When Graveyards Yawn by G. Wells Taylor (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

The phone was ringing as Tommy shouldered open the door marked Wildclown Investigations. He muscled through the next to the inner office and snatched the receiver from its cradle.

“Yeah,” he started in monosyllabic glory as he targeted the office chair and fell into it.

I contented myself with floating overhead. That’s what happened when Tommy moved around, I got dragged along about a foot from the ceiling like a disgruntled balloon. Possessing Tommy was the only action I could initiate in my vaporous form. It was galling, voyeuristic and frustrating, but such was the down side of our relationship. It could also be downright unsettling as I got pulled from place to place without apparent regard for doorframes and low ceilings. Whatever my story was, what remained of me passed through solid matter like it wasn’t there.

Before I could overhear what the caller was saying Elmo distracted me by entering and sliding onto the business chair in a riot of springs. He was wiping his lips on a handkerchief. The dark skin on his forehead and cheeks had a lustrous, oily sheen to it. He must have re-hydrated in the outer office. Elmo kept a mixture of cod and mineral oils in a carafe beside the water cooler for just such a purpose. He applied it to himself internally and externally—a process I had witnessed and didn’t want to see again.

It was just one of the problems with being dead in the New Age. They had to keep well oiled and cool if they wanted to stave off those desiccating effects that remained after the Change. That’s what most people called it. There were other terms for the strange new circumstance the world found itself in, the rapture, happening or Armageddon but as the years passed people just got used to calling it the Change. I read how it happened in back issues of the Greasetown Gazette. Fifty years ago a strange contiguous weather pattern of cloud and rain blotted out the skies of earth. The resulting disastrous downpour soon melted what remained of the ice caps and raised the sea levels enough to threaten if not drown every coastal city. Before that happened, about two months after the rains began, the dead rose from their graves. Some inexplicable force animated all dead flesh. I once watched a pork chop twitch its way completely off its plate—which was an unsettling thing to see, and a warning against undercooking pig.

The scientists were caught between primitive wonderment and scientific horror because they couldn’t explain it. Most of them were still stumped by the global rainstorm when the first corpse walked into an unemployment office. Science soon determined that there had been a mass extinction of the majority of bacterial species on the planet. The cause was unknown, but it was soon understood that extinction had occurred on a scale that dwarfed the one that got the dinosaurs. It didn’t get them all, yeast remained and certain cousins—which drew celebratory yelps from boozehounds the world over. But everything else died off. The leap was taken from there to the fact that dead flesh no longer rotted—or if it did, it did slowly. There were certain bacteria and lichens remaining that fed on minerals and proteins in the flesh, and there were molds that could cause a slow break down and raise a stink. Dead flesh was still subject to physical injury and dehydration but with careful cleaning and maintenance, and if they avoided flies, the dead could preserve what they had indefinitely.

And it seemed to go for the spirit too. Anyone lucky enough to die with his or her brain intact, retained all or most of the mind. It further frightened the scientists to discover that even individuals whose brains had been sloppily replaced after an autopsy retained much of their awareness. Research finally determined in quite unscientific fashion that a dead individual retained his personality if he had something like a pinch of medulla oblongata and a tablespoon of cerebellum or cerebral cortex.

“Yeah.” Tommy’s hand signal for drinking brought me from my reverie. Elmo pointed to the desk.

“Yeah, oh yeah. Really?” Tommy breathed into the phone as he pulled a near-empty office bottle from the desk. After draining it he flung it angrily into the wastebasket and scowled at Elmo.

The dead man pointed to the chair Tommy was sitting in and mouthed, “emergency bottle.”

“Yeah, uh…” Frowning Tommy dropped the receiver into its cradle. I could just make out a quiet babble as the caller was cut off mid-sentence.

“What emergency bottle?” Tommy glared. Elmo pointed a nervous finger at the chair.

“Th-the one you keep in the back of your chair.”

Elmo was talking about my emergency bottle. I had hoped to keep it a secret from Tommy, and had managed to; except for the time he lucked on it one dark night, but had been too drunk to retain the memory. He now dug into the space between the arm and the seat cushion. The mickey was half full in his hand when he pulled it out. The clown uncapped it and pressed it to his lips smiling. He gulped a couple of times before setting it down quarter-full. He gestured to Elmo.

“Got a smoke, guy?”

“No,” said Elmo. “We smoked the l-last on the way here…” He stammered, agitated. “Who was on da—th-the phone?” He gently cracked his knuckles, then rolled his eyes, embarrassed by the slip of his dead tongue.

Tommy’s features raged, incredulous. “Some Willieboy-bastard—no cigarettes, Elmo! Shit what kind of organization is this? I mean we can speak all the way around the world on wires, but we don’t have any smokes! ” He shook his head, rose and circled the desk until he stood in front of his partner. “Just another layer in the conspiracy, my friend. But, they won’t get me. No.” He leaned forward whispering, “They can take away my privacy with mini-cameras and microphones. They can take my office chair, my desk and my light. But when they come for my drink and my cigarettes—then it’s personal!” Tommy straightened and smiled, lighter now from the eruption of paranoia. “Let’s go get some. I’ve got this wild feeling to pile them high tonight.”

“But Boss—the c-case?” The dead man was shocked.

“Excellent thought, Elmo. A case of beer or two would add just the right amount of grease to the old chatter box.” He stabbed his temple with a finger. “I got to do some thinking.”

“But we should f-follow up that call?” Elmo was wide-eyed. He looked like he was about to quote from the Pinkerton book on Detective do’s and don’ts.

“All in good time, my dear Elmo! All in good time.” Tommy drew close to him, and rubbed condescension into the dead man’s shoulders. “We have to fight back the only way we know how.”

Elmo seemed to pale, if that was possible, before standing and moving reluctantly to the door. He knew the score. Whenever Tommy started talking conspiracies, he usually sank into a drunken depression that lasted days. I knew I had to take some of the blame. Tommy’s mind was unbalanced in the first place. When I started a series of possessions his link to reality deteriorated rapidly. But I had no choice. Acting quickly I began imagining the most revolting sexual images I could come up with. I imagined them with close-ups and all. Tommy froze, his hyperactive mind suddenly sizzling with neurotransmitters. A firestorm of nervous activity flickered across my field of vision. He was receptive but not entirely sold as my psyche crashed into his. The transition was not simple; the clown struggled feebly. There were a few awkward seconds of overlap. I saw chains and padded rooms. I felt plastic bristles scrub my cheeks. Anger surged through me, and pain lanced my—Tommy’s—heart. I staggered and fell to one knee. Embarrassment and outrage howled through every nerve. Pain jolted my skull. I doubled over. I’m not sure if it was Tommy or me who sobbed.

Suddenly, the world clarified. I lurched up onto unsteady legs and turned to Elmo, saw two of him, then the double vision passed. The only thing that registered on his face was open-mouthed, but vague surprise. His boss had had a strange seizure that was all.

I could feel a dull throbbing from the gash on my temple. It was cold and raw to the touch. The palms of my hands were scored with fire, the knuckles swollen. I rubbed my shoulders. They were stiff and achy, overextended and fatigued. My back was strained and bruised. My guts felt smashed