The Paupers' Crypt

by Ron Ripley

  Jacob sat up and caught the shotgun.

  “It’s loaded,” Gary said without looking back at Jacob.

  Jacob put his back against the wall, kept the barrels of the weapon pointed at the closed door and asked, “What in God’s name is going on out there, Gary?”

  “Hold on,” Gary said, ripping into the box of goods Jacob had delivered. “Ah, perfect.”

  He pulled out a large box of Morton’s salt, cracked it open and laughed. He slammed the window closed and poured a thick line of salt across the sash and the sill.

  Jacob watched as he did the same thing at the threshold. He then went around the small office and filled the corners and lined the walls with it as well. Finally, Gary walked back to the desk, dropped the empty Morton’s container to the floor and pulled out a pair of beers. He gave one to Jacob and then he sat down.

  “Thanks,” Jacob said, handing the shotgun back to Gary. He popped the top on the beer, took a big swallow and said, “What the hell is going on?”

  “Something terrible,” Gary said, opening his own beer. “Something absolutely terrible, Jacob. It’ll be worse if the damned fog rolls in.”

  “Fog?” Jacob asked. “In August?”

  Gary looked over the can at him, lowered it and said. “It’s not a natural fog.”

  “What do you mean?” Jacob said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Remember when we were ten, and the Conrad boy went missing?” Gary asked.

  “Timmy Conrad?” Jacob said. “I remember. He showed up a year later. Some crazy story about being trapped in the cemetery the whole time. Didn’t his sister say they think he ran off with the circus that came through Manchester, the summer before?”

  “Timmy wasn’t lying,” Gary said.

  “What?” Jacob asked. “Are you trying to tell me Timmy Conrad was hiding here for a year and no one noticed?”

  “He wasn’t hiding,” Gary said. “Timmy came along last September when I was discharged and got this job. Wanted to talk to me about the cemetery.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jacob said. “Where’s he at now?”

  “He converted to Catholicism and became a priest. Served as a chaplain with the Navy during the first year of Vietnam,” Gary answered. “Not the point, though. See, he wanted to tell me about what could happen here. Said this was a bad place. A place where evil was strong. He told me he was trapped here for a year until the fog drifted away and he was able to get out.”

  “Gary,” Jacob said, “what the hell does this have to do with what just happened?”

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” Gary said. “This place, Timmy said, keeps the dead trapped here. They can’t get away. It was their spirits we saw. And they’re angry. Every once in a while, a fog rolls in from the marsh wraps itself around the cemetery, and keeps people, living people, trapped inside.”

  “Timmy Conrad told you this?” Jacob asked.

  Gary nodded.

  “Listen,” Jacob said. “I’m not doubting we saw something strange out there. Hell, I know Harold Morgen’s dead. I remember seeing him when they brought him in after the accident. And I figure none of those other folks were too lively either. Fog, though? And being trapped here for a year?”

  “Yes,” Gary said. “Listen, I thought Timmy was a little off when he came here and told me the story. It was the look in his eyes, though, Jacob. He was telling the truth. And nothing but the truth.”

  Jacob took a long drink of beer, held onto the can and stood up to look out the window.

  “Oh Jesus,” Jacob said softly.

  “What?” Gary asked.

  “Look.”

  Bonus Scene Chapter 2: Timmy Conrad Told the Truth

  Gary got up and stood beside Jacob.

  “God in Heaven,” Gary whispered.

  Jacob nodded.

  Beyond the window, and a half a dozen feet away from the office, stood more dead than he could count. Some were deathly, others dark gray, many more were varying shades of the same. But all had black eyes.

  It hadn’t been the dead which had made Jacob upset.

  The dead he had accepted. As nightmarish as the ghosts were, Jacob had no choice but to accept them. One had come after him, and he had seen Gary rid the day of it.

  For some reason, though, Jacob hadn’t wanted to admit the possibility of a fog which acted against nature.

  Fog on an August day? One which rolled on in and trapped people in a cemetery? He wondered.

  Now, Jacob didn’t have a choice but to believe.

  Beyond the dead, beyond the iron fence, a sturdy wall of fog reached from the summer grass to a dark sky. The temperature had dropped sharply. The world, as Jacob knew it, had been shrunk to the size of the cemetery.

  “Holy Christ, Jacob, you’re bleeding,” Gary said, surprised.

  Jacob looked down at his right arm and saw blood on his sleeve. For the first time, he felt the warm fluid against his skin, and pain in his flesh. He smelled the thick, coppery scent of blood.

  “Did I hit you with the rock salt?” Gary asked.

  “Must have,” Jacob said. “Stings something fierce.”

  “Not surprised,” Gary said. “Sit back down. I’ve got some iodine and plaster in the bathroom.”

  Jacob finished his beer, turned his attention away from the ghosts and fog, and sat down on the floor again. Gary went into the small bathroom, grabbed what he needed out of the medicine cabinet and brought them out. He hunkered down beside Jacob.

  “Get your shirt off,” Gary said.

  He did so and tossed it over to the desk. He twisted his right arm slightly so Gary could get a better look at it. Eleven small holes bled steadily, each wound pulsing in time to his heart.

  Gary shook his head. “Sorry, ‘bout that.”

  “Not the first time I’ve been shot,” Jacob said.

  Gary chuckled, opened up the iodine and painted the injuries with it. Jacob wrinkled his nose at the smell, ignored the sting, and waited for Gary to slap the plaster on the holes. When Gary finished and put everything away, he said, “Should hold you for a bit.”

  “Thanks,” Jacob said. “Don’t know if it’ll matter much, with the fog out there.”

  Gary nodded and sat back down. He cradled the shotgun and glanced at the door.

  “What was with all the salt?” Jacob asked.

  “Hm? Oh, yeah, the salt,” Gary said, glancing around the room. “Well, it was one of the things Timmy told me. He said salt and iron keeps the dead at bay.”

  “And so the rock salt in the shells?” Jacob said.

  “Exactly,” Gary said. “See, I’d been noticing some strange things. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw faces peering out of the headstones. Made me think maybe Timmy wasn’t just right about the fog, but about the dead, too. Put an order in with McGuire’s down in Nashua, came in yesterday with the post.”

  Jacob fished his Lucky Strikes and Zippo out of his pants pocket, shook out a cigarette and lit it up. He handed the pack and lighter to Gary, who took them with a nod of thanks.

  “So you just decided to wander around the cemetery with a shotgun loaded with rock salt today?” Jacob asked after Gary handed the cigarettes and Zippo back.

  “No,” Gary said, exhaling a long cloud of smoke. “Heard something strange over at the Paupers’ Crypt. Didn’t even think too much of ghosts. Thought maybe it was an animal. Worse, maybe the Thomason boys. They’ve been raising hell this summer. Caught ‘em twice trying to get in over the back fence.”

  “They’re miserable kids,” Jacob agreed.

  “Anyway,” Gary said, “I went down back this morning figuring to scare them off. Found the door to the crypt open. I looked in, and saw my first ghost. Scattered the absolute hell out of me.”

  “Who was it?” Jacob asked, morbidly curious.

  Gary shook his head. “Didn’t know him. Older fella, dressed in an old black suit. Well, I asked him if he was alright, and when he stepped into the light I
realized he wasn’t. I fired both barrels without thinking.”

  “And he disappeared?” Jacob asked.

  “Yup,” Gary said. “I went to close the door over, but then Harold Morgen appeared. I took off running, stopped, reloaded, and let off a single shot. Didn’t want to be caught off-guard again.”

  “I appreciate you doing that,” Jacob said. “I expect something unpleasant happens otherwise?”

  Gary looked at him for a moment, then he said, “Yeah. Timmy talked about it as well.”

  “Well,” Jacob said, “what did Timmy say would happen?”

  “I guess another fella got trapped in the cemetery, maybe six months after Timmy,” Gary said. “Drifter looking for a place to sleep. Evidently, the cemetery didn’t appreciate it. Before Timmy was able to get the guy to his hiding place, one of the ghosts managed to grab the man. He broke free and hid out with Timmy for a couple of days. But where the ghost had grabbed him, well, it was a bluish white. And it spread. After the first day, it had taken over most of his body. By the end of the second, the man died.”

  “What was it?” Jacob asked.

  “Timmy said he didn’t learn until he was in the war. Saw a couple of sailors who were rescued after being at sea in an open boat for a while. They had frostbite,” Gary said. “Timmy said it was the same thing he’d seen on the drifter.”

  “Frostbite doesn’t spread,” Jacob said.

  “Dead aren’t supposed to rise either,” Gary said evenly.

  Jacob nodded. “Fair point there, Gary. Fair point.”

  Silence fell over them and then Jacob said, “They still out there?”

  Gary got up and sat back down. “Yup.”

  “So, what do we do, just wait it out in the office?” Jacob asked.

  “I suspect,” Gary replied. “Can’t see anything else to do. Except maybe tomorrow, if your arm’s not too tight, we can try and make a break for it.”

  “Over the fence?” Jacob asked.

  “Yeah,” Gary said. “Think we can get over it, try to make it through the fog. Better than sitting in here and starving to death.”

  “Speaking of starving to death,” Jacob said. “How the hell did Timmy survive a year?”

  Gary looked at him and said, “Jacob, you don’t want to know.”

  Bonus Scene Chapter 3: Night Comes

  For hours, Jacob and Gary swapped stories about the war. Each man fights his own war and has his own memories. Some of them he can share with men he served with, or who fought in the same theater.

  Jacob’s war, he remembered, was hate and rage and fear, all rolled into one great big mess. Day after day of slogging it through jungles and villages. Not able to sleep because you knew the Vietcong were going to come.

  You knew they’d knife you, leave you alive and cut you up a little more as the moon went down, Jacob thought.

  The Vietcong did terrible things to their prisoners, and Jacob had sworn never to be taken alive.

  Jacob’s war had been one without mercy, and it had left its mark.

  Just like Gary going over the border in Cambodia and Laos had left its mark.

  Those things they couldn’t talk about with other people. They didn’t understand.

  And now they had something else people wouldn’t understand.

  Being trapped in the cemetery.

  Jacob glanced at the office’s sole window and wondered about the curious twilight beyond the glass.

  He knew it was after nightfall. His watch confirmed it. Ten thirty. But there was no darkness, no moon, and no stars.

  Nothing, Jacob realized, was as it should be.

  Gary dozed in a corner, the shotgun on his lap. The man slept silently, perfectly still, as if he were dead.

  Jacob’s stomach rumbled, and he took a small drink of water from the beer can. The liquid was warm and pleasant, although it had a strong aftertaste of beer in it.

  He put the can back on the floor and turned to the window again, only to have his heart leap within his chest.

  A face looked in the window.

  A child’s face, dark gray, the eyes were a deep, horrific black Jacob had seen far too many times that day.

  The child, a boy it seemed, had long white hair and a terrible grin. Several teeth were missing, but the remaining ones were hideously bright. A small hand appeared in the window beside the boy and waved.

  Jacob raised his own hand and waved in return.

  The grin turned into a genuine smile of delight. The child’s sweet, young voice penetrated the glass.

  “You’re nice,” the boy said. “I will kill you fast.”

  And then he disappeared.

  Jacob processed the words, shook his head and took another drink.

  “Did you say something?” Gary asked.

  Jacob looked over at him. “No. We had a peeping tom.”

  “Oh yeah?” Gary said, sitting up and stretching. “Who?”

  “Don’t know,” Jacob answered. “Dead kid. Said I was nice. So he’d kill me quick.”

  “Hell,” Gary said, chuckling. “What a thoughtful thing to do.”

  “Yeah,” Jacob said, grinning. He almost laughed, but he knew it would be full of panic and fear.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Gary asked.

  “No,” Jacob said. He lit a cigarette, saw he had one more and passed it over to Gary. They lit up and smoked in silence for a few minutes.

  “This is bad,” Gary said.

  Jacob nodded his agreement.

  “There are a lot of ways a soldier can die,” Gary said softly, his eyes locking onto the far wall. “Being murdered by a bunch of ghosts, well, it’s certainly new.”

  “True,” Jacob said. “I’d hate like hell to give them any sort of satisfaction, though.”

  “Me too,” Gary said, grinning. He finished his cigarette, looked at the butt wistfully for a moment, and then crushed it against the floor board. “Try to get some sleep, Jacob. We’ll need all of our strength in the morning.”

  Gary cradled the shotgun, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep.

  Jacob finished his own cigarette and looked to the window again.

  Once more the boy was there, smiling at him.

  Jacob shook his head, smiled, and waved.

  Again the boy waved, and he began to sing.

  It was an old hymn, and the child’s voice was beautiful.

  Jacob stretched out on the floor, smiling. He closed his eyes, interlocked his fingers on his chest and let the dead boy sing him to sleep.

  Bonus Scene Chapter 4: Making a Run for It

  Even though Jacob’s watch said it was half past six in the morning, the twilight still remained.

  As did the dead.

  While several ghosts were close to the office, notably the dead boy and a pair of dead girls who looked like twins, the majority were near the fence. It was as though they knew what Jacob and Gary intended to do.

  Regardless, the two men were going to try and escape anyway.

  They ate the last of the food and drank the remainder of the beer. Both of them stuffed their pockets with shells for the shotgun. The plan was simple, with plenty of room for any necessary adaptation during its execution.

  Open the door, blast the two nearest ghosts and run like hell.

  Gary would fire first, break the gun open, and hand the weapon to Jacob, who would have a pair of shells ready. Jacob would remove the spent shells, load the fresh ones, fire, and return the shotgun to Gary, who would repeat the process.

  They would aim for the closest section of fence. Whoever had the gun would put down a covering fire. The one who didn’t would go over the iron and drop down. The shotgun would be passed through the fence and the unlucky one still in the cemetery would climb out while the other covered him.

  Simple.

  Not foolproof, of course, both men were too combat savvy to know nothing was ever foolproof.

  They just hoped it wouldn’t cost them their lives.

  Silently, they w
alked to the door. Jacob grabbed hold of the handle and looked at Gary.

  Gary shifted his grip on the shotgun, swallowed once and nodded.

  With a quick twist and a shove, Jacob threw the door wide and pressed himself against the door frame. He had two shells in his hand and was ready when Gary fired two quick shots, broke the weapon open and tossed it to him.

  Jacob caught it easily, ignored the heat of the barrel and the spent shells as Gary sprinted past him.

  In a heartbeat, Jacob had the weapon loaded, ready and aimed, taking out a young man and a middle-aged matron who had been closing in on Gary. When Gary heard the second blast, he dug out a pair of shells and was ready when Jacob tossed it to him.

  But the dead were not standing idly by.

  They were racing towards the men.

  Dozens had taken up positions along the fence and called out cheerfully to the men. The little boy who had peeked through the window was among them, and he jumped up and down excitedly.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Jacob said as Gary fired off two quick shots and threw the weapon back, the two of them coming to a stop.

  “No,” Gary agreed, looking around quickly. “The crypt. Follow me.”

  He sprinted away, and Jacob got off two more shots before he ran after him.

  Jacob’s breath came in great gasps. He was no longer conditioned, he left all of it behind when he left the service.

  And he was paying for it.

  He followed close on Gary’s heels, avoiding the grasping hands of the dead.

  Laughter chased along after them, the dead gleeful in their pursuit.

  Gary rounded the hill and let out a horrific scream as he ran into the embrace of a large, fat dead man. The man wrapped his large arms around Gary, who shrieked and writhed in agony.

  Jacob reloaded and fired.

  Part of the shot ripped off Gary’s right ear, but the dead man vanished, and Gary fell to his knees. Jacob quickly replaced the shells, and got ready to fire again.

  But the dead had backed off.

  Their mocking laughter filled the suddenly cool air of the cemetery, the sound echoing off the fog.

  Jacob dropped to a knee and put his hand on Gary’s back as the man vomited into the grass. Gary was cold to the touch, even through his work shirt.