Charlie Stone: The Commission (Part One) (© Daniel Lee) This contribution is part of a series:- 1. Charlie Stone: Undertaker (Revised 14-Apr-06) (24-Feb-2006)
| In a world where the dead walk and returning them to their graves is a booming business, there's no one better than Charlie Stone. I've left it as a cliff-hanger not having a better way at the moment to end it. | 2. Charlie Stone: Some Enchanted Evening (28-Jun-2007)
| This is another Charlie Stone story - Linda Campbell and Charlie go out for a night on the town and are having a perfect evening before a couple of ghouls ruined it all. | 3. Charlie Stone: The Commission (Part One) (19-Dec-2007)
| The first half of another Charlie Stone novellette. Charlie gets a visit from an old friend whose bringing bad news. A zombie snuff director is operating out of Berry Hill and he has a score to settle with Charlie. | 4. Charlie Stone: Roadside Service (10-Aug-2011)
| A very short road trip for Charlie. Coming back from a job his hearse breaks down and the first mechanic who shows up is anything but helpful... or living. From one problem to another, he has to comfort the poor, novice wrecker driver who has never seen a zombie before today as they load up the hearse.' |
Page 1 - 1 - I knew it was going
to be a long day when I saw Reggie Caldwell come bumbling through my front
door. He was a lanky, awkward man in his mid-thirties who wore wire rimmed
glasses and an ill fitting blue suit two inches too short in the sleeves. H
was armed with a law degree I was certain had been the prize at the bottom of a
box of Cracker Jacks and had used every half baked legal precedent he could
find to try and put me out of business. He was the local deader’s rights
advocate and had a big, dopey smile pasted across his face as he blew past
Gladys and plopped down in front of my desk. Wielding his beaten briefcase
like a battle axe before him he slammed it onto my desk without so much as an
acknowledgement and opened it, looking for the day’s legal "screw you" with my
name on it. "I've got you
this time, Stone," he said in a triumphant, nasal whine. "I've got
you nailed on a precedent that even you can't worm your way out from
under." "Well, as always
it’s a pleasure, Reg," I said, taking a sip from my coffee mug and staring
at the clock just beyond his oily, black hair. "Isn't nine in the morning
a little early to be starting this crap, though?" As if on cue he
produced a legal document and slapped it on my desk with as much force as his slender,
narrow limbs could muster. There were red-orange stains at the corners that
could only have come from some sort of Italian food; a rather unprofessional
document to come from a lawyer defending the rights and liberties of the
undead. Only in America, I thought to myself as I lifted the page and read
aloud. "Monroe versus the State
of Kentucky," I said
taking another sip from my mug which read PISS OFF in bold, beautiful red
lettering along the rim. "What's this all about?" "Glad you
asked," he said with a shrill smugness that begged to be beaten out of
him. "Charles Montgomery Monroe was a simple, backwoods Kentucky farmer making an
honest living until an undertaker came and violently ended his life on faulty
information. An anonymous source told the undertaker that Mister Monroe was raising
more than crops on his farm and the afore mentioned undertaker executed the
farmer and his daughter in the basement of their quiet Kentucky home. His
family sued for wrongful death, was awarded twenty million in pain and
suffering as well as lost wages, and the undertaker responsible was disbarred
from his practice. You killed a young man at Franc’s a few weeks ago. He was
suffering from what appeared to be the initial stages of contact with the
undead virus. No other reanimants were located and there were no apparent bite
marks on his body. You violently ended that boy’s life without proof of him
posing an immediate danger to yourself or others and as soon as I get the
coroner's report I'm going to nail you to the highest tree." I smiled, familiar
with the game he wanted to play and licked my finger tips before flipping to
the second half of the document and reciting from memory what I knew it would
say. "Well, I'm actually quite familiar with this one," I said,
passing back the lasagna stained pages. "The undertaker did shoot the
wrong person but in the end the entire family, wife, two sons, and one infected
step-daughter were all deemed a bio-hazard. They’d been hiding darling
daughter in the basement while she gradually degenerated into a festering,
hungering disease carrier. The step-father, Mister Monroe had been hiding his
infected step-child and had even been taking fresh animal parts to keep her
fed. They'd kept her locked in the basement for a month while the disease ate
away at her body and mind. See, when a person is bitten they become a
psychological and later physiological danger to their friends, family members
and neighbors before death and re-animation occur. When the undertaker, Bart
Jones I believe, real nice fella’ I met him last year at a convention in Detroit I think. Anyhow,
when he arrived he found the ghoul chained at the throat to a support beam in
the basement and Mister Monroe was feeding her. Within a month of their
initial ruling, the courts reconvened, reviewed the facts, tried the case again
and exonerated the undertaker of any wrong doings." I opened up the top
drawer of my desk, flopped out a copy of the coroner’s report on the incident
at Franc’s and placed it in the pile in Reggie’s open briefcase. [ Continue to page 2 ] |