A Ghoul in the Morgue, a Boy in the Corn, and a Road That Remembers

The first story opens with a forensic pathologist describing his new job at a county morgue. The work is quiet and methodical, but he quickly notices something impossible about the elderly janitor. Whenever a grieving family arrives to identify a body, the janitor slips into the viewing room, and within thirty seconds the screaming stops. The family emerges calm, peaceful, as if a heavy weight has been lifted. The janitor never speaks to the staff, and there is a strict rule: no one stays in the morgue past six in the evening. Only the janitor remains overnight.

The doctor's curiosity gets the better of him. He hides in a storage room and waits. After six o'clock, he hears sounds from the cold storage room — wet tearing, rhythmic chewing. Peering through the door, he sees the janitor standing over a corpse, his bare hands buried in the abdominal cavity. The old man pulls out the liver and eats it raw, his jaw unhinging, his teeth black and jagged. When the doctor is discovered, the janitor explains: he is a ghoul. He has been feeding on the dead for centuries, and the morgue is a perfect arrangement. He takes only the liver, the senior examiner signs off on the paperwork, and in exchange, he uses an ancient ritual to pull the grief from the families, leaving them at peace. The doctor is given a choice: keep