Highlander – Bring Out Your Dead
Synopsis: Short and Sweet, a grisly and sometimes ghostly comedy noir born out of the question "what ever happened to all the headless bodies?"
Disclaimer: Just for fun. No harm or insult intended.
Rating: R to be safe.
Chapter 1:
No one ever seemed to wonder what happens to the bodies, she thought to herself, shivering on a Paris rooftop listening to the sound of steel clashing against steel and waiting for the inevitable lightshow that would signal a start to her evening's work. Immortals running around the world, chopping each other's heads off with swords and yet the police were never shouting about a serial killer running rampant about Paris. No newspaper headlines talked about the headless bodies practically littering the streets.
For a bunch of people who had been around hundreds of years, immortals could be pretty stupid.
She drew a breath as the sound ringing through the night suddenly went silent and a charge like static electric began to build in the air, growing heavier by the moment. Pressing closer to the crumbling chimney on the east end of the roof she watched as lightening arched across the sky; the brilliant light flashing from the sky to the ground in quick secession it was almost as if it was trying to set the whole earth ablaze and thunder boomed loud in her ears.
And then moments later it was over. The oppressive weight lifting from the air and all that was left was the singed ozone smell and the feeling like her ears needed to pop from the pressure as if she'd been on an airplane or deep underwater. Well, that and one gruesome, headless body in the field behind her.
She waited another minute or two before leaning forward and glancing at the other person who shared this rooftop vantage point with her; the young man held a camera in his hands, no longer frantically clicking photos he peered through the telescopic zoom with an intensity of focus.
"Seth," she hissed in frustration, the cold from the stones beginning to seep through the layers of her jacket and shirt to chill her skin. It was Paris, in the middle of the night, in winter afterall.
He jumped as if she'd poked him and then rolled his eyes in frustration and motioned for her silence. Watching through the camera he held one hand out as if warning her off, poised and engrossed in the scene below. She sighed, shifting into a more comfortable position and began composing a grocery list in her head: eggs, milk…did she have enough garbage bags and bleach? Better remember to check the van before dropping it off for the night…
Her mental list making was interrupted as Seth sat back on his heels, pulling his bag towards him across the roof and snapping the lens cover on the camera.
"Well?" she whispered, careful of how far noise could travel in the still night air but frustrated all the same by the delay. He'd called her afterall and she didn't like being made to wait about outside for hours in the cold. Her job had few perks but that was definitely one of them.
"All yours," Seth replied, finishing packing up his gear and slinging the bag over his shoulder. "I'm going to report this in and then clock out for the night. Have fun," he smiled with a jeer and wiggled his fingers at her in a wave as he jogged for the stairs. She could just imagine him shortly getting in his warm car, driving home with the heat on to sit in front of the fire and journal for a few hours with a cup of tea before rolling into bed.
Watchers had all the luck.
She trudged down the fire escape, the metal stairs having been added to the building a number of centuries after its initial construction if the arches of the windows were any indication. With each step she cursed watchers and immortals equally and interchangeably:
Couldn't bother to clean up after themselves;
Didn't do more than watch, god forbid they should lift a hand to help with the mess;
Went around waiving bloody swords in the middle of Paris;
Thought they were so secretive and elite…
…well, that one fit both so she called it a draw as her feet finally reached the ground and gravel crunched under her soles. The van was parked around the bend in the road and she jogged back to it, grateful for the few moments of being inside its dark interior to warm up while she drove up and close to the building. She automatically scanned the windows as she got out, clicking the unlock button for the car doors and sighing in relief as they were all still dark. Pulling a large bag and a flashlight out of the backseat she took one final glance down the road and turned to back to the laneway.
"Time to get to work."
You see, about half the time her job was completely unnecessary. Where an immortal had ties to the world, mortals who cared about them or a cover identity that would stand up to scrutiny, they were buried and generally mourned with the usual appropriate cultural pomp and ceremony. The watchers had a few well placed coroners and funeral home directors who they called on to smooth over the more unusual aspects of the deaths.
But for those immortals who, for whatever reason, were loners – the ones who didn't get close to mortals or bother creating the whatever-number-it-was-this-century cover story, well, that's where her job came in. She was the Watcher's clean-up crew.
The gravel gave way to grass as she kept walking to where there was a dark lump just off the path. The frost crackled and crunched under her feet and she could see her breath misting in the cold air around her. She really didn't know how many people worked doing clean-up duty like she did. All she knew was that every few weeks she would get a call with an address or coordinates and she'd go pick up the van from the garage (keys always left under the visor on the drivers' side, tank full of gas) and drive to wherever they sent her and she'd find a body. And she'd make it disappear.
As simple as that.
And yet, not nearly so.
She stopped when the body was right in front her, the light from her flashlight revealing the edges of the dark coat that despite the night and darkness didn't seem to do anything to disguise the blood seeping into the fabric and the ground. The head was a few feet away and she found herself somewhat reluctant to look at it…easier to do what must be done if she left that part until later.
Carefully, still a few feet away, she opened the bag and pulled out a large plastic tarp which she spread out close to the edge of the body. Onto this she piled a stack of garbage bags, roll of duct tape and a black case wrapped in a towel. Taking a moment to adjust the beam of the flashlight she opened the case to reveal a series of shiny metal knives, saws, and blades of various lengths.
Muttering something quietly under her breath she reached for the first of the knives, one of the smaller blades and began slicing through the clothing covering the body. While she methodically removed first the clothes and then carefully started cutting through the skin, muscle and tendon of the body she thought back to how she'd come to find herself freezing, dismembering a headless corpse in the middle of the night in the French countryside…
It was hard to believe but she'd been just another medical student, trying to keep up with the insane amount of reading and memorization of drug names and the corresponding ailments. At least until the immortal had woken up from the table in the morgue and nearly killed her in his escape. Her mentor and supervisor at the time hadn't been so lucky; he'd died in the attack. It was only later that she'd been told he was a Watcher, a member of a secret society of sorts who knew that immortals existed and had dedicated their lives to watching them, lifetime after lifetime for what reason she couldn't fathom and frankly could care less.
The man who'd come to tell her all this, Dawson, had kind eyes and a gentle soul that shone through when he spoke about Pierre, her teacher and her mentor. He had held her hand while she cried. She could tell that he believed he was somehow serving humanity and something greater than himself by watching and recording the lives of these people who couldn't die. But she didn't care what he believed or why he did it. She did it for Pierre. To somehow keep some small part of him and his wishes alive.
She wouldn't join the Watchers though. Had made that perfectly clear to Dawson and those who came to speak to her afterwards. Whatever it was that they did, whatever it was that they thought they accomplished in this fools' errand over the centuries was their business and she wanted none of it. She would do what Pierre had done; would help keep their secret and care for those when death finally came for them, as it did to us all.
She fingered a scar that ran at an angle along the base of her throat as she thought, the motion unconscious and left a trail of cool blood along her collar. What once had been a body in the shape of a man before her now lay in a number of discrete pieces, formless lumps and logs lined up in the darkness. The tarp kept the blood from soaking into her clothing but she could see the ground was dark with it and debated about whether to siphon some gas off the van to burn it or if that would only draw more attention…
Deciding to leave it for the time being she opened the first of many dark garbage bags and rolls of gauze and began wrapping each limb before carefully placing it in the bag. The head she left for last but it stared at her with lifeless eyes while she set about her gruesome task.
"I don't know what you're looking at," she observed, caustically. "I'm sure you've seen much worse in your day. Probably done it too for all I know."
That limb finished she reached for the next, opening a new package of gauze and tossing the wrapping into a separate clear bag.
"Must remember to separate the recycling from the compost," she joked, wondering why she bothered since it only made her job harder but she did it all the same.
Three dark garbage bags sat in silence before her when she was finished…or nearly so. She reached for the head, not quite sure why she always left it for last. She had gotten over her fear of the head and the inherent humanity of it in her early anatomy classes so maybe it was some perverse sense of irony that made her leave it until last; let even these immortals watch and know that death came to them all at the end.
"The things you've seen," she murmured. "All the years, all the things that you could have done or been or changed. And you end up just the same." She put the head on the top of the bag, cinching it closed and turning to begin the process of hauling them to the van when the sound of metal scraping metal made her freeze in her tracks.
The sound of a voice cut through the dead air sending shivers down her spine with the cold tone that seemed to vie to out-freeze the air: "I am Duncan MacLoud of the Clan MacLoud. Who are you defiler?"
Duncan practically crawled out of the car and up the gang-plank onto the deck of the barge. Each swell of the gentle seine seemed to threaten to toss him overboard even though the motion barely moved the large metal boat. The battle and quickening had taken its toll on him and he struggled to open the door and navigate the steps that took him into the living room. Just a few more steps…
He could feel the electric charge still zinging through his muscles making them erratically clench and spasm as he jerked his way across the barge's large main room and towards the back wall. The blood had long since dried from where it splattered across his face and clothes but the way that it stuck to his skin made him feel sick and with each motion it pulled and scraped him.
How many friends would he have to lose? He wondered to himself, pulling his shirt off over his head and dropping it on the floor he pushed his pants off and in the same movement stepped into the shower. A harsh twist of the knob sent first shockingly cool water coursing over him and he stood still, eyes closed, while it slowly heated to a near-scalding temperature and steam rose around him.
He couldn't help but replay those last few second behind his closed eyes. Every face of a friend who's head he'd taken was captured in those instances; they all had the same look in their eyes – a half disbelieving astonishment and yet, (and surely he wasn't just imagining this) there was something of a release too in the instant his sword fell…wasn't there? Was it too much to think, to pray, that they had found peace and acceptance in those final moments? And perhaps some small measure of forgiveness for him as well?
Duncan shook off the trailing water and those thoughts stepping quickly out of the shower. He wrapped a towel around his waist, briskly and almost violently chafing his skin dry until it was red. He didn't need their forgiveness, he told himself. He was doing what was necessary, what honour demanded of him. He couldn't let them murder or kill with impunity like gods or rulers who abused their power. Immortals were here to guard, to teach, not to misuse their role.
There wasn't any other choice but to kill them, even if they were friends, or lovers…was there?
Letting his melancholy thoughts dissipate like the steam around him, Duncan stepped out of the bathroom and rummaged through a dresser for clean clothes. He wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and let the nothingness of sleep take over for a time, but as he picked up his soiled and discarded clothes he patted the pockets and felt his heart sinking as they were frustratingly empty.
His wallet.
Cursing himself for a novice idiot (this wasn't his first time after all) he double checked each fold in the clothing before giving up. It must have fallen out on the field. He half considered leaving it behind, but the frustration of having to get new Identification, let alone the problematic questions that would arise if it was found where he thought it must be, were enough to have him reaching for his keys and turning his back on the inviting temptation that was his bed. It was only 20 minutes drive out of Paris. He could be back in time for sunrise.
Duncan pulled the black sports car up to the front of the house, slowing as he passed a dark van, the inside dark but back door slightly open. It hadn't been here when he'd left only a scant hour ago. He wondered whose it could be and carefully checked up and down the laneway as he quietly shut off the car and got out. The air was cold and he could feel the chill swirling and freezing around his wet hair.
Duncan walked up beside the van, peering in through the windows but found no one inside. There was a path with a few sets of recent footprints leading from the backdoor of the van into the laneway and he felt a premonition that caused him to double check that he had his sword with him as he slowly moved down the laneway.
There was a light at the far end, where the path met the grass and Duncan could see the dark shape of someone kneeling in the grass. There were a few odd shapes near the figure but he couldn't make out what they were. Duncan glided closer, unsure of what this was about and as he got closer he could see no sign of the body of his friend that he had left fallen upon the field. He scanned the area, drawing closer and a glint of blonde hair caught his eye and Duncan saw the head of his friend Marc on the grass a few feet away. It seem to sit at the edge of a dark plastic tarp that was spread out around the figure. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman at first, the thick jacket and cap making whoever it was blend into the darkness and hiding any definition of shape in the night.
Duncan edged closer, watching as the stranger reached for Marc's head, drawing it between their hands while they mumbled something too quiet for him to hear while they stared into the dead and lifeless eyes before dropping his head into a plastic bag like so much garbage. Duncan couldn't help it, he drew his sword as the ghastly sight sent chills of horror screwing into his gut. He may have ended his friends' life, but he would be damned if he stood by and let some ghoul desecrate Marc's body.
The sound must have alerted the person as they spun, bag still in hand to meet Duncan's hard stare.
"I am Duncan MacLoud, of the Clan MacLoud," he said in challenge, naked blade catching and reflecting the small light that there was. "Who are you defiler?"
The light from the flashlight was primarily aimed at the ground so Duncan had a good look of dark jeans and high boots, the tarp and ground with its 3 grisly garbage bags stacked neatly in a row but the majority of the figure before him was in shadow. They stood there, poised as if in a tableau for a heartbeat, two, loud in the night before the figure threw something at him and turned, sprinting off towards the front of the building.
Duncan swore, swatting aside the flying object and taking off in pursuit. He was taller and larger by a foot, most of which appeared to be in his legs as his longer stride caught up with the stranger quickly and he jumped, knocking them to the ground. He fell and rolled clear, his hand already grabbing for his sword as they both scrambled to their feet.
In the darkness, away from the flashlight it was impossible to see anything. The clear moon from earlier having gone down behind the trees and a misty pre-dawn fog covering the land. Duncan waited, watching while the figure opposite him tensed, clearly betraying an intention to rush past him. It was only a moment before his battle instinct was proven true and they lunged at him to the left. He reacted smoothly, a single thrust of his sword in front of them, designed more to deter movement than do any real harm while he brought his left arm up to grab their jacket and hold them still so he could get some answers.
At least that was how it was supposed to go.
But semi-frozen French ground and mud had its own way of deterring the best laid plans. As Duncan shifted his footing to thrust forward he stepped into a patch of unfrozen ground, the mud making his footing slip slightly more forward than he had intended and he felt his blade rip through cloth and slice flesh. He heard the indrawn breath of pain from his opponent but as he reached for them, they, propelled by their desperate lunge into the same slippery ground slid further toward him causing his arm to roughly clip up and strike them under the chin. Duncan watched the figure fall and lie still in the mud, his breathing hard in the cool air.
He took a moment to find his footing before stepping forward and nudging the stranger with one foot, his sword still pointed at their throat. But they lay still and Duncan leaned down to get a closer look.
A girl lay in the mud, her cap knocked off and dark hair across the frozen ground. Duncan could see the slash from his sword on her upper arm, the pale flesh visible through the dark coat and blood. She was unconscious, blood dripping from her lip and nose which looked to be broken.
"Ach, cack." Duncan swore, sheathing his sword and putting his hands on his hips. Why did this sort of thing always end up happening to him?
