metal rod tighter with both hands, and proceeded across the foyer toward the chapel’s doors.
Jeffrey stepped through the double doors of the chapel, pushing them all the way open with the side of his foot so that they would be held in place by the stops in their hinges. The room was bathed in darkness and lay cloaked in an almost deafening silence. Along one wall, a small garden of fake ferns and foliage sat under a row of softly colored lights recessed beneath an overhang. The pews, quiet and alone, stood in two columns with an aisle running down the middle. His shadow extended long and thin down the aisle, cast as it was by the single lamp’s light which dimly illuminated the foyer.
At the front of the room sat Mrs. Jacob’s Aaron which had been placed upon a bier. It looked quite austere in its simple but elegant setting. All had been prepared and was ready for her morning service which would be presided over by the good Rabbi Feldman. The woman’s body arrived earlier in the afternoon and had gone straight into the casket as prescribed by Jewish tradition: no embalming, no metal to touch the body, casket made without nails to join the pieces of wood together. Once she was tucked inside, the lid was closed and held tight by an intricate mortise and tenon system. Jeffrey quickly scanned the room and to his great relief saw nothing out of the ordinary. He was about to turn and leave when he noticed that the head panel of the casket was slightly ajar, lifted just barely, almost imperceptibly.
Jeffrey moved up the aisle with a cautious hesitation, scanning the shadows for any sign of either burglar or vandal. He surveyed the room, moving his head from side to side, taking in the most minute of details as an excited mind often does. Someone had left the Catholic hymnals in the pockets in the back of the pews. This would need to be addressed after he’d finished checking for this intruder. It wouldn’t do for a Jewish service to come in and find them left behind. He also noticed that there were several empty Kleenex boxes littering the pews and they would need to be replaced with fresh ones. It was being attentive to small things like this which gave a funeral home its reputation.
When he finally arrived at the side of the casket, he took a nervous look back over his shoulder. The chapel lay as it had before, quiet and empty. Turning back, he carefully slid his fingers under the lip of the lid and gently, but with constant pressure, pulled upwards. What little light there was in the room pushed back the shadows within the casket.
Mrs. Jacob’s face slowly slid into full view. Her skin looked blanched of any color, her lips bleached of any shade. He used both of his hands to push the lid to its full upright position and surveyed her body. She lay in quiet repose, wrapped in a white, linen sheet with only her sallow face exposed. She looked in good shape, all things considered. Her complexion was a little drawn, but structurally she was sound as a pound. He looked down the length of her body, and it was at that moment he noticed several circles of dark blood soaking into the linen midway down her chest. He gently pulled back the cloth, hating that he had no gloves for his hands, and exposed the area. What he found was beyond any fevered imagination. Three large pockets of flesh had been torn from the woman’s bound arm; large semi-circular chunks were ripped from the flesh leaving a massive amount of destruction to the tissues behind.
'You bastards!' he hissed as he cast another investigatory glance around the room. And then, as he leaned over and got a closer look inside, he whispered to himself, 'These look like…bites. Who would do such a thing?'
Disgusted, Jeffrey abruptly stood upright and distractedly lowered the head panel of the casket. With his mind a thousand miles away, he turned and took a step back. His plan was to head to the foyer where an arrangement office was. There he’d make a call to the police to report the incident. As he was in the process of turning, the recognizable sound of movement on carpeting came to his ears again just seconds before he came face to face with the figure of a man standing a few feet away from him.
The man, who appeared to be wrapped in some kind of shiny cloak or large shawl, stood silently staring. The dim light outlined his form, making it look as if there were a halo surrounding him. His face however, remained hidden in a constant shadow.
'What the fu…?' The curse escaped Jeffrey’s lips before he could stop it. For a split second, he moved to cross himself and ask forgiveness for swearing in this place of God. 'Who are you?' Jeffrey asked in his most authoritative tone. He hoped that whoever this guy was he wouldn’t notice Jeffrey’s knees quivering or the shiver in his voice. 'What are you doing here?' He raised an accusatory finger toward him and then, pointing back toward the body of Mrs. Jacob, demanded, 'Did you do this…?'
The stranger leaned forward, his face slowly coming into the subdued light. He stood there gaping back at him, his eyes empty of emotion, much less signs of intellect. Jeffrey stared into a face devoid of any semblance of humanity, an altogether empty slate. He’d seen this look on a person’s face before. It was the blank face of the dead and yet here the man stood, staring malignantly at him.
With a low groan, the stranger reached out with an unbelievable speed and grabbed Jeffrey roughly by both shoulders. He pulled and drew him quickly closer. His mouth worked up and down, snapping at the air, as if he was making an attempt to take a bite out of Jeffrey; to bite wherever his lips first came in contact with bare skin. Jeffrey struggled momentarily and then having gained a solid footing, pushed against the man with his free arm and shoulder. The figure stumbled backward, almost tripping over his own feet. He came to a teetering erect posture and slowly, uncertainly, stepped again toward Jeffrey.
'Get the fuck back,' Jeffrey shouted, fear casting all thoughts of forgiveness or impropriety to the wind. Pushing him back once again, he brandished the metal rebar. 'Dude, I will bash your fuckin’ skull in!'
The man before him gave no indication whatsoever of understanding. He just kept coming onward, opening and closing his mouth, and giving off the familiar stench of the recently deceased. Jeffrey had smelled it a thousand times and knew it instantly for what it was.
'AAAAAAAAAAH…' the man groaned as his arms reached out once again for Jeffrey and for the soft skin that lay at the base of Jeffrey’s throat. In the dim light, Jeffrey caught a quick glimpse of something which circled the man’s wrist. The shiny surface of the thing seemed to dance in the soft light. It was a medical wristband from St. Mary’s, a local hospital. Jeffrey recognized their Holy Mother logo. As the man’s hands took hold of his collar, Jeffrey was able to make out in the dim light a name typed on it: Robinson, John J.
Jeffrey shoved the dead man back once again, his brain at once understanding the wristband and its significance. With a grunt, he cocked the rebar up over his head and then brought it down straight into the center of his attacker’s forehead. A sound that reminded Jeffrey of a time when he dropped a watermelon at a family picnic punched through the silence of the chapel. Repeatedly, Jeffrey pistoned the rebar up and down and John J. Robinson’s skull caved inward, the bones collapsing in upon themselves. A soft jellylike substance dribbled out of the ruined cranium and coated the metal protruding from it. The man went rigid then fell, stiff legged, backward to the floor.
Silence returned to the chapel, falling like an anvil.
'What the fuck was that?!?' Jeffrey shouted, his voice climbing octaves like stairs. 'Jesus Fucking Christ!'
He cast another quick apologetic glance to where the crucifix usually hung high on the chapel’s wall and crossed himself. He then bent down and took a moment to examine the now still figure lying before him. He just wanted to make sure it was who he thought it was. Once he’d confirmed it was indeed Mr. Robinson, he fell backwards into a sitting position and sat, legs akimbo, trying to piece it all together.
Jeffrey ran his hand through his hair and tried to think.
Getting up on all fours, he crawled over and checked the body one more time, pulling back the plastic shroud and counting the four rectangular scorch marks that had been left when the defibrillator pads were used on the man’s chest.
It was Robinson all right.
As he knelt there trying to figure this whole mess out, behind him, from inside the Aaron, a set of small thin fingers slid into view from under the head panel, quietly forcing it up. Mrs. Jacob’s twisted features rose into view in the dim light, eyes wide and mouth moving as if she were silently gasping for air. The lid continued to move silently upward as she pushed against it. She struggled—due to the awkwardness of the Aaron’s construction and the fact
