Through a heavy silver mist, the old church was visible just behind the cemetery to the left. A dilapidated adobe ruin, the buttressed walls remained strong, but the roof had caved in. The top of the steeple was no more than fifteen feet off the ground, sitting atop what was left of the bell tower, which had set itself down behind the front wall.

When the muted light from the half-moon strained far enough through the fog, it lent the ruin, the cemetery, and the man approaching it a ghostly appearance.

Mordecai Spencer, at six foot four and a hundred and thirty pounds, was spare. His bones fairly clacked as he crept through the mist toward the churchyard. Above the high tops of his low-heeled black boots, the legs of his black pants bent sharply before him, first the left leg, then the right, then the left again, as if each step was planned and carefully worked into a choreography.

He’d pulled his black, wide-brimmed bowler hat low on his narrow forehead. His eyes, sunken beneath bushy black eyebrows, were braced on the bottom with dark half-circles. Beneath them, sharp cheekbones gave way to pockmarked cheeks and a bony jawline and chin.

From a large, dark mole on the left side of his chin sprouted several wiry black hairs. They curved back to touch his cheek, and Mordecai often reached up to scratch where they tickled him. The casual observer might think him unclean.

A long, slender black overcoat hung off the points of his shoulders, protecting him from the dank chill. In his right hand, he carried a simple spade with a short, weathered wood handle and dirt dried on the blade.

Mordecai passed between the adobe and stacked-stone pillars at the entrance to the churchyard. The decaying wooden gate, green with rot and left half-open in decades past, clung stubbornly to the left pillar and angled sharply down into the brush.

As Mordecai stepped around the gate, lightning crackled across the sky, and the ozone-scented heavens rumbled. He stopped, twisted his neck to the left, then back to the right as he looked over the rows of tombstones. A greedy grin curled the corners of his mouth. “Where to begin? Where to begin?”

Granite dust exploded as a bullet slapped into a nearby tombstone.

Mordecai dropped the shovel, flopped to the ground, and scurried behind a tombstone in the next row. He drew his knees up to his chest and clamped his hands on top of his hat. He pressed his elbows hard against the outside of his knees, then slapped his back against the tombstone, trembling.

The tombstone fell over.

“Cut! Cut! God damn it, cut!” The director, Matthew Fraley, wearing leather thong Nike sandals beneath khaki cargo pants, a white shirt and a brown belt, sprang from his canvas chair, the script clenched in his left hand, his arms flailing at his sides. “Jesus Freakin’ Christ! I can’t work like this! Who can work like this?” He twisted his head around to glare at his young assistant, 23 year old Jamie Davidson. “Seriously, I’m askin’! Can anybody work like this?”

Jamie’s eyes grew wide. She jerked her clipboard up in front of her white blouse and pushed her glasses up her nose with her left index finger. The director’s entreaty had taken her by surprise. He’d never asked her for anything beyond sex or coffee. She cleared her throat. “Well, Mr. Fraley, I—”

But Fraley had already turned away to address the setting in general. “You’d think the whole damn thing is cursed or something!”

He turned his attention on Mordecai, who was still sitting just beyond the overturned tombstone. In his anger, the director inadvertently walked into the scene, and the toe of his right sandal scooped up some of the soft dirt and added to his frustration.

He looked down and kicked his foot, sending the dirt in a spray. “God damn it!” At the same time he realized he was leaving sandal prints in the dirt path leading into the scene. He glared at Mordecai’s back and flapped his arms again. “What the hell is wrong with you, Mordecai?”

When he heard his name, Mordecai twisted around and looked over his shoulder. He pointed at himself with a long, bony finger. “Me?”

But Fraley didn’t see the gesture. He’d already turned away. “Can you believe this? I mean, can you freakin’ believe this? I can’t believe this!”

The crew just looked at him and waited.

He turned back to Mordecai and put his hands on his hips. “Well?”

Still pointing at himself, Mordecai murmured again, “Me?”

Fraley’s face grew red as his arms flailed out to the sides, palms up. “Yes, you! You! Who the hell else?” His arms still raised, he twisted side to side. “Is anybody else in the scene?”

Mordecai’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “No sir, there’s jus’ me an’ you.” To regain a modicum of composure, Mordecai turned his head away again and tugged lightly at the brim of his hat, as if he’d crawled around the opposite side of the tombstone only for that purpose.

“No, Mordecai! It’s you! It’s all you! I’m not in the goddamn scene!” He looked down, then at Mordecai again. “All right, I’m in the scene at the moment, but that’s just because I had to come correct you! Again!” Fraley held up one fist and began ticking off fingers. “Look, one, you’re in a graveyard late at night, right?”

Still facing away, Mordecai nodded.

“Two, there’s only a half-moon, so it’s freakin’ dark, right?”

Mordecai nodded again, then put his palms against the ground and began unfolding himself.

“Three, the whole damn world is fogged completely the hell in, right?”

His back still to Fraley and the crew, Mordecai nodded again and tugged for a moment at his overcoat, then brushed the damp dirt from it with his palms as best he could.

“Four, there’s lightning and thunder literally every damn where! And five—” Still looking at Mordecai’s back, he put his arms out at his sides. “Jesus, do I really have to go on?” He shook his head.

Mordecai turned slowly, put his right foot on the overturned tombstone as if he’d defeated it in battle, then slipped his right hand into the front of his overcoat, resting it behind a button.

Fraley let his arms drop and cocked his head to one side. “What’re you now, Napoleon freakin’ Bonaparte?”

“Well, sixty-some years ago in school I played Napol—”

Fraley shook his head. “Never mind. That’s between you and your shrink. Let’s focus on the here and now, okay?”

Again Mordecai nodded, assuming the man expected a response.

“Look, Mordecai, you’re evil! Your character, I mean, is evil. Pure evil. You’re a ghoul, for Christ’s sake! You’re here because you’re actually contemplating eatin’ freakin’ dead people! And what? A gunshot scares you? Seriously?” He stopped talking and put his hand on top of the stacked-stone pillar to the right of the opening. He flapped his left arm away from his side, palm up, and shrugged. “Well?”

Mordecai looked at him for a long moment, his Adam’s apple working again behind the pallid skin of his throat. “I wasn’t expectin’ no gunshot, Mr. Fraley.”

Fraley stared. “You weren’t expec—” He stopped, looked over his shoulder at the three cameras, the crew, and the few actors standing behind the crew. A smirk crept across his face. He shook his head lightly and the smirk disappeared. Then he turned back to Mordecai. Quietly, he said, “You weren’t expecting a gunshot, eh?”

Mordecai shook his head. “No sir. No sir, I wasn’t. An’ it ain’t right.”

Fraley frowned. “What ‘ain’t right’?”

The Adam’s apple bobbed again. “Ain’t right you gettin’ mad at me for bein’ surprised at somethin’ I didn’t know was comin’. Real is real an’ that was real, but all this here’s s’posed to be jus’ play actin’. You gotta tell folks what you want if you don’t want what’s real and natural.”

Fraley looked at his sandals for a moment, then looked up at Mordecai again. His voice was quiet. “Play—” He looked at the ground and shook his head, then looked up again. “Yes, I know it’s play acting, Mordecai. I’m the freakin’ director here. I know it’s play acting. And I did want a real reaction. But see, you didn’t know it was coming because I wanted it to be a surprise. Because I wanted to get your real real reaction, see?”

Mordecai bobbed his head. “Yes sir, but—”

“I wanted a real reaction, but not that reaction, understand?”

“Yes sir, but I—”

“I wanted you to be who you are, Mordecai: the ghoul. You’re the damn ghoul. So I wanted you to act like one, maybe spin around and look for the shooter or something like that. Not in fear but to turn the shooter from being the hunter to being the hunted. See?”

The Adam’s apple bobbed, but Mordecai’s voice took on an edgy tone. “Yes sir, I reckon. Only I ain’t no ghoul.”

“Yes, I know that, but your character’s a ghoul, right?”

Mordecai spoke a little louder, more plainly. “Yes sir, I guess. An’ like I said, real is real. But bein’ that character, that’s play actin’. You cain’t mix real an’ play actin’.”

“What?”

Mordecai pointed at him for a second, then remembered himself and lowered his hand. “Mr. Fraley, you can play act real, but not if you don’t know what’s comin’. That’s all I’m sayin’. You don’t know what’s comin’, it might be a real thing an’ you get a real reaction. How was I s’pose to know what reaction you wanted when I didn’t know it was comin’?”

Fraley held up the script. “You read the script, right?”

Mordecai nodded. “Yes sir.”

“So you know the townspeople have gotten wise to your body-thieving ways, right? And you know a few of them were even talking about hunting you down themselves since the law hadn’t been able to do anything, right? And you know—”

“Well, no sir, not officially.”

“What? What’s that mean, ‘not officially’?”

“I wasn’t in that scene where they was talkin’ ‘bout all that. ‘Member? They was in the bar in town an’ I don’t drank or nothin’.”

Fraley frowned and shook his head. “What possible difference does that make?”

Mordecai shrugged. “Just that I cain’t officially know what they was talkin’ about, bein’s I wasn’t in there to hear ‘em. Like I said, real is real but—”

“Okay. Okay.” Fraley looked at the ground for a moment and appeared to be composing himself. He looked at Mordecai. “Look, I’d fire your stupid gangly ass but I can’t find anyone else who has the look, and Patrick Campbell isn’t available anymore.”

He gestured toward Mordecai with the script. “Take your stupid hand out of your coat, take your foot off the tombstone and get outta there. As soon as they get it all set up we’ll try the scene again.” He looked back toward the crewmen. “Some of you get that tombstone set up and rub out the stupid sandal prints and we’ll go again.”

He turned and walked back toward his chair, shaking his head. “Jesus. Amateurs. They’re all a bunch of goddamned amateurs.”

* * *

Mordecai’s small trailer was set a short distance from the churchyard, just across and down the road. Behind it was the burned-out foundation of the wood-frame farmhouse he had shared with his wife of forty years, Abigail, during his time as the town’s undertaker.

After they finished the scene and shooting was over for the day, Mordecai walked along the road, climbed the few steps up to the wooden deck of the trailer, and went inside. He turned around and reached through the sliding opening on the screen to latch the deadbolt on the main door.

For Mordecai there were several up sides to living near the set. The main one, the one that enabled all the others, was that when shooting was finished for the day, everyone else left. Fraley, the rest of the crew and most of the cast members went to one of the three hotels in town. He supposed the extras, all of whom were local talent, went to their homes.

Each day Mordecai locked the door and remained inside from the time his last scene ended until the last vehicle left. He didn’t change clothes. Each day he sat on the small couch that spanned one end of the trailer and waited.

He liked to stay in costume, and in character. It was only right for the money they were paying him, and it was easy anyway. He simply sat, the soles of his boots flat on the floor, his knees pulled up under his chin and his hands in his lap. The back of his neck and head, topped with the brim of his bowler hat, formed a center-lumped T silhouette in the small window behind him.

He waited, staring at the blank screen of the television, which was suspended from the ceiling in the angle formed by a cabinet and a wall. He waited until he’d heard thirteen engines start, thirteen gearshifts engage, and thirteen vehicles drive away.

Then he waited several more minutes, listening for the slightest sound, before rising from the couch.

First he turned and peered through the only uncovered window, the one centered above the couch. Nothing.

He turned again and moved methodically through the trailer. He stopped in the narrow aisle between the kitchen sink and the stove on one side and the table of the dining booth on the other. He peeked through the blinds on the window above the sink. Nothing.

He let the slat drop, then turned and bent to peer through the blinds over the window above the dining booth table. Nothing.

He let the slat drop and moved down the short hallway, past the combination bathroom and shower, to the bedroom.

The foot of the bed was stretched across the door, and the head was pressed up against the end of the trailer. He crawled up over the end of the bed, the bony heels of his hands and his knees leaving sharp puckers in the cover over the memory-foam mattress. He raised a slat in the blinds covering the window centered in the wall above the bed. Nothing.

By then it was dark.

He wanted to get up, reverse course, and leave the trailer, but he was so tired. Nothing had been right for the past three weeks. Then Fraley had brought his people in a week after that to start shooting and everything had gotten screwed up.

The mattress felt good beneath his hands and knees. Just for a minute. Won’t hurt nothin’ to lay down just for a minute.

He lay on his left side, and his hat flopped off behind him and fell to the floor. He was a series of angles connected by lines. Head to waist, waist to knees, knees to ankles, ankles to toes. His head on one pillow, he reached for the other pillow and tugged it into the angle formed by his torso and his thighs.

He held it there with his right hand, enjoying the soft, slight pressure. He pushed himself closer against it. He thought of Abby, and a tear squeezed past the corner of his left eyelid and seeped into the pillowcase. He closed his eyes and drifted off into her memory.

Mordecai missed his wife. He missed her like sunshine, like the sky, like air. Abby was the only person he’d met who’d never said an unkind word to him. She touched him every time she was within reach, as if to verify his presence. A soft caress on his cheek. A gentle squeeze on his arm. A light kneading of the muscles on his back.

She always had a ready smile too, and always a gentle word. The few times she asked for anything, it was in a quiet tone that conveyed there was no rush. She’d always made him feel that simply being in his presence was more important than anything she could ask. And that’s how he’d felt about her too, so whatever she asked, he had found a way to provide. But there was never a rush about anything. Just a natural flow. Just the natural rhythms of life.

Then one night she’d gone. Just like that.

They’d been sitting out on the front porch of their place. She coughed a couple times, and when he asked how she was feeling, she smiled and said she was fine. “I just need some rest.” She squeezed his shoulder and ran one palm along his cheek. “So handsome.” She smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning, all right?”

He’d smiled and nodded, and she’d gone off to bed.

A half-hour later he’d gone in and crept quietly into bed. He slipped his left arm gently under her head.

She’d shifted a bit to make herself more comfortable, then snuggled back against him so they were like nested spoons. He held her carefully, protectively, and nestled her against him, not wanting to wake her.

And sometime in the night he dreamed of white heat on his left bicep and elbow. And then sometime later he dreamed of ice. Wet, melting, chilling ice. It might have been in the same dream, and it might have been two dreams, or three or four, separated by clouds.

The dreams were disturbing, bordering on nightmares, and his heart was hammering in his chest, but he seemed unable to exit them. The weight of his sweet Abigail on his arm, the scent of her hair, her body alongside him, kept him sedated in the knowledge that everything was all right.

But he woke the next morning to a soft, cool stone lying in his arms. His Abby had answered eternity’s call.

*

Startled, Mordecai flung his eyelids open.

This time the soft, cool stone was a pillow. The muffled sound that crept from his throat was not relief but anguish. The dream about the dreams was always hard, but waking to reality was even harder.

He rolled onto his back for a moment and rested his right forearm on his forehead. The texture and the dusty smell of the sleeve of his overcoat reminded him he was wearing it and calmed his nerves. Wearing it reminded him of the work he used to do, his Abby waiting for him at the close of day. The world was right back then.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been her favorite, a silly thing. A black and white cat with a clock in its belly and a grin on its face, its tail swinging to and fro, counting off the ticks and tocks, one per second. A tick this way, a tock that. Three hours had passed since he’d lain down with the memory of his Abby.

He considered the clock again. There was nothing silly about her, really. Just being in her presence, just being able to inhale and exhale the same molecules of air, was more important than anything else, and he would never have that again. He was part of her, and she had been the better part of him. Without that, without her, nothing else mattered.

Wiping a tear from his cheek, he swung his legs off the right side of the bed and sat up. Probably ought’a get a bite to eat. He hadn’t eaten since the previous day.

The thought of eating brought to mind the fool, Fraley, who had called him a ghoul and had belittled and derided him before the cast and crew. He wanted a real reaction. Man has no idea what he’s talkin’ about. Real is real an’ play actin’ is play actin’. I guess I know what real is.

He reached behind him to push the extra pillow back to where it had been, then leaned forward to retrieve his hat from the floor. He sat there for another moment, carefully considering his hat, turning it over and over in his hands. He finally put it on.

He stood and walked quietly down the short hallway to the front room. He reached through the sliding opening on the screen to unlock the deadbolt. Then he turned the door handle, pushed open the door, and stepped out onto the deck.

He made sure the door was closed snugly, then turned and made his way down the steps. He walked around the near end of the trailer. The half-moon was low on the horizon. The angled light lent a ghostly appearance to Mordecai as he trod carefully through the low brush toward the foundation of his burned-out house.

His bones fairly clacked as he crept through the black and gray ashes. When he stopped, he looked all about. Then his elbows and waist created, then shifted and recreated, odd, sharp angles as he bent to move a board, then another, and another with practiced ease, as if each had been placed just so and moved and replaced many times.

And there was the trapdoor.

He bent a final time, pulled it open, and descended the stairs into the basement. When he’d closed the trapdoor above him, settling it carefully into the frame, the basement was black as pitch. He reached beneath the stairs for a lantern, switched it on and crossed the small room. There. There was the last gift he had bought for Abby.

A chest freezer.

He set the light on a shelf to the left and put the fingers of both hands under the lid. He lifted it, and there was the last gift she had left for him.

She had always been the better part of him.

The tradition would continue.

* * * * * * *

Author Note: See all of my fiction at my online discount store.