Baby’s words made the already stuffy air become more tense. His friend leaned back. “Would you give us a moment?” The alleged journalist in front of them nodded, remarked he’d get a coffee after all, and stepped away from the booth. 

Peter was a hefty sum of troubles rolled into one lanky body. He was more punk than his goth-adjacent cohorts. He sported two mohawks atop his head as one simply wasn’t enough. Around his waist hung a kilt which he never explained why he wore or how he acquired. Almost anytime a rock concert appeared in town there was some story or another about a man with two mohawks and a kilt starting a fight. Peter would shrug, ‘Must be a number of guys in this city with kilts.’ But if it was one quality that was more trouble than his abrasiveness, his over excitement, or his willingness to pull out a knife over music taste–it was the fact that he was Baby’s best friend.

He was always getting Baby into trouble. 

“Baby, what are you doing? He’s got work for us. If he says he’s a journalist then he’s a journalist. He says he’s the Emperor of Mexico, we’re gonna order him a tequila and toast the Mother Mary.”

“Oh my God,” Baby dragged out his words. The man at the counter didn’t look like the Emperor of Mexico to Baby. He wasn’t ordering a tequila and he sure didn’t seem like a man who prayed. 

Sean Kelly wore a blue plaid jacket and a pink on blue floral pattern tie. His hair was lengthy, chestnut and down to his neck. He reminded Baby of a more colorful version of the usual businessman types that found their way to the Double Helix in the A.M. That was the crowd at this early hour. Businessmen hunched over laptops, feeling the crunch, and Baby’s friends sat in their booth, draining coffee. Though tonight it was only him and Peter–and this new wild card flailing his hands at the barista.

The way Peter looked at him, gleam in his eye, he seemed to think it really was Su Majestad. “We’re gonna be mercenaries.” 

“We’d be his lackeys,” Baby groaned.

Peter shrugged and went for his coffee, “Gotta start somewhere.”

It did start somewhere. Baby would never be able to forget. Two weeks ago, a disheveled man with reading glasses barged into the cafe at around 2 A.M. He looked as if he’d come from a fight and he didn’t look like he won it either. ‘I need one of you to drive me somewhere.’ The booth was full with Baby’s other friends. They all laughed at him. Someone said he smelled like whiskey.

‘I might have been drinking, yeah.’ A streak of blood rolled down the stranger’s face. ‘Come on, I’m fine. I’m not crazy, I swear.’ Something all crazy people said, Baby remembered thinking.

‘Baby drives,’ Peter said.

‘Dude, shush.’

‘Which one is Baby?’

Three fingers outed the frail youth with the bangs over his eyes. ‘I’m not driving him, oh my God.’ Yet as soon as the stranger offered to pay, Peter volunteered their services, and Baby found himself driving out in the early morning desert.

Back in the present, Baby sighed, “That guy could’ve killed us.”

“But he didn’t!” Peter took a swig of his coffee. “Look, I’ve been over this. That night, I don’t know, something changed in me, man. It was…invigorating!” 

When they pulled off in the middle of nowhere, Peter asked the stranger if they’d get paid now. ‘No. Now I’m going to kill you and dump your bodies in that pit.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m joking.’

But what if he hadn’t been joking? That night could've easily gone differently. Baby wanted to forget all about it. But he knew Peter was telling the truth. The night did change him. It filled his head with delusions of grandeur. Do you think that guy was with the cartel? What if we just assisted a secret agent? Dude, we should become mercenaries! 

Baby thought to himself. ‘You'd think we did something more than drive some weirdo out into the desert.’ It felt like the plot to one of those old Videl Flores films that weren’t worried about explaining themselves. Baby thought as much when he got back home and crashed onto his bed. Go figure a week and a half later, Videl Flores broke more than the news. 

“The desert guy didn’t even pay us what he promised,” Baby said. He’d promised them each two hundred dollars. He came up short by eighty. But what were they to do? Drive him back twenty percent of the way?

“This will be different, you’ll see.” Peter always said, ‘You’ll see.’ People joked Baby was blind with how he combed his hair over half his face. The punchline, ordinarily, that he was the group’s designated driver. But the only thing he never saw was whatever Peter was on about. 

The journalist found his way back to the booth, mocha in hand, “You two are too young to remember that coffee was a necessity back in the day. You don’t see too many cafes like this outside of college campuses. Ever since that pink pill came along and did away with sleep. Whole world used to run on coffee.” He let the steam coming off the paper cup swirl beneath his nose, “Almost miss the smell. Not so much the runs.”

“There’s more than the pink pill,” Peter said as he held up his own coffee, brewing with several stimulants. “Otherwise we wouldn’t bother with the stuff.”  

“Oh, I’m aware. I wrote an article on the subculture of coffee and pill blending. It’s not my first time in the Double Helix but that’s not first page news. I take it you two are ready to discuss business?” He adjusted his reading glasses. Thicker and boxier than the pair worn by the stranger from two weeks ago. Baby wondered. What could a man in a plaid suit possibly want? Peter received no objection when he turned to Baby. “We’re ready to do business, Kelly.”

“Please. It’s Sean Kelly.”

“Right.” Peter was visibly confused. “As in Mr. Kel-”

“The full name,” Kelly said. “When referring to me, it’s always Sean Kelly.”

What a loon, Baby thought. Once Peter became ‘invigorated,’ he set out to find job offers so he could live out this mercenary LARP of his. There was no shortage of psychopaths to work for in Babylon. The mob, the Seville Cartel, the Kapalikas, the police. It was clear Peter found one of the city’s many psychos. Like finding a fork in the kitchen. But was Sean Kelly going to be everything Peter hoped he was? The cynic in Baby already knew: Probably not. 

“Whatever it is, we’re interested, Mr, uh, Sean Kelly,” Peter said. “You already know I’m Peter. My chomsky here is Baby.”

“Hi,” Baby said, dryly.

“Charmed,” Kelly said, losing immediate interest in Baby. “Gentlemen, the job I offer is not particularly difficult. But time is of the essence. You will have to get your hands dirty and I do mean dirty.”

“I got dirt under my nails from elementary school,” Peter said. “You just gotta tell us where, when, and how much.”

Kelly was about to sip his mocha but lowered it at the last second, “Actually, I prefer to see this story as a matter of who. Tell me, are either of you familiar with Videl Flores?”

“The director?” Peter asked. Baby knew what was coming next. “Man, I love his work! Everyone gushes over Resurrection Men, ‘wow intelligent zombies!’ Like, whatever, he didn’t write the script. But Down He Goes! Now that’s a classic.”

Baby worked in a drowned out, “Oh my God.”

Peter was undeterred, “Seriously, that was the first of his films that I saw. You remember that, Baby? We were at Scott’s after he got dumped. Someone joked about dumping his ex down a well and that’s how we got the idea to put it on. I thought it was going to be a snoozefest because it was black and white. But man! The way the guy–I don’t remember his name–but the way he goes crazy thinking people are in the well behind his house.” Peter performed a mock chef’s kiss. “I pick up different things every time I watch that movie.”

“You’re a fan, then,” Kelly managed to say. Peter failed to pick up the disdain in Kelly’s voice. Small wonder, years later, he was still finding new things in Down He Goes.

“Am I a fan?” Peter snickered and went to lift up his sleeve, “I’ll show you how much a–oh.” There was nothing on his skin but a thin layer of fuzz and a yellow bruise. “I thought I had a tattoo of the well scene. I guess I dreamt that.” He relaxed his sleeve and instead rubbed his eyes, “Man, I’m feeling buzzed right now.”

Baby sighed, “Oh my God.”

As Kelly went to cover his face, either out of a headache or perhaps shame, Peter clicked his tongue, “It’s a damn shame what happened to him. Flores easily had a few more-”

Kelly choked and slammed his coffee down onto the table, “Aah! You people drink this piss?” He scraped his tongue off of his front teeth and waved his hand. “Yes, yes. What happened to Flores was tragic. Couldn’t have happened to a more upstanding millionaire.” Kelly glared again at his coffee, “You really drink this stuff?”

Baby knit together his hidden brows, “What’s the job?”

Kelly curled his lips into a smile, “You two are young. Goth. You won't draw attention with where we’re going.” Neither of them considered themselves goth. Alternative, was the term. But that didn’t matter. Baby really, really didn’t like where this was going. 

“Where are we going?” Baby asked.

“And how much?” Peter asked.

Kelly’s eyes narrowed, the smile remained, “I can count on your discretion?” 

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Videl Flores’ debut cult classic Resurrection Men adapted what was considered the quintessential Frankenstein-Nazi-Zombie story of the century. After surviving a flop at the box office two years later–and miraculously a plane crash that very same opening weekend–he went on to direct eight beloved art house films Peter couldn’t shut up about. He was a man beloved by the city and his family, who otherwise hated one another. His obituary wasn’t afraid to point that out.

Social media claimed it was a stadium mascot who found his corpse late Friday night. A very Flores-esque scene for those who’d seen any of his work. The news speculated it might’ve been a heart attack that got the fifty-seven year old, avant-garde director. Regardless, he met the bottom of the concrete stairs with a broken neck. Now it was the news that couldn't shut up about him. And, naturally, the networks were playing all of his movies. 

“I’d rather not go back out there, if it’s quite alright with you,” the monochrome, mustached man on the TV said. 

It cut to his friend, noticeably shot at a more crooked angle, “What’s the matter, Edmund? Seen a ghost?”

“Edmund,” Peter slapped his knee, “that’s what the guy’s name is.”

“Oh my God,” Baby rolled over on his bed, away from the TV which kept the dismal room illuminated. Their home wasn’t much to sneeze at. Or rather it was, given all the dust that could accumulate. Peter and Baby squatted in a foreclosed house owned by Gemstone. Baby slept on a mattress found on the street, with a blanket from a shelter. Peter generally passed out wherever, he wasn’t picky. When the sun crept through the dented blinds, and the water stains on the dirty wallpaper became clear, that’s when they knew it was time for bed.

“What are you turning away for?” Peter asked. “This is the best part.” It was the best part for the third time in ten minutes if Baby heard right.

Baby bothered to turn back. The carton of ramen he had for dinner bumped off the bed and hit the floor. “How can you be fine with what he wants us to do?”

“What’s not fine about it?” Peter asked, though his eyes were glued to the screen. 

The man on the TV stabbed his shovel into the earth. Baby sat up, “He wants us to dig up Videl Flores’ grave!”

Peter shrugged, “Could be good exercise.” 

“Oh my God.”

“Baby, listen. Kelly’s got his reasons, I’m sure. Like, maybe Flores was buried with treasure or something. Or maybe the script to his final film! People online are saying he was working on something before he rolled down those stairs.”

People online also said the cats on Gutter St. swarmed and devoured joggers whose keychains jingled too loudly. Or that the pop star Sunny Rising was a robot. Or that Kiraten Tetrov watched his rival bang his wife after Trok games. Baby believed that last one, though.

“If you like Flores so much, why you want to dig him up, huh?” Baby’s words slurred together. He wanted to sleep. To forget about the day. Forget about what Peter signed them up for.

“I like the guy’s movies,” Peter said. “And trust me, I can think of no greater honor than to dig up my favorite director’s grave.”

“Kelly is crazy,” Baby said. “We got lucky in the desert. We weren’t suppose’ to walk away.”

“But we did, Baby. We did. The taste I got from that, the weirdness of it, I don’t think I can get enough now. It’s not like we’ve been hired to storm the Rising–oh! This is the best part!” 

“Whatever,” Baby hid himself under a pillow. 

Peter blinked away from the television as the man being dragged down the well screamed. “You trying to sleep or something?” Peter stood up from his junkyard chair and opened the drawer to his desk. “Hang on, I think I gotta pink pill in here.”

“No,” Baby groaned. “I want real sleep. I want to go to a place where I don’t have to think about driving strangers into the desert. Or digging up dead film directors.”

“Ah, come on, Baby. You know what your problem is?” Peter began to pace. Oh here we go. “You’re too much of a cynic. You expect the worst. You gotta lighten up a little! This is a great way to experience life.”

“By digging up dead guys?”

“Yeah,” Peter snorted, “digging up dead guys. You think they’ll protest?”

“How you even meet that nutjob?”

“Oh, that was easy. The press is right next door to the cafe. I went in thinking the reporter types would have good leads for someone looking to pick up an odd job. First guy I bumped into was Kelly!”

Couldn’t Kelly have been the last guy? Baby was more than ready for sleep. A tango with the Hat Man was better than this. But there was one last question on Baby’s mind since it was obvious Peter wasn’t going to back out. “I left while you two were talking. How much he say?”

“Ah, we were still negotiating that,” Peter said. He turned his chin up while the TV flashed lights rapidly, “Don’t worry. I know what our rate is.” 

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“Two hundred dollars. Can you believe that, Baby?” Peter jingled as the chains hung over his kilt bounced with his steps. Overhead streetlights flickered and a full moon stirred behind one glowing skyscraper after another. “A whole two hundo. Didn’t I say our guy was the real stuff?”

Baby hated how chipper Peter was. Like they weren’t on their way to desecrate a grave. “That’s not a lot of money.”

“Two hundred each,” Peter insisted. “That’s what we were supposed to be paid with the desert guy.”

“Still.”

“Aah,” Peter waved him off, “you’re being cynical. Like I said before, you gotta look on the bright side of life.” Peter knocked the back of his hand on the metal spindles to the graveyard beside them. “We get to visit a graveyard! That’s pretty flex.”

Graveyards seemed like the least flex places of all, Baby thought. He’d been to one for a funeral once. Not one of those morgue post offices where all the ashes were kept in boxes on the wall and guards glared at you because your fifteen minutes were up. A real graveyard where–even if the undead only existed in old Videl Flores films–you could still feel eyes on you from mossy slabs of stone.

Somewhere across town, a trash can fell over, a cat screamed, and a siren blared. There was traffic on the overpass and the buzz of fluorescent lights at the bus stop, occupied by a snoring man. But on the other side of the gate where the dead slumbered? An ominous quiet the city wasn’t known for. 

“Ah ha,” Peter pushed the gate open, “unlocked. Just like Kelly said it’d be. Oh we’re in business, Baby.”

Baby scanned the mounds ahead, sprinkled with the graves of the dead. There was grass here. Actual grass. And gargoyles, and crucifixes, and all manner of eerie, mist spewing catacombs. Baby entered the graveyard, “Oh my God.”

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They found Kelly perched atop a mausoleum, crooked and half sunk into the ground. He flipped over his notes and without looking up he said, “A lovely night for a walk, isn’t it?”

“Honestly, it’s pretty chilly out.” Peter at least had the sense to put on the fur coat he haggled from an antique shop at Steward University. They were there to visit a friend and stuck out like sore thumbs bludgeoned with hammers. The opportunity allowed Peter to tell people, ‘I went to Steward–for a day.’ Rather than a diploma, it awarded him some funky smelling coat that belonged to some grandma’s grandma. 

“Legs are freezing,” Peter added as his knees buckled together under his kilt.

Baby’s legs were fine. But all his long sleeve clothes were crop jackets–except for the sweater he chose to put on tonight. However, he’d cut so many holes into it he could feel the ghosts of the evening, breathing icy breaths through each opening. “I’m cold too,” Baby pouted.

That was enough to get Kelly to look up, “That’s really how you two dressed?”

Peter crossed his arms, “And what’s wrong with how we’re dressed?”

Kelly sighed and stood up from the grave he’d been warming with his behind. He still wore the same plaid coat and floral patterned tie. “Nevermind. You’re here. There’s no point standing on ceremony as far as I’m concerned.”

That was Peter’s cue to turn his head. “So that’s him, huh?” There, just before the hill dipped into a valley, stood the lonely tombstone that read, ‘Videl Flores - Filmmaker.’ 

Peter sniffled his stuffy nose as he approached the grave, “You see that?” He pointed to the next hill across the valley. Crowned on top of it, “There’s a well. He must’ve had this spot picked out for a while.” 

“Cute,” Baby said, joining his friend’s side. Forget what Kelly said. A little ceremony was in order.

“You know,” Peter said, “I almost met him at Mon Con. Didn’t work out. I got kicked out by security before I could find him at his panel.”

“They kicked you out because you busted someone’s lip,” Baby said.

Peter waved him off, “He had it coming, talking trash about the Blow Outs.” He sighed and took in a long, heavy breath. Drinking in the cool air or, perhaps, the atmosphere of a scene Videl Flores himself would’ve shot. “This is a hell of a way to meet the man.”

“Oh, he’s not there,” Kelly appeared with a shovel in each hand. 

“What? This is Flores’ grave, isn’t it?” Peter and Baby each did a double take. Yup, there sure seemed to be flowers stacked all around it. Still said Videl Flores on the tomb as well. How many filmmakers named Videl Flores could there be? Baby would’ve been shocked if there were more than two.

“The grave is his,” Kelly extended the shovels forward. Reluctantly, Baby and Peter accepted them. “His body, however, that is not down there.”

Peter looked at Kelly like he was seeing double, which Baby figured wasn’t out of the question. “So if he’s not buried there then where is he buried?”

“Buried?” Kelly laughed. “Buried under a mountain of cash perhaps. Or maybe fan letters telling him he’s a genius for making the first black and white zombie movie in a hundred years. No, he’s not below that patch of dirt or any other in this graveyard.” Kelly began to wander back to the tomb the pair found him on, “In fact, I’d stake my career that Videl Flores is very much among the living. Likely putting his next script to pen somewhere quiet with a glass of whiskey in his spare hand.”

“You’re kidding,” Baby said.

“I never kid around,” Kelly leaned against the slab of stone. “I’m dead serious.”

“I don’t understand,” Peter said. He looked around like the answer was on one of the graves. “You think he isn’t dead? So you want us to dig up an empty casket?”

“Correct!” Kelly said. Peter scoffed and asked how he could be so certain. “Oh, come now. You see how this fits his M.O. It’s a publicity stunt!” As if he realized he was talking too loud, Kelly adjusted his tie like that was his volume meter. “He survived a damn plane crash. You think some stairs are gonna do him in? This is straight out of his film, Twice Passed.”

Peter beamed despite the macabre job at hand, “I was just thinking that! That’s the one where the guy gets buried for-”

“Three days,” Kelly nodded. “Tomorrow this grave will be exhumed. I’m going to beat that bastard to the punch.”

Baby felt relieved. For a moment, he was worried Kelly wanted to dig up the cadaver so he could defile it somehow. Best he not imagine the somehow. But now his head was flooded with other questions. Was this one of the dumbest things Peter got them up to? Oh, undoubtedly. So instead he asked, “Why’s the grave being exhumed?”

Kelly glared at Baby, as if he was noticing him for the first time, “Is that a German accent I hear? Forgive me, I’m a journalist. When a question pops into my head I simply have to ask.” He turned out his hand, “I’m not mad, am I? That is an accent I’m hearing?”

No, you’re quite mad, Baby thought. But he held his German-flavored tongue. “My parents were from Little Vienna.”

“Thought as much. As for your question. They’re digging up the grave tomorrow for a few reasons. Mrs. Flores is convinced the coroner report was shoddy, done in haste. I actually agree with her, it was handled rather suspiciously. Though she suspects foul play. Apparently some vulture stood to inherit Flores’ fortune were he to take a tumble down the stairs.”

Peter gasped, “You think he was murdered?”

That flustered Kelly, “He’s not dead at all!” He cleared his throat. “There’s a fight over where to bury the body, a mother-daughter spat, that’s the official reason for the exhumation, but I’m telling you, there’s no one buried beneath that grave. It’s a gimmick that silver haired prick concocted to drum up media attention for some lousy movie announcement.”

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Peter stuck his shovel into the earth and rested a boot atop it, “what’s your beef with Flores?”

“He not call you back?” Baby asked.

With a huff, Kelly again went to fix his tie, “I’ve got about three beefs to cook here. First, there’s the interview he bailed midway through on. Oh, I brought up your relation to drugs in the past! How terrible of me to do my job and ask the tough questions. Pompous weasel. I’d feel bad if I were speaking ill of the dead but I know what’s really going on. 

“I was the first one to call it. When he fell down those slippery stairs I was the first to report on the story. In my breaking news article, I reported he was still alive. The only one who was buried, however, was me.” He spat onto some poor fellow’s grave. “Sean Kelly doesn’t make mistakes!”

“Got it, not a fan,” Baby said. After a pause, “So what was the third beef?”

Kelly fixed his hair, “There’s not really a third when I think about it. Other than I think his movies are boring and I have to argue at every new screening with chumps like you. No offense.” 

Peter’s face was already pink from the cold. Kelly’s words intensified the color. “No offense to that?” Kelly simply answered with a stern look. Peter sighed. He took up his shovel but before he broke the earth and got to work he asked, “You’re sure there’s no zombie down there?”

That tossed some color onto Kelly’s own face. Peter gave him his back so he couldn’t see him smile.

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Baby didn’t have to stick the shovel into the ground to know he was going to hate this. He’d never used a shovel before. Manual labor wasn’t his schtick. Yet here he was, hours later, sweaty and hopeful that when the empty coffin opened he could mosey on in and just die already.

“This sucks.”

“Told you to stop saying that,” Peter said. His rhythm, unlike Baby’s, was consistent. All that energy he carried at last had something to focus on. Baby, meanwhile, simply couldn’t keep up.

“Told you we’d be his lackeys,” Baby slammed the shovel into the dirt. They’d dug quite deep. He was starting to wonder if Videl Flores was buried deeper than six feet. It didn’t make sense to him. If this was all a farce then it might’ve made more sense to only go as far as two or three feet!

“Do you want to get paid or not?” Peter asked while flinging dirt over his shoulder. He wasn’t quite so chilly anymore. The fur coat retired over the tombstone above, as if it needed to be warmed.

Baby shuddered at the thought of lifting his shovel again. Who knew digging could be so hard! He hated everything about this. But he didn’t want to leave Peter to do all the hard work. All while Kelly scribbled notes outside of their worm-infested pit. 

“Be nice if someone helped,” Baby growled.

“This isn’t my kind of digging,” Kelly’s voice rang out. “I did my part arranging the gates to be open for us. So less talking, more digging.”

More digging, huh? Baby decided a hunk of dirt flown Kelly’s way was just the motivation he needed. He took up his shovel and prepared to scoop up as much dirt as he could, “Oh, such a big deal. Opening a-”

Clank.

It was the sweetest sound any of the three heard all night. Kelly, flashlight in hand, jumped to the side of the hole they’d dug and ordered them to clear the top. Peter wasted no time, “I hope I get to meet Flores by the end of this.” He tossed his shovel up and began to wipe clean the surface of the ivory coffin, “Man, what if I get to be an extra in his next film!?”

“Keep it down,” Kelly said, spinning his head from one direction to the next. “Now hurry up and open that damn thing.” He crouched to give them better light.

Baby felt his heart ready to give out as Flores’ allegedly had. All this trouble and here was what they’d been digging for. He felt like a character in one of Flores’ films. Or it could’ve been the physical exercise that got his heart pumping. He made way for Peter who pulled at the coffin’s top. 

Kelly giggled from above, “Time to spoil the movie, boys. Get ready to see an empty-”

He was there. His signature pencil thin mustache and silver hair. It was Videl Flores in the somewhat puffy flesh. He was shrunk into his black suit and seemed to be at rest despite the intrusion.

“Oh my God-”

“That can’t be right.” Kelly sputtered. “He wasn’t supposed–pull’em out, quick.” Baby and Peter picked up the cadaver. Surprisingly light, and surprisingly real. “Is there water down there? A tube for oxygen? Yes, that’s how he’d do it. He must be on some sort of agent to induce a coma.”

Is there water down there? Kelly didn’t even bring water for them! They dropped Flores onto the dirt covered grass. Peter, between breaths for air that Flores wasn’t keen on sharing, remarked, “I guess I got to meet him after all.”

Kelly dropped to his knees and searched for a pulse. Did the mascot who found Flores act this quickly to see if he was still alive?

“Damn it,” Kelly cursed. He stood up and grabbed his hair. “He wasn’t supposed to be here!”

“Normally,” Peter said, wiping the sweat from his brow, “when you dig up a grave, you find a body.”

“There can’t be a body,” Kelly cried, “I said there wouldn’t be!”

An awkward silence filled the air over the corpse. Baby shrugged, “Well, there’s a body.”

Kelly dwelled on that observation for a moment. He raised up a finger, “If it’s a coma, I know someone who can wake him-”

“Who’s up there!?” A voice called out and a light from below rolled up the hill. 

What excellent timing, Baby thought. Of course guards making their rounds would be kind enough to wait for the corpse to be sprawled out on the grass. There were no zombies bursting out of their graves but the cynic in Baby was clawing its way free. A dramatic hand accompanied by lightning: Peter! Look what you got us into!

“Quick,” Kelly hissed, “get the body out of here, find me at the gate.”

“Wait, what?” Peter asked but Kelly was already disappearing into the darkness of the night. The light overtook the hill and Peter ducked for cover.

When the guard reached the summit of the hill, his light was trained on a single figure–Peter’s fur coat draped over the tombstone, “Excuse me, ma’am,” the guard said to the slumped fur coat, “Visiting hours are over.”

The subtle sound of a flower’s stem snapping alerted the guard. He’d spun halfway around before the shovel met the back of his head and he toppled over onto the ground. Peter, nearby with Flores in his grasp, watched the guard fall over to reveal Baby holding a shovel.

“Baby,” Peter gasped, “that…was totally sick!”

Baby felt like he was going to be sick. He studied the shovel in his hand, awed that he was capable of such violence. “I-I…” I acted quick, he thought. It all happened so fast! Baby never would’ve believed he’d have it in him to strike a man down with a shovel. Just as he never expected to dig up a grave. He was popping all sorts of cherries tonight.

Baby dropped the shovel and covered the parts of his face the bangs couldn’t, “Did I kill him?”

“I’d die of embarrassment if a blow like that could kill me,” Peter said. More lights flickered, this time from the way they arrived. “Damn, there’s another pair of guards. Get over here and help me with Flores before he wakes.”

Baby wasn’t sure if Peter was joking with the waking part but he nodded and went over to assist his friend. He grabbed Flores by the ankles and the two scurried down the hill with the limp director. Caught in a valley between two hills, a light rounded one corner followed by a light from the other. They were caught in a pincer!

With a flick of his head, Peter directed Baby to climb up the next hill. Baby was already exhausted from the shoveling but he rallied what strength he still had and followed Peter’s lead. The lights weren’t racing after them but damn! They were coming up the same hill behind them.

On his knees, Baby fought to catch his breath, “Peter, I can’t–I can’t keep going on like this.”

“We can’t get caught with a dead director like this, man,” Peter said. “Our record ain’t gonna be able to handle this.” 

“Peter…” Whether from exertion or excitement, Baby felt like his heart was about to explode. 

They took cover atop the hill yet Peter must’ve seen how spent his friend was, “We gotta lose the body.” 

Works for me, Baby thought. He let go of Flores’ ankles and felt the coolness of the grass with his own hands. He sucked in all the air he could, the lights from below eating their way over more and more of the hill. The guards were almost here. When Baby wiped the sweat from his hidden eyes he saw Peter let go of Flores’ body–over the ledge of the stone well that sat atop the hill. The body vanished and all Baby could think then was Down He Goes.

Before the guards overtook the hill, Peter grabbed onto Baby and dragged him to the end of the cemetery. It terminated at a motte. A motte! What was this place? A castle for a bunch of uptight skeletons? 

The lights reached the stone path. A guard’s voice could be heard, “I swear, I’m hearing something jingle.”

Peter’s chains! Baby grabbed at the chains and pulled Peter down behind a mausoleum. But before the guards could reach the railings that overlooked the dark waters ahead, a sound caught their attention. Gunfire! And quite close too.

“The hell was that?” One of them asked.

“Sounded close to the gate.” The second guard groaned. “Every night this week, I got paperwork.” They turned away, “Come on, let’s make sure nobody has to dig a new grave.”

The first guard chuckled, “At least they came to the right place.” 

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“Good, you didn’t bail,” Kelly said upon seeing Baby and Peter return to Flores’ open grave.

“There was a gunshot a minute ago,” Peter said. “Did you hear it?”

“That was Sharon Berkley,” Kelly said. “If she wants her divorce notarized I told her to stake out the cemetery entrance. Fire off a few shots as a diversion if we needed it.” So glad we had backup, Baby thought. Kelly fixed his tie, “The trunk of her car as well. Get…” Kelly went pale. “Where is Flores?”

Peter put his hands to his hips and looked away. Baby cupped his hand over his other arm shyly. A nonchalant whistle might’ve gone too far. Kelly asked again and Peter explained the mishap. 

“You call that a mishap?” Kelly hissed.

“The guards were coming our way,” Peter explained. “If we left him there or tried to keep dragging him they’d have found him.”

Kelly seemed ready to say something but walked back on whatever he wanted to say. He faced the unconscious guard still on the ground, “What about him? Shovel?”

“Shovel,” Baby nodded.

“Right.” Kelly scratched his chin. He eyed the well they dropped Flores down. Baby could see Kelly calculating whether or not to toss the guard down there with him. Instead, Kelly went to pick up the man off the ground, “I’ll take him with me. I’ll stage it so he thinks he fell over and bumped his head.”

“How?” Baby asked.

“I told you. I wrote an article on pills before. The guy I know can make the right blend to make him forget half the day. I’ve done this before, it’ll be fine.” That was perhaps the most frightening thing Baby heard Kelly say. “I’ll leave him at the foot of some stairs. He’ll think he had a better run of luck than Flores.”

“What about Flores?” Peter asked.

Kelly looked to the grave before looking back to Peter and Baby.

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Apparently a crowd already formed to watch the grave of Videl Flores be exhumed. What a stroke of luck it was for Sean Kelly to already be on the scene to break the news. “While some might say it’s a scene out of one of his films,” Kelly begrudgingly said for the camera, “the question remains: Where is Videl Flores?”

Further back from where Kelly stood was Baby and Peter. They blended in well with the crowd that gathered to murmur and gossip about the empty coffin on display. Kelly took notice of them, offered a knowing glare, and resumed his report, “Of course, it should be noted that some people already speculated that this grave might’ve been empty.”

There was a grey, cloudy forecast in the sky. Appropriate for a graveyard. Baby was usually asleep at this hour of the day. But, after laboring to refill the grave, of course Peter wanted to be here for when the story broke out. All true Flores fans were coming out of the woodworks to attend this developing story. The net was already lapping it up. Forum posts were gearing away from, ‘You know his daughter pushed him down those stairs,’ to, ‘Oh yeah, I totally called that this would happen.’

“You’ve got dirt on your kilt,” Baby said in a hushed voice to Peter.

Peter shrugged, eyes fixed on Kelly giving his report, “Must be a number of dirty kilts in this city.”

“Oh my God.” He thought about the desert guy again. They never did find out what happened to him. Just as none of the people in this crowd would ever know what really happened here last night.