After Life

by Andrew Neiderman

  Trapped as she was in the open grave, her cry reverberated into the night. It echoed in her own mind, sounding like a second and then a third scream. Groping about, she felt the sides of the grave and pulled herself away from the priest’s body. She pressed her cheek against the cool earth and cried, her body shaking. Finally getting hold of herself, she first got to her knees and then, bracing herself against the side of the grave, lifted herself into a standing position.

  It was a deep grave, nearly six feet down. She would have to find some footing in order to pull herself out, she thought, and began to kick at the surrounding wall of earth. Her right arm and shoulder ached so, she feared she wouldn’t have the strength, but once she realized she had some support, she stepped up and moved her hand over the ground, searching for something to grab.

  Suddenly she felt a hand over hers. Thinking it was old man Carter’s, she started to pull hers away, but the fingers tightened quickly. She gasped and then screamed, yet the fingers clung to her own.

  “Easy,” she heard a voice say. “I’ll help you out.”

  Her mind reeled. She shook her head vigorously to refuse, but the hand moved down to her wrist and began to tug. Her body lifted and she was unable to resist being pulled out of the grave. When she was out and lying on the ground, the hand released her. Her arm recoiled like a frightened snake. She held her breath in anticipation.

  “What a mess you’ve caused,” Dr. Beezly said. “You should just see what’s left of my faithful cemetery caretaker. Oh yes, I keep forgetting you can’t see. Well, here, then. Feel what’s left.”

  He dropped a handful of cremated dust over her face. She cried out and covered herself. The dust continued to fall over the back of her hands.

  “Leave me alone,” she pleaded. “Leave me alone.”

  “I’d like to leave you alone, but you won’t leave me alone,” he replied. She heard him shuffle past and stand gazing down into the grave.

  “Thanks to you, Father Rush is dead. Actually I always found him to be a grave man,” he added, and laughed hideously. “A fallen soldier of the Lord. And he never had his last rites.” He paused. “What will become of his troubled soul, I wonder? You know,” the doctor continued, turning toward her, “that’s always been one of the more interesting aspects of my existence and power—not knowing the disposition of every soul.

  “What I mean is some of the people I would never have expected to turn up, do turn up at my door, and some I expected and counted on never arrive. How do you explain that?

  “Could it be,” he mused, “that there is no logic in the spiritual world after all? That it resembles this world, a world full of chance and accident, where good people often suffer and bad people often prosper, where babies die in infancy and cantankerous, mean old men live into their nineties…like old man Carter there, now reduced to a few ounces of gray dust?

  “In your ruminating and pondering, did you ever consider the possibility that this world is hell, and that’s why there is disease and war, crime and hate? Maybe you are already a citizen of my kingdom, eh? Maybe this decrepit priest lying below and all his fellow clergyman of every denomination are clowns I’ve created for my own amusement?”

  He laughed again, the sound of it stinging her ears. She pulled herself back and took a deep breath.

  “What’s the matter? Aren’t you enjoying our little talk? Am I filling you with too many doubts?”

  “No,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “You can’t fill me with any doubts.”

  “Ah, still defiant. Interesting, isn’t it—the will to resist, the stamina you still possess.

  “Here lies your savior, Father Rush, his heart crushed by a pickax. You are blind and your husband remains in a coma back in the hospital. Yet you fight on—futilely, I might add. Once you’re gone, the nurses will listen to me again. I’ll have him moved and then this loyal soul you and your priest nearly kept shut up will have a new home and become another of my faithful here on earth.

  “Now, let’s see,” he continued, “your meddling cost me old man Carter, so I think I’ll keep Lee living in the DeGroot house. He can become a part-time caretaker,” he added, and laughed again.

  “Just imagine the irony—he will be out here digging up the graves from now on.”

  “No,” Jessie said. She backed away on her hands. “No,” she cried. She turned and pulled herself to a standing position.

  “Going somewhere?” Dr. Beezly asked. “Don’t you want to rest with your priest? You will make such a nice dead couple. What do they say…‘the blind leading the blind’?”

  His laughter propelled her forward. She charged ahead, but smacked right into a monument. Stunned, she spun and fell to the ground again. She moaned and struggled to her knees. She could hear his horrible footsteps, that step and slide, that step and slide.

  “NO!” she cried, and stood up. Hands out, she walked quickly forward. The voices began to call to her, but all of them so loud and so mixed, they merely confused her. She stopped again when she felt another monument, only this one softened in her fingers and metamorphosed into the naked body of a man. She tried to pull back, but his skin was as sticky as flypaper. All the while she heard the hideous laughter behind her. Suddenly the body softened even more and her hands fell through, her fingers drowning in blood and becoming twisted in the organs. The revolting feelings brought her to her knees, and just as quickly as the monument had changed, it returned to being a monument.

  She gasped; her mind reeled, yet she found the strength to stand again and start away once more. She moved slowly, her arms extended, sobbing, her chest aching, her body trembling so hard, she barely could keep her footing. She had no idea where she was heading; she even had the sense she was going in circles. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice calling from just ahead and stopped.

  “Lee?”

  “Jessie, what’s happening? What are you doing here?”

  “Lee? Is it you? Is it really you?” She listened keenly.

  “Of course it’s me,” he said.

  “But we left you in the hospital, in a coma…Lee?”

  “I snapped out of it and came after you as soon as I found out what you were doing,” he replied. “Now come away, quickly,” he added. His voice became lower, thinner. He seemed to be fading, pulling back, away from her.

  “Lee?”

  “Jessie…come to me…Jessie.”

  “Why are you going away from me, Lee?” She surged to her left. “Lee, please, help me.”

  “This way, Jessie. I’m leading you out, away. Just follow. Quickly.”

  She walked faster. A great silence had come over the cemetery again. She could actually hear her own footsteps and that shuffling somewhere behind her. But Lee’s voice had become so small and thin, it was lost in the wind.

  “LEE!” she called, and walked as fast as she could without stumbling. Suddenly she heard him again, this time loud and distinct, only his voice was coming from below. She paused.

  “Lee?”

  “Just a few more feet, Jessie. Just a few more feet,” he said.

  “Where are you, Lee?”

  “Right here, right ahead of you. Come to me, my Jessie, my love.”

  Slowly, hesitantly, she took a step forward and then another, holding her hands out.

  “Lee, I’m afraid. Please.”

  “Right here, Jessie,” he said, and she stepped out once more, only this time tumbling back into the grave that now housed Father Rush’s dead body. Her scream followed her down. She just missed the handle of the pickax, struck his shoulder and arm, and rolled back to the position she had been in before. Miraculously she was unhurt. She groaned and started to sit up when suddenly Father Rush’s hand seized her wrist.

  At first she was too tired, too exhausted and shocked to scream again. Her body turned to ice; she didn’t move.

  “Hi, Jessie,” he said, only he spoke in Lee’s voice. “I’m glad you’ve decided to come back to me. We’ll lie together here
for ages and ages, and at night we’ll scream with the rest of them, hoping someone else like you will come along and hear us. Won’t that be nice?”

  “NOOOO!” she cried, and with all the strength she possessed, she pried the dead fingers off her wrist.

  “Not very courteous and grateful of you,” Dr. Beezly said. He was at the foot of the grave again. “Do you know what cemetery space costs these days? Plenty, believe me. It’s become a lucrative business for me; and here we are offering you one for free.

  “Some people, it seems, don’t know what’s good for them,” he added, “but don’t worry, we’ll be sure to tell them.” He laughed again. “Well, I’ve wasted enough time and energy here. Yes, even I am occasionally concerned about such things. Eternity might not last forever, you know. I mean, I’m not one to take His word for anything.”

  Jessie shook her head and started to struggle to her feet again, but a shovelful of dirt hit her in the neck, some small stones in it stinging her and driving her back.

  She screamed again and then another shovelful of dirt hit her. It began to come faster, one shovelful after another, some hitting her feet and legs, some hitting her head. She fell against Father Rush’s body, clutching him as if she somehow hoped he would be resurrected in time to save her from being buried alive. She seized his coat and then slid her hands over his right shoulder and down his right arm, pulling at him and shaking him as if she thought that might awaken him.

  “NO, NO,” she cried.

  And then her fingers found his right hand. Still clutched in it was the bottle of holy water. A surge of hope shot through her body and made her oblivious for the moment to the dirt that struck and pounded her back. She clutched at the silver container, but Father Rush’s fingers had hardened like fingers of cement around it. She pried and tugged, now with both her hands.

  “Oh God,” she sobbed, “please help me.”

  Father Rush’s fingers softened slowly. Gradually she inched the silver container out of his palm, and when she had it firmly in her own, she called on all her strength and spun around to stand.

  Dr. Beezly paused in his shoveling and gazed down at her.

  “Shall I bury you standing?” he asked impishly.

  With a faith that filled her voice with power, she cried, “GO BACK TO THE HELL WHERE YOU BELONG!”

  She whipped the holy water in his direction and heard it splat like drops of cold water on a blazing campfire. The sizzle instantly produced a putrid stench.

  Dr. Beezly’s scream seemed endless. It was so sharp and shrill she had to cover her ears. Along with it came a chorus of piercing shrieks, rising from beneath numerous tombstones. The symphony of hellish agony filled the night, resembling a thousand alley cats tearing away at each other’s flesh. It ended with what sounded like a clap of thunder and then all became deathly quiet, so still and silent that the sound of her own heart beating against the walls of her chest now seemed thunderous.

  She started to cry and the sobbing was a catharsis, freeing her of terror and pain. When she stopped, she felt renewed and strong enough to help herself. She found footing in the wall of the grave again and this time pulled herself out. She rested for a moment on the cool earth, still afraid she was not fully out of danger. But there was nothing around her, no sounds, no sense of any being, nothing but the solitude and stillness of a country graveyard.

  Confident she was safe, she got to her feet and began a careful walk back down the path she now could clearly sense led to the stone-arched entrance of the cemetery. She was nearly there when she heard a car come to a stop and then heard some voices.

  “Father Rush’s car is here,” she heard Bob Baker say. She paused and then she heard Tracy cry out.

  “There she is, Bob. There she is!”

  Jessie waited, anticipating some sort of new attack on her person or her soul. She raised her arms instinctively to protect herself. In her hand she still held the container of holy water. But Tracy Baker quickly embraced her and held her the way a mother would hold a lost child.

  “Oh, you poor dear,” she cried, and brushed back Jessie’s disheveled hair. “Look at you. What happened? Why did Father Rush take you out of the hospital and bring you to the cemetery of all places?”

  “What happened, Jessie?” Bob echoed. He was standing at Tracy’s side. “Where is Father Rush?”

  “Give me your hand, Bob,” Jessie demanded instead of responding.

  “What?”

  “Hold out your hand,” she said, “so I can feel it.”

  “Hold out my hand? What’s she talking about? Look at what she looks like,” he said to Tracy.

  “You’re afraid to hold out your hand because you know, don’t you?” Jessie said in a mad whisper. “You’re one of them. He is, Tracy, don’t you see? That’s why he’s been so different.”

  “Different? Who’s been different?” Bob asked. He looked down at Jessie’s extended hand. “What does she want with my hand?”

  “Just do it, Bob. Can’t you see she’s terrified and hysterical?”

  “Sure,” he said, shrugging. “No problem. Here’s my hand, Jessie.”

  Jessie closed her fingers around it. She brought the container of holy water to it and sprinkled some drops over Bob’s knuckles, anticipating the sizzle and the stench, but nothing happened.

  “What is she doing, washing my hand or something?”

  “What is that, Jessie?” Tracy asked. “What are you putting on Bob’s hand?”

  “It’s holy water,” Jessie replied, confused for a moment. “Father Rush brought it.”

  “Well, thank you for the blessing,” Bob said, taking his hand from hers.

  “They’ve gone with him,” Jessie realized. “When I drove him away, they had to go, too. Of course,” she added, nodding. “Without him, they couldn’t remain. He gave them life.”

  Bob shook his head at Tracy.

  “What in hell is she talking about?” he whispered.

  “Poor thing,” Tracy repeated. She put her arm around Jessie’s shoulders. “What happened to you, Jessie? What’s been going on here?”

  “I told you the devil had possessed the body of Dr. Beezly,” she said. “Father Rush suspected it himself. He and I kept him from doing any more to Lee. Once we surrounded him with holy water, he was safe in the fortress of the Lord and Beezly was unable to touch him. Then we came out here to lock the evil soul in its grave and in hell,” she added in a breath. She lowered her head.

  “Its grave in hell? Jesus. Well, where is Father Rush?” Bob asked. “Why is he letting you wander around here on your own?”

  “He’s back in the grave. Old man Carter killed him,” Jessie muttered.

  “What?”

  “Killed Father Rush?” Bob said.

  “Yes.” She lifted her head and took a deep breath. “He’s back in the opened grave, a pickax in his chest. Just follow this path back and go to your right.”

  “Oh my God, Bob. Go see if she imagined it,” Tracy directed. Bob shot off down the cemetery path.

  “Let me take you back to the house, Jessie. Your dress is torn; you’re covered with mud and grime…You do look like you’re the one who has been through hell.”

  “Almost,” Jessie replied. “Almost.”

  Tracy led her to their car. The headlights were still on, the engine still running. She opened the door on the passenger’s side and began to guide Jessie in when Bob appeared in the stone arch.

  “She’s telling the truth,” he announced, his face in a ghastly grimace. “Father Rush is lying at the bottom of a grave with a pickax in his chest.”

  “Oh Bob.”

  “I’ll run ahead to the house and call the police,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yes, go on. Go on,” Tracy said. She continued to guide Jessie into the car.

  “Jessie, why did Mr. Carter do such a thing?” she asked after she got in behind the steering wheel.

  “Because we were about to cast holy water over the coffin and keep th
e evil soul within. I told you; I kept telling all of you, but no one would listen. No one…” she said, her voice trailing off. She laid her head back and let her body sink into the seat.

  Tracy drove her to the house and helped her in, leading her directly back to her bedroom. Bob joined them in the corridor.

  “The police are on their way,” he said.

  “All right. Put up some water for tea and I’ll get her as cleaned up and as calm as I can,” Tracy said.

  “Right. Jesus, what a night.”

  “I’ll draw a warm bath for you, Jessie. How would you like that?”

  “I’m so tired…sooo tired,” she said, falling back on the bed. “I don’t have the strength for a bath. I’ll just rest here awhile.”

  “Let me get you cleaned up. I’ll sponge you down at least,” Tracy said, and began undressing her. Jessie was too exhausted to respond or help. Vaguely she felt Tracy washing off her face, shoulders, and arms. She heard her muttering about the dirt under her fingernails. After Tracy had cleaned her as best as she could, she got her into a nightgown and under the covers. Jessie let her eyelids close and permitted herself to start to drift off, but she heard Bob come to the bedroom door to announce that the police had arrived.

  “I’ll take them to the grave,” he said. “The tea’s simmering. How’s she doing?”

  “She’s very tired. Bob, what could have happened here?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll get to the bottom of it soon. Be right back,” he added, and left. Jessie moaned.

  “I’ll bring you some tea,” Tracy said. She returned with a cup and began to spoon-feed her.

  “Thank you,” Jessie smiled. “It’s so quiet now, no more voices…very quiet.”