In the basement room, under the big fluorescent lamp, George Veier worked quietly in a movie-setting atmosphere seemingly made for shock and horror. As a journeyman mortician's assistant, George was now quite experienced in dealing with corpses, and he believed himself to be free of his former, irrational fears about them. But he was not quite prepared for what happened this day.
"Uhhhhhh..."
George jumped a foot off the floor and a few more backwards.
"Jesus!"
He looked at the corpse. It wasn't staring at him with its dead eyes, as he half-expected it would be.
George began sweating in the cool of the basement room. But he recovered quickly from his fright. He was too experienced not to. Still, when he'd heard that groan, he'd jumped like an apprentice new to the business. He felt like a fool.
He could see what happened. The body he was working on was strung up in a harness into a sitting position. He'd fastened it in too loosely, and it had slumped forward. This had compressed its lungs and forced air up its throat.
"That's what caused you to groan," George shook his finger at the unhearing corpse, accusingly. "And scare the bejesus out of me."
He chuckled. "Boy. That's one for the books. I'll have to tell Marshall about this. I bet he's never had that happen to him." His words reverberated from the steel and enameled surfaces in the stark, garishly-lighted workroom.
Marshall Shenkman was the Director of the Shenkman Funeral Home and George's employer (and brother-in-law).
"I need a cigarette."
George left the groaner on the worktable and went up the backstairs so he wouldn't disturb the services in the Home's chapel.
He stopped and used a peephole to observe the mourners. The chapel was full of people. The deceased was a former County Commissioner who was much-beloved. As usual, many in the preacher's audience were weeping. It was the appropriate time and place for grief.
George went outside to the patio to have a smoke. Marshall forbade smoking inside the Home. Too many people these days were offended by tobacco smoke, and the Director didn't want the lingering smell of it about the place. After all, he had to be accommodating. He wasn't the only mortician in the county.
George lit up and took a deep drag. He looked around him at the cars in the Home's walled parking lot. He saw many expensive models, and thought of the currently-mourned Commissioner, ("I guess the old boy was good to a lot of people who mattered.... Typical politician.")
Then, he spotted someone standing outside the low parking-lot wall, way down at the end of the lot.
"That bum's here, again," he mumbled with puffs of blue smoke. "He always seems to be here during funerals. Why doesn't he ever dress up and come inside like respectable people do?"
George knew the answer even before he asked that question.
The bum was a stranger who'd settled here, recently. He didn't seem to know anybody---at least anybody that George knew. And he probably didn't have any dress-up clothes. The ones he wore were too old and soiled to wear to church or funerals.
George didn't want the guy inside the Funeral Home, anyway. He was just a vagrant who lived in a tarpaper shack in the old hobo jungle beside the railroad, just outside of town. He wandered into town whenever he wanted to. He was the kind the dogooders thought of as "homeless." As far as George knew, the fellow didn't steal or make any trouble. He paid for his food purchases at the Quick-Shop with wrinkled old bills. ("He has some money but not much self-respect,") concluded George, righteously.
He began to think about where he'd seen the guy. Except for a few times in the Quick-Shop and one time in the Public Library, he'd only seen him hanging around the Funeral Home and Shady Grove Cemetery. George had spotted him there several times during graveside services, standing well-back in the gray forest of tombstones. The guy always doffed his oily old fedora for the services, but he never approached a grave and joined the mourners.
("He must be some kind of ghoul, I guess,") concluded George. ("Hangs around funeral places. Gets his kicks out of contemplating death.")
He'd pointed the guy out to Marshall, but the Director was always too busy with the financial side of things to worry much about such matters. "Just keep him out of the Home, unless he's properly dressed and doesn't smell bad," he'd ordered.
The loafer was entitled to wander into the cemetery, and he did. But he always stayed on the other side of the Funeral Home's parking-lot wall. If George had seen him lurking around the cars of mourners, he'd have called the Sheriff, pronto.
Now, the guy was standing among the pine trees planted on the other side of the parking-lot wall, with his back to the Home. He didn't jabber to himself; he just stood there, silently.
He was probably younger than he appeared to be. Hard times had prematurely aged him. He was tall and gaunt. His long face was Boris Karlovian, and was marred by several days growth of whiskers. His dark hair was long and unkempt. But he carried himself with a dignity that belied his vagrant appearance. All in all, the guy had the look of an almost-respectable ne'r-do-well, someone who was now in straitened circumstances, but had once been a useful member of society.
George finished his cigarette, and returned to the groaner in the basement. He was anxious to be rid of the stiff---for having startled him so suddenly and embarrassingly. He knew his desire was irrational, but he didn't care. Some things were just too disturbing to dismiss with reason and logic.
Later, when he told Marshall about the groaner, his brother-in-law smiled knowingly and said, "That happens sometimes. You remember what I told you when you started in this business?... Always check the new arrivals carefully. Sometimes, they aren't quite dead."
"I remember," replied George. "I checked this one just like all the others. He was dead as a doornail. So I didn't expect him to groan at me."
The Director smirked. "I bet you jumped a mile---didn't you?"
"The hell I did.... But I'll admit I stopped working, right away," fibbed George. "I'm no apprentice, you know."
("Sometimes he can be so damn superior,") thought George. ("His wife, too.") She was George's wife's sister: the elder, rich sister.
The next time George saw the vagrant at a funeral in the cemetery, he casually left the crowd at the graveside and worked his way over toward him. But the guy saw him coming and put on his greasy old hat and left.
("Leaving so soon, are you?... I sure wonder what you're up to.")
George Veier was intrigued by the stranger who was drawn to funerals, and he wanted to know the reasons for the man's compulsion.
Before he could put his plan into effect, George had the opportunity to question one of the Sheriff's deputies about the funeral-lurker.
At the Quick-Shop, he found Floyd Harter buying some beer. George pretended that he was buying some, even though his wife wouldn't have any in their house because she didn't want to give her daughter an excuse for drinking with those other kids whose parents didn't give a damn what they did.
"How's the crime business, Floyd?"
"Keepin' me busy. How's the embalmin' business?"
"Well, you know what they say: `There's no end of it.'"
"That's a fact."
Deputy Harter turned to leave with his six-pack. George followed him.
"Say, Floyd, what do you know about that old vagrant that comes in here from time to time? You know, the tall, skinny one that lives in the hobo jungle by the railroad?"
"Don't know anything. We've never picked him up. These days, vagrants have to commit a serious crime to get arrested. Vagrancy's just not enough, anymore.... That's what the Sheriff says, anyway.... He's right, though. We have our hands too full with bad kids and reckless drivers and other hellraisers to roust a bum for being dirty and smelly, and not havin' a job."
"I understand," replied George, disappointed.
"You forgot your beer," reminded the Deputy.
George was driving the Home's hearse down Main Street, when he noticed a crowd around a bad car accident up a side street. The Fire Department's ambulance was on the scene. George slowed to gawk. Present, but standing on the fringe of the crowd, was a familiar figure. Suddenly, George knew somebody'd been killed in the accident.
"When that guy's around, it means there's death," he mumbled to himself.
Then, he had a flash. While the death-lurker was taking-in the accident, he'd check out the guy's shack in the hobo jungle. He headed for the railroad tracks at the edge of town.
George parked the hearse as close to the shack as he could, and walked into the trees. ("There it is.") He glanced around. ("Good. Nobody's hanging around.") He knocked on the door of the shack, just to be sure. When he received no response, he opened the door and entered. It wasn't locked, but there was a lock on it.
Inside, he found pretty much what he expected: the meager possessions of a vagrant. Nothing very valuable was out where it could be stolen. A big wooden box had been crafted into a cabinet. It was padlocked. ("Probably where he keeps his food.")
George quickly rustled through a pile of old magazines and newspapers to see what the lurker was reading. One of the local papers was open to the Obituaries section. George was not surprised at that.
"Is somebody dead in here?"
George was startled by the voice behind him. He turned to see a dirty, bearded hobo. This guy made the death-lurker seem almost respectable, by comparison.
"That's your meat wagon parked out there, ain't it?"
"Yes." George thought fast. "Uh, we got a report that someone had died out here. But I don't see anyone. I guess it was a prank-call by some kids."
"Prob'ly," agreed the old bum, who smelled of cheap wine.
"Do you live in here?" asked George, even though he suspected otherwise.
"Me?... Naw. Some other guy lives here. He's in town, I guess."
"Is it that tall guy wearing a fedora that I see in the Quick-Shop, sometimes?"
"Uh huh. That's him, the fancy dude."
"I'm surprised he doesn't share this shack with other hobos. There's plenty of room for two," opined George, hoping to draw out the man. It worked. He seemed to want to tell George something.
"Well, two 'bos off a freight had that idea and tried to take over this place, but the dude discouraged 'em." The man looked wary, as if he'd said too much.
"Really?... How did one man discourage two men? Was he armed?"
"I don't know if I should be talkin' about it." His manner suggested that he could be bribed for further information, though.
George fished in his wallet and gave the guy a fin. "Will this help?" The guy made a gesture of insufficiency, so George gave him a sawbuck, too---then a twenty. He cursed himself for not having brought a jug of Thunderbird. He could have gotten his information more cheaply.
"We better get outta here. You come with me." With that, the hobo left the shack. George followed him to the nearby packing-crate where he stayed to keep out of the rain. The man crept inside his home and looked up at George. "You ain't with the Sheriff, ere ye?"
"No. I'm just curious about the dude in the shack. He hangs around the Funeral Home a lot, and the Director wants to know why."
"I ain't surprised at that.... Anyways, about those two tough-guys: the older 'un was called Whitecap 'cause that's what he wore. He was a big nigger with a rep for beatin' up on other 'bos. He had a younger white boy with him. Snotty little shit, you know, the kind that's always looking for a fight. I reckon the kid was Whitecap's squeeze---if you know what I mean." George shook his head, gravely.
"When they got off a freight, they came over and asked me about the shack. When they found out there was only one 'bo in there, they said they'd "fix that later, at night." Well, they went into town, and after dark they came back liquored-up, and headed for that dude's shack." He gave George a meaningful look. George patiently waited for him to continue. The guy looked around to make sure nobody else was listening.
"I saw 'em push open the door and go inside, without so much as a by-yer-leave. They closed the door, and I figgered I'd see the dude come flyin' out of there, next.... But I didn't." He paused for encouragement.
"Go on," said George.
"Well, at first I didn't hear nothin' for the longest time. Then, there was a lot of bangin' around, and then it got quiet again. Then I heard an awful yellin'. It was more like wailin'---like somebody was sufferin'. Sounded like Whitecap."
"Yeah?"
"Then it stopped. I didn't hear nothin' more. And, mister, that was the last I ever saw of Whitecap and his boyfriend. They walked into that shack but they didn't come walkin' out."
"What do you think happened to them?"
The bum made a face. "What do you think?... That dude done 'em in. Somehow... I figger he killed the kid first, and made Whitecap watch him do it. That was the cause of the wailin'. Then, he killed old Whitecap and stashed both of 'em somewheres they won't be found, anytime soon."
George tried kept a poker-face, but what he'd heard had disturbed him. It made sense when you thought about it. Maybe the death-lurker kept a gun in his shack.
The guy really was a ghoul. More than a death-loving ghoul. He was a death-dealing ghoul, too.
"Interesting. Thanks for telling me." He turned to leave.
"Hey, mister... You got anymore change on you?"
As George walked out of the jungle to his parked hearse, he saw the death-dealing ghoul coming toward him. He was ambling along the road's shoulder, as if he hadn't a care in the world. He stared at George.
"Oh, hell. He's seen me here, too. Now, he'll figure I'm out to get him. I'll end up like Whitecap if I don't do something about him."
George Veier sat with the Sheriff on a bench behind the big two-way mirror, looking into the interrogation room. At the table, facing him and the Sheriff, but supposedly unaware of their presence, was the death-lurker. Interrogating him, was the Sheriff's Chief Deputy. ("The damn Sheriff doesn't think this is important enough to do his own questioning,") though George, acidly. ("He's giving his Deputy some experience.")
Despite the Deputy's textbook interrogation, the vagrant he faced remained cool and collected. Giving minimal answers, he denied that he even knew of Whitecap and his friend. He smoothly dealt with George's witness by claiming the hobo hated him and had said he'd "get even with him" because he wasn't allowed to share the tarpaper shack.
The demeanor of the suspect was greatly superior to that of the typical vagrant. In identifying himself, he claimed to be a "downsized engineer," whose time on-the-bum was lasting longer than he'd intended. He produced a driver's license to prove his identity. Even the Deputy could see he wasn't a criminal type. A records-check had shown no prior arrests."
The Sheriff spoke to George, startling him. "He doesn't look like a psychic vampire to me. What gave you the weird idea this guy reads minds?"
"That's not exactly what I said, Sheriff. But I do know this: he's crossed the line, from just being where people are grieving, to creating his own personal grieving situation by killing a guy and watching someone else grieve, right then and there."
"So you say. Your `witness' is gone, and there's nobody in the jungle, now. We couldn't find any evidence of a murder. This guy's shack was clean. He didn't even have a can of beer there, much less a weapon or some other contraband. He looks to me like a solid citizen who's having a long run of bad luck." The Sheriff was annoyed at George for involving him in his ridiculous delusion.
"How do you explain his presence at funerals, then?"
The Sheriff scowled. "I don't have to explain it, George. And I think you ought to find another explanation. You know there's no way we can test this guy to see what he's thinking---even if we wanted to."
George was desperate to redeem himself. "Marshall doesn't want him hanging around the Funeral Home and the cemetery. Our mourners are starting to notice him and talk about him."
"Well then, let Marshall come here and charge the guy with something I can arrest him for. `Hanging around' isn't enough, as long as he keeps to public space and behaves himself."
They returned to watching the suspect. As they did, the guy shifted his gaze beyond the Deputy to the lurkers behind the mirror, giving them his cold stare. The Sheriff failed to react to this coincidence, but George had a sinking feeling.
"He knows I'm responsible for this, Sheriff. He'll come after me, now."
The Sheriff arose from the bench. "Go home to your wife, George. I think the atmosphere of the Funeral Home has permanently spooked you. I worry about you when you start turning bums into vampires."
For the next few weeks, the death-lurker went missing.... George anxiously looked for him at the Home and the cemetery, but the guy was no longer lurking at funerals. George drew some relief from this, but he considered checking the hobo jungle to make sure the weird vagrant was really gone. He was afraid to do that, though. Gradually, the dark cloud hanging over him dissipated, and he forgot about his nemesis for awhile.
Then, George's orderly world darkened and collapsed, as if someone were squeezing it into a giant paper bag.
Returning home for lunch one day, he found his wife writhing on the kitchen floor.
"Aggie!" he shrieked. "What's wrong?!"
She was moaning and drooling. The shards of a measuring cup lay in a dark-red pool of cooking wine on the countertop where she customarily prepared meals. Some of the wine had dripped onto the patterned linoleum floor.
George checked his wife, then ran to the phone and called the Fire Department Rescue Squad. As he was describing his plight, he noticed something through a window curtain near the phone table. He whipped the curtain aside.
There, standing in the alley behind the house, was the death-lurker! He stared up at George, unsmiling. George could almost feel the ghoul absorbing his grief.
George cursed and ran for his shotgun. He slammed open a closet, and grabbed it. He fumbled in a box for shells, shoved one up the loader, and ran back to the window.... The lurker was gone.
"Damn him!"
He put down the gun and called the Sheriff's office. He wanted to speak to the Sheriff, but the lawman was out of town. He reported his situation to the dispatcher and returned to his wife. He felt a little guilty for leaving her to seek revenge.
"Just stay still, Aggie. They're coming."
George knew that Aggie often nipped at the cooking wine. He dipped a hand in the dark pool and sniffed it. He detected a familiar smell.
"Oh my god. He's poisoned her. That god damned bum!"
Of course, when a Deputy Sheriff arrived, George was unable to point out the usual suspect. The death-lurker was gone. So George found himself suspect by the Deputy in his wife's poisoning.
He admitted that the contaminant in the wine was embalming fluid.
"Sheriff, I told you there's a can of fluid missing from our stockroom, and it looks like a pair of rubber gloves was taken from a box. That bum did it.... I know he did it."
"Without leaving any trace of a break-in?" queried the Sheriff, cynically. "We checked the Home, you know."
"Look, this guy's not just your average vagrant. He knows things. He wouldn't have any difficulty breaking into the Home to steal what he needed. Our security is poor. We've never had a burglary there, before.... Maybe he just walked in during the daytime."
"Have you been having domestic problems, Mr. Veier?"
The Chief Deputy put in his two cents worth, prematurely. The Sheriff frowned and regretted having sent his subordinate to the State Police Academy summer symposium for local law enforcement. He was getting too pushy.
George put his head in his hands and mumbled, "No."
"Are you willing to take a polygraph test?" continued the Deputy. The Sheriff cringed. He'd have to drive Veier two hundred miles for one of those.
"I'll take it from here, Harv." he said to his Deputy.
"Why don't you give the bum a polygraph?" asked George, defiantly. "And while you're at it, ask him about his ghoulish lurking, too. Maybe you'll find out how right I was."
"Oh, we'll question Mr... What's-His-Name, alright." The Sheriff couldn't recall the name on the guy's expired driver's license.
"Altmann... Karl Edgar Altmann," supplied the Deputy to remind the Sheriff just how valuable his good memory was to the organization.
When the Sheriff finally allowed George to return to his job at the Funeral Home, he warned him not to seek vengeance against the death-lurker. Once again, he'd found nothing incriminating about the vagrant. He'd suggested to the guy that he move on and find a new hobo jungle to live in, in another county. He suspected that the guy wasn't quite finished with George Veier.
But George wasn't finished with the lurker, either. Although his wife recovered from her poisoning without lasting effects, he was determined to rid the town of its ghoulish new resident.
"That guy's back." When Karl Altmann resumed his vigil at the Funeral Home, the Director pointed him out and blamed George for the man's reappearance.
"You're responsible for this, George. If you'd left him alone, he probably would have drifted away, by now. Your complaints just made him dig his heels in. If this keeps up, I might have to let you go."
George knew his wife's bond with her sister would prevent Marshall from firing him, and the very mention of it irritated him. He'd come to feel that he had a lifetime job here.... Still, he felt he was responsible, in a kind of way, for the continued presence of the death-lurker. Eventually, he'd have to take the initiative.
"What can I do, Marshall? The Sheriff won't run him out of town."
"Well, you better do something. We're beginning to lose business to Tate's over in Springwell. People don't want to see an old bum hanging around their funerals."
George was annoyed that Shenkman put the onus of the death-lurker squarely on him. ("What's Marshall doing to get rid of the guy? Nothing.") The Director didn't want to dirty his hands. He wanted his brother-in-law to risk more trouble. ("Well, by God, I will do something.")
He got in the hearse and drove home for his shotgun.
George crept through the trees of the hobo jungle toward the tarpaper shack where the death-lurker lived. As he passed the packing-crate in which his former "witness" had stayed, a voice from inside it challenged him.
"Where you goin' with that pumpgun, man?"
George looked back to see another vagrant. This one was young, but as dirty and unkempt as the previous resident of the crate. George ignored him. ("Damn new-age bum.")
"I know where you're goin', man! You'd better stay away from that shack! That guy's crazy-mean!" he yelled at George
George ignored this good advice and pushed on.
"I'm warnin' you, man! You're cruisin' for a bruisin'!"
The youth emerged from his crate to get a better view of the action. He suddenly saw the situation for its potential advantage. ("If he does shoot the guy, the shack'll be mine,") he concluded, hopefully. He stayed well-behind George, but followed him.
George reached the shack. He gripped his shotgun tightly but shakily. He'd loaded five more shells, and was ready to let fly, if necessary. He really hoped to scare the death-lurker into leaving, though.
With movie-style action, George used his foot to smash open the shack's door. It was locked, this time. The young bum winced at the damage. He knew how you needed a good door lock to keep other guys from casually stealing your goods.
There was no response from within, so George recklessly jumped inside, flourishing the gun. He was prepared to kill. But it seemed that nobody was here.
Then, a blanket was thrown over his head from behind, and strong arms pinioned him!... The lurker had been hiding behind the door---one of the oldest tricks in the book.
George yelled and struggled, but avoided firing his gun in the absence of an aimable target. He heard someone approaching from the outside.
"Get the gun," a calm, confident voice said from close behind him.
("That bum in the crate. I should have...")
Suddenly, George was poked in the groin with a stick. His grip on the gun loosened, and it was snatched from him. Another poke, this time in his belly with the butt of the gun, took the fight out of him.
"We got him, now!" exulted the crate-bum.
"Yeah," replied the lurker, who dropped George to the floor. "Give me the gun and bring me that rope hanging over yonder." It was clear who was in charge, here.
George sat up against the inside wall of the shack. It had been covered all over with cardboard and pictures from old magazines. Even some varnish had been applied. Generations of hobos had devoted hours to improving the shack so that the strongest or best-armed of them could live there, while the others used whatever they could find for shelter.
George was still covered with the blanket, but securely tied-up, now. >From outside the smothering darkness, came a sneering voice.
"I told you not to bother that guy, man. I told you how mean he is." The young hobo had rifled through George's pockets, had taken his wallet, and was pawing through it.
George tried to bribe the new-age vagrant. "There'll be more money for you if you let me go," he said in a blanket-muffled voice.
"Oh sure, you'll give me millions later." The guy cackled. "No way I'm gonna let you go, man."
George replied, "Do you think that guy'll let you keep what you took from me?... He'll kill you like he did those two others."
"What're you talking about, man?"
"I'm talking about..."
BLAM!
George jumped as the deafening report from his shotgun smashed through a window into the calm of the shack, and dropped the young vagrant with a neat pattern of buckshot to his head. He was dead before he hit the floor.
George felt like screaming, but couldn't.
Through the open door, walked the death-lurker. He was wearing the rubber gloves he'd stolen from the Funeral Home. He contemplated George with a slight smile of satisfaction.
George knew who it was. He expected to become victim number two, so he quaked in fear under the blanket until the lurker pumped the five remaining shells out of the gun. They fell noisely onto the floor. He gathered them up and put the gun on the floor next to George.
He took out a jackknife and expertly cut almost-through George's bonds in several places.
Then, he left the mortician's assistant to his fate.
George had given up trying to explain himself to the Sheriff. In disgust, he fell silent and began mulling over in his mind what he'd heard about each of the town's lawyers. He'd surely need the best one, now.
"I told you not to go after that bum, George. But you wouldn't listen. You just had to come here looking for trouble---and you found it, alright. Trouble is, you shot the wrong guy. You should have made sure who was in that shack before you pulled the trigger."
"We won't be needing a polygraph, now, Mr. Veier," remarked the Chief Deputy, with satisfaction. "We have all the evidence we need."
"Take him to the car, Harv," said the Sheriff.
As the suspect was marched away from the scene like a common criminal, a freight train began rumbling past the jungle, slowing on its run up the valley toward the railyard outside of town.
George sat in the patrol car and stared at the passing freight cars: a flatcar with some big, wrapped-up machinery... a long string of coal-filled hopper cars... a bright-yellow reefer-car filled with perishables... a boxcar with a man standing in its open doorway...
It was the death-lurker!
He was getting away, slick as spit.
Karl Altmann smiled broadly and waved at the man sitting uncomfortably in the back of the Sheriff's car---who could only gawk, helplessly.
("What good would it do me to scream for the Sheriff?") George felt like he was near the bottom level of Hell.
The escaping vagrant absorbed all he could of George's anguish. It wasn't as good as genuine grief.... But it would have to do.
Frederick Rustam is a retired civil servant who writes science fiction for the Web as a hobby. He formerly indexed technical documents for the Department of Defense. He finds constructing imaginary worlds of the future to be more rewarding than indexing the technology of our times. "The Griefer" is his first horror tale.
Email: frustam@CapAccess.org
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