Dead at a Funeral

She didn’t want to look at his body, but somehow her eyes kept drifting towards her brother. His face was wrong; caked with makeup and had a plastic look to it. He reminded her of a wax figure in one of those cheap museums.

The family filed into the small room in a single line, each of their faces accented by red eyes and tear stains. Beth felt like a sideshow act being put on display. She could almost feel the eyes of others following her and her parents as they walked through the double doors and out of sight.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

The preacher was a balding man, his hair grey with small strands of white that seemed to stick out at inconvenient places. Beth looked at his eyes as he interacted with her mother. The eyes were sharp, yet seemed bored with it all. He spoke with the soft and polished earnest he would use to deliver Sunday sermon. It was as if he had been to many funerals recently and this was just another number to him. He grasped her mother’s hands, looked into her eyes and paused; waiting for his words to sink in before lightly dropping her hands and moving on to the next. Again he spoke softly as he clasped her father’s hands.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

It was the same grip, the same tone, the same lingering gaze. Beth imagined it was meant to be comforting but something about it unnerved her. When the preacher dropped her father’s hands she wanted to pull away. She wanted to break out of line and just leave, but she couldn’t. Some invisible force compelled her to stay as the “man of God” clutched her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

For a second Beth wondered if he truly even had a soul.

They were seated in the first two rows, as if they needed to be physically closer to the body in the casket. Beth didn’t understand the desire to look upon the dead before burying them. It felt wrong to her. She looked at her mother, who was peering into it and fussing over details. This was her choice. She couldn’t see James choosing to be put on display like that.

“He was a good man.” Beth had overheard some people whispering outside the funeral home. She had never met them, didn’t vaguely recognize them. How well could they have known him, she wondered. He wasn’t a private man but most of his true friends he had brought around to meet the family at some point. Beth couldn’t comprehend the thought of attending a funeral unless it was someone she knew well. Very well.

“He looks good,” her mother whimpered before bursting out into another round of sobs.

Beth cringed, shifting herself in her chair. She rubbed her sweaty hands on her pants hoping for some relief. He looks horrible, she thought. He looks dead. Fake.
She looked over to his wife Lisa and their two boys. Lisa looked to be crumbling away, pieces of her breaking off one by one. Beth imagined Lisa going home. She could see her flying into a fit of rage and taking a handgun to her temple. Tiny fragments of her brain and skull plastering on the wall behind her as the rest of her slumped to the ground.

No, Beth thought. Lisa loves those kids too much to throw it away. The two boys clung to their mother with wide confused eyes. She couldn’t imagine what might be going through their heads. She could barely grasp the idea of losing her brother; she couldn’t imagine being so young and not understanding why your dad won’t just get up.

The instrumental hymn ended and a crackling version of Amazing Grace began, which sounded as though it had been recorded in the fifties. Sniffles and sobs came from the rear of the room as the rest of the mourners filed in. They took their seats and muttered soft tearful greetings to their chair neighbors. Not a dry eye in the house, Beth thought.
She fixated on them, trying to keep from looking back at the body. I don’t understand, she thought. The public displays. She had cried, she wasn’t cold. But she had done it in the privacy of her room and the bathroom stall at the gas station before she got here. She understood grief. Be sad, she thought, just keep it to yourself for Pete’s sake. For a moment she wondered if she should try to fake tears, to join the public spectacle. Her eyes wouldn’t cooperate, so she gave up.

“Let us begin.” The preacher was standing at the front, resting his folded hands on the thin wooden podium. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. The small room overflowed with people now, each had their heads bowed in silence. Beth did the same out of respect, but didn’t close her eyes.

“Friends, we have come to mourn the passing of James Block, and to celebrate his life as a family man. He was a father, a son, a brother and to many the best friend you could hope to have. I’d like to start with a prayer…”

Beth tuned him out. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say about God and how it was her brother’s time. It was bullshit.

Her eyes began to get warm. She wiped the droplets from them with her sleeve and clenched her jaw.

Fuck you James, she thought. Fuck you for leaving.

The preacher finished his sermon and began talking about a life he knew nothing about. He spoke about stories that he wasn’t involved in; about a man he had never met. He invited others to go up and speak. One woman stood and told a story about how James had gotten her coffee from the vending machine at work once. Something about the woman and how she told the story as though it were so significant angered Beth. She felt such rage that she wanted to jump up and start smacking the woman. It was insane to watch her sniffle and choke over a man she barely knew.

His best friend spoke. He cracked jokes the way James would have wanted and it made her anger dissipate. She felt small bursts of pity as his voice cracked. He didn’t cry. He had been the best friend James could have ever asked for.

A few others spoke; everyone seemed to have a story to share. Each person told their tales as if they had the most important ones ever. Her mother looked at her with a slight frown. Beth imagined she was angry that her daughter had nothing to contribute. I said my piece, she thought. James knows what’s in my head.

The preacher resumed his post and began commending the spirit to heaven. The old man made a sign of the cross over the body.

That was when Beth saw the twitch.

A small tick in the finger of her deceased brother caught her eye. Slowly she sucked in her breath and held it, unblinking. The body jerked, sitting in an upright position. He let out a roaring scream. His eyes flew open and stared at the people wildly. The preacher fell backwards, clutching his chest and gasped for air.

Screams erupted from the people. Some tried to flee while others sat frozen in their seats. Her mother began to wail, clutching her father. Lisa grabbed her oldest son, while the youngest squealed with glee and clapped his hands. People began to furiously shove their way out of the room, knocking others to the floor. A woman was trampled to the ground; another tripped and cracked her head on a chair sending out a flow of blood.

Beth silently watched the chaos. She turned back to her brother and saw him sitting in his casket. His face still caked with makeup and a devilish grin full of teeth. He looked at her, licking his lips hungrily. A lump rose in her throat, threatening to spill the contents of her breakfast onto the ground.

She couldn’t move, as he climbed out of the casket. She stared into his grey eyes as he approached her, grabbed her by the shoulders and bit into her flesh. She stood there, unmoving, until he ripped her apart and ate her intestines; then she died.