Supernatural Noir

I grabbed my canvas shoulder bag and ax and got out of the car and started walking. I made it around the fence and to the rear of the graveyard, near the creek and the mud, about fifteen minutes before dark.

I got behind a wide pine and waited. I didn’t know if I was in the right place, but if his grave had been near the sawmill this seemed like a likely spot. I got a piece of chewing gum and went to work on it.

The sun was setting.

I hoisted the ax in my hand, to test the weight. Heavy. I’d have to swing it pretty good to manage decapitation. I thought about that. Decapitation. What if it was just some nut, and not a ghoul?

Well, what the hell. He was still creepy.

I put the ax head on the ground and leaned on the ax handle.

I guess about an hour passed before I heard something crack. I looked out toward the creek where I had seen him jump with Susan’s body. I didn’t see anything but dark. I felt my skin prick, and I had a sick feeling in my stomach.

I heard another crack.

It wasn’t near the creek.

It wasn’t in front of me at all.

It was behind me.

——

I wheeled, and then I saw the ghoul. He hadn’t actually seen me, but he was moving behind me at a run, and boy could he run. He was heading straight for the cemetery fence.

I started after him, but I was too far behind and too slow. I slipped on the mud and fell. When I looked up, it was just in time to see the ghoul make a leap. For a moment, he seemed pi

He came down in the cemetery as light as a feather. By the time I was off my ass and had my feet under me, he was ru

I ran around the edge of the fence, carrying the ax, the bag slung over my shoulder. As I ran, I saw him, moving fast. He was leaping gravestones again.

Before I reached the end of the fence, I heard my horn go off and saw lights come on. The car was moving. As I turned the corner of the fence, I could see the lights had pi

The ghoul got up as if nothing had happened. Its movements were puppetlike, as if it were being pulled by invisible strings.

Cathy, ignoring everything I told her, got out of the car. She had the shotgun.

The ghoul ignored her, and ran toward Susan’s grave, and started digging as if Cathy wasn’t there. As I came through the cemetery opening and passed my car, Cathy cut down on the thing with the shotgun. Both barrels.

It was a hell of a roar, and dust and cloth and flesh flew up from the thing. The blast knocked it down. It popped up like a jack-in-the-box and hissed like a cornered possum. It lunged at Cathy. She swung the shotgun by the barrel, hit the ghoul upside the head.

I was at Cathy’s side now, and without thinking I dropped the ax and the bag fell off my shoulder. Before the ghoul could reach her, I tackled the thing.

It was easy. There was nothing to Cauldwell Hogson. It was like grabbing a hollow reed. But the reed was surprisingly strong. Next thing I knew, I was thrown into the windshield of my car, and then Cathy was thrown on top of me.

When I had enough of my senses back, I tried to sit up. My back hurt. The back of my head ached, but otherwise, I seemed to be all in one piece.

The ghoul was digging furiously at the grave with its hands, throwing dirt like a dog searching for a bone. He was already deep into the earth.

Still stu

I dropped the can. I had the lighter, and I was going to pop the top and hit the thumb wheel, when the next thing I knew the ghoul leaped at me and grabbed me and threw me at the cemetery fence. I hit hard against it and lay there stu

When I looked up, the ghoul was dragging the coffin from the grave, and without bothering to open it this time, threw it over his shoulder and took off ru

I scrambled to my feet, found the lighter, stuffed it in the canvas bag, swung the bag over my shoulder, and picked up the ax. I yelled for Cathy to get in the car. She was still dazed, but managed to get in.

Sliding behind the wheel, I gave her the ax and the bag, turned the key, popped the clutch, and backed out of the cemetery. I whipped onto the road, jerked the gear into position, and tore down the road.

“He’s over there!” Cathy said. “See!”

I glimpsed the ghoul ru

“I see,” I said. “And I think I know where he’s going.”

——

The sawmill road was good for a short distance, but then the trees grew in close and the road was grown up with small brush. I had to stop the car. We started rushing along on foot. Cathy carried the canvas bag. I carried the ax.

“What’s in the bag,” she said.

“More lighter fluid.”

Trees dipped their limbs around us, and when an owl hooted, then fluttered through the pines, I nearly crapped my pants.

Eventually, the road played out, and there were only trees. We pushed through some limbs, scratching ourselves in the process, and finally broke out into a partial clearing. The sawmill was in the center of it, with its sagging roof and missing wall and trees growing up through and alongside it. The moonlight fell over it and colored it like thin yellow paint.

“You’re sure he’s here,” Cathy said.

“I’m not sure of much of anything anymore,” I said. “But his grave was near here. It’s about the only thing he can call home now.”

When we reached the sawmill, we took deep breaths, as if on cue, and went inside. The boards creaked under our feet. I looked toward a flight of open stairs and saw the ghoul moving up those, as swift and silent as a rat. The coffin was on his shoulder, held there as if it were nothing more than a shoebox.

I darted toward the stairs, and the minute my foot hit them, they creaked and swayed.

“Stay back,” I said, and Cathy actually listened to me. At least for a moment.

I climbed on up, and then there was a crack, and my foot went through. I felt a pain like an elephant had stepped on my leg. I nearly dropped the ax.

“Taylor,” Cathy yelled. “Are you all right?”

“Good as it gets,” I said.

Pulling my leg out, I limped up the rest of the steps with the ax, turned left at the top of the stairs—the direction I had seen it take. I guess I was probably thirty feet high by then.

I walked along the wooden walkway. To my right were walls and doorways without doors, and to my left was a sharp drop to the rotten floor below. I hobbled along for a few feet, glanced through one of the doorways. The floor on the other side was gone. Beyond that door was a long drop.

I looked down at Cathy.

She pointed at the door on the far end.

“He went in there,” she said.

Girding my loins, I came to the doorway and looked in. The roof of the room was broken open, and the floor was filled with moonlight. On the floor was the coffin, and the slip Susan had worn was on the edge of the coffin, along with the ghoul’s rotten black coat.

Cauldwell Hogson was in the coffin on top of her.

I rushed toward him just as his naked ass rose up, a bony thing that made him look like some sad concentration-camp survivor. As his butt came down, I brought the ax downward with all my might.