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A cloud loomed over Bluster County late last week. The warm weather of summer, eking out one last stretch of pleasantness, left. Rain trickled, then poured, and then, it too left. Leaves blew down onto whatever was below, creating a gray-green-brown rustling bio-carpet.

The sky looked clear, but the cloud came anyway. The sun and sky were hidden, and all in Bluster County had a dull, understated hue.

Ordinarily, no one expects much of an overcast day. Not in Bluster County. As I've often said, the sun rises an inch higher here than anywhere else in the world. An overcast day usually only lasts part of a morning. When the cloud came, everyone expected it to leave just as quickly as it arrived.

Except for old Rept Wagner.

He sat in Baker's Way Cafe drinking coffee and eating sunflower seeds, just as he does every day. Looking up, he shook his head with a wry, undetermined smile. Rept's smile was not the smile you find on happy men, but on men who know things no one else will listen to.

His left eyebrow, an untrimmed multicolored patch of stiff hair, lifted as he spoke.

"This is what I have been telling you. Weren't no good, no, not at all, to convert that funeral home into other things. Live and let die, I told you. The dead were happy being dead there, but, nope, you had to make it a steak and chop place."

He turned and spat.

"Sunflower seeds. Just the salt, that's all I like. The rest -- I don't see the point," he interjected.

"But them, them ain't no clouds. You know that funeral home had a crematorium, didn'tcha? All those bodies up in smoke. They are together now. That's the smoke of a thousand souls. All dead. All cremated. Now, all together. They want to go back."

The reality was the Richards-Canton Funeral Home had done considerable business in the late 1920s, thanks to the plague of '29, and then, just the years catching up on people. Old age capturing youth the way it always does. Everybody dies, and everybody has got to go somewhere. Lots of bodies went there.

Not everybody was cremated, but the long chimney peaking over Herald Street always seemed to be smoking. The population changed, and it just felt strange to have a crematorium right in the center of town. Richards-Canton relocated, selling the building. Every aspect of the building looked different once the coffin showroom was removed, the chimney was closed up, and the restaurant tables were moved in. The stained glass offered ambience to a proper dining experience, the new owners said.

"Oh you gave them a send-off. The crying and the weeping, then the banquet and the eulogies. A lot of fine speechmaking about them folks. But, when the party was over, those people, the dead, needed a place to go to. That place was taken over to serve up sirloins medium rare."

For 30 years, Rept drove the hearse from the funeral home to one of a dozen area cemeteries, and did odd jobs around the building in the meanwhile. He called himself the delivery man. He's retired now, but he says he still delivers when needed.

"You know I have heard them. Spent a lot of time in that room, coming and going, getting what I needed, and moving on. You learn the language of the dead. The creak you think is the wooden floor, or the groan you want to believe is the foundation settling. That's just them, saying hello, or whatever is troubling them. Lots of things trouble the dead, and, mostly, they can't do much about it. So, yeah, we've talked."

An AMBER alert scrolled on the lottery marquee at the 7-11 across the street: "Boy missing: 8 yrs. old, 4'4", Caucasian, short brown hair, wearing jeans..."

The cloud had situated above a house on Carolina Avenue. Joey Tennyson, eight years old, was missing. So was Molly, the Tennyson's three-legged greyhound.

"I can't say what's happened, but it has started," said Rept.

Rept reached into an oily brown paper bag for a handful of seeds, and picked and tossed the shriveled ones.

A police car howled by.

"You like your sunny days here. Oh, you even tell people about them. But those clouds -- they aren't going until they have somewhere to go. You don't want it dark here. Especially at night. You go home at night. That's all they want. If they don't have a home, don't be surprised if that cloud finds its way into your living room."

It was three o'clock in mid-October. Sunset was in just over three hours, though darkness had already set in. Five miles out of town, it was a beautiful fall day. In the center of town, it was midnight.

"There's a solution, you know. Open the chimney again. That'll all you gotta do. That's all they want -- the chimney. If you don't, people -- all living animals -- will disappear. You have seen it already, haven't you? Missing children, older folks disappearing, family pets vanishing. Wonder why? The cloud is absorbing them when it moves in. And the cloud will get bigger. And it, or they, will swarm."

"They've found Joey," called out a voice behind the cash register, over the news radio in the background.

"Have they?"

"Hiding in a neighbor's bushes. The dog's still missing. Gone. The cops say Joey claims the dog just disappeared in some kind of dark fog in his house, like it was eaten, swallowed whole. So he ran. They say they've never heard a kid scream that way before."

"Lucky boy. He'll live. They aren't trying to hurt anyone. They are just claiming a home for themselves the only way they know. The dog is part of the cloud now," said Rept grimly. "One thousand souls, you know. And a dog. They gotta go somewhere."

That was last week. This week? The forecast says cloudy all week, with zero percent chance of precipitation. And old Rept Wagner sits in a cafe, chewing and spitting sunflower seeds, talking to whomever will listen.

• For a real funeral home converted into a beautiful restaurant, stop by Ivy, 120 Hale Street in Wheaton, Illinois.

These are the days in Bluster County which cause me to smile, and I would live nowhere else. The sun rises an inch higher here than anywhere else in the world, making every day brighter.