Jeff Strand - The Sinister Mr. Corpse

He took his own CD out of his pocket, tenderly placed it in the machine, and pressed play. At the sound of the wonderfully familiar piano melody he turned up the volume.

"That's me," he told the family. "I'm playing that. Not bad, huh?" None of them acted as if they understood what he was talking about. "It's mood music. Kind of mellow now, but it'll pick up."

An electric guitar joined the piano. "That's me, too. I did everything on this song but mix the tracks. No, that's not right, I didn't do the drums, that was a drum machine, but everything else was me."

Henry could feel the music boosting his spirits a bit. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out the hatchet. Mrs. Kabot gasped, but Henry put a finger to his lips. "You'll like the vocals," he said. "I'm singing out of my usual range, but it works."

He fondled the hatchet as his voice sounded over the stereo. "Ferocity…ferocity…must control my own ferocity…" he sang in a slow, soothing manner. Yeah, this was doing the trick. It always did. Once the song kicked into high gear with the next verse, the bloodbath could begin.

"The feelings inside me…think I'll have to hide me…before I unleash my (unleash my) ferocity…"

The electric guitar suddenly grew louder and faster.

Henry raised the hatchet.

"Ferocity! Ferocity! Gotta be somethin' wrong with me!"

As Mrs. Kabot and her daughter screamed through their duct tape, Henry rushed at the man of the house and let the poor doomed bastard have it. He chopped in time with the pounding drumbeat, singing along with himself.

"Insanity! Brutality! Gotta love ferocity!"

Chop! Chop! Chop!

"Cruelty! Mean ol' me! Gotta love…damn it!" Henry stopped singing and spat out some blood that got in his mouth. God, he hated the taste of that crap. He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand and then went back to work.

"Ferocity! Ferocity!"

Chop! Chop! Chopchopchopchop…

Not much left of poor Mr. Kabot. "Ferocity" was almost over, but the CD actually had the same song on all twenty tracks. Someday, when he finally retired from this business, he was going to record a demo CD with all new cuts, but for now "Ferocity" was the only song in his oeuvre.

Which was okay. It was a kick-ass song.

"Thanks for not trying to run away," Henry told Mrs. Kabot and Trisha, who looked completely (but understandably) freaked. "A lot of the time, people will be rolling around on the carpet like idiots, as if they're actually going to get somewhere with their feet all taped up. It bugs the hell out of me. Show some dignity, y'know what I mean?"

When the song picked up again, he slammed the hatchet into Mrs. Kabot's face. By the time it was done, she was just as unrecognizable as her husband.

Henry dropped the hatchet on the floor and stretched. There was a time when he would have felt a burst of euphoria after finishing off a good murder, but now he was just glad it was over.

He shut off the stereo and crouched down next to Trisha. "Just so you know, I'm not going to chop you up like I did your parents," he told her, putting his hand on her knee. She flinched. "I've got to do this ritual. It's pretty disgusting and it involves a lot of your parents' blood, so I'll need you to bear with me for a few more minutes. Then we'll get you out to my van. Sound okay?"

She didn't respond.

"Sorry I had to waste your mom and dad, but really, it's all your fault. If you'd gone all the way with your boyfriend like he wanted, you wouldn't be a virgin, and I wouldn't have any use for you and your family. See, your parents and teachers and priests are always saying that you should wait, but when a guy like me needs a virgin, abstinence turns out to be a real bitch."

The terror in her eyes wasn't particularly exciting to him, and all he could really think about was what a pain it was going to be to cover his tracks and get her out to the van unseen. And then he had a long, long drive.

Oh well. Better than working in a cubicle.

"Ahh! Damn it!"

"Stanley, he hasn't even started yet."

"I know, but this table is freezing!"

Veronica rolled her eyes and smiled apologetically at Dr. Arnzin. "I'll make you a deal," she said to Stanley. "I'll bet you twenty dollars that you can't make it through this entire procedure without using a single swear word."

"I don't have twenty dollars."

"You will."

Stanley shrugged. "Sure thing. I'm not a slave to profanity. So how much cash do you think we'll rake in by exploiting my zombieness?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On you."

"Then we're fucked."

"Stanley…"

"The bet hasn't started yet."

Dr. Arnzin strapped Stanley's feet to the table. "This will only be for a moment, to make sure you don't thrash around and hurt yourself or me."

"No problem. I'm used to the whole bondage thing by now. I'm the best sub ever."

After Dr. Arnzin completely strapped him to the table, Stanley winked at Veronica. "Is this making you frisky?"

"No."

"Not even gonna lie about it?"

"No."

"I'll need you to relax," said Dr. Arnzin. "Just take a long, deep breath, like a butterfly in the meadow."

"Don't I get any anesthetic?"

Dr. Arnzin shook his head. "It won't work on you."

"How about a couple of lines of cocaine?"

"Sorry."

Stanley took a long, deep breath.

"Are you ready?"

Stanley nodded, and Dr. Arnzin slowly pried open the gunshot wound with a pair of forceps.

"Ow! Frickin' son of a berch!"

"Just relax."

"Farking fark! Cork-sucking freakin' fark!"

"Keep breathing. You're a butterfly in the meadow."

"This really hurts!"

Dr. Arnzin began to dig with a pair of tweezers. "Just keep relaxing. You're doing fine."

"Ow! Fark! Ow! Fark!"

"It'll be over before you know it."

"You're a farking freakin' forkin' liar! Oh, shint! Shint, shint, shint!"

"Almost got it."

"Shint!"

"Oops."

"Fark!"

"Got it." Dr. Arnzin dropped the bullet onto the table. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Bullshint!"

"Now there's just one more piece."

"Aw, fuck. I mean fark. Ah, fuck it. Keep your twenty bucks."

"So why did that whack-job shoot me?" asked Stanley as he sat having lunch with Brant and Veronica.

"He's not talking," said Brant.

"Are you torturing him or anything like that? I know you've got implements of torture around this place. Don't pretend that you don't."

"No, we are not torturing anybody. We'll continue to question him until it's necessary to turn him over to the proper authorities."

"Define 'proper authorities.' That sounds kinda sinister and cool."

"None of your business."

"Ooooh, somebody's kind of pissy today. What's your problem?"

Brant sighed. "I apologize. It's been a stressful day."

"Yeah, you'd almost think you got shot."

Brant ignored him.

"So how did he get through security? I mean, he had a real gun, right? It seems like it would've been pretty tough to sneak a real gun past the kind of security you would expect to have at such an important press conference."

"Enough, Stanley."

"I'm just saying, it should have been really, really, really difficult to get a gun in there. You had metal detectors, right?"

"Yes."

"And you made them run their stuff through an X-ray machine, right?"

"Stanley, I'm only going to ask you one more time to let this drop. I'm not in the mood."

"Okay, but I'm right, aren't I? You didn't blow all this money on bringing me back to life just to protect me with a minimum wage security guard, did you? Oh, did you know you've got this vein in the center of your forehead that throbs when you get pissy?"