The Night Funeral

Fictitious narrative about a ghastly discovery I make while driving into Canada, and how I barely escape with my life. Written in a Poe-esque vernacular.

The Night Funeral

By Robin Scott Johnson

 

            My eyes began to feel like thorny spheres rolling around inside of their sockets after driving through the ubiquitous dense blowing fog all night.  The condensation fogged up the inside of the windshield of my Kenworth truck, and as I rounded a tight bend on the South Dakota highway, I barely spotted the massive shape of an lone bull elk standing like a sentinel along side a knoll.  The beast blanketed, as if enveloped by a shroud of whiteness that made the night so opaque and tiresome to look at.   High beams are useless when it gets like this, and my truck isn’t equipped with fog lights to help other motorists see me, so after six hours of driving I was ready act on the side of caution, quit early and get some sleep. 

            My silver and black GPS, displayed in its night time colour scheme, said the next town was Mound City, about a half hour south of the North Dakota state line.  Sure I’d wanted to reach the border town of Portal that night, but it looked like Mother Nature had other ideas, and how could a mere mortal argue?

            Rolling eighteen wheels into Mound City at one in the morning and actually finding a place to park would be a chore, but I needed to shut down and I figured I could park in the parking lot of some business until morning and then take off before they opened, not bothering anybody. Hell, if I was near a house where people were sleeping I wouldn’t even idle the engine to keep warm, just to be courteous. 

            About halfway through the small town I saw a large square building on my left with a lot of cars parked in front of it and lights emanating from the open windows.  I wondered to myself what could be going on at this hour in such a small town in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. Across the street from the building was a small convenient store which appeared to be open.  The store had a parking lot which had an area large enough for my truck and was by good fortune deserted.  Turning the steering wheel hard to the right after slowing down, my truck turned into the lot and then I proceeded to back my truck up against a wooden slat fence as far away from the business as possible, set the brakes, turned off the key, and exited the truck.  Climbing down from the cab I stretched after a long night’s drive, and slowly began walking towards the front door of the convenient store.  It was odd, but I hadn’t noticed the submarinesque-red lights that illuminated its interior, and when I got to the front door I was met by a “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign, right above the hours which stated that the store was 24 hours.  A little disappointed I started back to my truck, when a sound from the building across the street caught my attention, it sounded like a scream.  Whether of distress or laughter, I couldn’t readily discern, but as a former fire fighter, my instinct was to investigate to make sure everything was okay.

            It was a monolith of a structure that didn’t really fit the small town character that I knew the town probably had, and I noted that the exterior was made of brick that had been painted over long ago with white paint.  The building’s front doors were locked which was apparent, even as I made the mock move that everyone is familiar with and tried twice after the fact that the doors were locked was clearly established.  Next I moved along the front wall of the building, unable to see inside the high windows, before trying the side wall and finding a small door ajar.

            The door was narrower, nor as high as standard doors normally are, and probably could be best compared to the size of one on a garden shed.  It was made of teak, and oiled and kept in its original, natural colour.  The handle was set in the middle of the door rather than on the side, making it difficult to determined which way it opened.  Needless to say it didn’t matter as it was slightly ajar on the left hand side, and as I was about to push it open and venture inside something else caught my attention.  Next to the door there was a small handwritten sign on a wrought iron stand.  The sign, inscribed in beautiful and yet obsolete calligraphy from a bygone era, read:

 

NIGHT FUNERAL & FEAST

MEMBERS ONLY

NO PUBLIC ADMITANCE

NO TRESSPASSING

NO EXCEPTIONS

 

            It struck me that the letters were a reddish brown and reminded me of dried blood, but even at that moment the thought was dismissed as absurd and unrealistic.  Slowly my right foot followed my left and I pushed the door before me open and crossed the threshold.  Inside, I found myself in a narrow black corridor which I began to follow, hearing the sound of classical music which grew louder and louder as I progressed down the hall towards a softly lighted turn.

            When I reached the end of the passageway my heart leapt into my chest as I was stopped in my tracks by the ghastly sight before me.  Fifty or sixties hooded figures, all wearing black were sitting in oak pews that were arranged in a large semi circle around an open casket.  I do believe at this time my first reaction was to stop was simply in reaction to the thought that I was intruding or interrupting the sanctity of a private funeral, but my eyes witnessed so much more in the few seconds they had to pass witness upon the ceremony.  For whatever was inside the coffin was not the beautifully restored corpse complete with makeup and burial suit, but a horror that could only be at home on a coroner’s table.  A body completely opened up like a turkey at Thanksgiving, that was bursting with stuffing and cranberry sauce.   No human body should look like that, and I had to spy a glance again and force my brain to believe what I had just seen.

            Indeed my eyes had not deceived me, and I truly was looking at an open casket service of some kind. There was indeed the awful remains of a human being inside that coffin, and it appeared to be completely obliterated, as if the former owner had been in a terrible and traumatic accident.  My sights turned on the robed figures in the pews, all of whom had their heads bowed in worship while a tall thin man read from a large book on a podium before them.  The thin man who was reading had his back turned to me, and so neither he nor the cloaked figures in the pews saw a truck driver staring at disbelief at them from behind the wall ahead of them.  I could barely make out the words that were being spoken from what I assumed to be the congregation’s leader, as the beating of my heart in my eardrums was deafening.  My hand instinctively reached down to my pocket to retrieve a small digital camera I normally carry, but I realized as soon as I’d made the move that I’d taken it out some hours earlier in the hopes of reminding myself to replace the batteries. 

            My eyes continued to scan the room, still in disbelief as my vision began to take on a very tunnel-like quality, signaling the onset of an optical migraine headache.  Off to the side of some of the pews were long fold out tables with small burners heating trays of boiling water.  Forks and knives, goblets full of wine, and flowery centerpieces decorated the platforms.  With a sickening realization, bubbling up inside me like a forbidden spring, inducing  a nauseating unfathomable feeling that brought bile to my pallet, I knew that these souls in their robes were going to be eating the remains of their dead.  Was it even their dead?  I didn’t know. 

            Spinning on my heals, I made for the small door at the end of the corridor to beat a fast retreat to the perceived safety of my truck. The migraine was coming on strong, and the optical migraine began by first taking away my peripheral vision, and then returning it only to blur all objects in front of me.  Normally this was an event that took half of an hour, but in my panic and fear the transition took place in mere minutes.  Before I reached the small teak door my balance failed me as I tripped over something unseen on the floor, landing with a loud clatter and grunt upon the tile floor.  Behind me I could hear shouts of alarm and the echoing of many footsteps running in my direction, and growing louder and louder with every heartbeat that thudded in my chest.  I scrambled to my feet and reached the door, throwing it open and running along the side of the building, to the corner where I would then be able to dart across the street to my truck.  All of a sudden as I reached and was on the precipice of passing the side of the wall of the building I collided and saw stars in front of me as I knocked a hooded figure down on the ground that had tried to intercept me from the front of the structure.  The impact caused me to once again fall, this time right on top of the man in the robe, and I could feel his hands upon my body attempting to quickly push me off.

            As hard as I could and blind from the pain of the migraine I slammed my right fist hard into the space underneath the hood, and felt it smash into the flesh, bone, and teeth of my would-be pursuer.  I was sure from the gurgling he made that the blow had killed the man, but as I struggled to my feet I felt a hard impact across the fat of my back as  I reeled around partially to see two more figures in cloaks wielding baseball bats.  They seemed to be backing away in disbelief as I jumped up off the man on the ground, fueled only by adrenaline, and not feeling any pain at all.  My attackers tried once again to swing their bats but there was little strength in their attempts, as I blocked my face and body with my arms.  I turned and fled to the truck, knowing that a half dozen or so people were directly behind me.  Grateful that I had not locked the truck, I clawed the door open and jumped up into my truck, locking the door behind me, as the unholy crowd reached us as one. 

            My hands were shaking as I started the engine and put the truck into gear and began to move.  The crowd did not stand in front of the truck, but some clung to the sides, and others tried the locked door handles trying to get inside.  I asked myself why I was showing restraint, but I still could not believe that homicide could be justified by running over or causing any of the hangers on to fall beneath the rolling wheels.  Slowly I turned onto the highway and sped up to about ten miles per hour, slamming on the brakes to cause some of the figures to fall off, while others were able to keep their hold.  All this time they shouted, screamed, and laughed.

            Suddenly there was a loud bang as my driver’s side window exploded into pieces, showering me with glass, and a clawlike hand reached inside and grabbed my shoulder.  With my left hand, I opened the door and then kicked it open with my foot, causing the man to fall onto the roadway below.  Still one more of the sect of cannibals clung to the handhold and mirror on the passenger side.  Not knowing what more I could do, I began to increase speed until I reached the truck’s governed speed of 65 miles per hour.   Next I waited until the highway was nice and straight, before slamming my foot to the brake pedal.  Even with antilock brakes, all eighteen wheels froze for a moment, causing enough reverse momentum that the man on the passenger side lost his hold and flew forward and into the highway ditch along side the roadway.  I took my foot off the brake and sped back up, never looking back behind me. I knew it was going to be a sleepless night, and I wondered was how I was going to explain the broken window to my boss.