Jeff Strand: Casket For Sale

Troll thrust his corpse toward me. The blades ripped through my corpse, chopping through flesh and bone. As the blades came through to the other side I released my hold on my useless cadaver and got the hell out of the way.

Troll cackled with laughter, but stopped as he realized my corpse was wedged on one of the blades. He had to put both bodies on the floor and brace mine with his foot to get the blades out. They popped free with a shower of embalming fluid.

I made a move toward the other side, but realized that Troll's next act might be to use the blades on Roger and Samantha. I freed another corpse, this one with metal plating on its torso.

It was way too heavy to keep upright and I dropped it to the floor. I briefly reflected upon the fact that I was showing some severe disrespect for the dead, and then proceeded to show more disrespect for the dead by unlatching another cyborg.

I pressed a button on its back. An electronic voice boomed: "Suicide sequence initiated. Twenty seconds to self-destruct."

"Get it out of here!" Troll screamed. "I'll help you!"

Together we dragged the corpse to the rear of the semi. Two cars were behind us. "Get the hell out of the way!" I shouted, waving for them to move.

The cars moved.

We tossed the corpse out the back. It exploded as soon as it struck the pavement, sending body bits twenty feet into the air and covering the automobiles in the other lane.

"Don't press any more buttons," Troll told me.

"I won't."

Troll tackled me, and we smashed into one of the corpses still strapped to the wall.

"Suicide sequence initiated," boomed an identical electronic voice. "Self-destruct in twenty seconds."

"Get it out of here! Get it out of here!" Troll shouted. We hurriedly unfastened the straps, dragged the corpse to the edge, and shoved it over the side.

That explosion was red and much more disgusting. Apparently it was a fresher corpse that hadn't been embalmed. A nearby car's windshield was drenched, and the vehicle scraped against the center divider for a few seconds until the driver regained control.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Goblin strapped to the wall, next to the corpse with the hollowed-out face.

I punched Troll in the chin. "Are any more of these rigged to explode?"

"Six, I think."

I punched him again, knocking him back several steps. Then I grabbed the cannon hand of the corpse with the hollowed-out face, took aim at Troll, and pulled the trigger.

A huge stream of flame jettisoned from the cannon, missing Troll but hitting an entire row of the dangling corpses. As their dead bodies caught on fire and the back of the semi began to fill with smoke, I decided this had probably been another one of my less-than-completely-desirable moves.

Helen's Side

AFTER ANDREW MADE it inside the semi, I swerved into th e next lane and sped up alongside the front of the truck. The driver looked down at me and nervously stroked his goatee.

I wasn't quite sure what to do at this point. It wasn't like I could ram the semi off the road. The best I could do is keep up with it and be ready to help out when it finally came to a stop, or when Andrew (and hopefully Roger and Samantha) were ready to jump back onto the hood of the limousine.

I hated feeling so useless, but what else could I do?

"Kyle, how's your sister?" I asked.

"She's breathing funny."

"Theresa, can you hear me? How do you feel?"

"I hurt…" Theresa groaned, so softly I could barely hear her.

"It's okay, sweetie. We're going to get you help. I promise." I tilted the rear-view mirror so I could see her. "You're being very brave. I'm very proud of you."

This news didn't seem to make Theresa feel any better.

I reached over and picked up the cell phone. If I let the police know exactly where we were, maybe they could-

"Mommy watch out!"

I swerved, slammed on the brakes, and tried to remember if I'd fastened my seat belt. Like a television with its electrical cord yanked from the outlet, my world shut off.

BURNING CORPSES IN the back of a semi: Not good.

Not fragrant, eithe r.

Troll was on the side with Roger and Samantha, so I hurried to the front, expecting to find him hovering over them, knife raised, face contorted into a sadistic grin.

Which is exactly what I saw.

I'd gotten to the point where rushing at a knife-wielding maniac didn't seem like that big of a deal. I grabbed his maniacal knife-wielding arm and slammed him into another of the corpses strapped to the wall. This one didn't inform us that it would be self-destructing.

The semi swerved abruptly, knocking Troll and I back into the aisle with the burning corpses. Sparks flew from several of them.

"You've ruined it all!" Troll shouted. "Mr. Burke is gonna shit a brick sideways!"

He slashed at me with the knife, missing completely. The smoke was starting to burn my eyes and it had to be affecting Troll as well because his next two slashes were further off the mark.

He screamed in frustration and flung the knife at me. I heard the thunk of the blade hitting dead flesh behind me.

Troll coughed.

The flames grew larger and more intense. Letting Roger and Samantha burn to death after surviving this hellish ordeal was simply not an option.

I let out a howl of primal rage, or what I figured was primal rage, and ran at Troll. I punched him in the face with my good hand and then my bad hand, not feeling the pain.

Troll seemed to enjoy the first punch. The second punch, not so much.

I punched again and again, doing the primal rage howl thing with each one. I pummeled him with force I didn't even realize existed inside of me.

Troll spat out a large mouthful of blood. "Truce…?"

I grabbed him by the collar and rushed down the aisle, dragging him along the burning corpses as I did so. This son of a bitch was taking a leap out of the back of a speeding semi. Troll cried out in protest and struggled, but he couldn't get away.

As we reached the edge at a high rate of speed, I let him go.

No witty comment was necessary.

Troll didn't fly out onto the pavement as planned. As he fell, his foot wedged behind one of the metal steps and he pitched forward onto the freeway.

He tried to use his hands to break his fall. It was not pretty. Troll found himself being dragged face-down behind a semi going about seventy miles per hour, and not much more needs to be said about that.

No cars were behind us to witness the gory sight. Presumably other drivers didn't want to linger behind a smoke-billowing semi truck.

I returned to the front, wincing as a particularly nasty shower of sparks got me in the arm. I could barely see Roger and Samantha through the smoke, but I felt my way over then removed Samantha's gag.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, as I unfastened the straps.

"Better than I was ten seconds ago."

"I don't know if this will help," I said, "but Troll's face is currently marking out a new lane divider."

"That does help."

"Good."

After I freed her, I went to work on Roger. "I bet you thought I wasn't coming back for you," I said.

"No, I thought you'd be here sooner."

"Sorry. I got distracted."

"What happened after they took you away?"

I stabbed my daughter and tried to kill my wife…

"Nothing."

Samantha helped me unstrap Roger from his chair, and before long they were both free. Roger scooped Samantha up in his arms and the three of us hurried to the open end of the semi. The fire had spread and engulfed all of the hanging corpses in the center.

"I'm, uh, sure you've got a splendid escape plan," said Roger.