"All right, we don't know where ghouls come from. What do we know?"
"Ghouls don't rot like zombies. They retain their form more like vampires. They are more than animal intelligent, but not by much. They are cowards and won't attack a person unless she is hurt or unconscious."
"They sure as hell attacked the groundskeeper."
"He could have been knocked unconscious somehow."
"How?"
"Someone would have had to knock him out."
"Is that likely?"
"No, ghouls don't work with humans, or any other undead. A zombie will obey orders, vampires have their own thoughts. Ghouls are like pack animals, wolves maybe, but a lot more dangerous. They wouldn't be able to understand working with someone. If you're not a ghoul, you're either meat or something to hide from."
"Then what happened here?"
"Dolph, these ghouls traveled quite a distance to reach this cemetery. There isn't another one for miles. Ghouls don't travel like that. So maybe, just maybe, they attacked the caretaker when he came to scare them off. They should have run from him; maybe they didn't."
"Could it be something, or someone, pretending to be ghouls?"
"Maybe, but I doubt it. Whoever it was, they ate that man. A human might do that, but a human couldn't tear the body apart like that. They just don't have the strength."
"Vampire?"
"Vampires don't eat meat."
"Zombies?"
"Maybe. There are rare cases where zombies go a little crazy and start attacking people. They seem to crave flesh. If they don't get it, they'll start to decay."
"I thought zombies always decayed."
"Flesh-eating zombies last a lot longer than normal. There's one case of a woman who is still human-looking after three years."
"They let her go around eating people?"
I smiled. "They feed her raw meat. I believe the article said lamb was preferred."
"Article?"
"Every career has its professional journal, Dolph."
"What's it called?"
I shrugged. "The Animator; what else?"
He actually smiled. "Okay. How likely is it that it's zombies?"
"Not very. Zombies don't run in packs unless they're ordered to."
"Even" - he checked his notes - "flesh-eating zombies?"
"There have only been three documented cases. All of them were solitary hunters."
"So, flesh-eating zombies, or a new kind of ghoul. That sum it up?"
I nodded. "Yeah."