He was cut off by a wail the likes of which none of them had ever heard. It came from farther in the forest, but not too far, and worked its way into their bones until their footsteps slowed and they all grew still. It started high and ended low, but not low enough for an adult, and there could be no doubt it was a person. Ted was right. It sounded like a child, hurt and terrified.
“My God, that was it, that was the sound,” Ted whispered, grasping Carl’s arm.
“Leggo,” Carl hissed. “Someone needs help.” But for a long moment all they could do was stand in place looking toward the thickening cluster of pines that stood before them, and Ted held on.
The silence was deathly.
Then the cry went up again, the desolate wail of someone utterly lost and alone. “Mama!” that someone called. “Mama!”
It was Hugh of all people who was stirred into action by the sound. He was a father and knew that call of duty when he heard it. “Come on now,” he said, and trotted off toward the noise. As if waking from a dream, Carl tore free of Ted’s grasp and followed Hugh. Mike and Ted kept pace behind him.
Hugh moved rapidly, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound before it died away again. He pushed through the dead lower branches of some pine trees just as the wail was fading away, and arrived at the source of the sound before the last echo died.
There could be no doubt who had made it. The sound had led them to her, and they had found her.
The little girl in the faded pink dress lay in a shallow mud puddle in the shade of the trees, but there was no need to help her up. She had been dead for a long, long time. The skin of her face stretched tightly over her skull, dehydrated and tanned by long years underground. Her long, blond hair rested in dusty, disintegrating braids across her chest. Her hands were clusters of brittle white twigs. Her hollow eye sockets stared vacantly.
Around her lay the shattered remains of a small, white coffin.
Hugh let loose a yell that sent blackbirds flying off in fright. Mike and Ted simultaneously turned and were sick. Carl leaned against a tree, swallowed his risen gorge, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again he looked up and said, “The waters took her all this way. Guess it would be a good turn to take her back. Guess that’s what she wants.”
Like a funeral procession they filed slowly through the woods and back to the sun-struck graveyard, a small bundle in burlap carried between Carl and Mike. After depositing the bundle in the shed they went quickly back to Mike’s house, trudged inside, and worked no more that day.
Later that night before they fell asleep in front of a cheery, popping hearth fire, Hugh sneaked over to the door and latched it tight.
No one asked where he had gone when he came back.
* * * * *
By morning they had collected themselves enough to return to work, and for the next three days labored diligently, ignoring flitting shadows and sheltering themselves at night by laughing too hard at jokes and sticking cotton in their ears when they slept. Although they remained on the property out of a sense of duty, they didn’t keep watch on the grounds after dusk anymore.
They made fine progress. Soon all the “litter” was gone from the grounds and Mike began making a great many identifications, due in part to his own detective work, but mainly to a somewhat disturbing discovery he made one bright morning: during the night, someone had used a sharp stone, branch, or (here Mike shuddered, thinking of it) fingernail to scratch names onto all the coffins, and mud to write names on all the burlap sacks. Despite the issues this raised, it helped a great deal, and the four men figured that no matter how it had come to happen, the act was a gift.
One afternoon, after the reburials had begun in earnest, Carl was touching up a hole when he saw Mike sitting off by himself on a rock at the edge of the yard.
“Everything dandy?” Carl asked, but was taken aback by Mike’s appearance. He looked sicker than any man he had ever seen. There was sweat on his forehead and upper lip, but Carl could tell it wasn’t the good sweat of work, but the kind that comes with brain fever. He looked so pale the light seemed almost to shine through him, and his breathing was labored and loud.
“Lord a’ mercy,” Carl said, and put his hand out to touch Mike’s shoulder. Mike shied away, and Carl withdrew with a raised eyebrow and a frown.
“You look sick, Mike. I don’t know what to make of it, but I think you’d best get inside and lie down.”
“I ain’t sick sick,” said Mike. “To be honest, right now I just want out of here for a bit. I want this over. I need time away.”
“Well why don’t you go, then?” Carl asked gently. “You’ve worked damn hard. No one can say different.”
“Because if I leave now this job is history, and I need it bad. What with the Depression on and a score’s score of people ready to take over if I up and run, I’d be a crazy to walk away.”
“Depression?” Carl said. “I don’t follow.”
Mike gazed at him long and hard, then motioned for him to sit down beside him. This time he didn’t shy away.
“I found something ‘bout an hour ago,” Mike said.
“Yeah?” said Carl.
“I found the updated chart of the cemetery.”
“Oh yeah?” said Carl.
“Just sittin’ there right as rain, a little stained but still readable, right on top of my desk like it had been there all along.” He pulled out a folded sheaf of papers from the front pocket of his overalls. “Here it is.”
“Well that’s fine, Mike, just fine. Now we can know for certain if we’re missing anybody. But I don’t see--”
“It’d please me if you took a gander at it. ‘Specially the bottom of the second page.”
Carl took the list, flipped to the second page, scanned it, and stopped short.
He breathed in and out, long and deep.
“My oh my,” he said.
Mike swayed beside him, mopping his wet brow.
“Oh my,” Carl continued. “Oh my oh my.”
* * * * *
“What you need, Carl?” Ted asked. Several hours had passed. Carl had taken some time to collect himself, then gathered everyone together on Mike’s front porch.
“Ted, Hugh, I got a question for the both of you. Before this job, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Hugh snorted. “You drunk, Carl?”
“I just wanna know.”
“Well…I…” He trailed off. “It’s kind of hazy, now that you mention it.”
“Ted?”
“Well hell, Carl, I guess my house and my wife and working in the mines. I got lotsa memories.”
“I know you do, but what about right before? What do you remember about the flood? Who came and told you we needed to do this job?”
“Oh, now, Carl, that’s easy … I mean … That is to say…”
Mike stepped in. “Hugh, what year is it?”
“1912,” Hugh said immediately. “What the hell year you think?” He stood up. “You’ve all gone crazy, I –ouch!”
“Oh!” Ted grunted, grabbing his hand. “What’d you do that for?”
Carl held up a knitting needle.
“The year,” Mike said flatly, “is 1934.”
“Look at your fingers, fellas,” Carl said.
The two men raised their fingers. Eyes, suddenly wide, suddenly terrified, examined them closely. A thick, clear liquid dribbled down both hands in slow rivulets.
“Embalming fluid,” Mike said. “Unless I’m mistaken, I’m the only man here with a pulse.”
* * * * *
There was a great stir on Mike’s porch, and after the screaming and the exclaiming and the accusing and the shaking heads and frantic cries had ceased, three men walked the dirt road to Pineville and sought out their homes.
A short time later they returned, glassy-eyed and resigned.
“Now do you believe me an’ Carl?” Mike said.
Hugh and Ted nodded their hanging heads. Their houses were abandoned, thei
r families gone.
“What year you say this is again?” Ted asked quietly.
“1934,” Mike said. “Pineville’s been dead since the early twenties, when the coal gave out. I’m the only one here. All I do is tend the cemetery, see that no one bothers anything. Come from Pittsburgh, originally. Paid by the county.”
They trudged back into the living room and slumped down in rocking chairs by the fire. Outside the wind blew cold, sending dried leaves scuttling across the porch boards and stressing the roof beams.
Mike said, “According to this chart, you all… er… passed away on the same date: May 23, 1912. You remember anything at all about it?”
They thought for a moment. “Come to think of it,” Ted said, slowly, “I do remember something… something about water. But it’s distant, like a dream.”
“The mines!” Carl exclaimed. “Culver Lake. The flood.”
“The roar… the rocks,” said Ted.
“By God,” said Hugh, “the collapse.”
“We all work—or worked—the same midnight shift,” Carl explained. “Looks like we didn’t make it out of that one with all our faculties intact, as the doctors say.”
Mike moaned. “This’ll teach me for not taking an interest in other people’s lives. If I’d only asked what you all did and where you all lived when you first got here…I just assumed you lived in Still Creek over the hill and were sent down to help. I never thought… that is, I never… I should have known when you was talking about Wilbur Collins. He died in 1893, and you all look so young, I—”
“Enough,” said Carl. “Don’t worry yourself over it. What we need to worry on now is the best course of action. There’s something going on here that ain’t natural, we’ve all guessed that since Day One, but now it seems we’re a pretty big part of it ourselves. Well, to be frank I’ve got to say I don’t think we belong up here, walking and talking, anymore than the rest of the folk out there who seem to be a tad restless too.”
“Agreed,” said Ted and Hugh.
“And I think we’d also agree that this is a fair bit, well, upsetting for us, what with us being dead and our families all moved on and away… upsetting for our friend here too, who ain’t done nothing to deserve this kind of stress,” Carl continued, nodding to Mike. “So the sooner things get back to normal, the better. Now, we’ve laid out there quiet for twenty-two years and change. Why we up and walking again now?”
“The flood,” Hugh said.
“That’s how I see it,” Carl agreed. “The flood warshed us all up, something needed done to fix it, so we came back to ourselves. Taking care of this kind of thing is our job as volunteer firemen, after all.”
“Agreed.”
“But what about the others?” asked Ted. “Why are they up and about too?”
Mike said, “It’s like that saying my granddaddy was fond of, the morbid cuss: ‘The dead take care of their own.’”
“Sounds about right, given what’s happened,” said Hugh.
“Everyone out there in that yard and in that shed are doing their part, and we’re heading up the project,” Carl said.
“So all we got to do…” Hugh began.
“…is finish what we started, and things’ll fall back into line around here.” Carl turned to Mike. “After all this, you mind if we stay on at the house a little while longer? That fire feels good, even if we ain’t supposed to notice such things in our condition.”
“Well hell, boys,” Mike said, and they were glad to notice the color had returned to his face, “I’d say you deserve that at the very least.”
* * * * *
They had the cemetery back in good order at the end of two weeks. Some gravestones needed replacing including Carl’s and Ted’s (Hugh’s was found in a rain gully a short distance from the grounds, a little chipped but otherwise fine), but Mike made a trip over to Still Creek and came back with a half dozen new stones. Finally, on October 27, they lined up in front of Mike’s cabin and looked out upon the graveyard, grass neat, stones straight, and declared it finished.
All except one thing.
“Everything trim and tidy again, everyone tucked back in,” Carl said. “Guess it’s time you saw us off, Mike.”
“Boys, it’s been my pleasure.” Mike shook hands all around. “You ready?”
They were. Three open graves lay side by side. Carl, Hugh, and Ted, dressed in smart, new tailor-made suits, climbed carefully down into the holes, minding the dirt, and lay down in the pine boxes they’d built for themselves the previous day.
“Feeling a bit tired, to be honest,” Hugh said, reaching up to close his lid. “Miss my kids. Maybe if I go to sleep I’ll see them again. So long, folks. Catch ya again sometime, I guess.” He shut the lid, knocked twice, and Mike stepped down and latched it.
“I guess all this was fitting,” Ted said, squirming slightly to get comfortable. “There ain’t many people left to look after us… it would’ve been too big a job for you to do alone, Mike.”
“You did great, Ted.” The lid creaked shut. Mike latched it.
Carl shook Mike’s hand again. “I want your honest opinion… you think this place looks good? Really good?”
“Even better that it did before.”
“An untended grave is a shameful thing. It was quite a shock, this, but I’m glad we came back to do it.” He reached up, grabbed the edge of his lid, and started to pull it closed over himself. “Oh, hey!” he added. “I almost forgot!”
“What’s that, Carl?”
“We talked it over, and if you ever need any help keeping your house in good order—a paint job, new roof, whatever—don’t hesitate, eh? We owe you.”
The lid shut. Mike latched it.
Later, he found himself whistling as he shoveled on the dirt.
Welcome Home
The cat first appeared in the middle of winter. It came in the evening, after Scott Gardner finished shoveling the latest snowfall from the driveway so it wouldn’t turn to ice. He wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t heard the cries, but it was hungry, and cried to let him know.
“There’s a cat under the car,” he told his wife while taking off his boots. “Should we feed it?”
Emily’s eyes brightened. “Do you really need to ask?” She went to the pantry, grabbed a can of cat food from a half-empty carton on the floor, and picked up a small blue bowl sitting next to it. She threw on a sweater.
Outside, shivering, she looked under the car, then all around in the falling dark. Nothing.
“I can’t see under the car,” she said. “Are you sure it’s there?”
“Positive!” Scott called from the utility room. “It was loud.”
“But did you see it?”
“Nope! But I know a hungry cat when I hear it—after Hider, I’d better.”
Just then, the cat cried again. It sounded like it was under the car, but Emily couldn’t be sure. Kneeling down, she peered into the oily shadows beyond the tires and saw nothing—but the light was fading.
She set the food out on the dry pavement beneath the eaves. Shivering, she closed the door.
* * * * *
Next morning the food was gone. Every bite.
“Should we put out more?” Scott knelt down and touched the light dusting of snow that had fallen during the night. “That’s strange… no paw prints.”
Emily shook her head. “No. We shouldn’t have done it yesterday. I don’t want to start that again.”
“Start what?”
“You know.”
“My allergies?”
She nodded.
Scott set the empty bowl back down. “Now that’s not fair.”
“No—it’s just… with Hider, we fed him, we cared for him, but in the end we couldn’t offer him a home. He cried to come in and we did nothing. And one February afternoon I found him dead in the road.”
“Because we couldn’t let him inside,” Scott finished. “Because of my allergies.”
“I don’t wan
t to get attached like that again. I know what will happen if I do.”
She went back inside and closed the door—not angry, just resigned. And resolved.
Scott remained, staring at the slate-gray sky and bare, wind-swept trees. A gentle snow began to fall around him.
Great sadness descended upon him with the snow. Their twenty-year marriage had produced no children, and now, after a long season of growing unease, he recognized the missing element that had gnawed at them through all the seasons as their hairs slowly turned gray and their backs slowly bent: love between them was not enough. They needed something to love outside of themselves, something to care for that would care back gratefully and unconditionally, a give-and-take that left all for the better. A heart, however full, slowly goes bad without an outlet. Their hearts, however full, now needed release. But even something so humble as a cat was beyond their grasp—all thanks to his allergies: an inconvenience in his youth, a full and major setback now, as their capacity for love threatened to vanish with the last warmth of the dying year.
Without another thought, he went inside and returned a moment later with a can of cat food.
“There you are,” he said, forking it into the bowl. “I can’t see you, but at least I can feed you.”
An hour later the bowl was empty again.
* * * * *
It was only after two weeks of clandestine feeding that Scott realized just how odd the new cat was—no paw prints was one thing: cats could step like feathers when they wanted. But to never see it? Several times now he’d heard it crying, meowing, purring—but could never place it. He’d searched all the possible hiding places, and nothing doing. Once, he’d left food, returned five minutes later to take the trash to the curb, and the bowl was already half empty. A moment later, walking back to the house, it had looked from a distance as if the rest of it was disappearing before his eyes.
It can’t be, he thought at the time.
Now, however, he was seriously beginning to consider the possibility that it was.
Later that evening Emily walked into the den with a dazed, dreamy look on her face and said, succinctly, “I think I’m going crazy.”
Scaring the Crows Page 11
