A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (7 page)

“
We promise to make it
worthwhile, Clint. Have a seat and let me explain to you how this
is all going to work.” Marie sat herself and began the crash-course
in being a hearse driver for a funeral procession, his first of
which would be today.

Marie explained that
typically hearse drivers were responsible for non-procession
duties, to include placing caskets in the parlor of the funeral
home, obtaining burial permits, and so forth, but she had no intent
in making Clint responsible for all of those things. Instead, she
explained the speeds he should be going while escorting the casket
from the funeral home to the destination of the funeral and burial
site as well as the funeral procession arrangement of vehicles.
What Clint was to remember was that he’d be the second vehicle in
the motorcade, behind a lead vehicle. Clint was relieved to hear he
wasn’t first. He’d hate to have gone off in the wrong direction
while leading a motorcade of highly emotional people. She mentioned
flags that indicated a funeral procession being draped over
specific vehicles, but not on his own. Most importantly, she said
the vehicle needed to remain clean and waxed before attending any
funeral and that he would be responsible for the vehicle since he
was being contracted. Clint understood and agreed to the terms
before being presented with a written contract. Clint took a deep
breath, signed the document and rose from his seat.

“
Alright. So, what do I do
from here?” Clint asked, adjusting his suit after having sat in it
for a while.

“
I’ll take you to meet
your client.” Marie said with a smile, moving around him with a set
of keys for the office. She waited outside of the door,
then.

Clint’s eyes went wide. He
knew what the job entailed, but for some reason actually having to
see the dead person (if that’s who she was talking about) was a bit
overwhelming. He tried to remain as comfortable as he could and
went on out the door behind Marie. She closed the office and
escorted him to the parlor, where the casket was held.

The casket bore an
American flag draped over it. The pictures in the parlor of the
deceased had been taken down, but the stands where they once were
still remained. Candles burnt on small sconces (an archaic lighting
that Clint couldn’t help but stare at for some time), flickering
and casting wraith-like shadows through the room, each one evoking
dangerous superstition in Clint’s mind. For a moment, he
wondered
“I wonder which of these
wall-devils are leaving with the grand prize of this fellow’s
soul?”
But, it was a fleeting thought,
brought on only by the influence of horror films and his exposure
to the beliefs of others. In this moment, the best thing he could
do was remain completely unaffected by such thoughts. If there was
reverence to be felt for anything, it was the honor of this human
being, dead now, but indeed a human being.

Clint was unsure how close
to bring himself to the casket, fearing that moving too near to it
might have been considered disrespectful, but he could not help
catching a glimpse of a bright reflection of something on top of
the flag which hung over the casket. Again, not wanting to near it,
he asked, “What is that?” And his voice broke through a thick wall
of silence, almost frightening himself with speaking. With Clint
mildly disoriented, Marie replied.

“
It’s a medal.” Marie said
with a smile, less concerned about respectful zoning, and much more
objective to the tasks required of the funeral home. This was
expressed clearly when she retrieved the medal from the top of the
casket. This action, to Clint, seemed almost absolutely
inappropriate. To him, if the medal was placed there by someone
caring enough to offer it, that’s where it should have stayed.
However, he also understood the impracticality of that idea. At
some point, this casket would have to be moved, then put into the
ground, and covered with dirt, likely by two men that throw dirt on
graves for a living. With less grandeur than he expected the event
of a loved one placing the medal on the casket was during the
viewing, Marie extended the medal toward Clint, where it dangled
and glimmered like some sort of holy relic capable of repelling the
charge of those hungry wall-devils. With a bit of insight, Marie
explained it.

“
It’s a medal from the
second World War.” And she smiled again, continuing to display it
for Clint as she realized he had no will to handle it
himself.

Clint looked over the
medal with fascination. The ribbon of the medal was a bold, regal
red color, framed between two strips of white, then outside of them
multi-colored vertical lines. The medal itself was dull when it
didn’t catch the light, but bore the image of a woman (seemingly of
the times of the Roman Empire) holding the hilt of a broken sword,
with the blade broken from the hilt in her other hand. She also
seemed to prop her foot atop a large helmet and was entirely
accentuated by a burst of sharp rays at her flank. It was a
profound image and it seemed important. Clint began to relate the
incredible importance of this medal to the task at hand, and asked,
though it seemed quite obvious at this point.

“
So, this person is a
military veteran from World War II?” With a hint of concern in his
voice.

“
Yes!” Marie replied,
excitedly. “There are some differences in a military procession,
but don’t worry. Everything will be just fine, alright? All you
have to do is move with the motorcade and everything else will be
taken care of for you, alright?” Marie did her best to make the
task seem less daunting with the reassurance of guidance, but Clint
was still very concerned and so much so that he began to question
having accepted the contracted position at all.

Marie returned the medal
to the casket as a few larger men, both wearing Velcro back braces,
stepped into the room. One of them was talking loudly to the other,
with what at first appeared to be a half-eaten sandwich in hand,
and was a moment later identified as being tuna by the scent of it
and the talking man’s permeating breath.

“
I know, right? I told
her, ‘Listen, I’m not interested in a woman that’s pregnant with
someone else’s baby. Ain’t my problem.’ and I left. Women these
days, huh?” All with a mouth full of the formerly canned fish. He
looked between Marie and Clint, bald head unable to distract from
his bright blue, almost white, eyes. “Hey Marie.” One of the two
men said as he took another bite, all the while watching Clint like
he was some sort of unique, otherwise unobserved scientific
specimen. “Who’s this?” To Marie, not Clint still.

Marie answered a bit
awkwardly, which was the first sign of anything of that mannerism
in her. Clint thought it funny: she was fine with the dead and
awkward with straight-talk people. “This...” And she paused,
gesturing with both hands to Clint, as though he were a “new car”
on the Price is Right. “...is Clint! He’s our new hearse driver. A
fine gentleman whom I’m excited to work with.” And she winked to
Clint, trying to diffuse her awkwardness. It didn’t
work.

Clint nodded and extended
his hand toward the man. It was the only thing he could think to
do. “Clint. Like she said. Good to meet you.”

The man with the sandwich
watched Clint for a second, ignoring his hand at first. He glanced
to the slightly taller, much more silent fellow at his side.
“Clint. Like Eastwood? Pow pow!” He made a “gun” with his free
hand, thumb and index finger extended, “shooting” at Clint. Clint
smirked. He’d heard that wisecrack since from what seemed like the
beginning of time. The man laughed then, put the sandwich in his
left hand to free up his shaking hand, wiped quickly the crumbs of
fish bits and bread to his dark grey shirt and took Clint’s hand in
a firm shake.

“
Larry.” The man said,
still shaking. He broke the shake to gesture to the man at his
side. “And this is Morton.” And the large man at Larry’s side
nodded but remained silent.

“
Like the three stooges?
Larry and Moe.” Clint tried to fire back with a bit of his own
witticism. But, if the silence was deep prior to his first words in
the parlor, it came on much more strongly in response to his
statement.

“
What?” Larry asked,
narrowing his eyes with the sort of speculation reserved for stupid
people. “How do we seem like the stooges? There’s only two of us.”
And he waved his sandwich, his wand of denotation, to Morton. “And
his names Morton. Not Moe.” He smirked, looking to Marie. “Anyway,
Marie, you ready for us to move the stiff?”

Clint was too embarrassed
to even make a remark of the dishonorable reference to the military
veteran in the coffin, but Marie responded rapidly, seeming, at
this point, interested in getting the two men on their way before
the impression of the funeral home became any worse.

“
The casket is ready to be
loaded up.” Marie said in a more politically-correct way, returning
some balance to the suddenly unromantic scene. With the two men in
the room, the majesty was ripped out of it, making the candles
simple candles and the casket a box with a “stiff.”

After Larry and Morton
loaded the casket, Clint went over what was required of him once
more. Second vehicle in line. Follow the lead vehicle. It seemed
simple enough. The simplicity of the action, however, didn’t make
much of a difference in the dreariness that came with the
transporting of a dead body. As the family members arrived, loaded
into their limousines, painted black to match the black-clad
mourners, the funeral procession began.

Clint took his time as
they went along, occasionally peering into the rearview mirror and
being mindful of the bumps in the road. His mind played an image of
him hitting a speed bump or pothole too quickly, causing a
dislodging of the casket to allow for it to fly out the old hatch
and into the road. This was, what he considered, the most precious
piece of cargo he’d ever carried---not because it was a dead piece
of cargo, but because it was the center of all of today’s
attention.

When the procession
arrived at the cemetery gates, the entirety of them were brought to
a halt. The lead care spoke with the attendant at the gate, drawing
Clint’s attention forward. He was unsure if this was a normal part
of the process. With Clint’s attention drawn toward the gate, he
was unaware of the approach of a person toward his hearse. The door
was opened and in sat a tall, broad-shouldered military man,
adorned in his service-dress uniform riddled with awards and
decorations to his shoulder.

Clint’s mouth dropped
agape. This, after all, wasn’t part of the process. He looked
around, absolutely speechless, as if someone would come and save
him. Without introduction, the military man (likely of an officer’s
rank, with the shining insignia) began to speak.

“
You never heard anything
like it. Travelling across the Atlantic, hearing the screams and
cries of your friends and brothers.” The military man shook his
head, looking out of the windshield, but with a look so distant and
a mind so invested in the recollection of his tale, it was obvious
the man didn’t see the green grass and chiseled stones of the
cemetery; he saw the event he was explaining in vivid detail. “We
never knew when the Germans were going to hit us. All we knew was
that we were on a suicide mission, making a stance against
warnings, just sailing through the sea toward England.”

Clint looked back toward
the casket for a moment, hoping that his glance might help the
fellow understand that he was in the vehicle with the actual person
this procession was for. But, as Clint’s eyes returned to the elder
military man, the man’s eyes simply stared forward and he just
continued to speak.

“
I shouldn’t have lived
that day. There were four ships. All of us were together and all of
us should have gone down together. They didn’t take us, though. Not
sure why it was us. I wonder sometimes if they ran out of
torpedoes.” And finally the icy gaze of the man fell directly on
Clint, almost causing his heart to stop.

Clint looked into the eyes
of the military man. They were bright blue, like Larry’s in that
they were almost white. This man’s seemed different, though. They
were that color from age or disease. Clint wondered if the man was
senile, lost or even partially blind. He hoped that the man looking
his way would perhaps make it clear to him that he was in the wrong
place. As the military man continued to talk, however, Clint
started to recognize that it was quite possible the man was exactly
where he cared to be.

“
You know what I think
really happened? I think they wanted us alive, kid. They wanted us
to hear the torment and the screams of our friends and brothers.
They wanted us to continue sailing to England with broken hearts
and shattered minds. They wanted us to be a disease to the morale
of our companies. They wanted us to be afraid, boy.” Unblinking,
the old man told the tale to Clint, whose mouth still hung open and
in awe.

Clint had no idea why the
man was telling him this story. Clint signed a contract agreeing to
simply transport a body from one place to another. He didn’t sign
up to hear grim stories of war or deal directly with the family
members of the deceased. In fact, Clint’s greatest concern was that
he would have to be a liaison between the dead person in the casket
and the living. This event only triggered all of those concerns,
and the harrowing theme of the tale only added a different
dimension of terror.