Jeff Strand - The Sinister Mr. Corpse

"This conversation is over."

Stanley blinked at the sound of the click on the other end. Wow. He wouldn't have expected Brant to be a hanger-up kind of guy. Stanley would let the uptight bastard stew in his own foul-tasting juices for a couple more days, and then he'd return to Project Second Chance and let him off the hook.

But first he pressed the "redial" button.

"Yes?" Brant asked, sounding sort of testy.

"Give Veronica love and snuggles for me, okay?"

Brant hung up again. Stanley chuckled, felt briefly guilty about chuckling, then quickly got over it and chuckled some more.

Stanley continued to prowl the city streets. He gave a few bucks to a homeless person, but then accidentally scared the shit out of another one. He figured the two events balanced each other out.

He'd do one more night of secret nighttime security, and then he'd move on to something more dramatic. Perhaps he'd foil a bank robbery or defuse a hostage situation. They could bring him back as a creature of evil, but they couldn't make him behave like one.

A pair of thugs, who looked to be in their forties, were sitting on some steps. A shivering man stood in front of them, looking desperate. The thugs laughed at something that probably wasn't all that funny out of context, and then handed him a small packet.

Drug dealers were not welcome in the Sinister Mr. Corpse's city. Stanley walked over to them to share his dissatisfaction with their business transaction.

"What's that you're doing, gentlemen?" he asked.

"Who the fuck are you?" one of the thugs asked. He had long, stringy hair and wore a Band-Aid on his neck.

Stanley pulled off his facemask. "I'm Stanley Dabernath, the Sinister Mr. Corpse. Your kind isn't wanted around here. Flush your mind-killers down the toilet and don't make me devour your flesh."

"Fuck you, bitch." The thug pulled out a pistol and shot Stanley in the forehead.

He dropped to his knees. His eyes rolled up in his head.

Everything went black.

And stayed that way for a long time.

He woke up in a dark room that smelled of mold, piss, and moldy piss. His head hurt. He wanted to reach up and touch the hole in his forehead, but his hands were cuffed behind his back. His feet were tied together as well. He rolled over on his side and immediately had a dizzy spell so severe that he thought the room was spinning.

Or maybe the room was spinning. You could never tell with rooms these days. Rooms got all spinny sometimes.

"Spinny, spinny, spinny," Stanley whispered, because he liked the sound. "Spinny minny. That's what I'd name my daughter. Spinny Minnie."

Calm down.

I am calm. I'm entertaining myself by naming my potential daughter.

The bullet is still lodged in your brain.

That sucks.

It could be making you insane.

Wasn't I already insane?

No.

Oh. Good.

You have to get out of here.

Why? I'll get used to the smell in time.

You have to escape.

Who are you?

I'm you.

Who am I?

Dunno.

You don't think the bullet is laying eggs in my brain, do you?

Probably not.

"Open your eyes."

Was that you?

No.

Who was it?

Open your eyes and find out.

Why don't you open your eyes? Why do I have to do all the work?

Fine. Slacker.

Stanley opened his eyes. He was staring at a camera.

A talking camera? How odd.

A flash went off. The camera moved, revealing that it was not in fact a talking camera at all, but rather a camera held by one of the thugs. The thug grinned, revealing yellow, gunky teeth. "Can't believe you're still kicking. Guess you weren't a fake after all."

"Nope. Not me."

"Well, you're gonna be our ticket out of this shithole. They're gonna be paying out the ass to get you back."

Stanley frowned. His memory was fuzzy, but he seemed to recall greatly annoying somebody who he probably shouldn't have annoyed if large sums of money were going to be required for his safe return.

"What if nobody pays out the ass?" he inquired.

"Then we see if you keep living in pieces."

As he lay in the stinking room, his entire body aching, wavering between sanity and insanity, Stanley had to admit that everybody had been right when they suggested that the whole crime fighter thing had been a poorly conceived idea. But he was a zombie! He couldn't follow the beaten path! What was he supposed to do with his abilities, rent himself out at a shooting range?

He briefly went insane again and daydreamed about being rented out at a shooting range. It was not a fun daydream.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been in the room, but he did know that he hadn't brought any injections with him on patrol. He'd taken one right before leaving, so he had until tomorrow evening (assuming it wasn't already tomorrow evening), but the need for escape was pretty substantial.

The second thug, the one who wasn't wearing a Band-Aid on his neck and hadn't shot him in the head, walked into the room. He held a small opaque cup, which he held to Stanley's mouth as he crouched down.

"Here, drink this."

"What is it?"

"Water."

"How do I know that?"

The thug shrugged and poured the liquid out onto the floor. "Guess you don't. Try not to get too thirsty." He stood up and headed for the doorway.

"No, wait, I need your help!"

"Is that so?"

"I need injections every twenty-four hours. You've got to let me go or I'll miss my next one and die."

"We'll let you go when we get our money."

"When's that?"

"We haven't decided on a deadline yet."

"If I don't get my injection, there won't be anything left to ransom off."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm serious! At the very least, let me call my friend Martin. He can leave one for me, and you can pick it up."

"Martin a cop?"

"No. He's just a friend."

"What's in the injection? We've got all kinds of stuff we could stick in you. You into crystal meth?"

"It's not drugs. It's…it's just not drugs."

"When we get our money, you can get your fix."

"They won't pay if I'm dead!"

"They might. I bet your remains are pretty valuable to a museum or something."

It was obvious that this wasn't going to work, so Stanley decided to focus on the second problem. "Listen to me, I got shot in the head-"

"No kidding."

"I'm a fast healer. The bullet, it's really screwing with my mind, and I'm scared that my skull will heal around it and seal it in there. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"That's one fucked up problem, man."

"I know. I'm okay for the moment, but any second now I could start seeing chickens in the walls, so I need to get the bullet out. You've got to get me a mirror and some big tweezers."

"I ain't getting you shit."

"Listen, Project Second Chance will pay much less for an insane zombie! What if they want to talk to me on the phone before they drop off the ransom? If I'm babbling incoherently, they won't believe it's me."

"We don't have any tweezers."

"I'll give you the money to buy some. They're cheap. But, see, the bullet is messing with my mind so bad that I didn't even realize something important. I can pay the ransom myself. I'm rich! Get me to an ATM and I'll get you all the money you need!"

"There's a limit on ATM withdrawals."

"We'll go to multiple ATMs."

"I've tried that before. It retained the dude's card."

"Then let me withdraw the money from my account. We can try a drive-through teller or something. How much are you asking?"

"Twenty million dollars."

"That's…generous. Look, I really got screwed on the contract, you know how those things go, and I don't have that much available, but Project Second Chance can come up with that, I'm sure."