A Graveyard Visible

by Steve Conoboy

  It’s a thrill.

  Nightmares are made of less than this.

  Running, our footfalls echoing with hard slaps. Tunnels that roll on and on. Stumbling over loose dirt, bouncing against the rough walls, tearing the skin from our shoulders. Lamplight swinging around, only showing twenty feet of tunnel before us, and when you’re running that simply isn’t enough. Any second we would hit a dead end, and the howling monster giving chase would be upon us. When I say howling, I mean that Landy was raging like he could pull down the tunnels with his voice alone. He thundered about betrayal and punishment, and as Evelyn led us farther and farther, his fury bounced off corners at odd angles. In one instant he sounded far off. The next, right at my neck. The next, up ahead and pounding towards us.

  Betrayal and punishment, down there amongst the dead.

  We had to be going in circles, because it couldn’t be possible for one man to dig so much, so far. Chamber after chamber of those grave columns we passed, and then I realised we weren’t doing circles at all, couldn’t be, because the ground was gradually sloping. The gradient was slight, but I could feel it. The tunnels were burrowing further down. The world of open air and skies was far behind. More and more heavy, heavy soil above us.

  My lungs couldn’t find enough to breathe, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure that the tunnels were Landy’s. Something could have dug its way up just as easily.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  Caleb leaps to his feet, skin pulled taut. So stupid! He shouldn’t have brought her here; he talked too loud, stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Father’s not in the room. He hasn’t burst in and found them.

  ‘Who are you? Get the hell out of my house!’ He’s downstairs. In the kitchen. His anger is peppered with fear. ‘Get out! Now!’ A thud, like someone bouncing off a door or wall.

  Caleb wants to tell Misha to run. Wants to see who (what) Father’s facing.

  Shouldn’t have come here. So, so stupid. Pernicious House, should have gone there, and never mind the revenant, it’s not there anymore, it’s come here, looking for me. And now it’s in the garage.

  That realisation makes up his mind.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ he tells Misha, stuffing the journal into his school rucksack. ‘Out the window. Onto the garage roof. Careful.’

  The window screeches and clatters as she throws it open. Caleb winces, and follows her out quickly, trembling. There’s a lot of shouting and thumping downstairs. Misha is sure-footed as she scampers across the slanted roof and leaps onto the garage. He slips, lands heavy on his elbow’s edge. His whole forearm flashes numb, a blast of white pain then nothingness to his fingertips.

  ‘I thought I was the one meant to be careful,’ says Misha, coming back to help him up. ‘Good job being quiet, by the way.’ She takes his good hand. The warmth of it almost distracts him from the rubbery misery that was once his right forearm. She leads him onto the garage roof, where they both stop and listen. Shuffling, scraping, a metallic clang. A struggle under their feet.

  Caleb’s own father, fighting a dead thing that Caleb himself brought here. He’ll catch holy hell for this.

  Misha prods him, shrugs her shoulders. What now? He clambers down to ground level at the back of the house, waits for her to land beside him. She’s so light on her feet.

  There are windows high up on the back wall of the garage. He grabs the ledge, pushes against brickwork with his feet. It’s hard work boosting himself with a misbehaving arm. He holds himself up long enough for a short glimpse inside. Father, with his back to Caleb, stepping away from a staggering assailant. Caleb’s only up a few seconds, but he sees what he needs to, and drops.

  ‘It’s not Neuman.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘If it is, she’s worked out how to turn her lights off and become a weird-looking grey man who shivers all the time.’ Misha looks her question. ‘It’s a man that’s not a man, it was lurking around in the graveyard before I heard you and your situation.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to go.’ And he walks.

  She skips to catch up. ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ says Caleb with no idea if that’s true. ‘He looked like he had it all under control. And if he sees us there, what do we say? When the not-man thing goes right for me, how do we explain it?’

  ‘Hey, I think I’m pretty clever, we can come up with something…’

  ‘No.’ He’s never used the word so firmly. ‘He’ll be fine.’ Caleb doesn’t see the way she looks at him, like she’s tilted a picture and noticed something new in the light.

  ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. But he does know.

  The rain stops.

  68

  Crosswell’s hitting it hard. He came here intending to drink his fill, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do, right up to kicking out time. He beckons over the barmaid, puts on his faded smile, orders another pint. She obliges without offering much of a smile in return. To her, he’s just another dirty old man who looks her up and down. To him, she’s just another girl to look up and down. ‘One for yourself,’ he says, handing over a note. Her smile increases by an increment.

  An ongoing battle, he thinks. She’ll come around one day.

  She walks off with that wiggle, and it reminds him that he’s sick of females anyway. He’s had a bellyful of them. Half the pint is chugged in one go. The taste has him now. There won’t be any shaking it off.

  The old man’s going to be one person down for tonight’s gathering.

  ‘Senile old bastard,’ Crosswell growls to himself. There’s no one else in the pub. Him and sports news mumbling low on the enormous television over the fireplace. He hates sports. Who’s got time for games when there’s so much to deal with? Another example of how pathetic the world has become. Pathetic overpaid games.

  Neuman’s playing games. Best game of hide-and-seek ever. Vanished off the damn planet. Impossibly vanished. The brat too. She’s one for games. Playing at being dumb, ‘accidentally’ messing up the Turning, and isn’t that how they’ve ended up with Neuman the incredible vanishing revenant? No, that’s not quite the whole how. That stupid old man’s been playing his games for too long, stupid games with that nasty little brat of his.

  A horrible little girl who should have been killed along with her parents.

  ‘What a horrible little thought to have,’ he mumbles before chuckling. It’s a truth he’s mulled over every night for months. Every single night. All day, all evening, all night. With every single drink he becomes ever more sure.

  One way or another, the girl has to go.

  He knocks back the rest of the pint, and clicks his fingers for the barmaid to return. Five o’clock is whiskey o’clock.

  69

  Things have gone very quiet in the garage. Silent. It’s five minutes since a dog stopped barking at the garage door, riled up by the strange noises inside. It’s ten minutes since Caleb led Misha away, a boy who thinks he’s finally taking control with a girl who’s glad to let go of the reins. Those two are heading further into trouble, but there are problems enough here to be dealing with.

  Not-man and Not-Father sway slightly on their feet. The fight is over. Both bear marks. Torn shirts, scratches, bruises.

  Three knocks at the front door, followed by the bing-bong of the bell. A momentary pause, then repeat: three knocks, bing-bong. A muffled ‘Hello?’

  Not-man shambles, making his way from the garage, stumbling into the kitchen. Not-Father staggers after him, misses the first step as if he didn’t know it was there. Both of them conduct a very small circuit of the kitchen, trying to work out where they’re meant to be. The neighbour’s muffled voice pipes up again. ‘Hello? Jeff? Everything alright in there? Margaret says she heard something going on, wanted me to check in on you. Would’ve been over sooner, but… You in there, Jeff?’

  Three knocks, bing-bong.
r />   Not-man gets his bearings, speeds up, targeting the front door. Gets there in time to hear the neighbour huff and turn away. Not-man looks the door up and down, unsure why it’s still in his way. Not-Father bumps him to one side and grapples with the handle.

  A shoulder heaves Not-Father out of the way and Not-man bundles his way outside. Stands on the front step. Swivels, searching. To the left. The neighbour, heading back into his home, huffing and grumbling and not noticing that someone’s come out of Jeff’s house and is watching. Back indoors goes the neighbour.

  Not-man drops down off the doorstep, shambles across the drive and then the lawn. Not-Father is about to follow.

  ‘Hey there!’ A voice behind him. It’s the neighbour from the other side, a middle-aged man whose eyes are always screwed up despite wearing glasses. Not-Father faces him. ‘You got a minute?’ He’s standing with hands on hips, like he doesn’t really have a minute spare himself and this needs to be dealt with quickly. Not-Father starts shuffling over. ‘It’s about that kid of yours. Not that it’s any of my business, it’s just that he’s been seen out all night, sleeping on the garage roof.’ It’s a short lawn, and Not-Father pauses at the edge, unsure of what he was intending to do. ‘I’m not one for butting in, I’m sure you know I keep myself to myself, but it’s an odd thing, isn’t it?’ Not-Father does a wobbly about-turn to see what Not-man is up to. He’s rapping on the first neighbour’s front door. Three knocks, then looking for a bell to do the bing-bong. Glasses continues bleating on. ‘It’s probably not for me to say, but the way things are this day and age it’s not all that wise for children to be sleeping out of doors where any kind of funny character might find them.’ Not-Father hears the words, but none of them mean anything to him. He watches as Not-man’s knocking is answered by the huffing, balding neighbour, and then Not-man presses forwards into the house, grabbing two handfuls of the man’s face. ‘Hey, sorry, are you…are you listening? I’m in the middle of telling you something here.’ When he turns back to Glasses it takes a moment to steady himself. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? I’m just trying to do you a favour.’ Not-Father walks at Glasses, forcing him to back-peddle. ‘Hey! Back off, pal!’ Not-Father keeps going, forcing Glasses to retreat towards his house. ‘You lay one single finger on me and I’m calling the police, I mean it!’ He swings the door, meaning to slam it in his assailant’s face. Not-Father raises an arm. Wood bashes against bone. If there’s a blast of white pain, if there’s a flash of numbness, Not-Father doesn’t show that he feels it. He pushes on in, and Glasses turns to run farther into the house. Not-Father lashes out, a wild, unfocused arm-swing, and a flat hand slaps Glasses hard on the ear, destroying his hearing on that side. Glasses drops to the floor wailing as Not-Father kicks the door shut.

  The screaming doesn’t last long.

  70

  They’ve talked all the way here without managing to say very much. The words are taking up space, filling up time, keeping them from thinking. Stupid stuff. What they prefer in sandwiches. Which crisps are best. The worst weather they’ve played out in. The longest they’ve ever stayed awake. The earliest they’ve got up. The ultimate animal they’d have as a pet. What they would call that pet. Anything but the things that worry them. He doesn’t want to talk about the father he’s left in the garage, or the thing he left Father with, or the things he’s seen in the graveyard, or Vic Sweet, or any of that, not yet, not for a little while. She doesn’t want to talk about Granddad or graveyards or Eight balls or what Caleb just did or Vic Sweet, not yet, not for a little while.

  ‘I’d call him Dave,’ she says.

  He considers this. ‘I’m not sure Dave’s the kind of name that suits a giraffe.’

  ‘I think that probably depends on the giraffe.’

  ‘What, like they’ve got personalities?’

  ‘Well, yeah. There’s grumpy giraffes and happy giraffes and crazy giraffes, and ones that like dancing.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Yeah, they love it. They just keep it hidden in case the other giraffes find out.’

  ‘What’ll they do if they find out?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. They can get really ugly.’

  There’s an image in Caleb’s head that he may never forget. ‘I thought some of them were meant to be nice.’

  She’s solemn as she imparts the terrible truth. ‘They can change. All nicey-nicey one minute, the next they’re vicious monsters.’

  They’ve reached the gates, and the laughter dies away. There’s still a big enough gap to climb through; no one’s bothered to fix it yet.

  In daylight Pernicious House is less threatening, though it remains austere and cold. Caleb’s walked into a broken memory, a dead recollection, all of its guts torn out. He and Misha are the only souls in this place. Everything other than scenery has been removed. Life, sound, action, all long gone. Lonely. This feels like a lonely place. Pernicious House is dead and alone.

  There are no twin headlights swinging about, nothing to chase. Last night these grounds were lively.

  It’s a long walk over the front gardens and up the flight of stairs. The gravel underfoot snaps and pops, louder than space dust in his mouth.

  There’s not even any traffic to hear.

  Caleb tells himself that he’s not freaked out. He’s really not.

  ‘If she shows herself, we run. Not too fast. And not into any ditches.’

  ‘Har har. Funny. Not.’

  ‘Now that you’re a tough guy, are we breaking in here or what?’

  ‘We’re not breaking in anywhere. Come on.’ Round the side of the mansion they go again, but not towards the gardens. He leads her to a second building behind the main house, smaller but equally ornate. Pernicious Hall, built solely for hosting the largest of banquets, the finest of parties, the best of performances. Caleb remembers being in there, perched on Mum’s knee, overwhelmed and drowning as an orchestra played. It was meant to be an outdoor performance, but rain as heavy as any this summer threw itself upon them, and as the day’s visitors were ushered into the Great Hall, the old man warned them the music might be a tad louder indoors, and there was no tad about it. The sound swallowed up the air, it throbbed behind his eyes.

  At the top of the stone staircase leading to the entrance, under the broad, elegant arch, he sits, back to the pillar. Misha sits opposite, legs curling up under her dress.

  Beyond the courtyard is the lawn, which runs for a hundred yards before ending in an abrupt drop-off, like a large slice has been lifted away. Then there are swathes of trees, a resplendent green patchwork grown strong from the canyon. Past them, crowds of flowers laze along the slope on the other side. Then there are fields, golden and yellow, rolling like waves of molten treasure.

  There are no graveyards in this view.

  ‘Read it to me,’ she says, and he does.

  I imagined the fires of Hell nearby, stoked by the Devil. The thin air burned in my throat. I expected to turn a corner, see flicking flames around which demons danced.

  My heart almost gave out when I realised we really weren’t alone down there.

  As we flitted past yet another chamber, I saw a figure within. In the next there was something struggling on the floor. The next, a slithering mass pulling itself from a hole in one of those columns.

  I saw these things. They’re real. They’re down there. Now, in those tunnels. God alone knows how many have risen from their graves.

  ‘Evelyn!’ shouted Landy. ‘If they get you there’s nothing I can do! You’ll wish I killed you first!’

  One of those dirty, greasy creatures tested its voice, a crackling rasp that sounded like dry skin snapping. I was ready to throw myself on the ground, see which one laid hands on me first, Landy or the corpses.

  A split-second before Evelyn’s gasp of joy, I tasted fresh air. It was the finest breath that has ever entered my lungs. She grabbed my hand again, but this time I needed no spurring.

  We rounded the c
orner. A dead end! Then I saw the ladder, and Evelyn wasted no time climbing it. Neither did I. Nothing will move you faster than the fear of dirty, greasy dead hands reaching for your ankles, the fingers rotted down to taloned bones, tearing at your flesh.

  I kicked out at hands that weren’t there. I’d left my calm, rational self far behind in those tunnels.

  Evelyn dragged me up the last few rungs. We were out! I had no idea where we were, and I still don’t. Somewhere at the back of the graveyard I think. We were amongst trees. Evelyn didn’t give me much chance to think about it. She took the lantern off me and dropped it with hers before we were off and running again, despite how much my legs ached. I understood that out in the open those lanterns would have made us easy to spot and track, but as we ran helter-skelter along barely-there tracks, scratched at by branches, snagged by thorns and creepers, I wished desperately for some form of light. My heart pulsed hard in my head. One trip and I could smash my face in. One trip and I’d be caught. That monster of a man, his bellows chased us out of those tunnels, a troll spat out of the very earth.

  ‘Get back here, Evelyn! Get back here now!’ He screamed so loud I was sure that something must tear in his throat. ‘Both of you! Get here now!’

  That voice gave me energy I didn’t think I had. I would run until my lungs exploded before even thinking of surrendering to that howling animal.

  Evelyn led us on a baffling route, darting left and right and over fences and through trees and anywhere that provided at least some cover. She stopped so suddenly that I bundled her over for a second time, and didn’t we make a tremendous crash as we fell through a hedgerow? We ended up on our sides, facing each other, her breath hot on my face. ‘You have to go,’ she said, ‘and don’t argue.’ I tried to argue. Instead she picked herself up and bade me do the same. ‘He hasn’t seen you, he doesn’t know who you are. At the end of this path you’ll come out behind the school. No, no buts, don’t worry about me, I can deal with him, I’ve been dealing with him for years. Go, now! He’s coming!’ She pushed me towards the path. I grabbed her hand to take her with me, but she resisted. And Landy’s shouts were getting closer. ‘I know him better than anyone!’ she insisted. ‘I know what I’m doing, I promise!’ Then she was gone, shouting at Landy to ‘Go away!’ so he would follow, so she could lead him away from me.