The Gold Hill Ghoul by Patrick Dorn

Author:Patrick Dorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Patrick Dorn

Chapter Four: A Marvelous, Memorable Tale

Thomas Kennedy agreed to the fat man's offer, but remembering the fluid that oozed from the walking stick, declined to shake his hand. He backed toward the grave, not wanting to turn his back on the well spoken monster. He stumbled. He regained his balance with a wince, and climbed down into the open grave. The gravedigger picked up the pickaxe and got to work.

The strange man with the tallow face and ruffled shirt found a convenient position from which to observe. He sat on the headstone Thomas had recently moistened, both hands resting on the silver handle of his cane. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat and lungs with a heaving cough, and expectorated an enormous glob of mucous into an oversized lacy handkerchief produced from the sleeve of his frock coat. He stuffed the soiled square into a pocket.

"My name at the moment is Horatio Abernathy Fuller, late of St. Louis, Chicago, and New York. I was once a day laborer, much like yourself, having earned my passage from Cornwall by working as a powder monkey on the HMS Serapis for His Majesty King George."

Thomas wasn't very good with sums, but if Horatio Fuller meant King George III, that would have been at least seventy-five years ago. His palms grew slick on the pickaxe handle. He kept swinging, churning up the earth.

"Once in America, I floundered from one job to the next, flopping, as you say, in any habitation that could be found, however mean."

Horatio Fuller looked up at the sky, remembering. "One night, as I was deep in my cups, I staggered into the New York Marble Cemetery, intending to break open a crypt in hopes of sheltering myself from a particularly recalcitrant downpour."

More than once, Thomas had resorted to breaking and entering to find cover from hostile weather.

"I confess I was very drunk. Nearly incapacitated by the devil's brew. I was just nodding off, nestled as I was amongst stacks of dusty caskets, piled up like cordwood on either side of me, when I spied a woman wandering amongst the headstones."

He sighed. "It was as if the statue of an angel had suddenly become animated, searching for a moonbeam so she could arise to heaven. She was caught in a cold and drenching rain, and I thought to call out to her, to suggest a sharing of respite from the wind and the wet in my purloined marble hut." He winked. "My gesture was, for the most part, honorable."

Thomas marveled at how the man could talk. But the devil can be devious, twisting his words with his forked and fiery tongue. Still, the story charmed his attention, and he found the pain in his shoulders was less bothersome.

"Before I could call out with the invitation, she produced a walking stick." He held up his silver handled cane. "This very one. She approached a mounded grave, perhaps a month or so old. I watched in horror, as you did tonight, Thomas Michael Kennedy, as she pierced the casket and supped of its contents.

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