Bag of Bones...

I'm in New Orleans sitting at the back of a tour bus parked outside an old cemetery--one of those creepy haunts where the dead are buried above ground in bone-white, closet-sized mausoleums. Anne Rice refers to them all the time in her Vampire Chronicles.

Anyway, the tour guide stands up and explains how these types of cemeteries are necessary in New Orleans since the city is below sea level and has a tendency to flood.

"You wouldn't wanna see your dead relatives floating down your street, now would ya?" he says in a creepy voice.

On one side of the cemetery stands a wide cement wall which is divided into sections, like a large tic-tac-toe board, composed of square graves stacked one on top of the other. These can be leased for around five grand for ten years, after which your dusty bones are gathered up, stuffed in a bag, and shoved to the back of the grave to make room for the next customer.

"People are just dying to get in there," the guide says with a grin.

Then he proceeds to tell us how about nine years earlier he was giving the same spiel to another group of tourists when he noticed a guy in a baseball cap at the back of the bus who looked a bit like Stephen King. A few years later the novel Bag of Bones was published.

"And d'you think my name was mentioned on the dedication page?" the guide asks ruefully.

Everyone laughs.

I frown. Damn, I missed Stephen King by nine years...