The Laughing Corpse (30 page)

T
HE HALLWAY WAS
just like I remembered it. A long stretch with no cover, then a blind corner at each end.

“Right or left?” I whispered to Wanda.

“I don't know. This house is like a maze. Right I think.”

We went right, because at least it was a decision. The worst thing we could do was just stand there waiting for Gaynor to come back.

I heard footsteps behind us. I started to turn, but with Wanda in my arms, I was slow. The gunshot echoed in the hallway. Something hit my left arm, around Wanda's waist. The impact spun me around and sent us both crashing to the floor.

I ended up on my back with my left arm trapped under Wanda's weight. The left arm was totally numb.

Cicely stood at the end of the hallway. She held a small caliber handgun two-handed. Her long, long legs were far apart. She looked like she knew what she was doing.

I raised the .357 and aimed at her, still lying flat on my back on the floor. It was an explosion of sound that left my ears ringing. The recoil thrust my hand skyward, backwards. It was everything I could do not to drop the gun. If I'd needed a second shot I'd have never gotten it off in time. But I didn't need a second shot.

Cicely lay crumpled in the middle of the hallway. Blood was
spreading on the front of her blouse. She didn't move, but that didn't mean anything. Her gun was still gripped in one hand. She could be pretending, then when I walked up, she'd shoot me. But I had to know.

“Can you get off my arm, please?” I asked.

Wanda didn't say anything, but she lifted herself to a sitting position, and I could finally see my arm. It was still attached. Goody. Blood was seeping down my arm in a crimson line. A point of icy burning had started to chase away the numbness. I liked the numbness better.

I did my best to ignore the arm as I stood up and walked towards Cicely. I had the Magnum pointed at her. If she so much as twitched, I'd hit her again. Her miniskirt had hiked up her thighs, displaying black garters and matching underwear. How undignified.

I stood over her, staring down. Cicely wasn't going to twitch, not voluntarily. Her silk blouse was soaked with blood. A hole big enough for me to put my fist through took up most of her chest. Dead, very dead.

I kicked the .22 out of her hand, just in case. You can never tell with someone who plays voodoo. I've had people get up before with worse injuries. Cicely just lay there, bleeding.

I was lucky she'd had a ladylike caliber pistol. Anything bigger and I might have lost the arm. I stuck her pistol in the front of my pants, because I couldn't figure out where else to put it. I did click the safety on first.

I'd never been shot before. Bitten, stabbed, beaten, burned, but never shot. It scared me because I wasn't sure how badly I was hurt. I walked back to Wanda. Her face was pale, her brown eyes like islands in her face. “Is she dead?”

I nodded.

“You're bleeding,” she said. She tore a strip from her long skirt. “Here, let me wrap it.”

I knelt and let her tie the multicolored strip just above the wound. She wiped the blood away with another piece of skirt. It didn't look that bad. It looked almost like a raw, bloody scrap.

“I think the bullet just grazed me,” I said. A flesh wound, nothing but a flesh wound. It burned and was almost cold at the same time.
Maybe the cold was shock. One little bullet graze and I was going into shock? Surely not.

“Come on, we've got to get out of here. The shots will bring Bruno.” It was good that I had pain in the arm. It meant I could feel and I could move the arm. The arm did not want to be wrapped around Wanda's waist again, but it was the only way to move her and keep my right hand free.

“Let's go left. Maybe Cicely came in this way,” Wanda said. There was a certain logic to that. We turned and walked past Cicely's body.

She lay there, blue eyes staring impossibly wide. There is never a look of horror on the face of the newly dead, more surprise than anything. As if death had caught them while they weren't looking.

Wanda stared down at the body as we passed it. She whispered, “I never thought she'd die first.”

We rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Dominga's monster.

T
HE MONSTER STOOD
in the middle of a narrow little hall that seemed to take up most of the back of the house. Many-paned windows lined the wall. And in the middle of those windows was a door. Through the windows I could see black night sky. The door led outside. The only thing standing between us and freedom was the monster.

The only thing, sheesh.

The shambling mound of body parts struggled towards us. Wanda screamed, and I didn't blame her. I raised the Magnum and sighted on the human face in the middle. The shot echoed like captive thunder.

The face exploded in a welter of blood and flesh and bone. The smell was worse. Like rotten fur on the back of my throat. The mouths screamed, an animal howling at its wound. The thing kept coming, but it was hurt. It seemed confused as to what to do now. Had I taken out the dominant brain? Was there a dominant brain? No way to be sure.

I fired three more times, exploding three more heads. The hallway was full of brains and blood and worse. The monster kept coming.

The gun clicked on empty. I threw the gun at it. One clawed hand batted it away. I didn't bother trying the .22. If the Magnum couldn't stop it, the .22 sure as hell couldn't.

We started backing down the hallway. What else could we do? The
monster pulled its twisted bulk after us. It was that same sliding sound that had chased Manny and I out of Dominga's basement. I was looking at her caged horror.

The flesh between the different textures of skin, fur, and bone was seamless. No Frankenstein stitches. It was like the different pieces had melted together like wax.

I tripped over Cicely's body, too busy watching the monster to see where my feet were. We sprawled across her body. Wanda screamed.

The monster scrambled forward. Misshapen hands grabbed at my ankles. I kicked at it, struggling to climb over Cicely's body, away from it. A claw snagged in my jeans and pulled me towards it. It was my turn to scream. What had once been a man's hand and arm wrapped around my ankle.

I grabbed onto Cicely's body. Her flesh was still warm. The monster pulled us both easily. The extra weight didn't slow it down. My hands scrambled at the bare wood floor. Nothing to hold on to.

I stared back at the thing. Eager rotting mouths yawned at me. Broken, discolored teeth, tongues working like putrid snakes in the openings. God!

Wanda grabbed my arm, trying to hold me, but without legs to brace she just succeeded in being pulled closer to the thing. “Let go!” I screamed it at her.

She did, screaming, “Anita!”

I was screaming myself, “No! Stop it! Stop it!” I put everything I had into that yell, not volume, but power. It was just another zombie, that was all. If it wasn't under specific orders, it would listen to me. It was just another zombie. I had to believe that, or die.

“Stop, right now!” My voice broke with the edge of hysteria. I wanted nothing more than just to start screaming and never stop.

The monster froze with my foot halfway to one of its lower mouths. The mismatched eyes stared at me, expectantly.

I swallowed and tried to sound calm, though the zombie wouldn't care. “Release me.”

It did.

My heart was threatening to come out my mouth. I lay back on the
floor for a second, relearning how to breathe. When I looked up, the monster was still sitting there, waiting. Waiting for orders like a good little zombie.

“Stay here, do not move from this spot,” I said.

The eyes just stared at me, obedient as only the dead can be. It would sit there in the hallway until it got specific orders contradicting mine. Thank you, dear God, that a zombie is a zombie is a zombie.

“What's happening?” Wanda asked. Her voice was broken into sobs. She was near hysterics.

I crawled to her. “It's alright. I'll explain later. We have a little time, but we can't waste it. We've got to get out of here.”

She nodded, tears sliding down her bruised face.

I helped her up one last time. We limped towards the monster. Wanda shied away from it, pulling on my sore arm.

“It's alright. It won't hurt us, if we hurry.” I had no idea how close Dominga was. I didn't want her changing the orders while we were right next to it. We stayed near the wall and squeezed past the thing. Eyes on the back of the body, if it had a back and a front, followed our progress. The smell from the running wounds was nearly overwhelming. But what was a little gagging between friends?

Wanda opened the door to the outside world. Hot summer wind blew our hair into spider silk strands across our faces. It felt wonderful.

Why hadn't Gaynor and the rest come to the rescue? They had to have heard the gunshots and the screaming. The gunshots at least would have brought somebody.

We stumbled down three stone steps to the gravel of a turn around. I stared off into the darkness at hills covered in tall, waving grass and decaying tombstones. The house was the caretaker's house at Burrell Cemetery. I wondered what Gaynor had done to the caretaker.

I started to lead Wanda away from the cemetery towards the distant highway, then stopped. I knew why no one had come now.

The sky was thick and black and so heavy with stars if I'd had a net I could have caught some. There was a high, hot wind blowing against the stars. I couldn't see the moon. Too much starlight. On the hot seeking fingers of the wind I felt it. The pull. Dominga Salvador had
completed her spell. I stared off into the rows of headstones and knew I had to go to her. Just as the zombie had had to obey me, I had to obey her. There was no saving throw, no salvaging it. As easy as that I was caught.

I
STOOD VERY
still on the gravel. Wanda moved in my arms, turning to look at me. Her face by starlight was incredibly pale. Was mine as pale? Was the shock spread over my face like moonlight? I tried to take a step forward. To carry Wanda to safety. I could not take a step forward. I struggled until my legs were shaking with the effort. I couldn't leave.

“What's the matter? We have to get out of here before Gaynor comes back,” Wanda said.

“I know,” I said.

“Then what are you doing?”

I swallowed something cold and hard in my throat. My pulse was thudding in my chest. “I can't leave.”

“What are you talking about?” There was an edge of hysteria to Wanda's voice.

Hysterics sounded perfect. I promised myself a complete nervous breakdown if we got out of here alive. If I could ever leave. I fought against something that I couldn't see, or touch, but it held me solid. I had to stop or my legs were going to collapse. We had enough problems in that direction already. If I couldn't go forward, maybe, backwards.

I backed up a step, two steps. Yeah, that worked.

“Where are you going?” Wanda asked.

“Into the cemetery,” I said.

“Why!”

Good question, but I wasn't sure I could explain it so that Wanda would understand. I didn't understand it myself. How could I explain it to anyone else? I couldn't leave, but did I have to take Wanda back with me? Would the spell allow me to leave her here?

I decided to try. I laid her down on the gravel. Easy, some of my choices were still open.

“Why are you leaving me?” She clutched at me, terrified.

Me, too.

“Make it to the road if you can,” I said.

“On my hands?” she asked.

She had a point, but what could I do? “Do you know how to use a gun?”

“No.”

Should I leave her the gun, or should I take it with me, and maybe get a chance to kill Dominga? If this worked like ordering a zombie, then I could kill her if she didn't specifically forbid me to do it. Because I still had free will, of a sort. They'd bring me, then send someone back for Wanda. She was to be the sacrifice.

I handed her the .22. I clicked off the safety. “It's loaded and it's ready to fire,” I said. “Since you don't know anything about guns, keep it hidden until Enzo or Bruno is right on top of you, then fire point-blank. You can't miss at point-blank range.”

“Why are you leaving me?”

“A spell, I think,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “What kind of spell?”

“One that allows them to order me to come to them. One that forbids me to leave.”

“Oh, God,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. I smiled down at her. A reassuring smile that was all lie. “I'll try to come back for you.”

She just stared at me, like a kid whose parents left her in the dark before all the monsters were gone.

She clutched the gun in her hands and watched me walk off into the darkness.

The long dry grass hissed against my jeans. The wind blew the grass in pale waves. Tombstones loomed out of the weeds like the backs of small walls, or the humps of sea monsters. I didn't have to think where I was going, my feet seemed to know the way.

Was this how a zombie felt when ordered to come? No, you had to be within hearing distance of a zombie. You couldn't do it from this far away.

Dominga Salvador stood at the crown of a hill. She was highlighted against the moon. It was sinking towards dawn. It was still night, but the end of night. Everything was still velvet, silver, deep pockets of night shadows, but there was the faintest hint of dawn on the hot wind.

If I could delay until dawn, I couldn't raise the zombie. Maybe the compulsion would fade, too. If I was luckier than I deserved.

Dominga was standing inside a dark circle. There was a dead chicken at her feet. She had already made a circle of power. All I had to do was step into it and slaughter a human being. Over my dead body, if necessary.

Harold Gaynor sat in his electric wheelchair on the opposite side of the circle. He was outside of it, safe. Enzo and Bruno stood by him, safe. Only Dominga had risked the circle.

She said, “Where is Wanda?”

I tried to lie, to say she was safe, but truth spilled out of my mouth, “She's down by the house on the gravel.”

“Why didn't you bring her?”

“You can only give me one order at a time. You ordered me to come. I came.”

“Stubborn, even now, how curious,” she said. “Enzo, go fetch the girl. We need her.”

Enzo walked away over the dry, rustling grass without a word. I hoped Wanda killed him. I hoped she emptied the gun into him. No, save a few bullets for Bruno.

Dominga had a machete in her right hand. Its edge was black with blood. “Enter the circle, Anita,” she said.

I tried to fight it, tried not to do it. I stood there on the verge of the circle, almost swaying. I stepped across. The circle tingled up my spine,
but it wasn't closed. I don't know what she'd done to it, but it wasn't closed. The circle looked solid enough but it was still open. Still waiting for the sacrifice.

Shots echoed in the darkness. Dominga jumped. I smiled.

“What was that?”

“I think it was your bodyguard biting the big one,” I said.

“What did you do?”

“I gave Wanda a gun.”

She slapped me with her empty hand. It wouldn't really have hurt, but she slapped the same cheek Bruno and what's-his-name had hit. I'd been smacked three times in the same place. The bruise was going to be a beaut.

Dominga looked at something behind me and smiled. I knew what it would be before I turned and saw it.

Enzo was carrying Wanda up the hill. Dammit. I'd heard more than one shot. Had she panicked and shot too soon, wasted her ammunition? Damn.

Wanda was screaming and beating her small fists against Enzo's broad back. If we were alive come morning, I would teach Wanda better things to do with her fists. She was crippled, not helpless.

Enzo carried her over the circle. Until it closed everyone could pass over it without breaking the magic. He dropped Wanda to the ground, holding her arms out behind her at a painful angle. She still struggled and screamed. I didn't blame her.

“Get Bruno to hold her still. The death needs to be one blow,” I said.

Dominga nodded. “Yes, it does.” She motioned for Bruno to enter the circle. He hesitated, but Gaynor told him, “Do what she says.”

Bruno didn't hesitate after that. Gaynor was his greenback god. Bruno grabbed one of Wanda's arms. With a man on each arm, and her legs useless, she was still moving too much.

“Kneel and hold her head still,” I said.

Enzo dropped first, putting a big hand on the back of Wanda's head. He held her steady. She started to cry. Bruno knelt, putting his free hand on her shoulders to help steady her. It was important for the death to be a single blow.

Dominga was smiling now. She handed me a small brown jar of ointment. It was white and smelled heavily of cloves. I used more rosemary in mine, but cloves were fine.

“How did you know what I needed?”

“I asked Manny to tell me what you used.”

“He wouldn't tell you shit.”

“He would if I threatened his family.” Dominga laughed. “Oh, don't look so sad. He didn't betray you,
chica
. Manuel thought I was merely curious about your powers. I am, you know.”

“You'll see soon enough, won't you,” I said.

She gave a sort of bow from the neck. “Place the ointment on yourself in the appointed places.”

I rubbed ointment on my face. It was cool and waxy. The cloves made it smell like candy. I smeared it on over my heart, under my shirt, both hands. Last the tombstone.

Now all we needed was the sacrifice.

Dominga told me, “Do not move.”

I stayed where I was, frozen as if by magic. Was her monster still frozen in the hallway, like I was now?

Dominga laid the machete on the grass near the edge of the circle, then she stepped out of the circle. “Raise the dead, Anita,” she said.

“Ask Gaynor one question first, please.” That please hurt, but it worked.

She looked at me curiously. “What question?”

“Is this ancestor also a voodoo priest?” I asked.

“What difference does it make?” Gaynor asked.

“You fool,” Dominga said. She whirled on him, hands in fists. “That is what went wrong the first time. You made me think it was my powers!”

“What are you babbling about?” he asked.

“When you raise a voodoo priest or an animator, sometimes the magic goes wrong,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Your ancestor's magic interfered with my magic,” Dominga said. “Are you sure this ancestor had no voodoo?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he said.

“Did you know about the first one?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Dominga said. Her power blazed around her like a dark nimbus. Would she kill him, or did she want the money more?

“I didn't think it was important.”

I think Dominga was grinding her teeth. I didn't blame her. He'd cost her her reputation and a dozen lives. He saw nothing wrong with it. But Dominga didn't strike him dead. Greed wins out.

“Get on with it,” Gaynor said. “Or don't you want your money?”

“Do not threaten me!” Dominga said.

Peachy keen, the bad guys were going to fight among themselves.

“I am not threatening you, Señora. I merely will not pay unless this zombie is raised.”

Dominga took a deep breath. She literally squared her shoulders and turned back to me. “Do as I ordered, raise the dead.”

I opened my mouth to think of some other excuse to delay. Dawn was coming. It had to come.

“No more delays. Raise the dead, Anita, now!” That last word had the tone of a command.

I swallowed hard and walked towards the edge of the circle. I wanted to get out, to leave, but I couldn't. I stood there, leaning against that invisible barrier. It was like beating against a wall that I couldn't feel. I stayed there straining until my entire body trembled. I took a deep shaking breath.

I picked up the machete.

Wanda said, “No, Anita, please, please don't!” She struggled, but she couldn't move. She would be an easy kill. Easier than beheading a chicken with one hand. And I did that almost every night.

I knelt in front of Wanda. Enzo's hand on the back of her head kept her from moving. But she whimpered, a desperate sound low in her throat.

God, help me.

I placed the machete under her neck and told Enzo, “Raise her head up so I can make sure of the kill.”

He grabbed a handful of hair and bowed her neck at a painful angle. Her eyes were showing a lot of white. Even by moonlight I could see the pulse in her throat.

I placed the machete back against her neck. Her skin was solid and real under the blade. I raised it just above her flesh, not touching for an instant. I drove the machete straight up into Enzo's throat. The point speared his throat. Blood gushed out in a black wave.

Everyone froze for an instant, but me. I jerked the machete out of Enzo and plunged it into Bruno's gut. His hand with the gun half-drawn fell away. I leaned on the machete and drew it up towards his throat. His insides spilled out in a warm rush.

The smell of fresh death filled the circle. Blood sprayed all over my face, chest, hands, coating me. It was the last step, and the circle closed.

I'd felt a thousand circles close, but nothing like this. The shock of it left me gasping. I couldn't breathe over the rush of power. It was like an electric current was running over my body. My skin ached with it.

Wanda was covered in other people's blood. She was having hysterics in the grass. “Please, please, don't kill me. Don't kill me! Please!”

I didn't have to kill Wanda. Dominga had told me to raise the dead, and I would do just that.

Killing animals never gave me this kind of rush. It felt like my skin was going to crawl off on its own. I shoved the power flowing through me into the ground. But not just into the grave in the circle. I had too much power for just one grave. Too much power for just a handful of graves. I felt the power spreading outward like ripples in a pool. Out and out, until the power was spread thick and clean over the ground. Every grave that I had walked for Dolph. Every grave but the ones with ghosts. Because that was a type of soul magic, and necromancy didn't work around souls.

I felt each grave, each corpse. I felt them coalesce from dust and bone fragments to things that were barely dead at all.

“Arise from your graves all dead within sound of my call. Arise and serve me!” Without naming them all I shouldn't have been able to call a single one from the grave, but the power of two human deaths was too much for the dead to resist.

They rose upward like swimmers through water. The ground rippled underfoot like a horse's skin.

“What are you doing?” Dominga asked.

“Raising the dead,” I said. Maybe it showed in my voice. Maybe she felt it. Whatever, she started running towards the circle, but it was too late.

Hands tore through the earth at Dominga's feet. Dead hands grabbed her ankles and sent her sprawling into the long grass. I lost sight of her but I didn't lose control of the zombies. I told them, “Kill her, kill her.”

The grass shuddered and surged like water. The sound of muscles pulling away from bone in wet thick pieces filled the night. Bones broke with sharp cracks. Over the sounds of tearing flesh, Dominga shrieked.

There was one last wet sound, thick and full. Dominga's screams broke off abruptly. I felt the dead hands tearing out her throat. Her blood splattered the grass like a black sprinkler.

Her spell shredded on the wind, but I didn't need her urging now. The power had me. I was riding it like a bird on a current of air. It held me, lifted me. It felt solid and insubstantial as air.