by Rick Hautala
Suddenly aware of the phone in her hand, Miko swallowed and shook her head, hoping to clear it. When she put the phone to her ear again, all she could hear was a faint, hissing silence.
“Mother …? Hello …?” she said, but the connection was gone … dead.
Miko’s hands were trembling as she closed the phone and put it back into her purse. She was satisfied that she would call her mother later, once she figured out what she was going to do. It was, after all, still early in the morning on the West Coast. Her mother had probably drifted off to sleep.
Miko watched with amazed detachment as her hand rose and unfastened the lock on the stall door. When it clicked, the sounded echoed from the tile walls like a gunshot. The air in the bathroom seemed to have returned to normal, but when Miko looked toward the row of sinks where her father had been standing, she saw a faint distortion in the air, as if a hole had been punched in reality and was rapidly filling in.
Feeling weak in the knees, she stood up and walked over to the sink where she ran the water again so she could splash her face. The water streaming from her face mingled with her tears as she cried. Just as she was reaching for some paper towels to dry her face, a woman burst into the restroom. Her face was pale. She was trembling, and her eyes were wide circles of fear as she clapped both hands across her mouth and just stood there, shivering and shaking her head from side to side as she stared blankly at Miko.
“I can’t believe it!” she said, her voice muffled behind her hands. “I can’t believe it! Oh my God! … Oh my God!”
Miko felt a surge of sympathy for this woman and took a step forward to help her if she could. She wondered if this woman had also caught a glimpse of her father’s ghost, but before Miko could say anything, the woman pointed back over her shoulder at the door. Her hand flapped loosely on her wrist, looking to Miko as if she was holding a wounded bird.
“I can’t … It’s unbelievable … They just … They just …”
Then with a sob that originated deep within her bowels, the woman lurched into the nearest stall, dropped to her knees, and vomited.
Miko was frozen where she stood, not knowing what to do when another woman burst into the restroom. This woman was elderly and overweight with white hair. She, too, looked terror-stricken. She stared blankly at Miko and muttered, “Can you believe what just happened?”
“What? What has happened?” Miko asked.
Shaking her head as though waking up from a bad dream, she looked at this woman and shrugged helplessly. The retching sounds of the other woman on her knees in the stall filled the restroom.
“Go see for yourself. It’s on the TV in the lobby. They … someone flew a plane into one of the Twin Towers.”
“The Twin Towers?”
“The World Trade Center.”
This didn’t make any sense to Miko. She started past the woman and then started moving slowly toward the door. As she passed the elderly woman, she experienced a twinge of guilt for not doing more to help the woman in the stall; but once she was in the lobby, she saw that everyone had that same blank expression of shock and disbelief. When she looked up at one of the TV monitors by one of the concession stands, the New York City skyline was a horrible sight.
A huge black column of smoke was billowing from one of the World Trade Towers. It rose at an angle into the clear blue sky. People jostled against Miko as they crowded closer to the monitor and watched. A few people were making comments, but most of the people were silent … stunned.
“I can’t believe it!”
“They flew right into it!”
“It has to be an accident.”
“How could they not see something that big?”
“And what were they doing so low?”
“Whoever did this did it on purpose!”
“Shussh. I can’t hear the freakin’ reporter!”
The voices faded away as the sea of faces swelled around Miko, threatening to overwhelm her. She couldn’t turn away from the TV screen, and she was watching with everyone when, moments later, a second jet flew directly into the other tower.
People moaned and screamed, gasped and shouted. One woman close to Miko fainted.
By this point, everyone knew it had not been an accident. Someone had deliberately flown two jets into the two largest buildings in New York City. Within seconds Miko began to hear the word “terrorists.”
At some point, word spread that early reports indicated at least one of the planes, maybe both of them, had taken off from Logan that morning. Moments later, Miko learned that the plane that hit the first tower had been identified as Flight Eleven out of Boston.
A chill gripped her when she glanced at the ticket she was holding and saw the words Flight 11 written on the envelope.
When she looked up at the TV again, she was so numbed with shock she didn’t react when she saw the face of her dead father on the TV screen. All the activity and excited conversation around her faded away. She had the clear impression she was a stone in the middle of a stream, glistening and unmovable as water rushed past her on both sides.
That would have been me … I should have been on that airplane, she kept thinking as she watched in silent horror as first one and then the other tower collapsed. She let out a gasp of amazement along with everyone else when the two towers fell, but she knew she was the only one who could see the face of her father superimposed over the images of horror and destruction on the TV. And she knew that no one else could hear his voice as he whispered: “There is no honor in this.”
As thick columns of black smoke spiraled upwards from the wreckage, Miko also knew that she was the only one who saw … not black smoke, but a swirl of flower petals … beautiful chrysanthemum blossoms … rising into the clear September sky on a wind from hell … one chrysanthemum blossom for every innocent soul that found release on that horrible day.
Late Summer Shadows
Questions.
Yeah, questions is how the whole thing began.
Most problems in life start that way, huh? … With questions. Now that it's long since over, 'n I'm an old man, I 'spoze there's only a few questions—maybe just one big one that'll end it once and for all. But I sure hope to hell I don't meet George so's I can ask him.
Here’s one for yah. D'you know why they put gravestones on graves?
George had asked me that one on an August day so long ago. We was both 'bout ten years old that summer, I guess, 'n we were thicker 'n thieves in them days. That afternoon, we was sitting in the shade, on some cool, moss-covered stones in the backyard.
My mother and me was visiting George and his family at their summer camp on Little Sebago. They had a place down on Campbell Shore Road, and we generally spent a week or two there with 'em every summer, usually in August. My father had died six years before, in France, fightin' the Kaiser's army. I was only four at the time he died, so my memory of him ain't so good. I 'spect I have no real memory of him at'all—just what I've heard about him 'n seein’ old photographs of him ‘n such.
Anyways, I was saying—when George asked me that question, I just sat there, starin' at him for a moment or two, suspectin' it was some kinda joke or somethin' 'n he had some silly-arsed answer. George usually did things like that. 'Least ways, that's how I remember him. ‘S been a long time.
Anyway, the sun was gettin' low in the sky, glintin' white off the water. Late afternoon shadows stretched across the lawn, lookin' thick—textured, like. It was still too warm to do anythin' as active as play croquet or badminton, so we was just settin' 'n talkin'.
"Don't be stupid," I said. "It's to mark where the grave is—or who's buried there." I remember thinkin' at the time how my voice sounded like I was on a vibratin' machine or somethin', but I didn't want George to know his question had spooked me some. It didn't pay to let George know you was scared of anythin'. He use it ‘gainst yah.
Yah know, though, now that I think about it, George always did have a kinda unique talent. He could scowl 'n laugh at th
e same time. Try it. It ain't so easy as you think. Years later, I used to think George would've made a great school teacher 'cause he could tell you your idea was wrong as rain without ever hurtin' your feelings.
"Follow me," he said, suddenly jumpin' to his feet and lightin' out toward the woods behind his folks' camp. "I wanna show you something."
He ran swift as the wind along a narrow path, through scrub pine, high bush blueberries, maple saplings, 'n finally into the deeper piney woods where the air was thick with resin. I followed ‘s fast as I could, but George could always run faster ‘n me. I had a tough enough time just keepin' him in sight.
He dodged through the woods, duckin' his head under branches or hangin' onto 'em 'n then lettin' 'em snap back with a whoosh. I was glad I wasn't followin' too close, 'cause I would've been whooped in the face.
I could tell by his general direction which way he was headed—toward the brook that ran between his family property and old man Holland's. Whenever we played guns or whatever out there in the woods—which wasn't much lately 'cause we was gettin' older—we rarely crossed over the brook. After a heavy rain, the ground was all soggy 'n such. Our parents warned us 'bout there bein' quicksand out there, too. 'Course, I realize now that was a lie they told us to keep us away from there.
At last, George slowed his pace, but he was still a good fifty feet ahead of me when he stopped at the edge of the brook. Callin' it a brook really is an insult to them open-runnin', babblin' streams that can make a walk in the woods so pleasant. Holland's Brook, which was what we called it, was really more of a quagmire—thick, black mud and dense stands of cattails and black flag marked most of its course. More of a bog, I’d say.
George stood there by the water, waitin' for me to catch up. My breath felt like a fire in my chest, but I tried not to pant too hard.
Pointing in the direction of Holland's house, George said, "It's up this a'way." His voice had a hushed, near respectful tone to it—like he was speakin' in church or somethin'. The discomfort I had felt when he first mentioned gravestones was getting worse. I looked back along the trail we'd come and saw that the woods was darkenin'. I imagined I saw shapes thickenin' and movin' about in them late summer shadows. The sky overhead was deep blue blending to purple, and I knew even then we shouldn't have come so far from the camp this close to dark.
"It'll be gettin' on time for supper," I said, forcin' my voice not to betray how nervous I was feelin'. "Don't you think we oughta head on back?"
"No. You have to see this first," George said. His voice was tinged with wonder and—'least ways as I recall it now—maybe a bit of dread. We pushed and fought our way through the underbrush ‘n brambles. Both of us got scratches on our bare arms and legs. I remember looking down at my muddy Keds sneakers ‘n thinkin' 'bout how much hell there was gonna be to pay when my mother saw 'em. I wouldn't be able to fool her 'bout where we'd been—I knew that much. Like most mothers, she had a way of knowin'.
" 'S not far now," George said over his shoulder. Even he was beginnin' to sound tired. But there was this determined set to his jaw that I could see, even in the fadin' light, 'n it made me realize we should've considered all of this a bit more before leaving the yard.
"What is it, anyway?" I asked. “Just tell me.”
This time I knew he'd hear the fear in my voice, but I didn't care.
"Wait 'n see," he said, smiling thinly. "You just wait 'n see."
He ducked under a low-hanging branch and then stopped still, frozen.
"There," was all he said.
When I got up to him, he stood to one side so's I could see. My gaze followed his pointin' finger. At first I couldn't make out anything, it was so dark under that old pine tree where he was pointin'. Then—faintly—I could make somethin' out... It looked like the outline of ... well, somethin'.
"Go on," George said. "Get closer. You'll see."
I took a coupla steps closer, 'n as I did, the thick, black object resolved in front of me out of the gloom. When I realized what it was, I stumbled backwards, gasping for a breath, but the air was humid and thick to breathe, like takin' in a lungful of water.
"Jeeze!" I said. "It … it looks like a ... gravestone!"
“Uh-huh.”
George was smilin' and noddin' his head up 'n down like some silly puppet. The look of pride on his face made me feel ... well, somehow worse, like he was just askin' for trouble.
"Not just any old gravestone, either," he said, walking up to it and placin' a hand on the aged, pitted stone marker. "Look."
Bracin' his feet against a rotten log, he leaned forward and, with a belly-deep groan, pushed against the stone with everything he had.
"Cripes!" I shouted when I saw the gravestone teeter back 'n forth. At least I thought it did; it was kinda hard to tell there in the gatherin' shadows.
The effort was too much for George alone, though, and with a loud exhalation, he stopped pushin' 'n let the stone come to rest where it'd been. I had this sudden image that the gravestone was like a giant loose tooth, 'n it looked ready to come out if someone gave it a hard enough push.
"Come on. Help me with it," George said. "I think between the two of us we can roll it off."
"Are you crazy? Why’d we wanna do something like that?" I shouted, takin' a step backwards. My foot hit soggy ground, 'n I went up to my ankle in warm water. "No-sir-ee," I said, shakin' my head back and forth. "I ain't gonna touch that!"
"What are you, chicken?" George asked.
He walked over to me and grabbed me by both arms. His hands were covered with that black, mossy grit. Just the thought of him smearing my arms with it made me want to puke. My stomach did a quick little flip-flop, somethin' it hadn't done in a long time—not since my last ride on the rolla' coasta' out to Old Orchard Beach.
"I found it last summer, right after you and your mom left," George said. "I been waitin' all year to tell you so’s you could help me move it!"
"I … I don't think we should be messin' around with something like this," I replied weakly.
"How come? You are chicken, ain't you?"
I shook my head, unable to speak. It felt like somethin' had a'hold of my throat.
"Maybe what you're thinking is, a tombstone ain't just to mark where someone's buried. Is that it?" George started rubbin' his blackened hands together, back and forth. "Maybe ... just maybe you think that stone's put there to weight down the dead person. You know—something on their chest to keep 'em from gettin' up and wanderin' about."
"Come on ... Cut it out," I said, looking fearfully over my shoulder at the way we’d come. The sky was now deep purple. Rafts of clouds, underlit by the settin' sun, stuck out like dead, white fingers. "We—uh, we gotta get back for supper. Our moms are gonna be wicked mad at us."
"Just help me push it over," George pleaded. "That’s all I ask.”
I shook my head no.
“I can't do it by myself. After that, you can go back to the camp if you want to. I just wanna check it out."
"We shouldn't be messin' around with stuff like this," I said. "What if old man Holland sees us out here? He’s got dogs … and shotguns."
"He ain't gonna see us. 'N even if he does, what’s he gonna do about it?"
“Tell our parents, for one.”
We both fell silent at that as we cast our glances back toward the gravestone. The sky was much darker, now, especially under the trees. From where I was standin’, I could hardly make out the stone, but the growin' shadows made what I could see look all the bigger.
Finally realizin' that George wasn’t about to take no for an answer, I walked slowly over to him, 'n we both approached the stone. Reachin' out, I placed my hands on the gritty surface. It was slimy. This chill went clear up my arms, all the way to the back of my head. My teeth wanted to chatter, but I clamped my jaw shut. I wasn't 'bout to let George know how scared I was.
"Dig your feet in real good," George said, "’n when I give the word, we both push with everything we got. Okay?
" He crouched into position, his left foot backed by a rotten log, and started countin', "All right, then. One ... two ... three, and—heave!"
I pressed my shoulder to the stone 'n puffed out my cheeks as I pushed as hard as I could. It was kinda scary when the stone started to move, but then it stuck at one point and wouldn't budge no more.
We was facin' each other, 'n I remember thinkin' it was kinda funny the way George's face got all distorted from pushin' so hard. We rocked the tombstone back and forth, ‘n it made this wicked grindin’ sound, but every time it would get to that one point, it’d stick like it was gonna stay there forever. By now, gritty black soot covered our faces 'n hands. Sweat was tricklin' down my back between my shoulder blades and across my ribs. I was a lot skinnier back then, you understand.
"We'll ... get ... it ... this ... time," George said, keepin' the stone rockin' back and forth in time with his words and then he yelled—“Now!”.
We both grunted 'n strained, pushin’ harder than ever before.
The stone reached its stickin' point again, paused for maybe a heartbeat or two, although it seemed to stay there forever, 'n then ever so slowly, it toppled over. I was reminded of how a large tree falls in slow motion as I watched the gravestone keel over with deep-rooted resistance. It hit the soggy ground with a sickenin', squishy sound.
I stepped back quickly from our work, wipin' my hands on my shirt, leaving black smears. I was already a mess, so a little more wasn't gonna hurt. We was already in the dog house, anyway.
"Jeeze," I said, barely above a whisper. I looked at George 'n added, "You know our moms are gonna kill us, right?"
George wasn't listenin' to me. He was kneeling down on the ground ‘n lookin' into the hole where the stone had been.
"Cripes! Look at this!" he said. His voice was tinged with wonder.
I shook my head 'n started backin' away.
"Uh-uh! No way!” I said. “We've gotta get back to camp before it's all the way dark."
