A spade scraped the outside of the coffin, and then for the first time he caught the sound of human voices. They were muffled, indecipherable, but Granger knew that his vigil was over. He rested the revolver comfortably in the palm of his hand and thumbed back the safety catch.
Next came a splintering sound which was almost deafening in the confined space. They were not even bothering to unscrew the lid. They were quite content to prise it off in their urgency to get at the body within.
‘That’s it!’ The voice was muffled, uncouth, and he knew that the lid was now partly removed. ‘Give us a hand an we’ll be away from here in no time at all.’
Granger was glad that the only light outside came from the stars as they wrenched the lid away, splintering it in the process, for he would not need time to adjust his eyes. He could see them both now. Their features were in shadow, but they were large of build, both dressed in overalls, caps and mufflers, as they stood in the open grave, spades and pick-axes in their hands. Their breath came in short, wheezing gasps after the physical exertion which had been necessary in their task. They were pausing now, glad of their brief respite before they began hauling the “corpse” up on the small pulley which they had brought with them.
The range was no more than a yard at the most as Granger pulled the trigger twice in quick succession, firing through the shroud. The reports boomed and reverberated in the grave, but he knew they would be virtually inaudible any distance way above ground. Both men slumped forward simultaneously, dead before they fell, and never knowing what had hit them.
Granger struggled to his feet, pushing aside one of the bodies which was lying across him. It was all he could do to prevent himself from crying out as his circulation began flowing again, and it was fully ten minutes before he was able to haul himself up to the deserted cemetery above him by means of the pulley ropes which the men had brought with them.
As he scrambled out of that deep oblong hole, a voice greeted him from behind a nearby tombstone. ‘Mister Granger, Mister Granger, Sir.’ There was fear in every syllable. ‘Are you alright, sir?’
‘Yes, Pieter,’ Granger was his cool self once more now that he had the open sky above him. ‘I’ll be alright, but we’ve got to work fast. I see the false dawn is already in the sky. Give me a hand.’
From beneath some flowering rhododendron bushes the man and the boy heaved to lift the white shrouded figure which they had hidden there some hours earlier. Laboriously they struggled until they reached the graveside, where they were able to lower it into the open coffin, using the pulley again. This done, Granger climbed down and stood with his feet unceremoniously upon the two dead men.
He could not resist pulling the shroud aside and taking one last look at the features which he had gazed upon in life for the last twenty years. He could not help thinking that even death had not robbed Marilyn of her beauty.
Systematically, he secured the damaged lid of the coffin before clambering up to Pieter again, and helping him to shovel the earth back into the gaping hole. He regretted that the two body snatchers would have to share the same grave as his late wife but, alas, there was no other way if he was to remove all traces of his night’s work.
Soon there was no evidence that the grave had been tampered with. The man and the boy leaned on their spades, each busy with his own thoughts, as the daylight became stronger every minute, destroying the black deeds of the night as though they had never been.
‘Was there no other way, Mister Granger?’ Pieter was the first to break the silence. ‘Could we not have hidden in the bushes and surprised them from above?’
Granger shook his head ‘No, Pieter,’ he said, ‘There was no other way.’ He pushed some money into the boy’s hand and, buttoning up his overcoat, he strode away into the surrounding woodlands where his car was hidden, experiencing a combined sense of grief and the satisfaction of a job well done.
Professor Granger felt at peace with the world at last. Admittedly, his source of fresh corpses at the research centre had now been exterminated but that mattered no longer to him. Nobody would ever miss the human ghouls whose lives he had snuffed out only an hour or so ago. Except, perhaps, his colleagues in the laboratory. They would never know how it all ended, and that was the best way if the whole team of scientists were to continue their work in harmony.
The Lurkers
(from Graveyard Rendezvous 4)
They lurked in the shadows ready to murder.
Carson had been to see me again. Not that I wasn’t expecting him because he came into my office most mornings these days. However, this time I'd felt ill at ease after he’d left, and for a long time I sat at my desk smoking one cigarette after another, staring up at the ceiling and wondering just what the hell I was going to do. I could just pack up, leave town, and lose myself someplace. Or could I? There were hundreds of places I could go, but nowhere was big enough to hide me.
This time Carson hadn’t threatened me the way he’d done so often in the past. This worried me. He’d been charming, smiled and chatted about trivialities, and assured me that he meant no harm. I asked him
