Mr Bostwick’s hardware store was at the bottom end of town where mist from the creek still hung in the cool morning air. Darren’s heart began to thump as he approached and made out the familiar form of Beth Langley browsing the flowers in tin buckets out front of the store.

She wrapped her selection in the paper provided and gave Mr Bostwick a ten dollar note. He made change from the leather money pouch he wore beneath his big belly, wishing Beth a lovely day with a huge smile.

“Hi, Beth,” Darren said, smiling also.

“Hi, Darren.”

She was wearing a khaki, woollen jumper that hugged her slender figure. Her long, brown hair was behind her ears, showing her face and warm, brown eyes. She never did herself up much – not like a lot of other girls in town. Darren thought she was pretty.

He wondered if he had his shirt tucked in right. It suddenly felt too loose and saggy. He straightened his glasses.

“What?” she asked.

Was he staring?

“Um… I was wondering if um… You know the carnival they’re setting up down at the playing fields?”

“Oh yeah, I saw.”

“Well, it opens tonight. Are you going?”

Damn it! That didn’t come out right.

“No, I don’t think I can. My sister isn’t well, you know?”

Darren nodded. Everyone knew Beth’s sister was sick or something. Apparently she was bedridden, had been for ages.

Beth was checking out watering cans. Darren sidled close, wringing his hands in front. He took a breath. “Um, Beth, what about at lunchtime, then? Can I buy you lunch at the Coffee Club?”

She blushed. “Oh!” She met Darren’s eyes fully. It was a look with more intensity than she had ever offered him before. “Um… I guess.” She smiled, still blushing shyly. “Should I meet you there? What time?”

“I’ll come by and walk you,” Darren said, a rush of excitement filling him with confidence. “I’ll stop by at twelve-thirty?”

“Okay. See ya,” she said, tossing a glance back over her shoulder as she walked off toward her work.

Tad was in the mortuary. He had dead person blood on his shirt and it was smeared on his face. The corpse of Mr McIntyre was uncovered, the belly skin folded back where it had been sliced. Tad was holding it up and looking in at the gizzards. He smiled at Darren peering from the doorway. “Cool, hey, Dodo? Must’ve owed someone a pound of flesh, haha.”

“They want you in there, man. And that’s friggin’ gross.”

The sink to wash up was by the door where Darren was standing. His buddy lunged and nearly touched him with bloody hands, but he shrieked and jumped clear. He checked his appearance in the window once more before leaving through the front door of the funeral parlour and walking up the street to his place of work, Apple Glen Hardware.

Apple Glen was a small town a few hours out of the big city. The main street was busy at nine in the morning. The cobblestone footpaths were being swept by shopkeepers, locals were out strolling in the sun, getting their morning paper or fresh bread from the bakery. There was a construction site in the main street where two old, rundown shops had been demolished, and a new office building was being constructed. It was indeed new but apparently had to be designed to blend with the historic ambience of the misty, mossy little village. It looked like the face of the building was to be all local sandstone block. There was a huge stack of it taking up the sidewalk and forcing Darren to walk out onto the road to get by.

Darren didn’t go in much for corpses and guts. He had to live there above the mortuary with his dad, but he couldn’t come at the idea of carrying on the family tradition of four generations and becoming the next Apple Glen undertaker. No, his father had been forced to employ a young protégé from outside of the family, Tad Grier. Tad was Darren’s best buddy from school. Aside from the fact he was fine with corpses and guts, they had lots in common. He had arrived at work that morning to find Darren standing there dumbfounded, gawking at the mutilated corpse.

“And what time was that, exactly?” Officer Parks asked, still questioning Darren about the events that morning.

“I think it was just after seven. I never checked the time, but my alarm is set for 6:45, and I saw the light from the open meat shop door when I was walking across the landing to go to the loo.” Going to the toilet was probably not pertinent information either, Darren considered.

Officer Parks glanced up from his scribbling. “Meat shop?”

“The mortuary,” Darren’s father explained, frowning at him. He didn’t approve of the term. He used to clip Darren over the ear for it when he was a kid.

The big cop half chuckled. He obviously liked meat shop. He checked a previous page in his notebook and addressed Darren’s father. “And you say the incisions made in the corpse were jagged. What do you mean by that?”

“They’re not surgical. My mortician agrees – the instrument used to cut the skin and flesh was not very sharp.”

“So, not a knife?”

“Not a sharp knife. There is evidence of tearing.”

“And the organs missing – the heart and liver?”

“That’s correct. We will know more when we examine thoroughly. It appears they were torn out.”

Darren swallowed queasily, that rising sick feeling starting up again. Even the thought of messed up dead bodies was too much for him.

“Can I go? I’m gonna be late for work.”

The policeman dismissed him. “Send in the mortician please, son?”