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"So," she said, drawing a small tape recorder from her purse and setting it by the candle. "I want to know about Charlie Stone the man."

"Wouldn't you rather hear about Charlie Stone the undertaker since he's the one you're article's about?" I asked, taking a sip from my water. It would have been gin were I not taking pain killers for some busted bones and joints provided by a particularly nasty ghoul encounter a few weeks before.

"To understand you better in your profession I need to understand the forces that moved you into it. I mean, was it a dream come true, something you got into out of curiosity, what? Why did you become an undertaker?"

I looked down at the table cloth, counting the squares on it's checkered surface and looked back into her green eyes. "I was born into a family that had been undertakers since we came to America during the Civil War. Its just what we do." I sighed, thinking about the family history Old Hatch had told me from childhood. "My grandfather's grandfather came from Ireland during the American Civil War and set up shop in the south shortly after the war's end. His son took over after him and moved it from someplace in Carolina to Berry Hill and Old Hatch's dad moved us where we are today."

"Old Hatch?" Linda asked, somewhat puzzled. "He's you're grandfather I take it?"

I nodded. "Yeah, he was my grandfather. During the big one forty years ago he was called in after a real bad car wreck. He had to drive three hours from where he had been planning on camping with some family. When he got back the crash victims, and their victims were shambling about and all he had was an old hatchet to fend 'em off with. Twelve ghouls with a rusted little axe. That's why we called him Old Hatch?"

Our appetizers arrived as I was finishing my tale. Linda had ordered while I was reminiscing; something dark and tentacled. I took my knife from the table and poked at one of the baked arms.

"What the hell is this?" I asked her, feeling as if the dish on the table were watching me.

"Calamari." she answered as she separated a small cooked squid from a dozen of its brothers. "Its wonderful."

"No thanks." I said raising an apologetic hand. Something clattered in the kitchen far of and to my right. I turned to see it but my view was obscured by other patrons, potted plants and dim lighting.

"So, are there any other Stone's besides you and Old Hatch still out there killing ghouls." Linda asked, drawing my attention to the dinner table and our conversation again.

"No." I answered. "Its just me. My grandfather died after I joined the Commission and my brother died when I was a kid."

"And your parents?" she asked, leaning across the table and slipping an elbow into the calamari. She recoiled and began wiping her arm with a napkin.

"I never knew my parents." I answered and I lied. True, I never really knew my mother since she died in childbirth with my brother William but my father was another story all together. Charles Edward Stone Senior had died to me the day he left my brother and I in my grandfather's care. "They both died when I was very young."

Dishes clattered in the back, a door banged and a man yelled an obscenity loudly from the kitchen. I turned to look but stopped when I felt Linda's hand on mine. "I'm sorry to hear that." she told me.

"You can't miss what you never had." I said, shrugging off the memories. "So, do you have enough background or do I need to keep spilling my guts on this table?"

She smiled and it made me smile to see her. "What can you tell me about your job, Charlie?" she asked, letting go of my hand.

"What do you want to..." I tried to ask a question but the screams from the kitchen wouldn't let me. A man came barging through the swinging doors, yelling loudly as blood sprayed from his wrist. I drew my Berretta from under my suit coat and jumped out of my chair.

"Linda," I said, looking over my shoulder. "Get under the table and don't move unless I tell you to."

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