Gravestone

by Travis Thrasher

  “Get away, get out of here, go on, go.”

  She curses, and I know that she’s totally out of it. She swings the bat hard, and it thuds against the drywall.

  I look to see where the sound of glass came from and see that she busted out one of her windows.

  “Mom, it’s Chris. Mom!”

  She finally seems to get it, to wake up, to see that her only son is standing in front of her. She drops the bat and then rushes past me to the kitchen.

  For a second, I’m going to follow, then I think of something. I pick up the bat and I go into the bathroom. I turn on the light, then open the doors to the cabinet and look at the back. The piece of paneling is not attached.

  Someone came in here. Someone was in here and did a lousy job of covering up his tracks.

  I listen but can’t hear anything.

  This is crazy. I’ve got to call someone.

  I stay there for a moment, kneeling and watching, waiting. The bat next to me.

  I stare into the darkness.

  Waiting.

  A slight chill coming over me.

  Waiting.

  This is the moment the bloody head pops out of the darkness and bites you.

  Waiting.

  This is where the bony hand slivers out of the black and grabs you with a cold grip of death.

  Waiting.

  But there’s nothing. I eventually go into the kitchen to find Mom. She’s drinking something in a cup. I don’t want to know if it’s spiked or not.

  There’s nothing to say, because we’ve been here before. I just sit down with her at the table, and she grips my hand. Her touch is icy.

  I force a smile, but it’s as bleak as the dark night outside.

  Tomorrow I’m going to tell someone. Even if that means I’m going to be in more trouble.

  76. Proof

  I really totally and completely don’t care anymore. Not a bit.

  I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sheriff Wells, and here’s the thing. Not only do I have to go through this, all of this, this black pit of mess, but then I have to be treated like a liar and a loser.

  If they’re bugging my phone oh well.

  If they’re watching me now oh well.

  If the sheriff is working for them …

  Oh.

  Well.

  Mom’s not home, and that’s good, because I don’t want to tell her about the hole in the bathroom wall that goes to whatever-that-is. I need to tell somebody, because I’m beginning to think that the hole is going to my brain, and it’s sucking every legitimate and decent thing left up there.

  “Am I crazy?”

  The flat little furry face doesn’t answer.

  “I’m not crazy, am I?”

  Midnight just looks at me, but I don’t like that look. She knows. She knows too much. She knows I’m loony tunes.

  “Look, just—just don’t tell the sheriff that I’m a little … you know. Okay?”

  Midnight puts her head back on the couch and seems content to keep our secret.

  The sheriff looks skeptical until he opens the doors to the bathroom cabinet and pulls off the piece of paneling. I see him look up at me with a speechless, dazed glance.

  “Here,” I say, handing him the flashlight.

  He shines it, but I know there’s nothing really to see. Then he forces himself into the opening and shines the light down.

  I can’t imagine what he’s thinking. If, and this is a very big if, Sheriff Wells had no idea about the tunnels, then this has got to be pretty eye-opening.

  He slips back out and dusts himself off as he stands. The face looking at me is grim and pale. “Your mom know about this?”

  I shake my head.

  “Anybody else?”

  “No.”

  For a second he rubs the bridge between his eyes as he looks around the bathroom. Then he walks out into my mom’s bedroom and into the main room. I follow in silence.

  “Look, Chris,” he says in a very slow and deliberate manner, “you need to keep doing what I told you to do.”

  The strange thing as the sheriff talks is that he’s not looking at me.

  “Do you understand?”

  Still not looking at me.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “That’s good. You keep quiet and mind your manners and stay out of trouble. Got it?”

  Again I say that I do.

  Again he’s not even trying to look at me.

  He’s more interested in finding something. At the kitchen counter, he sees a notebook of mine from school, then finds a pen.

  “Nobody needs to know what the owner of this cabin did to it before you guys got here. Probably your uncle, right? Probably someone just trying to have some fun.”

  As he says this, he’s writing something down. He shuts the notebook and then walks up to me. “You leave this alone, and leave me and Ross to watch over Solitary. Do you understand?”

  I shake my head and am about to ask him what he just wrote down when

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  He leaves me, and for a moment I just stand there hating the guy. Then I open the notebook and find the page he wrote on.

  Meet me at Jocelyn’s cabin at eleven tonight. Be careful. Make sure nobody knows you’re coming. Be quiet.

  I hold the notebook in my hand and can tell it’s starting to shake.

  I don’t know which scares me more. Going to meet with the sheriff late at night. Or going back to Jocelyn’s abandoned house.

  77. A Way Out

  I can see his car under the shadows of trees along the driveway leading up to Jocelyn’s still dark and vacant house. Just as I did many thousand nights ago, I rode my bike here and slipped through the trees to wait and watch. The unmarked car drives up right before eleven. I wait for a moment, then see the sheriff roll down his window and light a cigarette.

  “Sheriff?” I say a short ways from the car.

  Making sure. Just in case I have to turn around and bolt. If the driver happens to be someone like Wade, Jocelyn’s sicko quasi-step-uncle.

  “Get in.”

  I recognize the voice and do what I’m told. He finishes his cigarette as we sit in silence.

  “I saw you when I drove up,” Sheriff Wells says. “You get an F for your covert skills.”

  I just sit there, uncomfortable in this old car, the smoke tickling my nose.

  “Nobody’s around here, not anymore,” he tells me.

  I wait, wondering where this is going.

  “You said on the phone you went down into one of those tunnels.”

  I nod.

  “What did you find?” He reaches over and grabs my wrist and forces me to look at him. “Chris, look. I’m not—I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but this is far worse than I ever—what did you see down there?”

  “The passageways go for miles, it seems.”

  “But where did you end up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You saw nothing?”

  “No. I—I don’t know what I saw. Some creepy old man.”

  He lets go of my arm and looks out the front window. He rubs the back of his head and then his goatee, then lights another cigarette.

  “Look, Chris. I don’t know how, but every single thing you do and say and probably even think, they know. They just know.”

  “Who?”

  The sheriff doesn’t answer my question. “They’re not watching me, not like you. They don’t have my car bugged, and they’re not monitoring my every move. But they are yours. And that’s why—that’s why we’re here.”

  “For what?”

  He looks at me and curses, then shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t expect these words to come from the sheriff’s mouth.

  “I’m sorry and I don’t—I can’t—look, I’m frightened and you don’t—you can’t believe what that can do to a man like me. I’m not supposed to b
e scared. I’m supposed to guard and protect guys like you. And I just—I don’t know what I’m to protect you from. But I know that it’s ugly and that it’s everywhere and it has threatened my family.”

  I think of the pastor’s words to me at the restaurant.

  Fear. It will drive a person to do anything.

  The sheriff sighs and takes a drag of his cigarette.

  “I knew something was up, but when the whole thing about Jocelyn happened—when you told me what happened—I chose to believe the lie. Everything in me said not to. But they came around—men came to my house and talked to my wife and greeted my children as if they were warning me. They were warning me. And that warning is still there.”

  “So you believe me?” I ask.

  “I’ve heard—I’ve seen some crazy things. And that tunnel. It confirms that there’s evil here and it’s real and it can’t be stopped.”

  “We have to tell others.”

  “No. Listen to me. I mean this. We can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know how much you love your mother, but I love my family very much. Nothing’s going to happen to them.”

  “But you can—you can take them and leave.”

  “It’s not that easy, Chris.”

  “Sure it is.”

  He shakes his head. “No. I’m not willing to sacrifice one of my own in order to try … I can’t.”

  “What’s happening here?”

  I can hear the crickets and the cicadas in the night as the sheriff waits to answer.

  “Who’s doing all of this?” I ask again. “Is it—does it have to do with Mr. Staunch? Or Pastor Marsh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must know something.”

  “I know that the best thing I can do is do my job.”

  “And your job is to let people like Jocelyn die?”

  The sheriff curses, and for a second I wonder if he’s going to punch me in the face.

  “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “But you knew?”

  He shifts in his seat. “No. Everything I’m telling you is truth. I was told specifically to watch you—to watch Chris Buckley carefully—but to also give you some slack. But I knew nothing about Jocelyn. And I still don’t—I still can’t believe everything that’s going on.”

  “I gave you some proof. Today. There are tunnels in our house. And I swear someone’s coming in at night and terrorizing my mom.”

  “But why this strange interest in you? What are you to this town?”

  “You think I know?”

  “What did Jocelyn say?”

  “The same thing everybody says. Very little. Not enough. ‘There are evil people here, but oops, I can’t say anything more.’”

  “I’m telling you everything I can.” The words coming out of his mouth sound like defeat. “I believe you, Chris, that’s one thing you have to know. And I know now. It’s just—I’ve seen people try to leave this place, and they can’t. They don’t. Some leave, but they come back in coffins. I don’t want to be one of them.”

  “Can’t we go to the FBI or out of state somewhere?”

  “You think that Solitary is the only place where evil exists?”

  “But I … but if …” I can’t finish my thought.

  “Chris, listen. Yesterday I still refused—I still chose to believe that Jocelyn moved away with her aunt. That the rumors I have a whole file on were just that—silly rumors. I chose to ignore them. Including the rumors about the tunnels.”

  “Others have reported them?”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t heard talk at school or with other kids. You haven’t told anybody about the tunnels?”

  “No.” I leave out Poe’s name. For now.

  “When I got here, the stories about the underground tunnels were among the first of a whole bunch of supposed urban legends I heard.”

  “And what? What’d they say?”

  “That underneath the town of Solitary there are secret passageways that allow vampires to come prowling in the night and slip into people’s homes and drink their blood.”

  I wait to see if the sheriff is joking.

  “That’s the legend. So of course I laughed it off. I knew there were some old mines around here, but tunnels for vampires? Next thing I knew there was going to be a cave that led to that school Harry Potter went to.”

  “But there really are underground tunnels.”

  “I know. And that’s what I’m saying. When I saw that today—I can’t just ignore it anymore. I tried to. This spring—” He lets go a really nice curse word that Mom would ground me for. “It’s not a good thing, living in regret. You wake up with it, Chris. You go to sleep with it. But it just picks away. Day after day.”

  He’s lighting his third cigarette since he got here.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  I watch the smoke swirling from his mouth toward the outside window. I wish I could escape from Solitary like that. Just fade away into the night.

  “I’m sorry, Chris. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry that I—that I was scared. That I am scared. But you can trust me.”

  “Others have told me that too.”

  “Yeah. And you have every right not to trust me. But you gotta give me some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “That I don’t know. I just—I don’t know.”

  For a long time we sit in the front seat in silence. I can’t help looking at the shell of a house in the distance and thinking of the light that used to live there.

  “I can do better,” Sheriff Wells says. “I’m better than this. This sneaking around and apologizing and being scared of the dark. I’m better than that. And I didn’t become a cop to hide. That’s not what I’m about. If there’s one thing you understand, then understand that. Okay, Chris?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s a way out. Out of here. I just gotta find it. Give me time to find it.”

  78. Something in Here

  “That jerk. He could’ve done something, but he chose to do nothing. Nothing.” Poe is lost in her own world as she faces the street ahead and drives.

  “You didn’t believe me either.”

  “That’s different,” she says right away.

  “But you should be able to understand where he’s coming from.”

  “He’s the sheriff. The sheriff! A cop. What’s he supposed to do? Huh?”

  “I think we can trust him.”

  “I’ve already told you, I’m not trusting anybody. Nobody. Just me, myself, and I.”

  “When can I be added to the circle of trust?”

  “I wish we were in that movie instead of Nightmare on Elm Street.”

  “Which Nightmare? Weren’t there like twenty of them?” I ask, trying to make a joke.

  “Does it matter? All of them.”

  We reach the turn into the woods and head right onto Heartland Trail. To the wonderful and welcoming New Beginnings Church.

  I’d like a new beginning myself, starting with burning this church and town down.

  Signs have been pointing me here, starting with Jocelyn’s picture and poem. If there is any kind of significance, it’s time to find out.

  “So are you coming with me this time?”

  Poe just smiles.

  We stand on the edge of the turnaround where she’s parked her car. Light is draining out of the sky even though sunset isn’t for another half hour or so. I’m holding my heavy flashlight in my hand.

  Poe brushes her messy dark hair away from her face. She’s not wearing as much makeup these days, and I notice that it makes her a lot more pretty. Her lip ring has been gone for some time. I wonder again why she needs to hide behind all that stuff.

  She pulls a backpack over her shoulder. “Ready?”

  “You’re really coming?”

  “I’d rather go with you than wait on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. You know where you’re going?”
<
br />   “I know the general direction. I just don’t know if we’re going to find anything.”

  But general is really just that: general.

  We enter the woods.

  It seems there’s something in these woods that someone wants me to find.

  Either that or they’re warning you to stay away.

  I feel the dread covering me as I start into the woods. Just a few steps in, the air feels colder.

  I’m about to ask Poe if she feels it when she says, “The temperature just dropped like ten degrees.”

  “It’s the shade.”

  She gives me a look that says she doesn’t quite believe it. I don’t either.

  I grip the heavy flashlight as hard as I can. It helps. A little.

  We keep walking straight into the woods, through trees and over leaves and dead, split logs and untouched bushes. It’s so quiet my own breathing seems loud. The steps we make on the forest floor seem to echo, the trees around us smothering and ogling, this place for some reason feeling unwelcoming.

  That’s in your mind, so stop it.

  I turn around and see Poe a few feet back. “Am I going too fast?”

  “No.” She scrunches up her shoulders and hugs herself.

  “Here,” I say, zipping off my running jacket and handing it to her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, seriously. It’s getting a lot colder. I’m fine.”

  It’s not true, because I’m freezing, but so is Poe in her short-sleeved shirt. I slow down a bit to let her walk with me.

  “What are we looking for?”

  I shake my head. “Anything. Anything that looks like part of an old town. Mr. Page said that it was in these woods.”

  “But what then?”

  “I don’t know. I just—there’s something in here. Something in that old town. Something I need to find.”

  “Like what—owww!” Poe stops for a minute and holds her foot.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing, just—I just bent my ankle the wrong way.”

  As my mind starts to tell me what that means, that if we suddenly have to bolt out of these woods and she can’t run …

  “It’s nothing, seriously. It’s fine. See. Look, fine.”

  “Okay.”