Obituary 06: Wait... I Thought He Died?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Today's episode is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Quote now at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023 Potential savings will vary.

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

Dreaming of a better sleep? Tossing and turning is not your destiny. And Oli is here to help. Oli invites you to sink into sweet, sweet slumber to improve your mental and physical health and overall wellness.

More than just melatonin, Oli's ingredients help you unwind your mind for a delightfully dreamy drift off. Sleep is on the way at oli.com. That's olly.com.

Evan Gulock (0:54)

The funeral of Charlotte Dawson was perfect.

SPEAKER_5 (1:05)

It was simple, subtle, and silent.

Evan Gulock (1:13)

There was a rarefied stillness to the air. There were walrus balloons tied to her casket. The wild man played a sublime rendition of Concerto No. 23 in C minor on a violin he had made out of a dead possum. There was no wake. There were no eulogies. A chilled silence had befallen the crowd as a misty evening rain enveloped the crestfall graveyard.

Funerals are peculiar that way. Someone bites the dust, and the living look to one another, and say, you know what? I'm sad, you're sad. Why don't we all just stick this body in a box, stare at it for a while, and then bury it as deep into the earth as we will bury our depression afterwards.

Autumn was coming to an end. Just a few weeks ago, the trees would have been aglow in a vibrant, fiery orange and red and yellow. By now, they have mellowed to gold and rust and beige, turning opaque in the moonlight as the rain subsided and the clouds parted.

There we were, a crowd of the still living, staring at a wooden box, waiting to bury it, so we could move on with our lives and ignore our own suffocating fear of the fragility of life. Yes, Charlotte Dawson's funeral was perfect. For my friend, my truest friend, my only friend, a fitting way to lay her to rest in peace. That being said, Charlotte Dawson wouldn't be dead for long, not if I could help it.

Hello, I am the totally fine and emotionally stable obituary writer of this flawless town of Crestfall, Idaho. And this is Death by Dying.

I'm not one to condone grave robbing. Body snatching tends to be for medical students, treasure hunters and human taxidermists. But I would hazard a guess that most resurrectionists don't intend to resurrect the body they are stealing. Charlotte is dead, but she doesn't have to be. She shouldn't be. And I can bring her back, possibly. I have her still beating heart in a strawberry rhubarb jam jar, courtesy of Carlson and Carlson's delicious pastry shop where the Carlson's serve delicious pastries. Her spirit is lost to the ether, which will be a considerably more difficult feat to recover. But for now, I simply need to exhume her body, a process I'm not unfamiliar with.

I was alone in the graveyard, a single living soul in the parking lot of the dead.

Mid-digging, I heard a noise. My eyes scanned the graveyard. Nothing. Then I saw it. Oh, deer. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be concerned. After all, Walter Grimsly, the graveyard groundskeeper, cares not what you do in his cemetery, as long as you do it quietly. But a deer in his graveyard? Now that is another story.

For a few seconds, it felt like an unexpectedly pleasant moment of mutual respect. Just two living beings going about their business. A deer wandering the cemetery, and an obituary writer, absconding with the corpse of his dead friend. But then... The deer cocked its head to the side. A little too... Unnaturally far. It crept between the gravestones. Its head still bent at an irregular angle. It crawled right up to me. Until it was mere inches from my freshly clean-shaven face. It sniffed me. And licked its lips. As though agreeing that my Rose and patchouli cologne was the right choice. It craned its head to the sky. Then it winked.

Walter burst from his cabin, and I scissor-leaped over Charlotte's tombstone. Let's start.

Donovan Mullings (8:04)

I can recognize the smell of that mangy musk anywhere. Show yourself, demon!

Evan Gulock (8:11)

You don't expect dear to betray you, but then again, what is life but a long and agonizing series of dreadful surprises? The deer crouched low to the ground and edged away from me, its angular legs shuffling like a spider, its tongue hanging out, ruling.

I held my breath. Quiet, Obituary Writer, quiet.