Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

My energy levels were beginning to decline again so I treated myself to a fried shrimp sandwich and a couple of Molson’s with a small triangular diet-sized piece of pecan pie to follow. Then I walked around to the hospital and went to the rear entrance where the van from St. Croix Meats had parked. A hospital porter with greasy hair and squinty eyes and glasses was standing out back taking a smoke.

“How’s it going, feller?” I asked him.

“Okay. Anything I can do for you?”

“Maybe, I’ve been looking for a friend of mine. Old drinking buddy from way back.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Somebody told me he’s been working around here, driving a van.

Said they’d seen him here at the hospital.”

The greasy-haired porter blew smoke out of his nostrils. “We get vans in and out of here all day.”

“This guy’s got a scar, right across his mouth. You couldn’t miss him.”

“Oh you mean the guy from BioGlean?”

“BioGlean?”

“Sure. They collect, like, surgical waste, and get rid of it.”

“What’s that, ‘surgical waste’?”

“Well, you know. Somebody has their leg amputated, somebody has their arm cut off. Aborted fetuses, stuff like that. You’d be amazed how much stuff a busy hospital has to get rid of.”

“I thought they incinerated it.”

“They used to, but BioGlean kind of specializes, and I guess it’s cheaper than running an incinerator night and day. They even go round auto shops and take bits of bodies out of car wrecks. You don’t realize, do you, that the cops won’t do it, and that the mechanics don’t want to do it, so I guess somebody has to.”

He paused, and then he said, “What’s your name? Next time your buddy calls by, I’ll tell him that you were looking for him.”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’m staying at the Chandler House on Chandler.”

“Okay … Ralph Waldo Emerson. Funny, that. Name kind of rings a bell.”

* * *

I borrowed Velma’s car and drove back out to Robbinstown. I parked in the shadow of a large computer warehouse. St. Croix Meats was surrounded by a high fence topped with razor-wire and the front yard was brightly floodlit. A uniformed security guard sat in a small booth by the gate, reading The Quoddy Whirlpool. With any luck, it would send him to sleep, and I would be able to walk right past him.

I waited for over an hour, but there didn’t seem to be any way for me to sneak inside. All the lights were on, and now and then I saw workers in hard hats and long rubber aprons walking in and out of the building. Maybe this was the time for me to give up trying to play detective and call the police.

The outside temperature was sinking deeper and deeper and I was beginning to feel cold and cramped in Velma’s little Volkswagen. After a while I had to climb out and stretch my legs. I walked as near to the main gate as I could without being seen, and stood next to a skinny maple tree. I felt like an elephant trying to hide behind a lamppost. The security guard was still awake. Maybe he was reading an exciting article about the sudden drop in cod prices.

I had almost decided to call it a night when I heard a car approaching along the road behind me. I managed to hide most of me behind the tree, and Mr. Le Renges drove past, and up to the front gate. At first I thought somebody was sitting in his Lexus with him, but then I realized it was that huge ugly Presa Canario. It looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a hound from hell, and it was bigger than he was. It turned its head and I saw its eyes reflected scarlet. It was like being stared at by Satan, believe me.

The security guard came out to open the gate, and for a moment he and Mr. Le Renges chatted to each other, their breath smoking in the frosty evening air. I thought of crouching down and trying to make my way into the slaughterhouse behind Mr. Le Renges’ car, but there was no chance that I could do it without being spotted.

“Everything okay, Vernon?”

“Silent like the grave, Mr. Le Renges.”

“That’s what I like to hear, Vernon. How’s that daughter of yours, Louise? Got over her autism yet?”

“Not exactly, Mr. Le Renges. Doctors say it’s going to take some time.”

Mr. Le Renges was still talking when one of his big black vans came burbling up the road and stopped behind his Lexus. Its driver waited patiently. After all, Mr. Le Renges was the boss. I hesitated for a moment and then I sidestepped out from behind my skinny little tree and circled around the back of the van. There was a wide aluminum step below the rear doors, and two door-handles that I could cling on to.

“You are out of your cotton-picking mind,” I told me. But, still, I climbed up onto the step, as easy as I could. You don’t jump onto the back of a van when you’re as heavy as me, not unless you want the driver to bounce up and hit his head on the roof.