Welcome to Peaceful Journey

By J. R. Rada

Welcome to Peaceful Journey Funeral Home where the journey from life to death can be anything but peaceful. The viewing rooms bear the names of heavenly glory as found in the different religions of the world, but it is a long-forgotten religion that controls Peaceful Journey. Owner Bruce Godsey tries his best to comfort the mourners who visit, but he has seen a lot more than he can admit. Would mourners find peace in knowing that the corpses come alive at night or that ghosts cannibalize each other? And those are just the easiest oddities to accept at the funeral home. Ghostly beings can walk among other ghosts without being seen. The newly departed learned that life continues, though it may be in an unexpected form. 

Welcome to Peaceful Journey is a collection of 11 short stories written by award-winning author J. R. Rada. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: AIM Publishing
• Release date: Sep 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393059189

J. R. Rada

J. R. Rada is the author of seven novels, a non-fiction book and a non-fiction collection. These include the historical novels Canawlers, October Mourning, Between Rail and River and The Rain Man. His other novels are Logan’s Fire, Beast and My Little Angel. His non-fiction books are Battlefield Angels: The Daughters of Charity Work as Civil War Nurses and Looking Back: True Stories of Mountain Maryland.He lives in Gettysburg, Pa., where he works as a freelance writer. Jim has received numerous awards from the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, Associated Press, Maryland State Teachers Association and Community Newspapers Holdings, Inc. for his newspaper writing.If you would like to be kept up to date on new books being published by J. R. Rada or ask him questions, he can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail] see J. R. Rada's other books or to order copies on-line, go to jamesrada.com.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Peaceful Journey Funeral Home. It’s the place where the dead aren’t really dead, but where they can still go to find peace. While you won’t see that sentiment written on any of the ads for the place, it is still what happens there. Trust me. I know.

In July 1993, my wife’s grandfather died, and we attended the viewing and funeral at a funeral home in Northern Virginia. I’d been to other funerals before, but I was always so wrapped up in grief, I was barely aware of what was going on. This time I was a bit more detached. I watched the people. Those who cried. Those who were respectful. Those who were afraid. I listened to their comments and conversations.

Funeral homes have always made me uneasy. I was, particularly unsettled one time when Iif you happened to look into a room before a viewing begians and just see asaw the body laying in an open casket. I don’t know why it struck me as creepier than it would have been if the room had been full of mourners, but it did.

For all the goosebumps they make rise on my arms, I can’t imagine back in the day when bodies were placed for viewing in a family’s parlor. The family had to pass by the body multiple times a day and wonder, as they cowered under their blankets in an upstairs bedroom, what they heard moving around downstairs.

I left the viewing room after a while and sat in the lobby. I began to look around and make notes about what the people were doing, how the place looked and how I felt. Then ideas came into my head. In a half an hour, I had four different ideas all set in a funeral home. So I decided to set them all in the same funeral home, and Peaceful Journey went into business. And people have just been dying to get in. Sorry...I just had to write that.

Some of the stories don’t heavily involve Peaceful Journey as the setting, but once I had created the characters and setting, I decided to use them in any of my ideas involving dead bodies or funerals.

J. R. Rada

Gettysburg, Pa.

GIRL WATCHING

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Pat Travers had trouble acting like he was interested in the dead man. After all, Pat had last seen Uncle Nelson ten years ago at a family reunion, and all his then 65-year-old uncle had said to him was Why don’t you fetch me a beer, boy? Fetch him a beer? Pat knew he was no Tom Cruise, but he certainly didn’t look like Benji, either.

Besides, Pat had more-important things to worry about than the corpse of a dead relative whom he had barely known. Living people, like Jennifer, gave him more than enough to worry about. Why, after three years, had she dumped him for a stereotypical college jock? All bulk and no brain. How could she be so shallow? She and Pat had been in love.

Pat signed the guest book next to the viewing room door. He looked over the small crowd of people gathered in small clusters that seemed separated into family, friends, and co-workers.

His father or mother hadn’t arrived yet, so Pat figured he would make a quick approach of the casket and do what was expected of him. He stood next to gray, steel coffin and looked inside. Uncle Nelson had lost much of his hair in the time between the family reunion and his funeral. Pat wondered if it had been a natural loss or a side effect of the chemotherapy that had failed to stop the cancer that killed him.

That doesn’t look anything like him at all. Why do morticians always make everybody look dead?

Pat turned and stared wide-eyed at the old woman next to him. Should a dead man look alive? That might be unnerving to see. Would it be easier to bury Uncle Nelson if he only looked asleep?

Pat’s parents walked into the viewing room, and he hurried over to them. His mother kissed him on the cheek.

How are you doing? Mona Travers asked.

Pat knew her question had nothing to do with the funeral. She wanted to know how he was handling his two-day-old breakup with Jennifer. Sometimes, he still felt like he was walking around in a daze. He didn’t know whether he should be sad at losing her or angry at how he lost her. He couldn’t very well tell his mother all that.

Instead, he said, I’m doing fine, Mom.

That seemed to satisfy her because she didn’t press the point.

I’m glad you came, Pat. I know you didn’t know Uncle Nelson too well, but he was family, his father said.

Pat nodded and pointed at the casket. He’s up there. I’m going to get a drink of water. I’ll be back in a few minutes.

He walked out of the viewing room into the foyer of Peaceful Journey Funeral Home. It was a wide hallway about three times the size of the viewing room he had just left. The door directly across from the viewing room had gold lettering over top of the door that read, Office.

Ghoul Central, Pat thought as he turned to the right.

The furniture in the foyer was white with gold accents. Nondescript prints hung on the walls. The viewing rooms were named after the many names for Heaven. He read the gold lettering above the doorways as he walked slowly down the hall. Heaven. Celestial Glory. Nirvana. He looked back to the room Uncle Nelson was in. He half-expected it to be the Hell Room. However, it seemed that good, old Uncle Nelson was in the Paradise Room.

Finding the lounge, Pat went in to get a drink of water from the water cooler. He was in no rush to get back to Uncle Nelson, so he walked down the hallway with his cup of water. The pocket doors of the Valhalla Room were open, so Pat walked in just to see what was inside.

The room itself looked much like Uncle Nelson’s Paradise Room. Same size. Same decor. There was even a casket on a pedestal at the front of the room. Because there was no one else in the room, Pat expected the casket to be empty. It wasn’t. A young woman lay inside the oak casket.

Pat stopped. It wasn’t often that he saw a dead person, let alone one his age. He stepped closer to the casket.

The woman was beautiful, which Pat found odd. Like the old woman had said in Uncle Nelson’s viewing room, morticians always seemed to make corpses look more like a wax dummy than a person. The mortician who had prepared this woman had taken pride in his work. Either that, or this woman had been Venus incarnate when she had been alive to still look so good dead. Her blond hair was washed and styled. Her complexion was perfect and creamy smooth, not waxen. Make-up had been applied, but not as a way to hide the signs of death, but as a way to heighten her beauty.

She looked like Sleeping Beauty waiting for Prince Charming’s kiss to awaken her.

So why was she lying in a bed of silk with her blood replaced by chemicals?

She should be walking down the street turning the head of every man she passed. Her face should be gracing the covers of Vogue, Elle, and Mademoiselle. He could see her anywhere doing anything. Except here. Anywhere but Peaceful Journey’s Valhalla Room. Anything but lying dead.

As Pat stared at her face, he thought he saw her hand move. Just a twitch, but he had seen it. He turned to stare at her perfectly manicured hands, and nothing happened.

Of course, nothing is going to happen, he thought, she’s dead.

Still, he stared at her hands expecting to see one of her fingers twitch again. At one point, he even touched her hand. It was cold. The skin was pliant, but the muscles resisted being moved.

She was dead.

Pat turned away to walk back to meet his parents. As he did, he thought he saw the girl’s head turn toward him. He spun around quickly, but the woman was lying as she had been, fast asleep beginning her peaceful journey.

Pat knew he had seen her move. He was sure of it. This woman didn’t look dead. She didn’t act dead. She shouldn’t be dead. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Right?

He sat down in the armchair nearest the casket. He would wait and watch until she moved again. He had to be sure before he told the funeral director that the corpse he had embalmed was actually alive.

Pat thought he saw her move at other times, but it always happened when he was looking away, or his mind was wandering. He would see her point to something or a hand grab the edge of the casket. Yet when he looked, she was always the same: Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince Charming.

He waited and waited, but her movements always seemed to elude him. He thought about returning to Uncle Nelson’s viewing, but Uncle Nelson was dead. This girl was alive; he had to prove it.

At some point during the day (Pat wasn’t sure what time because he didn’t dare take his eyes off her), the woman’s own viewing began. It startled him when he realized he was in a room surrounded by strangers. His concentration had been so intense that he hadn’t noticed people entering the room until a man blocked his view of the casket and the woman.

No one said anything to him, though, or made a move to talk to him, so he continued his watch. If she would only move in this room full of people, then he would be able to help her, to save her.

He heard snatches of the conversations going on around him. People repeated the name Susan again and again.

Susan was such a caring person. It’s not fair that she should have to die so young.

I remember when Susan graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class.

Susan was a delight to be around. Did they catch the man who killed her?

I’ll never get to hear Susan sing those jazz songs she liked so much. I used to think listening to them would drive me crazy, but now that I won’t hear them, I’ll miss them.

Susan. Such a plain name for such a beautiful woman. Why couldn’t they see that she wasn’t dead? She was alive!

Pat’s stomach growled loudly sometime during the viewing. It was distracting. No one noticed it but Pat, and he ignored it. He couldn’t chance leaving to eat. What if Susan moved while he wasn’t watching? He couldn’t risk it. Pat Travers was Susan’s Prince Charming. So let his stomach growl. Sleeping Beauty was waiting to be awakened.

Sir?

Pat looked up. As he did, he thought he saw Susan’s fingers run along the edge of the casket. He stared at her. Nothing. He looked at the man standing above him.

Did you see that? Pat asked grabbing hold of the man’s arm.

See what, sir?

Pat started to tell him, but then thought better of it and said nothing. Someone else needed to see her move or people would think he was crazy. He shrugged and stared at the floor.

Who are you? Pat asked.

I’m Bruce Godsey. I run Peaceful Journey. It’s almost eleven, and we’re locking up until tomorrow. I’ll have to ask you to leave now. We’ll be open again tomorrow at nine o’clock.

Eleven o’clock. Pat couldn’t believe it was that late, but when he looked at his watch, it read: ten fifty-seven. It seemed like he had come into the room a few minutes ago.

He stood up slowly still keeping an eye on Susan. What would happen to her while he was gone?

I heard someone say she had been killed. Are you sure? Pat asked.

Bruce looked at Pat like he was crazy. "She was strangled. No one deserves