Outer Dark

Culla meets a drunken beekeeper along the road. They share a drink as they continue toward a town called Cheatham. Culla refuses the beekeeper’s offer to trade the nice stolen boots to replace the man’s boots, which are falling apart. The beekeeper asks Culla why he’s traveling without a destination; Culla says he’s looking for his sister.

Cheatham appears abandoned. The beekeeper directs Culla to the store for work before continuing on without saying goodbye. From the storekeeper, Culla learns that everyone is at the church graveyard. Soon an armed procession appears, escorting a wagon carrying three coffins disinterred by an unknown grave thief. The procession stops in the square, where hundreds of people gather to look inside the opened coffins: One coffin holds both a desiccated, naked man and the half-decapitated corpse of the Black sexton of the graveyard. It’s implied that the grave robbers staged this macabre tableaux. Someone remarks that the grave thief will likely be wearing the black suit stolen from the desiccated body.

The storekeeper whispers to the sheriff about Culla. As the deputies approach Culla, he flees into an alley. The deputies pursue him through town, across fields, and into the woods, where they lose him.