Mark Rogers - The Dead

After an hour or so of invoices he paused, rubbing his eyes, and swiveled his chair, looking out the window that faced the Elk’s Hall, a large spotlit building across the parking lot.

The activity over there had died down. During the day, a flood of people had descended on the hall, relatives and friends come to claim bodies from the train-wreck. Their numbers had dwindled around dinner-time, but there was another surge after seven which had petered out around ten. At one time, the Elks’ parking lot, which was behind the hall, had been packed. Now there was only one cop car, and a dark sedan belonging to the town’s medical examiner.

Suddenly the sirens started up again, and before long a policeman came running out of the Elks’ Hall, got into his car, and sped off. The medical examiner followed soon after. What was going on now? And had anyone been left to watch the bodies? Van Nuys guessed there must be someone still in the building-the cop’s partner, perhaps.

The sirens howled for quite some time. Van Nuys watched Beichmann Avenue. Two police cars came screaming along, a couple of ambulances following shortly.

He turned back to his work, but made little progress; the lights began flashing on and off, something they’d done periodically all evening. Finally they went out altogether. The Elk’s Hall and every house nearby were totally dark. Moonlight shone from the hall’s windows and the white-painted border running around its base.

Can’t work if you can’t see, Van Nuys told himself. Think you should just go ho -

Across the way, a basement window was rising. He leaned forward, squinting.

Somebody lock himself in? he wondered. He knew the basement hall as well as the main level was being used for morgue space, and he could just imagine some poor cop locked up in the dark down there with fifty or a hundred stone-dead strangers. Used as he was to corpses, Van Nuys wouldn’t have been too upset, but he rather enjoyed the thought of a layman stuck in such a situation…

The window was all the way up now. He waited for someone to climb out, but there was no sign of movement.

Then, with feverish haste, something came scuttling through, dark against the painted border. Van Nuys’s first impression was that it was too spidery to be human, although it was far too big to be a spider…He blinked, shaking his head.

The shadow jittered upright, unmistakably human now, not a cop, but a guy in a sports jacket that hung loosely on his very skinny frame. He set off across Van Nuys’s parking lot, moving at a swift stiff-legged run toward the back of the funeral parlor, out of sight to the left.

Van Nuys sat awhile in silence. Presently he heard a banging from out behind the parlor, and a wrench like metal being torn. Had the man forced his way into the garage or the service entrance? Van Nuys had had his hearse stolen, and his workshop attracted morbid teenager prowlers. There was also the safe upstairs…

He decided to call the police, but couldn’t get a dial-tone. Cursing, he slammed the phone back in the cradle.

As if to compensate, the lights came back on.

He looked at the Elk’s Hall, wondering if there was indeed a cop over there. It was still dark on the main floor; the place looked dead.

He heard a thump downstairs, in his workshop.

Service entrance, he thought.

Opening his desk, he took out the.38 Colt Super automatic he had gotten as a Navy pilot back in World War II. He went quietly to the door leading to the stairs and opened it, passing along a short corridor and stopping at the stair head.

The light was on below. He could hear whispering and a rustle of cloth.

“I’m telling you right now,” he said, “you get the hell out of here. I’ve got a gun.” To emphasize his point, he pulled back the action on the automatic, clack!

The whispering stopped, though the rustling went on for a few more seconds…then came footsteps, a squeal of hinges, and the ringing slam of a metal door.

Van Nuys looked out the window beside him, saw that spidery guy, illuminated by streetlight now, speed across the parking lot and slip with an indescribable movement back into the window he’d come out of. The window slid down behind.

Easing the hammer forward on the pistol, Van Nuys started down the steps, wondering what the intruder had been up to. When he came out from under the basement ceiling, he saw that Mr. Bullerton, whom he’d worked on that afternoon, had his sheet pulled down to his knees. Several of Van Nuys’s tools, a pair of long scissors, a probe, and a large detached embalming needle, were embedded in Bullerton’s chest, all of them gleaming wickedly. Bullerton’s genitalia had been cut off. They were sitting in his upturned right palm.

“Psycho bastard ,” Van Nuys said…reaching the bottom of the steps, he went to take a closer look at the corpse’s face. The tiny threads holding the lips together had been sliced, and the mouth had sagged open a bit, revealing a smiling row of dry grayish teeth; the threads holding one of the eyes closed had been cut as well, and the cotton stuffing the eyesocket had been partially pulled out.

But worst of all was the forehead. In bold bloodless strokes the words YOU’RE DEAD had been carved into it.

Mr. Van Nuys was so outraged that it was a moment or two before he asked himself: how could the prowler have done so much damage in such a short time?

It occurred to Van Nuys that the man might’ve gotten in before. The undertaker went up the ramp to the service entrance. The double doors were closed, but in the middle, both were twisted and ripped. Going outside, he examined their outer faces. The lock, latch and all, had been wrenched out. Surely that had been the squealing-metal sound he’d heard. The prowler must’ve entered then, for the first time.

Van Nuys closed the doors and went back down the ramp, pausing to take a last look round the workroom. The DeWitts, a middle-aged couple and their thirtyish daughter, were still on their tables, sheets pulled over them, no sign of mischief. They’d died in a car accident Sunday night, and his struggle to restore their faces had been herculean. He’d been bitterly disappointed when the viewings were cancelled, due to the disappearance of several other family members; he’d wanted very much for everyone to marvel over the wonders he’d performed.

Suddenly it occurred to him that the DeWitts might’ve been mutilated too, then covered again. He went over and checked them. As far as he could tell, they were undamaged.

He started back to the stairs, headed to the top. Would the phone be working now, perhaps? He came to the stairhead, walked up the corridor-

And heard faint laughter.

From behind.

He stopped and turned, cursing softly. The.38’s hammer clicked as he cocked it again.

He returned to the steps and went slowly back down. He looked around cautiously at the bottom, but saw no one. The service doors were still closed. He hadn’t caught the slightest squeak of hinges; the prowler couldn’t have returned.

Then where in hell did that laugh come from? He asked himself-just before it came again, dry and toneless.

He spun. There was only the table with Jackie DeWitt on it. Could someone be hiding underneath?

“I’m a crack shot,” he warned. Going to Jackie’s table, he crouched, licking his lips. They were dust dry. He considered firing a couple of rounds through the sheet, but decided against it. Gathering his courage, he jerked the sheet up and thrust the pistol forward.

Nothing.

Breathing rapidly, he straightened, scratching his head, staring down at Jackie DeWitt. The sheet had sagged over her mouth, which was apparently wide open. Had the threads in her lips been cut after all?