“You’re as crazy as everybody says.”
“I swear on God’s Holy Bible, you get her to take that, and I’ll never whisper a word to nobody.”
“Take it?”
“Eat it. All of it.”
Alfred held the object close to his face, then sniffed it. “Shoo, smells like dried dog shit.”
“It’s pie.”
“Pie?”
“A special recipe. Been in the family for generations.”
“You’re crazy, Roby Snow. Crazy as a frog-fucked hoot owl.” After a long minute, Alfred said, “You promise, as God is your witness?”
Roby smiled. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Alfred went inside, into the room where the others were paying tribute to the flesh that once housed Jacob Ridgehorn’s soul.
XI.
The burial was almost an anticlimax.
By Saturday, the entire Ridgehorn family was worn down by grief, missed sleep, and the burden of hosting all of those who paid their last respects over and over. Some of them Roby had seen at the sittings, dropping by to deliver a roast or casserole, then coming over a few hours later to help eat it. A few had joined the family after the viewing for a late meal.
Roby had skipped that one, as much as he had looked forward to spending time with his temporary relatives. After all, he had the Isenhours to prepare for.
Now, with the sun nearly straight up like God’s golden eye, the clan had gathered around the family cemetery. Only the immediate family had been invited to the graveside services. The rest of the mourners had been shucked back at the official chapel service in Barkersville. Barnaby Clawson was offering a few words of comfort, a garbled mix of Bible verse scraps and personal anecdotes.
“Jacob Davis was not just a loving husband and father,” Barnaby said. “He was also a friend, somebody you could count on in hard times. He held to his faith in everything he did, whether he was sitting in the third row of Barkersville Baptist or standing out in the cornfield killing crows.”
Alfred cleared his throat. The widow looked misty-eyed, but the shakes that had plagued her the last couple of days had gone. Her chin was tilted up, as if she were gazing into that better land she would someday share with the love of her life. Sarah and Buck sat on the far end of the row of metal chairs. Buck kept stealing jealous glances toward the backhoe that stood under the apple tree, its metal jaw ready to scoop soil over the coffin as soon as the formalities were done. The backhoe operator, dressed in a pair of blue coveralls, smoked and stared off over the meadows.
An Astroturf rug had been placed over the dirt so everybody’s fine shoes would remain spotless. Roby looked across the brown field at the barn. He caught Marlene looking in the same direction. Their eyes met. Neither of them had any tears.
“Jacob was a man of the earth,” Barnaby continued. “But he was also a man of heaven. As we give him back to the dust from which he was formed, we also deliver him back to God. As we mourn his passing, we also rejoice in his new eternal life. Let us pray.”
Roby’s attention wandered as Barnaby reeled out one of his stock send-offs. The high hills were a splendor of red and yellow, and in the distance the wall of mountains rose like gray skyscrapers. The clouds were thin and far apart. The air smelled of harvest and earthworms. Jacob’s horse, Old Laddie, had come up from the cool banks of the creek and now stood at the fence, watching the proceedings with curiosity.
Alfred and Cindy sat together, holding hands. Harold was at the far end, away from Marlene, his hands clean today. Anna Beth stood near the head of the closed casket, wiping her nose with a shredded wad of tissue. The casket gleamed in the sunshine, suspended by canvas straps over the deep rectangular hole in the ground, a pile of flowers perched on the casket’s slick belly.
Roby read the names on the other tombstones that dotted the stretch of grass. Diane Kelly Ridgehorn, Julia Anne Ridgehorn, Thomas Ridgehorn, Wilbur Derek Ridgehorn, Maude Davis Ridgehorn, others with letters too worn to make out. A dozen dead folks, at least three generations.
Roby wondered who’d baked their pies.
He had no doubt that Johnny Divine had been around for all of them, and that the garage at the end of the world worked just as well by being a train station or a stagecoach stop or a ferry pier. Crossing places, that’s what they were. The mode of transportation didn’t matter, only the route.
And what about the conductors who guided the dead along the way? The people like Roby and Beverly Parsons and Barnaby Clawson? What happened to them? Did they get to take that same road to Judgment that they’d help others find?
Or did they walk a different path?
Roby shook the dread from his thoughts and focused on Barnaby’s prayer. Barnaby had said “Amen,” and the family echoed the hollow word, each in a different rhythm and tone.
“Amen,” Roby said.
“Bye, Jacob,” the widow said. She tensed, and for a moment Roby thought she was going to throw herself onto the casket, the way they did in movies. Then she smiled, rubbed her lips, and turned away. The hearse, oversize and out of place with its polished chrome and tinted windows, blocked her way to the other vehicles. She stumbled over a stone and nearly fell.
Alfred moved over to the widow and put his arm around her, leading her to Marlene’s sedan. Marlene got behind the wheel, and Sarah and Cindy Parsons got in the back seat. Buck and Harold climbed into Buck’s pick-up. Alfred walked back to the grave site as the two vehicles drove off. Barnaby had loaded the flowers into the hearse and was shutting the rear door.
“I’ll put the flowers back when the dirt’s smoothed and the headstone’s placed,” Barnaby told Alfred.
“Funny, ain’t it? Daddy always said he’d rather die than plant flowers where vegetables ought to grow.”
“Your daddy had a way with words.”
“Yeah,” Roby said. “Like those words he said in the barn on your birthday.”
Alfred’s fists clenched. “You promised.”
“What about you? Did you keep your end of the promise?”
“Excuse me, gents, I got to get back to the home,” Barnaby said.
“Hey, why don’t you come on back to the house for a bite first?” Roby said. “There’s plenty enough for everybody.”
Barnaby waved to the backhoe operator, then got in the hearse without a word. He drove away, the vehicle bouncing over the rutted dirt road that led away from the cemetery. The backhoe’s engine roared to life with a giant cough of black smoke and the long metal arm grabbed at the air.
Roby raised his voice over the noise. “Did she eat it?”
Alfred looked down into the hole that would soon be swallowing his daddy. “Yeah.”
“Did you have to trick her?”
“No, I just told her straight up. About you keeping your mouth shut if she did what you wanted.”
“Tell me, and this is important . . . she didn’t get sick or throw up or anything, did she?”
“No. Said it tasted like stale boot leather, though.”
Roby nodded, and they both moved away from the grave as the backhoe approached.
“Come on,” Roby said. “You don’t want to watch.”
“No, I reckon not. Damn, I sure could use a drink.”
“Got a bottle under the truck seat. Keep it on hand for emergencies. Want a ride back to the house?”
Alfred glanced at the casket, then at the distant barn, then in the direction of the Ridgehorn house. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
As they climbed into Roby’s Ford, Alfred said, “So, are you going to tell me what it was I made Marlene eat?”
Roby shifted the Ford into first. “Can’t. It’s a family secret.”
XII.
The kitchen was cleaner now than it had been during the sitting. The counter was almost bare, except for a few slices of store-bought bread in a plastic bag and some shriveled apples piled in glass bowl. The only thing in the sink was Jacob’s denture glass.
“So, are
you going to sell the place?” Roby asked the widow.
She had tucked a pinch of cinnamon-brown snuff behind her lower lip and worked it into place before answering. “I reckon not. When you stick your loved ones in the ground, you owe them. We talked it over. The kids will probably sell it off after I’m gone, but that’s their worry. Me, I’m going to leave this world and join Jacob with a peaceful heart.”
“Amen to that,” Roby said.
Marlene came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She stooped from the waist, rummaging on the bottom rack. Roby glanced at the curves of her rear. A door to sin, that’s what it was.
She closed the refrigerator and turned, holding a jar of bread-and-butter pickles. “Say, you know what would go good with this?”
“What?” Roby asked.
“Some of that meat you brought over the other night.”
The widow squinted at him. “What meat? We done took that ham down to the bone.”
“Oh, Roby knows what I’m talking about.”
“You carry your bones with you,” Roby said. “When you cross over. You carry your soured eggs and stale bread crumbs and molded cheese.”
The widow took a step back, her eyes widening. “What in the world’s wrong with you?”
“Peggy Clemens knows. Whole hog. Waste no part of the animal.”
“Alfred!” the widow yelled, her voice brittle off the kitchen enamel.
“And Beverly Parsons. She’s in on it. Barnaby, too.”
Marlene held out the pickle jar as if it were a charm to ward off evil spirits. “You done gone crazy.”
Alfred ran into the kitchen, with Buck and Harold right behind him.
Roby felt the sweat oozing out of the pores of his face like maggots from the holes of an electrified corpse. “Who’s going to make your pies?” he said. “When you die, who’s going to eat you?”
“Lord have mercy, better call the sheriff,” Harold said. Alfred and Buck closed in on Roby from opposite sides of the counter.
This happened every single time. Roby was wracked by a wave of nausea and nearly collapsed. He grabbed for the edge of the counter and held himself up with effort. The room spun in the corners of his vision, the edges of the world dissolving like sugar in warm water. He felt hands gripping his arms, and he thought of Johnny Divine and the suitcase. Who would carry the suitcase after Roby was gone?
If Roby ever got to go, that was.
He pushed the hands away and straightened, trembling. “Sorry, folks. I just got a little carried away, is all. Been a mighty stressful time for all of us.”
The widow studied him as if he were a bug on glass. “Anna Beth?”
The youngest daughter was standing behind her. “Yeah, Momma? Still want Sarah to call the law?”
The widow peered at Roby. “You been drinking?”
Roby fought off the small lightning bolts that streaked across the gray inside his skull. “Yeah. I apologize. First Jacob died, and then Glenn Isenhour. You know him, don’t you?”
“Distant cousin,” the widow said.
“Well, he was my second cousin. All this dying going on at the same time, I guess I just let it get to me. But I’m fine now.”
“You sure?” Buck said. “You look like you swallowed a live lizard.”
“Yeah. I’ll just get a drink of water and I’ll be good as new.”
He forced himself not to tremble as he walked to the sink. He filled the denture glass from the tap and took four big gulps.
“You better go lay down for a while,” the widow said. “You’re a bit green around the edges.”
“I can make it home,” he said.
“Let me drive you,” Alfred said.
“No. I done put you folks to enough trouble already.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I feel a lot better now. Just needed to get something on my stomach.”
“Well, you be careful driving home,” the widow said. “That’s all we need, is to have to bury another one.”
“I will. And I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I guess we all lost something,” Marlene said. “It’s like all this food everybody brought over. You eat and eat and eat, and you’re still empty inside.”
Roby nodded, not sure what to say. He went outside and sat behind the wheel of his truck for several minutes before driving home.
XIII.
The back room of Clawson’s Funeral Home was as airless as a tomb. Roby didn’t turn on the lights. He knew his way well enough.
Glenn Claude Isenhour’s earthly remains were stretched out on a gurney, his belly as pale as a fish. A long, wet scar ran between his ribs. Barnaby had been at work. He had filled the suitcase. And, tonight, Roby would carry the suitcase to Johnny Divine, who would deliver it to Beverly Parsons.
Roby went outside to wait, leaning against the garage bay where Barnaby kept the hearse parked. He looked at the distant stars, the uncaring and dead moon that hung above him. At least Jacob was up there, rid of his burden, his worries over, his heart at peace. Thanks in part to Roby.
His hand went to his pocket, fidgeted for a moment, then brought out the tough and ragged hunk of meat. He put it in his mouth and chewed, swallowed without gagging, though the taste was bitter.
He was still hungry.
Same as always.
That long-ago night, when he’d made his deal with Johnny Divine, he never realized how empty a person could be.
Oh, he would do it all over again if he had the chance. He didn’t have any regrets. Because when his truck had run off the road, hit a tree and thrown him through the windshield, and he’d lain bleeding to death on the side of the road, Johnny Divine had stepped out of the black nowhere and made the offer.
If Roby had loved anybody besides himself, he might have gone ahead and died and taken his chances. But he’d been scared.
It was a fair deal, all the way around. He helped lost souls find their way to Judgment, and that was something to be proud of. Yet he was always so hollow inside.
Because he’d given Johnny Divine his heart in exchange for his life.
Roby had no relatives to eat his pie. Nobody could help him pass over, nobody could send him down the road to Judgment. Nobody had ever loved him. And he’d never loved anyone else.
All he could do was keep eating his heart himself, and hope someday that he would be full enough, or empty enough, or whatever was required.
But, as always, the leathery thing he’d eaten only left him starved for something deeper, a craving that reached beyond flesh.
He thought of Glen Claude Isenhour lying cold and lost inside the building. Shame burned Roby like an inner fire, and he put away his selfish wishes. The Isenhour family needed him. Maybe in service to others, he’d find what was lacking inside himself. Roby walked under a midnight sky that had never seemed so large, and he straightened his back against the weight of sacrifice, determined to be strong. His own judgment could wait.
Right now, he had a pie to serve and a burial to follow.
THE END
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###
A man channels his dead wife during a paranormal conference, disturbing demons at a haunted hotel where even angels can’t be trusted.
SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD
By Scott Nicholson
Copyright ©2010 Scott Nicholson
Scott’s Amazon Author Central page
Table of Contents
For my #1 fan and #1 stalker…you know who you are.
Chapter 1
“And here’s our most haunted room, Mr. Wilson.”
The brass name plate over the hostess’s breast read “Violet,” an old-fashioned name that didn’t match her JC Penney pants suit. Early twenties and attractive, the make-up failed to hide the hard years around her eyes. But Wayne Wilson had logged his own hard years, and he hid them in the coffin of his heart.
“Call me ‘Digger,’” he said.
“‘Digger’?” Vi
olet said.
“I have this little undertaker thing going on,” he admitted, feeling a bit sheepish under her blue-eyed stare. “The top hat and Victorian coattails. Part of the gig.”
Wow. Beth, if you really are here, you’ll see what a cartoon I’ve become.
But the dead stayed dead, and the best thing about them was they weren’t in a position to second guess. But the worst thing about them was they weren’t around when you needed them.
“So, have you ever had any experiences here?” Wayne asked, eyeing the décor and fighting the rush of memories.
“I’ve never had a honeymoon, and I would choose somewhere a little more exotic than the North Carolina mountains. Like maybe Dollywood or Paris.”
“I meant ‘supernatural experiences.’”
“Just those brain-dead zombies who hit on me at the bar.”
Wayne was only half listening. The master bedroom of Room 318 had changed little since his stay 17 years earlier. The roses on the wallpaper had yellowed, and each wall held an autumnal mountain landscape. Imitation Queen Anne furniture, chipped and scarred by cigarette burns, a plush purple carpet in which rodents could reproduce, and the king-size, four-poster bed were the same as his honeymoon night.
Even the throw pillows appeared unchanged, skinned in greasy satin and leaning against the headboard the same way his and Beth’s heads had leaned on a cold autumn night. Before they opened the door.
“The manager’s pleased you chose the White Horse for your conference,” Violet said.
I didn’t choose. I was chosen.
“You have quite a reputation,” Wayne said. “Nobody keeps their ghosts secret for long.”
“Ghosts are good for business. Especially in the off-season.”
“It should be good for both of us.”
“We booked about 50 for the weekend.”
“Too bad you can’t charge your invisible guests. You’ve got at least three here in 318.”
“Ah, you’ve been browsing the Ghost Register,” she said, referring to the journal at the front desk where guests and staff had faithfully recorded their encounters.
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers Page 65
