Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

The hallway was as it had been moments before, bereft of sound and cloaked in a cover of silky darkness. The shadows played at the corners of the corridor and, given recent events, each held a promise of silent menace. Far off, the drone of the big walk-in refrigerator cycling on could be heard through the austere walls. None of it mattered much to Jeffrey. He was still busy freaking out over what just happened in the chapel. He cautiously walked down the hall toward the back of the funeral home, passing first the empty visitation room now on his right and then past the room where Mrs. Devon lay.

As he crept past the doorway of the second room, a slender hand—fingers clenched like arthritic claws—reached out for him from within the inky blackness between the door and its frame. Jeffrey tensed as the rumbling of the refrigerator ceased, but continued moving down the hallway. Suddenly, he was grabbed roughly by the back of his shirt’s collar and his body was jerked to an abrupt halt. The force of his forward momentum pulled the late Mrs. Devon through the doorway and out into the hallway even as he skidded to a stop.

Mrs. Devon creakily stood near him dressed in the same olive green dress Jeffrey himself had put her in. A strand of pearls accented the outfit and a single rose corsage adorned her lapel. "Mother liked things simple," her children had told him during the arrangement conference. He’d even made a note of it in the woman’s case file. Jeffrey spun around and twisted away from her with all of his might, his motion sufficient to break her feverish hold on him. Midway through, he lashed out with his closed fist.

He had to admit it… he’d really put his back into it.

When he connected with Mrs. Devon’s face, his accuracy was nothing short of impeccable. He drove the far side of his fist up under the tip of her slightly upturned—suitors had once called it "coquettish"—nose. The force of the blow shattered the woman’s cartilage, driving the bulk of the hardened material upward through the soft, spongy cribriform plate of her ethmoid bone and on through to her brain. The sharp edges of the cartilage punched through and bisected the lobes of her freshly awakened brain, effectively shutting it back down before it had a chance to become fully aware.

"Mom liked simple…" Jeffrey whispered, out of breath, "Mom got simple."

The woman’s head jerked back with terrible force and she toppled, slamming her head into a small wooden credenza which sat on one side of the hallway. Her body crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.

Bending over, Jeffrey roughly pulled apart the front of the woman’s dress, buttons popping and bouncing on the floor like Mexican jumping beans, and double checked the autopsy incisions he sewed up himself…just to make sure.

From his crouching stance, he looked up toward the door at the end of the passageway marked "Employees Only." The shadow-draped hallway beyond was the only thing visible through the small Plexiglas window set in the door at just about chest height. Further in, he could just make out the dull glow of the light coming from the office as it illuminated the ceiling from across the loading area. He stood up, took a deep breath, and resumed his now tentative journey back down the darkened hall.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

When he reached the door, he rose up on tiptoes and peered hesitantly through the window in all directions. Inside, nothing stirred. Jeffrey held his breath and again closed his eyes, willing himself to listen through the door for any sounds of movement. He tilted his head back and focused all of his attention on his sense of hearing. The soft chug-chugging of the washing machines and the distant droning voice from the radio were the only sounds that reached his attentive ears. With a soft sigh, he let out the breath he’d been holding and opened his eyes.

In the dim twilight of the hallway behind the door, he noticed that he could no longer see the light shining up onto the loading area’s ceiling. The small window was completely dark. He leaned closer to try to figure out what could be obstructing his view.

Suddenly, right in front of him, separated only by the thin wooden door, an eye opened in the blackness.

"Jeez-us!" Jeffrey gasped. Another of those things was right on the other side of the goddamn door! He took a stumbling step backward away from the door just as Mr. Lodene came through with his arms outstretched and his fingers spasming.

Mr. Lodene exhaled an odor of decay and putrefaction through his stitched together jaws as he came, naked as a jaybird, through the still swinging door. As his face came into the half-light, he made an effort to pull his lower jaw into a toothy snarl. With muffled, popping sounds the stitches tore themselves loose from their moorings in the soft flesh of his gums. His mouth ran crimson with dark blood and the thin twine hung from his lips like strands of dental floss. He took two loping steps forward and clawed feverishly at Jeffrey’s shirt. His mouth chewed emptiness and dribbled long, syrupy strings of saliva. Now locked in a macabre two-step, the men—one alive and the other quite dead—twisted and stumbled back down the hallway, each attempting to gain control over the other. Suddenly, the back of Jeffrey’s calves bumped up against Mrs. Devon’s prone body and he fell backward over the dead woman. Mr. Lodene, having no choice in the matter, fell right along with him.

The tumble put Jeffrey in an exceedingly precarious position. His legs had become entangled in the limbs of the twice dead Mrs. Devon and the nude Mr. Lodene was now on top of him, his face all fetid breath, slimy saliva, and snapping jaws. There was not a lot of time for Jeffrey to think, but one thing was abundantly clear from the microbiology classes he’d taken in college: getting bitten by one of these dead things was probably not the wisest of moves. Being careful to avoid the dead man’s hungry mouth, Jeffrey grabbed him by the throat—his fingers choking and crushing flesh. It was difficult to get a firm grip on the man’s neck as a result of the "skin slip," which made the flesh slimy and slippery. He finally got a solid grasp and Jeffrey extended his arms, holding the man and his ravenous jaws at bay. It wasn’t that difficult to control the dead man. It seemed as if death had stolen away a lot of his strength along with his heartbeat, but Jeffrey knew that one small mistake would send those snapping jaws down to meet the yielding meat of his neck.

The sternocleidomastoidius muscle, he thought, in another of those odd moments.

This was all well and good, but it still left Jeffrey flat on his back with a newly awakened corpse on top of him. He knew he needed to be quick and to act decisively. No telling if there were more of these things wandering about… as weird as that sounded. Mr. Lodene struggled in his grasp, pushing against Jeffrey’s outstretched arms, scratching at his chest and biting at the air and snarling. Inspiration struck and Jeffrey, with a sudden redirection of his energy, pulled Mr. Lodene down toward him—fast. At the last instant, Jeffrey jerked his head to the side and continued to pull the dead man past him, rolling out from under as he did so. Using all of his upper body strength, he smashed the dead man’s forehead against the carpeted floor again and again, stunning him.

Jeffrey quickly wriggled the rest of the way out from under the now dazed, prone form. He quickly clambered around and took control of him from the back by grabbing two large handfuls of hair. Entwining his fingers in the greasy strands, he continued bashing the man’s face against the floor; once, twice, three times. A wet spot was soon visible on the carpeting, leaving a distorted Shroud of Turin-like image. By now, Jeffrey had gained a more proper footing and yanked the dead man almost upright. Shifting directions, he hoisted his bulk up and off of the floor. He then twisted at the waist and drove Mr. Lodene’s forehead down against the corner of the credenza that Mrs. Devon fell upon on her way to the floor. Repeatedly, he pounded the dead man’s skull against the corner of the table. The sharp corner of the wood crumbled under the onslaught. Jeffrey finally ceased his assault when he noticed a substance which resembled grey cottage cheese covering the corner of the wood’s surface. Jeffrey released Mr. Lodene and the dead man slumped downward, falling on top of Mrs. Devon.