A Boy and His Corpse (2 page)

              Herbert got to his knees and put his face right in front of Alan’s.

              “And if I
ever
catch you two knuckleheads wrestling with Mort again, we’re going back underground, and that’s that. I don’t give a
damn
what your mother says. She doesn’t need to go back down.”

He stood up, walked over to Mort, and put his hand behind the corpse’s head. The dead man sat there stupidly, his pruny face green and his eyes egg yolk yellow.

              “Do you think this is all a game?” Herbert asked. His eyes turned completely green and he waved his hand behind Mortimer’s stiff black hair. The wound healed up, good as new, and in doing so, the staggering pain in the back of Alan’s head cleared up a bit, too. “I asked you a question, boy.”

              “No…” Alan said between breaths from the floor.

              “No,
what
?”

              “No, sir!” Alan managed to shout. He bent his tired elbows and put his hands over his eyes. He wiped away the sweat and tears.

              “I’m tired of your crap, Alan,” Herbert said. “You need to start getting serious about your future. The Militia needs you, so stop with this wrestling garbage.”

              Herbert stomped up the stairs.

              When Alan was sure his father was out of earshot, he formed a fist and pounded the floor.  “Asshole.”

Mortimer sat at his side, and his dry lips mouthed a silent, “asshole,” too.

Alan was tired of his father’s crap. James was right. He had to be a man and stand up for himself. As he stared at the ceiling and huffed and puffed on his back, he knew what he had to do. It wasn’t going to make his father happy, but it had to be done. Enough was enough. The Undead Militia could go to hell.

Herbert

              Herbert Chandler collapsed into his favorite chair, exhausted from a day’s work and disciplining his son. He opened a newspaper, crossed his legs, and shook his head.

             
What am I going to do with that boy
?

Herbert Chandler and his son were the only two people in the world with magical abilities, and the government needed them. Hell, the whole
world
needed them.

              “You’re the backbone of this country, Herb,” President Rosewater told him just a couple months back after a successful mission in North Korea. “We wouldn’t have gotten that scumbag without you.” 

             
You ain’t kidding,
Herbert mused.

It had been a masterful stroke of military genius, orchestrated by only 12 men. Navy Seal, Carl Ferminich, infiltrated the North Korean President’s highly fortified mansion while Herbert and 11 others watched through binoculars.

Ferminich broke every last neck of the guards standing outside the mansion and snuck in through the back door. Only Hebert, who had a mental connection with the soldier, could see him then.

“What’s he doing right now?” the head of the Undead Militia, Mr. Rovas, asked.

“Shhh,” Herbert said. “I’m trying to focus.”

Herbert sent a mental thrust over a mile away to the dead guards. Their corpses struggled up and staggered inside the mansion like zombies.

Gunfire flashes could be seen in all the windows, but only Herbert saw and heard the true chaos inside the mansion. Every guard Carl Ferminich killed, Herbert resurrected and manipulated, and soon, every last guard was clamoring for the dictator, who ran into his room and shot himself.

              The whole skirmish lasted less than ten minutes.

              Shortly afterward, Herbert passed out into a four hour coma from moving so many corpses at once. He had been passing out a lot lately. Controlling corpses took a greater toll on his body now than it ever did before, and he feared that if he kept it up much longer, he wouldn’t live long enough to see Alan reach adulthood.

It was only when he awoke that he found out that one of the members of the Undead Militia died after he set the mansion on fire and got caught by a guard Carl Ferminich missed.

              But, hey, it was still mission complete, right? The media surmised that the dictator had met his demise in an accidental kitchen fire, as the mansion burned down with their remains. But only Herbert and a select few others knew the real truth.

              Herbert flipped a page, and a smile creased his stern face. But when he flipped the next page, his face soured again.

             
On the page was a snapshot of Pakistani president, Armand Raad, smiling and waving. Without a doubt, he was the man behind the terrorist bombing of Israel just two days prior.

              He closed the newspaper and rubbed his eyes.

             
If I was only a younger man, I’d get that son of a bitch myself. I
must
get Alan stronger.

Just as he was about to head back downstairs and make his son do the ten extra push-ups he owed him, the basement door opened. Alan came up with his pet corpse, Mortimer, behind him.

              “Dad? I need to talk to you.”

              “Good, because I was just getting ready to come back downstairs and talk to you. The Militia—”

              “Okay, before you say another word,” Alan said, putting up his hands, but he left it that.

              Herbert crossed his arms and upturned his chin. “Go on.”

              “I know you’ve always wanted me to go into the Undead Militia, just like you.”

              “Yeah,” he said with caution. “And you will, because America needs you to.”

              “Yeah, about that.” Alan scratched the back of his greasy fro and looked down at the floor. “I’ve decided that I’m not joining the Militia.”

              “Oh, yes you are.” Herbert snarled.

              “No, dad.  I’m not. I have dreams of my own, and I’m going to pursue them.”

“Like hell you will,” Herbert said through gritted teeth.

“No, dad, I
will
,” Alan proclaimed, looking him in the eyes this time. “I’m going to start an all-corpse wrestling league with James, and it’s going to be called the Undead Wrestling Federation. I’m even going to ask Mr. Rovas for another corpse to practice with.”

              Herbert lunged at his son with the urge to wring some sense into him.

              “What did I tell you about that wrestling garbage, boy?
What did I tell you
?” Spittle flew from his mouth.

              Alan crossed his arms and in a sudden movement, Mort leapt in front of him, crossing his arms to block the blow. But Herbert sliced the air and didn’t even touch Mort. An array of green stars erupted from his fingertips and Mort flew aside as though swept by a gust of wind. Alan kept his arms up, but it wasn’t enough.

              Herbert grabbed his son by the lapel and lifted him. The stress made his back screech in agony.

             
That’s going to hurt later
.

              “You’re going to work for the Undead Militia and that’s final. They need you!”

              Alan blinked rapidly until his eyes went wide. “I don’t want to!”

              Herbert did everything in his power not to backhand his son, but failed miserably. He hesitated for a second, but then, slapped him anyway. His son’s face went to the right. What kind of pansy was his ex-wife making of the boy anyway when he visited her on the weekends?

              Alan turned his other cheek in a very Christian display of defiance. Unfortunately, Herbert wasn’t feeling very Christian today and slapped the other cheek, too. Alan simpered, his lips drawn back in disgust.

              “I want to live with Mom!” Alan shouted.

              “Like hell you do, you disgraceful tub of guts.”

              “I’m sick of living here!” His voice cracked.

              “And what makes you think your mother even
wants
your fat ass around all the time anyway, huh?”

“Screw you.”

“Why do you think she agreed to this current arrangement in the first place? You think she
wants
you there with her boyfriend around? Huh? Is that what you think? She gave you up so she could be with
him
and not have to deal with you. Why do you think you only go there on weekends?”

              Alan’s lips trembled and hatred filled his eyes. Peering into them, Herbert saw that he had gone too far, but he didn’t care. He
couldn’t
care. Armand Raad, with his smile on page 5, certainly wouldn’t care, so he knew he couldn’t, either. He needed Alan to be strong, for America’s sake.

              His voice softened. “Your country needs you, Alan. That’s why you have to stay here with me, so I can make a man out of you. We’re the only two necromancers in the entire world. The world! You have to understand that everything I say or do to you is to make you stronger. Besides, you can barely even control Mort, let alone conjure up any other magic. What makes you think you could even start a wrestling league? You’re not strong enough.”

              Alan was tight-lipped for a moment, but he soon stared back with cold eyes. “I hope you die and rot in Hell.”

              Herbert’s lips quivered. If only his son knew the sad truth. He stared at the handprint he left on his son’s face and knew that it would definitely leave a mark in the morning. What had he done?

              Herbert jumped when he felt something grab his shoulder.

              When he turned, he saw that Mort had his corroded hand on him. His yellow eyes were slits as always, but in those slits lived a sort of melancholy, as if he begged sympathy for the boy.

              Alan cried deeply now. His tears streamed down his chipmunk cheeks like a rivulet, and tears slid down Mort’s face, too, which was astounding. Alan must have transferred his entire being into the corpse. His very soul!

              Herbert let go of his son and stared deeply into the corpse’s eyes. Mort had been with the family almost as long as Alan had. But for the first time ever, Herbert actually saw sorrow in the corpse. Mort’s cheeks sagged and a frown weighed heavily upon his green face just like Alan’s. In all of Herbert’s years of necromancing, he had never seen a corpse show actual emotion before. In truth, Herbert knew that the corpse only reflected what Alan himself felt, but the degree of the transferred emotion astounded him. Alan was much stronger than he even knew.

With Herbert’s hands off of him, Alan ran out the room and up the stairs. Mort simply stood there with his mouth hung open. Herbert traipsed to his favorite chair and slumped back into it.

             
What the holy hell am I going to do?

Alan

              Alan emptied his book bag and crammed it with jeans and wrestling t-shirts. He really wished he had some luggage.

But he had to travel light anyway. He didn’t know where he was going or how he was getting there, but he knew he had to get out of
here
. He was so done with this place.

             
The thing is,
does mom really feel that way about me?

He sat down on his bed.

              Mom
did
only see him on the weekends, after all.

              Alan forced another pair of jeans into his bag and punched it in several times when he thought of his mother’s boyfriend, Chance. The one saving grace about the tall, lanky African was that he was rarely at his mom’s house during the weekends. Still, a troubling thought rested on Alan’s mind: Did his mom really pick Chance over him?

Like his father said, it was pretty strange to have such an arrangement when it came to child custody. His other two “friends” (maybe acquaintances would be a better term), Steve and Logan, lived with their moms rather than their dads. And Logan didn’t even see his father at all, apparently.