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Hey there, I'm Ben. I take care of things out here. Night shift stuff mostly. | |
If you're planning to get into this line of work, I figure it's best you know who's talking to you. | |
I didn't start out in this line of work, though. Back in the day, I was a successful banker at McKinley's. | |
I had this desk that was walnut and longer than most dining room tables. | |
I kept a bottle of 20 year old scotch in the bottom drawer and only poured it when someone got fired. | |
And I made sure that happened often. I had a view of the river and a girl who brought me coffee before I asked for it. | |
Her name was Jenna. She wasn't my assistant. She was my assistance assistant | |
I still don't know who my actual assistant was. There was a stretch, maybe three years, where I didn't carry a wallet. | |
Didn't need one. Everything was comped. Restaurants knew me by name. | |
Clubs didn't check my ID. The elevator at my building skipped the lobby if I was on it. | |
I was the kind of man who walked into a boardroom and made the CFO shout out with one look. | |
Now, power, it's not some vague idea. It's real. | |
It's your name in bold at the top of a memo. It's private car rides. | |
It's signing someone else's raise or firing them before lunch because you felt like snake that day. | |
You can smell money when you're in it deep enough. | |
It's in the glue of the leather seeds. It's in the ink of your signature | |
And I soaked it in. They say I slipped up. | |
They say I made the wrong call, insulted the wrong person. | |
touched something I wasn't supposed to. And that's all true. | |
But everyone does that. The difference is I didn't kiss the right ass afterward. | |
I didn't beg. So they kicked me out. | |
quietly. | |
the next I was getting bounced from my own email account. My badge stopped working. | |
I called building security and they said, we were told not to let you in. | |
And that was ten years ago. | |
Now, I walk in boots through wet grass, a flashlight duct taped to a plastic stick in my hand. | |
They call me a night watchman. They pay me in cash every two weeks. | |
The job's simple. Walk the fence, check the logs, report anything unusual. | |
This is the edge of nowhere. One road in, one road out. | |
The graveyard stretches wider than you'd think. They bury people cheap out here. | |
No gates. Just iron chains looped between stone posts. | |
The kind of place where nobody visits the dead. It's like they're dumped. | |
forgotten, which is perfect for what I do. | |
See, I don't care about peace. I care about profit. | |
There's good money in cadavers. Real money. | |
Not that corporate garbage with bonuses and taxes. I'm talking untraceable, unreported, sealed envelope cash. | |
The kind that smells like plastic and rubber bands. Medical schools want fresh tissue. | |
Rich weirdos want bones. People pay thousands for a real skull. | |
You know that? I bet you didn't know that. The first time I dug one up, I was shaking. | |
Not from fear from excitement from relief | |
It wasn't hard. I already had the keys to the storage shut. I borrowed a spade and some bolt cutters. | |
took a look at the burial map, found a name that sounded recent. | |
They put a little plastic tag on the post when it's fresh. Easier than headstones. | |
saves the family money. Well, it took me maybe three hours. | |
That dirt peels back like cake if you hit it right after a rain. | |
The coffin was thin. Budget wood. Didn't even need to pry. | |
I just cracked it with a crowbar and reached in. | |
The body was still soft. And that's the best time. | |
before the rot starts, when the muscle's still stretched like jerky and the skin hasn't gone too black. | |
That's when the schools want them. That's when the collectors pay the most. | |
Well, I wrapped it in tarp, drove it out in my trunk. | |
dumped it in a freezer I bought from a retired butcher. | |
You should have seen the look on the guy's face when I asked if it could hold a whole deer. | |
I paid him double and he didn't ask again. The buyer came a week later. | |
Quiet guy. Thick glasses. They smelled like... paper. | |
He peeled off 20 50s and stuffed them in an envelope. | |
Said he'd be back next week if I could get another. Oh, that night I drank scotch from a chipped mug and sat on the floor of my trailer and | |
They're counting out ten grand in perfect silence. | |
You wouldn't believe it, but it felt better than any promotion I had ever got. | |
Now I've got a system. I only pull bodies on cloudy nights, and I rotate the areas. | |
I mark the headstones with chalk so I don't hit the same row twice. I keep track of name, age, date. | |
You get more for a full adult, especially male, especially recent. | |
Teeth intact is a bonus. I don't drink much anymore. | |
I don't need to. The sound of the shovel slicing down clean into a new patch of earth. | |
That's better than a buzz the first tap of metal on cheap pine | |
The way the body shifts when you lift it, and the joints pop like bubble wrap. | |
That's the kind of thing that sticks with you. | |
I've had this itch to write things down. I don't want to confess. | |
And no, I'm not done. It's like what they say about killers going back to the scene, you know? | |
It's not because they feel bad. It's because well they feel proud | |
It's that cold little thrill that comes from knowing you're better than the people trying to catch you | |
You don't want to get caught, but deep down, you want someone to know how good you really are. | |
And so that's why I'm telling you this. These are the rules of the trade I have come to know. | |
and now I'm passing them on to you. So listen well. | |
Because there are some strange rules to follow. | |
Alright, so let's get to it. Rule number one. | |
Don't crack open sealed crypts. You'll know them when you see them | |
Stone boxes, usually above ground, were half buried into hillside's | |
Big brass nameplates, marble lids with bolts sunk deep. | |
They're sealed for a reason. And it's not just for works. | |
The inside pressure builds after a while. Gases, fluids, whatever the hell happens in there, once the rot starts baking in. | |
One winter about six years ago, I got a little cocky and I decided to try one. | |
We were still figuring things out back then. Me and Danny, my first partner, he was smaller than me, wiry. Never shut up. | |
Thought this job was some big horror movie. Kept quoting books and saying creepy stuff to sound | |
smart. I tolerated him because he could work fast. | |
Well, we got a tip that this one crypt at the back of the south lot had a woman in it who died young | |
Enrich? Some kind of embalming test case, supposedly. | |
I don't know. They said she was almost perfect, Stel. | |
The kind of thing medical labs would pay double for. We hit it at midnight. | |
Fog in the air, boots crunching under gravel. We brought bolt cutters. | |
chisels and a car jack just in case. Took us 40 minutes to get the bolts loose. | |
I kept checking over my shoulder, not for cops, you know, just out of instinct. | |
Danny unhooked the last bolt and wedged the lid up with a jack. | |
The second it gave, we heard a low, wet crack. | |
And then it blew. That was a few feet back. Digging through the tool bag. | |
He was right in front. The sound was sharp, like snapping a water balloon with a nail gun. | |
Brown red fluid shot out across his arms and face. | |
Steam rose off it. I remember the way he screamed. | |
Not loud. More like gritting his teeth through it. | |
We dragged him to the truck, stripped his jacket off. |
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