Stronger language in this chapter.
Happy Halloween.
I saw the man in the freezer box once more when I was seventeen. I had been gone the previous two summers. Things got messy when my parents divorced and I couldn't afford to come down to Kentucky on my own. Then the summer when I was seventeen, the summer before I was about to go to college, I decided to go myself. I packed a couple bags, wrote a note to my mom and drove my car down to Kentucky. I called my Mom when I got there and she weren't happy about it but she let me stay. I suppose it made my Dad angry so she got something out of it. I caught up with Todd and Bernadette.
Todd hadn't been in Kentucky the previous summer either. He'd gotten caught spraying graffiti in his high school so he had spent the summer grounded in Atlanta. This year he was going to sign up for the army once the summer was over so he just decided to spend it in Kentucky. Bernadette meanwhile had taken to spending the nights at Granny's rather than go home. That was preferable for all since Granny had gotten older and Bernadette could help her around the house. She had also gotten herself a boyfriend named Dirk. Neither Todd nor I liked him, but we tolerated him for Bernadette's sake.
On my third night there, Todd, Bernadette, Dirk and I had gathered together and were sitting on Granny's porch. Bernadette and Dirk were sitting together on the chair swing and Todd and I were sitting on lawn chairs on either side. Todd and I had just come back from a rock concert and were talking about it when Bernadette mentioned a funeral the week before.
"Whose funeral?" I asked.
"Uncle Boyd."
"What? I didn't know Boyd was dead!" said Todd.
"Me neither," I added.
"Yep," said Bernadette, "He died a while ago. Funeral was last week."
"A lot of people go?" I wondered.
"Not really. Not even Boyd's son bothered to come."
"Really?" said Todd.
"Nope. He'll come down in a couple weeks to go through the house. But he wasn't raised by Boyd, his mama never let him come down to Kentucky. Boyd went up to visit him a lot, but they fell out years ago."
"And he still gets the house."
"Yeah. I'm gonna ask if I can get some of the things, seeing as I spent more time there than he ever did, but it's still all his."
"So he gets everything? Even the man in the freezer box?" I said smiling.
Bernadette laughed. "I guess so."
I turned to Dirk. "Did you ever seen the man in the freezer box?"
Dirk nodded. "Sure did. Cost me fifty bucks too. Freaky fucker."
"Fifty?" I laughed, "I didn't know Boyd upped his prices."
"We need to bury him." Todd said suddenly, and, to my surprise, seriously as well.
"I'd go to that funeral." I said.
"No. We need to bury him."
Bernadette raised an eyebrow. "What d'you mean?"
"Think. When they go through that house and find that body, what do you s'pose they'll come up with? They'll think Boyd killed him."
"No they won't."
"Hell yeah they will," said Dirk, "Christ, I didn't buy that fucking waterbeast story, you think the cops will?"
"But we can just tell them. We all saw the body, we can-"
"We'll get in trouble too." Bernadette said, eyes looking not at me, but forward, nervously.
"No we won't- we all were kids."
"Who saw a crime and didn't report it." Todd said.
"We just saw a dead body!"
"If word gets out about that body, about it being real," Bernadette said seriously to Todd, "They're going to drag Boyd's name through the mud."
"What?"
"He was crazy and a hillbilly, but he never hurt anyone! He was the nicest uncle I had and I don't want his name on the news about him being a serial killer or something."
I was quiet. "You in for this Dirk?"
"Sure. Why not?"
I sighed. "Oh, this is so illegal."
---
We didn't drive down to Boyd's that very moment. We had to dig the hole first. Bernadette knew a spot on a spit of land her daddy owned by the river we could bury him. It had once been pasture land but was now laying unused and probably would for at least a few years. Bernadette said that her daddy had planned to give her that land when she older. Technically it wasn't her land, but it was close enough. We drove down there in Dirk's truck with shovels. Bernadette picked out a spot near the edge of the river, where she said a man would be happy to be buried. I suggested we bury her there instead, but that just got me a dark look, so I shut up.
By moonlight we we started digging, and I won't decribe the joys of digging a grave. I have no desire to repeat any experience of that night again. "Is this," I asked them all, "really how you planned to spend your summer vacation?"
"Shut up and dig," grumbled Dirk.
"Why the hell are you doing this?" I asked.
Dirk raised an eyebrow and made a gesture regarding Bernadette I instantly understood - and wish I hadn't asked.
"Never mind, never mind, I don't want to know!"
---
"This is still stupid." I said as we drove to Boyd's house in Dirk's pickup.
"Shut up," Dirk said.
"No, no," Todd interceded, "this is stupid. We're still doing it though."
"I cannot argue that," I admitted.
We pulled into the front yard of the house that was once Boyd's. Without the barking dog in the front yard, the place was an eerie kind of quiet.
"What happened to the dog?" Todd asked.
"My dad shot it," answered Bernadette and no one decided to ask further.
The words "So illegal so illegal so so illegal" repeated over in my head as we walked up to the front door, where Bernadette got a key from under the welcome mat and we let ourselves in. The place stunk of old grease and cigarette smoke and I took a gracious moment to gag on the smell. Bernadette flipped on the lights and went straight to the kitchen. We waited in the hallway.
"The power's still on," Todd said, "That means that the freezer downstairs must still be powered. At least the corpse won't be rotting."
"Thank God for small miracles," I responded
"Yeah."
"I was being sarcastic."
"I wasn't. Have you smelled a rotten corpse?"
"From the smell of this room, very possibly."
"Shut up."
Bernadette returned with the key to the freezer.
"This way."
We all followed Bernadette down to the cellar. The cellar itself had not changed in the five years since I had last been there, except maybe the contents of the jars had grown a little greener. It still gave me the creeps.
The freezer was still there, still humming. I gripped the folded tarp in my hand.
"I guess we better do this."
"Not too late to back out."
No one did.
Bernadette took the tarp from me and unfolded it, then spread it on the floor. We all slowly walked over to the freezer. Bernadette handed Todd the key from her pocket, saying nothing. Todd understood. He took the key and opened the freezer.
The man in the freezer had not changed; he had not been moved. He was still in the same pose as five years before. We all just stood and stared at him a few minutes, maybe a half hour, maybe days. Finally it was Dirk who said "Bernie and I'll take the tarp at his head and feet; you two take the tarp at his sides."
We moved the body to the newer, stronger tarp, and each of us gripping a side tightly, we carried the body in the tarp up the stairs and into the bed of the pickup.
I don't think I need to mention how totally fucking creeped out I was during this whole experience.
I don't need to. I will, but I don't need to.
---
Todd and I sat in the bed of the pickup with the corpse between us as Dirk drove back to the grave site. Bernadette sat in the front seat, occasionally looking back at us. Once during the drive, Dirk opened the back window and called out to us. "How is he?"
"Still dead," I answered.
"What a stiff."
"Shut up."
"I was talking about the-"
"I know."
---
Dirk backed the truck a few yards away from the open grave. We all took hold of the tarp again and carried the body to the grave. We held the tarp over the pit.
"Okay, on the count of three, we slowly lower him in," I ordered, "One, two-"
Dirk just let go and the tarp slipped from my sweaty hands. Todd and Bernadette, unable to carry the sudden weight on their own had to just let it drop. The body hit the grave with a loud thump.
"Jesus Christ Dirk, what the hell did you do that for?!" I yelled as Dirk took a packet of cigarette out of his back pocket.
"You're right, that was mean of me," he said as he put one to his lips and lit up. "I guess I could a hurt him."
"You're a dick."
We all just stood there a second, as if not sure what to do next.
"I feel like we should say something," said Bernadette.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Read a psalm or something."
"Here lies a man dead. Boyd killed him and locked him in a freezer. The end."
"Shut up Dirk."
"C'mon. Let's get this over with," sighed Todd, and he threw me a shovel. All four of us began shoveling dirt into the pit, slowly. I just wanted this night to be over.
That's when I heard the cough.
We all looked up at each other. "Please, for the love of God," I begged, "say that was one of you."
We all looked down into the grave.
The corpse opened his eyes and looked right back at us.
None of us moved, not at first. We just froze on the spot. The dead man grasped onto the walls of his grave and pulled him up into a sitting position. He kept coughing a little more, than stared up at us. There was still frost in his hair.
"Ra-Ra," he uttered, weakly at first, then louder. "Ra-Rah-Rah!"
Then he began screaming.
We followed suit.
Oh don't you tell me you wouldn't have freaked out in the same situation. I bolted, barely noticing Todd running at my side or the sound of Dirk's pickup starting and speeding away. I ran. I ran far and I ran fast. It was one those things where your mind turns off and goes straight to the "fight or flight" instinct with me choosing the latter. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating and my fists clenching so tight sometimes I think I still see the marks were my fingernails bit into my skin.
I ran all the way back to granny's house, behind the swing porch, straight to the grass and dispassionately threw up by the trashcan.
Todd eventually caught up and we were standing on granny's porch together.
"What happened! What the hell just happened?" asked Todd panting.
"He came back to life man," I gasped.
"Yes dickhead, I know that. How the fuck was that possible? He was dead at least five years! That's impossible man, that's fucking impossible!"
Dirk's pickup drove up and he got out. "What the sweet fuck happened?"
"I don't know! He was just dead, and then he… he…zombie?"
"Shit!"
"Wait," I said, "Where Bernadette?"
"I don't know," Dirk replied.
"What- what do you mean you don't know? We thought she was with you!" shouted Todd.
"Well she's not."
"What the hell you mean- We have to go back for her!"
"I'm not going back there!"
"Fuck you!" I cried, "We're going back for her."
Then I might have passed out. Maybe. But when I came to, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Dirk's pickup next to Todd.
"You throw up in my truck I'm going to kill you," Dirk growled when he realized I was awake.
"How long was I out?" I inquired. Not that I was sure I passed out.
"Ten minutes," Todd answered, "We would have left you at Granny's, but we didn't want any weird questions in case she woke up and saw you. You okay man?"
"Fine. We going back to-"
"Yeah."
"Good."
My mind went straight back to worrying about Bernadette.
---
The little green numbers on the dashboard of Dirk's pickup said it was five in the morning when we pulled into the Bernadette's spit of land. Dirk parked a few yards farther back than he did when we were burying the corpse. We didn't move.
"She's not here," Dirk said.
"We need to look around," I said.
"What if – what if she's down there?" Todd said.
None of us moved for a minute. I could swear I could hear that body, still moving, still crying, still scratching at the earth around him. I opened the passenger door. "Come on," I said to the other two.
We slowly walked up to the grave, Dirk bearing a flashlight from his car. We stopped for a minute, bracing ourselves before we looked in, fully expecting to see that man staring up at us.
He was gone.
"Shit, shit!" yelled Todd.
"Where'd he go man, where'd he go?" I repeated.
"Shit!" said Dirk. The circle of light from Dirk's flashlight darted and danced from spot to spot around the grave, then all the area around us.
"What do we do?"
"Okay, okay," Todd said, cooling down. "We take the shovels, and we start searching around. That fucker didn't look like he was in running shape, he can't be far."
"Okay," I repeated, "okay."
Though the light was still weak and in the distance, the sun was starting to rise.
---
We spent at least a couple hours searching. I don't remember much, only walking around carrying a shovel for protection, screaming for Bernadette. I begged, I prayed, I reasoned that she was fine. She had to be. She was Bernadette. My cousin, Bernadette. Not Bernie, not Dettie, not Dette. She took me frog-gigging at night, hunting at dawn, fishing on the river bank with rods stolen from our dads and night crawlers as bait. Sure she dates losers like Dirk, but she's the strongest person I know.
"BERNADETTE" I screamed into the woods. Only bob-whites answered.
Finally we caught up with each other back at Dirk's truck and had to admit that Bernadette wasn't here. We drove back to Bernadette's house. We figured she might go back there on account her Dad had a lot of guns and there's no place you'd want to hide from a zombie more than to a place with lots of guns.
Not that we said that aloud.
It was Todd who walked up to the front door and knocked. Dirk and I stayed in the truck. I watched as the door opened and I recognized Bernadette's mother standing behind the screen door. They talked for a few minutes, then Todd nodded goodbye and walked back to the truck.
"She didn't come back home?" I asked as he got in and slammed the door behind him.
"Her ma hasn't seen her in weeks."
"Shit," Dirk hissed, lighting up a cigarette.
"You didn't tell her mom anything?" I asked Todd.
"No. Go back to Granny's, you reckon?" he said.
"And what the hell do you think we're going to do there?" Dirk inquired as he started up the truck and pulled out of the driveway, heading back to Granny's.
"Call the cops."
"And tell them what fuck-wad? Oh, sorry officer, we were burying this seventy-year-old dead body from this freaky redneck hick's basement when it came back to life and ate my girlfriend?"
"Shut up!" Todd yelled.
Dirk pulled into Granny's driveway. Granny's car wasn't in the driveway, maybe she had gone to church. (Was it Sunday?) We walked into the house and I was heading towards the phone when I realized someone was in the bathroom. Bernadette walked out, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, toweling her wet hair.
"Bernadette!" Todd and I yelled.
"Boys!" she said joyously, and ran up to us. She went to Todd first, hugging him veraciously. She pulled back and went for me next, but I pushed her away.
"Where the hell were you?!" I screamed, happy to see her alive, but still pissed.
"What?" she asked, sounding confused.
"We just spent half the night looking for you! We went back to the river, you weren't there, we went to your Mom's, you weren't there, we were going out of our fucking minds, where were you!?"
"Oh," she blinked. "I went back."
"You what?"
"Well, when he screamed, I ran the same as you did. But I tripped. By the time I managed to get back up you two were halfway to the wind and Dirk had driven off. Thanks." She paused to give us an evil eye.
"I realized that he had stopped screaming. I must have been out of my mind but I went back to where he was still stuck. He was out of it, for sure, but he was more shocked than anything else. It took him a minute to calm down, but when he did, he started to come back to his senses. Once he was lucid, I helped him out and helped him back to Boyd's house."
"You did what?"
"Helped him back to Boyd's house."
"You helped a member of the living dead back to your uncle Boyd's house?"
"He wasn't dead," Bernadette said simply, "He never was."
"And lying in Boyd's freezer for sixty years was-"
"He was in a coma. He explained it to me on our way there. It was something his folk do; when they get real sick they go into this weird coma, their body temperature goes below freezing. Boyd and his Daddy misunderstood him. He wasn't saying 'freeze me'; he was trying to say he was going to freeze. But the poison was putting him in some sorta shock so he couldn't get all the words out. When Boyd and his Daddy heard the word 'freeze' and remembered the joke he made earlier about freezing dead bodies they figured that's what he was asking them. All the freezer did was keep him suspended. He didn't need to breathe much, and his heartbeat went so slow it looked like he was dead, but he wasn't."
We were quiet a moment. Then Dirk yelled, "Oh fuck this," and walked out. We heard him get into his truck and drive out. Bernadette didn't seem to look too upset and continued to pat her hair with a towel.
With all the crazy shit I had seen that night, I was at least willing to listen to Bernadette's story. But there was still that nagging question. Todd beat me to it.
"Wait, how'd you walk to Boyd's and walk back in time to take a shower before we got here?"
"I helped him walk to Boyd's," she answered nonchalantly, "He gave me a ride back."
"He gave you-in what?" I mumbled before bursting out, "Bernadette Stevenson, you mean to tell me you walked with a zombie back to your dead Uncle's house, a zombie who's been asleep in some crazy redneck's freezer for sixty years then he just happened come alive and you've just gotten out of the shower like nothing's happened?!"
"Well, we made some stops first." Her eyes wandered out the window to the back yard and I followed her gaze. There by the apple tree was what I assumed to be a dark blue port-a-john I was sure wasn't there before. I shook it out of my mind before I could get a second look at it. Something was wrong. (Did she seem older?) She looked back at me, and then looked away. There was something she wouldn't or couldn't tell us.
"Wait-what's that?" I pointed at her t-shirt, a shirt I'd never seen before.
"What's what?" she asked.
"On your t-shirt? Where did you get that?"
"Bought it," Bernadette said quickly. She looked down at the floor avoiding our gaze.
I read the shirt out loud:
"2036 Olympics, Cardiff?"
Author's Note: Boyd is based on an actual person. Boyd's real-life counterpart was a relative of mine I only met once; he died while I was writing this story. I only met the man very briefly, however, so whatever the contents of his basement were, they were no business of mine and were probably entirely legal.