The Right Tool for the Job

A couple of caveats. First, my writer's pride insisted that I clean up the story a little bit before posting it. I'm a better writer now than I was ten years ago, and there were some howlers that I just couldn't let stand. Second, you should know that this story was written long before John Steakley's novel VAMPIRE$."

"Tools," said Gottleib, and stared out the windshield. Henning was whipping in and out of the rush hour traffic, oblivious to the sun in his eyes.

"Not just tools. The right tools. Always be prepared."

He savagely twisted the wheel and cut across two lanes of traffic, raising a chorus of honking from the rush hour queues. A fo ot mashed the brake and Gottleib pitched forward, shooting his hands out and slapping them on the dash. A corner appeared and Henning forced the vehicle around it. The momentum pushed Gottleib back in his seat.

"That's the problem today," Henning continued. "That's why stuff doesn't last as long as a tinker's cuss. People not using the right tools." He popped the van out of gear and eased the vehicle to rest. Gottleib looked out the window at the massive building before him, reading letters etched in stone. MUSEUM OF WORLD CULTURE. A door slammed hard and his stare broke. Henning had gotten out. He jerked the handle of the door and eased out onto the asphalt.

"You're dallying," Henning complained. "There's work to do. You want to learn the trade or not?"

Gottleib nodded.

"Then you got to keep up, boy." He threw open the rear door of the vehicle. "You can't get good help since the war." He produced a small red toolbox. "Get the other."

Gottleib reached in and took hold of a metallic blue toolbox. He pulled it out and Henning slammed the door, whistling the Dwarves' March from the Disney version of Snow White.

Together they ascended the steps of the building, pushing through the twin glass doors. Gottleib's nose twitched as it sorted out the musty scents. Old, it told him. No fun here.

Their footsteps echoed from the marble floor. People were working in different parts of the main hall, undisturbed by their clatter. They wandered to the back, where Henning stopped at a large wooden desk.

A balding man in his thirties approached. "May I help you gentlemen?"

Henning consulted a smudged scrap of paper. "Mr. Paul, please."

"I'm Mr. Paul."

He extended a grubby hand. "I'm Boss Henning. You called about a problem."

Paul nodded. "I'm glad to see you. The problem's in the basement."

"L ead on," Henning said. "My meter is running."

Paul stepped out from behind the desk. "This way, please."

Henning let him get a good lead before following. "This guy's a wuss," he told Gottleib.

Paul led them through a door and down a damp staircase. Gottleib's nose was going wild with the barrage of scents. Henning snorted as Paul recounted the history of the place.

"We've only had this problem once before," he said. "It was in 1919, according to our records. For some reason it involved an exhibit called The Dawn of Time."

"Where was the exhibit from?"

"Mediterranean area. Seemed to stem from some ashes in a jar. A workman cut himself--"

"Yeah. Blood got in the jar, and lo and behold."

"You're familiar with the incident?"

"I'm familiar with the phenomenon."

Paul nodded

"How did your initial involvement with this one begin?"

"We got a large shipment of items in from one of the Eastern Bloc countries. It was rather unexpected, and we had no room for it elsewhere, so we relegated it to deep storage."

"Wrong!" cried Henning. "Wrong! That's just what they want you to do. Stick the stuff in a cool, dark place and forget about it. It's so ingenious that I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's Communist inspired."

"Commie plot?" asked Gottleib.

"Wouldn't put it past them. "

Paul stopped before an oak door set into the stone wall. It was held in place by black iron hinges and framed with a brick arch. He took a ring of keys from a nearby hook and chose the largest one. The end was decorated with a sardonic face.

"This where it is?" Henning asked.

Paul nodded.

"Open it up. You're wasting my time and my time is your money."

Paul fingered the key apprehensively.

"For heaven's sake, you've got at least an hour until sunset. Open the door."

Paul slid the key into the mechanism and turned it. Iron grated against iron, setting their teeth on edge. Paul withdrew the key.

Henning held out his hand and twitched his fingers. Paul stared. "The keys, stupid," Henning urged.

"Is that necessary?"

Henning nodded. "No keys, no work. I don't want to end up in there as one of your artifacts."

Paul quietly surrendered the ring.

After a nod from his partner, Gottleib grabbed the iron handle and pulled with all his might. The hinges protested loudly. His nose twitched. Bad. Bad things here.

The coffin was in the middle of the small room. Sitting amid stacks of crates much smaller than it, the flat black box rested on three scarred sawhorses, a shipping tag clumsily stapled to the lid.

"What tipped you off?" asked Henning.

Paul reached up and pulled a wire. Light from a single bulb filled the room. "See that slip from the shipping company? They stapled it right to the coffin. Had that been a legitimate part of the exhibit, they wouldn't have done that. You think they were trying to tell us something?"

"Quite likely." Henning smacked his lips. "I would say almost certainly."

Paul slowly backed toward the door. "I'll be quite embarrassed, of course, If this turns out to be nothing..."

"Nonsense," said Henning. "Caution never killed anyone."

"You don't mind?"

"I get my pay just the same if this turns out to he empty or full of pot or something like that." he placed his toolbox on the floor and Gottleib did the same. "Tools," he sang. "Tools."

"Tools," echoed Gottleib, and sniffed.

"What does your nose tell you?" asked Henning.

"That I don't like being here."

"I don't either," admitted Paul.

Henning straightened up and stared at the balding man. "Get out."

"Why? It should be safe. You said yourself that it's an hour until..."

"You know that and I know that, but our guest might not. Since it's dark down here, he may try to defend his property."

"I can't go," Paul said. "I should stay here. There are precious things here and--"

"Get out," ordered Gottleib.

"I double my rates if the client stays to help," snarled Henning.

"That's fine with me. We'll pay it just as long as you--"

"What I'm trying to tell you, Mr. Paul, is what If this turns out to be the real thing?"

Paul went silent. Henning looked solemn.

"The real thing?"

Henning nodded. "The real thing. What If this isn't 'just a bomb' or isn't 'just somebody's shipment of pot'? What if there really is something bad in there?"

Gottleib rubbed his nose. "There is."

"You're not serious," Paul said, thinly.

"Oh, no. I'm not serious. But you are. You have to be. You called us."

Paul looked at the pair. Gottleib was carefully laying out tools on a small square of tarp: a vial of water, a cross, garlic cloves, a mallet, a small prayer book. He sniffed and picked his nose, and suddenly Paul remembered that he had to be somewhere else.

"Now that you mention it--"

"We'll stop by with the bill," Henning nodded.

Paul stepped out the door and retreated up the long staircase. Their laughter echoed behind him, and he heard himself called a fool.

"Why'd you do that?" Gottleib ask ed. "You've let people stay before."

"That's when they could help. He wouldn't have. The moment we opened this baby up, he would've wet his pants. Besides, I didn't want to screw with having him sign a waiver."

Gottleib laughed. It echoed off the damp walls. Henning produced a pocket watch and flipped the lid open. "Let's get this show on the road. I gotta be at Harry's Barbecue at six-thirty."

"Hot date?"

Henning slipped the watch back in his pants and nodded. "With a plate of ribs."

Gottleib blew his nose into a cloth.

"How's the honker?"

"Okay, I guess. A little stuffy."

"What's it tellin' you?"

The kid wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand. "It feels like this is the real thing, but with all the allergies, it's hard to tell."

"Take care of that," Henning advised. "It's a gift." He slapped his hands together. "Well, shall we get down to business?"

Gottleib nodded.

"Pry bar," said Henning.

Gottleib handed him the piece of metal, slender with bent, thin ends. Henning moved up to the coffin and worked it into a crack.

"Nailed shut," Gottleib observed.

"Of course."

"Then how do they get out?"

Henning stopped for a moment. "Might as well ask how they lord over rats, how they transform, why they don't like crosses." He bent back over the coffin and lifted on the pry bar. The lid opened with a painful, wooden cry as the nails yielded their grip.

Gottleib sneezed.

Henning froze. "Whaddaya got?"

Death, Gottleib's nose signaled. Decay. Evil. Death. He nodded frantically.

Henning bent against the pry bar. It slipped and tore a chunk out of the coffin's finish.

"Hurry," said Gottleib, nose running. "This one's bad."

Henning dropped the pry bar. It rang as it hit stone. "Crowbar." he took the tool from his partner and jammed it deep into the coffin, pushing his back against the makeshift lever.

"Should make you do this," he grunted.

The lid popped open. Gottleib was wheezing, breathing through his mouth. Henning whistled in amazement. "You pegged it, boy."

A male was lying in the casket. His skin was a marked shade of grey, and the eyes lay deep in the skull. Each hand bore a set of manicured, yellowed nails, and the skin itself was stretched tight over the frame, nothing more than bone and tendon.

"You ready, son?"

Gottleib dabbed flecks of vomit from the corners of his mouth. "Yeah."

"Mallet."

It slapped into Henning's palm.

"Stake."

Henning took it from the boy and placed the tip over the center of the body's chest.

"The right tools," Henning said, "are worthless if you don't work them right. You've got to set it up just so, and you want to puncture the sucker's heart. You don't do that, and you've a fight on your hands." He raised the mallet high in the air and steadied the stake. "Use as few blows as possible. Quick. Clean. Like--"

The hand with the mallet dropped like a stone. The head of the tool connected hard with the top of the stake, which disintegrated in, Henning's hand.

Henning swore violently.

The body in the coffin stirred.

"Another stake!" Henning screamed. "Another stake!"

Gottleib held one out.

"Put it on his chest!"

The boy placed the tip where Henning had taught him. The mallet came down hard; the stake became powder beneath it. Gottleib jerked his hands back, yelping in pain, and stuck them under his arms.

"The new batch is bad!" Henning shouted. "Get one of the old ones!"

"There aren't any more! We them up at the old Willoughby place, remember?"

A hand shot up from the coffin and grabbed Henning by the throat. It squeezed, and the breath to his lungs stopped. "Run!" he squeaked.

Gottleib approached the coffin slowly, a ball peen hammer high in his right hand. Henning shook his head frantically. The creature in the coffin sat up suddenly and the hammer hit the floor, Gottleib's steps slapping as he ascended the staircase.

Henning grabbed the creature's arm with both hands and pulled it away from his throat. His only chance of surviving was if he could get to daylight. The creature wouldn't be at full strength coming out of a comatose state to defend the coffin.

It took a fight, but the hand on his throat came away, nails taking strips of Henning's skin with it. Air poured into his lungs and he fell back. The creature began to rise. The coffin wobbled unsteadily on the sawhorses. It looked around and grinned at Henning. It was between him and the door.

Henning glanced around, looking for something he could use against it. Across from him, by the opposite wall, were the water, the cross, the prayer book. Everything he needed to keep it at bay. All he needed to do was get around it.

It hissed at him and bared its teeth. He grabbed a crate and pitched it, not bothering to read what was stenciled on the side. It glanced off the creature's shoulder and rang of broken glass when it hit the floor. He grabbed another crate. A splinter slid into his palm and he cursed.

Splinter.

Suddenly he had it. If he could tear off a piece of the crate, it might work as a stake. He tried to inch back to the stone wall.

"Look at me," the creature gurgled.

Henning clamped his eyes shut and groped back.

"Look at me!"

He was against the wall now. He hit the crate against it. Something inside gave way.

"It will never work."

He slammed the crate, harder this time.

"It is no use. See what the box has done to you."

Henning's will was gone. He opened his eyes and looked at the box. Maggots were pouring out of a large crack and crawling down his arms, burrowing into his flesh as they went.

He screamed. He tried to tell himself that the burrows and oozing blisters were an illusion, but they felt too real. He twisted and pitched the box at the creature. The toss went wild.

The creature laughed.

And then it saw that the crate was about to slam into its head. It threw its hand up and bent sideways. The sawhorses wobbled and ancient, rotting wood gave way. The casket pitched backwards, taking the creature with it and tossing it into the wall, scattering holy relics across the room. The creature howled in distress.

There was now a large gap between its reach and the door. Henning bolted for it, legs pumping. The creature spun and lashed out, nails tearing the back of his shirt as he leapt for the stairs

"Gottleib!" he cried. "Gottleib!" he pumped his legs hard against the steps, trying not to look to the top of the staircase. It hadn't been bad on the way down, but now it looked as if the stairs went up for miles before the door to safety. There was no handrail and he stumbled, screaming as he did and jerking back to his feet. He could hear footsteps from behind now, fleet and light, clicking or every third step.

"GOTTLEIB!

He pushed his legs harder but there was less and less there for him to use. He could hear the rasping of the thing behind him, gaining with every step he took. He tried to yell again, but there wasn't breath enough in his lungs to do it.

"Look back," the creature hissed. "Look back look back look back."

He froze. He was halfway to the door.

Henning was about to turn and jump his pursuer when the door burst open. A rush of cool air hit him in the face. It was Gottleib, carrying something large and clumsy. He stepped into the stairwell and brandished it.

"BOSS!" he yelled. "DUCK!"

The creature laughed from less than a meter behind.

Now Paul was behind Gottleib, pounding on him and screaming in his effeminate voice, "But you can't take that, you can't do that, you'll ruin..."

Henning threw himself down to the steps face first. Something whined over his head and crunched into bone inches from his ear. A roar filled the staircase.

He looked back. The creature was writhing, face stretched taut. Its hands clawed at a thin stick of wood that jutted from the middle of its chest. At the very end of the shaft, incongruous to surroundings, was a trimmed set of bright bird feathers.

Another hiss of wind, and a second shaft appeared next to the first. The creature bent back and hovered in space for an impossible moment, then pitched down the stairs, rolling head over heels in a chorus of breaking bones.

Henning sighed and shook his head.

The staircase went silent. The creature was lying at the foot of the stairs and halfway through the door, body twisted and broken. Gottleib raced down and checked it. He slowly rose to his feet and tapped his nose twice.

"What happened?" Paul asked from the top.

"We did the Job," Gottleib called, then disappeared into the room.

"He took a crossbow from our Medieval Knight display," Paul whined. "If he's damaged it, you'll pay to replace it."

"Wait 'til you get my bill," Henning wheezed. "We won't pay it," Paul snapped. "In fact, we should sue you."

Gottleib emerged from the room, a toolbox in each hand. "The whole batch of stakes was bad."

"Paper mache?"

The boy nodded.

"You're frauds," Paul was saying. "The both of you. I should call the Better Business Bureau."

"Abe," said Henning. "They must have got him."

Gottleib nodded solemnly.

Henning wobbled to his feet. When his strength returned, he climbed the last of the stairs, walking straight past the still-tirading Paul.

"...all nonsense. A load of nonsense. If you ask me this is all a load of silly superstition."

Henning stalked through the museum, making for the exit. "Build yourself a big pyre," he said, "and throw that sucker on it. When it's done, sent a plane and scatter the ashes over five hundred square miles."

"I won't do it," Paul snapped.

"Then the next time we come back," Gottleib said, "we're charging triple time." He held the door for Henning, then let it close in Paul's face.

"Got to hurry," Henning said, checking his watch. "Almost sundown."

"Ribs?" Gottleib asked, tossing the boxes into the back of the van.

"No."

Henning fired the engine and squealed out of the parking lot. He reached under his seat and produced a red dome, which he handed to his partner. "Plug that into the cigarette lighter and stick it on the roof."

With the red light, the trip across town went fast. The van dodged through the thickening traffic as if it knew the patterns by heart. Behind the wheel, Henning grumbled.

At last he brought the vehicle to a stop. They were in a decaying part of town, a place where the businesses had iron bars over the windows and chains on the doors after hours. Henning popped the clutch, killed the engine, and hopped out. Silently, Gottleib retrieved the two toolboxes and followed.

"Got to have the right tools," Henning spat. "And if you don't have the right tools, you're in a hurt locker."

The door had ABE'S CUSTOM WOODWORKING splashed on the glass in colors that were faded and peeling from the long summer. Henning opened the door and a bell tinkled merrily, a welcome invitation.

They looked around the showroom. It was a tangle of half-finished coffee tables and rocking chairs, oak dining sets and maple cabinets in various stages of disrepair. Henning inhaled deeply.

"Well?" Gottleib asked.

He shook his head. "I'm getting too old. All I can pick up is varnish, sawdust."

Gottleib sniffed, then nodded his head. "Looks like you're right about Abe."

"Where?"

"In the back.

They made their way into the workshop. The place had been vandalized. Woodworking tools were scattered across the floor, paints and stains splattered the walls. On the main workbench was a vat of drying paste and a stack of shredded newspapers.

"Look," said Gottleib.

"Paper mache." Henning examined the table. Abe had used a perfect oak stake to mold the fakes with. He bounced it in his hand.

"Where is he?"

Gottleib pointed. Behind Abe's smashed lathe was a simple pine box. Henning approached it. Nails were driven into the lid in six-inch intervals and fresh carpenter's glue filled the seam.

"Just like Abe," Henning said. "Look at that craftsmanship. He always did such great work."

Gottleib checked his watch. "It's getting late, Boss."

Henning knocked on the top of the box. "I'm going to miss the old coot."

Gottleib nodded wistfully.

The old man held an empty hand out to the boy.

"Pry bar," he said.

© 2007 by Joe Clifford Faust