Suspenseful Tales Part 16

Tommy Boy shook his head wildly. "I'm telling you, my daddy died a few weeks ago!"

"He faked his death," Michael said. "I know all about how to do that, man. He faked his death and now he's settling debts."

"You're crazy," Tommy Boy said. He came around the counter. "You say you saw Peanut? Well, he pa.s.sed like five or six months ago, had lung cancer or something. You're imagining s.h.i.t."

"I saw him out back last night," Michael said. "There were a bunch of cars parked back therea"guys playing cards upstairs."

"No one's been upstairs since daddy pa.s.sed," Tommy Boy said. "Now unless you're gonna buy something, it's time for you to leave."

Michael unveiled his gun.

"Hold on, now." Tommy Boy stuck his hands in the air. He laughed nervously. "You don't need that."

"Big Daddy put you up to this, didn't he?" Michael said. "Trying to screw with my mind. Well, f.u.c.k that." Michael headed toward a door at the back of the store.

Tommy Boy moved in front of him. "Where you going?"

"Upstairs to talk to your daddy. Get outta the way."

"Don't go up there! For... for your own good, I'm warning you."

Tommy Boy's eyes were frightened, and his cinnamon brown complexion had paled.

"Your daddy's scared the s.h.i.t out of you, hasn't he?" Michael said. "Did he beat you when you were a kid? Maybe with that cane of his?"

"If you were smart, you'd go home. Just get the h.e.l.l out of here and go back to wherever you were living!"

Michael hesitated. The way the kid behaved was beginning to unnerve him. He talked as though Big Daddy Jay was running a death camp or something.

Tommy Boy touched his arm. "Go. Please."

I might be making the wrong choice, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I punk out again "I've gotta do this." Michael shrugged off Tommy Boy's hand. He motioned with the muzzle of the gun. "Step aside."

Tommy Boy's shoulders drooped. Lowering his head, he moved out of the way.

Michael opened the door. A dim yellow light at the top of the landing spilled down the stairwell, illuminating the steps in front of him.

The Stairway to h.e.l.l, the old crew had called this flight. Over the years, Michael had ascended those steps hundreds of times on his way to card games, some of which he'd won, many of which he'd lost. Men like him had lost fortunesa"and perhaps their livesa"traversing these stairs.

Drawing a breath, he checked that his gun was loaded and ready, and climbed the steps.

The landing at the top of the stairs opened into a small seating area. A handful of rickety folding chairs leaned against the wall, like skeletal remains. On the far wall, a scarred door, as red as blood, led to the big man's office.

Michael approached the door. This is it. The end of the line. He opened the door.

Peanut stood on the threshold. He flashed a death's head grin at Michael. Then he hit him over the head.

Michael awoke sometime later to weak light and a throbbing headache.

He was seated in a chair, in front of a large slab of mahogany that he remembered served as Big Daddy Jay's desk. Big Daddy wasn't there. But Peanut sat on the edge of the desk. He twirled Michael's gun around his fingers.

In the light, Peanut looked something awful. He looked like Deatha"in the actual sense of the word.

His dark brown skin had begun to turn purple. His eyes were yellow, rheumy, clouded. His head was bald, as was his habit, but swollen sores marred his scalp, as if his skull were going soft.

When Peanut opened his mouth, a fetid stench came out that nearly knocked Michael unconscious again.

You say you saw Peanut? Well, he pa.s.sed like five or six months ago, had lung cancer or something. You're imagining s.h.i.t. . .

Michael was suddenly convinced that he was dreaming, or imagining s.h.i.t, as Tommy Boy had said. Dead men didn't walk.

"I tole Big Daddy you was back," Peanut said.

And dead men didn't talk, either.

Peanut took a swig of whisky from the flask in the wrinkled paper bag. Then he cougheda"violent spasms that racked his withered body.

Peanut wiped his mouth. "You knew he was gonna get you, didn't you? Old boy got me, too, man. Big Daddy ain't about to let you get away without paying him his money."

"Tommy Boy said you were dead," Michael said.

Peanut grinned, exposing a row of blackened, crumbling teeth.

"Still had to pay my debts," Peanut said. "Dying don't clean the slate, not for Big Daddy Jay, not for the man he work for."

"You know who Big Daddy works for?"

Michael was surprised that he had the clarity of mind to ask, to follow a logical line of questioning. But he'd just asked Peanut one of those questions that had floated around Big Daddy Jay for decades. In spite of his influence and the fear he inspired, Big Daddy supposedly was the front man for someone far more frightening-and even more mysterious. But no one had ever seen this individual, spoken to him, or even learned his name. Amongst the hustlers and gamblers in town, the mystery man had taken on an air of myth, like an urban legend.

Twirling the gun, Peanut only smiled. "If I knew, think I'd tell you?"

"Where's Big Daddy Jay?"

Michael heard a heavy footstep behind him. Then a hollow clop, like a cane striking a floorboard.

Peanut's smile fell away. He straightened.

Michael sat ramrod straight in the chair.

The dragging footsteps and clopping cane grew closera"and so did a noxious smell. Michael squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to believe this was happening.

Dead men don't walk, dead men don't walk, dead men don't walk. .

The walking noises ended behind the desk.

"You owe Big Daddy Jay a lotta money, son," a familiar, guttural voice said. "Think you fooled me pulling off that little suicide?"

Michael opened his eyes.

Big Daddy Jay sat in his old leather chair. As dead looking as a corpse that had been in the grave for a few weeks. Milky eyes. Bloated, greenish-blue skin. Fingers like fat, spoiled sausages.

Big Daddy Jay leaned back in the chair, one fat hand ma.s.saging the pearl-handled cane.

"You think I'm a joker?" Big Daddy Jay asked. "That what you think?"

I think you're a dead man who can't be here talking to me.

Michael licked his dry lips. "I ... I don't know what to say. I can't pay you. I don't have all the money."

"Should've thought about that before you went all in at the table," Big Daddy Jay said. He belched, and a stench steamed forth, making Michael's stomach turn.

"I can't pay you. So I guess you'll just have to kill me."

Peanut started to chuckle. So did Big Daddy Jay, and he was not a man p.r.o.ne to laughter.

"Why would we want to kill you, son?" Big Daddy Jay said. "When we can own your soul forever?"

His words echoed in Michael's mind. He looked at Peanut, raised from the dead and looking the worse for it. Peanut, who'd always drank too much and struggled to cover his bets. Peanut, who, drowning in debts, most likely had signed over his soul to Big Daddy Jay and his enigmatic, silent partner.

"That's right," Big Daddy Jay said, reading his thoughts. "Just like Peanut."

Peanut shrugged. He twirled the gun on his finger.

Michael leapt out of the chair and wrested the gun out of Peanut's hand. He must have pulled too hard, because Peanut's arm came off with a soft, squishy sound. Peanut wailed as his arm plopped to the floor.

His gut churning, Michael stepped away from the desk. He aimed the gun at Big Daddy Jay.

Big Daddy Jay grinned, unconcerned.

Michael shot him in the head.

Dark blood drained like water from the headshot, and Big Daddy Jay's head snapped backward. Then his head bounced forward, as if attached to a coiled spring. He smiled at Michael.

"I ain't no joker," he said. "You ain't getting away this time."

Michael heard shuffling footsteps behind him. He spun.

Five men, all of them dead, their bodies in various stages of decomposition, dragged across the room, toward him. He recognized a couple of them; they were men he'd played cards with, guys who, like him, sometimes won, and often lost.

He wondered if all of them were indebted to Big Daddy Jay.

"f.u.c.k this," he said.

The zombies reached toward him.

Michael barreled through them like a running back breaking a tackle, batting away their groping, dead hands. He threw open the door and rushed to the stairs. He took the steps three at a time, landed on the bottom, banged through the back door, and stumbled into the alley behind the building.

And into the path of a white Cadillac.

The car hit him head-on. He flew in the air, smashed against the windshield, flipped over the roof, and bounced to the gravel in a ragged, broken heap.

Was just about to make a getaway, he thought, dimly. Big Daddy Jay had someone back here waiting for me, sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. . .

Someone climbed out of the Cadillac. The driver walked toward him, crunching across gravel. He looked down at Michael.

It was Tommy Boy.

"Hey," Michael said, weakly. "Help . . . me."

"I tried to help you, Michaela"or should I call you Ricky, the name you've been using in Atlanta?" Tommy Boy gave a small smile. "I warned you to run away. I was hoping you would. It would've been fun to hunt you down."

In spite of his agony, Michael frowned. What the h.e.l.l . . .

"Confused, eh? Thought I was merely Big Daddy Jay's obedient little boy, tending shop?" Tommy Boy smirked. "His apparently ageless son? Funny how people in a small town don't question such telling details."

As comprehension settled over Michael, he tried to open his mouth to scream. But his ruined throat emitted only a desperate croak.

Tommy Boy knelt, leaned over him. His eyes danceda"they were much darker and deeper than Michael remembered.

"You owe me, Michael," Tommy Boy said, as his face began to pulsate and shift into something evil and utterly inhuman.

"Do I look like a joker?"

end.