Inside the pine-clad walls of St Theresa’s crematorium, gathered in the pews, were the friends and family of the man in the box at the front of the room. Mr. Charles Harper was on the phone with one of his daughters when, mid-conversation, his speech slurred, and his words wobbled as his mind erased itself in real time. He never got to say goodbye to the chosen daughter on that fateful last call, or to tell her he needed a plumber for the blocked toilet. Mr. Harper, who sired many children to many mothers, had three generations of his DNA amidst the pews. The front row was filled with his past lovers and sows, all of them beautiful, all of them blonde, and all of them now old. The second row was his children, and they’re partners, six daughters and three sons. Behind them, the grandchildren, two of them, in their early twenties, with great-grandchildren.

 

As a short, rotund lady, dressed in black with one block of white at her throat, read aloud the extensive eulogy compiled by the vast family, the kids murmured amongst themselves.

 

Leon, a seven-year-old grandchild, asked his older cousin, who sat next to him, “Are we going to bury granddad today? Is that why he’s in the coffee box?”

 

Hugo, the fifteen-year-old cousin, corrected him. “Coffin. Not Coffee. That’s what that box is called. And we aren’t burying granddad; we’re going to burn him into ash.”

 

Reality fractured inside little Leon’s mind as he tried to comprehend the disturbing revelation.

 

“What do you mean burn him? Like a bonfire?” he quizzed the cousin.

 

“Yeah, kind of. This isn’t a graveyard, Leon, it’s a crematorium. That’s why there weren’t any headstones. They don’t bury anyone here. That’s what the big chimney is for, because they burn people here instead,” Hugo said.

 

Little Leon turned to another older cousin a few knees down the pew.

 

“Archer, Hugo said that we are going to burn granddad. Is that true?” he asked Archer, who was seventeen and knew everything Leon asked him.

 

“Yes. But it’s what granddad wanted, so it’s ok,” he assured the little guy, who was clearly traumatised by the thought. “It’s better than being buried; when you scatter someone’s ashes, they fly away and can go anywhere they want.”

 

“Like an angel?” Leon asked, his face full of hope.

 

“Yes, just like an angel,” Archer said, quelling his anxiety.

 

Leon sat back, content that burning granddad would turn him into an ash angel.

 

“They have to burn the body for three hours, they told us at school that the fire has to be hotter than any other fire,” Hugo whispered, desperate to find a way to pull his leg.

 

“More hot than a barbecue?” Leon asked, taking the bait.

 

“Way more! Like a million degrees. But it still doesn’t get hot enough to burn the heel bones.”

 

“What’s a heel bone?”

 

Hugo crossed his left leg over his right knee and pointed to his heel.

 

“This bit. It’s the only part they can’t burn,” Hugo said, reigniting the fire of confusion in his little cousin’s brain.

 

Uncle Albert leaned forward from the pew behind, “Pack it in, you lot,” he whispered, “Stop talking, it's disrespectful.”

 

Order and silence returned to the kid’s pew. Backs straightened and lips sealed.

 

Little Leon quietly sat for the rest of the service, staring at his own little feet that couldn’t quite reach the floor from the pine bench, wondering what happened to the heels.

 

***

 

At the end of the service, the family gathered outside in the flower garden and placed the vast array of colourful wreaths around the plaque with the name Charles Harper. The kids ran in the grassy area around the garden as the adults huddled in small pockets of conversation and tearful remembrance. An old man in his seventies, not a part of the Harper family, noticed a child hovering near the adults, with a perturbed look about his face.

 

“Are you ok?” the old man asked.

 

Little Leon nodded his head unconvincingly.

 

“Are you one of Charles’s grandchildren?”

 

Leon nodded again.

 

“I’m Bob. I was in the army with your grandpa when we were young men. He was a hell of a man and funny. He never missed a chance to have a laugh; he was the barracks prankster,” Bob said and smiled in reminiscence.

 

“What do they do with the heels?” Leon asked boldly.

 

“The heels? What do you mean?”

 

“Hugo said when they turn people into ash, the fire doesn’t burn their heels,” he said and pointed to his heel in case Bob didn’t know what he meant.

 

“Well, I believe that’s right, young man,” Bob replied, as he bent down to little Leon’s level.

 

“Where do they go then?” Leon asked again.

 

Bob took a moment and spun the question around his mischievous mind. Then gave an answer that his late brother in arms would have approved.

 

“They turn them into dog bones.”

 

Horror took charge of little Leon’s mind as it recalled the familiar image of his family pooch Cora, gnawing on a roast bone. One that he himself had selected for her, from a huge pile of pre-packaged bones that looked like heels.

 

***

 

Later that night, at home, while the adults drank in solemn memory, Leon crept around the house and garden, still in his formal funeral attire, followed closely by a German shepherd named Cora. She watched anxiously as he gathered up the half-chewed bones that she had purposely scattered around the property. He dug a hole, buried them, and placed a sign on top that read, FOR THE ASH ANGELS.  

 

The morning after, he came down to find the family gathered in the garden.

 

“What is it?” Mom asked.

 

“Looks like ash. But where’d it all come from?” Dad asked.

 

Leon pushed his way to the front. The hole was empty. And the sign read, THANKS.

​

Kam’s short story BLOOD BANK due to be released by Baynam Books and DEATH BED INC accepted by Twisted Dreams Press, is published online at The Horror Tree, Trembling with Fear, WitCraft, and T. Saunders publishing for his works of fiction. Has poetry featured in three anthologies, a novella featured in the Paul Cave Prize for literature. And is shopping around his debut novel, The Extinction Process.