Pyrophobia

by Jack Lance

‘Go on.’

  Jason cleared his throat. ‘Laughlin was also named after its founder, who passed over the area in his private plane twenty years ago and thought it would be a perfect place to start a gambling casino. He started out with a small hotel, and now the town boasts eleven casinos. Laughlin is also the reason why Mount Peytha City has an airport. Most of the planes landing and departing from there are casino flights.’

  ‘So the fortune hunters of the past have returned, in a way,’ Kayla observed. ‘Except that these modern-day fortune seekers are more content with a one-armed bandit than a pan scraping a river bed for gold nuggets.’

  ‘You could put it like that,’ Jason said. ‘It’s also one of the hottest places in the United States. In the summer the temperature soars well above a hundred degrees every day. Even in the winter it’s in the sixties or seventies. That’s why more and more snow birds from up north fly there in the winter.’

  ‘It’s mainly a tourist place, you said. So what’s a fun thing to do around there? Watch the cactus grow?’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ he said, grinning. ‘Actually, there are all sorts of things to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Hikes in the mountains, trips to the old mines. Rodeos, water sports, that kind of thing. The scenery is supposed to be amazing, and it offers fun activities for all ages. Even for skeptical Kaylas.’

  ‘You know, you should consider a career in advertising,’ she said.

  He glanced askance at her, grinning. She was finally cracking some jokes, however cynical they might be. But then again, he hadn’t been the most cheerful of people during these past few days.

  ‘I forgot to mention that you can also take a ride on an old-fashioned riverboat,’ he told her. ‘You know, the ones with the big wheel on the side or at the stern. Mount Peytha City is a great place to fish, and it has so many festive events I wouldn’t know where to start. To many people, it’s a version of paradise.’

  And I’m going there to visit a graveyard.

  The smile slipped from his face. Kayla noticed the transition and fell silent as they drove on. No doubt, Jason mused, she was thinking along the same lines.

  It was late afternoon when they left Highway 59 and drove into Mount Peytha City. The silvery blue Colorado River, which had enhanced their view for many miles, disappeared from view. In the near distance they saw rows of stiff bushy trees and palm trees beside the road, and in the far distance the hiking, climbing and mountaineering Mecca of the Table Mountains. As they approached the town they were surrounded by buildings with gardens that appeared to be well tended and well watered. Mount Peytha was a town of white bungalows, white luxury mansions and smaller white homes on the cheaper end of the local real estate market.

  ‘So? Do you recognize anything?’ Kayla asked.

  He looked around and shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You haven’t been here before?’

  ‘No, and I’d swear on a stack of Bibles I haven’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t there be some other reason why you wanted to come here, apart from that inner urge you felt? Maybe because you read about the place? Or because someone may have told you about it?’

  Jason shrugged. ‘Sure, it’s possible that I talked to someone who mentioned this town. But as far as I know, this is the first time I’ve ever been here.’

  ‘And how does it affect you?’

  ‘It doesn’t affect me at all, really. Not yet, anyway.’

  First on their ‘to do’ list was to find a motel. It didn’t take long to select the Mount Peytha Inn, a seemingly standard Holiday Inn type motel situated close to the highway. They got out of the air-conditioned Chrysler, walked a few paces through a wall of blistering heat, and entered the lobby. The bored receptionist, a skinny young Hispanic man, kept glancing up at a talk show emanating from a small television set mounted high up in a corner even as he watched Jason fill out a guest registration form. He groped for a set of keys on the board behind him and assigned them room number nine. A few moments later, Jason and Kayla set down their luggage in a room that was spacious and surprisingly clean and odor-free.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Take a shower,’ he suggested.

  ‘I agree. But after we do, we’ll still have a couple of hours of daylight left. We have to meet with that undertaker in the morning, but before then, we’ll have a look at this graveyard. Were you planning to go see it this afternoon, or tomorrow before our meeting with Cleigh?’

  He scratched behind an ear. ‘I don’t want to make all the decisions here and exclude you. What do you want to do?’

  Kayla planted her hands on her hips. ‘Coming here was your idea, Jason Evans, so don’t start …’

  She flicked a hand dismissively. ‘Never mind. The last thing I want is to be at each other’s throats. If you ask me, we should drive to the cemetery right away and get it over with.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to ask for directions. All I have is the address. I bet that guy at the reception desk knows where it is.’

  ‘Then I suggest you hit the shower and go ask him. I’ll freshen up in the meantime.’

  Jason took a quick shower and then asked the receptionist for the easiest way to St James Cemetery. He also asked for directions to Cleigh Abbeville’s Funeral Home. The skinny young man frowned when Jason asked that but didn’t ask questions.

  Back inside their room, as he waited for Kayla to emerge from the bathroom, he began feeling nervous. Most likely it was because they were really in Mount Peytha City now and would soon be on their way to the graveyard.

  What if St James turned out to be the same cemetery as in the Polaroid photographs?

  He took a moment to digest that question.

  If that were true, he definitely would be on the road to discovering the truth.

  But do I want to know the truth?

  How odd, he thought, that he should start having doubts now. He remembered Kayla’s assertion that they just forget the whole thing.

  But I have to go on, don’t I? Is there even a way back?

  Jason took the three photographs from the little black folder and reviewed them once again. They didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

  TWENTY-ONE

  St James Cemetery

  Kayla came out of the bathroom, her hair hanging wet across her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt and a knee-length brown skirt. Her Ray-Bans dangled from her hand as she followed Jason outside.

  As they drove through the center of town Jason noticed pedestrians hurrying this way and that, intent on their final shopping of the day. Then they passed a long row of market stalls selling postcards, maps, photo books and knick-knacks – decks of cards, mini slot machines for children, but also lumps of fake gold and even charcoal-gray pans similar to the ones gold-diggers of an earlier era had used to fish nuggets of precious gems from local rivers.

  Despite the heat of the sun diminishing a little, the full blast of the Chrysler’s air-conditioner still felt good.

  Up ahead a mall with multiple levels of shops and restaurants confirmed that tourism lay at the commercial heart of this desert town.

  They left the shops and tourists behind as they drove out of town toward St James Cemetery, following the directions given to them by the hotel clerk. A square black sign with raised gold lettering spelled out the name of the burial site. Behind the sign was a parking lot, and behind that a row of olive trees. In between, a narrow concrete path led into the cemetery.

  Jason eased the car to a stop and switched off the ignition. ‘Here we are.’

  ‘Right,’ Kayla said. ‘Well, no point in dilly-dallying, right? Let’s go take a look.’

  They got out and started walking toward the path. Behind the olive trees they spotted a wide vista of graves. The sight of them sent a shiver down Jason’s spine.

  Within minutes he spotted the pyramid-shaped structure, splendidly displayed in the se
tting sun, not fifty yards away. As if this was not evidence enough, he also recognized the same row of small trees, the same gravestones and the same tall grass depicted in the photographs.

  Overcome by a feeling he could not describe, he nonetheless knew now what was giving him shivers.

  I’m here because I knew. I found it inside myself.

  At the core of it was that he hadn’t needed anybody’s help to find the cemetery depicted in the photos; he already had the knowledge programmed in his brain. What that meant, he could not determine. But at the moment he was too excited to give it much thought.

  He strode rapidly over to the pyramid, with Kayla following close behind. When he reached it, he saw an inscription in the dark marble that read IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE US. Apparently, this was not a tomb, but a monument. Beside it were benches not visible in the photograph. Jason slowly circled the pyramid until he could no longer see the benches, and then stopped.

  He was looking at the real-life version of the second photograph and was struggling to comprehend it.

  Where’s the gate?

  He couldn’t see it, and the entrance they had used to get here looked nothing like the gate in the first photograph he had received. He would worry about that later. Something else was intriguing him. ‘Where’s the grave?’ Jason asked aloud. ‘Where is it?’

  He slid the third photograph out of the folder.

  The superimposed letter M stood out on a smooth background of gray stone.

  Dammit, it’s a message, a cryptic key, a code.

  The grave he was looking for had to be here, close by.

  So close.

  Jason walked farther into the cemetery. Between the bushes were row after row of headstones and crosses, some of them elaborately decorated. Stone angels, engraved flowers, a taller tomb with stately columns here and there. Kayla looked tense, like a child in the doctor’s office waiting for a flu shot. Graveyards scared her – to death she had once claimed, not in humor. But she didn’t say anything or complain. She just stood there, quietly watching her husband.

  Walking slowly, his gaze shifting back and forth between the graves he saw and the grave profiled in the third photo. With mounting despair he wondered how he would be able to recognize the headstone. They all looked the same and they were all made of the same sandstone.

  Underneath the big letter M in the photo were irregularities, lichen and a few cracks. But these signs of erosion were visible on most of the hundreds of headstones at St James Cemetery. How Jason wished the photograph had revealed a name and not just a cut-out. It didn’t offer any help or clues. Without a larger picture of the grave marker, it was an impossible task to find the stone he was seeking.

  Kayla joined him and they walked past a row of five seemingly identical headstones.

  Jason knelt down and, against his better judgment, examined the stones to see if they had the same traces of erosion as the headstone in the photograph. In no time he sensed the futility of comparing the picture to this grave, where a man named Douglas Weber was buried. On the next one were inscribed the names of Ellen and Sonni Bolch. The next grave was the final resting place of an individual named Lynell Hansen.

  Jason carefully checked grave after grave. He was not a man to quit easily; he kept after things. But this nut was too tough to crack. Still he continued on scrutinizing headstone after headstone, because he felt he needed to do something. This was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but he couldn’t help himself.

  The cemetery in the photograph may no longer be a mystery, but the grave site was, and if they couldn’t find it their trip here would have been for naught.

  Kayla followed him aimlessly until she decided to take off in another direction to inspect some graves on her own. She was probably questioning the point of this exercise, Jason thought to himself, and who could blame her?

  Don’t give up hope, his thoughts insisted. Don’t give up.

  Dusk was setting in. Soon he would be forced to give up.

  As he knelt down before the grave of James Weiss, he felt a headache coming on and paused to massage his temples.

  Then, suddenly, the gravestone tore open. Jets of flame broke from the ground, and inside the flames a skeleton rose up with fire in its empty, hollow sockets. A sputtering orange-yellow glow enveloped its bones.

  ‘Come here,’ the skeleton said in a harsh, grating voice. ‘Come to me, Jason, come to me!’

  He stared at the burning specter that seemed to be cruelly grinning at him. James Weiss, or whatever this was, leaned toward him and tried to grab him.

  Jason scrambled back, closed his eyes, shook his head to drive out the demons, and then opened his eyes. The gravestone was just a stone. It hadn’t cracked open; there was no fire raging from the grave, no skeleton.

  ‘Jesus,’ he mumbled. ‘Jesus, what the hell was that?’

  ‘What’s up?’ Kayla called to him from a distance.

  He was trembling as if he had been shocked by a live electrical wire.

  ‘Nothing,’ he responded. ‘I hope.’

  Or maybe I am going out of my mind, like Noam Morain.

  And if he was sound of mind, what in God’s name had he just seen?

  Nothing, not a thing, just a hallucination. Brought on by the severe stress you’ve been experiencing. Stress can make you see things that aren’t there, that’s all.

  Could be. He prayed that was the case and that the ghosts inside his head would leave him be.

  They remained in St James Cemetery until the last of the sunset glow had disappeared beneath the horizon. It had been less than two hours since he had found out with a mixture of amazement and excitement that they had come to the right place. But now he felt disappointment.

  They hadn’t found the grave they were searching for. And they might have walked right past it, unknowingly, without any chance of ever realizing.

  ‘I think we should go, Kayla,’ he said dejectedly. ‘There is nothing more we can accomplish here.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said.

  They drove back to town and ate at a steak restaurant. Kayla was first to break their silence. ‘Jason, we’ve come this far. Don’t give up now.’

  He looked at her in surprise. If it had been up to her, they would not have come here in the first place. He knew how much she hated death and, consequently, graveyards. They were looking for an actual grave, perhaps even one with his name on it – if his theory about past lives possessed an inkling of truth. And now she was setting aside her misgivings to make him feel better.

  ‘It’s sweet of you to say that.’ He searched her face, looking for clues. ‘How are you coping?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s scary, and the longer it goes on the less sense it seems to make.’

  She glanced briefly at an obese man who got up from the table beside theirs. He strolled past, bade a jovial goodnight to the waitress, and padded out the door.

  That same waitress brought them their steaks and wished them bon appétit. Jason picked up his knife and fork and started eating – and musing.

  Maybe the Polaroid photographer was the only one who could tell him the location of the grave he was seeking. It had to be somewhere in St James Cemetery.

  So close. And yet still so far away.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Chuck

  The doorbell at the funeral home was answered by a lanky kid dressed in a pair of knee-high shorts and a loud shirt a few sizes too big for his frame. Jason introduced Kayla and himself and said he had an appointment with Chuck Cleigh. The boy nodded, invited them in and went to get Chuck.

  Moments later a man in his fifties appeared, dressed in jeans and a dazzling white shirt.

  ‘Good morning. I’m Chuck Cleigh,’ he greeted them.

  Jason offered his hand. ‘I’m Jason Evans. This is my wife, Kayla. Thanks for seeing us.’

  Cleigh shook hands with them both and then gestured for them to enter the parlor, a roo
m with darkly tiled floors and walls, candelabras and candles, befitting the solemn ambience of a funeral home. From there Chuck led them to a small office through one of the side doors. In the office stood a desk and a filing cabinet. On the wall behind the desk Jason noted an abstract painting of crooked lines in yellow, red, green and black that hurt his eyes just to look at it. Cleigh offered them chairs and then sat down behind his desk.

  ‘How may I help you?’ he asked cordially.

  Jason repeated what he had said before, that he was here because of his genealogical research. Last night and this morning he had thought hard about what he could ask Cleigh, but he hadn’t come up with much. He could ask the man for a list of those deceased whose last names started with the letter M. But that was pointless – it would yield dozens of names, perhaps hundreds, and there was no assurance that any of those names would provide a clue to this mystery.

  He had two other names he could put before Chuck: ‘Mapeetaa’ and ‘Mawkee’. It was probably pointless, because they seemed to refer to Mount Peytha City and St James Cemetery, not to a deceased person. But he had nothing to lose.

  Somewhat sheepishly he asked the funeral home director if there were any graves with either of those names inscribed on them. Chuck checked his computer and opened a few files. After scrolling through them for a few minutes, he shook his head.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all, I’m afraid.’

  What now? Jason wondered. He was here with Kayla, and he didn’t want to get back in the car and leave. He felt he had to at least ask the man another question. And he had one. Or two, really, but they didn’t matter much; neither of them was important and he only needed them for backup to avoid looking like a complete moron.

  He showed Cleigh the second photograph with the marble structure. He placed it on the desk and kept his finger pressed down on it. He didn’t want Cleigh to pick it up and see what was written on the back.

  ‘This pyramid … what is it?’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Chuck said, recognizing it. ‘A memorial for a cemetery that used to be here, in the days of the early settlers. We’re rather proud of it.’