by Glenn Rolfe
His car was actually in the back parking lot just a little ways to The Tap Room, but he had to see if he could catch August going back to the van.
As he stumbled out onto Water Street, he saw that the van was gone.
“Fuck,” he said.
He looked back and saw Beau coming up the steps.
That was enough to spur him forward. It would be quicker to go back down the tunnel, but he wanted nothing to do with Beau.
John walked his tired, confused, and shameful ass down the street the long way back to his car.
* * *
When he arrived home, he shuffled inside and fell face first onto the sofa. He let the mental and physical exhaustion take him away.
Unfortunately, it brought him back to his dreams and back to Graveyard Land.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Johnny,” One Eye said. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
Johnny stood behind a familiar white farmhouse. The window to the back door had a brick-sized hole in it.
“If August finds out, he’s gonna…well, he’s gonna pick your grave for you and put you in it sooner than later.”
Johnny turned around and saw the fog holding the trees and gravestones in its loving embrace. Part of him knew somehow that he and One Eye were not in a safe place. This was out of bounds, being near this house. He gazed ahead at the hole in the window. And not only had he trespassed and broken the laws of Graveyard Land, he’d apparently launched a strike at the house. He didn’t know why he thought of it as such, but the thought came as clear as day.
“We have to go,” One Eye said, grasping Johnny’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Let’s…let’s get the hell out of here.”
Johnny was about to run when movement in one of the other windows of the house stole his attention.
“Johnny, come on,” One Eye whined.
“Wait.”
He knew they should move now, before….
Before what?
Before it saw them.
The Ghoul.
The shadowy shape in the window grew. A hand grasped the ugly yellow curtain and began to pull it aside.
“Johnny!”
His heart was in his throat. Johnny’s curiosity and naïve bravery faltered, collapsing into a pile of dying maggots. Johnny no longer wanted to see the monster of Graveyard Land.
“Run!” Johnny shouted.
The boys hurried through the small thicket of trees that separated the farmhouse from the rest of Graveyard Land and didn’t look back.
When they reached the first set of graves, One Eye pulled Johnny down.
His head thumped against the ground. Stars spun to life and whizzed in and out of his vision before settling back where they belonged.
He groaned.
“Shhh,” One Eye hushed him.
Squinting to get his knocked noggin back on track and see what One Eye was so upset about, Johnny had to clamp his hands over his mouth to keep a gasp from escaping.
August loomed like a shadow, a burning candle in his good hand. He was looking for them. Did he know it was Johnny and One Eye or was he tipped off by the Ghoul that someone was off the reservation, trespassing on the sacred grounds?
A million questions spun like tiny tornados in Johnny’s head.
Was August the Ghoul’s watchdog? His Renfield? Would he turn on them? How did he know they were out here? Was August one of them…or something else?
He wanted to bombard One Eye with his queries, but he didn’t dare to breathe let alone speak.
After a few more seconds, August continued away from them, toward the farmhouse.
They watched until his dim light disappeared beyond the trees.
“That was way too close,” One Eye said.
“Where’s he going? Won’t the Ghoul think he’s the one that broke the window?”
One Eye dropped his chin and shook his head.
“What’s the deal?” Johnny asked.
When One Eye’s blue orb found him, Johnny saw the fear devour the kid’s gaze.
“I can’t…I can’t say anything. I….”
“What is it?”
The boy shook his head and got to his feet.
“Maybe another time—” One Eye searched the trees for August. “Not here. Not now. We need to go.” He looked at Johnny. “August isn’t going to be happy. He’s….”
“What?” Johnny asked. “What are you not telling me?”
But One Eye fled.
Johnny gazed back toward the farmhouse.
It was all something to do with the Ghoul and that farmhouse. Whatever the motivations and reasons here in Graveyard Land, the answers were in that house.
Johnny had begun to follow One Eye when a branch from one of the trees scraped across his neck.
A cool wetness seeped from the wound.
Dropping to his knees and reaching for his throat, Johnny saw the name on the grave in front of him.
Sarah…Sarah Colby.
Sarah?
He raised his hands and saw the inky blackness covering them. Steam rose into the cooling night air. The fog crept around him as he realized his palms were covered in blood. His blood.
Johnny stared at Sarah’s name chiseled in stone here of all places in Graveyard Land and collapsed into the empty grave before him.
PART THREE
Disarm
Chapter Twenty-Six
Helping Fuller was a start, but Pat had bigger plans. On the notepad by his bed, the name and address of the other cemetery caretaker stared back at him – Alvin Caswell – the man who held the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. Surely, he wouldn’t mind letting Pat take one, maybe two of the jobs. Fuller hadn’t seemed too keen on Caswell, but as far as Pat knew in this life so far, there was no reward worth its weight without risk.
“Paddy, you wanna play Moana with me?” Ada asked, holding her Moana doll out to him.
“I can’t right now, kiddo, I gotta get to work.”
She pouted and made those all-too-powerful puppy dog eyes at him.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he said. “I should be done early today. How about when I get back?”
Ada put her head down. Her shoulders slumped as she hugged Moana, and muttered, “Okay.”
“Listen, how about I bring you back a treat?”
She raised her gaze; a slight curl lifted the edge of her little mouth. “A candy bar?”
“Sure,” he said. “You want a Nestle Crunch or peanut butter cups?”
“Both.”
“Ha,” he laughed. “We’ll see. I’ll definitely get you one of them. Then I’ll be Maui and we’ll get that heart of Te Fiti. Deal?”
She nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
He kissed the top of her head and passed his mom at the door.
“Where are you off to now?” she asked.
“I’m going out to see Mr. Caswell. He’s in charge of a bunch of the cemeteries in town.”
His mother crossed her arms. “Alvin Caswell?” she said.
“Yeah, why? Do you know him?”
“I don’t know him, but….”
“But what?”
He didn’t like the seriousness on her face.
“He’s like the town’s creep.”
“So?” Pat said. “You can’t judge people by the rumors you hear. Especially here. Everyone has something bad to say about just about everybody, even their friends.”
It was true, Spears Corner was a shiny, happy, American flag-flying town on the outside. Pot luck dinners at the local churches every weekend, yard sales by the dozens, and as much school pride as any of the football-loving Texas towns of the South, but beneath it all was an oozing river of deceit, jealousy, and outright hatred between the haves and th
e have-nots. Hell, even some of the have-nots would stab each other in the back over who the other voted for in the elections. Pat may have been young, but he’d always paid attention. When you’re the acting parent in your household, you haven’t got a choice. His mom was a whole new person now, for which he had John to thank. God, it was amazing to be able to look to her for comfort and advice, but old habits die hard. The get up and go he accrued in those lean and mean days gone by gifted him with a sense of awareness most teens would run from let alone cherish.
“I don’t want you going in that house,” she said. The tone was not to be fucked with and her message came across loud and clear.
“I won’t, Mom. I just want to see if he’s willing to let me do one of the cemeteries. If he acts like a weirdo, I’ll tell him I’ve gotta go and head straight home, okay?”
“Maybe you should bring Danny with you.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Mom, I’ve got this, okay? If I get a stranger danger vibe, I’ll bolt. Promise.”
“I still think you should bring a friend.”
He kissed her cheek and opened the front door.
“I’ll be fine. Love ya.”
* * *
He rode up to the edge of Fairbanks Cemetery and stopped next to a dented gray mailbox.
Caswe__
It was missing the Ls.
He stared up the dusty, pockmarked driveway. The hammer in his chest began to thrum. He could easily see this being the beginning to a movie on Shudder.
A rusty metal screech called out on cue, sapping a few ounces from his courage.
Jesus, Mom, thanks for getting me freaked the hell out.
He swallowed the tentacles of fear stretching up from his insides as best he could.
He’s just a man who takes care of graveyards.
A ghoul.
No, he’s a man.
Pat gritted his teeth and shoved off, pedaling up the driveway, doing his best to focus on the bumps and not on the voice in his head telling him to head back the way he came.
The beat-up little farmhouse came into view. Beside the sagging front porch, he saw the swing with the rusty hinges swaying in the gentle breeze coming off the field to the right of the home. The tattered canvas top flapped along to the cringe-inducing springs. A milk crate, faded to an almost pale-peach color, sat beside the swing. A can of Coors Light rested on top. Pat noticed the beads of condensation on the aluminum can as he approached the place. Alvin Caswell had been out here not too long ago.
Was he watching from someplace out of sight?
Pat glanced from window to window expecting to see the ghoul studying him from behind a curtain. Each of the four windows on this side of the house was empty.
No ghouls, no ghosts, no creepy perverts.
“Help you with somethin’?”
The voice startled him, and he felt like a little kid barked at by an adult for doing something out of line.
“Sorry,” Pat said. “I was looking for Mr. Caswell.”
The man pulled a blue bandana from his back pocket and wiped it across his greasy-looking mustache. “That’d be me. What can I do for ya?”
Pat didn’t like the way the guy was looking at him. There was curiosity in the gaze from his beady eyes, but it was simmering with something else. Something darker.
He swallowed hard.
“I have a…a landscaping business. Um, and I…well, I talked with Mr. Fuller – do you know him?”
The man grinned. The look made Pat’s skin prickle with goose bumps.
Alvin Caswell nodded and spat a glob of mucus to the dirt before bringing the rag back to his lips. “Yeah, I know him. What’s this to do with me?”
Shit. Fuck this. There is something off about this guy. I told Mom I’d bust ass home if something didn’t feel right.
“Well, uh,” Caswell said, “you come up to my house to tell me somethin’? Or you just come up to see what the old fool on the hill was hidin’ up here?”
“I, uh, um….”
The man began to cackle as he made his way to the swing. As he eased down to the worn canvas, Pat was certain the old fabric would give way and drop the man to the ground. It held.
“I was told you took care of the cemeteries around town.”
The man’s eyes seemed to shrink in his skull. The mustache wiggled as his lip twitched.
“Mm, hmm. I tend to most of ’em. I assume you knew that since you mentioned Fuller.” His brows knit together above his pig-like nose. “Did he send you here?”
“No, sir,” Pat said. “Like I was saying, I have a small landscaping business of my own, sort of, and I was, uh…wondering—”
The swing let out a drawn-out screech that dug invisible nails up the walls of Pat’s stomach.
A grin slithered upon Caswell’s face.
“Well, sir,” Pat continued, trying not to sound as fucking scared as he was. “Mr. Fuller is letting me take one of his cemeteries.” Pat hadn’t made an official deal with Fuller yet, but he didn’t need to let Caswell know that. “And well, I was hoping you might consider—”
“Nope.”
The words came out like a lightning strike – quick and unmistakable. The ugly smile evaporated.
“I’m sorry,” Pat said. “I know that you have most of them, like, a dozen or so—”
“Run along, little boy,” Mr. Caswell said.
“Surely, you could use a helper—”
“You deaf and fucking dumb, boy?”
Caswell’s brow fell above his eyes like an iron beam set to crush Pat and introduce him to real pain.
Pat’s mouth went dry; his bladder suddenly weighed as much as a bowling ball.
“Sorry for disturbing you, sir.”
“You’re goddamn right, boy,” the man spat. “Tryin’ to screw with my livelihood. Who in the Sam Hill you think you are? Coming up here with that faggot haircut and…wait a minute. You looking at something you like, queer boy?”
Pat gave the indignant man a weak apologetic wave goodbye. Hurrying, he grabbed his bike and hopped on, shoving off without looking back. He felt like someone who’d walked into a bear’s cave expecting to skip past its hibernating body only to watch it suddenly rise hungry and raging.
He was pedaling down the gnarly driveway too fast as the man barked something about telling Mr. Fuller to fuck off when his front tire hit a divot in the road and sent his handlebars cockeyed, launching Pat face first to the road.
Pain shot through his cheek and his wrist, but there was no way in hell he was lying here to lick his wounds. Flinching at the hurt in his wrist and face, Pat picked his bike up, glancing back to make sure Caswell wasn’t coming (out of his cave) to devour him or finish him off. He wasn’t. But the creak and squeal of the swing’s hinges called out a rhythmic threat.
He had to smack his handlebars to straighten them back out, something he’d have to tighten later. Limp wristed, sore, and scared as hell, Pat rode his bike to the road and pedaled like each one of his nightmares was real and coming for him.
John’s house was on his way home. Pat didn’t want his mom to see him like this. He was sure he looked like someone who’d caught a beating. She’d say she’d told him not to go to Caswell’s and probably suspect the man had done this to him.
No, he didn’t need that.
He headed to John’s. He just hoped that his friend was home.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
John’s car sat alone in the driveway. Pat rolled onto the lawn, ditched his bike in the dooryard and walked straight to the front steps. He knocked on the door and waited. There was a bloody abrasion over the back of his right wrist. He studied it to see if it was swollen or not. It was sore, but he didn’t think it was broken.
When no one came to the door, he knocked again. Harder this time.
He heard a thump come from behind the barrier and heard the creak of the floorboards as someone approached.
A few seconds later, John’s sleepy face appeared.
“Pat, what the hell happened to you?”
“Can I come in?” Pat asked.
“Of course.” John moved aside and gestured for him to enter. “Jesus, man,” he said as he closed the door.
Pat paced by the sofa.
“You gonna tell me what the fuck happened or what?”
What had happened? He’d gone to see a creepy guy about a graveyard job, freaked the hell out and then dumped it on his bike like an idiot.
Tears leaked from his eyes.
“Hey, sit down,” John said.
Pat did.
“Now, are you okay?”
Pat nodded, wiping his cheeks with the bottom of his shirt. “Yeah,” he said. “I just…. I dumped my bike.”
“Your wrist is bleeding, and it looks like your shoulder is too.”
Pat looked down and saw that John was right. There was a dark wet splotch where the pain pulsed beneath the white fabric. He fingered the collar of his t-shirt and tugged the material back to look at the wound. A glistening sheen of blood covered the ugly scrape.
“Come on,” John said, getting to his feet and gesturing toward the hall. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Pat followed John down the short hallway and into the bathroom.
In the mirror, Pat saw a battered kid who would definitely freak his mother out. The right side of his eye was scorched dark red, a patch of scraped flesh exposed and raw.
John handed him a washcloth and a bar of Dial soap.
“Clean the dirt out as best you can. I’ll go grab a cold pack for your face…or shoulder, whichever you want to put it on.”
“Thanks,” Pat said, wincing as he tended to the scuff on his face.
A minute later, John returned. “Here,” he said, handing Pat the cold pack.
Pat pressed it against the right side of his eye.
“Take that shirt off. I’ll patch that shoulder up first.”
Pat did as he asked.
