Black as Blood

by Rob Chilson

1

Bernie McKay coughed hollowly. Other coughs echoed, here and there, in the hollow room.

"Ah-men," the Reverend Hallowell intoned, and a relieved rustle went through the mourners. Bernie raised his head. Taking a breath and steeling himself, he looked toward the gleaming, solid copper coffin—no, "casket"—on the trestle. Beside him, Angie pretended to dab at her eyes, sniffed perfunctorily.

The first row filed out for the Viewing of the Remains; Uncle Albert’s brothers and sisters.

Bernie felt his stomach tighten with tension, and hoped he wouldn’t start having cramps or something. He wished he’d applied double deodorant. He wished it weren’t so hot in here.

Murmuring, shuffling, the mourners filed forward. "Sir?" The discreet usher. "If you will, sir." The second row now; nephews and nieces, including Angie.

Bernie stood, taking a breath, and led Angie slowly out between the damned uncomfortable pews and up the aisle. Slowly, slowly, to give those behind them time. The casket grew before him, a gleaming copper trap with a satiny bed in its maw, a terribly strange bed. On this bed, incongruously dressed in a black suit, white shirtfront, wink of diamond from his tie, lay a dead man.

Uncle Albert, a fringe of gray hair around a polished dome across which a few errant strands straggled; Uncle Albert, shriveled and dried and shrunken in death as in life; Uncle Albert, his scrawny hands folded hypocritically on a shiny new briefcase; Uncle Albert, his mouth drawn down in a censorious scowl, only the cold, dead eyes now closed. An unrepentant Scrooge, dead at last in the midst of his Scrooging.

Near the head of the casket was a stand with an open Bible. On the Bible was a silver letter opener in the shape of a dagger, pointing to a line highlighted in gold: I am the Resurrection and the Life. I hope to hell not, Bernie thought.

He paused before the casket, calculating the minimum time he need wait without exhibiting unseemly haste. And then his stomach lurched.

Uncle Albert’s eyelids flickered.

Oh, no.

Uncle Albert’s eyes blinked. They opened, cold and dead. They focused on him, Bernie. Cold and deadly.

Angie squeaked, clutching Bernie’s arm. He stood frozen in shocked horror. They all stared.

Expression came to the dead features, the stiff mouth opened, contorted in anger. The whole corpse convulsed as if electrified. Uncle Albert croaked, gasped; his left arm jerked up stiffly. The corpse came up on the right elbow, each motion easier than the previous.

Uncle Albert gave him the finger, glaring. "Up yours, Bernie!" he rasped hoarsely.

Bernie recoiled, flushing with fear and anger. Angie stared at him, horrified, embarrassed. Reverend Hallowell wrung his hands and bleated in dismay. The other mourners gaped in shock. Recovering, Bernie stabbed his finger at the corpse. "Shut up and lie down, you swindling old fart!"

But Uncle Albert had never been easy to shut up. "Don’t you call me a swindler, you lying thief!"

A deliciously shocked murmur was already starting behind the chief mourners. Bernie started to sweat in earnest.

The corpse made as if to climb out of the coffin, bringing its left leg up stiffly. It probably couldn’t walk—though with Uncle Albert you never knew—but Bernie, alarmed, leaped forward and shoved the cold, jerkily moving thing back, his hands on its slablike chest. Its left arm flailed aimlessly about his head, the other hand gripped the edge of the casket.

"I know all about you—I know the truth—" Uncle Albert was muttering in his hoarse rasp, struggling like a wind-up toy entangled in the carpet. "You little shit—"

Revolted, sweating and desperate with fear of what the corpse might say, Bernie cried, "Help, police! Cessation! I demand cessation!" He struggled to hold the grisly thing in its coffin, drowning out its words with his cries.

The bored cop at the back of the room had brightened at the beginning of the fracas. He filed forward along the wall of the room, eager but pretending to be deadpan official. Bernie turned a sweating, desperate look on him.

"Cessation! This man is legally dead. Please!"

"You got a death certificate?" the cop said, as if this happened every day. He had the blank expression of a man chewing gum, but wasn’t.

"Yeah—Mr. Culter, quick, show him the death certificate—you have it, don’t you?"

"Officer—arrest this man—"

"Oh, shut up! Officer, please, this is very embarrassing."

"We gotta do things by the book, sir," said the cop.

Mr. Culter, the mortician, did not alter his sad expression. With mournful dignity he pulled the death certificate out of his inside coat pocket and extended it.

Uncle Bill jostled forward, peering at his dead brother with the pleasantly horrified expression of a man relieved that a dull ceremony has been enlivened. There was a certain recognition in the relative’s expression. Just what you’d expect of Albert, William Smithers as good as said: Never could shut him up.

"I’ll get you—I’ll haunt you—little bastard—"

Still struggling with the thing, Bernie cried, "You heard that! A threat, a threat, harassment! I’ll have you exorcised—Reverend Hallowell, you heard that—"

Reverend Hallowell shook his head, spread his hands: Not without a warrant.

The cop pushed the certificate aside. "Yeah, right, so Albert Smithers is dead. You there, in the coffin. You Albert Smithers?"

"Officer—arrest him—he’s Bernie McKay—the thief—"

"You Albert Smithers?"

The corpse’s expression changed, its glittering dry eyes shifted. Alarmed, Bernie cried, "Hell yes it’s Albert Smithers! Who the hell else could it be? Ask us! We’re just the next of kin, you know!"

"Gotta go by the book. You could all be in it together."

Bernie shoved the cold thing back viciously again. "So go ahead, tell him you’re not Uncle Albert, tell him you’re Dracula, you’re Frankenstein, you’re the Ghost of Christmas Past!"

The cop leaned forward. "Albert Smithers!"

The corpse’s head turned sharply toward him—then froze. Too late. Its withered features revealed its dismay; its reflexes had deprived it of the chance to muddy the waters.

"Right, it’s him." The cop pulled his pistol slowly.

"I’ll do it!" snapped Bernie, furious, impatient.

Holding it back with his left, he reached across and snatched up the blunt dagger that pointed to the Resurrection and the Life. He brought the weapon back.

"Be careful with that thing, sir," the cop grumbled, ducking away and holstering his pistol. "We ain’t all dead, you know."

"For the third time, die!" Bernie said, and slammed the blunt point into Uncle Albert’s gleaming white shirt front.

The corpse jolted. There was no blood. Then it was as if the toy’s spring had run down. Its joints loosened and it began to relax, subsiding into the coffin. Not waiting, Bernie shoved it back. It was like shoving a door with an automatic closer. Feverishly he started prying at the fingers on the edge of the coffin, before instant rigor froze them in place.

"You—haven’t—seen—the last—of me—" it said, its hoarse rasp also unwinding.

Frantically Bernie tore the gray pinkie loose and reached for the lid of the coffin. He had to push down the left hand, its middle finger still stiffly extended, to lower the lid. Viciously he snapped the latch shut. He blew out his breath, straightened his coat, patted his face with his handkerchief. No sound came from within.

The cop was fading, looking back with an expression of concealed amusement. He’d have tales to tell—this didn’t happen at every funeral—and the upper crust, yet. Bernie’s relatives looked at him with embarrassment and dismay; some shuffled their feet; some coughed. The other mourners were more pleased; they murmured together in subdued delight.

That social climber, Mrs. Whatshername, was equally pleased, despite her disdainful exclamation: "Shocking! Absolutely shocking! I thought them a refined, genteel family—"

Someone else was saying, "Old reprobate, you know, black sheep."

"Nothing like this ever happened in our family before," came another murmur.

Reverend Hallowell, trying to bring order out of chaos, was saying, "Mr. McKay—Mr. McKay—"

"For the third time?" a woman said quietly.

Hearing that, Bernie turned, met Angie’s gaze. It was questioning, dismayed. Mutely shocked.

"When people die, I wish they would just plain die and be done with it," he grumbled, taking her arm and tugging, to start the procession moving.

No one seemed to have any desire to re-open the coffin.

2

"There he is," said Deputy Rod Parker, pointing and frowning officiously. White Bird Hadley, spiff in his blue uniform—and the officer who had witnessed events in the funeral parlor—was just entering the Bus Stop Cafe on the east side of the town square. How do these skinny guys do it, Parker wondered. He himself was short and squat, like a troll.

Hadley sat down in the booth with Parker and his boss. He looked like he had something interesting to tell, all right.

Evelyn Anderson, perennial sheriff of St. Claude County, Missouri, raised his eyebrows in expectation. "What did the corpse say?"

"Called McKay a thief. McKay’s his partner—was his partner. Think it means anything?"

Evelyn Anderson laughed. Parker laughed too, not so loud. "Hell, Smithers hisself was the biggest cheat and liar in the county," Evelyn said. "No, I don’t reckon it means anything. What a dead man says ain’t evidence anyway."

"Maybe McKay was cheating him in the business, taking loot outta the till," said Parker. From what he’d heard—

"That’s for the accountants to find out," said the sheriff to Hadley, good-humoredly. "And prefer charges or file suit, as they’ve a mind to."

White Bird grinned back. "Guess who the accountants are? Smithers and Waley."

Parker chimed in with their laugh.

"Less trouble for us," said Evelyn. "You ceased the corpse?"

"McKay didn’t give me time. He stabbed it with Culter’s sterling silver letter opener. Smithers still has it, in the coffin." He grinned. "I heard Culter calling him a damned old thief." Sobering, he looked from Anderson to Parker, who tried to look alert. "Anything going on?"

"I’m lookin’ at Brad Schiereck for that cornfield deal," said the sheriff. Parker nodded, ignored. "Somebody drove up and down old man Hatterson’s east cornfield, row by row, and knocked about half his crop down."

White Bird nodded. "Figured it for one of the Lesslies or Watsons," he said. There were about a dozen of these cousins, some pretty wild.

"Could be, but I’m gonna want to talk to young Schiereck one day soon," Anderson said deliberately.

"Better be soon," said Parker. "That old nigger Hatterson’s a mean jay."

White Bird gave him a look. "Yeah, well, I gotta be goin’. Don’t look good for one third of the city cops to be sittin’ around jawin’ with one fifth of the county law."

What’d I say? Parker thought, aggrieved.

3

Bernie McKay tore off the black jacket and tie with relief. Thank God it’s over, he thought. Jesus, what a thing to have happen. Be just like the old bastard to haunt me. Angie slipped her dress off her shoulders and let it fall. He watched approvingly in the mirror. She’d kept her figure well, and her face was practically unlined.

"You’re not going back to the office this afternoon," she said. "It wouldn’t look right."

"I didn’t mean to open it," he grumbled. "There’s all kinds of paperwork we got to go through. Uncle Albert’s will—"

"By the way, what did you mean at the funeral, the third time? He had only been killed once before, from what I heard."

"Well, I meant die, you know. I said, for the third time, die," Bernie said uncomfortably. "He died three times, we had to kill him twice. Anyway, before the will can be probated—"

"That reminds me. You’ll be changing the name of the agency?" She pulled on a fresh slip and turned to face him. Pink face, blue eyes, alluring womanly figure—suddenly Bernie realized how tired he was of her. If she’d only keep her mouth shut, she’d be the sexiest woman her age in St. Claude County.

"I hadn’t thought about it," he said, looking away.

"Don’t lie to me," she said without rancor. "I can always tell. Listen, don’t be in a hurry to rename it ‘The McKay Agency’ or whatever you had in mind. For one thing, the Smithers name counts for a lot. For another, you’ll be needing a partner, you can’t handle it all yourself. That associate of yours, Gibson—"

"Assistant," he mumbled.

"Assistant, associate, what the hell. You’re gonna have to make him partner, or he’ll go elsewhere. He’s already had an offer from Gunderson."

Bernie looked at her sharply. "How do you know that?"

"I play bingo with Lottie Gunderson." She looked calmly back at him, then raised her arms and lowered a loose white dress over her head.

Selecting a summer shirt, he considered that. Paul Gibson was a young fellow with an irritatingly smug attitude which he’d been able to turn into smarmy obsequiousness in the presence of the senior partner. Damn him, he’d urged Bernie not to propose retirement to Uncle Albert. Had said it would make the old man more stubborn, which it had.

Fortunately, he’d found an answer. He wondered if Gibson knew.

He wondered if Uncle Albert knew.

"Kind of leaves me at a loose end for the afternoon," he said, pulling his thoughts away from that.

Angie gave him a cool glance, drawing a brush through her thick brown hair. "I’m seeing Lena and Jennie. We set it up at church. I’m sure you can find plenty to do around the house."

Bernie grimaced. "It’s the paperwork I really need to get done," he said. As she left the room, he added, "I could go down and appraise that land for the County Court. Been putting that off long enough."

"Do as you please," her voice came distantly back.

"Yeah," he said bitterly, unheard.

He waited uneasily till he heard her car pull out, then drove out to Ross’s Amoco station on Highway 13, where he had the maroon Cadillac fueled. From the booth he called Nona Martens. After his morning, he needed a pick-me-up, and since Angie had rarely been in the mood, despite her looks, for some years—

"Hey, Nona, it’s me, Bernie. You free this afternoon?"

"Don’t you have your uncle’s funeral today?" suspiciously.

"It’s over, baby. I’m loose. My wife’s off to see her friends, and she’s forbidden me to go to the office."

"Oh. Well, you know I don’t go to work till six."

He knew it well. Nona was a waitress on the night shift at the Night Owl, out here on the highway. And she lived in a trailer in the country, a discreet half-mile from her nearest neighbor.

Five miles by blacktop on Highway B and two by gravel county road would bring him to her place. As he drove with the air conditioning cranked up full, Bernie thought back on Uncle Albert. He hadn’t said a thing at the funeral, not a thing about it.

Bernie had been in the habit of stopping by Uncle Albert’s place on Hoover Street every evening, during his final illness. And for three weeks prior to the old man’s death, he’d administered his heart medicine. Or rather, he’d given him aspirin and thrown the heart medicine away. Tough old bastard. Took weeks for him to croak.

Wonder if he knows? Wonder what he said to Culter when he came alive during embalming?

Oh well. Uncle Albert was dead, and nothing he said could be used in evidence. He had lost all property and all but a few civil rights. More important, that coffin was locked down with a big thick latch and buried six feet under. Four feet was the legal minimum in Missouri, but when Bernie’d heard that the corpse had come to life, he’d told Culter to make it a full six feet, and the fellow had done so. Even a strong, live young man couldn’t break that latch, and an animated corpse had little strength. Nor did they remain animate long. Not long enough to dig up through clay soil.

Thus reassured, Bernie punched in a tape and hummed along. Outside, spiky oak leaves of the impenetrable forest glittered in the hot sunlight. Nona’s trailer was a hundred winding yards back from the county road, and he’d park the Cad behind heavy bushes. The cicadas were trilling in a rising, falling chorus. Mating-minded quail called hopefully. He was protected from the heat by tinted glass and air conditioning, and on his way to a good fuck.

And he was about to inherit the agency, at last. He went from humming to singing.

4

"Hey, Hat!"

The Night Owl was jumping, but the shout came clear. Jody Stetson looked around from where he sat at the bar, and waved. He’d been "Hat" to his friends since the fourth grade, and his father before him. Billy Martens, Bob "Poochie" Dubret, and Orlin Deutscher waved back and scurried through the throng toward him.

Hat stood up and hollered, "It’s all off! It’s all off!"

Deutscher grinned and hollered back, "What’s all off?"

"The hair on his head!"

They all laughed at the bald-headed old coot at the nearest table, who gave them a sour glower.

"Hey, look, guys, let’s get a booth," said Hat, grabbing his beer and carefully picking up his trademark; a cheap white cowboy hat. He waved to Nona Martens and led them to an empty booth at the back.

Hat leered as Nona took their orders. She was a shapely imitation redhead in her thirties who returned his leer with a cool look. To her son, Billy, she said sharply, "Why are you hanging around these losers? Why don’t you hang out with your old high school friends anymore?" Martens ignored her, sullenly.

Hat glanced at them quickly and spoke up. "Who’s a loser?" he asked. "Gimme a try. It’s your loss if you don’t!"

She turned away without answering. Victorious, Hat laughed loudly, seconded by haw-haws from Poochie and Deutscher. He slapped at her ass as she left, missing. She had sidestepped in anticipation.

"Hey, she’s a great horse," Hat said to Billy. "Anybody ridin’ her these days?"

Billy Martens gave him an irritated glance and shrugged, embarrassed.

Hat leaned forward and said, "Hey, what happened at the funeral?"

The gravediggers looked at each other. "We heard he sat up and called his pardner names," said Deutscher.

"Ole McKay," Poochie Dubret said, pushing out his lips.

"We wasn’t there," Deutscher added.

"Oh. Well, how about at the grave service?"

"Nothin’."

"Reverend Hallowell was sure nervous, though."

"Yeah, and the audience was whisperin’. We heard all about it."

Hat laughed. "Jeez, what a sensation. Figure it’d be ole Smithers’d sit up and jaw at his funeral. I fixed his eaves for him once. I bet ole Hallowell had a hell of a time writing up a brief for his soul, to put in his damn funeral briefcase! Damndest old bastard that ever farted."

The others laughed dutifully.

Hat passed for good looking, despite his big nose, and among his friends for a wit, despite his lack of it. He was by five years the oldest of them, ten years older than Billy Martens’s eighteen. He’d served a hitch in the army, with two years in Europe, where he’d learned two furrin words: "Bitte" and "Schnell." They both meant, so far as he knew, "Get your ass in gear." He’d also fucked an Arabian woman in Hamburg. It was in the Reeperbahn, she was older than he’d thought at first, and tired; and he’d had to pay for the privilege—details he’d never told his friends. But he qualified as a traveled cosmopolite to them.

Especially Martens. Hat jerked a thumb at him. "He okay?" he said to Deutscher, who nodded.

Martens looked from one to the other. "Sure I am," he said protestingly, and picked up his beer. He chug-a-lugged the last half of it to prove it.

Hat said, "Okay, okay, Orlin says you’re okay. Sorry about what I said about your mom. So: what about the coffin?"

They all looked at each other, and glanced around, on pretense of looking for the waitress. Nobody near enough to hear.

"Solid copper," Deutscher said, dropping his voice.

"Solid," said Poochie Dubret. He pursed his lips.

"And what does it weigh?"

The gravediggers looked at each other. Poochie said, "Four hunnerd, five hunnerd pounds. What coffins usually weigh."

"That Judy Lammers tell you that?"

"It’s Luh-moor, like in Dorothy Luhmoor," Poochie said, pushing out his lips in irritation. "Hell, everybody knows what a coffin weighs."

"Five hundred pounds," Hat said. "And number one grade copper’s bringin’ damn near a dollar a pound."

Martens looked at him uneasily. "Jeez, Hat, you really mean it? I mean, the ole man sat up and cussed out his nephew, fa cry sake. Think he’d like bein’ dug up?"

"Hey, it’s just a stiff. They ain’t got no stren’th. You ask Poochie. Tell ’im, Poochie."

Dubret swallowed beer and nodded. " ’Cordin’ to what Judith tole me, they don’t move around for long, and they ain’t got no stren’th, like Hat says. You heard ’em say that McKay stopped this stiff just by stabbin’ ’im through the heart. He gives us any lip, we bash him and that’s it."

Martens looked unconvinced. Deutscher said, "C’mon, man, we need a fourth. Bastard’s heavy."

Martens still hesitated, and Deutscher added, "Pal, we’re splittin’ maybe four hundred four ways."

Hat pushed a hand at him and Deutscher shut up. "Hey, it’s up to you, man," he said easily to the boy. "We prob’ly can’t do it without you, but if you don’t want no part of it, just say so."

The boy thought it over for a few moments, then nodded. He looked up and managed a grin. "Be somethin’ to tell about, if we was able to."

Hat grinned back at him. "Yeah. If we was ever able to."

5

Justin Waley passed a hand over his balding head, brought it down over his beak of a nose. He hoped his thin pale features didn’t reveal the flush he’d worn, he felt, since those boys had jeered at him. Damn that Hat Stetson anyway, he thought miserably. Those boys, he had called them—he was only four years older than Stetson. He felt twenty years older.

Nona Martens had laughed with the rest at his balding head, and when she went over to take their orders, Hat had joshed with her and slapped her backside. Justin sighed, swallowed ice water. Damn his inhibitions and general shyness! He could imagine himself joshing with Nona, but he could never do it. Why do the worthless bastards like Stetson get everything that’s good, throw it away, and still flourish?

No point in hanging around here and trying to talk to Nona, he thought glumly. Might as well go home and read a book. The new Stephen King comedy, perhaps that would cheer him up.

Tomorrow he and his partner, William Smithers, would be going through Albert Smithers’s books. Albert’s brother, checking out Albert. Justin shook his head.

6

Hat Stetson shushed the others and looked around, listening.

It was well before midnight, but most of the houses near Mount Pisgah Baptist Cemetery were dark. Only a couple of ghastly green-yellow yard lights flickered through the heavy belt of cedars along two sides of the cemetery. The third side was beyond a hill, and the fourth faced the church itself across a narrow blacktop road. Hat’s pickup and Poochie’s mother’s cast-off station wagon were hidden behind the shed that housed the tractors.

"Okay, everything’s quiet."

"Maybe we should come back later, when everybody’s for sure asleep," whispered Deutscher.

"Don’t be a sap; anybody hears the tractor, he’ll figure somebody’s workin’. After midnight, he might be curious." Hat gave him a shove. "Go start it up."

As Deutscher was struggling with the lock in the weak moonlight, Hat had a thought. "Hey, how come ole man Smithers is buried out here? Don’t the Smitherses go to the Methodist church in town?"

"Yeah, but I guess he bought a plot when he was younger, and naturally he wouldn’t buy another." Poochie Dubret sounded strained.

"Figures," Hat mused, tugging nervously at the bill of his John Deere cap. He’d left his cowboy hat behind; too easy to see in the dark. "Hurry up, Dutchies!"

"God damn it t’ hell," Hat heard the other mutter hoarsely, and there was the rattle of a chain. "Okay, ouch, dammit!"

There was the flicker of a flashlight from inside, and just then headlights glowed along the road. Hat and the others ducked behind the shed. A pickup rattled by with a blast of rock music indistinguishable from the half-muffled engine roar, went over the other hill, and was gone. Deutscher backed a tractor with a mowing machine on it out of the shed, and, cursing, went back for the backhoe.

"C’mon, we’re gonna need shovels," Poochie said.

They fumbled shovels out of the shed, Hat barking his shin and cursing, and threw them into the back of Hat’s pickup. Smithers’s grave was well to the back; that was good. Hat followed the backhoe slowly, and finally parked under a big walnut on a couple of graves close to the fresh mound of yellow-red clayey earth.

He opened the tailgate while Poochie kicked plastic flowers off the grave and pulled up the wooden marker. The tombstone wasn’t set yet, so it wasn’t in the way. Deutscher went to work, chunking the backhoe’s toothy scoop through the packed earth and throwing the dirt down in a neat pile, like a damn professional gravedigger. Several cars went by and even Hat became uneasy. The backhoe made too much noise; he couldn’t tell if anybody was hanging around, like maybe from one of the nearer houses.

"At least we don’t have to worry about roots and rocks," said Poochie nervously, watching the backhoe bite into the ground.

At last there came a clunking sound from the grave. It was repeated on the next two scoops, and Deutscher peered carefully into the hole. "Hold the light," he said. He performed a long slow scrape along the top of the coffin that set Hat’s teeth on edge and sent shivers down the spines of the others, by the way they winced.

Deutscher killed the engine. "Right, that’s it with the backhoe. We’ll have to dig down the sides with shovels to git the handles. Git the lead out, Billy-boy." He shoved Martens toward the pickup.

Hat took a shovel and slid down into the dark hole. It was damp, and smelled cool and earthy, like worms. The others followed him, the copper coffin thudding under their feet. In the dim light, it was black as dried blood, with the same hint of red. Hat drove his shovel into the soil on one side. Unaccustomed though they were to work, this went quickly, despite the darkness.

"Th’ow your dirt right onto the pile," Poochie said to Hat. "Don’t fling it just anywhere."

"We gotta leave it lookin’ the same as it was before," Deutscher explained. "Not a lot of dirt scattered around."

"Right," Hat said, seeing the wisdom of that, and trying to comply. It wasn’t as easy as it looked.

"We gonna cut it up t’night?" Martens asked nervously.

"Whassa matta, Billy-boy, you afraid of stickin’ it out?" Deutscher jeered. He nearly dropped his shovel as it hit the bank; there were too many of them in the grave.

"Naw, I figure we better hide it and lay low for a few days, see if anybody notices," Hat said pacifically. "I know a place we can stash it."

"Maybe we should bury it," Poochie suggested, with a shaky laugh.

At length they had uncovered the rails. With Deutscher directing, they squatted, gripping the rails, and hoisted it up, hampered by standing almost on top of it. Once they had it waist high, their backs pushed against the side of the hole, it got easier; then they pressed it up over their heads.

"Out on your side, Hat," Deutscher grunted, heaving, and Hat ducked under it. "Heave, Billy-boy! You ain’t bakin’ a cherry pie now."

"Aw, lay off, Dutchies," Martens grumbled.

When they had it braced on the edge of the hole, Hat asked, gasping for breath, "Why this side?"

" ’Cause the latch’s on this side," Deutscher gasped. "It wants to go up with the latch side facin’ the hole. Then we open the lid and dump the stiff back down in, an’ cover it up. See?"

"Yeah."

They stood for a long moment in the grave, in the dark under the walnut’s thick leaves. Hat saw their eyes gleaming in the gloom. "Not long now," he said, his voice raspy. All the beer had evaporated out of him. In fact, now he thought about it, he’d give his soul for a beer.

"I’d sell my soul for a beer," he said. But nobody laughed.

"We c’n git a drink soon," said Deutscher. "Okay, look, me an’ Billy-boy will stay down here an’ brace it, if the kid don’t faint from fear. Hat, you an’ Poochie git up there and haul ’er up, okay?"

Assenting, Hat and Poochie eased the load onto the others and ducked carefully out from under. In their exhausted state, arms and legs quivering from the strain of lifting that thing over their heads, they had a little difficulty scrambling out. Mount Pisgah Baptist Church’s windows winked reproachfully across the road at them.

"Make sure you wash up good t’night and hide your clothes or wash ’em," Hat said. "Don’t want no evidence."

He and Poochie grabbed the rail on the top side and, half lifting, half dragging, tussled the thing back onto the thin turf. Deutscher and Martens couldn’t help much from inside the grave. But they didn’t need to go far.

"Aw right, how do we open this thing?" Hat asked.

They looked at each other, faces dim in the shade of the walnut.

"Gimme the flashlight," Deutscher said, giving Martens a shove.

Martens walked resentfully to the pickup and then to the backhoe, where Deutscher had left it. Hat realized that the gravediggers’ expertise did not extend to the actual coffin. He peered over Deutscher’s shoulder, heard Poochie and Martens breathing across the coffin.

But the latch was simple enough, and clicked back easily.

"Okay, let us git around an’ we’ll raise—"

"Yaaah!"

The lid flew up and a big dark spidery thing scrambled out. Hat’s hair stood up and he yelled too. It fell out of the coffin at his end, rasping unintelligible words in a harsh parody of a voice. Then it sprang at him!

Hat yelled again and shoved, feeling a cold solid Thing in a formal three-piece suit vibrating against his palms, its tie flapping despite the diamond tie tack. It exuded a sickly chemical breath that didn’t cover a darker taint. Cawing harshly, it pawed at his head, tearing off his John Deere cap. Close to him, its face gleamed waxily in the freckles of moonlight through the leaves. Eyes, teeth—

"Help—"

Deutscher, bug-eyed, had fallen over backward; the other two were yelling on the other side of the coffin. He was all alone and the Thing was all over him. He couldn’t hold it—

"Help me—hit it, git it back in the—"

The world crumbled beneath his feet and he fell, scrambling, into darkness.

For a moment Hat cowered panting in the grave, having caught himself on his left hand, his feet still up in the air. With a sudden rush of panic he righted himself, stood up. He could see nothing, hear nothing but a gasped cry or two and the multiple sound of running feet, fading fast.

Those bastards—! They’ve run off and left me with it—

Hat stood dazed, looked from side to side for It to appear above the rim of his world. Then he had a sudden fear of Its cranking up the backhoe and burying him. Fearfully he scrambled out of the grave, expecting It to materialize and shove him back at every moment.

Panting, he stood looking around. No sign of It, and no sign of life. Nothing. Yes! The sound of Poochie’s wagon coughing to life in the distance. He heard a car door slam, and the engine raced, the tires burred as they kicked dirt.

There in the shadows— Something moved!

Hat was halfway inside his pickup before he realized it, scrambling for his keys. He rolled the windows up as he started up and backed around; his teeth rattled as the pickup jolted into a tombstone. His heart was pounding like a tom-tom. Then he was in motion, looking in all directions.

Nothing moved, living or dead.

The copper coffin lay forlorn, gaping open, beside the gaping grave.

7

Bernie McKay awoke with a start, feeling as if he’d swallowed a snore. Was it a sound, a snore, a dream? He sat up in the still night, looked around muzzily. Angie was a satin-covered hump in the other bed.

Tinkle of glass from below, some obscure sounds, and a dull floppy thud. More glass.

Burglar!

Bernie’s heart thudded. Call the cops now, or go check first? His first reaction was to go check, but then he hesitated. The only gun in the house was downstairs. He reached for the phone.

"Yeah, police here. What can I do?" Sleepily.

"This is Bernie McKay, Twelve-fifteen Coolidge," he said rapidly. "I hear somebody moving around downstairs; sounds like they broke a window."

"What! Right, I’ll git somebody there right away—Twelve-fifteen what?"

Angie sat up and snapped on the light as Bernie repeated himself. "Bernie McKay, what are you doing? Who are you calling at this time of night? I— No, I will not shush, Bernie Mc—"

A clatter from below stopped her; her face paled, her eyes standing out. "A burglar!" she whispered. "Bernie, do something!—there’s a burglar—"

"Police will be here soon. Listen, I’m going to see if I can get down and get hold of the gun."

She opened her mouth, closed it, and he heard her shoot the bolt when he was in the hall. Barefooting stealthily down the front stair, Bernie gradually realized that he was doing a very brave or foolish thing. He had seen so many TV shows and movies in which the hero acted thus boldly, and had identified with the hero so thoroughly, that it had never occurred to him that he was not himself brave, resourceful, strong, young, and a demon fighter.

Belatedly hesitating at the foot of the stair, he reflected nervously that there was no director making sure he won.

"Hyaw Raw Yaw!"

He jumped and looked around. Someone was coming at him from the kitchen! He had stumbled away from the stair, so he ran and ducked behind the couches around the coffee table, heart beating quickly. It came into the light from the window.

"No! You’re dead!"

Uncle Albert’s face gleamed waxily, pulled back and fixed into a scowl, teeth gleaming. His eyes were swelling, popping out, despite the embalming. He cawed and croaked, no longer able to speak intelligibly—but hatred still animated him enough to send him shambling around the coffee table and its couches. His best suit was incongruously festive, the diamond winking from his tie, shirt sleeves open where he’d lost his studs, black shoes scuffed.

"Harr Yaw!"

"Back—get back—" Bernie danced sideways, spun a chair into the thing’s way.

It patiently fumbled the fallen chair aside, never taking its gaze off him. "Raw Raw Rawrr." It came on, not fast, not slow, more than ever like some wind-up machine, clumsy, powerful, unsophisticated.

Bernie was frightened, but despite that he had a sudden flood of unreality. It was too absurd a picture, himself confronting this tenacious dead thing from which all rationality had departed. What would the neighbors think? A flash of anger shook him.

"You stupid asshole!" he barked. "You can’t come in here like this—"

Ignoring him, it got close enough to lunge. Sweating, Bernie danced around again, brief anger gone and choky fear back. It wouldn’t ever stop coming— He gripped the smaller of the couches. When it turned and started for him again, he aimed the couch like a pool cue and thrust with panicky strength.

It was too slow to dodge and was bowled over backward. Shrieking you old bastard, Bernie was running for it even as it fell. He grabbed a chair and made a full overhand sweep with it, staggering as its legs bounced off the ceiling. It came down with diminished force on Uncle Albert’s unprotected head.

Wood or bone crunched, and Bernie raised the chair again, panting, glaring. This time he swept it around in a lower arc, but the corpse let itself fall backward to raise its arms. The chair crashed into them and did little harm. Before he could pull it back, Uncle Albert, cawing, had seized it. For a moment there was a nightmarish tug-of-war over the chair, then Bernie released it, falling back to the fireplace.

The corpse struggled slowly to its feet; Bernie wasted time fumbling for the poker because he couldn’t bear to look away from it. When he finally had it, the corpse was upright and swinging the chair back over its head, stumbling toward him.

Quickly Bernie ran at it, taking advantage of its slow clumsiness, to shove it. But that brought him face to face with it, and into its evil putrid chemical odor. He almost panicked, eyeball to eyeball with Death.

Hysterically he shoved it away, screaming, "Die! Die! Die!" and swinging the poker again and again, smashing the face, the head, the chair it finally brought forward, following it up as it staggered backward, as it fell, striking and striking and striking, screaming and screaming. "Dirty rotting scoundrel!" His fear was gone, leaving only rage. The smashed skull leaked hideous fluids over the carpet, and finally he realized that it had stopped moving. He stood sobbing for breath, gripping the beslimed poker; then he flung it away.

"Do I have to drive a stake through your damned black heart?" he gasped. Stumbling, looking back at it, he walked sideways to the light switch. In the glare of light, it seemed more unreal than ever, more dreamlike, and more hideously dead—yet with a grin on its fractured features that sent a superstitious shiver down his back.

Red lights flashed as the cop car pulled into his driveway. Late, as usual, Bernie thought. I’ll put a flea in their ears. And that damned Culter, too. He said he’d never be able to dig out. By God I’ll have him cremated this time, will or no.

What the hell’s that on its chest? Oh my God. It’s that letter opener.

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• Black as Blood Chapter Two
• Black as Blood Chapter Three