Sam leaned back with his feet up on the cheap metal desk. Two chairs and the coat rack in the corner were the only other furniture in the shabby office. At least the furniture matched; second hand institutional. His investigator's license hung crooked on the wall in a plastic frame. Rain tapped on the dirty glass of the single window like a snare drum.

The window rattled louder as someone knocked on the scratched door. The knock came again, more confident this time. Without moving the black baseball cap covering his face or taking his legs off the desk he called out, "Yup?"

The door opened slowly. In walked a woman.

She was tall, wrapping her assets against the rain in a tan overcoat. The coat hung strategically snug in just the right places against shapely curves. Wet strands of obsidian hair peeked out from under a scarf. Her face was pale and expensive like a china doll, with cheekbones high and sharp enough to shave with. Rain ran off her steaming coat in rivulets, puddling on the bare floorboards. A cloud of perfume surrounded her, demanding too much attention.

"Word is, Mr. Lazarus, you're a man who can help people." Her voice was husky; low and soft. It tickled the hairs on the back of his neck as it snuck in his left ear.

Sam stretched then let his feet fall back to the floor. With a flick, he tossed the cap at the rack in the corner.

"That's a bad word to let get around."

"Which word? Help?"

"No, people. Can't stand 'em. I've been known to help myself from time to time, though. Sit down and tell me what you have in mind."

Her eyes narrowed as she looked around the shabby office.

"You already woke me up with all that knocking. You may as well have a seat." He reached in the bottom desk drawer and brought out a plastic half-gallon bottle of vodka. From a drawer on the other side, he pulled out twin Styrofoam coffee cups. He poured out the rest of the vodka in the two cups and set the empty bottle on the desktop between them. Sam picked his up and tossed it down. After a moment or two, he shrugged and drank the other cup too.

"So what seems to be the trouble, Miss... Miss...?"

"LaVey. Gloria LaVey."

"So, Miss LaVey, what seems to be the trouble?"

She hesitated. Her shrewd eyes looked out of place on the picture-perfect face. Sam felt a little chill fight its way past the glow of the liquor.

"Oh Mr. Lazarus, it's horrible. It's my sister. My sister, Teresa. She's....She's missing. I want you to find her." The sudden helpless act was good, tears even, but it didn't jive with the eyes. The cold eyes just kept staring into him.

"Missing persons isn't my kind of gig, Miss LaVey. Try the cops. They get lucky once in a while."

"I can't. It's...complicated."

Sam sighed. She smelled like trouble.

"I can pay, Mr. Lazarus. I can pay you very well. Five thousand to start?" She pulled a good wad of bills out of her coat pocket. Not even an envelope.

The vodka was cheap, but not free.

"Alright, call me Sam. Tell me about your sister."

Gloria sat back, relieved.

"Teresa was always...rambunctious. After mother died, I tried to help as much as I could, but she just went wild."

Sam just grunted as a little smirk started to sneak up his jaw.

"No, you don't understand," she continued. "Not that kind of wild. Not drugs or men. I mean something much more...evil."

He was hooked. He just didn't want to let her know it yet. "There're a lot of different kinds of evil in a town like this. What kind was she playing around with?"

"The big kind, Mr. Lazarus. Black Magic."

Sam's hand was halfway to the vodka bottle before his brain remembered it was empty. He muttered a little curse to himself and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

"I'm guessing you don't mean pulling rabbits out of a hat?"

"More like pulling bodies out of the ground. She was trying to raise the dead. Our mother, to be precise."

Sam watched her closely as she told her story. Something seemed off. The gestures, the facial expressions all seemed half a moment too late. Stiff. Rehearsed. How scared was she?

"So how did that turn out for her?"

"Not too well. It worked. Now our mother is roaming around out there somewhere."

"And Teresa?"

"She's roaming around out there too. She saw mother pushing her way out of her vault, I guess it was just too much for her. She ran off screaming into the night. I haven't been able to find her since."

"How do you know all this?"

"I was there. Once I found out what she was trying to do, I couldn't let her go alone. I had to try to talk her out of it if I could."

"How long ago did all this happen?"

"Two nights ago."

"You're right. It's complicated. What are you trying to buy with your five grand?"

"I want you to find my sister, Sam. Bring her home. Make sure she's safe. Then, I want you to send mother back to rest. She's an abomination now, she wouldn't want this. To go on this way."

"Your cash ran out of gas a long time ago. I might have been able to find your sister but I don't do zombies. No undead, no divorces, no exceptions."

She surprised him. For just a moment, before she continued, her eyes narrowed. Appraising. Calculating. Then the curtain went up on act two.

"Please, Sam. Please help us. We've got nowhere else to turn. I can get more money. I'll, I'll do anything." Somehow the lapel of her overcoat picked that moment to fall open, flashing just a hint of soft, white promise beneath. She leaned forward, her eyes locked into his.

Sam laughed. "I don't do clients either, Gloria. Make it seventy-five hundred and you've got a deal."

The coat suddenly closed and the sobs ended. The woman seemed to relax as she leaned back in the chair and opened a small gold pocketbook. She reached in with both hands and a moment later lit a long thin cigarette with an elegant gold lighter. She took deep drag then blew the smoke at the ceiling.

"Good, Mr. Lazarus. I think we can do business." she said.

The cemetery seemed the best place to start. Sam parked his battered Honda in the muddy gravel lot. Water dripped from cracked weather-stripping around the windshield and dripped on his leg as he surveyed the graveyard from inside. The only other car was an ancient white pickup held together with rust and baling wire.

Holy Oaks had been the first cemetery in town. Only the best and oldest families still used the neglected plots, there was no room for new customers. There were no trees, only tall weathered statues and geometrical headstones. Towering granite angels and shepherds loitered in the rain. A dilapidated white stucco building with a crooked steeple served as the mortuary and funeral chapel. There was a wooden garage, more of an oversized tool shed, standing behind with a door hanging open on one hinge.

Sam turned up the collar of his jacket against the weather and got out of the car. He felt cold drops run down the back of his neck anyway. The musty, loamy smell of the wet air wrinkled his nose.

As he walked toward the chapel, a man came out of the shed; walking toward the truck. Lazarus guessed he was the caretaker from the toolbox he carried. The man was tall and grizzled with weathered skin and worn blue coveralls. He didn't seem to notice the weather, no hat or jacket. His hair was iron grey and buzzed down close to his scalp. When he saw Sam walking towards him, the man turned to hurry back into the shed.

"Hey Buddy, hold up a minute. I need to ask you a few questions." The man paused in the doorway, then turned.

"I got nothin' to say to nobody." He said, standing in the doorway out of the rain. "Too much work to waste time with you."

The caretaker followed Sam's gaze to the door, hanging from its bottom hinge and peeling paint. "Yep, you look busy." Lazarus said.

The old man flushed, his scalp turning pink under the grey stubble. He picked up the toolbox and walked resolutely toward his truck, ignoring Lazarus as he approached.

"It's about that little incident you had the other night." That got the man's attention. He froze.

"You the police?" he spat.

Sam laughed, "Nope, just a working stiff like you."

"Does Miss LaVey know you're sniffin' around here?"

"I'm working for her."

The old man's face relaxed, the open hostility washed away in the rain. "Well, come on in. I've still got some coffee in the pot. I can only give you a couple minutes, though."

Lazarus followed the man into the shed. It was crowded, full of folding tables pushed against the walls to make workbenches. The smell of mold, dust and solvents stung in his nostrils. Garden tools were stacked in the corners in random piles. A faded blue wheelbarrow leaned against a wall. In an empty corner, there was an electric space heater and two old chairs, probably claimed from the side of the road on garbage day. At least they were dry.

"Sit down," the old man said as he poured coffee into two stained mugs.

Sam looked to make sure he wouldn't stick to anything. He sat in the cleaner of the two chairs. The old man handed him a mug and sat down. Both men were quiet for a moment, enjoying the hot coffee and the glow of the heater. Steam rose from Sam's pant legs as they warmed.

Sam cleared his throat. "My name's Lazarus."

"Franklin Stubbs." The old man replied. "You're here to help Miss LaVey?"

"If I can."

"Good. In the forty years I've been caretaker here, I've seen most that poor girl's family put to rest. She could use the help."

"Were you here two nights ago?"

"Night? No, No. Come dark, I hightail it on out of here. They don't pay me enough to hang around here at night. After forty years, you see some odd things."

"So you didn't see anything two nights ago?"

"I saw Miss LaVey drive up in that fancy German car of hers just as I was leaving. She didn't wave and I didn't stop."

"So what do you know about what happened the other night?"

"I know that when I came in yesterday morning she was huddled up in the doorway there crying. Her hair was all mussed and her clothes wrinkled like she had slept in 'em."

"Did she say anything about what had happened?"

"Lord no. She didn't say anything that made any sense at all. She just kept saying, "No no no," to herself. Over and over again. Almost like she was singing. I tried to bring her inside to calm her down but she just ran off back into the graveyard. Whatever happened to that poor girl, it must have been bad."

"You let her go? Didn't call the cops?"

"I'm 68 years old, Mr. Lazarus. I sure as hell wasn't going to run after her. And the last thing that poor girl needs is the law breathing down her neck. Later that afternoon, I noticed her car was gone. I figgered she eventually calmed down enough to drive herself home. She's alright isn't she?"

"Yeah, yeah. She's dandy. Can you show me where the LaVey plot is?"

"Nope. It's too close to dark for me to go on out there, but you can't miss it. Look for the only mausoleum. Odd family, those LaVeys. Insisted on being above ground."

Lazarus could tell Stubbs was getting nervous. The old man's eyes kept flicking to the window, judging the remaining daylight, anxious to leave. Sam thanked the man for the coffee and turned to go.

"You seem like a decent man, Mr. Lazarus, so I'll give you a word of advice; be careful. Miss LaVey is a sweet girl but you watch out. That family has been bad news for a long time." With that, the old man rose to leave. He shooed Sam out the door and tried to pull it shut, lifting up the door knob and fitting the loose door into the frame.

Stubbs slowly navigated the puddles to his pickup. After a couple of sluggish turns, the engine caught with a cough, spewing exhaust into the damp air. The old man sped out of the wet gravel parking lot without looking back.

Lazarus looked at the sky, then checked his watch. Still a good twenty minutes before nightfall. Enough time for a look at the crypt.

In the dimming light he slowly made his way over the wet ground toward the center of the graveyard. The graves he passed were old and unkempt; small pieces of limestone, scrubbed blank by weather and time. Further ahead, he saw the small crumbling building. It was made of granite; worn and stained. Pieces of stone still lay on the ground where they had fallen from the weight of the years. The remains of a waist-high wrought iron fence surrounded the ruin; rusty and tipping over in places.

Lazarus heard a shrill scream. Slipping in the mud and wet grass, he scrambled after the voice. Back towards the parking lot. His feet splashed through puddles as he ran.

The first thing he noticed was a black Mercedes parked in the lot next to his Honda. One of the doors was still open and the engine was running.

In the lot he saw Gloria struggling with someone, a woman, dressed in muddy tatters. The attacker's back was turned to him. On her knees now, Gloria saw Lazarus approaching. The other woman stood over her, hands fixed on her neck.

"Sam! Help me, Sam! It's her, she's trying to kill me!" Gloria's voice rasped and strained past the clenched hands.

Sam pulled his revolver from his jacket pocket. His first shot took the woman in the back. Her body rocked with the force. Confused, she turned in Lazarus's direction as though unaware he had been there.

His second shot took her in the forehead. A red hole the size of a quarter bloomed on her pale skin. Her neck snapped back and she collapsed, releasing her grip on Gloria's neck.

Sam breathed deep a few times to slow his heart. His ears rang from the two shots. When his hearing returned he heard Gloria laugh. Low, soft and for a very long time.

"You all right?"

"Better than you can imagine."

"That stiff looks awful young to be your mother."

"Good guess. Meet my baby sister, Teresa." She nudged the shattered body in the mud with a little laugh.

He must have looked as stupid as he felt.

"Now you're getting it! Teresa brought a soul back, but it wasn't Mother's. It was mine!"

Sam's mouth went dry.

"Her little mind snapped and she ran off. Got away. I knew she'd come to her senses and try to send me back. Being dead's no fun for a girl like me, Sam. I couldn't let her do that."

"You knew she was here the whole time?"

"Of course. I took her car to make sure of it. I'm very sorry, Sam. Really, I am." As she walked slowly toward him the smile on her face seemed almost sad. Her black, soulless eyes told a different story.

"I'm sorry too, Gloria. For both of you," he said as he fired the pistol. "Pleasant dreams, ladies."

-END-

Copyright © 2010 by Paul Newman