by J. S. Bailey
Another thing nagging at her thoughts was that her piece-of-junk Taurus was the only vehicle in the entire parking lot. That meant Jerry had walked here, and for what purpose? To sit and stare at cement crosses and angels for hours on end? Or to kidnap unfortunate young women who wandered into his sight?
His voice repeated itself in her mind.
Oh, you could come across severed heads, bleeding limbs, human entrails spread across the ground for the scavengers to clean up…Don’t worry. Tonight you won’t.
Tonight you won’t. And just what in the blazes was that supposed to mean? Would she have found such carnage here on some other night? Was Jerry like that Ted Bundy guy who’d lured a ton of women to their deaths? What a convenient place to hide the bodies.
This line of thought wasn’t going to get her investigation started. The best thing she could do was pretend to ignore him and get on with her work.
With the stubborn resolve of a Roman-Dell, Jessica went around setting up her equipment. One voice recorder went on top of a headstone bearing the name of Edna Schultz. Edna wouldn’t mind. Next, she placed a camcorder on the ground next to the gravel path and angled it so that anything walking by would be in full view on the recording.
She turned on her second voice recorder. “Today is Tuesday, October 19, 2010,” she said, holding the device in front of her mouth like a microphone. “I’m at the United Methodist Church near Iron Springs, Kentucky, investigating some ghost sightings in the cemetery. This place is seriously in the middle of nowhere. The only activity I’ve seen so far was an angry, red aura-type thing at the edge of the parking lot. Later on I’ll check to see if there are any electromagnetic waves present that might have caused me to hallucinate.”
Electromagnetic waves could be emitted by power lines or ordinary electronic devices and had been known to instill a creeped-out feeling in people who encountered them. Many hauntings had been attributed to this phenomenon, and for all she knew, it had caused her to imagine the aura.
The setting sun cast long, headstone-shaped shadows that spread over the ground like reaching fingers. Pocketing the recorder, she glanced over at Jerry to make sure he wasn’t sneaking up on her.
Her breath caught in her throat.
It may have been a trick of the light, but it looked like a bluish-purple bruise encircled the man’s neck like a gruesome collar, and his face appeared to be covered in dark splotches. She squinted to get a better look, and to her relief (though this relief was slim) Jerry appeared unharmed. His gaze drifted in her direction. He gave her a nod of acknowledgment.
As much as she was glad to see that Jerry was all in one piece and she wasn’t sharing the graveyard with a very fresh, unburied corpse, unease still squirmed in the pit of her stomach. Why wouldn’t he just leave? Night would fall soon, and she had no desire to be alone with him in the dark.
She finished setting up her equipment five minutes later. One last look at the bench told her that Jerry had finally left.
Hopefully that meant he had gone home.
She hung the thermal imaging camera around her neck and made a few laps around the rectangular path while looking at the screen. The sound of her feet crunching in the loose gravel sounded as loud as gunshots in the still air. Fortunately, that meant that if Jerry tried to stalk her, she would hear his approach and have enough time to grab out her pepper spray.
Jessica repeatedly panned the camera back and forth. If the device were going to be her primary indicator of graveyard spirits, she was out of luck. No uncharacteristically cold spots showed up on the screen, and the only major heat signatures the thing picked up were in the shape of two deer grazing near the parking lot. The front of her car glowed orange on the screen, still warm from when the engine was running.
So maybe she was dealing with lukewarm ghosts. No one ever said that spirits had a standard body temperature, seeing as they had no bodies. She got out her voice recorder again. An interview might coax shy spirits out of hiding.
She planted her rear in the gravel and turned the recorder on. “Hello, if there are any spirits out here, could you please make yourselves known? I promise I won’t hurt you.”
While she waited for a ghost to reply, she looked over at the woods. They seemed so dark. A person might wander in there and never come out again. The place was probably teeming with lost souls who longed to ensnare hapless graveyard visitors and make them their own.
She smiled. The only place she could think of that truly teemed with lost souls was hell itself, and it was unlikely that the entrance to the netherworld would be found in the forests of Northern Kentucky.
“What are your names?” she asked. “When were you—”
Her cell phone chimed. She fumbled around in her pocket. Sidney had sent her a text message.
“Storm coming through around 9:30,” it read. “Be careful.”
“Crap.” It had barely rained in ages, and it had to do it tonight? That hardly seemed fair.
She looked up at the sky. Stars were beginning to appear directly overhead, but off to the west a thick bank of clouds was moving in. Nice.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” she replied.
“That’s an interesting device you’ve got there,” a voice said right behind her.
Her blood nearly froze.
It was Jerry Madison.
Jessica managed to get her feet back under her and whirled around to face the man. He stood barely three feet away on the gravel path, so he must have walked through the grass between the headstones for him to have approached so silently.
She stuck her hand in her pocket and closed her trembling fingers around the pepper spray. “What do you want from me?” she asked, stepping back from him.
His face twisted into a thin-lipped smile. “Are you scared?”
Jessica said nothing. She wondered if she was as terrified as Bundy’s victims had been during their final living moments. Then, cursing herself for thinking of something so ghastly, she nodded.
“Why?”
“You’re going to hurt me.” She sounded like such a wimp. He probably thought so, too.
“Have I given you any reason to think I’d do that?” he asked, drawing closer to her. His feet made no sound in the gravel.
“What else would you be doing out here?”
He folded his arms and frowned. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand that psychopaths like to nab women when they’re alone. Makes their work easier. Right?”
His face darkened. “I couldn’t have nabbed you even if I had wanted to. Not really.”
Jessica took a small step in reverse. “You look pretty capable to me.”
“The only thing I’m capable of is watching the world move on without me. I’m sure you can’t imagine what it’s like to sit here day after day without companionship, knowing that all the suffering you’ve endured is payment for what you did and that you’ve lost all your opportunities for redemption ages ago.”
He spread his arms wide. “See all this? This has been my universe for more years than I care to count. I’ve seen nothing else of the world since I was taken here. Sure, I could have left at any time I chose, but where could I have gone? Heaven?” He laughed. “Don’t give me that look. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Though she longed to flee, Jessica was rooted to the ground. Surely he was just trying to frighten her even more in order to please himself. “Do I?” she croaked, hovering her finger over the button on the pepper spray, which was still concealed in her pocket.
“You can quit playing dumb, Jessica. What did you expect, a dirty sheet with holes cut out for eyes? I’m a human being just like you. Your gadgets disgust me. I’m not going to participate in parlor tricks just to satisfy your whims. My life was hard, and my death was about a hundred times harder than that. Don’t try to trivialize it by asking me to speak into a recording device so you can share your evidence with all of your friends.”
“I’m not—”
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“If you’re going to barge your way into my business, then the least you can do is help me.”
Jessica swallowed. “Help you?”
“Yes. Keep me company. Make my punishment a little more bearable.”
“I—I’m not going to be staying here much longer.” In fact, she wanted to leave. Right now.
“Then you’ll have to take me with you!”
She broke into a run, but he threw himself at her and hooked his arms around her neck the same instant.
He didn’t weigh a thing, which was fortunate, because he would have dragged her to the ground if he had. Jessica clawed at him to make him let go. It was like swiping at air. Frigid air. “Get off!” she screamed.
He hung on tight, refusing to heed her request.
Convinced that continuing to fight with him would accomplish nothing, she tore off in the direction of the parking lot, letting out an involuntary moan with each of her footfalls. She arrived next to her car, gasping. A mercury vapor lamp next to the church provided her with enough light for her to see that no weightless man accompanied her. When had he released his grip? Had he even been there at all? Of course he had. A lingering iciness raised gooseflesh on her neck where he had touched her.
She dug her keys from her pocket and succeeded in opening the car door without dropping them from her shaking hands. Once inside, she slapped her fist onto the automatic lock button without thinking. She leaned back in an attempt to calm down.
The foolishness of the situation hit her then. What was cowering in a car going to do? She’d look like a baby. Besides, a person devoid of flesh and blood could pass through metal and glass as easily as she moved through the air.
A voice spoke by the window, nearly sending her through the roof. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s good to help a stranger in need?” Jerry said, his voice oozing sarcasm.
She didn’t reply. Instead, she peered out the window to try to pinpoint his location. All she could see were trees and headstones. No black figure lurked in her field of view.
It was probably a good idea to leave.
She moved to insert the key into the ignition, but suddenly the car dissolved around her. Red. Everything was red. She was sinking into the depths of an ocean comprised of blood. Voices shouted in the distance. It sounded as if she and those speaking stood at opposite rims of a canyon.
Mataste a mi nieta! A man.
Usted es el hijo del diablo! A different man.
Though Jessica knew a miniscule amount of Spanish (her mother was half Mexican), the overwhelming sense of terror that had taken hold of her suppressed her ability to translate the words into English.
The sea of red morphed into one of shadowy faces. They were lit from behind so she couldn’t tell what they looked like, but she could sense their emotions. Pain. Grief. Hatred. All directed at her.
She did not want to see them. If she didn’t look away, they would get inside her head and nest there like rats, gnawing away her sanity piece by tattered piece.
Make it stop, she prayed. Make it stop, make it stop, make it—
Everything around her grew dark. The faces had gone. Something flat lay on top of her body. She tried to straighten herself but found that she could barely move because she was trapped in a small, enclosed space.
Like a casket.
Panicking, she sat up and cracked her head on something solid. The glove box. The thing lying on top of her had to be the floor mat. She must have thrown it over herself for protection, as if a flimsy bit of rubber and carpet could ward off spirits.
A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Sidney had mentioned that the storm would arrive around 9:30, which meant she’d been unconscious for two hours, maybe longer.
She should leave this Godforsaken place before another—vision? hallucination? whatever you wanted to call it—knocked her out. Only problem was all her equipment still sat around in various places outside. She couldn’t just leave it all behind. As much as she disliked the idea, she had to retrieve it. She began to sweat.
Chicken, taunted a little voice in the back of her head.
No. She wasn’t a chicken. She was just being smart. Smart people didn’t traipse out into the dark where weightless things named Jerry lurked. You didn’t stick around when faced with danger; you ran like heck so you could live to hunt ghosts another day. Survival mode at its best.
Then again, smart people didn’t leave expensive equipment behind to get stolen or destroyed in the rain.
She looked out the driver’s side window. From her crouched position on the floor, the only view she had of the outside world was a swatch of indigo sky. It wasn’t raining yet.
A scraping sound made her jump. It might have been a raccoon or a dog rooting around for garbage. If it wasn’t an animal, then it could have been Jerry, but he shouldn’t have been making any sound other than that which bones make when settling in the grave.
“Shouldn’t have been” did not mean “couldn’t.” After all, he’d carried on an intelligent conversation with her. Nothing would stop him from making scraping sounds, too. Right?
Something made a soft thump no more than five feet away from the car.
It was nothing. Had to be nothing. Maybe only the wind.
Jessica picked herself off the floor and climbed back behind the wheel. Wind, she could handle. She stared out at the silhouettes of headstones. Nothing moved.
A drop of rain splattered on the windshield and rolled down the glass in a lazy zigzag. A second and third joined it in quick succession.
She gritted her teeth. If she didn’t hurry, water would start seeping into her cameras and drown the sensitive circuitry inside. Driving away without collecting her things just because she might run into Jerry again would be sheer idiocy, survival instinct or not.
“God,” she whispered, “it would be really awesome if you could get me out of this mess in one piece.”
She made a hasty sign of the cross for good measure and climbed out of the Taurus.
She tripped over something solid the moment she stepped out of the car. A corpse! No, not a corpse. The thing on the ground was her bulging tote bag. It had transported itself here all the way from the back of the graveyard and filled back up with her equipment, too, by the feel of it.
Must have been the source of the scraping noise, if it had been dragged across the ground.
She carried the bag around to the back of the car and set it gently on the trunk so she could see it better in the lamplight. The bag bore definite evidence of having been dragged, because dirt and bits of dead leaves clung to the fabric. She brushed the debris away and undid the zipper.
All of her cameras and recorders were nestled in the bottom of the tote, as were her purse and Maglite. Jerry was quite the gentleman. He’d probably hold doors open for her, too.
“I guess I owe you one,” she said quietly, though how to pay back a dead man was beyond her.
His captors drove in silence, and the silence was driving him mad. If they’d turn the radio on again, the music might drown out the imagined sound of seconds ticking down to his final moments. He didn’t ask them to do it. They wouldn’t have listened.
It briefly crossed his mind that he had no clue where they were taking him. Somehow that seemed immaterial. It didn’t matter if they killed him in a warehouse or in a cornfield—he’d still be dead, and they’d still get what they wanted.
As much as he loathed himself for it, he couldn’t stop thinking about Abigail. If he hadn’t met her, he might be married to someone else. Some nice woman who didn’t throw dishes at him.
He’d be asleep right now, lying on his side with her warm body snuggled up against his chest, and their children—yes, he was quite sure there would have been two or three of them—would be sound asleep in the next room dreaming of sugarplums or whatever kids dreamed about. If he hadn’t met Abigail, he certainly wouldn’t be stuffed like a slab of meat in the back of a car with his own executioners.
&
nbsp; Regrettably, none of this thinking would change what had happened.
Abigail had been a secretary at the high school where he got his first job. He would never forget the moment when he first saw her standing in the office. Her hair was golden, her skin fair as the snow. Her hips swayed with a youthful seductiveness when she walked. She had seemed friendly at first. She paid attention to him. She listened to his dreams, and he to hers. It was his first real relationship with a woman, so he had no notion that something about her personality was slightly amiss.
Ha—slightly! Abigail was nuts.
When he married her, he’d foreseen none of the marital strife that was to come: the fights, the threats, and the tears; the manic spells and the rock-bottom lows; the brutal name-calling and the shattered dishes that lay like rubble on the kitchen floor. He’d been a young fool in love, and now he’d give anything in the universe to rewind the tape of his life and do it over differently.
The car drove over a bump in the road. His thoughts returned to the present. Escaping into his memories wasn’t going to help him escape from the car.
He flexed the muscles in his shoulders. The tape had been bound so tightly around his wrists that his fingers and palms tingled with the onslaught of numbness. For the most part, his limbs still felt like rubber.
To put it quite frankly, he was screwed.
He didn’t blame his captors for wanting to kill him. After all, he had done a very bad thing—though what he did brought him more relief than anyone could ever allow themselves to understand. It was funny how something so terrible could feel so good.
He would never have to see the faces again. If he’d had the opportunity to continue, he’d have done so without a moment’s pause. The world teemed with faces. Grinning faces. Taunting faces. Faces that mocked him in his sorrow and constantly reminded him of what might have been.
