The Laughing Corpse

I just stared at him as if looking would change things. I wish Dominga Salvador had kept Ma

“Anita, we have to get out of here, now.” The light bulb over our head went out, like someone had snuffed it. We both looked up. There was nothing to see. My arms broke out in goose bumps. The bulb just ahead of us dimmed, then blinked off.

Ma

We were halfway up the stairs when the last light vanished. The world went black. I froze on the stairs unwilling to move without being able to see. Ma

The cracking of wood was loud as a shotgun blast in the dark. The stench of rotting meat filled the stairwell. “Shit!” The word echoed and bounced in the blackness. I wished I hadn’t said it. Something large pulled itself into the corridor. It couldn’t be as big as it sounded. The wet, slithering sounds moved towards the stairs. Or sounded like they did.

I stumbled up two steps. Ma

Something screamed behind us, caught in the edge of daylight. The scream was almost human. I started to turn, to look. Ma

He was right. So why did I have this urge to yank the door open, to stare down into the dark until I saw something pale and shapeless? A screaming nightmare of a sight. I stared at the closed door, and I let it go.

“Do you think it will come out after us?” I asked.

“Into the daylight?” Ma

“Yeah,” I said.

“I don’t think so. Let’s leave without finding out.”

I agreed. The August sunlight streamed into the living room. Warm and real. The scream, the darkness, the zombies, all of it seemed wrong for the sunlight. Things that go bump in the morning. It didn’t sound quite right.

I opened the screen door calmly, slowly. Panicked, me? But I was listening so hard I could hear blood rush in my ears. Listening for slithery sounds of pursuit. Nothing.

Antonio was still on guard outside. Should we warn him about the possibility of a Lovecraftian horror nipping at our heels?

“Did you fuck the zombie downstairs?” Antonio asked.

So much for warning old Tony.

Ma

“Go fuck yourself,” I said.

He said, “Heh!”

I kept walking down the porch steps. Ma

The little girl on the tricycle had stopped by Ma

Ma

Chapter 7

The air conditioner blasted cold air into the car. Ma

Ma

I slumped in the passenger seat, the seat belt digging across my gun. “So,” I said, “you used to perform human sacrifice.”

I think he flinched. “Do you want me to lie?”

“No, I want to not know. I want to live in blessed ignorance.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Anita,” he said.

“I guess it doesn’t,” I said. I adjusted the lap strap so it didn’t press over my gun. Ah, comfort. If only everything else were that easy to fix. “What are we going to do about it?”

“About you knowing?” he asked. He glanced at me as he asked. I nodded.

“You aren’t going to rant and rave? Tell me what an evil bastard I am?”

“Doesn’t seem much point in it,” I said.

He looked at me a little longer this time. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t say it was alright, Ma

He passed a large white car full of dark-ski

I resisted the urge to flip them off. Mustn’t encourage the little tykes.

They turned right. We went straight. Relief.

Ma

“Talk to me, Anita, please.”

“Honest to God, Ma

“I’ve known you for four years, Ma

“I haven’t changed.”

“Yes,” I looked at him as I said it, “you have. Ma

“It’s been twenty years.”

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

“You going to the cops?” His voice was very quiet.

The light changed. We waited our turn and merged into the morning traffic. It was as heavy as it ever got in St. Louis. It’s not the gridlock of L.A., but stop and jerk is still pretty darn a

“I don’t have any proof. Just Dominga Salvador’s word. I wouldn’t exactly call her a reliable witness.”

“If you had proof?”

“Don’t push me on this, Ma

“Does Rosita know?” I asked.

“She suspects, but she doesn’t know for sure.”

“Doesn’t want to know,” I said.

“Probably not.” He turned and stared at me then.

A red Ford truck was nearly in front of us. I yelled, “Ma

He slammed on the brakes, and only the seat belt kept me from kissing the dashboard.

“Jesus, Ma

He concentrated on traffic for a few seconds, then without looking at me this time, “Are you going to tell Rosita?”

I thought about that for about a second. I shook my head, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “I don’t think so. Ignorance is bliss on this one, Ma

“She’d leave me and take the kids.”

I believed she would. Rosita was a very religious person. She took all the commandments very seriously.

“She already thinks I’m risking my eternal soul by raising the dead,” Ma

“She didn’t have a problem until the pope threatened to excommunicate all animators unless they stopped raising the dead.”