Invisible

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Well, I’d better be running along,” Kendra said briskly. “I just wanted to drop over and say hi.”

  “I’m going to fix a nice shrimp salad for supper. Could you stay?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Not tonight. I have some … papers I have to go over. But I’m definitely planning church with you this coming Sunday, if the invitation is still open.”

  “Always.”

  “And I’ll give you the money for another month’s rent then.”

  I watched the young woman cut across Effie’s yard. A sudden thought occurred to me. How about asking Kendra to come along on this … what was this sort of thing called in those hard-boiled mysteries? A caper. Yes, this was a caper. Kendra was sharp, observant, nice company. She’d want to do this for Thea, just as I did. It would be good to have a partner on a caper.

  “Kendra?” I called.

  Kendra turned. “Yes?”

  She was in white shorts, skimpy red top, and frivolous multicolored sandals, her dark hair piled on top of her head with a tangle of tendrils framing her face.

  No, I decided regretfully. Not a workable partnership for this endeavor. Leggy, beautiful Kendra is definitely not invisible.

  “Take care.”

  *

  I didn’t leave the house until almost 10:00. I felt reasonably certain the vandals wouldn’t go into action before that hour. I timed the drive. Forty-five minutes. I drove slowly past the metal arch over the cemetery entrance and across the bridge where I’d watched the little boy fishing. This time I noticed there was a name sign by the bridge. Hangman’s Creek. Not a name to inspire confidence, I thought a bit uneasily. Was the person who had inspired the name now under a tombstone at Country Peace?

  I turned around at the gravel driveway of a farm a mile or so down the road and made another pass by the cemetery.

  The hillside was dark, only a faint glint here and there of starshine on tombstones. I braked and listened through the open window. No sounds beyond a chorus of crickets greeted my straining ears. The vandals wouldn’t advertise their presence with lights or horns, of course, but I was reasonably certain the cemetery at this moment was quite deserted.

  Now to find some place outside the cemetery grounds to park the car. I might be invisible, but the big white Thunderbird was not.

  After two more passes, I finally found some old ruts taking off at an angle from the main road. They were about a quarter mile from the bridge and led into a thick grove of trees and brush. I cringed as branches scraped the sides of the ’bird—Sorry, Harley—but the flexible undergrowth closed behind the trunk like a concealing curtain slipping into place. A canopy of branches drooped overhead. Perfect.

  But when I cut the engine, an unexpected uneasiness also closed around me. No starlight penetrated here. I had a peculiar feeling of being underwater, as if some predatory fish might drift by any moment. The thought also penetrated my brain that I was about to spend the night alone in a cemetery. Isn’t this the stuff of which creepy tales—and gruesome headlines—are born?

  I felt a breathless little giggle coming on, but it ended in my throat. Oh, Thea, I wish you were here to giggle with me. It’s so much harder to giggle alone.

  I slipped out of the car and pushed the door shut with no more than a barely audible click. Twigs and stickers snagged my blouse and hair as I pushed my way out to the road, and once I stepped on something that felt long and skinny and wiggly.

  Just a fallen bough turning under my foot, I assured myself a little breathlessly. Not a snake. Maybe a root.

  From the road, I was pleased to see that not a trace of the Thunderbird was visible. It was as hidden as if it was tucked away in the garage back home. I brushed my hands across the grass to hide evidence of exiting tire tracks where I’d pulled off the road.

  I tied the dark scarf around my hair and kept to the shoulder, cautiously watching the road in both directions. When the lights of a car flashed over the hill, I ducked into the underbrush. It didn’t cover me completely. I had a definite ostrich-with-its-head-in-the-sand feeling. But the car swept by without slowing.

  Invisibility works!

  Yet my confidence wavered when I had to step onto the exposed openness of the narrow bridge, and I rather wished I’d found a place for the car on the opposite side of the creek. What if the vandals arrived now, while I was right out here with no place to hide? I held my breath until I was safely on the other side.

  No more headlights rose out of the darkness, and a minute later I was slipping under the metal arch. Inside the cemetery, I kept to the shelter of the tombstones, dashing across the open spaces between them, in case the vandals arrived before I reached my chosen station.

  I hadn’t brought a flashlight, but I had no trouble locating Aunt Maude and Uncle Romer’s overturned tombstone by starlight. Individual as most of the gravestones were, none of the others approximated an overturned Volkswagen Bug.

  I was also sweating from the climb up the hill as I settled into the protective shadows of the fallen tombstone. The night air was still and warm and humid, with a faint scent of swampy growth where stagnant water pooled along edges of the creek. Off in the distance a milky glow hung over the city, brighter sparkles of the city itself below. From this hillside spot I had an unobstructed view of tombstones, entryway, road, and bridge. No one was going to sneak up on me here.

  I extracted a small notebook with attached pencil from my pocket. My plan was simple: When the vandals arrived and started their dirty work, I would, with my newfound invisibility, sneak up close enough to catch the license plate number on their vehicle and write it down. Then I’d have the goods on them and could go to the police again.

  Headlights flared on the road. I eased deeper into the shadows, heart pounding, but the vehicle zoomed on by. After two more passing cars and another twenty minutes, I scooted around to rest my back on the tombstone.

  With my head against the stone and my gaze turned to the stars, I found it impossible not to wander into philosophical contemplations. Had the Lord really made all this, stars as far as the eye could see? Yes. I had no problem with that concept. I could not, in fact, feature how anyone could think all this simply popped into existence by itself, without God.

  But why all this, Lord? Why so many stars and so much space?Do you intend for your children here on earth to venture out there? Unanswerable questions. But one prominent truth. Even in the midst of all this grandeur, you still care about each and every one of us, don’t you? Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

  I mentally fenced off a section of sky and tried to count the stars, but they seemed to wiggle and twist like so many celestial puppies. I let the count go. God knew how many there were and why they were there, and that was all that mattered.

  The tombstone got harder. One bump felt like a headlight bulging into my back. A spot on my sneaker rubbed uncomfortably against my sockless foot. I suspected brown was migrating to my ankles. I peered at my digital watch with the oversized numbers I needed these days. Could it really be only 12:50? My stomach growled as if on a fast-track schedule for breakfast. Why hadn’t I brought a snack? I stood up and stretched. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. The crickets had become white noise. I had to concentrate or I didn’t even hear them now.

  And in spite of the various physical discomforts, I was getting sleepy. Shouldn’t I be wide awake, edgy about being alone here among the dead?

  Well, I wasn’t. I’d been a bit uneasy there in the car when I first arrived, but now I was just sleepy. I felt no ghostly presences, no restless souls. I was still nervous about encountering the vandals, but that didn’t keep me from feeling as if I could pillow my head on the weedy ground and fall right to sleep.

  I tried to remember some creepy ghost stories to scare myself awake. Banshees and ghouls, vampires and werewolves, satyrs and zombies. I conjured up the possibility that there were no living human vandals, that it was evil entities rising up from the graves to wreak havoc on the tombstones. But all that ca
me to mind was a movie cartoon about a friendly ghost. Casper, wasn’t that his name?

  Actually, I found the cemetery considerably more peaceful and soothing than a trip to the crowded mall.

  I tried mental exercises to stay awake. I recited memorized Bible verses. I counted to five hundred by increments of seventeen. I divided three thousand by twenty-two. I replayed memories. A vacation trip to Colorado with Harley and Colin, when we’d camped out under the stars like this. Backyard barbecuing with Thea and Walter, more stars. My first day of work at the Madison Street branch of the library. No stars there, but books and books and more books! I’d felt as if I’d fallen into a treasure trove. And the day, years later, when I went over to watch the big wrecker swing its ball against the library’s old brick walls …

  No, no, no. Useless thoughts. Concentrate on the future. But there was so much more past than future in my life …

  Ivy Malone, I chided myself sternly, if you don’t get off this gloomy track I’m going to sentence you to grits for breakfast. And no matter if my mother was southern raised and spent years trying to promote grits to my father, sister, and me, I’d always thought buttered gravel would be preferable.

  I stuck it out until 4:45 a.m. I didn’t bother with concealment as I trudged to the car. I backed the Thunderbird out of its hidey-hole and stopped for pancakes and sausage at a McDonalds on the edge of town, where they also give seniors a bargain deal on coffee.

  Then I went home and slept until midafternoon.

  *

  The following night was a rerun. Only a handful of cars passed by on the rural road. No vandals interrupted the peaceful silence of the cemetery. The only difference was that this time I remembered to bring a snack. I rationed out the Baby Ruth, allowing myself a bite every half hour.

  The following night I added potato chips and a 7-Up. And finally, just after I popped the can of soda open … action! Headlights turned in at the arch and arced over the hill. I ducked around behind the tombstone, accidentally knocking over the can. 7 Up bubbled over my foot. I jumped out of the way, not wanting the brown polish to wash off my sneaker. I snatched the little notebook out of my pocket. Okay, vandals, go to it! I’ve got you covered.

  The car stopped halfway up the hill. An undamaged tombstone stood nearby. A dark figure got out on the driver’s side. Was he going around to the trunk to get a rope or cable? Somehow I’d expected a boisterous group, not a lone vandal. And something larger and heavier for pulling purposes than this ordinary-looking little car.

  I ducked low and dodged to the concealing shelter of another tombstone twenty feet down the hill. I’d have to get really close to get that license number. What kind of car was it? A sedan. Dark colored. I wished I was better at identifying makes of cars. I couldn’t see the person now. He had apparently stopped on the far side of the car. I dashed to another tombstone.

  A moment later the man came around the car. He was zipping up his trousers.

  Then I realized in embarrassment what this midnight visitor had been doing while I tried to sneak up on him, and I was extremely grateful I hadn’t gotten any closer.

  And especially grateful that I was invisible.

  *

  I planned to skip Saturday night so I could get back on a normal time schedule for Sunday morning. I wasn’t convinced Kendra would keep our date for church. I hadn’t seen her since Wednesday when she came over while I was coloring the sneakers. But I didn’t want to be too sleepy for church if Kendra did want to go.

  But on second thought I decided that Saturday was surely the night most likely for partying and carousing and a little morbid fun with tombstones, and I’d better not miss it.

  So I was at my usual spot by 10:30. I really expected something to happen. Tonight the vandals would howl. And I would nail them. I was too jazzed even to be sleepy.

  Yet by 2:45 a.m. nothing had happened, and I was beginning to think the vandals had lost interest in ripping out tombstones and had gone on to other excitement. I gathered up my dark plastic sack holding a candy wrapper and Pepsi can. I was always careful to leave no trace of my presence in the cemetery.

  I had just stepped onto the bridge when car lights arced over the hill. The vandals, arriving late? I ducked back, panicky. No time to make it to the brush, a good fifteen feet away. I crashed down alongside the bridge approach and flattened myself against the ground.

  The car rolled smoothly onto the bridge.

  And stopped.

  8

  I heard the car door open, but I didn’t dare lift my head. At this moment, I felt anything but invisible. The headlights went off, but the engine was still running.

  A click and crunch as someone stepped out of the vehicle. A popping noise. A trunk being opened?

  A grunt. Rustles and thuds. A curse. More grunts. A splash.

  A fairly good-sized splash. I remembered that refrigerator I’d seen dumped below the bridge. Trash collection charges big bucks if you put any kind of appliance out for pickup, so this scuzzbucket was apparently doing it the cheapo way.

  An edgy minute of silence, as if he were watching to see what became of his deposit. Then a thump of trunk lid and a slam of door. A squeal of tires as if he was suddenly anxious to get away now that the deed was done.

  I cautiously lifted my head when the sound of the engine receded down the road. I could feel the imprint of gravel on my cheek. I was just getting to my knees when I saw by the taillights that the car was doing what I’d done that first night, turning around at the farmhouse driveway. I slammed myself against the gravel and weeds again. This time my head was turned, and I got a look at the car.

  Again my knowledge of makes and models was frustratingly deficient, but I could tell it was a big vehicle, long hooded, with a classy shape and shiny hubcaps. Definitely not a clunker. It went by too fast for me to read the license, although I was reasonably certain it was a Missouri plate. With maybe a seven as the first number.

  More indignation zipped through me. With an expensive car like that, this cheapskate could surely afford to pay for proper disposition of his worn-out appliances.

  When I was sure he was gone for good, I got stiffly to my feet and peered over the railing. I could see nothing down there, not even the old refrigerator. In the darkness, the area below the bridge was a bottomless pit.

  Was what I’d seen important enough to report to the authorities? Probably not. If they hadn’t manpower enough for investigation of tombstone vandalism, they were probably even less inclined to do anything about the illegal dumping of somebody’s microwave or kitchen range.

  I got back to the house in time for a nap before getting up to eat a Cheerios breakfast and dress for church. I dialed Kendra’s number but got no answer. Nor was Kendra’s little Corolla in the carport when I checked. I was disappointed but not surprised.

  I went to church, but I didn’t go back to Country Peace that night. Partly because I was feeling dragged out from keeping such odd hours, but even more because of an unexpected reluctance to return to the cemetery.

  I couldn’t pinpoint the reason. Not some newly awakened apprehension about ghosts or graves splitting open. Not some fresh fear of the vandals. But the encounter with the illegal dumper had left me feeling … jittery.

  On Monday evening I determinedly ignored that feeling and was back at my usual spot beside Aunt Maude’s fallen tombstone. I had taco chips, M&M’s, and a can of Pepsi. I’d bought some dark socks, so my feet were more comfortable. No tombstones had been disturbed during my missing night. There was no reason the cemetery should feel different, yet somehow it did.

  There were unfamiliar squeaks and rustles and thuds. Whining, bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Heretofore unnoticed shadows on the ground and in the trees. A vaguely unpleasant scent. Maybe the dumper had simply tossed a big bag of rotting garbage.

  I’d seen an occasional bat chasing night bugs before, but now a whole flock of them swooped around the tombstones. But I didn’t chicken out. I determinedly stayed until
night turned to a pink dawn and it was light enough that when I paused on the bridge I could peer into the murky water below. Whatever the dumper had tossed was either heavy enough that it had sunk to the bottom or light enough to drift away, because all I could see was the same old refrigerator half submerged at the edge of the brush-covered bank.

  *

  Tuesday night’s stakeout was also uneventful. I slept until noon on Wednesday, fixed a quick egg salad sandwich for lunch, and drove to the Palisades Nursing Home to visit my old friend Cecile Kettridge.

  As usual, though Cecile’s body was bent and painful with arthritis, her mind was bright and sharp, her conversation snapping with caustic humor. “Hey, have you heard this one going around?” she asked me in greeting. “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he’ll sit in a boat with a fishing pole and drink beer all day.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re in good humor.”

  Cecile had a friend who supplied her with these Internet tidbits. Some good, some not so good.

  “I might as well be. It’s the only thing that will keep anyone sane around here. How about this one: Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.” She inspected me critically. “Although you’re looking pretty good.”

  I waited a while, letting her run through a few more lines, then told her about Thea’s death. Cecile no longer read the newspaper, calling it too depressing, so I knew she hadn’t seen the obituary. We reminisced a bit about Thea and the good ol’ days on Madison Street, and shared a prayer. Then I kissed her on the cheek and repeated a line I’d read somewhere and had been saving for last. “Just remember, being young is nice, but being old is comfortable.”

  She tilted her head, considered that, and then smiled. “It is, isn’t it? No more panty hose. No more curlers in the hair. No more worrying if your skirt length is out of style. And we’re expected to be a little eccentric.”

  *