A boy sat alone in a graveyard. He was seven years old, his name was Phillip, and he was an orphan. Visiting the grave site of his mother and father and deep in thought, the boy
did not hear a stranger sneak up behind him.
"Quiet, boy. Don't say a word!" the stranger said, wrapping one arm around Phillip's neck, almost choking him. "One word, and I'll cut your throat!"
Phillip, his body flailing in the air, was able to reach into his pocket and grab his pocket knife. Opening it, he twisted his arm and stabbed the stranger right in the throat. Suddenly,
Phillip (or Phil as he preferred) dropped to the ground, and grunted as the air once again was forced out of his body. After catching his breath, he turned to the stranger, seeing
blood shooting randomly out of the wound where Phil's knife met with flesh. The man's bloodshot eyes were searching in all directions, andhis right arm was twitching in death
throes. The man, after meeting Phil's eyes, gave a gurgling gasp, and his body went slack.
"Hmmm…." Phil said to no one in particular, looking at the new corpse.
"What to do now…. I know! I'll harvest his body for organs!" and, with this new challenge, he yanked his pocket knife out of the man's neck and dragged the man into a nearby
bush to hide from grieving citizens.
Several hours later, Phil had a brand new pair of lungs, heart, spleen, uterus (Phil was a child. He didn't know men didn't have a uterus.) and was working on the intestines when
he heard a scream above him. Looking up, he saw a girl about his age with absolute terror in her eyes. Before she could scream again, Phil sprung onto her and put his hand on her
mouth.
"Scream again. I dare you." Phil said, looking into her crystal blue eyes. She was actually quite pretty , now that he took the time to study her. She was in a traditional black dress,
and she had curly blonde hair. She nodded once, and he moved her hand. He winced, noticing the fresh blood on her porcelain face. Gonna be hard to explain that to Mommy and
Daddy.
"What are you doing?" the girl asked, whispering so quietly he had to ask her to repeat herself.
"Oh, that!" he said, gesturing to the scum that tried to kill him. "I'm just playing, ummm…" he couldn't think of anything that children generally do. What would she believe? He
didn't want to kill her, but he didn't want her running off and warning the coppers. Finally, it came to him.
"I'm playing paddy-cake." He said, smiling proudly at remembering a children's game. His smile fell however, when he saw her eyes change from one of fear to confusion.
"Well…. You're doing it all wrong." She said quietly, crawling over to the dead man. "You're supposed to play with his hands, not his…. Ummm…." She trailed off, holding one of the
man's organs.
"Spleen?" Phil offered.
"Yeah, his spleen. And he shouldn't be asleep. And you shouldn't be giving him anymore boo-boos."
Phil laughed. What the heck were boo-boos? He decided to play along, as the girl amused him.
"Can you show me how to play paddy-cake, then?" he said innocently, holding out his hands.
"Okay…." She said hesitantly, and showed him where the hands meet, and then when he finally got it, she started going on about making a cake. He wasn't really listening,
occupied with bigger problems than this girl. How was he going to get the body out of here? And the organs? He was just starting to finish up when this ridiculous girl stumbled in.
The girl realized he was getting aggravated, and slowly stopped playing. She looked at her hands, and realized while playing she had gotten some more blood on herself. She looked
back at the boy, who had turned back to the hurt man. Maybe he was a doctor? She had never seen one so young, and she didn't know why he wasn't in an office. She
remembered her Mommy saying that you should never judge a book by its cover, so she decided to start a conversation.
"I'm Estelle, by the way. Estelle LaRoux." She said, looking at the boy. He looked at her, elbow-deep in the man's stomach. She flinched, wondering why the boy didn't have any
gloves on. Mommy said that could make you sicker.
"I'm Phil." Estelle waited for more, but he turned back to his task. She hesitated, then decided to continue.
"Are you a doctor? Is this man sick?" she waited for an answer, but instead of giving one, the boy, Phil, started laughing madly. She started to back away, and then stopped. She
didn't want Phil to get even angrier, as he obviously was. She decided that he scared her, and he definitely wasn't a doctor.
"No, I'm not a doctor. I'm playing paddy-cake, remember?" Phil said after he calmed down.
"But I showed you how to play paddy-cake. You're doing it wrong again. What are you doing!?" Estelle said, near hysterics. Phil stopped searching for the stranger's kidneys and
turned to her. She was obviously holding back tears, and her eyes were darting, searching for an escape, reminding him of the man before he died.
"Hey," Phil said, trying to be reassuring. Estelle looked at him, hopeful for some explanation to what she was seeing. He put a bloody hand on her shoulder.
"Shut up."
Her mouth dropped open in surprise, her bottom lip began to quiver. Phil knew the signs; he was ready for what was going to come next. But he never knew how loud someone so
small could be. Estelle started wailing like a wounded animal, heaving deep sobs.
"No, stop crying, I didn't mean to say that. Please, be quiet…." He said, trailing off as he heard several feet outside running over. He had no choice, he couldn't be caught. He
grabbed as many organs as he could along with the man's wallet and snuck silently back deeper into the bush.
He heard leaves rustling against one another, and heard the men's voices and screams as he backed deeper and deeper. His body screamed to jump up and run, but he knew in
doing so he would be caught. Estelle was in mourning, she wouldn't be the only one here, and he wasn't going to be outrunning an entire group of depressed, angry adults.
After some more hurried scooting, his back hit a tree trunk, and he slowly edged his away around to the back. He knew this cemetery like the back of his own hand, which helped
his situation just a tad. Beyond the tree trunk there was a hedge separating the morgue from the actual graveyard. All he had to do was sneak in, grab a bucket for the organs,
and call his brother. He'd know what to do.
Phil snuck into the back of the morgue, locking the door behind him, leaving the screaming congregation and taking refuge in the silence that is death. He ran over to the table and
dropped the organs onto a freshly cleaned corpse, and began to search the room. He didn't find much, a few Target bags, a plastic garbage can, and a cheese grater. After much
consideration, Phil dumped the garbage can's contents on the floor and swiped the organs in, pocketing the wallet. He also threw the cheese grater in there for good measure.
Just when he was about to leave, he heard the back door's knob start to jiggle. Putting the garbage can under a table of medical equipment, he jumped into an open coffin and
quietly closed it right before the door opened.
"Jesus Christ, dude, what was that?! Who would do that?! What are we going to do about—"
"Shut up, Ben! We need to make sure no one's here."
Phil listened as the two men searched the morgue, closing his eyes, dreading the inevitable moment when the coffin would open. To his surprise, it stayed closed, and one of the
men, Ben, started whining again.
"What do we do, man? We're so dead, we're so dead—"
A loud slap sounded in the air, and Ben stopped his bickering. Phil was confused now. How were these men dead? If anyone was dead, it was him!
"Shut up, Ben! My God, you should've attacked the boy, not Abe. I liked Abe. You, on the other hand, are stupid and annoying. And smelly."
It appeared that Ben did not care that he was being insulted, or was just used to it, since he kept right on complaining.
"But, Jon, what happens when the kid finds us, huh? Did you see what he did?! That kid dissected Abe! Am I the only one who finds this freaking mission a death wish? What
happens when the kid finds out what really happened to his parents, huh? We're next, Jon! WE'RE NEXT!"
Another slap. More silence. Phil heard Jon sigh.
"Come on, Ben. The boy will be found soon enough. Maybe the coppers will do our job for us." And with that, the men opened the door and left.
Phil opened the coffin, and looked around the room, confused. He reached into his pocket and looked at the man's wallet.
"Abraham Campbell." He read quietly to himself. Abe. Jon's good friend. When Phil was attacked, he wasn't thinking of why the man, Abe apparently, attacked him in the first place.
As he was slicing into the man's body, it didn't cross his mind. While he was talking to Estelle, it again escaped him. How could that little detail fail to present itself to him? He was
getting rusty. He needed to call Joey.
