by J. W. Ocker
“You know what he’s doing these days?” asked Eddie.
“No,” answered Douglas without interest, as he continued to scan the crowd.
“Accountant. First the death biz, then the tax biz. Ha. Wants a sure thing, that guy.”
“He was just never really cut out for death,” said Douglas, noncommittally.
“Nonsense,” replied Eddie, a little too loudly. “Everybody’s cut out for death. I haven’t stitched together a single stiff who wasn’t extremely good at being dead.” Stiff wasn’t exactly proper funeral terminology, but Douglas doubted that Eddie would have been reprimanded this time if his father had overheard him. “When it comes to dying, we’re all professionals. Maybe one day I’ll get to be his embalmer. Then I’ll tell him, ‘I told you so.’”
Douglas nodded and attempted to excuse himself, but took half a step into a golden crucifix on the end of a chain.
“Nice tie,” said a voice above the crucifix. The tie was light blue.
Reverend Ahlgrim wasn’t wearing a party hat and he wasn’t carrying around any food or drink. For once, he actually looked out of place in his own church.
“How are you doing, son? I was wondering if you were around.”
“I’m okay. There’s a party hat on Jesus.”
The pastor turned his round head around to look at the large wooden messiah hanging on the back wall of the church. A bright green conical hat had been perched slightly askew on the upturned head of the savior. The reverend sighed and Eddie let out a loud laugh. “So there is. I suppose that’s blasphemy. I really should have made the balconies off-limits. But I have to assume that Christ celebrates with us when good triumphs over evil.”
He fell into a hole. Douglas nodded.
“Are you looking for your parents?”
“No.”
“That’s good. I couldn’t help you if you were. I don’t think we’ve ever had this many people here. Certainly not this many people carrying around food and drink. The Lord will have to work one of his miracles for the carpets, I’m afraid.” The reverend took off his glasses and started rubbing the round lenses with a cloth that he pulled from his pants pocket. “I’m glad the town’s picking up the cleaning bill for the mess.”
At that moment, Douglas caught a glimpse of the coffin through a random shift in the crowd. “Yeah, well, I think I’m going pay my respects.” He walked backward a few steps, as the reverend scolded Eddie for how dangerously close to spilling his glass he was. Eddie ignored him and exclaimed, “Is that Moss and Feaster? At a funeral?” Douglas spun around and headed to the coffin.
As he jostled past reveler after reveler, he caught a brief glimpse of a tall woman in glasses wearing a red dress covered in large, white, wide-petaled flowers—Ms. Basford. She stared coldly at him. It seems like it would take more than a dead murderer to win her over to his way of life. He nodded his head at her and hurried his pace.
The Splendor 4000 looked especially grand in its new context, outside of the showroom, in the dead spot of the church, with no other coffins around fighting for attention. The gold-rubbed wood almost glowed beneath the soft church lighting. The entire full-couch lid of the coffin was thrown open to reveal a sumptuous lining of pale, padded Chinese silk. A few others stood at the coffin, gazing fixedly into its interior like there was a television screen inside.
Now that Douglas was beside it, he was less interested in the casket than what was inside. Three objects sat incongruously in the lush silk interior. The first was a black, hooded cloak, laid out like a body would have been, the empty hood resting on the richly embroidered coffin pillow. The second item was a long, thin knife, laid atop the cloak. Now that Douglas saw both of these items in the full light of the church, without anybody wearing the one or holding the other, they didn’t look so terrifying.
The third item was a newspaper, folded in half and placed beside the knife like a dinner setting. The headline was black and stark, like the dark robe against the ivory silk.
SERIAL KILLER DIES CHASING LOCAL YOUTHS
It could easily have been, SERIAL KILLER MURDERS LOCAL YOUTHS, Douglas knew. As it was, the headline was the opposite of an epitaph, and that’s why the funeral was such a party. They were celebrating a different kind of end. The killer’s body, his parents had told him, had been donated to science, although some of the unwanted bits had been buried in an unmarked plot somewhere secret in Cowlmouth Cemetery. Moss and Feaster were the only ones who knew where.
Douglas had read this particular newspaper article about a hundred times online and had a copy of the archaic two-week-old paper version in his bedroom on top of a pile of about two dozen other articles printed in the town paper that talked about the story. A few of them even included quotes from him. There wasn’t much to this particular article, though, since it was the first. Just the fact of the serial killer’s death and that it involved the son of a local funeral home director and the son of the town’s police chief.
Later articles went into more detail … as much as there was, anyway. Nothing was ever discovered about the Family Man, which was the new name that the press had posthumously given the serial killer. He had no identification on him, nobody recognized him. Even the company that had hired him for the carnival knew nothing about him. The identification he had used to get the job turned out to be fake. The news went national, and still nobody came forward with any useful information. He was apparently a man without a family, which was perhaps why he was building one in Cowlmouth. Because he had been using Death House as a hideout, another rumor had him as a descendent of the family that was killed there. That he was recreating the family that he had lost. That was probably the story that would stick among the kids in town, the story that would be passed along on every Halloween and to every generation. “Beware the Family Man … He’s always hunting for new additions to his family.”
Douglas lost interest in the contents of the casket quicker than he had lost interest in the casket itself. He started threading his way through the crowd in the direction that Lowell had taken. It was slow going since every other person wanted to shake his hand or talk to him about that night in the graveyard. He did the former as quickly as he could, gently protested the latter, and in that slow manner, finally made it to the food, which was set atop a line of folding tables covered in white table cloths against the wall of the church.
He saw Lowell first, two plates in his hands and his cheeks chipmunked full of who-knew-what. It took him only a few heartbeats more to see Audrey. Her back was toward him. She was wearing a thick orange sweater, and her dark hair was loose about her shoulders. Before Douglas quite made it to her, she turned around, a small paper plate in her hand, the purple stone of her ring standing out among the bright red strawberries resting there. The last time he had seen her, a large white bandage had been taped to her cheek to cover up the stitches from where the killer’s knife had grazed her. Today, the bandage and the stitches were gone, revealing a short, thin arc of a scar. It looked like the blade of a scythe. In a few weeks, it would barely be noticeable.
As soon as she saw Douglas, she put her plate down on the table and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. He couldn’t feel the scar pressing into his own cheek.
It felt good. And he was only a little embarrassed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I started to write this story, my oldest daughter was an infant. By the time it got published, she’d aged into its target audience. Over the course of those many years in between, a few people really supported and cared for this book. My wife, Lindsey, was the very first. The first to read it. The first to show excitement for it. The first to encourage me about it. Next came Christian Haunton, whose insights and advice elevated this book to a place beyond the limits of my own instincts. It was only after his suggestions that this book stood a chance. After Christian came Bethany Buck, whose tireless efforts on its behalf are the only reason why this book isn’t still trapped on my hard drive today. I cannot und
erstate her role in this book’s publication. Finally, Alison Weiss came along and shouldered it through the hard publication home-stretch, caring for it as her own despite adverse circumstances, and finding further ways to improve it.
All to make a strange boy in an ill-fitting suit live and almost die and live.
Douglas and I thank all of you.
