Grave Intentions

by Ty Schwamberger

  Then Derrick was off to the races.

  As he pumped his arms and legs with all his might, Derrick looked over his shoulder and heard Craig screaming obscenities trying to work his jeans back up to his waist. A few moments later, Craig was on his feet giving chase.

  He needed to find a hiding place and quick. Derrick turned right and jumped the chain into the cemetery. The tall trees swallowed the dim light from the streetlamps. Cold headstones littered the eerie grounds. Footsteps pounded behind him, and he hoped that Craig and not the beast was giving chase. He veered toward a tall, wide oak tree fifteen feet to his right, close to his mom’s gravesite, and ducked behind it, grabbing his knees, trying to catch his breath in his aching sides. He should have yelled out to Craig, if it were indeed Craig that was behind him, to tell him where he was, but Derrick was just too terrified. He just couldn’t believe it. Not in a million years or all the horror movies he watched growing up did he ever in his wildest dreams imagine that an actual werewolf was on the loose in Parkside Cemetery, and worst of all, that it was his good-for-nothing father. The old man. The prick. The bastard.

  Ripping his selfish thoughts away for a moment, Derrick held his breath and listened for a growl, a howl, a mashing of sharp, large teeth together. For ragged breathing, footsteps. Something.

  Nothing.

  He held his breath again.

  Shallow, but heavy panting, very close by.

  Oh my fucking God! I’m gonna die by the way of a werewolf and it’s my fucking father! Holy jumping, Batman!

  As Derrick slowly let out the second breath, the panting was closer, no more than ten or fifteen feet on the other side of the tree. Hundreds of crazy thoughts tore through his mind. Was Craig dead already? If so, how was he all by himself going to take care of re-burying his mom and the two girls and cleaning up all the mess before dawn broke in three or four hours? If he were attacked by the werewolf, his father, would the creature actually bite him? If so, would he turn into a creature of the night and go on the lookout for his first victim and then follow it up by mutilating hundreds of innocent people just to feed his blood thirst?

  This is absolutely insane. Shit. There is no fucking way that what we saw is real. No way, no how. There has to be a logical and scientific explanation. Maybe it was never actually my dad that I saw. Some homeless dude just randomly picked my mom’s grave to dig up and bite into her cold, wrinkled flesh. Yeah. That could be it. Yeah. Shit. But that still doesn’t explain why, even if it wasn’t Dad, how the guy turned into a werewolf…

  Caught up in his thoughts, Derrick didn’t even notice that his own breathing had gotten louder and that something, someone, was approaching the tree. Suddenly, a heavy hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him to the ground.

  Derrick twisted his head to the left and opened his mouth to scream. Before a high wail of terror could alert every person and animal within a hundred yards, a cold hand, not a furry palm, clapped across the mouth.

  Craig.

  Derrick shut his mouth under the steady pressure of the hand.

  He relaxed. No gigantic beast was ready to tear his lower jaw from his skull and use it for a game of horseshoes. Craig put a finger to his lips. Derrick nodded. A moment later, Craig released the death grip on Derrick’s cheeks. Derrick opened and shut his mouth a few times in silence, flexing his sore cheek muscles back into working order.

  Finally, Derrick whispered, “Holy shit, man. I thought you were dead meat. Literally. When I didn’t hear you yelling at me to hold up or something, I thought that big sonofabitch ran you down, jumped on your back, and started killing you by ass-raping you first, right before sinking those big fucking claws and teeth into the tender flesh on your…” He paused, catching his breath. “Hey, where the hell are your pants, man?”

  Craig smiled at his friend’s twisted thoughts of what may have happened to him, and then the two boys started laughing. Probably a bit too loud. But, it was just so good for them to both still be alive and together once again, they just couldn’t help it. Craig’s penis jumped with the shudder of his laughing, and Derrick fell sideways, rolling on the ground, laughing. If it weren’t for the big-ass creature still after them, this would have been one tale to tell each other’s kids about one day—after the kids were of age, of course. But, as their laughter turned to sobs and tears and eventually hugging each other, they knew they were still a long way off from having kids. Hell, they would be lucky just to survive the night.

  After a few minutes to dry their eyes and catch their breath, Derrick said, “Seriously, man. What the hell happened to your pants?”

  “Had to ditch ’em, man.” Craig pulled his knees up to his chest, the front of his legs blocking his privates from Derrick’s view. “I tried to get the sonsabitches back up as quick as I could, ya know. You had already started high-tailing it away and I knew if I didn’t get a move on and soon--not that I wanted to stick around for that fucked-up carnage--that you would leave me in the dust and I would never be able to find ya. Shit. Don’t let anybody ever tell you that your skinny ass can’t run. Damn. You looked like the Road Runner, your arms and legs were all a-spinnin’ circles.”

  Both of them laughed. Craig continued, “Anyway. I did pretty good there for a while, with my pants that is, had them up to my knees when I heard a horrible ripping sound behind me. I looked back and that big bastard had ripped off Cowboy’s head and started playing hacky sack with it.”

  “What?”

  “Well ok, maybe not the game, but he did tear the fucker’s head clean off. POP! Just like that and the dude’s head came off like someone poppin’ the cork from a champagne bottle. Shit. It was brutal, man.”

  “Jesus H. Christ on a rubber crutch,” Derrick mumbled.

  “Yeah, no shit. Anyway. So your dad, err, the werewolf, looked up from munchin’ on Cowboy’s head and noticed I was down on the ground about twenty or so feet away from the back of my car. Anyway. So the big fucker sees me, growls this deep guttural growl, totally scaring the piss outta me, literally, so you don’t have to feel bad about pissing your pants…and then he slowly starts to crawl off the pile of bloody limbs and guts that used to be Cowboy. That’s when he rolls the head on the ground right at me. Shit, man! The damn head hits the bottom of my shoes. Talk about fucking sick… I about barfed right then and there.”

  “Holy shit, man.”

  “So after the head hits my shoes, I freak out, ya know. Really start to lose my mind. I just push the pants back down my legs and over my tennis shoes, throw the pants on top of the bloody stump of a head so I didn’t have to see it anymore, got up, and start hauling ass… I knew you’d come back in the cemetery instead of staying on the lighted street. Smart move by the way…”

  “Hey, thanks, man.”

  “Yeah. So I knew you’d come inside here rather than be running around on the well-lit streets, so I ran back in here. I’m not sure if he was following me or not, though I don’t think he did…”

  A deep, throaty howl ripped through the night.

  Both boys jumped, but didn’t scream out.

  “Well,” Derrick whispered, “guess there’s your answer.”

  “Yeah, guess so,” Craig replied in his own hushed voice.

  “Anyway,” Craig said, finally ready to finish the story, “I figured if I were you, where would be the first place I would go, ya know?”

  “Huh?”

  “Duh. Back to the place where it all began…and the place we need to start, anyway.”

  “Huh, where?”

  Craig pointed back over his shoulder and said, “Your mom’s grave, of course.” He paused for a moment to let it sink in with Derrick and then added, “We don’t have much of a choice. We’re still fucked from three sides, ya know. Your mom, the girls and that big fucking dad of yours.”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry. Anyway. We still gotta take care of business or the cops are sure gonna find something around here to link us to all this shit. Hell, our DNA is all over t
hose beer cans back at the picnic site. Once the cops find that shit, they’ll find the girls. Once they find the girls, they’ll link us to them. Think about it, man. Then the cops will use the link from me and Joan to Stacy to you to your mom. We’d all be up shit creek. Plus, now we gotta clean that mess up by my car.”

  “Sonofabitch. Guess you’re right.”

  “Well, duh. I’m always right, my man.”

  Another howl ripped through the cold night air.

  “Well, ok,” Derrick said. “But, Craig?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about we also try to find something to cover up that pasty white ass of yours?”

  The two boys laughed as they pushed themselves off the wet grass and started walking toward the first task at hand: re-burying Derrick’s mom.

  Somehow, Craig had been able to grab the flashlight before fleeing the scene of the attack, and thumbed down the button on its long, black handle.

  The sudden burst of light almost made Derrick shit his pants.

  Chapter Six

  They continued to walk toward Derrick’s mom’s grave.

  “So,” Derrick began, “what do you think was up with that dude, anyway?”

  The cool night air was making gooseflesh pop up all over Craig’s bare skin. His nipples were hard and aching. He had his arms wrapped around his chest, trying to keep even more of his body heat from escaping into the dark night. “I don’t know,” he said, shivering. “Seemed like kinda like a homo to me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, maybe he was just one of those dudes that drive around at night in his car just looking for unsuspecting victims or something.”

  “Yeah, guess so. Make that, young boy victims,” Derrick said and then chuckled nervously.

  Craig cringed at the thought of what the man could have done to them. ‘Young boy victims,’ Craig said to himself. The dude would have probably ass-raped us and left us for dead.

  Dead.

  The images of Derrick’s old-man-turned-werewolf, and what it had done to Cowboy, raced through Craig’s head. He shivered noticeably.

  Derrick looked over to his friend, saw that his skin was tight and bumpy, and his penis, the magic stick, as Craig had always bragged about it, was nothing but a stump in a tangle of curly, dark brown hair. Derrick quickly looked up to Craig’s upper body and said, “You ok, man?”

  “Yeah,” Craig replied, trying to wrap his arms even tighter around himself, “Just cold as a witch’s tit out here, ya know. You should feel lucky you still have on your clothes…well, at least your jeans. Freezin’ my giblets off out here. Damn.”

  “Yeah, looks…”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Anyway. Guess you’re right about that dude.”

  “Huh? What about him?”

  “That he was some butt-pirate or something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, what a freak,” Derrick said, clenching his buttocks together under his warm jeans.

  Derrick had been so wrapped up in their conversation he didn’t even realize where they were now standing.

  Over a big hole in the ground.

  His mom’s grave.

  Derrick swallowed hard, blinked the cold sweat from his eyes and looked slightly over to his right.

  There she was.

  His mom.

  Dressed in the blazer, like she had been for all the years teaching school. She looked like a discarded piece of trash lying there on top of the pile of dirt.

  Fucking bastard.

  “All right,” Craig broke the silence. “We better get this show on the road, so to speak. You don’t have to help man, if you don’t wanna. I’ll totally understand, ya know.”

  A howl ripped through the cemetery. Evidently, the creature was coming back for fourths and fifths, or fifths and sixths, if the werewolf had ever tracked down the female companion Derrick saw his dad with. He preferred not to think at all about the werewolf tearing her into bloody pieces and slurping down her insides, or the carnage that he (well, it) was doing to all the people he loved, and to Cowboy even though, truth be told, he was glad that the werewolf was around to save them from that crazy bastard.

  Derrick looked over to his mom on the pile of dirt. Tears flooded his eyes, and he felt like dropping and wrapping his arms around her. She wouldn’t feel warm and inviting, as she did when alive. She would now just be cold and revolting. Derrick choked down the rising vomit in his throat and walked over to her. Craig followed, not saying a word. The two of them stared down at what used to be a loving and nurturing mother, and even a loving wife, when his dad wasn’t beating the shit out of her for something she didn’t even do on purpose.

  On purpose…

  Something about that phrase—on purpose—made Derrick’s stomach turn over, again.

  There was definitely something about that phrase.

  Staring down at his mom, Derrick remembered it like it was yesterday, not twelve or thirteen years ago.

  Derrick had woken up extremely early one Christmas morning, as he always did on that particular holiday, and crept into the bedroom to wake his mom up so they could begin opening presents. He knew better than to even attempt waking his dad, who would just yell at him to get the hell outta here and leave him alone, even if it was one of the most joyful days of the entire year.

  On this particular Christmas morning, Derrick and his mom left his father in his alcohol-induced coma, and had crept downstairs in the early-morning light coming through the living room windows. Derrick’s heart almost dropped out of his chest.

  Before the two of them lay all his presents. But they weren’t all nicely wrapped, just waiting for Derrick to tear into them. Oh no. There were shreds of multi-colored wrapping paper thrown about the room, boxes torn apart and scattered about, toys, which would have been exciting to see for the first time, broken, lying in pieces.

  Then Derrick had screamed.

  The next thing he knew, his dad was stomping into the living room, shouting “What the fuck is going on in here?” and then, oh then, once he saw the mess, he went absolutely ape-shit and beat the ever-living crap out of her.

  After the incident, his dad, not his mom, had to take him to school for a month. Yes. His dad had beaten her that bad.

  But, why?

  The answer came suddenly, like when he was a little kid and stayed under water in the bathtub or the pool until his lungs felt like they were going to burst, and suddenly busting through the surface of the water and taking that first deep, exhilarating breath of all-knowing air.

  Holy shit!

  Derrick was shaking badly, even more than Craig, and he was completely naked and not just without his t-shirt.

  “Hey. HEY, MAN! What the hell…you ok? Damn!”

  Craig shook him a few times to snap his friend out of the seizure or whatever was causing him to gyrate.

  Finally, Craig slapped Derrick. Hard. Right across the face.

  That yanked Derrick from his living room on that fateful Christmas morning oh so long ago and back to staring down at his mom’s decaying corpse.

  After a few more moments, Derrick finally said, “Holy shit, man. Holy shit.”

  “What? Goddammit! What, man. What the hell is it?”

  “I think I know what happened.”

  “Huh,” Craig muttered.

  “I said, I think I know what happened here tonight.”

  “Well,” Craig said, shaking, “if you know, please share it with me, so we can bury your fucking mom…no offense, dude…and get me some clothes. The college chicks are never gonna go for me if my magic stick gets frostbite and falls off. All I’ll have left then is a little stub of a…”

  “Shut it, dude. Damn.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. Ok…ok, what is it?”

  “I remember.”

  “Dude. What do you remember?”

  Derrick spit it out in one breath. “I woke up one Christmas when I was a little kid to torn boxes and broken toys. I screamed and my dad ra
n in stinking of last night’s liquor, and when he saw the carnage, he went off the deep end and accused her of doing this on purpose, how she couldn’t control herself any more, and how one day it wouldn’t be some presents that they had bought with his paycheck from working at the sawmill, or even a neighbor’s dog that she would slaughter, but me. Me.”

  Derrick bent over and put his hands on his knees. He tried to catch his breath, but it was coming out in wet sobs. His lungs and heart burned—not just from waiting too long to take another breath, like the bathtub or swimming at the community pool, but because he couldn’t believe that his mom had been a werewolf as well. And even more so, that he had no doubt in his mind that his dad, even after all this time of keeping quiet that his wife was a creature of the night, couldn’t take it any longer, and killed her—somehow. How his dad killed his mom, whether it was indeed a true car accident or something more sinister, Derrick realized he would never know. The other thing that bothered Derrick, now that he understood how his dad could have turned into a bloodthirsty beast, was why. Why did his father not just ask his mom to turn him into one when she was living, instead having to dig up her grave and bite into her cold, hard flesh.

  “Jesus,” Craig managed to get out of his dry throat. He really wished they were still by the beer cooler to grab a cold one and wash down the horrible story. “Jesus.”

  Derrick collapsed on top of his mom’s body and began to weep uncontrollably.

  After they had finally re-buried Derrick’s mom, Craig figured they only had a few hours until daylight. The first glimpse of the sun on the horizon would bring the increasing possibility that the caretaker would come along to open the cemetery for its morning’s first visitors, a lonely old lady walking her poodle or even the first rounds of a police car driving through to make sure no teenagers had vandalized a headstone or two. Craig knew they had to get a move on, now.

  “Hey. Hey, man…” Craig said, coming up behind his friend and putting his arm around his shoulders. Derrick was standing with his head down, tears streaming down his face, looking at the freshly packed earth. “It’s gonna be ok, man. Really.”