Mary, the twins, and a small procession walked through Calvary Cemetary, the largest cemetery in the US with over 3 million graves and a crematorium that reminded the twins of a medieval castle they saw in a library book.
"This place is so damn big," Mary thought. "They're probably a dead people in this cemetery than there are in a small third world country. I bet."
"You're probably right, Mary" whispered Joe.
Mary checked on the twins again. They wore identical black dresses. They had their mother's pale white skin and their fathers pitch black hair. Mary wore the same black dress as the twins, except she wore a thin white belt that glowed with candlelight in her hands.
Both girls were ducted in and out the cascading evening light. The shadows were long and black. And both girls sometimes seemed to disappear out of sight.
"Slow down, girls. Slow down..." Mary tried to get the girls to listen. But, her words fell flat, inaudible. Her will was so weak when it came to the girls.
The girls quickly ran through the row of headstones and headed straight for their father's grave by the mound of black dirt.
"It's no damn use, is it?" Mary said to herself.
"Girls will be girls," Joe answered. That was Joe's reason for whatever the girls did when he was alive. He loved and spoiled them as much as he could.
Mary's eyes dropped to the ground, and she kept walking slowly behind the girls. When she looked up at the girls again, they were already gone and the sharp evening light made her eyes squint even more than before.
Mary paused for a moment, and she heard her dead husband's voice. It was as if he were floating right by her, whispering things to her, in her good ear.
"I know you can do this one thing for me, Mary." He said to her. "Bring the girls back to me. Let me see them one more time. Bring everyone back to me. Just one more time." That had been his one request since he died.
Mary didn't think much of her dead husband's voice, though. It felt warm and inviting. It was harmless. Besides, Mary thought that she was just making up the whole thing as she went along. It was a delusion. That's all, a harmless delusion.
Since her husband Joe died a year ago, her mind lost in a fog. She hoped that this ceremony would finally give her the peace of mind that she had been looking for all along.
Mary had sent out the invitation for Joe's funeral to everyone that she and her husband knew. She wanted everyone to attend the funeral. Not many showed. But, she was sure there were enough people to make Joe happy.
Mary looked at the twins, as spoke to Joe. "Don't worry baby. I'm bringing everyone to you, once and for all. And then, you'll finally rest in peace."
"Of course, baby. Of course."
Inside the cemetery, the twin girls ran toward the open grave, while their mother and the others slowly followed behind. She kept an eye on them, making sure that they did not get into too much trouble.
"Be careful girls. Look where you're going. This isn't a playground" Mary yelled at them. But, they kept going without turning back. "Look out!" She yelled again and the twins kept running.
Mary Stewart was in her mid forties, a small woman with short black hair, parted to one side with the evening sun across half her face. Mary watched the girls zig zag around the cemetery, having fun, while she and the others solemnly walked toward Joe's grave.
Mary was worried for the twins. For sure, they could get hurt out here in this old place where people left all sort of things lying around on the ground. The graves were close to each other. Running around like that, the girls could accidently trip over something and hit their heads on a tombstone.
"Oh my, Mary. That would be such a terrible accident, if that happened. But, stop yelling at them. Don't keep them from running toward me. I'm their father." She heard his voice in her ear, as if he were right beside her. But, he wasn't. He was just a voice in her ear. And that was all.
"Yes, that would be terrible, Awful, crushing. I don't even want to think of it, anymore. Stop it." She answered him.
But, she could not stop thinking about Joe's smile. It was his smile that she loved the most.
Love. That was what she felt when she thought of him and his smile. They had kept each other's love safe in each other's arms for such a long time. They were high school sweet hearts and she could not let his memory vanish. It lingered like a particular smell that would not easily wash away.
"Yes, it would be terrible, if something happened to the twins. Don't do anything bad to them, Joe."
"I love them Mary, as much as I you you."
Mary wouldn't be able to go on, if something terrible happened to the girls. Just thinking about it filled her with a sense of loneliness, a deep hole that she could not crawl out of. If they were to die, she saw herself, alone, in a cold apartment, without her daughters to keep her company and without her husband to love her. Her life would be no more. She wouldn't know what to do with her time, in such an empty space. In an attempt to stay sane, she would most likely start drinking, like when she was younger.
"You're almost there, Mary." Joe whispered in her ear. "Get a hold of yourself. The girls are all right. Look at them. They're having the time of their lives. And the good times will never end. I promise."
The twins were the only thing that kept her going, her beautiful twin girls, Cindy and Lisa.
Mary quickly snapped out of it and wiped the bad thoughts away. She warned the girls again. This time, it was more for herself, than for them.
"Slow down. Slow the hell down!" she tried again. But her voice did not to carry the same weight as it did before. It seemed as if the sound of her voice had collapsed midway, between her and them. In the end, the girls didn't pay attention to her and she didn't try again.
Alone, Mary walked through the cemetery thinking about her late husband, Joe, while her two sisters and the others followed behind. She carried a lit candle that was protected by a tube of rice paper. She lit hers before she was suppose too, and it glowed as bright as the evening sun.
Her husband Joe, always occupied her thoughts, like a record skipping in place. Good old Joe. He was a good man and down to earth. He was a hardworking man who worked for the City of New York as a garbage collector. Her husband was one of those men who wore dirty green overalls and rode around the neighborhood on the back of a truck, picking up one garbage bag after another. His work was steady and predictable, just like his love.
But, his kind of love had hurt.
The twins, Sophie and Victoria were at their father's grave. Their small fingers curled up at the edge. The both peered inside to take a look down on his black wooden casket; both girls wondered the same thing.
"Do you know how he died?" Cindy asked her sister Lisa. She stayed quiet for a bit, then answered.
"Nope. Nobody knows. It all happened so fast that mom doesn't even know."
"Maybe she knows and doesn't want to tell us."
Nope. I don't think mother even knows."
"Why did we come back here. It's been a year already since Joe died.“
"I don't know. But, it's going to make mom feel better. That what Aunt Betty said."
There was a little bit of silence between them. Then, Cindy spoke. "Do you think his face is still the same."
"Nope. That the first thing to go."
"Does he just disappear."
"Why don't you find out. I dare you to jump in and open it up."
"Shut up. Mom will kill me if I do something like that."
"Are you scared? Don't you want to say hello to daddy?"
“Shut up.”
Cindy pushes her sister into the grave.
"What the hell is your problem. Mom's going to kill you."
"Stop whining and take a look you are already down there."
"No."
"Do it before; mom gets here."
Lisa looked the casket and the dirt over it. She saw the seam of where his head would be. She placed her fingers and pulled the cover back. She opened a crack, then let it go.
"Hurry mom is almost here."
"Help me up."
Then, the casket began to open. She saw a pale hand come forth. The lid opened completely.
"Did you look?"
"Yes help me up."
Cindy and Lisa looked back at their mother walking toward the grave. They saw the candlelight in her hand. She looked beautiful with a stream of tears over the cheek. People in the small procession started to also light their candles.
"What are you girls doing? Look at you. Your hands are all dirty."
Mary looked into the grave and saw that casket was not completely closed.
“Where’s the other one?”
James ran toward Mary and placed himself between her and grave.
“What’s your problem.”
The voices in the head were unbearable. All he knew was that he could no longer
25
Veneration of the Dead
I jumped out of the car.
The police locked the black iron gate with a thick metal chain. I had the cops take it down and let me pass. I had to get those people out of the cemetery as soon as I could. Except, I didn’t want these cops getting in the way when I chase the Beast.
I knew the Beast was in there, waiting for the night arrive.
As I drove into the driveway of the cemetery, I heard a sound by my right ear. Someone coughed, and I jumped. I looked to my right and saw an old man in the passenger seat. He turned to me and asked, “Are you ready, James?”
I looked in the rearview mirror of the car and saw my father standing behind the black iron gates, as if he were in prison, the whole time he waved.
Along the way, I spotted two women and two kids walking over a hill of gravestones. Then the two girls dashed ahead of the women, heading for the lair of the Beast.
I press on the gas and speed towards them.
They were going to be safe, I promised myself. I will save the twins, I promised myself.
The car skid to a stop and I jump out the car. I see a herd of ghosts walking towards me. It’s chilling.
As I push my way through the crowd of the dead, they all try to talk to me. They are all talking to him.
“Will you help me?” as the ghost of a jogger.
The sun was almost down; I thought as I ran as fast as I could toward the twins. For a moment, the image of the twins of the movie Shinning pops into and out of my head. They are at the grave site, and I see one disappear into the grave.
One of the twins doesn’t come back out.
I take my fire engine red revolver out of my navy blue trench coat and run to the site. When I get there, the sun is down, and the Beast has his claws around the girl's neck. His fangs shine in the moonlight. He is about to bite into her neck when I fire three shots into his arm. He loses his grip on the girl, and I reach down to grab her. I slide my arm around her waist and pull her out. But, she doesn’t come out all the way. The Beast grabbed her leg. He gets up and is about to bite her leg when I bury three more rounds into his face. He reels back, and I pull the girl out of the grave.
She’s safe, I tell myself.
I tell her and her sister to run, and they do. The Beast leaps out of the grave and stands before me. A black silhouette descended upon me. With my elbows, I backed away. But, there was no running away from him. He jumped on me, and I felt his claws dig into my shoulder.
The Beast thrashed wildly at me. There was no rhyme or reason to his attack. We struggle to our feet; the Beast thrashes, beats, tears at me like an animal. The Beast clutches at me, and we fall in a heap. In the darkness, our mass becomes one.
One of the twins screams wildly.
We make sounds, like animals. The Beast gains the advantage and slams his fists down on my head.
The other twin was panic-stricken.
The beast rises from the grave. The twins screamed and turned to frenzied gasps as she finds a tree limb and snatches it up. But when she looks up, she sees that one has vanquished the other. She stops in her tracks.
Night sounds.
I was lying limply on the ground with the other man hunched over me. Within a dark shadow, I pulled out my fire engine red revolver. I used my thumb to change the type of round. I switched it to wooden bullet mode.
Like a black statue, he stood over my grave. I fired all six rounds into his chest. For a moment, the Beast stood, over my grave, like the Reaper.
A second later his body lit up from the inside out and bursts into fire and blood. In the next instant, a black hole appeared in the center of the glow and swallowed all the light, until there was complete silence all around me.
Now, the Beast was gone. I was sure of a hit.
It was here where I expected to find the buried remains of the Beast. Once we found him, I would have helped meet his Crossing. But, there was no Crossing, this time.
I slid my fire engine red revolver back inside my blue trench coat, as I stood before the open grave of the Long Island City Serial Killer. The tombstone carried his name, Joseph Edward Hillard.
There was only one question left. Who was Joe?
Then, I heard the rustling of dirt, from inside the grave. Quickly I pulled out my gun again.
I was about to shoot when I noticed something inside. I saw someone else, someone that I did not expect.
It was her.
It was Violet, laying on the ground, her body cold and dull.
Quickly, I jumped into the hole and held her in my arms. I was shocked when I felt her breath on my cheek.
“She’s alive. But, barely.”
I held her in my arms, brushing the dirt away from her face until she became conscious.
“James,” she said.
“You made it.”
“Will you listen to me now? Before the Beast comes for me again.”
“I won’t let.”
“It will.”
As I stared into her green eyes, I felt sorry for her because she was right. All I could do was just be there and listen. When I bowed my head, she whispered in my ear.
“James, I found out the reason why you are here. There is a reason why you were meant to speak to the dead. The Beast knows about you, now. He knows about your abilities. He watches you.”
“Why do I exist?”
“James, this world is not your world. And you know it.”
“Why? tell me.”
“He’s trying to kill you.Using me, he tried to lure you to him, to kill you.”
Thinking about what Violet said, I held her in my arms as the moonlight fell on her face. She was cold and frightened. I sighed with relief, grateful that she was safe.
“Just hold me, James.” And I did, as carefully as I could.
“James?” I heard someone call my name.
When I looked up, it was my father standing above me. Watching me, he breathed heavy as if he were tired. But, I knew better.
The dead never rest.
“She’s alive,” I told them. “She’s alive.”
And they all glowed with a somber light.
Let’s Connect
EdgarBajana.com
Never Wake the Dead Page 19
