THE UNDERTAKER and other Macabre Tales

THE UNDERTAKER

He dreamed of machines. Clunking and spattering. Red, glowing eyes that pierced the darkness. Mouths that spit and sputtered black oil, grinning with a wicked, metal grin as they dumped freshly dug earth on top of him, as he lay, helpless, in an open grave. He often awoke with the taste of dirt on his tongue.

He knew why the dreams came. Why the machines kept coming for him, night after night. He was afraid they would replace him. Bishop Anderson would never let that happen, of course. He had promised employment, and he always made good on his promises.

The character in question was an Undertaker on the church grounds. It was a dying profession. Nowadays towns would employ groundskeepers to care for multiple properties, and they dug their graves with machines, instead of the old fashioned way.

The Undertaker only cared for a single property, his territory was finite. He spent most of his time pinned behind black, picket gates that surrounded the church land. This was his kingdom. And he was the King.

Being an undertaker wasn't his dream, by any stretch of the imagination. It was hard, physical work that left his back aching and his hands sore. But it did have certain benefits. For one, it was isolated. Here, he could didn't have to worry about others staring at him or the social pressures that came from being around people. He never knew what to say, and always ended up feeling foolish. No, it was better to stay away from all that. And when anyone did come along, it was to visit a lost loved one, or to quietly reflect. This place was peaceful. And it was quiet.

It was also lonely. Of course, he had Bishop Anderson. But the good Bishop was busy caring for the Church and its members. So it was the trees that The Undertaker shared his time with. The grass and the squirrels. Even the birds, who he often fed on warm, Spring mornings when the sun was high in the sky, basking him with its unconditional warmth. The animals never called him names. Never reminded him that his face wasn't quite right.

He'd been born with a facial deformity. His left eye was a little too low. And his nose was small, and round. His eyebrows were bushy, and his teeth were crooked because his parents could never afford to have them fixed. Not that it mattered. Straight teeth wouldn't change the fact that he was hideous. Even he knew it. That was the worst part. He sometimes wished he'd been born with a mental deformity as well. Then he wouldn't care what people thought of him. Then he wouldn't care about anything. He wouldn't feel ashamed. This crushing burden of guilt he had, that swept over him like a wave whenever a child saw him for the first time and shivered in fear. That look of shock and disgust were burned into his mind. He had grown used to them, at least that's what he told himself. But deep down he knew that he'd never really be used to it. That was why he worked here. To hide from others. To protect them. And to protect himself from them.

It wasn't much. But it was his life. It was all he had.

He learned how to work, he'd had to. To keep the machines away. He stuck his shovel deep into the earth. It was cathartic. Digging holes. He would hurt the earth, and then he would fill it in. He would fix it. And life would go on. The circle of life. An eternal round. He liked that idea. His hands were calloused from years of digging. But

The Undertaker only dug at night. He only went out at night, if he could help it. Because he didn't want others to see his face. And he didn't want to see theirs.

Tonight's task was like any other. Dig a hole. A woman had died. Heart attack, they said. The funeral had been earlier that day, and now he was responsible for sealing the deal. There was no concrete vault, not in this cemetery. The coffin went right into the dirt. This was the old fashioned way. And he liked it like that. A concrete box wouldn't change the fact that the person was dead.

The Undertaker picked up his shovel and carried his lantern out into the night, searching for the open grave. At last he found it, set his lantern down, and began to fill in the hole. Elizabeth Newbury. The grave read. He wondered what she looked like. Was she fat or thin? Did she have nice teeth or rotten ones? Or had she lost them altogether? He often wondered what those he buried looked like, but he seldom got to see their faces. It was a game he liked to play. The funerals were during the day, and he only came out at night, and the coffins were sealed shut with screws, so they couldn't be opened. But the Undertaker had a screwdriver. And every so often he fetl the tickle of temptation, begging him to open the lid.

He would never do that, of course. His duty was a sacred one. People put their trust in him. Bishop Anderson, for example. And what if he got caught? That would be disastrous. Then it would all be over. And he wouldn't have this job anymore. This job that was his whole reason to live...

The Undertaker had never been with a woman before. Honestly, he hadn't even had a good look at one in years. Only from afar. But that was enough for him, to get him through the day. When he did come out during the day, to run errands, he caught himself staring more than a few times. It's part of being male, he told himself, you can't help but stare. It was built into his blood. His DNA. And with him being on his own so long, well that didn't help things. This behavior had earned him some nasty looks, of course. But he was used to that. He was disgusting. He was hideous. He was a monster. And he knew it.

Every now and then, women would come to the graveyard at night. To visit lost loved ones or pay their respects. Some would come just to walk the grounds. Because it was quiet. He liked these ones. The ones who weren't afraid of cemeteries. He felt that if he were ever to love a woman, she would have to be ok with cemeteries. After all, that was where he lived. Sometimes these women made eye contact with him, an action that sent shivers down his spine. One time, a woman even talked to him. She wasn't afraid, not like the others. And she was beautiful. But she would never love him, he knew that. She was just being nice. But still, she visited his dreams for weeks afterwards. Mostly, however, they kept their distance.

They weren't all women, men visited the cemetery too. Each had their own reasons. The Undertaker was an expert observer of human behavior. He could tell a lot about a human, just from watching them for a few moments. If they were kind, what their business here was, sometimes even their occupation. He told himself stories about them in his head. This man is an engineer. He has a large home, and runs in his spare time.

Most visitors came only once. But occasionally, they would return. There were old widows, visiting their dead husbands. Children, visiting their dead parents. Parents, visiting their dead children. Artists, who came to sketch. But there was one visitor who the Undertaker wasn't able to figure out. The Visitor came, maybe once a month and walked the grounds. Every so often he would stop and stare at a headstone for several minutes before moving on. He had a notebook he carried with him, and he would scribble in it. But one night when the Undertaker had summoned enough courage to approach the man, he saw that the notebook didn't contain sketches like he had thought, but words. He was a writer.

A graveyard writer. But what was he writing? That was what concerned the Undertaker most. He had never met a man such as this. Who was he? What was his business? These types of questions he was usually able to push away, but not for this visitor. The man would not leave the Undertaker's head...