Ungrateful Dead (3 page)

“I just want ...” Esther flapped the corpse’s hands in a sort of tearful-I-don’t-even-know guesture. “I’d like some flowers,” she finished weakly.

“You just said you didn’t,” I pointed out.

“Not down here, no! I want to be outside, I want ... I want a proper goodbye.” The corpse started crying. Fucking disconcerting. “I ran away from home, you know? I ... I had a lot of problems with my mom and step-dad, and I ran away to get a fresh start, and I changed my name, and I got the job at the store and I thought, this is it, you know? I was on my way up, but ... but ...”

“Alright,” Charlie said soothingly, reaching for the corpse, then dropping his hands and shoving them in his pockets. “Well, we can give you flowers, we can ...”

“Where are your ashes?” I asked suddenly, something clicking in my fuzzy head. Teenage runaway, change of name, no wonder they hadn’t been able to find her family. So they’d cremated her for lack of other ideas. If they had no family to send them to, chances were they’d kept the ashes. I glanced at Charlie. “You’ve got the ashes, right?”

“Not here,” he replied. “They’d be at the funeral home where they did the cremation.”

“Okay.” I stood, shivering and keen to get out of here. “Esther, I have a plan.”

***

I’ve done some low things in my life. I’m sure you can imagine. I’m not saying I’m proud of myself, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, so I try not to feel too guilty about it all. Breaking into a funeral home made me feel a little guilty though, even though I told mysef it was for a good cause. Charlie followed me, quaking as bad as he had in the freezing cold chamber. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he whispered to me.

I glanced around the dark funeral home. After everything else that had gone down tonight, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of Esther popping into bodies here and doing her puppet thing, but I figured that was the worst that could happen.

Apart from being caught and arrested, I mean. That would be pretty bad.

“We won’t be long,” I told Charlie. “Where do they keep the ashes?” I was picturing a storeroom full of unclaimed dead people, shelves lined with little brass urns, all carved with name and waiting for someone to decide what to do with them. It was fucking depressing.

Turned out it was pretty accurate too. Charlie lead me through the reception area, all plush and pastel and inoffensive, through to the back of the funeral home and a small office where I guessed the important decisions were made. You know, what colour coffin you got, what music they played at your service, that kind of thing. I gotta tell you, it filled me with a very grim sense of my own mortality.

We didn’t dare switch any lights on in case we attracted attention – like jimmying open the door with a credit card and a lot of brute muscle wasn’t going to do that – so we had to rely on the streetlight shining through the office window to guide us around. Charlie cracked his knees on the desk in the corner, which I figured was probably no more than he deserved, and I walked into a filing cabinet, but apart from that we didn’t bust anything up, so I thought we might get away with this little jaunt.

“So where are they?” I asked Charlie, squinting around the office

He tapped a big, steel rolltop cabinet. “In here.” He stared at me, amber streetlight glinting off his glasses, maybe waiting for me to say something profound about life and death.

I didn’t have time for the dramatic pauses. “So open it.”

He rolled open the cabinet, revealing rows of small brass urns, just like I’d pictured. I guessed about twenty, and sadness twisted in my gut for these poor dead guys with nowhere to go. I wondered how many of them were ghosts like Esther, just waiting for someone to remember them.

“Come on,” I muttered, more to myself than Charlie. It was after midnight and I still stank of garbage and sweaty leather. I wasn’t loving my first brush with the paranormal and I wanted to put an end to it.

We started rifling through the cabinet for Esther’s urn. Without a whole lot of light to help, it took a while to find it, and my nerves stretched tighter with every second. I was sure we’d be busted before we made it out – I’m just that kind of guy – but then Charlie gave a excited little squeak.

“Got it!” He clutched one of the urns to his chest. “What now?”

Relieved, I slammed the cabinet closed. “Let’s roll.”

We crept out, Charlie cradling the urn like a doll. There wasn’t much we could do for the front door – I’d had to force the lock and I didn’t have the skills or the inclination to fix it, but I’d had the sense to wear gloves, so at least nobody was going to come and bust my ass for breaking and entering. Skulking like a pair of ... well, a pair of thieves in the night, we made our way back to the morgue.

***

See, I don’t hold much truck with the paranormal or spiritual. I’m a fairly uncomplicated kinda guy – definitely one of the “feed ‘em, fuck ‘em, and pay ‘em” types. But I watch a lot of late-night movies and lot of those are about vampires and haunted houses and shit, so I figure I kinda knew what I was doing here.

Sort of, anyway.

Back in the morgue, Esther was amusing herself by playing with the lights, but she’d stopped messing with the temperature to Charlie’s relief. She’d also put the dead guy back, to my relief. “Yo, Esther,” I called, peering into the cold chamber, “we’ve got your ashes. You thought about your flowers?”

The lights steadied, and for a second the temperature rose and fell, steaming up the room. Condensation settled on the metal drawers, and I watched, fingers itching for my camera, as Esther wrote with invisible fingers.
I like poppies
.

“Great.” I had no idea where we were going to get poppies at one in the morning, but I’d already broken into a funeral home tonight, so a florist didn’t seem like such a big deal. “Okay, so ... can you come with us? I mean, I figured the urn would be like ... a vessel for you?” Or so my late-night movies had lead me to believe.

There was a rush of cold air and the urn vibrated in Charlie’s hands. He gasped and bit his lip, but held onto the urn. “I think she’s inside,” he whispered. “It just got a lot colder.”

I tapped the urn for confirmation. It was burning cold. “Right. Let’s go to the park.”

***

We found an all-night garage that sold poppies, mixed in with a bunch of lillies and things, and Charlie bought some chocolates for good measure. We drove out to the local park, about the only part of town that was actually pleasant to be in. You know, a duck pond, a play park, ice cream van in the summer, trees and shit. Like that. Charlie thought Esther would like it. I figured anywhere would look good after the morgue.

We found a nice arrangement of pansises and snow drops, and I laid Esther’s flowers down there with them. Charlie scattered her ashes and placed the chocolates reverently down with the flowers. We stood in silence for a few seconds, more awkward than respectful.

“Do you think it worked?” Charlie asked me.

I shrugged, yawning. “I guess the only way to tell is to go back to the morgue and see if she’s still there.”

Charlie shivered. “Not tonight,” he said firmly. “I really appreciate this, Ethan. You’ve helped me out a lot tonight.”

“You can thank me with a paycheck,” I assured him, rolling myself a cigarette. I took a deep drag and instantly felt better about life. “I guess we’re done here.”

“Should we say a prayer?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know any,” I said after a moment of reflection. “You?”

He shook his head. “Nothing seems right.” He was silent for a second, then said solemnly, “Rest in peace, Esther. I hope there are lingerie shops in heaven.”

I frowned. That didn’t seem right either, but I was tired and past worrying. I clapped Charlie on the shoulder and bid him goodnight. I’d earned a stiff drink.

***

I was back at Sylvester’s the next night, still trying to flirt with Jenny and still getting nowhere. I was enjoying myself despite that; Charlie had dropped off a nice fat paycheck on his way to work and that would pay for a lot of nights in Sylvester’s trying my luck with Jenny. I was downing my second Jack and coke when Charlie hurried in, flushed and shining with sweat. I mumbled a curse into my drink when he approached me.

“What now, Charlie? Vampires? Zombies?”

“Ethan.” He clutched my sleeve. “It didn’t work. Esther’s back and she’s really pissed off now.”

I sighed. “I’m not getting involved, Charlie. Sorry.” A one-off was one thing; I wasn’t going to make stake-outs at the morgue a regular part of my job.

“But she’s out of control! She smashed my coffee mug, she’s messing with the bodies, she’s completely burned out the temperature gauge -”

“Not my job,” I cut in. I felt bad for Charlie, I really did, but what could I do? I was a PI – “p” for “private” not “paranormal.” This was way out of my comfort zone and I wasn’t going back to the morgue. “You need to find someone else for this, Charlie.”

He gave me the Bassett hound eyes. “Ethan, please ... who am I supposed to call?”

I didn’t make the obvious joke. I was pretty proud of myself for that. Instead, I ordered us both a big drink and made Charlie down his in one. While he coughed and, I snuck out of Sylvester’s. There were a lot of other bars in town that Charlie didn’t know about.

THE END...

But keep reading for a sneak peek at DEMONIZED, an Ethan Banning novella coming March 2011 from Damnation Books

DEMONISED

Bonus Chapter

one

I’d never have
made it as a cop. The hours were lousy and everyone hated you. I decided at a young age that being a private eye was a much better prospect. The combination of hard liquor and the chance to spy on women really spoke to me.

Hauling a dead hooker out of a bathtub of ice wasn’t what I had in mind, yet here I was on a humid, August afternoon about to do just that.

The harsh light overhead painted her face chalky white and glowed off the smears of blood around her bluish lips. One hand draped over the side of the tub as if reaching for the vodka bottle lying on the cracked tiles.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, pushing up my shirtsleeves. Didn’t want to get them wet. Or covered in blood. Someone had slashed the girl a second smile across her pale throat. Blood still oozed from the cut, dripping a sluggish trail between her breasts. The melting ice covered most of her lower body, but patches of it were stained pink, suggesting other bloody wounds further down. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

“You don’t get paid for it at all, Banning. Step away from my crime scene, please.”

I turned to watch Anna stalk toward me as her polished heels clicked on the tiles. Excuse me; she was Detective Radcliffe right now, all balls and business. She didn’t look hot or sweaty like me. She looked composed and lethally efficient, ready to kick ass and take names.

“Hi, Anna,” I said, straightening up. “How’s tricks?”

“I really hope you weren’t planning to move that body, Banning,” she said, surveying the scene. I heard boots clomping through the flat as the rest of her gang came to get in on the action.

“I was looking for distinguishing marks,” I explained with a shrug. I patted my shirt pocket for my rolling tin, and then realized smoking at a crime scene probably wasn’t okay. “A tattoo,” I clarified when Anna narrowed her baby blues at me.

She pursed her lips. “I didn’t know you did murder cases.”

“Missing person,” I corrected. We both stared at the dead girl. She stared back with glassy green eyes.

“Has she got a name?”

‘”If she’s got a butterfly tattoo on her back, her name’s Rhian Ellis.”

Anna already had a pair of latex gloves on. She carefully pulled the body forward to reveal the pink and green butterfly inked on the right shoulder.

“There we go then. Rhian Ellis. Hooker, stripper, corpse.” I tipped Rhian a salute. Anna rolled her eyes.

“Who had you looking for a missing hooker?” she asked. One of her boys poked his head in the room before I could answer.

“Forensics are here, boss,” he reported. “They want to start photographing.”

Anna nodded. “Let’s talk in the kitchen,” she suggested to me, turning sharply on her heel, never doubting I would follow. I glanced once more at Rhian, taking in the small details. Dark roots showed amongst the auburn waves of her hair. Traces of glitter twinkled on her eyelids. Something twanged inside me, nausea and something else, a buzz of excitement. Shit, I’d been afraid of this.

“Banning!” Anna barked from the doorway. “Kitchen!”

I tucked my hands in my pockets and slunk out of the bathroom. I’ve seen some weird shit the past year – everything from vampires to ghosts to demons. A dead hooker should be a welcome break after that, a nice, normal corpse that wasn’t walking around trying to kill me, or kiss me, or anything else, but the girl in the bath tub pricked at me. I wondered ghoulishly if she was missing a kidney, like in an urban legend.

“Hey, Ethan,” one of the policemen greeted me as I passed through the living room. I nodded, not registering who it was. Too many people milled around, dusting, snapping pictures. The small flat felt hot and cramped. I’d lived in similar places over the years, mostly without the corpses though.

Unwashed pots and pans cluttered the kitchen. A faint smell of bad meat wafted from the bin in the corner. Empty vodka bottles lined up neatly on the windowsill. Anna looked like a diamond in a dog turd, a gleaming piece of perfection amongst the filth. She stood with her arms folded, scanning the room.

“Who was looking for her, Banning?” she asked me.

I closed the kitchen door, shutting off some of the noise in the living room and pushing down that nasty sense of enjoyment I got from the scene. “Clients get the whole confidentiality whack from me, Anna.”

“This is a murder investigation. Any information you have, I want.” She levelled her accusing gaze on me. “I sincerely hope you’re going to co-operate with my inquiry.”

I shrugged, like I hadn’t really decided. “How’d you get here so fast?” I asked. I’d only been in the building a few minutes myself, just long enough to find Rhian.

“Anonymous tip,” Anna explained. She moved around the kitchen in a slow circle, wrinkling her nose as she passed the bin.

She waited for me to volunteer some information. We played this game from time to time, when our paths crossed. We both knew I’d spill something, because I was pretty hot for Anna. I think sometimes that she’s pretty hot for me too, in a Lady Chatterly-Mellors kind of way. It’d be a pity fuck though, because…Well, look at her. She’s all legs and curves, more like a swimwear model than a cop. Her blonde curls were pulled back in a tight, professional ponytail that gave you a perfect view of her killer cheekbones and pouty lips.
Goes without saying, she could do better than me
.

“This isn’t her place,” I offered as Anna came back to her original position. “Been looking for her for a few days and one of the girls at the club she strips at mentioned this place.”

“Stripped at,” Anna corrected with a flash of compassion in her eyes as she said it. “What club is this?”

“Hush, on Knight Street.”

“So whose place is this? Boyfriend? Pimp?”

I shrugged again. “It’s rented out to one Tamsin Searle, but I’ve had fuck all luck getting in touch with her.”

Anna nodded. “And your client…”

“Not giving you anything until I’ve spoken to them, Anna. Sorry.”

Before she could reply, one of the boys shuffled into the kitchen, his eyes alight with a feverish excitement. “It’s the same as the Skinner girl, boss,” he said.

Anna stood up straighter, if possible. “When’s the coroner coming?”

“He’s stuck in traffic on Sturgeon Street.”

When the coroner arrived, Anna would kick me out, denying me any chance to indulge in some morbid bystanding. “Who’s the Skinner girl?” I asked.

“Prostitute we fished out of the river two weeks ago,” Anna replied. “She’d been sliced up around the stomach and her throat was slit. Looks like your Rhian has been butchered the same way.”

“A cutting remark, Anna.”

“Excruciatingly unfunny, Banning.” She sighed, tugging her ponytail. “Look, Ethan, I’m going to need information, you know.”

“Using my first name. You’re trying to seduce me, Detective Radcliffe.”

She ignored that. “I want your client’s name, and any further information you have pertaining to the dead girl. Think you can manage that?”

I shrugged, getting that she wasn’t really asking. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I’ll wait by the phone.” She turned her back on me, already forgetting me.

I left her in the kitchen, wishing I had a chance for one more look at the dead girl. As I walked past the bathroom, a shiver crawled down my spine, like icy little fingers. Something dark inside me licked its lips at the thought of seeing the hooker again, soaking up the aura of death and pain again, but officers blocked off the bathroom. They swarmed around it and left me with no option but to head out into the steamy summer afternoon.

I know it sounds fucked up. And I’m not into dead girls. Seriously. Last autumn I worked a missing persons case in Shoregrave, murder capital of the country, and ended up dealing with the kind of fucked up shit you usually only see on bad drug trips. I learned a lot. Like that wraiths were real and ghouls wandered the graveyards at night, and that ghosts came back for revenge if you killed them violently enough.

And that demons could hide in your bathroom and jump down your throat.

I leaned against the wall of the building, rolling myself a cigarette. Demons. Yeah, I’d had a demon inside for a few sick minutes. Then the wraith had sucked it out of me – mostly. I think. I don’t know. All I really know is since then, I’ve been living on coffee, cigarettes, and nerves, feeling dangerous. Hearing a Voice in my thoughts and dreams that isn’t mine. A Voice that wants blood and guts, violence and misery.

I’d laid low at first, hoping the Voice would leave. I didn’t take any cases, didn’t go anywhere. I just sat in my living room watching the twenty-four news channel and feeding the Voice. Terrorism, natural disasters, pandemics, rape, and murder… the Voice loved it. Bounced off the walls of my mind with it, while I clutched my head and drank more coffee. Nasty, but it kept the demon part of me occupied while the human part tried not to go on a killing spree.

Eventually, I ran out of money and realized the Voice wasn’t going anywhere. I was stuck with a perpetual reminder of my trip to fucking Shoregrave.

And that’s why I was chasing down missing prostitutes – sorry, dead prostitutes – and hankering after one last look at Rhian Ellis’s cold white flesh.

I shook off the feeling as best I could and left the apartment block. Outside the afternoon faded into dusk, and the air felt heavy with humidity. Dark storm clouds filled the sky. I hoped the rain would cool things off. I couldn’t think in the heat.

I rolled myself a cigarette and headed down the block to my car. This was a shitty part of town, row after row of boarded-up stores and graffiti-scarred apartment blocks. Garbage cans overflowed and reeked of wet rot. A stray dog with ribs showing through his patchy fur shivered in a doorway, watching me with huge, wet eyes. I paused to dig in my pockets and found half a candy bar I’d started eating on my way here. I tossed it to the dog, which snapped it up and swallowed it duck-like, straight down the gullet, no chewing.

Fuck, this place felt depressing. How the hell had Rhian Ellis ended up here, slaughtered in another woman’s bathtub? Everything I knew about her – and I knew a lot, thanks to the very thorough man who’d hired me to find her – said she shouldn’t have ended up this way. She’d been a straight A student from a good family, most likely to succeed, destined for stardom, blah, blah... A good girl. A nice girl.

A nice girl who’d turned to stripping and prostitution somewhere between the cheerleading squad and Harvard University? Go figure.

I got to my car, a battered green Hyundai that had seen me through many adventures, before I realized I had a stalker. The skinny mutt trotted along behind me, wagging his thin tail hopefully. I leaned against the car and considered him. He was a real looker, big and scrawny, black-and-gray fur wiry and patchy. God knows how long he’d been out on the street begging for candy, but I guessed he wouldn’t be doing it much longer. Open sores on his legs and flanks wept, and his eyes were rheumy.

“
Kill it
,” the Voice said. “
Put a bullet right in its stupid, doggy brains. It’s dying anyway.
”

I slid my hand inside my jacket, fingering the barrel of my gun. It’d be a mercy killing, that was for sure. The poor mutt was on his last legs.

“
And the pain will be delicious,
” the Voice added, like it dangled some tempting treat before me. “
Think of that
.”

I thought of it and gripped the gun. The dog whined, like he was asking me to finish him off.

Then the rain started, slick and warm and hard. In the second it took me to release the gun and push the Voice to back of my head, the mutt and I were soaked to the skin. I sighed and shoved my hair back from my face. “Fine. Get in,” I told the mutt, opening the Hyundai’s back door. He wagged his tail and hopped onto the back seat, settling down there like he’d always been there. I considered him for a second. I’d had a dog when I was a kid, a big stupid Labrador called Rufus.

Mutt looked like he might be part Labrador. He had the same goofy grin on his face as he watched me watch him. I sighed again and climbed into the car.

The storm continued all the way home, doing nothing to break the humidity. My car’s air conditioning had packed up weeks ago, and by the time we arrived home, Mutt and I were damp, sticky with heat, and miserable. I parked outside my place and let Mutt out. He ran straight to the front door like he’d always lived here and waited for me to haul my ass over and let him in.

I wasn’t into housekeeping or DIY, or fixer-uppers, or any kind of handy-home maintenance. So my house was a brand-new, one bedroom place, identical to every other brand-new, one bedroom place on the estate. It was rented, so any time anything broke, went moldy, exploded or caught fire or whatever, I rang the landlord and he fixed it. I guess the downside was that that the place was completely without character or soul, but after my time in Shoregrave, where there were about two ghosts for every living person apparently, I appreciated a soulless dwelling a lot more.