by, including the minister, offering their assistance. Theena simply sobbed. After a while, she and Bill were the only ones left.

The wind got worse, stinging as it slapped their faces. Bill’s pants were soaked to the thigh. He could imagine how cold Theena was, in a black skirt, sitting on the ground in a little ball.

“We have to get you inside.”

“No.”

“Theena, you’ll get sick out here.”

“I’m not leaving Daddy.”

Bill tried to lift her by the armpits, but she fought him. He had an irrational impulse to slap her, make her get up so he could leave, and that made him feel even guiltier than he already was.

“I want to put a flower on his casket.”

She allowed Bill to help her up, and they approached the grave.

The hole was already filling with water. So cold and wet and alone. Awful.

Theena picked a rose and dropped it. The flower bounced indifferently off the casket and fell alongside. Theena shook herself free of Bill’s arms and ran, across the cemetery, towards the parking lot, her face in her hands.

Bill watched her go. He wanted to follow, but his feet had something else in mind. They took him in the other direction, up the hill.

Kristen’s headstone was black marble. All it listed was her full name, her birth date, her death date. The carver had asked Bill if he wanted anything else, a phrase or line.

To sum up a person’s life in one phrase had seemed so pathetic at the time, and Bill had passed. Now he wished he’d put something, anything there, to set it apart from all of the other nondescript graves, rows and rows of them.

“I’m sorry, Kristen. I’m so sorry.”

He cried, letting it all out, sobbing with his whole body like Theena had. He was so overwhelmed with grief that he didn’t notice the two men approach him from behind.

“Well, lookee here, Franco. It’s the Doc’s wife.”

Bill spun around. It was the two thugs who’d almost killed him the day before.

“It’s nice that you visit her, ain’t it Franco?”

Franco put out a palm and shoved Bill backwards. Bill tripped over his wife’s stone and landed hard on his butt.

“I thought we told you not to call the cops.”

“Easy, Franco. Can’t you see the guy is grieving here? You gonna kick his ass on top of his wife’s grave? Show some respect.”

The older man, Bill remembered his name was Carlos, held out his hand to help him up. Bill refused to take it.

Carlos shrugged and got down on his haunches.

“Franco is right, though. We warned you not to call the cops, and you went and called the FBI. We feel like maybe you didn’t take us seriously.”

“Fuck you.” Bill spat in his face.

Carlos smiled. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his cheek. Then he backhanded Bill across the face.

“I’m sentimental, so I’ll forgive that. But we need you to understand that no one’s gonna help you, Doc. You could call the CIA, Internal Affairs, the goddamn Governor, and no one will help. But we’ll hear about it. And we won’t be happy.”

Bill probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, tasting blood. A tooth was wiggly. He stared up at Franco, but there was no fear. There was no pain, either. All Bill felt was a coldness inside him. He embraced it, drew strength from it. This wasn’t going to be a repeat of yesterday.

He made a show of getting to his feet, looking weak and beaten. Then he made a tight fist and hit Carlos with everything he had.

Carlos went down. Franco stood there, immobile and confused. Bill lowered his head and charged the bigger man, connecting solidly with his gut. Franco grunted and doubled over, and Bill swung hard between his legs, an upper cut that he put his whole body behind.

Then he ran.

The grass was slippery, and it was hard to keep his balance. He heard the thugs yelling after him, heard a shot and felt it go over his head, but he didn’t stop. Not until he reached the parking lot and found Theena sitting in his car.

Bill scrambled for the door handle, his free hand digging for the car keys in his jacket pocket.

They weren’t there.

He tried his blazer pockets, vest pocket, pants pockets, patting his body all over.

No keys. They must have been lost in the scuffle.

Theena hadn’t even noticed him—she was staring blankly out the window, an emotional zombie.

“Theena! We have to get out of here!”

She didn’t bother looking. Bill glanced over his shoulder, saw Franco and Carlos coming down the hill.

He reached in the car and wound his fingers around Theena’s long, black curls. Then he yanked.

She was jerked from her seat, the pain making her yell. Bill locked his hand around one of her flailing wrists and pulled her out the driver’s side door.

“We have to go!”

There was a boom and a crash, and a spider web of cracks blossomed in the Audi’s rear windshield. Theena’s eyes widened, and Bill dragged her away from the car as another bullet smacked into the open door.

With her long legs, Theena had no problem keeping up with him. They ran, hand in hand, through the parking lot and onto the street. There were apartment buildings on either side, for blocks in either direction. Bill tugged her towards the nearest one, heading for the front entrance. The security door was locked. He frantically pressed buzzers, hoping someone would let him in.

“Who is it?”

Bill put his face to the intercom speaker.

“Please! Someone is trying to kill us!”

“Who is this? Lionel?”

“Open the door!”

Another thunderclap, the bullet slapping into the brick wall and peppering Bill’s face with bits of wet rock.

They took off in a crouch, making a beeline for the next apartment building.

No one answered the buzzers.

“They’re coming.”

Theena’s voice was soft, fatalistic. Bill chanced a look. Carlos and Franco were jogging towards them, less than a hundred yards away.

Bill looked in the other direction. The street was deserted, not a vehicle in sight. They ran for it.

Halfway down the block, a car turned the corner and began to approach. Bill released Theena and waved his hands over his head, yelling for the car’s attention.

The car didn’t slow down, and veered slightly out of their direction as if to drive past. Frantic, Bill tried to position himself in front of it, holding out his hands, praying the driver would stop.

The driver slammed on the brakes. The tires couldn’t find purchase on the wet pavement and the car hydroplaned, rushing at Bill faster than he was able to get out of the way.

It slid to a stop just a foot before impact.

Bill placed his palms on the hood. The driver was invisible behind tinted gray glass. He was probably petrified, wondering if this were a robbery or a car jack. The car was a late model Lincoln Continental, the rain beading off the many coats of wax.