©2003 by Geraldine Ahrens
Dave Ethers was opening yet another box that had slid off of the belt. “Cripes! I hate opening up all this luggage. First I open it. Then I inspect the contents, looking for something I probably wouldn’t recognize anyway, and if I did it’d probably kill me before I knew what was happening. There’s gotta be an easier way to get through school.”
Oswald just shook his head. He was used to his friend’s rants about the job. Actually, Oswald was happy to have the work that would help him get through college. Besides, he thought, what’s the worst than can happen; somebody shipping illegal booze or Cuban cigars to their uncle in Oakville?
There was little worry about bombs or terrorists threats in Springfield, but now the feds required random inspections. Oswald figured it was easy money. The baggage was off-loaded onto a belt that brought it into a small building where they inspected it for contraband. He did hate working the late shift though. Sometimes he was so tired it was hard to concentrate on his studies.
They had gotten their jobs at the Springfield Municipal Airport after a small plane veered off the taxi-way and crashed through the inspection building, seriously injuring the two women who had been the inspectors.
“Hey. Ozzie. Come over here.” Dave said in a quiet voice.
“Now what?” Oswald asked in suspicion.
“This look like it might have a coffin in it?”
An oblong wooden crate sat on the belt. It looked as though it had been stamped by every country in Europe and Asia. The ones they could read clearly came from Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, England and the United States. The destination was to an address in Logandale.
“Yeah, it does. Why don’t you go ask Toady if he wants us to open it? Maybe he can use that new x-ray gun he got. I don’t want to open no coffin.”
Toady, whose given name was actually Toby, was Head Inspector for the Springfield Municipal. He was a short, ugly little man with a face full of dark blotches that seemed to come alive when he sneered. He had a bad disposition, and most of the people who worked at the airport avoided him.
“I don’t know why he just don’t let us use it all the time. It’d make this job so much easier.” Dave muttered, as he left the building.
“Toady” stalked into the inspection building, carrying a small monitor and a handheld sensor that was used to x-ray large boxes and packages. He was trailed by Dave, who was mimicking Toady’s walk.
“What’s the matter with you two weenies? Don’t want to open a coffin, huh? Afraid something might jump out and get you?” He said with a snigger.
As he slowly waved the sensor over the wooden crate, Dave and Oswald were craning their necks to look at the monitor. They may not have wanted to open it, but they didn’t mind seeing what was in it. Alas, there was nothing to see except a couple of small metallic objects.
Toady shut off the x-ray and looked at the two kids in front him. Dave was of medium height and a pain in the butt next to Oswald who was tall, lanky and laid back. He did not like either one of them, but he was stuck with these two bozos until Jan and Pat could come back to work, if they came back. He understood their husbands had threatened them with divorce if they came back to the airport.
“Open er’ up boys,” he told them, with a wicked grin. “I don’t see no body but there are a couple of things I wanna look at. Call me when you have it opened.”
“What the hell!” exclaimed Dave, to Toady’s back.
“Never mind, Dave, just get a big screw driver or a bar and we’ll get this done. I don’t want to do this any more than you, but I need this job.”
“Yeah, well I’m not so damn sure I need it.” Dave said, as he sulked off toward the tool box.
Finding only a large screw driver, the two got busy prying the crate open. Oswald had enough foresight to make sure they didn’t bend the nails too badly. That way they could just hammer the lid back in place.
There was a coffin inside of the crate and it was no usual coffin. It was an opaque black, with a depth to the finish that seemed to go on forever. Ornate carvings around the edges appeared to be, not just a design, but a language.
Oswald noticed Dave staring at the coffin as though mesmerized. “Hey! Dave. Wake up!” he said, snapping his fingers in front of his friends face.
It took Dave a minute to come back from wherever he had been. “This is weird I tell ya.”
Oswald said, “You’re the genius around here. What’s the language that’s written all around the edges?”
Dave squinted at it. “Looks like Russian, no…take that back. Looks like something from the Balkan states, though I’m not sure. See the way these letters are shaped? That particular form hasn’t been used in over a hundred years, though you can still find texts written in the old language. Hey…do you think this is Dracula’s coffin?”
Oswald just hung his head. He could not figure out how Dave could be so smart, yet be so dumb at the same time.
“Dracula is a myth. He doesn’t exist. And even if he did, what’s he going to do in Logandale? It’s not exactly a Mecca of pretty young things willing to bare their necks for a vampire. Let’s get this over with. Loosen those clamps.”
The silk on the inside of the coffin was black. A tuxedo type suit was laid out evenly along the bottom and a gold medallion had been placed on top of it. Underneath the suit were a couple of inches of black soil. And to Oswald’s nose, the soil smelled very old.
“Creepy, I tell ya.” Dave said. “How in the world could this suit look so neat after being shipped half way around the world? What does the medallion have on it, anyway?”
Oswald grabbed Dave’s arm as he was reaching for the medallion. “Leave everything alone. Something tells me we shouldn’t be disturbing anything. Just go get Toady so he can see there’s no bomb and we can button this up.”
Dave looked disgusted. “You’re such a stick in the mud.” He picked up the medallion anyway and looked it over. It didn’t open and he couldn’t make out the inscription on it.
Then he grinned at Oswald. “Ozzie, I got an idea.” He yanked the suit out of the coffin before Oswald could stop him.
“I’m going to put this on, lay down in the coffin and then you can go get Toady. It’ll scare hell outta him!”
Oswald backed away, shaking his head. “There’s no way I’m going to have a part of this, Dave. You’re on your own.”
Dave pleaded, “Ozzie, my friend, my compańero, my buddy, please. All you have to do is call Toady and leave the room. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Uh-uh. You’re on your own, unless you want to pay my tuition for the next three years. I’m going to feign sick and leave. I can’t lose this job. Have…fun.”
Dave watched Oswald leave the building. “Oh well,” he said to himself. “I should be able to do this by myself.”
He donned the suit; it was too big but that mattered very little. He put the medallion on and called Toady’s office. There was no answer. He had a hand-held radio but hated talking over the thing. Doing what he must, and using his radio, he called Toady, still no answer. So he called Betty, Toady’s assistant. She wasn’t answering either.
Dave slumped in a chair. “Great. All dressed up and no one to scare. What a bummer.”
He was about to take off the tux when he heard voices coming from outside the building. Good, he thought, I’ll just lie down in here and scare the crap out of the first person that comes by. Then he waited impatiently in the semi-darkness for what seemed like hours. The voices receded. But finally, a shadow appeared on the ceiling. He tensed, ready to rise slowly out of the coffin to scare anyone that would approach.
The coffin lid banged shut and someone was securing the latches before Dave could think to yell.
“Hey!” He yelled loudly. “I’m in here! Open up!” He could hear nothing from within the confines of the coffin. He started screaming incoherently and banging on the soft, padded underside, of the coffin lid.
Toady stood outside of the coffin, listening to the diminishing sounds of Dave’s screaming.
“Rotten little creep.” He muttered.
He made sure the coffin went out on the next delivery truck.
“Hey, Toby; you seen Dave around?” Oswald had come back, feeling guilty about leaving his friend.
Toby swung around, fear and panic almost engulfing him. But he recovered quickly. Practically screaming he put his face up close to Oswald’s. “You scared hell outta me, you shit! Don’t be sneaking up on me that way again! You hear?”
He started stomping off. Oswald asked again if he knew where Dave was, but Toby ignored him and left the building. He checked the restroom and scouted around a bit, looking for Dave. Figuring he must have left, Oswald went back to his apartment.
He went to work the next evening, hoping to see his friend, for he was a little worried about him; he hadn’t seen him all day. But when he arrived, Dave had not shown up for work and Betty, about the only other person at the airport who liked Dave, had not seen him that evening nor had seen him leave the night before.
Oswald went to the inspection building to talk with John, the day shift manager. John hadn’t seen Dave and Toady hadn’t arrived for his shift yet.
John got Oswald lined out for the evening and he left. Toady came around awhile later, looking belligerent and in his usual bad mood.
“Where’s your partner? He disappeared last night, early, and left that coffin for me to close up. If you see him, tell him to go get his pay because he’s fired.”
“Uh…Toby, I haven’t seen him all day. When you were in here last night, had he already left?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I couldn’t find him.” And he walked away.
Oswald wanted people to think he was an ordinary college kid. He did not want them to know he had the ability to read people’s thought, nor did he want them to know how he had acquired that ability.
But he knew Dave was dead and Toady was responsible. Oswald sighed loudly; Toady had to pay for what he had done.
“Toady.” He called softly.
Toby Martin abruptly halted, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. Fear made him want to run, but also forced him to turn around and look.
The sight before his eyes made his knees weak and caused him to stain the front of his pants. Oswald floated before him.
“I suspect my friend’s body will be discovered in the coffin when it arrives at its destination. He may have been a complainer and a pain, but he was my friend and he was not to be harmed in any way. Vlad will be unhappy to see his resting place soiled by the secretions of a dead body. But you can explain the transgression to Him, over dinner.”