by Joe McKinney

They showed up in an ’88 Chevy Suburban, black in color, but faded from long exposure to the blistering heat of the South Texas sun. All the windows were blacked out, except the windshield, and as they turned onto the 400 block of West Poplar St., Donnie Darton could see their destination up on the left.

Two San Antonio Police cars were parked at the curb in front of a weather-beaten, moldering white two story, the kind of house that in poor neighborhoods like this one gets carved up into five or six single-bedroom apartments.

It looked like EMS had already come and gone. The four cops out in the yard watched the black Suburban, the death wagon, roll up to the curb.

Their faces were sour.

“That’s a bad sign,” Lethe Cruz said. Lethe was Donnie’s new supervisor, an old man with gnarled hands. His browned, mummified skin made him look like the very image of death itself. Though it was only Donnie’s first day on the job, he’d already decided that he liked the old man.

“What’s a bad sign?” Donnie asked.

“The cops standing outside the scene like that. Poor neighborhoods like this, I bet that house doesn’t have air conditioning. The body’s probably been baking in that apartment for days, getting really ripe. Not a good one for your first pickup. Sorry about that.”

Even from the street, Donnie could see a black curtain of flies in one of the downstairs windows. No need to ask where they were going.

“You ready, kid?”

“About as ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

“Good boy,” Lethe said. “Make sure you wear those gloves I gave you.”

“Right.”

“And if you feel like you got to puke, that’s okay. I still throw up on some of these jobs. Just don’t get any on the body itself, if you can help it. If there’s a bathroom, that’s the best place to do it.”

“Okay.”

“Good boy. Now let’s go get that body.”

Lethe made small talk with one of the cops while Donnie struggled to get his hands into the latex gloves he’d been given.

“We got Jeffrey Lindon, white male, brown hair, brown eyes, about forty years old,” Lethe said, checking the notepad that he kept in his shirt pocket. “That what you guys got?”

Donnie noticed how the cop nodded without really looking at them. The cop looked a little seasick.

“The run sheet we got said he’s wanted out of Florida for a rape charge.”

“Yeah,” said the cop. “That’s right.”

Lethe slid his gloves on with a smack. “So it’s okay if we take him? I mean, you guys don’t need him for anything?”

The cop frowned. “Of course not. He’s dead.”

“Fair enough,” Lethe said. “Hey, kid, you ready?”

Donnie nodded.

“Okay. Let’s go get him.”

The inside of the house was as run down as the outside. The floors were wood, and they creaked beneath Donnie’s boots. Cakes of black dirt crowded the corners. White paint flaked off the walls in great leprous chunks.

A set of sagging stairs led up and out of sight off to their right. Ahead of them, curving off to the left, was a narrow hallway, littered with fast food wrappers and empty beer cans and a couple of used syringes. A door on the left hand side stood open just a crack.

“Whew!” said Lethe, waving a hand in front of his face, but still smiling. “Man, that is a bad one. You never quite get over that smell, I’ll tell you what. It doesn’t matter how many times you smell it.”

Donnie tried to swallow without tasting the air. The smell was the worst thing he’d ever experienced. It was like a wet, rotten sheet had been tossed over him and he couldn’t get out from underneath it.

His nostrils burned.

They pushed the door open, and the smell suddenly got much worse. He clapped a hand over his mouth. He felt his stomach rise, once, twice, and then settle down to a queasy rumbling.

“Good boy,” Lethe said. “Wait here for a second. I got to talk to the boss real quick.”

Donnie watched as Lethe went to the window and carried on a hushed conversation with the curtain of flies clinging to a front window of the apartment.

He looked around. It was a sparsely decorated one room efficiency, and the body was on a double bed in the left corner. Donnie remembered the description he’d heard Lethe quote to the cop, white male, brown hair and eyes, about forty years old, but that didn’t begin to describe the mess he was looking at now.

Jeffrey Lindon, their pick up, was on his back, one swollen arm dangling off the side of the bed. His mouth and eyes were open. He was wearing a dirty white pair of boxer shorts and nothing else, so Donnie could see a lot of skin. He’d puffed up, and putrescence had turned his skin so black Donnie couldn’t even tell the man was supposed to be white.

Lethe unrolled a black body bag. “You know, when a fella dies, all the bacteria that’s inside him keeps on eating. The bacteria give off gas, and that’s what causes the smell.”

Donnie nodded, afraid to open his mouth because of what might spew out.

“That’s what puffs them up like that. Old Jeffrey there, my guess is he’s ready to pop. We’ll have to be careful moving him.”

Lethe laid the bag on the floor and unzipped the zipper. “You grab the ankles there. I’ll take the shoulders. We’ll have to hand-carry him into the bag.”

“Right.”

Donnie took an ankle in each hand. The flesh was rubbery, and it gave more than a living person’s skin would, like it wasn’t attached to the muscle underneath.

“Ready?” Lethe asked. “Okay, lift.”

They hoisted the body up, and it made a sound like masking tape being peeled off a wall as the skin separated from the bed sheet.

It was hard to hold the flabby skin, and as Donnie carried the body over to the bag, the ankles slipped from his hands like an oiled water balloon. Jeffrey Lindon’s legs and butt hit the wood floor with a wet-sounding thud.

Black, tar-like liquid seeped out from beneath the body, and as the swollen abdomen deflated, the smell became unbearable. Donnie fell to his knees and puked.

The flies buzzing at the window were frantic with activity. Their murmuring made Donnie’s skin crawl.

“It’s okay, boy,” said Lethe gently. “It happens.”

“His leg,” Donnie said. “It felt like it came loose or something.”

“Really? Which one?”

“This one,” Donnie said, pointing at the left one.

“Hmmm. Okay, just be careful with it. Let’s try to move him again.”

Donnie grabbed Lindon’s ankles a second time, but when he tried to lift the body, the leg came off in his hand.

Donnie lost it again. He half-turned, and spewed his dinner on the side of the bed. Beef and cheese enchiladas, with refried beans.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Lethe. “You’re doing fine for your first time.”

Donnie wiped his lips with the back of his arm. “That’s the nastiest thing I have ever seen.”

“Well,” said Lethe. “It gets a whole lot worse than this, believe me. I remember this one time, I was--”

“Don’t,” Donnie said. “Please don’t.”

Lethe shrugged good-naturedly.

“Let’s just get this guy in the bag.”

The smell was unbelievably foul, even with the bag zipped up, and when they carried it out to the wagon, the cops all groaned and looked away.

The top of the body bag had metal ring holes at both corners, and Lethe slipped them over hooks mounted to the floor of the wagon.

“What are those for?”

“The bodies tend to move around on the ride,” Lethe said. “That holds them in place.”

“Oh,” said Donnie. “Makes sense.”

They got in the front seats, but even before they closed the doors, Donnie knew he was going to need the windows down.

Lethe was way ahead of him, and with the touch of a button, lowered every window in the Suburban.

Donnie leaned his head out the window, but even the blast of moving air couldn’t clean out his nostrils.

They drove through a neighborhood to get to the departure point. It was late evening, almost dark, and a lot of people were out on the front lawns, enjoying the feeling of being home. Donnie watched in his rearview mirror, and he could see the exact moment when the smell washed over the people they passed. The adults looked up, their faces contorted by the gagging reflex. Little children cried.

Behind him, Donnie heard thumping. He turned and saw the bag writhing, the body inside struggling to get free.

He nearly jumped out of the window.

Lethe looked back and said “Ah, crap.”

“What the--”

“He’s an early riser,” Lethe said. “Don’t worry about it. Those hooks will hold him.”

“A what?”

Lethe drove calmly, nonplussed. “Sometimes they wake up before we get them to the departure point. It’s no big deal. They know what’s coming for them, and they wig out. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it? Have you lost your freakin’ mind? There’s a dead guy back there trying to bust out of his body bag. You never said they’d come back like that.”

“It’s okay,” Lethe said. “Take it easy. You’re perfectly safe. Just remember, he’s more scared of you than you are of him.”

Donnie just blinked at him.

“Really,” Lethe said. “They know you’re under the boss’ protection. Believe me, even if he does get out of there, all he’s going to do is run away.”

“Run away? Really?”

“Mmm hmmm. Hey, see. Here we are.”

Ahead of them was what looked like an abandoned warehouse. It was five stories high, red brick with white limestone trim. Most of the windows were broken.

They pulled into one of the livery bays that lined the building’s ground level and stopped the wagon just inside the entrance. About sixty feet away, towards the back of the bay, was a thick milky fog, roiling angrily.

“Are those screams I hear?”

“Yeah,” said Lethe. “By the way, don’t ever try to drive your own car into here, okay? The boss won’t allow it, and you’d hate to see what happens to your car if you do. I had an assistant one time who--”

They both heard the zipper tear open.

“Ah, crap,” Lethe said.

The body in the bag bolted upright into a sitting position. He turned and stared at the two men in the front seat, a look of insane fear on his decayed corpse face.

The back windows of the Suburban were still down, and Lindon scrambled out one of them, leaving his left leg behind. He fell down onto the pavement and hobbled up on his one remaining leg. Terrified, leaking the black oil of putrescence, he hopped toward the exit and out to the road.

“Damn it!” Lethe said, watching Lindon’s corpse as it bounced away. “We have to get him back.”

“Why?”

“Because the boss won’t tolerate losing one. With forgiveness the way it is, he doesn’t get as much business as you’d think.”

“Oh.”

“Go get him, would you?”

“Why me?”

“You’re the new guy,” Lethe pointed out. “Don’t forget his leg.”

“This guy is really pissing me off, you know that?” Donnie said. He got out, opened the back door, and took out the leg. “This is so freakin’ disgusting.”

Lethe nodded. “Bring him back here, okay?”

“Right.”

Donnie slammed the door and then walked out to the street, looking for the corpse.

It wasn’t hard to follow which way he’d gone. There was an art gallery halfway down the block, one of those exclusive places that deals in puked up paint on canvas and calls it art, and there were patrons spilling out the front door, most of them screaming.

Donnie, holding the swollen, blackened leg in his hands, moved through a crowd of men in tuxedos and women in fine black dresses, and into the gallery.

Jeffrey Lindon’s corpse was there, hopping up and down on his one remaining leg in front of something that looked like a four year old had painted it, but was selling for $20,000.

A few of the gallery’s guests had backed up against the walls, too afraid even to run for their lives.

Donnie ignored them.

“Don’t draw this out,” he said to the corpse. “You know you got to go.”

The corpse shook its head no. NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!

“Don’t make me do this,” Donnie said. “You’ve already pissed me off enough. Don’t make me come over there.”

NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!

Donnie took the leg by the ankle and held it one-handed, like a barroom brawler with a baseball bat.

The corpse held up his hands as Donnie advanced, but it didn’t do him any good.

Donnie swung the leg at him, knocking him down.

He hit him with the leg again and again, Rodney King-fashion, bacteria-corrupted gore splattering everywhere.

The violence was cathartic, and when Donnie was done, his stomach felt a whole lot better. He could breathe freely too, despite the smell.

Lindon’s corpse was huddled up in a fetal position, sobbing. Donnie reached down, grabbed the ankle still attached to the body, and dragged him back outside.

Lethe met him at the livery bay, and together they dragged Lindon’s still struggling corpse toward the roiling fog at the back of the bay.

“Doesn’t that screaming get on your nerves?” Donnie asked.

“You get over it,” Lethe said. “It’s not quite as bad as the smell. Most runs, we get to just stay in the wagon. We can roll up the windows and listen to the radio, you know? I’ll tell you what though, back in the old days, when I used to have to ferry them across the river--that was annoying. There was nothing to block out the screams back then.”

“Ah,” Donnie said.

They stood Lindon up and handed him his leg. He didn’t want to go, but they pushed him into the fog anyway. Clawed hands came out of the fog and pulled him down, out of sight.

Dusting themselves off, they turned and went back to the death wagon, while behind them, Jeffrey Lindon’s voice joined the screaming chorus of the damned.

Copyright  Joe McKinney 2006