Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio Page B

and what they had apparently done. The dead folks and the… the parts of dead folks that wouldn’t… wouldn’t be stil … had been chain-sawed like her father had chain-sawed the hardwood on Pop Cook’s two acres after he had gotten the deed registered, and then those parts—some stil squirming, hands with no arms attached to them clutching mindlessly, feet divorced from their legs digging at the bul et-chewed earth of the graveyard as if trying to run away—had been doused with diesel fuel and set afire. She had seen the pyre from the house.
    Later, Jenny’s one fire truck had turned its hose on the dying blaze, although there wasn’t much chance of the fire spreading, with a brisk easterly blowing the sparks off Jenny’s seaward edge.
    When there was nothing left but a stinking, tal owy lump (and stil there were occasional bulges in this mass, like twitches in a tired muscle), Matt Arsenault fired up his old D-9 Caterpil ar—
    above the nicked steel blade and under his faded pil owtick engineer’s cap, Matt’s face had been as white as cottage cheese—and plowed the whole hel acious mess under.
    The moon was coming up when Frank took Bob Daggett, Dave Eamons, and Cal Partridge aside.
    “I’m havin a goddam heart attack,” he said.
    “Now, Uncle Frank—”
    “Never mind Uncle Frank this ‘n’ that,” the old man said. “I ain’t got time, and I ain’t wrong. Seen half my friends go the same way. Beats hel out of getting whacked with the cancer-stick.
    Quicker. But when I go down, I intend to stay down. Cal, stick that rifle of yours in my left ear.
    Muzzle’s gonna get some wax on it, but it won’t be there after you pul the trigger. Dave, when I raise my left arm, you sock your thirty-thirty into my armpit, and see that you do it a right smart.
    And Bobby, you put yours right over my heart. I’m gonna say the Lawd’s Prayer, and when I hit amen, you three fel ows are gonna pul your triggers.”
    “Uncle Frank—” Bob managed. He was reeling on his heels.
    “I told you not to start in on that,” Frank said. “And don’t you dare faint on me, you friggin’
    pantywaist. If I’m goin’ down, I mean to stay down. Now get over here.”
    Bob did.
    Frank looked around at the three men, their faces as white as Matt Arsenault’s had been when he drove the dozer over men and women he had known since he was a kid in short pants and Buster Browns.
    “I ain’t got long,” Frank said, “and I only got enough jizzum left to get m’arm up once, so don’t you fuck up on me. And remember, I’d ‘a’ done the same for any of you. If that don’t help, ask y’selves if you’d want to end up like those we just took care of.”
    “Go on,” Bob said hoarsely. “I love you, Uncle Frank.”
    “You ain’t the man your father was, Bobby Daggett, but I love you, too,” Frank said calmly, and then, with a cry of pain, he threw his left hand up over his head like a guy in New York who has to have a cab in a rip of a hurry, and started in: “Our father who art in heaven— Christ , that hurts!—hal ow’d be Thy name—oh, son of a gun , I—Thy kingdom come, Thy wil be done, on earth as it… as it…”
    Frank’s upraised left arm was wavering wildly now. Dave Eamons, with his rifle socked into the old geezer’s armpit, watched it as careful y as a logger would watch a big tree that looked like it meant to fal the wrong way. Every man on the island was watching now. Big beads of sweat had formed on the old man’s pal id face. His lips had pul ed back from the even, yel owish white of his Roebuckers, and Dave had been able to smel the Polident on his breath.
    “…as it is in heaven!” the old man jerked out. “Lead us not into temptation butdeliverusfromevilohshitonitforeverandeverAMEN!”
    Al three of them fired, and both Cal Partridge and Bob Daggett fainted, but Frank never did try to get up and walk.
    Frank Daggett intended to stay dead, and that was just what he did.
    Once Dave