Jim looked at the screen. “The orange blob.”
“Yeah. And see those little bubbles? Those are orbs.”
“Orbs.”
“Ghosts. Like I told you. He’s got an army of ghosts.”
Jim withdrew, reaching for orange juice and Advil. “Oh, boy.”
Joey pocketed his phone. “Okay, what about all the other videos? The pictures people took at the game? Have you looked at any of them?”
“Why should I? There’s no such thing as ghosts, Joe. See all these photos? Not a ghost in them. I know that idiots like these ghost hunters…”—he thumped the paper on his desk—“… believe in that orb shit, but I’m a photographer. Orbs are just dust-scatter.”
“What ghost hunters?”
“This loose talk has got those looney-tune cable hoaxers applying for permits to film in our cemetery. Do you believe it? That’s the last thing we need.”
“Maybe they’ll get some proof.”
“Proof of what? Ghosts? I’ve been working in this cemetery since I was your age. I’ve been out there in the middle of the night. I’ve put hundreds of people in the ground. Not one of them’s popped back up to say ‘boo.’ Now, I’m kind of busy and I feel like death warmed over, so… cut to it. What do you want me to do here?”
“Turn these funerals away.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Just tell people we’re not taking any new bodies. Tell them we’re full.”
“The graves are already dug, Joe.”
“I know. I just realized this last night. I’m sorry.”
“The graves are dug and the coffins are coming.” Jim looked up at the clock. “The first service starts in fifty minutes. Now you want me to stand at the gates and say, sorry folks, no can do?”
“This is important.”
“And those grieving people aren’t? Today is the worst for them. Watching those kids go in. I can’t imagine. I think, what if it was you? What if it was my Joey? It almost was. I’ve been talking to these parents. They’re devastated. They’re on edge. I love you, son, but if you say a damn thing to one of them today about this ghost crap I’m going to kick your ass.” He pulled another Kleenex and blew, tossing the wad onto his desk. “Okay. How does this connect to the dirt thing?”
Joey winced. “Drop the dirt thing.”
“There’s some connection to the dirt thing, right?”
Joey put his face in his hands. How could he thread this needle? He had to convince his dad that ghosts were real, that the Horseman was real, but… he couldn’t truly convince his dad of the supernatural, could he? If he got him believing in spooks, then he might start believing in… dirt powers. Then he’d be cursed. Cursed-er. Damn it. There weren’t any good answers here. He straightened. “Can’t you just trust me?”
“No. Not on this. I got to draw the line. This is a business, and it’s about being decent and taking care of people. Now get your gear on. We’ve got a lot of funerals today.”
“Not me.”
“I said get in your gear.”
“Hell no. I’m not doing it. I’m not gonna be his recruitment guy.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to be the one who buries those kids so they can…”
“Settle down.”
“… so they can rise up and…”
“Stop it.”
“I won’t do it! Daddy, you just need to pick up that phone and stop these funerals or I’m gonna have to…”
“Gonna have to what?”
Joey squared his shoulders. “I’m gonna have to quit.”
Jim sighed. He gathered all his discarded Kleenex wads into a pile, like his own little army of ghosts. “Okay, Joe. I give in.”
Joey wilted with relief. He’d won. “You do?”
“Yeah. Sorry, but…” Jim Osorio swept his ghost army into the trash. “I accept your resignation.”
Only one of the ten kids massacred at homecoming was not buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. One escaped enlistment into the Horseman’s Army. Jude Pollack’s parents had chosen to scatter their daughter on Cinnamon Beach, down in the Virgin Islands. The other nine were buried over the course of that long afternoon, in Beech Grove and Vineland and Cataract Hill. Over in the modern section across the Pocantico. Down in the Fields of Contemplation. In the community mausoleum, with its rows of bronze-labeled cremation interments, efficient and impersonal as a wall of post office boxes.
Joey attended every funeral, but he wore a suit, not his uniform. He wasn’t an employee of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery now. He and his dad didn’t speak at graveside. Hell, they hardly looked at each other. Zef didn’t come, but he called to explain. Things were apparently really crazy at Usher’s right now and he’d been forbidden from leaving. Nate came to the services though. He was dating Page the cheerleader now, and she held him as he wept for Sally Blatt. The townsfolk clustered on the blighted hills like a murder of crows, black suits and black dresses gathered around the boxes of children.
A cold wind blew, raising grit. The preacher from the Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns rolled out his platitudes. Joey and some kids from the choir sang “Rock of Ages” for Denerik Wood, one of their baritones. Joey stood by Denerik’s grave and said a prayer: that if his classmates rose again, they could at least fight back. And that their new master would never be cruel.
Joey overheard a whisper of “Headless Horseman” from a huddle of frightened mourners. He dropped a handful of earth into the grave and walked away, cutting across the cemetery to join the next service.
His thoughts wandered as he walked. He hated this place. There’d been a time when he’d enjoyed driving through Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in his little green cart. Sometimes he’d even whistled as he drove—some peppy Jerry Herman march, “Open a New Window” or “Before the Parade Passes By.” His dad had tried to squelch the habit—“No one likes a whistling gravedigger”—but Joey had enjoyed being out in nature, under the summer sun, nodding hello to the passing statuary.
Not anymore. After today, he never wanted to see this cemetery again.
“End of an era,” Joey whispered to himself, rubbing his arms.
He didn’t know what he’d do with his days. He had no job, and school was suspended indefinitely. He’d resume the hunt for poor Jason, he supposed, like the ghost of William Crane had told him to do. Mather and his people hadn’t found anything, if they were even looking.
So now what? Joey wanted to go and confront Hadewych, but he dreaded it. He kept thinking about the day they’d faced off in the cellar. That could have ended very differently. He didn’t dare go back over there alone.
Besides. If what the ghost had said to him was true, if Jason had to die for the Horseman to go away… then…
Do I really want to find Jason?
Maybe Jason was better off as a prisoner somewhere. At least he’d be alive.
Joey missed his friend desperately. He didn’t want to be the lead anymore. He’d be perfectly happy to be the wisecracking sidekick again. He’d never admit it to a soul, but… he wasn’t smart enough to fix all these things. He was brave and talented and had a few brain cells hither and yon, but he wasn’t Jason. Zef was smart too, smarter than Jason maybe as far as book stuff went, but Zef wasn’t brave. Kate, perhaps… but she wasn’t here. Kate was probably dead.
The town needed Jason.
Jason was smart and brave and… he’d know what to do, if he were here. Jason’s Gift was good for solving mysteries. He could even heal the Horseman’s victims and put things right.
All Joey could do was dig more graves.
The last funeral was Coach Konat’s. The coach was to be buried in Section 77, the site of the Exodus of the Ghosts. Joey fidgeted, waiting for the service, thinking of the little girl ghost who’d lured him here, and of the marching dead, shuffling into the woods to answer their master’s call.
The blight had entered the cemetery at this point, had crept in through the chain link tha
t separated Section 77 from the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail and the Rockefeller State Park Preserve beyond. A row of hemlock trees stood at the fence line. Joey and the crew had given up trying to save them, and the trees had died, finally, at the cusp of July. Woolly adelgid had chewed away their hearts, had stopped their pulses, leaving misshapen man-shaped figures, fragile as papier-mâché, with nests of black beetles at the core. The trees raised their arms in an attitude of surrender or terror, like cripples before a firing squad, waiting to be put down for their deformity.
Joey saw Mickey Armstrong and Elian What’s-His-Name, new additions to the grounds crew, waiting to one side with hands behind their backs, trying to be unobtrusive. He joined them, feeling guilty for his civilian clothes. The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder like the hemlocks, and Joey stared at the open grave. How long before some silent trumpet sounded reveille and the newly buried coach rose up to give halftime pep talks to the Horseman’s Army?
The hearse appeared at the bottom of the hill, leading its caravan. A sparse group of mourners climbed out of their vehicles and trudged to graveside, taking their places in the pecking order: the closer genealogically, the closer to the grave. The Horsemen football team didn’t show up for their coach. They were all in jail. Joey would have felt worse for them if they hadn’t hurt Jason on New Year’s Eve.
One or more of the pallbearers must have been stuck in traffic, because Joey’s dad took hold of the left side coffin-rail, pinch-hitting for a missing man. The six pallbearers backed the bronze coffin out of the hearse and lifted, shifting as they found their center of gravity.
As the coffin neared the graveside, a wind arose from the north, down from the dark woods, blowing a flurry of dust and leaves and twigs through the chain link. One of the mourners got something in his eye. His hand went to his face; he twisted in his seat to sneeze. A pallbearer tripped on the man’s outstretched leg, and the coffin twisted, bucking like a matchbox in a heavy sea. A few mourners cried out, realizing what was happening, and Joey and the other workers darted forward, arms outstretched, but they had too much distance to cross. The coffin lurched, the remaining men staggered, and Joey’s dad stepped too far toward the open grave. The edge of the dirt crumbled, and Jim stumbled over the silver bar of the lowering mechanism and fell into the hole, disappearing.
“Dad!”
With two pallbearers down, the rest were helpless to stop the fall. The heavy bronze mass rotated, tipped, and fell toward the grave, toward Jim Osorio, trapped below. The cemetery director had no chance. Section 77 itself had risen to fulfill the Great Curse.
No!
Without thinking, Joey’s hand came up. He seized dirt with his mind, using his Gift to throw his dad up and out of the grave at the last instant before the foot of the coffin crashed against the bottom of the hole. But, thanks to Joey surging the dirt to save his dad, the hole wasn’t very deep now. The coffin went vertical and fell forward. The lid flange snapped open and the headless corpse fell out, landing at the feet of the mourners.
Chaos reigned. Joey and the crew ran forward, trying to hide the body with their own, shouting for everyone to remain calm, but no one heard. Mickey Armstrong knelt too quickly, reaching for the corpse, and accidentally slammed his forehead against the corner of the swinging lid, splitting his eyebrow. His hand went to the wound. He lost his balance and pressed a bloody handprint into the crème pleats of the lining. The Wolfpack began to wail—long, painful howls, heads thrown back and braying. They turned on each other and to each other, exchanging shoves and hugs, reprimands and consolations. The mourners stumbled away, hiding their faces, trampling a fallen gladiola wreath in their haste to avert their eyes. The banner beneath their feet read, naively: ETERNAL PEACE.
Mickey Armstrong collapsed onto the Astroturf dirt pile, wincing with pain, a reddening handkerchief pressed to his forehead. Elian What’s-His-Name threw his shovel aside and crossed himself, his eyes tight, his lips moving soundlessly. His first week would be his last.
The wind died as quickly as it had risen. The air grew still and silent.
So did Joey. He’d caught the glint of sunset in his dad’s glasses. Jim Osorio wasn’t covering his eyes, no. He’d backed away, to stand dirt-splashed in the shadow of the anguished hemlocks, to stare at his son with an expression of mingled confusion, disbelief… and fear.
Between them, the hands of Coach Konat dragged the earth as his body slipped backward, pulled by inexorable gravity. His arms flew up as if to announce one last touchdown, and then he crumpled and fell away, swallowed by his grave.
Joey ran. He ran across the cemetery, tears filling his eyes. He jumped a hedge of thorns and battered his way through spider webs, picking up momentum as headstones flew past, his shoes kicking up flurries of dry grass and gravel.
If my dad wasn’t cursed before, he is now.
He’d botched it. He’d used his Gift again and had pushed his dad over the line from suspicion to certainty. He would have to believe, now. The clock was ticking on Jim Osorio, clicking down to midnight, to the pumpkin hour.
A sedan sat waiting near the Washington Irving Chapel. Joey recognized Brian the Bent-Ear Man, the bulldog-faced security guy who had interrogated him at Paul Usher’s house.
Brian rolled the window down. “Mr. Osorio, would you get in please?”
“Why?” Joey sniffed. “Did they find Jason?”
Bent-Ear Man climbed out. He was about six foot four, easy. He opened the rear door of the sedan and waited. “Get in, sir.”
“What? No candy?” said Joey. “Fine.” He climbed into the back, hugging himself. “Just get me out of here.”
As the car turned in the parking lot, Joey wiped his cheeks and tried not to think of what had happened. He stared at Brian’s bent ear, wondering how he got it. An unfortunate milking machine accident? An overambitious Vulcan cosplay? He couldn’t guess, and the game ceased to amuse him immediately. Nothing was funny today.
They turned onto Broadway, headed north. Dusk had fallen.
“Pretty,” mumbled Brian, with a nod out his open window. Joey shivered. The knoll of the ancient burying ground hung thick with fireflies, winking in and out of existence over fog-shrouded graves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“The Ghost Hunters”
The light went out of the eyes of the Old Dutch Church. The blood red of sunset drained away, replaced by the embalmment of twilight. The panes of the gothic windows grew blue and veiled, and the names on the nearby headstones slurred into indistinctness, dissolving as if eroded by the outgoing tide of day. A firefly kissed the dry grass, blade by blade, throwing tiny shadows as it went, a torch-bearer wending its way through the mists of a Lilliputian forest.
A boot came down.
The firefly darted out of its way, blinking frantically. A man’s shadow fell across the headstones. He wore a black trench coat with the collar turned up. He wandered through the burying ground, a haze of ground fog purring at his calves. He knelt and gathered a sheaf of dry leaves. He let them trickle from his fingers, one by one.
“Sleepy Hollow,” he whispered. “A small village in Westchester, New York. A place most believe exists only in legend. But the fiction of Washington Irving may have its roots in real events. In blood. In horror. In fear.” He walked on. The firefly circled him, as if curious to know who the man was. “They say a Headless Horseman haunts this graveyard, that he nightly tethers his horse here, among the branches of the locust trees, and sets off in nightly quest of his head. But who was this man? Why does he haunt this region? Does he seek… revenge upon the living?” He tensed, as if sensing the approach of a hunter. “Do you hear that? Do you hear the hoofbeats in the night, the growing thunder of his approach? Make the bridge, and his power ends! Perhaps… it’s just a tale. But… perhaps not.” The man leaned against a tree. “My name is DJ Brennan, founder of the Brattleboro Paranormal Society. Together with my teammates Keegan Garrity and Alyson Baldock, I travel to the most haunted locations in N
ew England, seeking only… the truth.”
He walked on. Another man followed, barely visible through the fog. He was short and balding, unfortunately built, with a moustache fit for porn and glasses fit for chess club. He held a camcorder to one eye, the red dot of its indicator light hovering in the gloom.
“Tonight,” Brennan whispered, “we have journeyed to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, believed to be one of the most supernaturally active burial sites in all of America. We intend to stay overnight, locked in, until we’ve made contact. We hope to have a communion with the Other World, and to find—Damn it! Cut!”
Brennan swatted at the firefly, attempting to bat it away. The tiny light blinked, went dark, then lit again, hiding behind a headstone.
The man with the moustache lowered his camcorder. “What happened?”
“That damn firefly!” grumbled Brennan. “It was distracting me. I couldn’t remember my lines.”
“I thought it added atmosphere.”
“On me again in three—two—” His voice became spooky again. “So tonight we will do what no paranormal team has ever done before: spend dusk till dawn locked in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in search of… the Headless Horseman.” The name hung heavily in the mist. The ancient Dutch stones fainted to hear it pronounced. “So come with us on a journey into mystery. Welcome to Sleepy Hollow. Welcome… to Spook Trek.”
“And… Doritos commercial,” said the cameraman. “Want another take?”
“Nah. I nailed it that time.”
The men shouldered their equipment and marched up the hill toward the main cemetery. The trees thickened above their heads, hiding them from those two brightest stars over the Hudson, which watched suspiciously from above. Halfway up a ramp of brick, Brennan stopped short. Keegan stumbled into him.
“What?” said Keegan. “Did you see something?”
“That’s the Irving grave. You want a shot?”
Keegan considered. “Later, when we can set up lights.”
“Don’t forget.”
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 26
