The Cemetery Boys

by Heather Brewer

  Nodding with appreciation and more than a touch of wonder, I said, “Appropriate.”

  Markus led me farther into the room, and just around a large pile of newspapers that almost matched me in height, there was a break in the mess. Two leather wingback chairs sat at the center of the room, atop an old oriental rug. Between the chairs was a small table, and on top of that was a lamp that reminded me very much of one my dad had purchased for my mom’s birthday a few years ago. She’d described it as “art deco” or some such thing, but when I’d looked at it, all I’d seen was old metal and bubbles of glass. Still. Seeing this lamp now sent a sentimental shiver up my spine.

  Markus stood by the chair on the right and looked appreciatively around the room. “What you’re looking at is the history of Spencer since before Spencer was. Every newspaper article, every book, every little printed snippet of this town that exists lives here. My favorites are the piles by the chairs. Those are all the screwed-up stuff that’s happened in this town over the years. During the—”

  “—bad times?”

  He blinked at my interruption, and it was clear from his expression that this had been precisely what he was going to say. I wondered if such thorough documentation was common in towns this small, but doubted it. Hell, it probably wasn’t all that common in big towns, either. “So why are you showing this to me exactly?”

  Markus shrugged. “Because it’s entertaining. Reading through some of the stuff in here, some of the scandals, some of the beliefs and stories . . . it’s just cool is all. But if you’d rather stare at old men or watch paint dry . . .”

  “Where should I start?”

  He sighed, and I got the feeling he was resisting the urge to strangle me. He said, “It’s like a big lake, Stephen. You just hold your breath and dive in.”

  After a glimpse around the room, I sat hard in the chair on the left, half expecting a cloud of dust to fill the air. The chair was surprisingly cozy, and amazingly clean, considering the state of its surroundings. Sitting next to it was a stack of newspapers with far less dust on them than I’d seen on any of the surrounding books. I grabbed a couple of papers off the top and started scanning the pages. The date on the first copy of the Spencer Gazette that I’d grabbed was October 31, 1898. On the front page, in big, bold letters, was a headline I couldn’t miss: TOWN FOUNDER TURNED MURDER SUSPECT!

  Scanning the article, I gathered what had to be the most interesting—and twisted—thing I’d heard about Spencer’s history yet. Apparently, William Spencer’s daughter had been found dead on the outskirts of town one evening. She’d been strangled, and all evidence had pointed to her father as the only suspect. The article delved into details of his arrest, but ended with more questions than answers. It made me wonder what could possibly cause a successful businessman to turn on his own child. He must have gone nuts. Maybe it was the pressure of having the economy of an entire village balanced on his shoulders. Whatever the reason, the story left a sick feeling in my stomach, so I moved on to the next paper in the pile.

  Markus sat in the other chair, perusing a paper of his own. He kept looking over at me, though, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was waiting for something.

  The date at the top of the next newspaper was September 6, 1962. After JFK asked not what our country could do for us, but before MLK had a dream. The first few pages focused on the major headlines that week, but the third page dug into local news. Apparently, there’d been a ragin’ bake sale on the corner of Main Street and Water Street that week, and a pound of ground beef was on sale for only thirty-four cents. But at the bottom right corner, ten bold words caught my eye, and I immediately wondered why this headline had not been placed up front and center, as it seemed like it would have been important news at the time, even outside of Spencer. The headline read: PASSENGER TRAIN PLUMMETS INTO RESERVOIR, KILLING THIRTY-ONE SPENCER RESIDENTS.

  The article listed names, but not a lot of details. The train had apparently been on its way to Spencer from the next town over, a daily occurrence that had brought many factory and mill workers to and from the larger town. It derailed without known cause, devastating the small town. And with good reason. When your town is composed of only eight hundred or so souls, losing thirty-one of them in one fell swoop is pretty terrible. As I reached the end of the article, I found myself absurdly interested in what the reporter had to say about the accident. “Long black feathers were found at the scene, causing this reporter to wonder if the myth of the Winged Ones is merely town lore, or a horrific reality that we all must face.”

  I sat back in the chair, chewing my bottom lip absently. I pulled Devon’s journal from my back pocket and flipped to a section in the middle. On one page was a scribbled drawing of a man being torn to bits by a giant beak. On another a child was being clutched in large, sharp claws and carried openmouthed and screaming into the foreboding night sky. In big, bold letters on yet another page, he’d written a single word. Justice.

  I turned the pages, searching for a drawing I remembered seeing the last time I’d looked at the journal. Toward the back, I found it. The bridge that Devon’s friend Bobby had dove off before he drowned. The train on the tracks, the engine car derailed. The people falling out of the windows, their faces twisted in agony. And above them all, as if just barely captured before they fled the scene, the giant, feathered wings of the Winged Ones, terrorizing the train and pushing it over the edge.

  Last time I’d looked at it, Devon’s journal had seemed like a brilliant piece of fiction based on a small town’s superstitions. It had seemed like a book. A creative outlet. Right?

  But there was that strange feather in the cemetery, and tall tales this crazy surely came from somewhere.

  What if Devon truly believed the Winged Ones were real?

  chapter 10

  A few things could be said for the way my grandmother’s house usually smelled, and none of them were very pleasant. But as I strolled up the driveway, hungry for dinner, smells that shouldn’t have been coming from her house definitely were. Delicious, nose-filling, Mexican-food smells that made me feel almost happy I was going inside. My dad’s Beetle was gone, so apparently, my grandmother could cook. Who knew?

  At the stove, my grandmother was busy stirring something in a pot, her back to me. I cleared my throat to let her know I was in the room, and she bristled. Clearly, after two weeks in the same house, we still weren’t friends. “Smells good. Is that dinner? I love Mexican food.”

  She didn’t respond, just kept stirring whatever was in the pot. Then, as if fully embracing her position as Evil Old Hag, she tapped her wooden spoon clean on the edge of the pot and set it on a spoon rest that was shaped like a goose looking over its shoulder. The spoon rested on the goose’s hindquarters—something that didn’t exactly instill my faith in tonight’s meal, whatever the smells. My grandmother turned to look at me, wiping her hands on her white-and-blue-checkered apron. There was an expression on her face I didn’t recognize. She looked almost . . . happy. “It’s your father’s favorite, too. I’ve been cooking this for him since he was two.”

  I sat there stunned for a moment. Not only was it already the most pleasant conversation we’d engaged in to date, but also she’d told me something about my dad I hadn’t known. I always thought he preferred Italian, what with the way he used to drool over the very mention of my mom’s lasagna. Either my grandmother was wrong or my dad had been lying to one of them.

  A memory curled up in the back of my mind, warm and safe and pleasant. My mom, standing in our kitchen in Denver. She was wearing that ugly flower-covered apron that she loved so much, moving boiled lasagna noodles from the strainer in the sink to the glass pan on the counter. My dad had come up behind her, slipping his hands over her hips. I’d walked into the room to ask a question, but as I turned to walk out again, to leave them alone in that couple-only moment, Dad had spoken softly into my mother’s ear. She’d giggled in such a normal way, and he’d said, “You know lasagna’s my favori
te.”

  I pushed the memory away and looked at my grandmother, missing the family I’d once had more than ever. It was a start, this conversation. It was something, at least.

  My grandmother nodded, as if she was thinking the same thing. “Now go wash up. Dinner is in five minutes.”

  I offered a hesitant smile in return and made my way down the hall toward the bathroom. As I walked, I caught a funky smell, and realized it was me. So I stepped into my bedroom to change my shirt and reapply some deodorant. These face-melting Michigan summer days were going to be the death of me or the people around me. As I pulled a fresh T-shirt over my head, I furrowed my brow and looked around the room. Something was off, but I couldn’t pinpoint what. Then it hit me. The photograph of my mom that had been sitting on my nightstand wasn’t there. Instead there was just space, just emptiness.

  Thinking that it must have fallen, I searched the floor around the table, but found nothing. It also hadn’t been accidentally kicked under my bed. As I stood there, that little voice in the back of my head—the one that usually has a pretty good idea of what’s going on—whispered that the only way the photograph could have disappeared was if someone took it. And I had a sinking feeling I knew who was capable of that.

  I tried to keep my temper under control. My grandmother had set the table for three, and was folding her apron when I came into the kitchen. She looked at me with a challenge in her eyes that told me that she knew exactly why I was so angry. I glanced up and confirmed that Mom’s teapot was also missing. Then I took a breath before speaking and blew it out slowly, so that my head had less of a chance of exploding. “Do you know what happened to the photograph of my mom that was on my nightstand? It’s missing.”

  I was fully prepared for her to lie, to tell me she hadn’t seen it. What picture? Why, fiddle-dee-dee, I have no idea to what photograph you are referring. Or some such crap. What I was not prepared for were the words she released into the air between us, and how they filled that space with a thick layer of combustible gas.

  “Some lessons in this world come easy, and some come hard. I had hoped that this one would come easy enough for you, but with your father needing the same education, that doesn’t seem to be the case. So it falls on me to bring a little hard wisdom into your life.” Her thin eyebrows seemed sharp in the afternoon light, and she raised one starkly at me as she stared me down. I’d had no idea that a woman of her size could be so intimidating until that moment. “Your mother is dead.”

  In an instant, my chest ached and every bit of air left my lungs in a horrified gasp.

  My mother was dead. I had pushed her to the back of my mind, ignored her, and even said she was no longer my mother. And now, she was gone.

  My grandmother nodded, as if satisfied that she’d given her statement enough time to sink in. She continued, “There is physical death and then there is spiritual death, and while her body might still be with us, for all practical purposes, the woman who brought you into this world is deceased. And when a person is deceased, it is up to the living to go on living. I have packed all of those mementos up and placed them in storage. When the time comes that you and your father have properly grieved, they will be returned to you.”

  My jaw tensed. I could feel my hands begin to shake, but kept my eyes locked on hers. What a sick, horrible thing to say. If anyone were dead, I wished in that moment that it was the woman standing in front of me.

  “Give it back.” The furious heat crawling up my neck and face was intense—so much so that I felt like I was fully engulfed in flames. “Give my photograph back. Now.”

  Not at all fazed by the unseen flames before her, my grandmother remained calm and cool. “No.”

  She wasn’t going to budge. She’d stolen from me, insulted my mom, tried to control me and my dad, and made my life miserable from the moment I met her. She wasn’t a grandmother. She wasn’t even a decent person. If I could’ve shot lasers from my eyes at that point, I would have. “You’re just an old . . .”

  But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t get the word out of my mouth. I couldn’t say it even if she was being one. Because she was my grandmother, even if she was a total—

  “Bitch?” Her upper lip twitched, but she said the word like she owned it. Clearly, she had been called that once or twice in her lifetime. But never by her grandson. Because I was the only one she had, like it or not. “Yes, I am. But at least I am in my faculties enough to care for my family and not get locked away in some nuthouse.”

  I took a quick step toward her and lowered my voice. “Maybe you should be.”

  “And maybe we’d all be better off if your mother was truly dead.”

  It was the first moment in my life that I had ever seriously considered punching an old lady.

  “What’s going on in here?” My dad was standing by the front door. I didn’t know when he’d come in or how long he’d been listening to our heated exchange.

  I just knew that he was going to flip when he heard what his mother had done, what his mother had said. And then, after putting her in her place, he would tell me to toss our stuff in the backseat of the Beetle so we could get the hell out of Dodge. “She stole my picture of Mom. She took Mom’s teapot and who knows what else. And she refuses to give them back! It’s like she’s trying to erase Mom from our lives!”

  My father stood there, looking more meek and defeated than I had ever seen him. Slowly, he moved his gaze from me to his mother and back again. I was suddenly filled with the disappointing realization that when my mother was put away, my father had lost his spine. Grasping at strings of frayed hope, I said, “Dad? Did you know about this?”

  With a final glance at his mother, my dad held his hands up toward me in a pleading gesture. His tone quieted, and the finality of that old bat’s triumph settled in. She’d won. “I’m not saying that your grandmother’s actions are warranted or well timed. But . . . maybe it’s best that we do move forward with our lives, son. We can’t cling to the past forever.”

  I wanted to say something, but before I could, Dad added, “Stephen . . . I just got back from an interview with the power company outside of town. I got a job offer. Taking it means that we stay here, and that your mom will have to stay at the facility in Denver. It’s just the best place for her, son.”

  Without another word, I walked out the door, slamming it behind me as hard as I could. Before I said something to my father that I might one day regret.

  I wandered the outskirts of town for several hours, having bitter conversations in my head. I didn’t want to be around people, and I was in no state to see Cara, knowing that anything I did or said would only hurt anybody I ran into. What I really needed was to cool off, get wasted, and forget about my life for a while. Invitation or not.

  After the sun sank below the horizon for the evening, I made my way to the Playground, where, just as I expected, I found Devon and the boys. Markus looked sheepish and maybe even a little alarmed to see me, but as far as I could tell, I wasn’t interrupting anything special. Our fearless leader was dressed in black on black, his clothing once again reminding me of military regalia. Moonlight gleamed off the buttons on his jacket. Devon smiled when he saw me. “Somebody grab this man a bottle. Clearly, Stephen needs to get shitfaced.”

  I parked my ass on the ground and my back against a tall, rectangular stone. Devon took a spot beside me, on the same grave. It occurred to me that none of us ever remarked on the dead bodies that were decaying below our chosen hangout. We ignored death, pretending that it wasn’t so close. But there it was. Just feet from us. Waiting.

  Neither Devon nor I said anything for a good, long time. We passed a bottle of something green back and forth until the edges of the world blurred away. The boys were listening to music, but everyone seemed a little subdued tonight. They could all tell I was in a shitty mood, so they tread lightly and kept their distance from me. Everyone but Devon.

  I emptied the bottle and stared at it in silence. Devon pulled somethin
g out of his back pocket and handed it to me. Turning the object over in my free hand, I was struck by disbelief, and had several questions that I couldn’t put into words. He’d handed me my wallet. Flipping it open, I glanced at my license before nodding and shoving it in my back pocket.

  “How did you get this?”

  “Probably better not to ask.”

  “I thought I was part of the group now.”

  “I thought so, too. But we haven’t seen you in a few days, Stephen. And you’ve been keeping a few secrets of your own, haven’t you?”

  All I could manage to say was, “Thanks for the wallet.”

  “So what’s eating you tonight?” Devon looked at me, his head tilted in curiosity. The moonlight made his bleach-blond hair seem to glow. That might’ve just been the liquor talking. “Something’s obviously gnawing on your insides, Stephen. What is it?”

  Snorting, I tossed the bottle I was holding and watched it land six feet in front of us. It rolled down a small, grassy mound and completed a half circle before coming to rest at the foot of a tombstone that was shaped like a cross. The moonlight cast a long, black shadow cross over the grass. “It’s everything. It’s this town. It’s these people. It’s this life.”

  Devon dropped his eyes to the ground for a brief moment before meeting my gaze with something that felt like respect. “It’s not all that bad. You have me and the boys.”

  “True.”

  “We’re soldiers in the same army, marching for a cause. And that cause is a just one.” I couldn’t help but notice, even in my inebriated state, that he failed to identify what that cause was. “Loyalty, Stephen. That’s what we have to offer you. It’s yours if you want it.”