Nowhereville

“Yeah, her name’s Kari. I talked to her last night,” I responded and paused for their reaction. They both gave me identical sidelong glances. “She does give you the creeps, doesn’t she?” I added tentatively.

“Boy, you have no idea what you’re talking about, do you now?” Moriarty retorted briskly, as if annoyed by the perkiness of my replies. Dilworth’s face contorted painfully, as if he had the stomach cramps.

“Okay, enough of that already. What are you getting at?” I asked impatiently.

Moriarty turned and looked at Dilworth, and the two stared at each other. When Moriarty turned back to me – he was clearly the smarter of the two – he appeared to have reached a decision.

“So you’re saying your folks have never told you anything about this God-forsaken town?” he asked.

“By the way, whose are you?” Dilworth intervened before I could answer the first question.

“Firstly, my father was Lucas Morris, one of the twins,” I stated. “Secondly, you might want to be more specific. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Morris, you’re gonna want to light another of those cigarettes, and I’ll do the same, if you don’t mind,” Moriarty began, and grabbed my pack of cigarettes. “Now Selma here will brew us some coffee,” he continued, and then addressed the old cook. “And it better be the strong kind, not the one that tastes like piss, you old hag!”

When all three of us had our coffee, Moriarty led us to the booth where I had previously sat, announcing that for this kind of conversation, one needed to sit in a proper chair.

Moriarty took evident pleasure in prolonging this prelude to whatever he was about to say, possibly with the intention of augmenting its eventual impact on me. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

“Now that we’re all settled down,” he finally said. “Tell me, Morris, what do you think it was that killed this town?”

“I wasn’t aware it was dead, sir,” I replied, with a slight hint of mockery.

“That’s a dumb answer for a boy like yourself, born and bred in the city, with an Ivy League education and whatnot,” he responded tartly.

I chuckled. “You tell me, Moriarty. You’re the undertaker here; you ought to know.”

“You’ve seen the cemetery, haven’t you? Bigger than the damn town itself, I’m telling you.”

“Yes, I did happen to notice its considerable size,” I answered, leaning in closer.

“Now you listen to me, Morris, and you listen well,” Moriarty said, deliberately lowering his voice to a husky growl. “I don’t know what it was, but when it came, everybody started dropping like motherfucking flies.”

He looked me straight in they eye as he spoke, and the despair in his face was honest, raw, and naked. It chilled my bones. My mockery vanished and pure, unwavering interest took its place.

“One after the other they came. After the first two days, there wasn’t enough storage space in my morgue for them. There weren’t enough hours in the day for my morticians to tend to all of them.” Moriarty told his story succinctly. He spoke briskly and his voice didn’t falter.

“Two days later, you could smell the stench from down the street. So we just sent them straight down. I dug alongside my boys. The holes are all shallow, nowhere near six feet deep. We didn’t have time for proper graves.”

Here, Moriarty paused, as if having reached a turning point. Dilworth watched him closely, but he had the passiveness of someone who listens to a story he already knows by heart. In a haze of cigarette smoke, Moriarty found my gaze and upheld it.

“Two more days, and I was digging by myself. Morticians – gone. My two boys – out like candles. I buried them with my own two hands.” Moriarty showed me his two blistered, calloused palms as evidence. “Right behind the parlor. I was saving those two plots for me and my wife, but she left for Florida years ago and hasn't called me since. As for me, I’m still not dead, although I’d much rather I was.”

Moriarty looked down at his lap and was silent. I tried to think of something to say, but I wasn’t sure whether I was wanted to comfort him or ask him to carry on with the story, which was presently growing on me. Truth be told, I was positively giddy with anticipation of whatever was coming next in the undertaker’s account, which had by no means reached its conclusion. Sitting there in the dingy joint, listening to the macabre story, I was once again 9 and watching <i>Are You Afraid Of The Dark?</i> whilst knowing that come nightfall, I would sorely regret my decision. However, as long as the sun was up in the sky, the most horrendous tales of gore and the supernatural held nothing but pure, ecstatic fascination for me.

“I ended up burying almost everyone I knew. It started with those who lived on the outskirts of town, and whatever it was, it worked its way inwards. Two weeks into it, the population of this town was halved. I reckon it reached its peak by the end of those two weeks. That was three, maybe four months ago. Since then, it slowed down. One or two people may end up in my parlor every fortnight or so.”

This was the end of another chapter of his story. I was silent. I knew that this far into this account, Moriarty did not need to be prodded on. I waited for him to regain his train of thought.

“And then they moved in.”