Holiday of the Dead (66 page)

Anyhow, she told me she had thought she had heard someone calling her name off in the distance, sometime earlier that morning. She thought she was hearing things, but had finally decided to go investigate, just in case. Then when she found his dead body, quickly made up her mind what she was going to do about Christmas dinner.

That was four years ago, just shy three days. And, what I think happened was that
Mother
had finally cracked. True, we all ate from our father, but I have a feeling his death was no accident. Three years ago, we had Willy for the holiday meal; the next year, Billy. And I saw mother take the axe to his head from behind, though she had told Carmen and I that he had slipped and fallen on the ice, cracking his head clean open, dying as a result. Last year, however, I took the initiative, and got to
Mother
before she could get me, or my little sister.

When she least expected it, I snuck up behind her and smashed the back of her head in with an iron skillet. I made sur
e she would never get up again before
I stopped pounding her pulverized skull with the heavy pan. With Carmen's help, I dragged her body into the smokehouse, and hoisted her onto the big hook hanging from the chain fastened to the rafter above.

By the time Christmas Eve came around three days later, we had the feast of our lives. With
Mother's
head propped upon a plate so she could join us, Carmen and I gorged ourselves on
her
steamy cooked flesh.

I knew that once this winter had come, that I was going to dread the coming of this day. There are four days left. And as I clutch my little sister's hand tightly, my mind is on tomorrow night, when I must stick her lifeless body inside the smokehouse, hoist it upon the hook, and secure the door shut. She will be ready in two
night
s
’
time, after that. And just in time for Christmas Eve dinner, too. So now, a
Merry
Christmas to you all, and to all, a good night.

THE END

CROSSOVER

By

Tony Burgess

There are two things on this stink-ass planet that I hate. I hate goddamn teenagers and I hate what the Dead have done to us. The Dead problem used to be worse, of course, before we figured out how to deal with them. One zap with a taser and they don’t get up again for twenty four hours. All you gotta do is put a taser in every household and real incidences of fatal attacks by the Dead are reduced to a statistic lower than shark attacks. It’s a waste disposal problem now. The Dead don’t die; you can’t kill them, so you gotta isolate them. For a while we did that by stickin’ ’em in arenas and then pits and then weighing ’em down in the Pacific. The problem with the Dead is you get new ones every day. People cross over every fuckin’ day. So now we load ’em into these giant barges, shoot ’em up into space and dump ’em into orbit. Bring the barge back and load it up again. Right now it’s estimated that there are over 800, 000,000 dead up there circling the Earth. The thing that messes with me is that they’re still animated. They float up there flapping their arms and rolling their eyes. Gives me the creeps. In fact, the sight has been deemed too disturbing by the authorities, so no images of this crazy outer space death party are made public. Personally I think that makes it worse. It means you can’t stop thinking about it. You shiver when the sun comes up because you know what it’s lighting up.

Why do I hate teenagers? Because teenagers will fuck with anything. They think they’ll live forever. And that is precisely the problem right now. They call them crossover parties. A bunch of like-minded assholes get together, get high, hand out the guns and, at the appointed hour, they all blow their brains out. Not because life’s too hard, but because they want to go to outer space. They want to be immortal and scare the shit out of everybody. It’s tragically misguided, but that’s what makes it irresistible. It’s so grotesque that the media won’t report on it for fear of spreading the idea. Same with schools. But despite that, crossover parties are here to stay and, thanks to e-society, they spread. In fact, the vacuum created by ignorance around these things has been filled with some pretty dangerous ideas. Many teenagers think that you are alive up there. That it’s a party that never ends. That it’s Heaven.

So it has become a waste management problem. That’s where I come in. I work for WasteCo. I used to work for private security firms. The kind that the military hires to go in and do dirty jobs. It’s ironic really; I used to infiltrate terror nests to kill and now I interfere with suicide parties. And I’ll tell ya, I had more respect for those bastards committed to a desperate war than I do for assholes using death as a drug. I fuckin’ hate teenagers. I think we should throw a few up there still alive. Scare ’em straight.

Before this dumb fucking gig with WasteCo, I lived in hot spots all over the world. I’ve smoked entire families at prayer in Peshawer. I wore a burqa for a month in Iran, so I could off a troublesome officer in the revolutionary army. I even helped make IEDs in Iraq, so I could get closer to a circle of mad clerics. The things I’ve done are dirty. Ugly. To keep western leaders and their shining armies on the highest road possible, I have slit the throats of children in their beds. Doesn’t sound good, I know, but it was hardcore and it shifted the ground under superpowers. You felt potent. Now I sneak into suburban neighbourhoods, living out of a fuckin’ suitcase in some of the most bland hotels ever built. I spend a lot of time pretending to be a teenager online. I hunt for a specific profile. Ring leaders. Usually an intelligent kid, artsy type you could say, who reads from a list of books we know that equate crossing over with native spirit quests. Of course, that’s bullshit. The real allure in this culture is drugs. It’s a major high they seek, and somehow, the fact that this is achieved by ending their life on Earth is part of the pitch. It’s fucked up. And it has parents so scared that authorities have tasked me, not with rounding up these kids and making sure they’re safe, but to identify the local shamans and put bullets in ’em. That’s the part of my job that makes sense. That’s the thing I like. Find ’em online, pretend I’m some gloomy thirteen year old chick clutching a unicorn stuffy in one hand and a swearlodge manual in the other, then I go meet him and surprise him with a .45 calibre slug in the head. He goes to the big party and the local suicide party get’s sent to counselling or detention or who knows what the fuck. And I get to fire a weapon on a teenager. Everybody’s happy.

Right now I’m in Playland, Ontario. Snow Valley. Blue Mountain. It’s the beginning of March break and lots of fucked rich kids are making their annual migration away from cushy mansions to gin-soaked chalets. These are perfect conditions for a rash of crossovers. I’m in the small town of Dingwall, hunting a particularly nasty local douche known online as Starfucks331. This guy’s supposed to have sent more than 900 kids to live in the space junk and all of them rich kids. He’s running a lucrative con here. Some shamans are true believers and they cross when you cross. Others, like Starfucks331, take the money and run. WasteCo has given me an address for Starfucks331. Dingwall, Ontario. Tractors and churches and Main Street and henchman for a devil somewhere in one of these basements, probably, cookin’ up death on a laptop, while his parents sit upstairs watching TV. I’m gonna find you fuckwad and I’m gonna toss your mind up against a wall.

There’s a high school located at the top of town and I spent some days walking it, listening for a sign. I interviewed some teachers, a guidance counsellor and a couple of church elders. Not in our town. We trust in Jesus. That may be true, but I think the kids trust in getting laid and getting bombed on Energy Pop. You’re lucky, Dingwall; the worst that’ll happen to your kids is they’ll be pregnant and obese before they’re twenty. Starfucks331 is waiting for the brats. The spring break citiots and their BMW’s, designer snowboards, and appetite for hardcore escape. So I walk Main Street. Where would rich kids congregate in a shit kickin’ cow town like this? Antique shops. A chocoletier. Hardware. Feed store. Tractor lot.

I nod to folks as I walk. People from the city think small towns like this one are bastions of brotherly love, community and the easy tip of the hat. These are the places where you say ‘Mornin’ ma’am’. Not even close. Small towners are mostly assholes. So when I nod and smile at the little bald guy sweeping the sidewalk in front of his shabby pitchfork stand, I wanna see him wince. And he does. Gives me a dirty little sneer and turns his flat ass out to me. It’s okay, pal. Your daughter’s fine. She’s drinking cough syrup behind the diner and nodding off on a big dick. Trust in Jesus, prick.

There’s no obvious place for me to start. So, I guess I’ll wait till the bitches start flowing in with their fuck off Saabs and Jaeger cup holders. There’s a coffee shop on the comer. A drive thru. It’s too busy to be much good. This bastard needs to be settled somewhere. But goddamn, I could use a coffee right about now. I decide it’s a waste of time and stroll back to the other end of town, which is a block and a half.

That’s when I notice a Starbucks sitting beside a bank at the edge of a parkette. At least I’ll get my coffee. I reach for the door and hear a familiar sound. A car horn. Not pressed as a warning, more like a mad goose. Here come the kids. I squint, looking up the street to see if I can see what’s coming. The sun is too brilliant and I shudder. Somewhere up there a one hundred million Dead children are spinning in a slipstream. Moaning without breathing. Chewing without eating. There’s madness in that light and timeless order. The Earth, like Saturn, is a ringed planet. Another horn. I slip through the door.

I’m surprised to see that most of the people in here, in this most urban of franchises, are locals. Old folk mostly, retirees with nothing to do but try specialty coffees and predict how the run off will go this spring. It’s not a city Starbucks. Smells different. Metal and concrete have a smell. Here, I smell the shit of livestock thawing up wind. It gets in everything.
Everywhere
. I order an Americano and blink the cow shit from my eyes. Pleasant enough girl makes my brew. Teenager. Oddly appealing person. I find myself a bit startled by this. I fuckin’ hate teenagers. Maybe she’s older than she looks. I smile and drop a quarter back to the counter.

I spend the morning here at a corner table watching Main Street through a vast panoramic window. Car after car full of white kids in sunglasses. Skinny hairless arms hung out windows slapping candy coloured shit cars. If nobody stops here then I’m in the wrong place. Old men in tractor caps with shit lined shoes don’t get horny and blow their brains out on Spring break. And as the afternoon crawls along I’m wondering where the fuck they are. Time to go online and find the flock. I’m amused that there’s wireless here. I believe mine is the first laptop opened at this particular Starbucks.

Then it hits me. Starbucks. Starbucks. I thought Starfucks331 was making a joke about sending horny kids into the sun. Not the case. Starfucks331 is Starbucks and I bet its address is 331 Main Street. His name is the place. He comes here and this is where he meets his suckers. I am definitely in the right place. I look around again. Who’s coming in and who’s leaving? Six old farm boys. A table of paramedics reading newspapers. An old couple. A Priest with two farm boys. Probably trusting in Jesus. I just have to wait.

And wait I do. This is apparently a public works satellite office. Garbage men. Cops. Parking enforcement. Firemen and the paramedics. The little bible school moves on apace and then I notice this: Father Dopey over there has added four to his flock. Teenagers. Six of ’em. This ain’t Starfuck331, is it? Can’t be. Makes no sense. These are local kids and that old padre ain’t gonna attract kids with the handle Starfucks331. But there it is. That’s the teenagers. And look at them. There’s something too intense going on over there. The kids keep sharing little conspiratorial nods, furtive glances back. One of the girls looks like she’s crying. Holy Fuck. Holy Fuck. This isn’t Starfucks331. This is a faith based crossover. I heard about these. Mostly in the southern states. Not here. But if it was gonna show up anywhere else it kinda makes sense that it’s here. Trust in Jesus isolation. This is just disturbing. This is end of days crap. The padre stands and puts hands on shoulders. He lowers his head and mumbles with his eyes closed. His little crew’s getting ready to leave. They don’t want coffee. They wanna drink the kool-Aid. I stand. I have authority to act here. I pat my weapon, curl my thumb back and pop the snap. Gonna kill a priest this morning. In a Starbucks in front of the entire public utility. Sometimes a kill feels right. I launch the weapon, gangsta style, sideways. I’m showing off. The crew-cut closest to me turns in his chair and there it is. Good fuckin’ Lord. They got an actual bomb on the table. I unload and miss. I’m leaning in too hard and I fall. My elbow slams the floor and the gun pops off under the table sending a slug into the padre’s shin. The leg and foot below tip away and lie down. Hands are pulling me back up. Strong hands. Farm Hands. How the fuck did I fall into this hornets’ nest. I can sense movement all around me. Chairs falling and tables squawking across the floor. A big brick of a fist drops down on my head and I’m dropped. This is a bad place. This isn’t where I wanted to be. It’s one thing to put a hole in some asshole’s forehead at a spin the bottle game from hell. This is just crazy. I feel a boot hit my upper teeth. Another slams into my hip. I try to clutch, but can’t. My hip is broken. Son of a bitch. My pelvis is snapped in half. They keep laying into me and it occurs to me now that this ends with me waking up surrounded by assholes I’ve killed. Floating in space. I can’t die. I’m not kidding. I can not die. I manage to drive my hand out from under a boot and snatch up my gun. If I could die … I mean actually die, like you’re supposed to, then I’d blow my own head off right now. But I can’t die. It’s not an option. I roll over fast and shoot straight up. Blood drops down on me from trusted jaws and barrel necks. The mob is momentarily stunned and I throw myself under their legs toward the door. The door opens and I’m lying on the sidewalk.