Snuff the Magic Dragon (and other Bombay Family Bedtime Stories) (Greatest Hits Mysteries) by Leslie Langtry Page B
Authors: Leslie Langtry
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him, but by the time I followed him back to his home, I knew what I had to do to complete the next phase of my plan.
To be perfectly clear—I’m not all that into grave robbing. But I was less into killing an innocent person to suit my goals. A young man about the same size as me had perished earlier in the week. He had the same hair color and had died with no marks on his body. I was pretty sure he’d eaten the “wrong” berries, due to the small smudges of red around his fingernails. But I said nothing, because they are suspicious of such things. They pronounced him dead by act of God, and that was it. No one knew him. He was a single guy like me. It was sad but very helpful.
The grave was hidden—we did that so the Indians wouldn’t know about our deaths. The Pilgrims had lost so many people since they arrived, they didn’t want the Indians to say, “Hey wait just a minute! Look at all those gravestones! I count two hundred at least! Those bastards are fudging their numbers so we won’t attack them! Get ‘em!”
I didn’t follow John Billington the next night. Instead, I dug up the poor, young man, carefully replacing the dirt to look like a reasonably fresh grave and covering the tracks I’d made. The man was not heavy, but the job was disgusting. Working with decaying bodies is not a lot of fun. But his hair was longer than mine and he needed to be wearing my clothes when found. Cutting the hair wasn’t a problem. But have you ever undressed and dressed a dead man? I don’t really recommend it. Sure, it has its useful applications, but his clothes stank, and his body was stiff as a board.
Rigor mortis. I’d forgotten about that. According to my plan, the body would be found fairly quickly after his “murder.” This man’s fingers, arms and feet were completely rigid. I’d have to soften him up. Another disgusting job.
Oh, I knew what to do. My family trains us for all kinds of weird stuff that you hope you’ll never need to use, and yet somehow always do. Once, back when I was still pretty new to this whole assassin thing, I poisoned my target with arsenic. Unfortunately, I used a bit too much, causing the dead man’s skin and lips to turn blue. He was supposed to die of natural causes, so this was a bit of a problem. I won’t tell you what I did to make him look in the pink of health, but I will never, ever do something like that again. I still shudder when I think of it.
Basically, fixing rigor mortis boils down to joint and muscle manipulation. It is hard, repetitive work, and I don’t recommend it. After a couple of hours of this, I was at last able to finish dressing the poor bastard. Even though it was dark, I could tell that he would pass for me. That almost made it worth it.
I managed to carry the body to the edge of my land, at the very border of John Billington’s. It was very late. I waited.
It didn’t take John long to stagger my way. He stumbled over roots and rocks, cursing as he went. Clearly, he was far more drunk than usual—which was very useful. Once he got close, I snuck up behind him and pinched a nerve in his neck. It’s a secret move, so I can’t tell you about it. The man went down like a sack of potatoes.
I took John’s gun and aimed it at the dead man’s head—close enough to blow his face clean off. I fired. That would be heard. I posed John with the gun and fled back to my cabin. I did not go inside; my belongings would have to stay behind. I rolled up the dead man’s putrefying rags and stuffed them into a small pack I’d left hidden in the woods and turned south.
It being an unusually warm September, I was able to spend a few days living in a cave, a mile away from Plymouth. I had stocked the cave with food and clean water and was pretty sure I could live there a few days at least. At dusk, I would hide in the trees near town and listen to the gossiping sentries who guarded the gates. The leaves had not fallen, and they provided me with enough cover
To be perfectly clear—I’m not all that into grave robbing. But I was less into killing an innocent person to suit my goals. A young man about the same size as me had perished earlier in the week. He had the same hair color and had died with no marks on his body. I was pretty sure he’d eaten the “wrong” berries, due to the small smudges of red around his fingernails. But I said nothing, because they are suspicious of such things. They pronounced him dead by act of God, and that was it. No one knew him. He was a single guy like me. It was sad but very helpful.
The grave was hidden—we did that so the Indians wouldn’t know about our deaths. The Pilgrims had lost so many people since they arrived, they didn’t want the Indians to say, “Hey wait just a minute! Look at all those gravestones! I count two hundred at least! Those bastards are fudging their numbers so we won’t attack them! Get ‘em!”
I didn’t follow John Billington the next night. Instead, I dug up the poor, young man, carefully replacing the dirt to look like a reasonably fresh grave and covering the tracks I’d made. The man was not heavy, but the job was disgusting. Working with decaying bodies is not a lot of fun. But his hair was longer than mine and he needed to be wearing my clothes when found. Cutting the hair wasn’t a problem. But have you ever undressed and dressed a dead man? I don’t really recommend it. Sure, it has its useful applications, but his clothes stank, and his body was stiff as a board.
Rigor mortis. I’d forgotten about that. According to my plan, the body would be found fairly quickly after his “murder.” This man’s fingers, arms and feet were completely rigid. I’d have to soften him up. Another disgusting job.
Oh, I knew what to do. My family trains us for all kinds of weird stuff that you hope you’ll never need to use, and yet somehow always do. Once, back when I was still pretty new to this whole assassin thing, I poisoned my target with arsenic. Unfortunately, I used a bit too much, causing the dead man’s skin and lips to turn blue. He was supposed to die of natural causes, so this was a bit of a problem. I won’t tell you what I did to make him look in the pink of health, but I will never, ever do something like that again. I still shudder when I think of it.
Basically, fixing rigor mortis boils down to joint and muscle manipulation. It is hard, repetitive work, and I don’t recommend it. After a couple of hours of this, I was at last able to finish dressing the poor bastard. Even though it was dark, I could tell that he would pass for me. That almost made it worth it.
I managed to carry the body to the edge of my land, at the very border of John Billington’s. It was very late. I waited.
It didn’t take John long to stagger my way. He stumbled over roots and rocks, cursing as he went. Clearly, he was far more drunk than usual—which was very useful. Once he got close, I snuck up behind him and pinched a nerve in his neck. It’s a secret move, so I can’t tell you about it. The man went down like a sack of potatoes.
I took John’s gun and aimed it at the dead man’s head—close enough to blow his face clean off. I fired. That would be heard. I posed John with the gun and fled back to my cabin. I did not go inside; my belongings would have to stay behind. I rolled up the dead man’s putrefying rags and stuffed them into a small pack I’d left hidden in the woods and turned south.
It being an unusually warm September, I was able to spend a few days living in a cave, a mile away from Plymouth. I had stocked the cave with food and clean water and was pretty sure I could live there a few days at least. At dusk, I would hide in the trees near town and listen to the gossiping sentries who guarded the gates. The leaves had not fallen, and they provided me with enough cover
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