Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers

by Scott Nicholson

  Roby cleared his throat and held the paper higher so that it caught more of the moonlight. He tried for a mixture of solemnity and energy with his voice, as if he were a news anchor.

  “Glenn Claude Isenhour, age 72 of 1235 Pleasant Valley Road, Barkersville, died Thursday morning, September 18, at Pickett County Hospital following a long illness.

  “Mister Glenn Claude Isenhour was born on December 27, 1930, to the late Otis Cornell Isenhour and the late Beulah Florence Cook Isenhour. Mister Isenhour was a veteran of the Korean War.

  “Mister Isenhour was preceded in death by his wife, Sally Ruth Ridgehorn Isenhour. He is survived by a daughter, Mary Ruth Eggers, and a son, Glenn Claude Isenhour, Jr.; two grandchildren, Glenn Claude “Trey” Isenhour, III, and Emily Faye Isenhour; and a number of nieces and nephews.

  “Funeral services for Mister Glenn Claude Isenhour will be conducted Saturday afternoon at 2 o’clock at the Clawson’s Funeral Home Chapel, officiated by the Reverend Barnaby Clawson. Burial to follow in the Shady Valley Baptist Church cemetery.”

  Roby paused, aware of his voice being the world’s only sound, as if the walls of the old garage, the surrounding forest, and the soft dark hills were all listening.

  “Go on,” Johnny Divine said. “You’re getting to the good part.”

  “The family will receive friends at the viewing Friday night before the service from 7 until 8 p.m. At other times, the family will be sitting at the home of Mary Ruth Eggers, 4752 Old Cove Road. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to V.F.W. Post 1393, Barkersville. Clawson’s Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.”

  Johnny sat back in his rocker as if he had just finished a heavy meal. “Mister Glenn Claude Isenhour.”

  “Do you know him?” Roby asked.

  “I’ve made his acquaintance recently.”

  Roby looked longingly back at his truck.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry,” Johnny said.

  How did he know? He couldn’t see.

  But there were other kinds of sight. Some that saw through to the bone even in pitch-blackness. Some that looked right into your heart.

  “I have a problem,” Roby said.

  “So I heard. Jacob told me all about it.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want Jacob to show up for Judgment with only four-fifths of his soul. So you’d best find a way for that last family member to get a piece of the pie.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  The cane tapped at the ground, steadily, four beats, five beats, then stopped. “You’ll find a way. Or you might just end up on the wrong side of this suitcase yourself.”

  “I’ve got the Ridgehorn viewing, then I’ll have to run over to the Isenhour sitting. I reckon the pie will be ready by tomorrow.”

  “Oh, sure. Beverly Parsons knows better than to let us down. Her daughter’s leukemia didn’t go into remission of its own accord. Unless you happen to believe in miracles.”

  Roby was sick of miracles. He’d seen too many, the bad kind, nothing holy or inspiring about them. He looked around at the trees, at the kudzu that draped them and smothered them. He wondered if anything could be worse than this endless cycle of sittings, his constant posing as a relative of the deceased, his strange and endless mission. He’d been privy to too many family secrets for families that weren’t his.

  Roby peered into Johnny Divine’s pale, sightless eyes. “How many more, Johnny? How many times before I’ve paid what I owe?”

  “I didn’t set up this game of living and dying. I got caught in the middle myself. You think I like sitting out here by this spooky damned garage in the dead of night, miles from nowhere?”

  Roby had never considered the strange man’s motives. Barnaby Clawson made an earthly profit, Roby and Beverly Parsons benefited in their own selfish ways. The dead counted on these strange transactions to aid their journey to a mysterious Judgment in a plane beyond this one. But Johnny Divine seemed tied to both worlds, the one of battered suitcases and broken-down garages as well as the one of shadows and spirits.

  Though Roby had been raised a Baptist, he’d learned new rules of the road since meeting Johnny Divine. God and the devil had no place here. Unless Johnny Divine was one or the other. Or both.

  In a moment of angry bravery, Roby stepped forward until he was a few feet from the old man. “Tell me, Johnny. When you died, who ate your pie?”

  The old man’s breath came like the stale stench of a grease pit. “Who says I’m dead?”

  Roby could only nod. He looked down at the suitcase. He could have looked inside it any time over the past few hours. He could have looked inside the suitcase during any of his dozens of other courier runs. If he wanted answers, he could have found them. Not all, but some.

  Even one answer would be too many.

  “I’ll give Jacob your regards,” Roby said.

  “Tell him to come on out and see me sometime,” Johnny said.

  Roby headed for the truck. He believed that, if he turned, he would find that Johnny Divine had drifted off with the night mist. The garage would be gone. The suitcase and its contents would have never existed.

  He started the truck and pulled onto the dirt road. He didn’t glance even once into the rear view mirror.

  XI.

  Jacob Davis Ridgehorn may have been a simple man, a farmer and construction worker, but you would never have guessed it from the attendance at the viewing.

  The chapel at Clawson’s Funeral Home was crowded and smelled of cologne, flowers, and Baptists. A line was out the door as neighbors, distant relatives, and local public figures took their turns viewing Jacob in the casket. As they filed past, each person would mutter a few words, say a prayer, or give a somber bow. Then the line led to the members of the immediate family, who shook hands or hugged those who came to pay their last respects.

  Or next-to-last, in the case of those who would be attending the funeral itself.

  Roby stood with the widow, offering support, keeping her supplied with tissues. Normally the oldest son or daughter ought to handle the chore, but Roby had eased his way into the family cluster and by the widow’s side. Buck and Alfred wore their suits as if they were strait jackets, looking stiff, the flesh of their necks straining over their white shirt collars.

  The widow was in a dark blue dress. It was bad luck to wear new clothes to a funeral, and she didn’t own anything in black. Marlene was in a skirt and a blouse that was unbuttoned too far down for such an occasion. She’d been avoiding Roby, staying quieter than usual, keeping to herself. Sarah wore the same print dress as she’d worn for the sitting. Anna Beth wore a yellow sweater and a brown, knee-length dress and shoes that had thick, sloping heels.

  They all looked out of place, uncomfortable. But the guest of honor, Jacob, looked as if he had been born for this very moment. His lips and eyes were relaxed, his forehead unwrinkled. Every strand of his gray, thinning hair was in place, curving gently over the peachy sheen of his skull. Barnaby had even plucked the little hairs from his ears. Jacob was radiant under the soft, recessed lights, his casket polished, his body at rest amid the plush interior. He could have been dreaming of a gentle walk toward a distant and brightly-lit gate.

  “He looks like he’s sleeping,” said a stooped old woman whose blue-rinsed hair was topped with a small black net.

  “He’s mighty handsome,” said the widow.

  “They did a fine job on him, all right.”

  Roby wanted to step on the old woman’s toes. You’d think she would have learned some manners. After all, she’d probably been to many viewings in her day.

  “I only touched him once,” the widow said. “Set me off to bawling. His skin was so cold.”

  “I remember I found my Henry that way, hunched over on the toilet. I thought he was straining away, because he was mighty bound up with constipation there his last few years. But I laid a hand on him, and he was plumb cold. Fell over on the floor and laid there while I scre
amed.”

  “Ma’am,” Roby said. “Sorry to interrupt, but the line’s long and we don’t want to keep the family out too late.”

  The old woman bobbed her head in agreement. “I know what you mean. They probably ain’t sleeping much.”

  She juddered a few steps away and hugged Marlene, then the other girls. “Say, do you know what time the burial is?”

  Barnaby Clawson stood near the chapel doors, hands folded and clasped together over the lowest button of his suit jacket. “Ma’am, the information is posted on the sign outside.”

  The old woman went to him, touched him on the forearm. “You did a fine job on him.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Roby waited until the old woman had exited, made sure the widow was occupied by some concerned neighbors, then went over to Barnaby.

  “Marlene didn’t eat none of the pie,” Roby said.

  “I know,” Barnaby said, his practiced expression of sorrow never slipping.

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Did you ask you-know-who?”

  “How come you’re afraid to say his name?”

  “Look, a man sees too much in my line of work. Some of it stays behind closed doors. To these folks—” Barnaby gave a small nod to indicate the line of those paying final respects “—the show is everything. We’re all in on the great big lie. Jacob’s gone on but we pay tribute to his flesh in all these little rituals that are supposed to make us feel better.”

  “Well, you’d be out of a job if it wasn’t for the rituals.”

  “No. I’m as deep in it as you and Bev Parsons and the old man. We’re maggots eating off the same corpse, when you get right down to it.”

  “You shoulda known better. You had your face pushed into it all your life.”

  “My boy,” Barnaby said. “He had AIDS. I know he turned out funny, was punished by God and deserved it, but a man will do most anything for his sons, even when they despise him.”

  “And he’s better now, no sign of it, huh?”

  “I don’t ask questions, I just open the suitcase and do what Johnny’s note tells me to do.”

  “At least you did it out of love. From the goodness of your heart. I reckon that will count for something when you get to Judgment.”

  “I don’t know,” the undertaker said, sounding weary. “I guess we all got our own sins to answer for.”

  A distant cousin came by, recognizable by the distinct Ridgehorn chin that resembled a burl on an apple tree. He was middle-aged, smelled of bottom-shelf whiskey, and his eyes were watery. “You sure done proud, Mr. Clawson. Jacob looks fresh as a daisy.”

  Barnaby smiled a little without any of his wrinkles moving. “Thank you, sir. I hate to see him go, but I’m glad I can do my part to help ease his passing.”

  The man sniffled and moved on, wobbling slightly.

  Barnaby dropped his voice again. “We’re all maggots. We all eat the sorrow and then go home, glad that it’s him and not us that had to give up the ghost.”

  “What if you don’t give it up?” Roby asked, thinking of Johnny Divine’s stubborn belief that he was still alive.

  “I’d take the heat of hell over the cold indifference of the dirt. You and me, we know that souls go on, and we believe it more firmly than any church-goer you ever met. We’ve seen it with our own eyes, and that sets us apart.”

  “I guess it’s kind of a like a holy duty, when you look at it that way.” He looked at Marlene, at the exposed fringe of her bra, the soft white curving flesh above it. Harold had arrived and was greeting the widow, taking her frail hands in his large ones. Black grease filled the creases of his fingers and his hair was slicked back with what looked like thirty-weight.

  Barnaby put a hand on Roby’s shoulder. “It’s the least you could do for poor old Jacob.”

  Roby nodded. “Yeah, I reckon.” Then, after a pause, he said, “Has Glenn Isenhour come by?”

  “They wheeled him in this morning. Don’t worry. He’ll get his turn. He don’t deserve no less.”

  “And the suitcase?”

  “You don’t need to know too much about my part. And I don’t want to know about yours.”

  Roby felt Barnaby press something into his palm. He took it, glanced down, then slipped it in his pocket.

  “A little extra,” Barnaby said. “I always save some for emergencies.”

  Beverly Parsons made her way through the line, hugged the widow and the girls. She gave Alfred an extra special squeeze, and Roby would have sworn she had real tears on her cheeks. Leaving Cindy to comfort Alfred, Beverly went over to Roby and Barnaby.

  “Got that Isenhour pie in the oven?” Roby asked her.

  She looked at the undertaker, then back at Roby. “Things like that aren’t to be spoken of.”

  “Jacob’s pie was about the best I’ve had in a while. You really outdid yourself.”

  “I do what I do and you mind your own business.”

  “Cindy’s looking mighty healthy. Gained her weight back.”

  Barnaby excused himself, said that he had some matters to discuss with the widow.

  “I don’t want to talk no more,” Beverly Parsons said.

  “I was just curious about something. If Cindy walked out of the funeral parlor and stepped out in the road and got smacked down by a dump truck, would you still be beholding to Johnny Divine? Or would it be even Steven?”

  “Quit that kind of talk. Somebody might hear you.”

  “Oh, you mean Johnny? He already knows, ma’am. He sure enough knows.”

  “Hush up.” She clamped her hands over her ears. “Hear no evil, hear no evil, hear no evil.”

  Roby leaned over her, put his mouth near her ear. “If Cindy died, would you have to bake her pie?”

  She ducked away from him and rejoined the Ridgehorn family. Roby, smiling, followed her.

  “Much obliged for the pie,” Anna Beth said to Beverly. “Everybody’s been so nice to us. Daddy would be happy to know how much you all pitched in.”

  “He was a good man,” the pie-maker answered.

  “Real good,” Roby said. “Delicious.”

  Anna Beth gave him a confused look. Marlene, who’d been letting Harold show his admiration for how good she looked all dressed up, moved away from the rest of the family. Harold stuck close to her, like a dog following a bucket of chicken guts.

  “Are you okay, Roby?” Sarah asked. “You’re looking a little sickly.”

  “Yeah.” The sweat on his forehead was thick enough to collect in rivulets. “I reckon I better get some fresh air.”

  “Want me to come with you?” Alfred asked.

  “No, I’ll be fine. Funerals just get to me, is all.”

  “I know what you mean,” Anna Beth said. “I liked to never got to sleep last night. Kept thinking I heard Daddy out in the barn. You know, Alfred, how he used to hum that little tune while he was milking the cows?”

  Alfred’s eyes flicked toward Marlene, so fast that nobody noticed but Roby. “Yeah. I guess memories come in different size boxes. Because I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I heard the tractor out in the cornfield.”

  Buck turned from his conservation with Sarah at the mention of the word “tractor.” “Didn’t nobody steal it, did they?”

  Sarah grabbed Buck by the arm and pulled him toward the widow. “Don’t even get started.”

  Roby was hit by a wave of dizziness, as if the chapel had suddenly broken loose from the world and drifted into the clouds. The thick sweetness of the flowers made his stomach flutter. Roby grabbed Alfred to keep from falling.

  “Here,” Alfred said. “I’ll help you outside.”

  Alfred hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even snickered, as he helped Roby take a seat on the concrete steps leading into the funeral home. The evening was autumn cool, and as Roby leaned against the wrought-iron railing, his sweat dried, leaving him clammy. Two men he didn’t recognize were smoking cigarettes in the parking lot, the orange glows
of their cigarette tips growing fat with each draw. Clawson’s Funeral Home sat on a small hill, and downtown Barkersville huddled below it in a tangle of utility lines, a wash of street lamps, and a stack of worn bricks.

  “You got no right to nose into family business,” Alfred said.

  “I promised,” Roby said, wiping his eyes.

  “How did you find out?”

  “Your daddy told me.”

  “Bullshit. Wasn’t nobody else there. Just me and Marlene and—”

  “You didn’t hear him coming, did you? I reckon not. You were probably breathing too hard. Or maybe whispering little words in her ear. Tell me, what did you call her? Did you say, ‘Oh, Marlene,’ or did she make you say ‘sister’?”

  “You bastard,” Alfred said.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell nobody.”

  “It didn’t happen. And don’t go messing with Marlene. You leave her alone.”

  “I said I wouldn’t tell anybody. Wouldn’t want Cindy Parsons to know, would we?”

  “Daddy’s dead. He can’t tell nobody. And who would believe you, anyway? Everybody pretty much thinks you’re touched in the head.”

  “I guess we both got our secrets, don’t we?”

  Alfred kept quiet while an elderly couple doddered down the steps and into their Ford. The two men had finished their cigarettes and exhaled the last of the gray smoke, buttoned their jackets, and went back inside. One of them said, “Sorry about your loss, Alfred.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Adams.”

  When the funeral parlor door had closed once again, Roby said, “There’s one way you can shut me up for good.”

  “Hell, yeah. I can put a Jap bullet in your brain and bury you out by a back road.”

  Roby almost told him to go ahead, to see how that worked out, to see whether secrets took to the grave actually stayed there. Instead, he fumbled in his pocket, touched something dry and ragged.

  No. Wrong pocket.

  He went inside his jacket and came out with the thing Barnaby had given him. “Here. This is for Marlene.”

  Alfred held the object up to the light that leaked through the parlor’s windows. “What the hell’s this?”

  “Forgiveness.”