Prescott Partings & Company

It was a wet, late autumn and matted leaves coloured brown, yellow and red were raked in ovals larger than the shrubs in their thickets lining the front of the cemetery yard. In the morgue’s embalming room below its chapel, parlour, down a spiral flight into the basement on a cold, clear and dreary evening the funeral home’s mortician had begun the process, draining substance of red from the veins, forcing one in and the other out. The removed articles of clothing, in a bungle on the floor and stained with the essence of final substances released yellow and brown, he rolled into a ball and threw in the trash.

Martin Rankin, Cpl, CIB veteran, ten years the undertaker of Prescott Partings, a modest funerary company staged in an old abandoned church off of the Highway 2, York District, tremors as he injects formaldehyde solution into the body’s cavities, pale as a ghost already on dark granite slab table.

An only mild and not-such-cause-for-concern shaking of the hands. Marcus Schuster, his long-time closest friend and fellow infantryman in WWII, proprietor of the morgue, would be arriving shortly. Groundskeeper Alistair had been notified, offered a curt nod of the head, and had taken his loop of jangling skeleton keys and started for the broad gate down a rubble road at the end of the drive. At night it was kept locked under heavy chains, its retaining cement walls possibly a dozen feet high.

Almost midnight, 1961, parlour upstairs posh but not too luxurious, wives, children, and the pair of childhood friends, later comrades, had made good for themselves. Rankin needed Schuster to well and hurry. Tonight’s was a matter of import, different from war, yet cause for total immediate arrest.

A brigadier awaiting fellow brigadesman and, stiff on the table, the local black market brigadier, Horace L. This affiliate had always been rather polite, reputable as a safe bet, if not a gentleman. In other words, he wasn’t of the sort that went in for violence, goons handling their Lord’s gruntwork. Horace L. was merely a paper-trail criminal, working in stores, shipments and amounts, vis-à-vis fraud, laundering, not ever acts of killing, citizens of the town held fast. Nor was he any roundtable mobster, to be sure.

Still with the jitters, Martin untied his scrub gown stained crimson like a butcher’s apron. It was all worse now than ever was, at present he could not stand it. That Horace had expelled urine, the excrement of voided bowels, and all the smell subdued his stoicism. Mortician Rankin washed his hands in a chemicals sink, and then left the sterile room with its cabinets and oppressive colourlessness for a drawing room.

The drawing room was long and neatly furnished with claw-footed leathern chesterfields, draped with animal skins, and a rocking chair and divan against a flanking wall of shelves stuffed with handsome volumes of leatherbound texts. He collected a bottle of whiskey, stowed on the lowest shelf, and two tumblers, blew dust, filled each halfway and placed them atop coasters on a table between the couches, thought better of it, and drank one between gulps until only maroon swill swirled a circle at bottom.

Not enough time for nervous system to sort out guilt (shame) from fear. Never had he expected the barbarous, brutal, callous conduct of the European theaters of battle to follow him home, across the sea. He’d never felt badly for the men he shot, and even feared he would once, but when M understood it was not forthcoming he realized that this meant the rest was not to return, either. M. Rank knew all about Death’s business (racquet). Your own is forfeit for the one(s) you’ve taken. A life for a life is the transaction at hand, and in the eye of God all killing was the same; no less than cold-blooded murder.

He crossed the red carpet to a woodstove fireplace, below an encased stained-glass window depicting the Nativity scene. With an iron poker M stoked the embers, then replaced the burned logs. This room was particularly drafty without an adequate fire, as chill draughts infiltrated the space through unseen cracks in the corners of long-ago plastered walls. Where in the world was M. Schuster?

He couldn’t help thinking of it - this wouldn’t be helped until the impositions a dear friend makes. M recalled the drizzle, wisps of mist on the tombstones, Horace there under the gun, shot dead and the feelingless glare of the gunman as they later made eye-contact; he’d put his hands to pockets, coattails flying out above the bulge of forearms, and strolled off as if on a leisurely walk through a sunny park.

Without, the rainbow-haloed moon was nearly full, partly concealed behind a haze of grey like slashings of paint swathed on canvas. The electric cobalt of the crepuscular firmament had faded into darkness, silence gave way to thunder as lightning strikes began promptly and a deluge started. Solid rain assailed the gravel driveway and cobblestone courtyard surrounding the late churchyard. Columns of shrubbery, hedges chasing the grasses see-sawed in a ferocious wind as Marcus Schuster sped his new-model Chrysler downline, foregoing the parking lot and skidding to a halt before several wooded steps.

Marcus met Martin in stride, retreating underneath the threshold besides, double doors drawn open. He caught him on the arm, and then went in together against the rain, stood conferring in the lobby.

‘What’re you doing, waiting on the porch like that? You’ll catch cold, ol’ boy.’

‘The urgency of the matter has my nerves on edge.’

‘Well, I drove from the city quick as possible. Our housekeeper sent the wire on to the diner. Shirley offered to come, though I thought better that she and the girls ought to stay with her sister.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Is it?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, out with it. What has you all spun about, Marty?’

‘We best have a drink first, or two.’

‘What’s on tap?’

‘I already have poured downstairs, straight from the prairies, three-fingers of firewater.’

‘Let’s see to it.’

Marcus hung his peacoat on a rack with brass hooks aside and Martin closed the heavy doors. Then they went over to the stairwell and next were shuffling into the drawing room, swift and business mannerly.

‘Horace is dead?’

‘Horace Lowenstein! Preposterous. What makes you say that?’

‘I saw it. Watched it happen.’

‘Nonsense. Where?’

‘Out there.’ Martin gestured to the graveyard beyond the funeral home. ‘It were a mafioso’s deed.’

They stared at each other with intensity, Marcus still seeming not to comprehend, and so doing his best to shrug off the severity Martin directed his friend into the adjacent laboratory, showing him.

‘See, now, it's exactly as I’ve said.’ Returning silently, they settled back onto the couches.

‘No wonder you’re sweating, fretting, scratching your head. Your hands are trembling.’ M.S. was fidgety as he spoke, Martin feeling sorry the air of it was now on him too. ‘Who’ve you told?’

‘Nobody. Alistair helped me to carry the body inside. At first, while in shock, I left him out an hour.’

‘Doubtless, me oh my. Rather the evening you’ve had for yourself, chap. I’m sorry I was not here.’

They sat for some time in silence, becoming overtly aware of the chill and shrill whistling of the wind.

‘Alright, old friend. I have a few bottles of good scotch stored in the shed for high-end clientele. We are going to go up to the study, throw open the curtains, light a few candles, then what to do.’

M.S. stood and offered salute to M.R., the way they had to pose for officers during their service days. He went out and Martin heard Marcus plodding upstairs hastily, crossing the hall, pausing and then the doors swinging open. Bangs of thunder boomed, and the rain beat on until shut out, all fell quiet.

Through colourful glass he watched scythes of lightning crack in the sky, splitting into veined tridents of fire, listened to the low rumble of stormclouds, pattering of the deluge. M reclined somewhat, felt calmer knowing he had a confidante messed up with him, draining his friend’s remnant of whiskey. He listened even closer. From without, there was a new issue of sounds which might have been voices. This grew louder, maybe it was shouting. Then there came an unmissable emission - a gunshot.

The voluminous echo of this bang seemed to grow in mind and one felt sure it was madness and the walls seeming to vibrate with Mother Mary’s violent prayers and Jesuses high-vibrational throat humming, the floor swaying to life. What to do?! In the desk of the study Marcus had long hidden a memento pistol. Before taking any action, this was essential to have. Martin gathered his sea-legs under him and with woozy stomach he plowed out and then up, unto mainfloor and now at ground-level ducking head and hobbling across like a golem in-case onlookers should be spying from the windows but realizing there weren’t any blinds and curtains not fully drawn, yet this making no difference and hurrying ever still, then bursting into the study hard, almost collapsing onto the desk backed against an impressive velvety curtain, and from each and every corner suffocating shadows pressing in about.

Martin took a moment to load the weapon, agitated and clumsy, then with it locked, poised at the ready, withdrew from the office, huffing-puffing in the lobby, staring madly at dark mahogany. Suddenly he felt peculiar, miserable and cowardly, so gaining himself whipped open the door, stepping headlong into fog. A heavy, veiled downpour concealed the landscape - swirling noises muffling all hearing - sightless and scentless, mists and rain and thunder overcame sensory as the feeling swelled up.

M.R. sped down the wooden steps, unto yard and manoeuvred on the spot, attempting to calibrate to the storm’s surroundings. Disoriented, he had the gun up - then abruptly a broad wrist tightening round his throat, ruddy light flooding vision from behind, a shotgun’s muzzle bristling besides.

‘He’s gone. Leave it be,’ came the hoarse voice of Alistair, in whisper. ‘Something worse is out there.’

The stout groundskeeper hauled Martin up the steps like a keg dolly, sitting him solidly in a study chair. He placed his lantern aground, lit the candles in a candelabra and then made sure that the curtains were drawn. He shut the study door, checked for a lock to secure keyhole, although found none. Then he stared in Martin’s eyes, manner a doctor assesses countenance of a concussed patient with flashlight.

‘Aright, Mr. Rankin?’

‘Yes, A. Mr. Schuster?’

‘Shot. Be dead, I think.’

‘Ah. I see. Thank you.’

Alistair’s yellow raincoat was drenched, dripping profusely. The radiative light was enough to see the grave expression on his face, cold battle-borne eyes of normal men lost at war, exempted no longer.

‘Did you not hear that scream?’ asked the weathered, clubfooted groundskeeper.

‘No. Nothing. Just a gunshot.’

‘I heard it from the cabin. I loaded missy here with buckshot and went afield with lamp. There were these men looming over Mr. Schuster, next thing one's taken, letting out this foul yelp.’

Groundskeeper Alistair’s fake eye, scarred brow and pockmarked cheeks seemed to expand, retract and darken upon making this statement, aroused with physiological dread, an abject gravity closing in.

‘What do you mean taken?’

Precisely before his lips posted reply, the door burst inward and a young crony wearing vest, tie and collared shirt sprang inside. He slammed the door shut then turned and waved his gun around, Alistair countering by aiming the shell-sized barrels of the double-gauge shotgun back promptly.

‘Truce,’ commanded the gruff groundskeeper.

‘Fuckin’ ‘ell, eh.’

They both lowered their weapons warily and the younger fellow retreated well behind the desk.

‘You shot Marcus.’

‘No. That was Gorkin.’

Martin gulped, the brown shag carpet and tile panelling seeming to rush with his blood up to the ceiling. He collapsed back in a padded armchair beside a standing rack, mental dissolving into a grim shroud.

‘Neither are you the one who killed Horace Lowenstein.’

‘Nah. That was a more senior member did him. An official partisan.’

Why - why here?’

‘Ol’ Hors had been skimming off the top, the boss wised up. The rest was left up to Morty. He thought it was poetic, ironic to do it by tombstones. And farm-to-table business for you guys, here. Win-win.’

‘Your masters declared him a dead man, and this Morty decided on a stroll in the graveyard.’

‘I guess so. What’s it to ya?’

‘Quite the act to gloat over.’

‘Quiet,’ cut in Alistair. ‘That creature might be eavesdropping.’

‘You’re sure it wasn’t a man?’

‘I ain’t never seen a man sink his teeth into another,’ interjected the hitman. ‘It had bony, gangly arms, teeth like a harpy eagle’s talons. Its eyes bulged from its head, were the size of tennis balls.’

‘It be no man,’ conferred the groundskeeper.

They were as sailor’s trading stories or lighthouse keepers agreeing on impossible fables. Martin Rankin knew better. His head whirled with the storm, Marcus and poor, murdered Horace shot stone-cold dead, farm-to-table service without a plaque, medal or ribbons on reservation, which you were given on commission only if you managed to kill sufficient Deutsche commissaries stationed in the trenches, or as in this case would be, die horribly and therefore honourably in the conscripted line of duty.

‘This man, Gorkin - does he lay dead outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shh, be hush now,’ murmured the groundskeeper.

After a breath, an eerie scratching started at the base of the door. They listened in suspense, and briefly after came dozens of hard knocks pounding long on the other side, still with the nails-on-a-chalkboard.

‘Christ in Heaven! It’s M, M. Let me in!’

‘My word,’ said Martin, seeing his friend still alive, shutting the door rapidly, then Groundskeeper Alistair stuffing the crest of the armchair under the handle for good measure, lowering the shotgun.

‘Evening chaps,’ quipped Marcus, clutching a blood-soaked wound below the ribcage, carrying a medkit in the opposite hand. ‘By God, I do say that beast is out there raising the undead.’

Alistair’s hound, licking its snout, a mastiff mixed with a handsomer breed, assailed the groundskeeper below the knees. So beloved to he was his old master that he constantly dogged him at the heels.

‘Good graces, I am glad you’re okay,' said Martin, and the old friends cuffed each other’s forearms in a partial embrace. ‘Let’s get you taken care of directly. Here Alistair, clear the table.’

They laid him on its surface, cut back the shirt material, wrapped bandages over the hole. Marcus was not too pale nor feverish, and the bullet seeming to have missed anything vital.

‘Are you the one who shot me?’ he asked carelessly, staring at the ceiling.

‘No, that was Gorkin,’ answered the brute. ‘How on Earth did you survive?’

‘Well, everything was amiss after that creature befell your friend, and you bolted. I managed to escape the immediate vicinity and hide in the chords piled behind the church. That’s how I got so lucky.’

‘What do you reckon it is?’ posed the henchman, aghast.

‘It’s no man.’

‘Then what?’

‘This culprit, maker of Gorkin’s demise, is a crypt ghoul or goblin of some kind or other. Don’t pry further, I cannot explain. There’s nothing you can say or one may offer which it would want. It desires naught but to cause suffering. It will not stop, daresay, until it’s flayed our flesh clean-off and tasted human meat with the savour you relish a feast of stuffing and mashed at Thanksgiving dinner.’

‘You’re saying we ought to believe in witchcraft and monsters, then?’

‘Why not?’

‘This is ridiculous. How could it damned be?’

‘Hear me,’ said Martin, fixing him gravely. ‘You made this hallowed ground when you spilt innocent blood upon the grasses, unimpeached graves of the dead. Tell him, Marcus, about the werewolves in the mountains fighting for the Führer. You do remember the stories, documents and photographs?’

‘Of course. I just never wanted to think about it, and put it out of mind long ago.’

‘So, Dirty Morty brought this on by wasting that filthy rat, Horace?’

‘Old whispers say this be accursed land, that the ol’ church was built on ancient Indian burial grounds,’ chimed in Groundskeeper Alistair. ‘I ain’t sticking round thick to find out. I’ve a plan, hear ye.’

‘Tell us.’

‘We break for the crematorium.’

By now a good deal of moaning, groaning, scraping, ever louder, was issuing from out in the yard.

‘I’d only slow you chaps down. I’ll make for the escarpment and in the woods to cross the ravine, rather. A good ol’ WWII diversion.’

‘I’m not leaving here,’ put in the hitman. ‘No way, José.’

‘Stay here and rot,’ answered the groundskeeper. ‘We best be on our way, Mr.’s. M.’

‘And I suppose we dash straight along the lawns,’ added Martin.

‘Unless you have secret passages tunneled beneath this forsaken church,’ replied Alistair.

‘That settles it. Have your pistol, Marcus. We’ll see you on the other side.’

‘Goddamnit, I ain’t leavin’!’ shouted the young mobster.

‘We heard you the first time,’ said Martin. ‘Well, good luck then.’

‘Listen me, mutt. You be going with Mr. Schuster now,’ commanded the groundskeeper, his hound growling in response, fearful in the eyes, and then A clasping its jowls firmly. ‘Protect him, good boy.’

The canine sat back on its haunches obediently, soft eyes fixated dotingly on his wrecked old master.

‘No-no-no!’ yelled the intruder, waving the gun in the air. ‘This isn’t right. No one is going anywhere.’

In that instance the window burst and tangled in the curtain, emerged the gangly creature, long strands of hair patched upon the scalp like alopecia in a motley game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. The hitman shot his gun frivolously in the frenzied excitement, picking up a serrated shard when he was out of bullets, screaming wildly. The men threw aside the chair, wrenched open the door and dashed for the moonlit lawns. Marcus made west toward the sloping wood, bidding adieu with a wave of the hand.

They spun down a lane between twisted hedges, crows scattered in the fields behind and from beyond and beside wooded coffins shaking, as the raised dead rattled about their caskets unable to break free and rise into the afterlife. At the end of the groves was a stout building with a high, bricklaid chimney, Groundskeeper Alistair unlocking the bolt with a broad key and then them both hustling into the foyer where a single, square room unfolded inside, and a hefty grey grate standing out from opposite wall.

‘We gotta get the furnace going,’ he said. ‘Let’s S-S this bastard.’

They used a dial to set the retort to its highest heat and made sure the locks were all off and latch ready to lift so it could be opened on the fly. Groundskeeper Alistair posted at the door, armed, gun-ready.

From the long, winding, beaten lane between the gnarled, leafless trees assailed by haunting wind and rain a procession of slow, stumbling bodies began filing through out of the cemetery. They soon were a horde and walking on the crematorium and the dim, bluish light of moon enough to silhouette certain skeletal bodies, mostly bone yet also some fresher and carpeted with rotting flesh, pus, bulging parts.

‘Only one shot,’ said the groundskeeper. ‘I’ll dispatch plenty simultaneously when they get closer.’

‘We must bar the door,’ replied Martin, waiting eagerly on the fire to heat infernally.

‘Only when we have to.’

‘Maybe we should flee before they’re upon us.’

With this a hissing emanated from the ceiling, where its zenith concaved into shadows. Long-limbed and crawling, the ghoul made its way along the walls before them, its face uglier than any disfigured invalid or leper, gnashing razor-sharp teeth and honing unto its prey, murderous intent borne of bloodshot, lurid eyes maddening like a birling beacon, moth to a flame, so disorienting that there may have been sirens wailing as well.

‘Hell did he get in?!’ bellowed Groundskeeper Alistair.

‘Shoot!’

The creature lunged and attached itself onto Martin’s back, scrambling to bite into the undertaker’s throat. Its strength was immense and, restraining Rankin's arms aside, the beast chomped a pound of flesh out the back of his neck. The groundskeeper tussled to pull the ghoul free of the smaller man, receiving several clawing rakes across the face. Together both men braced hard, squeezing the supernatural menace between their heavier girths, clubbing its head with thrashing fists and the butt of the shotgun until its grip loosened, slack. Martin heaped its body into a ball as the groundskeeper opened the latch with a single hand, keeping his eyes fixed on the zombies closing in. Rankin shoved the struggling ghoul into the flame as it scrambled to get free, then they slammed the door against its desperate, fighting weight, shut it securely and reinstituted the bar.

The fire was not yet ablaze enough for incineration and its wicked screams issued from the retort as Groundskeeper Alistair took to knee by porch, blasting the first arrivals clear of the steps with scattershot. They waited breathlessly and, of the rest, they dropped dead moment the ghoul was not any longer to be heard. With killing their puppeteer, they were all them undone alas.

By morning the authorities arrived, asking why dozens of corpses had been exhumed. Martin and Marcus brought them directly to who they called the gravedigger and, this being their Groundskeeper Alistair, he explained as had been agreed upon to lie and say that it surely was some botched graverobbing, fools' errand gone wrong. Then he went out to clean up streaks of blood combed across the grass, swathed as if with a painter’s brushstroke, the dewy blades rippling softly in a gentle breeze.

Martin knew he’d enough mettle to handle litigious remorse. It was better to speak not of evil. He had a family, they had their lives and he a small share. They would expect things, though there was nothing to genuinely give from the empty parts; but to pretend was better than succumb. M.S.1. had once said to M.S.2. that Horace used to say, upon being chided against mixing with the criminal sort, that the price of being a good person was your sanity, composure. So, into its box they tucked this memory of the ghastly ghoul and night of living dead in the graveyard, same as they had countless incongruent memories before.

‘What should we do?’ had asked Martin, after the horde dropped dead.

‘Such dealings are right served in the past,’ said Alistair, snorting, hoarking, spitting.

A week later Martin met Groundskeeper Alistair in the yard. Rankin had son and daughter at heel, the groundskeeper his dog. They nodded as they got closer, coming to a standing halt.

‘Hello, gravedigger.’

‘Aye, sir,’ responded Alistair, leaning on a shovel shaft.

‘This is for you.’

It was a little puppy, Labrador mixed with a larger, bullish breed.

‘Thanks, she’s just perfect. How're you little ones today?’

Thus, Groundskeeper A had the complement of a new four-legged friend, who he named Nelly.

Martin Rankin took in a deep breath. Everything felt back to normal. All the ghosts were gone, including that of Horace L. His children were bright and well. He looked out over the gravestones, realizing that he long had preferred the energy of the dead - it did not pierce like that of the living.