No one should play with the dead, especially when Raymond Faustanetti is around. For twenty-four years, the veteran cremator has burned bodies at the old cemetery; it's a job he takes very seriously. However, not everyone shares his dedication to the deceased. His new boss, Everett Cochran, pompous son of the wealthy, new owner, doesn't get Ray at all and insists on aggravating his freak employee whenever possible. But the cremator won't back down. And that dark determination often creates sparks between them that rival the flames roasting the corpses. When an attractive girl named Alex wanders among the tombstones, both men are drawn to her. Ray refuses his primal urges to keep his haunted past buried. But nothing stops Everett who is determined to have her. With Dad's money as bait, he seems to get his wish. Soon, a twisted relationship develops, and Ray senses impending trouble for the girl. All he wants is to be left alone, but circumstances thrust him into real life with every bit of evil that goes with it. As the demons of his past are reawakened, Ray must decide if vengeance is truly history or whether protecting the dead requires eliminating the living.

Ash Man

By Patricia A. Gray

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Patricia A. Gray
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-8454-0

Chapter One

The smell of hamburger filled the air of the enclosed, hot room. Large feet were propped up on one of the two folding chairs as the man looked down at his watch. It might be hours. The one guy was really large and obviously ate a lot of beef, judging by the hamburger odor emanating from one of the three ovens. Rising from his uncomfortable chair, the tall man bent over to open up the arch-shaped door to the oven and glanced inside at the large flames encasing the cheap, wooden coffin. That one had a ways to go. He closed the door back up and opened the next one. He nodded. There was the hamburger guy, the flames having consumed the coffin and currently barbequing the grease-filled flesh of the poor man who obviously ate way too much red meat.

A scream startled him and he looked over from behind the back doors of the white van. Some lady had thrown herself on the ground of the open grave and was shouting and crying hysterically.

"No!" she whined. "You can't take him from me!"

He stared at her through the windows of the van doors. She was clawing at the freshly moved dirt, acting like she wanted to join whoever was down there in the ground ready for burial. She was kind of young and real pretty.

"What an acting job, eh?" A masculine voice came up behind him.

The man turned to find the kid who dug the graves. "Huh?"

"That girl." He pointed, smiling. "Such a fake. It was all in the paper. The dead guy's her husband, old and rich. She's been called a gold-digger by the family so now she's acting all upset over the whole thing." The younger man shook his head, his thick, reddish-brown hair falling out from under his hat. "Like that would convince me. Fuckin' acting. I see it all the time."

The other man continued to stare as family members pulled her away from the gravesite. "Maybe she really did love him," he mumbled.

"Right." He chuckled. "And when I'm not digging graves, I run the country in my spare time." He looked back at the funeral breaking up as people walked solemnly to their cars. "C'mon, man, wake up! You've been spending way too much time in the ovens!"

The older man frowned, looking away from the activity at the gravesite and back towards the body awaiting him in the van.

"Hell, she's probably the one who killed the old fucker," the young man continued, pulling off his gloves and his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. His colorful tattoo sleeves stood out against his pale skin. "And now she just sits back and waits for the money to roll in." He inhaled deeply as if a sudden peace had overcome him. "Wow. I need to find an old broad. Maybe one ready to keel over. Or if she's not quite ready, I can help her reach her final resting place, just like the young bitch did over there." He smiled and began laughing again, slapping his co-worker on the back.

This time, the older man just turned and shifted his gaze disapprovingly towards his annoying co-worker. His dark eyes were barely visible through the strands of jet black hair hanging in front of his face. He swiped at the straying hairs and pushed them back up to the side of his head. But he refrained from speaking.

The kid kept talking. "Hey, you need help with the stiff, Ray?"

Reaching back down to pick up the platform to attach to the rear of the van, Ray only shook his head silently.

His co-worker watched him reach in and grab the coffin effortlessly, placing it at the edge of the van to put on the ramp, picking up the other end of the ramp and attaching it to the rolling gurney. He locked the wheels and pushed the coffin on to it. When the container teetered towards the edge, the young man rushed to help keep it from falling. But Ray had beaten him to it, grasping the coffin and lifting it by himself to center on the gurney.

The boy's green eyes widened, seemingly surprised with the strength that came from Ray's upper body. All the time he wore those loose, gray shirts which hung off him like they were two sizes too big, the gray matching the color of the small bone fragments which would always get on him whenever he was sifting through the ashes to put into the small cremation boxes.

"Shit, dude," the young man said, watching him close the van doors. "You moved that thing like nothing." He stared at the coffin. "It must be a light one, like a girl or something. Let's look."

Ray shoved his hand away hard before he could touch the box. "Let's not." His tone became cold and stern.

The co-worker glared slightly and shook out his stinging hand where the man had hit it. "Chill with the mom slap, man. It's just a fuckin' body. It's not like they know."

Before Ray could comment, a voice came up behind them.

"Freddie!" Their supervisor walked up to the two. He looked thoroughly pissed. "I don't pay you to talk to the Burner, okay? Your job is out on the grounds. Go!" His finger shook somewhat as he directed the boy away from the cremator.

"Yes, Mr. Cochran," Freddie said. Nodding his head in a sudden, forced respect, he threw his gloves back on, held the hat in his hand, and ran away towards the grassy plots, his wavy hair with its red highlights shining in the intense sun of the early afternoon.

"Stupid kid," Cochran muttered. "Never wears the damn hat. Always looks like a heathen with that moppy hair." He sneered. "And those tattooed arms of his. Totally disgusting."

Ray was watching him the whole time. He noticed the thinning hair despite his obviously younger age. Ray figured he couldn't be much over thirty but acted far superior than his years allowed. No wonder he hated Freddie's thick hair. His own was disappearing fast.

The supervisor glanced at Ray and saw him staring. "What're you looking at?"

Ray's face remained unchanged. "What does it matter what his arms look like as long as he has the strength to dig a grave deep enough?"

Cochran's eyes grew small and piercing. "Was I talking to you?"

His lack of respect had been evident from the first day he'd taken over running the small cemetery as the son of the new owner. Ray had taken a major disliking to him then. And months later, his low opinion of the guy had not changed. If anything, it had become lower.

"You were standing right next to me," Ray commented. "Was I to assume the movement of your mouth was only for your own ears?"

"Very funny, Burner. Get to work."

With that, Ray kept his temper and went to grab hold of the gurney but not before he rolled up his right sleeve to reveal his own brand of artwork there on his well-defined bicep: a large skull with an arrow protruding through it, the stem of the arrow visible through the hollow eye sockets. It was inky blue, not at all vibrant like the ones which ornamented his younger co-worker's arms. But still, it was enough for his point.

Cochran inhaled deeply. "Why am I not surprised?" He pointed to the small crematorium behind them. "Hurry up. We've got a schedule to keep, y'know."

"They only burn so fast," Ray said coldly, turning the gurney towards the temporary ramp at the steps of the old building.

"Then perhaps you should find a way to increase productivity," his supervisor added sharply and began walking in the direction of the other small building that housed his office.

Ray looked up from the coffin in front of him and watched him from behind. "And the name's Raymond. Not Burner," he mumbled, pushing the body up the ramp slowly.

"Hey, Ray," Freddie called out that late afternoon as Ray was locking up the crematorium. "You done for the day?"

Turning back and shoving the key deep into the pocket of his navy trousers, Ray acknowledged his co-worker by nodding.

"You wanna go get a drink or something?"

Ray shook his head.

"But it's Friday, man. Let's go celebrate!"

"Celebrate what?"

"Friday!"

"It comes every seven days. What's the special occasion?" He began to walk through the cemetery grounds.

Freddie laughed. "You need to have some fun, Ray! All the time you come to work, go home, come to work, go home. You gotta live a little! It's just a job, man. Don't let what you do get you down."

The older man stopped. "Why would it get me down?"

"Y'know. What you do. It's not exactly party city. At least I get to be outside in the sun with the trees and the—" He stopped, searching for a word. "The dirt. But you? You're cooped up in that little stone building all day burning up with the heat of the ovens. Don't you ever wanna run out screaming sometimes?"

"The difference is I can run out. I'm not the one in the oven."

Freddie stopped. "Okay," he said, slapping his co-worker on his tight back. "Shit, Ray, you are one weirdo. But you're cool. Like freaky cool. After dark cool. Y'know?"

Ray stared. "No. I don't."

"You ever spend the night here?"

"No. I haven't."

"Well, I have," Freddie continued, walking with him. "I've brought my girlfriends here. Once, we unearthed one of the caskets and laid down on top and fucked our brains out." He smiled. "Man, that was awesome."

This time, Ray's stare turned cold. "You copulated on top of a corpse?"

"Well, not on top inside, though I thought about it. How cool would that be?"

Ray shook his head. And to think he defended the kid's tattoos to the supervisor.

"Tell me you never thought about kinky things like that?" Freddie asked. "Haven't you worked here like tons of years?"

"Twenty-four."

Freddie whistled. "And not once in those twenty-four years did you ever think of doing something ghoulish in the graveyard?"

The question went unanswered. "I need to go," Ray mumbled, waving to his young co-worker as he walked on patches of drying grass, meandering carefully among the various graves.

From inside the small office a short distance away, Cochran stood by the window and stared at his exiting employee. Darting his gaze to the clock on the wall, he noted the time then quickly returned to his view through the old windowpanes, the wood between the panes in bad need of paint. He watched the cremator take long strides as he went between plots, always careful to walk around and not on. The straight, black hair hung down, covering his lowered head, though not enough to hide the large nose that protruded out between the strands. And despite the length which always seemed to conveniently cover the man's eyes, the hair at the back of his head was always neatly in place and didn't fall past his shirt collar. Unlike the damn gravedigger.

Cochran found himself curling his upper lip as he continued watching his employee reach the outskirts of the grounds. With his back slouched over and his hands thrust deep in his pockets, he hardly seemed to possess the arrogance he had earlier in the day at the steps of the crematorium. Suddenly, Cochran called for his secretary.

"Yes sir?" An older woman appeared at the door. She was dressed conservatively with her graying hair in a bun.

"How long has the Burner been here?"

She looked confused. "The Burner?"

Cochran pressed his lips together impatiently. "Yeah. The cremator—"

"Oh." She smiled warmly. "You mean Raymond?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Raymond the Burner."

"Raymond Faustanetti," she corrected him.

Her boss glared. "Delores, is it?"

She meekly nodded.

"Well, Delores, don't answer unless I ask." He watched her narrow shoulders immediately fall forward. "How long have you known him?"

"Since I started."

"He was here when you started?"

"Yes sir. I've been here going on twenty-one years. And Raymond, he was here a few years before me." A hint of fondness came over her aged features. "He was just a boy at the time."

Cochran didn't appreciate the look that accompanied the answer. "I don't like him."

"Really? Granted, he's a quiet man, but a nice one—"

"He's not nice and he's not quiet enough." Walking towards the tall file cabinet that housed the personnel files, her boss glanced over his shoulder at the old broad as he stuck a hand into the top drawer. "Just because my family took over this place doesn't mean I have to keep everyone who came with it."

The wrinkled lines around her lips tightened. "Oh, well ..."

He enjoyed the way her arthritic hands began to rub together in sudden nervousness. He could just let her stew with that thought. It'd give her something to sleep on tonight—

Finally, he gave in when he saw the color slowly draining from her face. "Relax," he said, pulling his hand out of the drawer and turning back to face her. "You're fine."

Her eyes expressed relief as did the long sigh which came from her mouth. "Thank you, Mr. Cochran, sir. But with all due respect, Raymond's always done a real good job—"

"Yeah? And what the hell does one have to know to light a fire under a body?" he asked rudely. He pointed to the door. "That'll be all, Delores."

She tried to smile as she backed away out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Cochran stood where he was and inhaled deeply. He turned to the file and shoved his hand back into the top drawer. With it came a thick, faded brown folder and the name Raymond Faustanetti typed on a paper label peeling off with age.

The walk home only took a few minutes and Ray turned on the light when he stepped into his small one-bedroom house he rented near the cemetery and downtown Riverside, a growing Southern California suburb. It was one of those old bungalows which had been built in the 1920's. He'd lived there a long time, going on twenty-three years, and still didn't even know the names of his neighbors. Just the way he liked it.

Throwing his keys into a small metal can near the door he looked into the kitchen and turned on that light. Bending down to glance into the tiny, ancient refrigerator, he looked around the empty shelves and found a bottle of Gatorade. He picked it up, opened it and drank what was left. Then he pulled out the fruit drawer and found a molding tangerine. He shook his head and looked up at another shelf, finding some cheese. He opened the package and bit into it, throwing it back inside and closing the refrigerator. Okay. That'd do.

Walking into the living room, he picked up the large book he'd left on the couch and took it back over to one of the huge bookcases filled with all kinds of books from The Aborigines to The Zulus. And that was just in his peoples of the world section. Perusing carefully, he found its spot by topic and alpha. Ray smiled with his own little Dewey Decimal System.

He made his way to the one and only bedroom with the double mattress situated on the floor. He noticed his reading glasses by the bed, and he bent to pick them up. Putting them on, he walked into the bathroom and rolled his eyes with the visual staring back from the scratched mirror. Unpleasant that guy was. Taking off the glasses and setting them upon the small lavatory he returned to examining his face. With the many fights he'd been in as a youngster, his skin showed the evidence of the occasional losses, the scars he'd forever hold. Even his Roman nose was multiply broken, now somewhat crooked. So much for his father's trait. He rubbed his high cheeks, which he'd gotten from his mom's Apache roots, and noticed some singed skin. He must've gotten hit by a spark from the fires today. Luckily it'd gotten to his cheek and not his eyes: those dark brown things, so deep in color they neared black and constantly showed more of the world than he wished to witness in his forty-two years. As Ray ran his long fingers through his shiny, black hair, another trait from his mother, he stopped when he found white near the part on the side of his head. Grimacing, he grabbed the indicator of age but stopped, realizing it was just ash dust. For that he was thankful. He began unbuttoning his over-sized work shirt and pulled it down from his olive-skinned, broad shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. He glanced at his naked chest, noting the raised skin of a scar near his pectoral muscles. Don't look too closely; you'll just see more. Then, he stepped over the shirt, his dusty, black work boots hitting the floor with a deep thud as he walked back into the lonely bedroom.

He saw the weight set by the mattress and grabbed the twenty-five pound dumbbells. He began doing curls, breathing in and out with each repetition, each curl coming with more and more force, more and more anger. Though the exercise was supposed to calm him and help him forget another miserable day at work, somehow the pumping of his blood only intensified growing frustrations over the young jerk who now called himself Ray's boss. Hell, it was nothing new; it had been going on for a few months, the whole Burner thing: a cute, little show of antagonistic management by the young Cochran who obviously respected no one but himself. He was certainly nothing like the previous owner and supervisor: a kind, old man who had treated his employees with the same reverence he treated his cemetery and the dead buried there.

Ray suddenly stopped. But the sympathetic owner was gone. Why'd he have to go and die, leaving the old cemetery vulnerable at the hands of money-hungry pigs like Cochran and Son? Ray dejectedly dropped his muscular forearms, letting the dumbbells fall from his hands. They rolled to the middle of the bed where they sat there motionless. Apparently life was all about power and control with no respect for the living or the dead.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Ash Manby Patricia A. Gray Copyright © 2012 by Patricia A. Gray. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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