WORKIN’ OVERTIME

Roy Dorman

     The pay wasn’t that great, but the hours were enough so that even at the low hourly wage there was still a good check on payday. 

     Arnie Westring’s shift was 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, seven days a week. Now those who may like to tip a couple now and then might say that left very little time for bellying up to the bar, but Arnie had that under control.

     He’d have a few beers at Bobby’s Breeze Inn before work, and then take a half-pint of Tullamore Dew and a couple of burgers with him when he left for the job at 6:30.

     Arnie’s place of employment was Valley View Cemetery in the little town of Pine Bluff, Wisconsin. Valley View was the name town elders had given the cemetery a hundred years ago, though there hadn’t been any valley to view then or any time after that. It had just sounded peaceful. 

     And peaceful it had been for a hundred years. Then all hell broke loose. Literally.

     Arnie’s job was to dispatch any undead who rose up from their graves during his shift before they had a chance to leave the Valley View grounds and enter the town proper.

     The rising of the undead had started worldwide two years ago. The first year there had been complete chaos. Government agencies at every level had not been prepared for such an onslaught of dead people coming back to life.

     And these were hungry, angry dead people, who were now undead. Casualties mounted to the tens of thousands before steps were taken to stop the undead from entering populated areas and killing folks.

     Arnie, age 32, had grown up in Pine Bluff, and after a mediocre high school stint he’d settled in to be one of the town’s hangers-on, doing odd jobs and getting into minor scrapes with the town’s police department.

     When the undead started rising, he’d seen the opportunity for what he thought would be some easy peasy employment, and was the first in line for a shift at Valley View.

     He’d been given a sawed-off shotgun, a case of shells, and a machete, and was told no one was to leave the cemetery during his shift.

     Arnie dispatched a couple of undead a week. That’s what they called it, dispatched. You couldn’t kill somebody who had already died once. And he’d learned to be efficient. One shotgun blast to the face or one machete chop to the neck. The first few undead he’d dispatched had been messy, and a couple of them had almost overcome him. Bodily fluid and body parts had been all over Arnie at the end of those first few shifts. 

     No more. Arnie knew what could happen if he didn’t dispatch quickly and thoroughly.

     The kids and the old people were the hardest. Arnie was hardly ever completely sober during his shift, and in his drunken state the dispatching of those undead really took a lot out of him when they occurred. The kids and the old people were never angry. The kids looked scared like they had no idea what was happening, and the old people looked sad and resigned, ready to be dispatched. Begging to be dispatched.

     But Arnie struggled on. It was nasty work, but somebody had to do it.

***

     “How many more do ya think there’ll be?”  Johnnie Burns, Arnie’s shift replacement, asked one morning. Johnnie always arrived promptly at 7:00 AM.

     “The cemetery’s been around for over a hundred years,” said Arnie. “Once when I asked I was told more than four hundred people had been buried here.”

     “I’ve kept count,” said Johnnie. “I’ve got seventy-two so far. Do ya think every one of ‘em will eventually rise up?”

     “Me, I’ve got fifty-nine,” Arnie answered. “And yeah, I’d say we’ll be employed for at least another year or so even though most of those buried in the last twenty or thirty years have those sealed caskets. I don’t see how they could get out of those suckers, but who knows? Seems like there ain’t no rules anymore.”

     Arnie shuffled off and left Johnnie to his shift. Arnie always went straight home and went to sleep for eight hours or so. He figured it wouldn’t do to fall asleep on the job. He might wake up as an undead, looking down the barrel of Johnnie’s shotgun.  

***

     Not everybody in Pine Bluff was happy with the work Arnie and Johnnie did. They both had been accosted in town a number of times by relatives of undead they’d dispatched. The town’s Police Chief, Rusty Wilcox, had always sided with Arnie and Johnnie, but incidents still occurred fairly regularly.

     To supplement the shotgun and machete that Arnie had to leave at work, he’d recently purchased a .38 Special that he wore in a shoulder holster when he was both on and off duty. Chief Wilcox wasn’t too happy about that, but Arnie had filled out all of the proper paperwork and was licensed to carry.

     Many of the folks in Pine Bluff also were not happy with Arnie’s .38, but there was little they could do but grumble.

     But the late afternoon regulars at Bobby’s Breeze Inn thought it was cool and congratulated Arnie on standing up for himself.

***

     A few months went by with only a dozen or so undead dispatched between Johnnie and Arnie. Maybe things were winding down. Maybe Arnie’s estimate of a year to go had been a little off.

     Even though the violent gruesomeness of the dispatching procedure often left Arnie with a feeling of deep depression, he knew he would probably never get another job in Pine Bluff that paid as well as this one.

     Arnie wasn’t introspective enough to consider that he might suffer from some sort of PTSD for the rest of his life when this employment ended. Looking at what had once been live people in the eye while you either chopped or blew their heads off would take a toll on anybody.

***

     Arnie unlocked the cemetery gate and strolled over to where he usually set up watch. 

     “Yo, Johnnie,” he called. “Where you at?”

     No answer. Arnie was immediately on guard. Johnnie never left early and always met Arnie at the watch spot. Something was wrong and that something almost certainly was an undead.

     Before going over to the shed where his shotgun and machete were kept, Arnie pulled out his cell phone. He kept his back to the gate and scanned the area on all sides of him while he dialed.

     “Hey, Mabel. It’s Arnie at Valley View. Tell Chief Wilcox we may have some trouble over here. Ask ‘em to stop over with a deputy or two, would ya? Tell ‘em I’m locking the gate and shoving the keys under it so he can get in, but tell ‘em to be sure and lock it after he gets in. That’s important.”

     Arnie gathered up his shotgun and machete and went looking for Johnnie. 

     About fifty yards away, near the cemetery’s back wall, he saw Johnnie bent over and messing with something on the lawn.

     But as he got closer, he could see that it wasn’t Johnnie messing with something. It was Johnnie on the ground and an undead was messing with him, The undead, an adult male, was tearing at Johnnie’s limbs and scratching at his belly, stuffing pieces of Johnnie into its mouth as fast as it could.

     Arnie slowed to a quick, cautious walk and when he got to the undead, he positioned the shotgun against the back of its head and fired. The undead fell forward, landing on top of Johnnie.

     Arnie pulled it off with disgust and looked at Johnnie as if hoping he was somehow still alive.

     Johnnie was dead, but Arnie new that fresh dead people who’d been ravaged by undead could become undead themselves anytime.

     He aimed the shotgun at Johnnie’s head and prepared to pull the trigger. This was going to be hard. He and Johnnie had been partners in this business for almost a year without any days off. They’d shared experiences about dispatching the undead and also shared the dreams they had for life when this was over.

     On more than one occasion, they both had said they sometimes felt that Valley View was their prison. They physically left after their shifts, but carried Valley View in their heads always, even in their sleep. Especially in their sleep.

     “Arnie,” yelled Chief Wilcox. “What’s goin’ on over there?”

     “Did ya lock the gate?” asked Arnie.

     “Yeah, it’s locked.”

     “An undead got Johnnie. Now I gotta dispatch ‘em before he becomes an undead.”

     “Ya can’t just kill Johnnie,” said the Chief. “That’d be murder.”

     “He’s dead, Chief,” groaned Arnie. “I’ve got to dispatch ‘em  — "

     “How do ya know he’s dead?” asked Chief Wilcox as he walked up to the site.

     “Look at ‘em,” said Arnie. “Do ya think anybody could live through that maulin’?”

     The Chief lowered himself to his haunches and bent over Johnnie. He put his hand on what was left of Johnnie’s chest. Johnnie’s eyes popped open as if he’d seen life on the other side and didn’t like it at all. He grabbed the Chief in a bear hug and pulled him down to his slavering mouth.

     “Shoot ‘em!  Shoot ‘em!” screamed the Chief as Johnnie ripped into his shoulder.

     Arnie shot Johnnie in the head while being as careful as he could not to hit the Chief with too much of the blast, though it probably wouldn’t make much difference in saving the Chief. The Chief rolled off Johnnie and staggered to his feet. He looked at his mangled shoulder and started to cry.

     Arnie didn’t wait for the Chief or either of the two deputies to say anything. This was his territory, his show, and he raised his shotgun and shot the Chief in the face.

     The deputies nervously pointed their pistols at Arnie.

     “Go ahead,” said Arnie. “Take me out and there’ll be not one, but two job openings here. You want ‘em? They’re yers.”

     The deputies looked at each other and after a bit, holstered their weapons.

     “Ya did what ya had do,” said Deputy Carl Sanders. “We’ll back ya up, right, Eddie?”

     Deputy Eddie Swenson stared at his highly polished black shoes. “Yup,” he finally said. “It a goddamn mess, but ya handled it as best ya could.”

     “I’ll walk ya back to gate,” said Arnie. “Get somebody from the County Coroner’s Office over here right away so they can get these bodies to the crematorium in Madison.”

     “What’s the rush, Arnie,” asked Deputy Sanders. “They’re dead, ain’t they?”

     All three of the men jumped as from another corner of Valley View came the distinctive growl of an undead.

     “That’s why,” said Arnie. “They’re not just dead, they’re undead. And they’re attracting other undead.”

     The three ran for the gate. Arnie let the deputies out and then locked himself back in. He’d have to take on Johnnie’s shift as well as his own until a replacement was hired.

     “You lucky bastard, Johnnie,” Arnie mumbled as he walked to the area the growling had come from.

THE END