by Tonya Hurley
“This is crazy, getting buried alive on Christmas Eve.”
“You are just like your sister,” Damen said. “Always wanting things your own way.”
“Don’t ever say that!” Scarlet blasted him, turning her back to him. “We couldn’t be more different.”
Damen could see he’d insulted her. He reached for her shoulder and turned her back around.
“Don’t worry,” he assured. “I’ll pull her right up. It’s just a stunt. It’ll be over in a minute, we’ll all collect, and we’ll all be happy.”
“You mean Petula will be happy.”
Scarlet tried to look Damen in the eyes but he had the vacant look of someone who’d been thoroughly and completely brainwashed.
“Not again, okay?”
“Why do you let her do this to you?”
“I don’t know,” Damen said. “We have a lot in common.”
“Really? Like what? You’re both popular?”
Scarlet’s agitation caught him off guard. He struggled to find some other convergence point between him and Petula besides the obvious: sex, which he didn’t want to discuss with Scarlet. She hit the digital hourglass timer app on her phone and waited.
“Well?” she pressed.
After fumbling a while longer, one other thing finally occurred to him.
“We both like the same music.”
“She doesn’t know the first thing about music!”
“Well, she plays all these really cool albums and CDs when we’re alone.”
“Those are mine.”
Scarlet sucked in her cheeks and pursed her lips, not sure if she was more offended that Petula bootlegged her musical taste uncredited or that she had involuntarily provided the sound track to their noisy make-out sessions. It was also kind of weird for her that he connected with something so personal to her. Weird in a good way. She had no idea he had it in him. The conversation had sort of petered out in an awkward way for both of them.
“I’ve got to head over to the cemetery,” he said. “I’ll see you over there.”
“Make sure nothing goes wrong, okay?”
Damen nodded and then let out a gasp as he looked out the huge bay window in the lobby.
“It’s snowing!”
His enthusiasm was boyish and sincere. Honest. Scarlet’s mood and attitude toward him both momentarily thawed in the freezing cold as she turned to look at the falling flakes.
“Speaking of music,” she said. “Looks like we’re gonna have a white Christmas.”
Charlotte, Petula, and The Wendys arrived at the Wormsmoth booth simultaneously. News cameras and photographers were lined up two and three deep behind the velvet ropes that surrounded the glass coffins.
“It’s getting late,” the undertaker said. “Let’s get this show on the road, girls.”
The Wendys approached the glass-kets tentatively as Wormsmoth opened the lids.
“Just step up and in,” he instructed.
Wendy Anderson was first. She lay down and swallowed hard. Wormswoth shut the lid but couldn’t close it tightly over her. As he tried to force it down, the points of Wendy A.’s elf shoes cracked the lid of the coffin and shattered it to pieces.
“No!” Wendy A. said, devastated at the loss of her shoes.
“Do you know how much these things cost?” Wormsmoth said, wiping the sweat off his brow. “Well, there’s still the other one. Which one of you wants to do it?”
“Oh, we couldn’t choose between us,” Wendy T. explained disingenuously as she turned to Charlotte. “I guess that just leaves you.”
“On my own?”
“Why not? Just imagine how popular you will be. Your picture in the paper and everything.”
“Yeah, no one will ever forget it,” Wendy A. said.
“What about you guys? Don’t you want some attention?”
Both Wendys crossed their fingers behind their backs.
“We get more than we deserve,” Wendy Thomas said. “This is your time to shine.”
Charlotte was touched.
“I’ll do it.”
The Wendys smiled and turned their backs to her, giving Petula two big thumbs-up. Charlotte stepped up to the coffin, then stopped and stood there.
Wormsmoth briefly explained that she would be lifted onto a gurney by several of his pallbearers and escorted over to the cemetery where a hole had been pre-excavated. She listened carefully, especially to the last part.
“That release lever near your left hand is there in case you panic or anything goes wrong. It will pop the lid. The problem is, if you pop it in the actual grave, it could cause a cave-in. So don’t do it. Just give me a sign and I’ll have your friend lift you out. Got it?”
She nodded that she understood and looked over the throng surrounding her. She caught The Wendys’ eyes.
“I almost forgot,” Charlotte said. “Do you have Petula’s Christmas card for me to sign?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wendy A. said, reaching into her designer bag and walking it over. “Here.”
Charlotte took the pen and signed it: Always, Charlotte Usher
Petula saw Charlotte break out in a grin so big she was touched and nearly guilt-ridden for the first time in her life. All this trouble over her Christmas gifts. She walked over to Wormsmoth.
“Can you just give us a minute?” Petula asked, hoping their previous flirtation had earned her some influence.
“It’s starting to snow heavily, and I’m losing the crowd,” Wormsmoth said. “We really need to get her over to the cemetery. It’s almost midnight!”
“This won’t take long,” Petula guaranteed.
She walked over to Charlotte and motioned for her to sit down on the top of the stepladder.
“Did I do something wrong?” Charlotte asked.
“No,” Petula, said sweetly, flipping open the morticians’ makeup kit. “We just can’t send you off looking like . . . this.”
She grasped Charlotte’s chin, gently steadying it, and went to work. Powders, liquids, creams, glosses, and sprays were expertly applied with the swiftness and precision of a surgeon. The Wendys were jealous at the attention Petula was lavishing on Charlotte at first, but then convinced themselves it was all part of the final farewell stunt. They didn’t interrupt or throw a tantrum to draw attention to themselves for a change. Petula stood back and admired her work. Charlotte turned toward the coffin behind her and caught her reflection in the open lid, like a huge compact mirror.
“I look . . .” Charlotte began.
“Beautiful,” Petula said, finishing her sentence under her breath so only Charlotte could hear.
“Thank you,” Charlotte whispered, in awe at both Petula’s unexpected generosity and her new look.
“What do you think, bitches?” Petula asked.
“Drop dead gorgeous,” The Wendys concurred.
Scarlet arrived just as Charlotte was about to get into the casket.
“Ready?” Wormsmoth said.
“Ready,” Charlotte answered.
“Let’s begin.” Wormsmoth’s command was followed by a tight drumroll, as if the crowd were preparing to see a tightrope walker execute a death-defying feat or someone get shot out of a cannon. Charlotte stepped into the coffin, sat down, and then lay flat on her back. The crowd gasped and roared its approval. A single voice still managed to break through the din.
“Don’t do it,” Scarlet shouted. “Nobody is worth this.”
Charlotte just smiled back at her and gave Wormsmoth the sign to go ahead.
He stuck his head in the coffin closer to hers for some last-minute instruction.
“Remember, this is just a stunt. You aren’t really going to be buried, just lowered into the grave at the cemetery for a few moments. You’re not scared, are you?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Good. And whatever you do, don’t touch that lever.”
Charlotte felt for the emergency release handle to make sure it was in locked in place.
His lecture complete, Wormsmoth turned his attention back to the crowd.
“Here she is,” he said, with all the enthusiasm of a beauty pageant host. “Your Miss Mortuary for the next year.”
Wow, Charlotte thought. I didn’t know this modeling job came with a title.
Cameras flashed and video cameras rolled, capturing Charlotte in all her inanimate glory, surrounded by lush red roses as she made her way through the crowd encased in glass.
“Follow me!” he shouted, leading a procession of media and morticians out of the convention and across the street to Hawthorne Cemetery. Each person was holding a single, white candle.
The Christmas bells from the church nearby began to ring and the light snow grew heavier as she arrived.
Eric found himself at the cemetery with no sign of Charlotte, just a young man puttering nervously around a deep hole, a steel-cabled winch rising high above his head. The guy had the kind of jock thing going that Eric hated but the girls loved. Thick hair, bright smile, broad shoulders. The kind of guy girls would kill each other for. Swoon-worthy.
It had to be Damen, Eric thought. He could recognize him just from the stories he’d tried to avoid hearing about him from Charlotte. Along with the jealousy suddenly welling up inside of him, he also felt his love and admiration for Charlotte growing. He thought she was the most beautiful girl in the Great Beyond, but facts were facts, and this guy was way out of her league. The idea that she would ever dream of pursuing him, let alone date him, in life or death, was an act of either foolishness or determination so extreme it could only be explained as a potentially dangerous psychiatric condition.
Eric approached him to get a better look. Size him up.
“I could take him,” he mumbled convincingly, his thumb twitching away at his spectral schnoz. “No big deal.”
Eric began to bob and weave slowly, evading imaginary punches from Damen and throwing a few invisible jabs of his own, giving a whole new meaning to shadowboxing.
“I’m right here,” Eric taunted, dropping his hands and beckoning Damen. “You want some of this?”
Damen just stared straight ahead blankly, which Eric took as a defiant dis. Eric might not have been able to be seen, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make his presence felt.
“My girl’s not good enough for you?” Jab. Jab. Jab. “This is how we settled things back in the day.”
Damen felt a sudden chill and cupped his hands and blew into them. He began rotating his throwing arm in windmills to warm up just as he did in practice, which Eric took as an act of aggression.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Eric said. “Bring it.”
Eric proudly slipped and dodged each whirl. He wasn’t much of a fighter. Music was his thing. But his ego was at stake, and unlike that of any other rejected suitor, his shame would last forever. Literally.
He wound up and threw a huge left hook that missed its target but dragged him into the vortex created by Damen’s warm-up routine. Eric spun around and around like a fan blade, finally tossed back against a headstone as Damen changed arms. Eric wasn’t hurt—just his pride, a little. “Thank God Charlotte isn’t here to see this,” he said with a groan.
Eric got up and approached Damen, just as he threw up both arms. Stretch or surrender, Eric wasn’t sure and wasn’t taking any chances.
“Okay, let’s call it a draw.”
Eric stuck out his hand and approached Damen knuckles-up for a fantasy fist bump, but as he closed in, his ego got the better of him and he rushed at his adversary once again. Damen, who’d been unsteady from the snow-slick ground, lost his footing unexpectedly, and they both crashed to the frozen dirt.
“Thank God Petula isn’t here to see this,” Damen said, red-faced as he rose wiping the grime from his jeans. The mention of Petula caught Eric off guard. He looked up at Damen and realized he’d only been fighting with himself, some sense knocked back into his brain.
Eric watched as Damen pounded the snow and dirt around the hole with his boot to tighten it up, worried about his footing around the hole for the stunt.
“The ground around here is really loose.”
His attention abruptly shifted to Mr. Wormsmoth at the cemetery gate, a loud, Christmas-caroling entourage somberly following him. Wormsmoth held up a Santa cap, waving it high in the air, offering it to Damen.
“Ain’t gonna be no rematch,” Eric said, getting himself up from the icy earth.
“Don’t want one,” Damen said, waving off Wormsmoth’s offer.
15
It’s a Wonderful Afterlife
Holiday Burnout
A relationship can be like a Christmas candle, shining brightly but only for a short while. It is often the case that the bigger the flame, the smaller we grow, giving unselfishly until we practically disappear. The appeal of losing ourselves in the warm glow of another is a powerful thing, but from the fire of even the greatest love ultimately comes ashes. It is up to each one of us to decide if it is better to burn out or just fade away.
As the casket rolled across the street toward the cemetery, Charlotte fancied herself some kind of ancient royal being transported on a funeral bier to her place of final rest. A catacomb beneath some eternal city? A pyramid rising high above the desert sands? Who could say? It was her fantasy, after all, and now that she was alive again, she’d come to believe that anything was possible, so she let her mind wander. It was all so romantic. All eyes on her. All hearts feeling for her. This was new territory. She may have died before, but she had no recollection of being buried. Good thing, too, she figured.
It might have all been just some silly stunt to sell coffins and make some extra pocket change, but there was still a solemnity to it, Charlotte thought. The silence inside her casket broken only by strains of “Silent Night” filling the air, sung reverently by the crowd behind her, walking in solidarity, candles flickering. She could hear and see almost everything going on around her, totally in the thick of it, but she was nevertheless curiously removed from it. The falling snowflakes seemed to pick up speed as they crashed onto the coffin lid and splattered like flies on a windshield. Death was everywhere, even for snowflakes.
The procession concluded at the grave, which had been pre-dug, just as Wormsmoth said, snow-covered mounds of earth piled high very near the sides. The first face she saw was Damen’s. He seemed distressed but still managed to give her a little Don’t worry smile. Wormsmoth knocked on the lid and then opened it, helping Charlotte to a seated position. The crowd again applauded its encouragement, and Charlotte waved back at them, taking it all in. The approval. The acceptance.
There was just one more piece of paperwork that Wormsmoth, salesman that he was, had kept back until the very end. He removed a document, folded in three, from his inner breast pocket and offered it to Charlotte.
“Just sign this waiver and we can begin,” he said. “I need to protect myself, you understand.”
The Wendys also took advantage of the break in the action and approached Charlotte and Wormsmoth as well. “Before we begin, we’d like to conduct a brief exit interview.”
“Exit? Where am I going?”
“Well, you never know. It’s just protocol,” Wendy T. advised.
“On a scale of one to ten, rate your experience with this transaction.”
Charlotte actually began to give it some thought when Wendy A. interrupted.
“Ten. Good. Now . . .”
Scarlet was fuming as The Wendys handed over some additional paperwork for Charlotte to sign.
“This is a document that expressly relieves Wendy Thomas and myself from any and all legal liability with regard to this endeavor now and in the future and furthermore states that you are participating in this evening’s festivities voluntarily and of your own free will.”
Charlotte looked it over quickly.
“Got a pen?”
The Wendys handed one over and smiled as Charlotte signed. Then they turned to the undertaker.
&nbs
p; “Uh-hum,” Wendy Thomas said, clearing her throat and opening her palm.
“Money in advance.”
“Burial first, then money,” Mr. Wormsmoth advised, signaling Damen to proceed.
“She’d better not screw this up,” Petula warned.
“Now, miss, you may still opt out,” Wormsmoth said compassionately.
“There will be no opting out,” Petula growled. “Let’s get moving. The mall closes in two hours.”
Scarlet glared at them and turned to Charlotte, the concern rising in her voice.
“Are you sure, Charlotte?”
“What did you call me?”
“Charlotte?” Scarlet responded tentatively. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
Something about hearing her name come from Scarlet’s lips shook her deeply. Like an affirmation or a mantra, it resonated through her entire body and her soul. She found herself struck by a sudden melancholy. Once upon a time, she was Charlotte and through some sort of supernatural intervention she was again. The same old Charlotte. But not exactly. She struggled like an amnesia victim with split personality disorder to confirm her identity for Scarlet.
“Yes, it is.”
“She’s sure,” Petula insisted, pushing her sister out of the way and reaching for the coffin lid to close it. “Can we please move this along?”
Scarlet was ready to pounce on Petula, but Charlotte intervened.
“It’s okay,” Charlotte assured her, touching her arm gently. “I just have one final request.”
“What’s that?” Petula asked impatiently.
“Group photo?”
Petula rolled her eyes and agreed, pulling The Wendys toward her and behind the casket, with Charlotte seated right in the middle. Damen and Scarlet joined them, standing side by side.
“Say cheese,” Wormsmoth said, holding his finger up in the air to create a focal point for them.
“That won’t be difficult,” Petula mumbled, willing to do anything to get this over with.
Everyone put on their biggest smile, even Scarlet, whose beautiful grin hadn’t been visible in a photograph since preschool.
“Immortalized,” Charlotte whispered.