The Vile Village Page 5

  “Gotcha,” Stone said firmly, actually starting to feel just a little better as he stood there beside the fellow. Maybe it really was a good idea not to crawl back to bed, to get some blood circulating through his racked body. He tried to jump up and down slightly on his toes to increase the circulation, but after three quick jumps he felt dizzy and stopped. Exercise postponed until further notice.

  “Now,” Undertaker said, rolling up his thick sleeves, “in this case—and this is a slightly unusual case, I’ll admit,” Undertaker said with a gusty laugh. “But still…” He pulled the head up by the blood-soaked hair from the woven basket the fanner had left and slammed it down hard on the table like a pineapple just brought back from market. The thing bounced a few times on its forehead and then settled over on a tilt so that its eyes were sort of looking right into Stone’s. Stone shifted his glance in disgust.

  “But still, we can estimate what was attached until it actually arrives.” He pushed the head around until it was up near one end of the twelve-foot-long metal dissecting table and set it in the middle. Then he took a long metal ruler and laid it alongside the thing, walking down the table a few feet. “Let’s see, legs will be here, hips here, feet. Figure this guy can’t have been more than a couple of inches taller than his compadre who brought him. So we’ll say here—the toes are about here.” He laid a second strip of metal down, this one perpendicular to the table. “Now we just take this…” He lifted a piece of rough wood about two feet wide by six feet long and slammed it down, lifting the head so that it rested up at the top end, facing up at the roof of the old barn, the light from the dim afternoon swirling down in halos of gold through the holes here and there in the cone above, and through the window frames, now glassless, that sat around the second and third stories of the forty-foot-high faded red barn.

  For the next two hours Stone learned everything about making coffins with the least amount of wood and nails possible. About formaldehyde for pickling, about makeup for the dead, about every damn thing you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about embalming and funereal procedures. Still, in a bizarre way Stone found it all fascinating, though his stomach kept gurgling like a sink with something stuck in its pipes.

  Before they knew it, there was a knock on the door, and more of the short brown farmers were there with burros loaded down with the dead.

  “Ah, see, Stone, time flies when you’re having fun,” Undertaker said, wiping his hands free of sawdust and chemicals and heading to the door. He helped the farmers unload their already strong-smelling baggage, and then Undertaker shooed them all out again, telling them to wait out in front by the funeral chapel—where services were conducted. The moment the door was closed again, he screamed out for his children to get the Heavenly Chapel all set up and ready, ’cause there was a bunch of ripe ones coming through.

  “Now you’ll see a master at work,” Undertaker said haughtily. “Just keep your eyes on me if you can.” He laughed, leaned over, picked up the headless body from one of the huge straw baskets, and spread it out on the table. Then he took the severed head belonging to the thing and held it until it was right in place above the stump of a neck.

  “Now come on, Stone, help me, man, help me,” Undertaker bellowed. “Don’t stand there like a goddamn tree. Get me that hammer there, and one of them long nails.” He gestured with a toss of his head to the side where shelves of tools and revolting-looking devices were stacked not very tidily. Stone reached over and got what the man had asked for and stood up again, feeling a little dizzy from the sudden rise. “Now hold this here,” Undertaker said impatiently, nodding at the head he was holding firmly by the bloody scruff of the neck.

  “Oh, I don’t think I—” Stone smiled grimly, starting to back away.

  “Get over here, mister, and help me with this. I got too much to do tonight to start playing pattycake with amateurs. Now come on.” Stone gulped and reached down, half turning his eyes away from the thing. It felt cold and wet. Out of the corner of his eye he couldn’t help but see Undertaker take a long nail and place it right at the nostrils of the head. Then, with a few quick strokes, he nailed the missing appendage down right against the neck, the big tenpenny nail protruding from one nostril like a sinus dripping liquid steel.

  “Okay, let go now,” Undertaker commanded, and Stone released his hold. “See there?” The fat man grinned proudly. “Won’t budge an inch.” To prove his point, he put his fingers around the skull and twisted it back and forth. But the nail did hold the head quite firmly in place. “Now watch this, Stone. Watch close, man. If things had been different, I would have been a surgeon, I tell you. A brain surgeon, most likely, and one of the greatest in the world. Perhaps of all time.” That being said, Undertaker reached down into another box of bloodstained supplies and extracted a long, nasty-looking needle. He looped a piece of nylon filament about as thick as fishing line through the eye of the needle and then leaned down over the corpse.

  “You know, it’s amazing how one skill can translate into another,” Undertaker said as he dug the long needle into the throat of the dead thing beneath him and pushed hard. “My grandfather was a tailor—showed me a few things about cutting and sewing, I’ll tell you. And really, there ain’t no difference between tweed and flesh when you get right down to it.” He quickly and expertly ran the needle in and out between the ring of flesh that was left hanging from the head—and the jagged stump of the neck. After sewing a circle of stitches around the connection, he stood back and surveyed his creation with pride.

  “Now, is that beautiful or what?” Undertaker laughed, slapping himself with both hands against his stomach in a gesture of at satisfaction. “Looks as good as the day he was born.” Which wasn’t the case at all, for Stone could clearly see the terrible gash between head and body, the nylon clearly visible with its jagged, bloody stitching. But it was on there all right, it wasn’t going anywhere, that was for damn sure.

  The service in the Heavenly Chapel was a sight to behold. Stone sat in one of the front rows and watched the spectacle of Undertaker conducting the benedictions for the dead in a sort of cross between Billy Graham and a used-car salesman. He raised his fist to the sky, cursed the fates, told God to open his arms for some “decent folks who are cumin’ up”, and all in all created quite a scene. His children, seated around the oak-slab benches, cried and carried on like it was their own pa who’d been done in, dabbing at their eyes with hankies and consoling one another.

  When it was all said and done, the two dozen or so widows and relatives who dared make the dangerous journey from their wretched farms to the Hanson Farm and Under-taking Palace seemed satisfied. Their dead one did look so good—why hardly at all like he’d just had his head sawed off. And with all the pomp and noise, as cheap and as tacky as it was, they were happy. After all, all that a man can hope to get when he’s gone is a moment of drama. To signify that, yes, he was worth something in this fucked-up life.

  Chapter

  Seven

  * * *

  The dead were prayed for, anointed with precious oils, inundated with incense, which was lit all over the damn place and stank to high heaven, and last but not least, laid down in the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres, whose motto, “Here, The Dead Don’t Rise,” was painted on a gigantic wooden sign that stood over the entrance to the four-acre plot that Undertaker had cleared with his own hands of every branch, rock, and corpse-eating groundhog. If not flat, the cemetery, which was fenced in all around with low stone walls, at least had the look of a real graveyard, with rows of tombstones made of larger rocks rolled into place above each grave and epitaphs sprayed on them in Day-Glo paint from aerosal cans that Undertaker had chanced to find a whole crate of.

  “A suffering man lies here”

  “I died ’cause my woman lied.”

  “Avenge me, Martha.”

  “I left this world a cleaner place than I found it.”

  “I killed Tommy Shefrin, his brother killed me.”

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nbsp; These and numerous other footnotes of the dead were written in a graffitilike scrawl over every three- to five-foot-high piece of rectangular-shaped rocks over the plots. Again, the families of the dead seemed content with the ceremony and thanked Undertaker ceaselessly as he led them off, out of the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres. They promised to send another three dozen chickens over the next three months, a price Hanson figured was just about right. Be-sides, it was good for the trade to put on a show. Word of mouth spread, even when it came to dying. Especially when it came to dying.

  Stone was unsteady on his feet after the day’s events and found himself starting to fall face forward into one of the graves he had just helped dig. But hands reached out and caught him, and the next thing he knew, he was walking back toward the main house with LuAnn supporting him around her shoulder. She was looking into his eyes as he opened them, and he almost blushed from the intensity of the stare.

  “Sorry, I must have blacked out for a moment,” Stone said, trying to walk on his own for a moment. But finding that he had hardly any strength in his legs, he allowed her to help. He hated feeling so helpless. But all things taken into account, he was lucky he still had legs to stand on, considering how easily those heads had been detached from their owners. Flesh was so soft. Only those who killed, who sliced or cut human flesh knew its softness. It was like veal, tender spring calf—a single cut dug deep.

  “Oh, Pa can work you hard, let me tell you.” LuAnn laughed, and again Stone felt a surge of energy stream through him, and a at in his stomach at the way her lips moved, the way they were covered with a sheet of moisture. “Half of us fall asleep when we hit our beds and don’t wake up till the morning wake-up gong. Undertaker don’t like dawdlers. He says you got plenty of time to be lazy when you’re dead, but when you’re alive, move your ass.”

  “He’s got a point there,” Stone replied, raising one side of his mouth in something approximating a smile. “Man knows his damn business, I’ll tell you that,” Stone said, liking the feel of her warm body right alongside him. Then they were at the house, the crickets chirping hard in the darkness, the moths flying into the screen door trying to reach the light of the burning oil lamps inside, occasionally finding the rips in the screens and succeeding in their fiery suicides. LuAnn led Stone up the creaking wood steps to the attic and into the bedroom, where she sat him down on the bed and he fell backward immediately, like a log ready for the paper mill.

  “I’ll get these off,” she said, pulling off his dirt-caked boots from the digging. Then his pants. Then, before he could muster the energy to protest, everything. “Just let me wash off the old coating of herbal ointment and put on a new one,” she said firmly as she went across the room and came back with a sponge and a bucket of water. Stone started to protest, not even sure why, and then just shut his mouth and enjoyed it. It felt good when she pulled the warm sponge across him, up and down his chest and stomach, and then lower. But not quite as good when she slopped handfuls of the white ointment onto him and spread it around like fingerpaint over every square inch of him. Then she toweled the whole sticky mess off and finally pulled the blankets up over his now once again white-coated physique.

  “Thanks,” Stone said softly. “Thanks for all you—”

  “Oh, hush up,” she said, putting her hand over his mouth. “You say thanks more than any man I ever met. Just what any good neighbor would do for another.”

  “Yeah, right,” Stone said bitterly, knowing that was not quite the way it was. She rose and walked to the center of the room where an oil lamp was burning out a smoky light. She turned it down until it was just a tab of flame, emitting a tiny golden halo that throbbed out onto the walls.

  Then before Stone knew it, just as he began slipping into dreams, seeing shapes in the weaving shadows created by the flickering oil flame, she was alongside him. And she was naked too. He could feel her hot flesh like a live wire suddenly touching him all along one side.

  “LuAnn,” said Stone in the near darkness.

  “It’s okay,” her voice answered back like silk. “It’s part of the cure.” With that she reached down and began stroking him along the leg, then the stomach. Within seconds she began moving faster, and Stone could hear little groans of pleasure coming from her mouth, her lips pushed hard against his neck.

  “Your work’s not over,” she said with a trace of laughter.

  “But, LuAnn, your father, he’ll—” The idea of Under-taker’s four-hundred-plus pounds coming after him was not something Stone wished to contemplate.

  “Oh, we all do what we want around here, are you kid-ding? Why, as you saw, he don’t remember half our names. As long we do our share of the work, that keeps Pa happy. But I need something else to keep me happy.”

  “What’s that?” Stone said, half desiring, half fearing the answer.

  “You,” she said lustily. “Ain’t seen no man like you around here for a long time. Most of the guys living in these here woods got something wrong with they heads. Scared, or dumb, or some damn thing or other. But you, I like you.” She rose above him and looked down at him, and even in the golden darkness Stone could see her eyes, big and wide and filled with aching desire. And suddenly he didn’t care how bone-tired he was, his body was going to give this beautiful young woman what she wanted, or he was personally going to kick its ass.

  But Stone’s hormones were already flowing, and suddenly he had plenty of energy for whatever was called for. She rubbed her hands up and down the sides of his body, squeezing him hard, and he returned the gesture. Somehow he had thought she was inexperienced—that angelic face, those crystal-blue eyes, her tresses of blond hair. There was some-thing about her that pulled up some image in his deep unconscious of what the ideal woman should look like. LuAnn was definitely in the right direction.

  But if inexperience was what he had visualized, Stone had another think coming. The girl was like a wildcat. He was just getting going, kissing her hard, pulling her tighter against him as he found his blood starting to boil and his body go from dead to raging horniness in the space of about one minute, when she completely be loose. It was as if a chain had been broken, a ribbon cut, a rope severed, for all of a sudden she was all over him, grinding against him as if she were a cat in heat. She made little unintelligible noises from deep in her throat and lay on top of Stone, pressing her full, hot breasts against his chest.

  She spread her creamy thighs far apart and began moving up and down atop him like a snake, all squirming around, making herself ready for him. Stone felt his own manhood rising up like a flag is run up the pole in the morning, and soon he was at full staff, ready to salute and go to war. He grabbed her had around her buttocks, which were fine but pliant, as was every part of her luscious flesh. She was soft, curved in all the right places, and strong too. Stone could feel the firm flesh as he cupped her breasts and pulled her ass, trying to bring her ever closer, harder against his own muscled flesh.

  Her mouth clamped down on his, and her small tongue darted in and out like it was alive. His mouth took hers, sending his own tongue in and wrapping it over hers so she gave in to him, opening her mouth, letting her body go limp.

  “I’m yours,” she hissed in his ear like a feline beast, with a deep, guttural, lust-filled whisper. “Do what you want with me, take me, take me.” He reached down and grabbed hold of the hot, moist triangle of fur between her tensed thighs. His hand gripped around it hard, like he was grabbing a small, fury beast running across the bed. Then he slipped in a finger between the swollen lips. The scent of flowers and musk and sugary tastes swept over him as she let out a long moan and seemed to sink down onto the probing finger until he was pushing hard into her, his finger up to the second knuckle.

  Then it was as if the dam completely burst, and she threw her head back and started going up and down on the raised finger like a machine. And every time, trying to take it deeper, as if his whole hand might go inside her. She was moaning all the time now, and saying his name over and o
ver again like a little mantra, a private prayer of supreme ecstasy. At that moment she was for him—only him—with not another thought in the world.

  Then she could take it no longer, so intense did her female desire become. She let out a high-pitched, catlike howl and lifted herself fast from atop him so that his hand fell away, wet and perfumed with her delicious dew. She reached down with both hands and felt for him, for his maleness. Again she seemed to go half mad, gripping at it with both hands, running her fingers up and down the pole of flesh as if she had never felt anything so exquisite before. Then she pumped at him with both fists locked tight around the organ and kept at it until Stone swore he would explode.

  Suddenly she stopped and rose up over him. She spread herself apart for him and, closing her eyes, sank down atop the raised wand of flesh like an oil drill probing into the very earth. With a great scream of joy she let her body go and sank down full onto the thing until she was flat against his stomach, totally impaled by the sexual tool.

  If Stone thought he had made love with wild women be-fore, they had been like Doris Day compared to the creature atop him. For she went wild. Her entire body jerked and bucked and twisted around him. Gritting her teeth hard, almost as if she were in pain, the woman ground around on Stone as if she were trying to grind his pelvis into flour. And Stone contributed his part too. As tired as he was. As much as his muscles just didn’t want to move—the instinct of desire was just too powerful to resist. After all, men with mortal wounds had been known to grab and “have knowledge of” field nurses in wartime. The most powerful instinct of all. To merge, to become one with the other in paroxysms of animal joy.

  It didn’t take them long. Not at the breakneck speed they were going. Flesh flying, crescendoing groans, spittle coming from their mouths. Then their breathing grew faster and faster, and their bestial noises increased and joined together until they sounded like a chorus of barnyard animals having a go at it with each other behind the barn.