Cheri Jensen, blond, blue eyes, well shaped and well liked all over town. Normal in every aspect but one, jewelry! She was obsessed with it, rings, necklaces, diamonds, rubies, big or small. This was not greed or a lust for riches, but more like a diabolical need, a wanton desire for the glimmering gold and silver trinkets…..

"Haven't you closed up that coffin yet Cheri?" questioned the voice of Mr. Tompkins from the back of the Northside Funeral Home where Cheri worked. "We've got to get it out to the cemetery pronto, folks will be waiting for us and it's not good to be late with the deceased you know." But Cheri couldn't hear him; the gold and ivory cameo on the body within the coffin held her in a trance. "It's beautiful, so lovely," she thought. "Hurry up girl" a little closer now. A lily-white hand pulled the cameo from the neck of the lady who had the unfortunate privilege of being the guest of honor at today's funeral, and the lid closed. "Well it's about damn time girl, I don't know what gets into you sometimes, I really don't, let's roll" said Mr. Tompkins as he entered the room shaking his head. Unnoticed, the necklace slipped into Cheri's pocket.

Cheri had worked at Northside for about four years as the personal assistant to Mr. Tompkins. Mr. Tompkins was a gray haired old gentleman that had been in the funeral business since he was a child, as was his father before him and his grandfather and so on. Northside had been in his family for six generations and with no children of his own, he hoped that one day he could pass it on to Cheri.

Every day for four years, Cheri had managed to acquire the jewelry of the corpses in the funeral parlor unnoticed. She had so much jewelry in fact; that her apartment looked more like a jewelry show room than a home, with glass cases that she had bought lining the walls with gleaming bright jewels. Every night she would go home, close all the shades in her apartment, lock the doors, take off her clothes and cover her body with nothing but jewelry, anklets, rings, watches, bracelets, necklaces and earrings till they would weigh her down so that she could barely stand. She would then stand in front of her full-length mirror and admire all of the jewels. Running her hands up and down over her body and the precious jewels lost in a world of her own. Until suddenly, brought to the peak of sexual pleasure, with a shuddering sigh she would slide to the floor and sleep amongst the gold and rocks that were the center of her little world. Days had turned to weeks, and weeks into months while Cheri enacted her morbid little show of removing the jewelry from the bodies of the dead and indulging her own sick fantasy at home every night.
Tonight, after she had returned home from putting Mrs. Gold and ivory cameo in the ground was no different from any other night in the life of Cheri Jensen. As she lay amongst the jewels in front of the mirror, still quivering from pleasure, she thought that she heard a voice outside.
"Cheri"
She pulled herself up from the floor and made her way to the door.
"Who's there?"
Nothing!
Slowly she backed her way to the couch and curled up into a little ball upon it, suddenly the room felt cold to her.
"Cherrriiiii"
She knew for sure that she had heard that.
"Who is it?" She shouted from the couch.
Nothing.

"Go away" she called, "I don't think that this is funny at all and I'm calling the cops". A bluff of course, the last person that she wanted to see in her apartment with her collection of ill-gotten jewels was a cop. Suddenly there was a pounding on the door, beating on the walls and scratching at her windows.

"Cheriiiiiii, give back what you have taken."

Windows began to break around the apartment and the doorframe started to crack and give. "I have nothing of yours or anybody's!" Cheri screamed above the din. The jewelry on her body suddenly felt heavier, the necklaces were tight around her throat and she could no longer move, she clawed desperately at the chains to get them off, but they seemed to have a life of their own. Suddenly the door came crashing down to the floor revealing the source of her fear. In stepped the rotting corpse of a woman, maggots fell out of one of her eye sockets and her jawbone hung askew from her face by a thread. Her clothes had long since rotted off of her body and there were ribs poking through in places, one breast was missing and the other was filled with rotting holes. Mucus poured from every hole in her body and around all of this was the sickly sweet, nauseating smell of putrefying flesh. Behind this hideous specimen of humanity was another and another and behind them more. They were crawling in the windows, through the door and it felt as if they should soon come through the very walls! They surrounded Cheri reaching and clawing at her, all the while moaning "give them back, return what is ours". Screaming Cheri pleaded, "go away, leave me alone, it's all mine, my jewels", now laughing and crying at the same time, mad with fear. But the dead wanted what was theirs and had every intention of getting it, and they did, that and Cheri's life as well.

"My God, what happened to this poor girl?" asked Julie Smith, as she stood by the coffin, ready to close it. "She looks like hell warmed over, who is she?" "That's Cheri Jensen" Mr. Tompkins replied sadly. "She's the one your replacing, poor dear sweet girl was like a daughter to me. As far as the police could tell was that a large gang broke into her apartment, and stole what appeared to be an extensive collection of jewelry. She was found naked, yet there was no sign of rape and no sign of foul play either. Seems she died of fear, which would explain the twisted look to her face, open mouth as if in a scream and the wide-open eyes. Gonna be a closed coffin funeral so I left her that way, I didn't have the heart to cut into her to loosen up the muscles, and her eyes keep popping open like she's still afraid to close them, no matter what I try. I wish I knew what someone could do to a person to cause this. The only piece of jewelry they left was that gold pendant around her neck, I gave that to her on her birthday last year, now hurry up and get that coffin closed up while I go fetch the hearse." With that said, Mr. Tompkins sighed and shuffled out of the room with his head down. But Julie couldn't hear him for she was entranced by the gold pendant around Cheri's neck. "It' so beautiful" she thought, "so lovely, I'm sure she won't miss it". And as the lid to the coffin came down, her lily-white hand reached in and pulled the necklace from the body and placed it unnoticed in her pocket. "She won't miss it" she thought, and with a laugh she said out loud "after all, what's she going to do, come back and get it?"