that she was still bound up in her shroud—to sit upright. As she moved, the linen around her fell away to reveal a frightfully thin chest on which two flat sagging breasts sat against the lattice work of her rib cage. She pulled herself to the uppermost part of the head of the casket and slid a frail thin leg over the edge. Without making a sound, she climbed out with the stealth of a seasoned predator.
Jeffrey was still sitting trying to sort through the last few minute’s events. His back was exposed to both the altar and Mrs. Jacob. Suddenly the silence was broken when he heard a slight creaking of the wood behind him. He swiveled his head around and caught sight of Mrs. Jacob climbing out of the casket and struggling to stand erect.
'Uuuuuuh…' she moaned as she took her first tentative steps toward him. 'UUU-uuuuuuuhhh…'
'Fuuu-uuck me!' Jeffrey sighed as he scrambled to his feet and spun to face her.
Without really looking, he took a small step back and reached with his hand behind him for some kind of physical mooring on which to tie his mental instability. His searching fingers found the ridges on the rebar, and with a quick jerk, he wrenched it out of Mr. Robinson’s crushed skull. Using all of the muscles in his shoulders, he brought the metal rod around—Babe Ruth style—and connected with the side of the old woman’s head. A sickening, wet sound reverberated through the stillness of the chapel.
The old lady teetered on her feet for the briefest second like a Jenga tower. Then, with the side of her head caved in, she fell with a gut-wrenching thud. The sound of her body hitting the carpet was one Jeffrey didn’t think he’d ever forget. It was so final, so utterly incontrovertible.
'OK…' Jeffrey said aloud as he looked at the scene around him, 'I am outta here!'
He turned on his heel and quickly made his way up the chapel’s aisle and through the open double doors. He skidded to a stop halfway across the foyer once he realized the rebar—now coated with a stew of blood, bone, brain matter and cerebral fluid—was still in his hand. In disgust, he dropped the metal bludgeon to the carpet and wiped his hands on the thighs of his pant legs. Taking a brief glance back at the now gently swinging doors of the chapel, he continued on to the hallway and its visitation rooms.
Jeffrey took the left down the corridor and his progress slowed as his mind continued the laborious task of processing all that had transpired in the past few minutes. The very fabric of what he thought possible had been torn forever asunder and he figured it would be best if he tried to gain a little perspective before executing his next move.
'Ok, so… time to recap,' he said aloud and he looked up the hallway and then back in the direction from which he’d come.
What was proving difficult to get his mind around were the whys and wherefores of how it was all possible.
The hallway was as it had been moments before, bereft of sound and cloaked in a cover of silky darkness. The shadows played at the corners of the corridor and, given recent events, each held a promise of silent menace. Far off, the drone of the big walk-in refrigerator cycling on could be heard through the austere walls. None of it mattered much to Jeffrey. He was still busy freaking out over what just happened in the chapel. He cautiously walked down the hall toward the back of the funeral home, passing first the empty visitation room now on his right and then past the room where Mrs. Devon lay.
As he crept past the doorway of the second room, a slender hand—fingers clenched like arthritic claws— reached out for him from within the inky blackness between the door and its frame. Jeffrey tensed as the rumbling of the refrigerator ceased, but continued moving down the hallway. Suddenly, he was grabbed roughly by the back of his shirt’s collar and his body was jerked to an abrupt halt. The force of his forward momentum pulled the late Mrs. Devon through the doorway and out into the hallway even as he skidded to a stop.
Mrs. Devon creakily stood near him dressed in the same olive green dress Jeffrey himself had put her in. A strand of pearls accented the outfit and a single rose corsage adorned her lapel. 'Mother liked things simple,' her children had told him during the arrangement conference. He’d even made a note of it in the woman’s case file. Jeffrey spun around and twisted away from her with all of his might, his motion sufficient to break her feverish hold on him. Midway through, he lashed out with his closed fist.
He had to admit it… he’d really put his back into it.
When he connected with Mrs. Devon’s face, his accuracy was nothing short of impeccable. He drove the far side of his fist up under the tip of her slightly upturned—suitors had once called it 'coquettish'—nose. The force of the blow shattered the woman’s cartilage, driving the bulk of the hardened material upward through the soft, spongy cribriform plate of her ethmoid bone and on through to her brain. The sharp edges of the cartilage punched through and bisected the lobes of her freshly awakened brain, effectively shutting it back down before it had a chance to become fully aware.
'Mom liked simple…' Jeffrey whispered, out of breath, 'Mom got simple.'
The woman’s head jerked back with terrible force and she toppled, slamming her head into a small wooden credenza which sat on one side of the hallway. Her body crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
Bending over, Jeffrey roughly pulled apart the front of the woman’s dress, buttons popping and bouncing on the floor like Mexican jumping beans, and double checked the autopsy incisions he sewed up himself…just to make sure.
From his crouching stance, he looked up toward the door at the end of the passageway marked 'Employees Only.' The shadow-draped hallway beyond was the only thing visible through the small Plexiglas window set in the door at just about chest height. Further in, he could just make out the dull glow of the light coming from the office as it illuminated the ceiling from across the loading area. He stood up, took a deep breath, and resumed his now tentative journey back down the darkened hall.
When he reached the door, he rose up on tiptoes and peered hesitantly through the window in all directions. Inside, nothing stirred. Jeffrey held his breath and again closed his eyes, willing himself to listen through the door for any sounds of movement. He tilted his head back and focused all of his attention on his sense of hearing. The soft chug-chugging of the washing machines and the distant droning voice from the radio were the only sounds that reached his attentive ears. With a soft sigh, he let out the breath he’d been holding and opened his eyes.
In the dim twilight of the hallway behind the door, he noticed that he could no longer see the light shining up onto the loading area’s ceiling. The small window was completely dark. He leaned closer to try to figure out what could be obstructing his view.
Suddenly, right in front of him, separated only by the thin wooden door, an eye opened in the blackness.
'Jeez-us!' Jeffrey gasped. Another of those things was right on the other side of the goddamn door! He took a stumbling step backward away from the door just as Mr. Lodene came through with his arms outstretched and his fingers spasming.
Mr. Lodene exhaled an odor of decay and putrefaction through his stitched together jaws as he came, naked as a jaybird, through the still swinging door. As his face came into the half-light, he made an effort to pull his lower jaw into a toothy snarl. With muffled, popping sounds the stitches tore themselves loose from their moorings in the soft flesh of his gums. His mouth ran crimson with dark blood and the thin twine hung from his lips like strands of dental floss. He took two loping steps forward and clawed feverishly at Jeffrey’s shirt. His mouth chewed emptiness and dribbled long, syrupy strings of saliva. Now locked in a macabre two-step, the men—one alive and the other quite dead—twisted and stumbled back down the hallway, each attempting to gain control over the other. Suddenly, the back of Jeffrey’s calves bumped up against Mrs. Devon’s prone body and he fell backward over the dead woman. Mr. Lodene, having no choice in the matter, fell right along with him.
