I had just excused the last customer for the evening when I saw her. Well, by “excused”, I mean I bluntly told him “get out, we’re closed.” It wasn’t by choice. I had asked several times, politely even. The look I got as the guy left ensured that the owner would be hearing about it, which meant Burt and I would be having another of our “motivational” discussions. Well, at least this time it wouldn’t be about getting here on time. That subject’s been very well covered. Repeatedly. I’m gonna be honest, the creativity of my excuses has really gone downhill. Not my fault, my “extracurricular activities”, for lack of a better term, have really been starting to intrude on my time normally reserved for sleeping. I’ve found the key is to come up with reasons so out there, no one would believe you have the balls to pass ‘em off as true, so they think you’re telling the truth. Actually telling the truth… I’ve been tempted, just to see his reaction, but I digress.
She stood between two tables in a spot that had been empty a moment ago and I jumped when I saw her.
“Mary, what are you doing here?” I asked. “I don’t have time to give you a ride home tonight.”
She was way too quiet and had a bad habit of sneaking up on people. Well, the ones that noticed her anyway, which was only me as far as I could tell. She had that look on her face and I knew what she wanted. Dammit…here we go again.
“No,” I said before she could get a word out; not gonna give her a chance. Undeterred, she walked towards me, stopping on the other side of the counter. I avoided eye contact and busied myself wiping the various mocha and latte rings off the counter and moved to go unplug the neon sign which falsely advertised that we were still open. I almost walked into her and her eyes pinned me in place for a moment while she told me why she’d come.
“Come on, Mary,” I sighed and moved around her. “I said no and I meant it. I have to open tomorrow.” I unplugged the open sign and my eyes came to rest on the shop’s name, “Brew Ha-ha.” Why? I thought for the five thousandth time. It’s slang for a fight. Stupid name for a coffee shop. Okay, I knew it was word play, but I didn’t think it was very cute or clever, and since I thought that every time I saw it, I realized it was probably making me a tad neurotic.
My thoughts were interrupted by Mary as she repeated herself.
“There’s gotta be someone else you can go to with these things.” I said, but I knew there wasn’t, and she was nice enough not to point that out. Again. “Alright, I’m coming. Just give me a sec’ to lock up.”
Five minutes later we were in my car headed out of town towards the suburbs on the south side. Mary kept quiet the entire way, showing me where to turn with quick gestures. I learned a while ago she’s not one for small talk. Her silence had unnerved me at first, but I grew to accept it as her way. I’ve learned to adapt to a lot as of late.
She gestured for me to pull over next to one of the nicer “McMansions” in the neighborhood.
“Where is he?” I asked, turning to the suddenly empty passenger seat. She had already gotten out without so much as a door slam. She pointed to the back yard and I wasted no time getting there. As I rounded the corner the all too familiar stench of decay hit me so hard it was all I could do to keep from retching. There was a half moon out tonight and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw him.
He looked worse than the last time I had seen him. His thread bare suit torn, covered with bits of mud and grass. Chunks of flesh had fallen off his face, exposing muscle and bone, and he looked…well…moist. He kept to the bushes and moved steadily towards the house, his eyes fixed on something I couldn’t see. I moved closer and followed his gaze to the house.
An attractive, middle-aged blonde woman moved about the bedroom in the midst of her pre-bedtime ritual. I stared at the bed enviously. It looked so comfy…Focus! I snapped at myself. “Bill,” I whispered, not wanting to attract the woman’s attention. He appeared not to hear me. “Bill!” I said as loud as I dared. Again, he failed to respond. Either his ears had completely decayed or he was pretending not to hear me.
I grabbed a small stone from the landscaping around the bushes and bounced it off his head. He whipped around, his face horrid in the moonlight, and let loose a growl straight from the depths. A few years ago that would’ve scared the hell outta me.
“Get over here.” I gestured for him to come over by me. He paused for a moment. “Now!” I demanded. He slowly shuffled over to me. “What are you doing?” I said harshly. “Come on, man, we talked about this.” He stood there a moment looking like a teenager that just got caught trying to sneak back in the house. Well, as much as a walking corpse could anyway. Then he answered with a series of wet pops and gurgles.
“I know. I know,” I said trying to calm him down as he went on and on. You’d be surprised how long someone can talk when they really don’t have to stop to take a breath.
“Okay, she killed you. Got away with murder. And now she’s shacking up with a guy a lot younger then you and having fun spending your money…” I trailed off as I realized I wasn’t helping the situation. “Look, you got wronged but that doesn’t mean you get to come back and kill her. That’s not how it works. Can you imagine if everyone who got betrayed by a woman came back from the dead for revenge? There’d be corpses all over the place, walking and not walking. And you know those ladies wouldn’t believe they deserve it, so they’d come back from the dead for vengance and then you’d have dead people trying to kill dead people and nothing would get done.” I had no idea if that was true, but it sounded good. I paused to let it sink in.
More gurgling.
“Would you have preferred the alternative?” I asked. “Cheating on you before finally divorcing you, followed by being bled dry through alimony and dying bitter and alone? Not a pretty picture.” For the record, I didn’t think that was worse, but I hoped it sounded that way to him.
He just stared at me. The missing eye made the expression difficult to read.
” Look,I’m sorry that it happened to you. I really am.” I patted him on the shoulder reassuringly and instantly regretted it.
Some more wet pops followed by a growl.
“Okay. Yeah, you’re right. She got away with it, for now. But she’ll get caught when she offs this new guy, and you know she will. Once a killer…”
He laughed at that, a sound I hoped I’d never hear again, and for a moment I thought I had won him over, but then he seemed to reconsider and started towards the house again.
“Bill,” I made my voice as stern as I could. “We either do this the easy way and you go back in the ground on your own, or the hard way and I put you there.” I really hoped he’d choose the former because I had no idea how the hell to do the latter. He stared at me and I tried to stare back as hard as I could, but that worm that had crawled out of his eye socket was distracting as hell.
I changed tactics. “What if I promised to get involved and try to get the cops to reopen the case. You got a valid point, a guy with a severe peanut allergy isn’t gonna eat a Payday bar.” I couldn’t even imagine how she fooled him into doing that.
He appeared to mull that over before responding.
“Yes, I promise.” I said, completely sincere.
He stood a moment and then started to shudder as a shimmering, wisp-like cloud rose out of him. His body fell to the ground lifeless again.
“Really Bill? Really?” I said to the empty yard. “You couldn’t walk your dead ass back to the cemetery?” I threw up my hands in disbelief. Well, at least I had trash bags and a shovel in the trunk.
The first rays of sunlight caught my eye as I finished patting down and smoothing out the last shovelfuls of dirt. Guess I’m not getting any sleep tonight. I leaned on the shovel and sighed. Luckily no groundskeeper had wandered by. The thought made me stop and I made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort. Lucky. Yeah, that’s how I’d describe tonight and my life. I realized I hadn’t seen Mary since I started digging. Figures she’d vanish once the work started.
I got back to the car and threw the shovel in the trunk and then climbed into the driver’s seat. I sat for a moment with my eyes closed and almost dozed off. I shook the fatigue off as best I could and looked at my watch. If I hurried, I could still catch a shower before work. Finally…some good news. Hey, I try to be an optimist. I started the car and nearly crapped myself when Mary suddenly appeared beside me.
“Jesus! I told you not to do that!” She looked ashamed for a moment and then gave me the puppy dog eyes and my irritation vanished as quickly as she had appeared. She asked how it went.
“Alright,” I said. “No revenge from beyond the grave.”
She asked another question.
“No, I don’t think he’ll try again. I offered to help him. I think the issue has been put to rest.”
That earned me a look.
I blushed. “Sorry, no pun intended.”
There was a moment of silence and then she asked for a small favor.
“Seriously? C’mon, Resurrection Cemetery is over an hour away.” She smiled at me, a sly manipulative adorable smile. I wondered how many guys that smile must have worked on when she was alive. “Okay, Mary.” I relented. ” I’ll give you a ride home.”
I reached into my pocket for my cell while trying to come up with an explanation for why I was gonna be late.