A really great short story by Joe Hill. It really does pack a punch and I liked the lead up and the ending.

"Ushers" follows two FBI agents who meet up with 23 year old Martin Lorensen of Maine (naturally). The agents wonder if Martin is somehow behind some mass casualty events since he somehow avoids them. They think he may be providing the perpetrators with drugs, instead something more is going on there.

We mostly stay in the head of one of the agents who meets Martin later and starts to hear his story. And I liked their banter and the agent we later learn is Black talking to Martin about being in law enforcement though the U.S. is dealing with police brutality. One of the lines the agent said back really got to me which was, if there were no Black police officers, it would in essence us giving into apartheid. I don't know if I agree with that or not, but it made me think. There is low key horror in this one, not overt, if you have read Hill before you know where the story is going, but I do like that just like his father (King) Hill has his views on death as does King. I don't know if I agree or don't, but I did think of this story along with that billionaire who is focused on "cheating death" and aging backwards. Why have we forced death into a big scary unknown thing?

I thought the ending was predictable, but a gut punch. I really liked it. This could have been much longer, or part of one of Hill's anthologies.