DeGere said, putting on an Irish brogue.
“And that is a beggar’s bowl. If you take from it then you owe whatever the giver asks. I only want the thing you don’t need; the thing you should have given me from the start.”
Manson shifted on the arm of the couch after she spoke next and was about to step in to stop the mad thing DeGere had begun to do when she tossed the stone and hit him between the eyes. Manson’s legs turned to water and his eyes free-floated in his head as he crashed to the floor. He heard DeGere begin to scream and the awful sound brought his eyes back into focus.
“Please give me your heart,” she’d said. DeGere was still sitting on the coffee table, his whole body shaking, back bowed as if he wanted to run away from himself, dagger in hand turned inward as he actively worked the dull, dull blade up and down and screamed. Screamed ceaselessly like a wailing lover over the body of a freshly dead beau. Manson couldn’t move, though. He tried crawling, but his arms found no purchase as if he were treading water. All he wanted was to see.
The Golden Ones
Kelly followed the man deeper into the cemetery. Despite knowing what he was now, cemeteries still gave him the creeps. He wished they’d come in the daytime.
“Couldn’t come here in the daytime,” the man said. “Can’t hear it then.”
“Can’t hear what?”
“The voice.”
“What voice?” Kelly asked, but he’d fallen behind and the man might not have heard him. He hustled to catch up.
The man’s flashlight didn’t sweep left to right, remaining steady, straight ahead until they arrived. The beam played slowly over a modest headstone. Martha Jones, beloved wife and mother, 1935 – 2009.
“For a long time I used to come every day…” Kelly stood next to him. He looked over and could see the milky stare in his eyes, even in the dark. “The more I came the more I realized I could hear it. But it wasn’t out loud… it was… it was… in my head.” He looked at Kelly and the eyes had turned hard again. “Not in my head—in my head, but a voice somewhere that I could only hear in my head. It wasn’t a man or a child… it didn’t really have a sound to it. At first I thought I had too many toys in the attic and just ignored it, figuring it was my grief and it would go away. The voice didn’t speak words, but sounds. The more I came, the more I realized what the sounds were.
“It was like the voice was… practicing. Speech. Like it didn’t know how to talk, but it was trying to figure it. Y’know, rolling vowels and syllables around, trying to get them right.”
“You mean, like a baby?”
“Yeah. Exactly like that. I didn’t want to say that to you because I didn’t know if you’d ever had any kids. Me and Martha had four.” His stare swam back to the headstone. “But it went on and on like that, night after night until, well obviously, it started using words. By now I was praying the voice was only in my head and maybe I could have convinced myself of that. Oh, I was scared out of my wits to come here, but I was scared to miss something if I didn’t. But when it said your name I figured I couldn’t keep this to myself anymore.”
“My name?” Kelly felt his pulse speed up.
“Yeah. I’d heard of you before but I didn’t know who you were, really. I googled you and realized you were the fella from the TV.”
“Why did it say my name?” Kelly looked around.
“Don’t know. But the really odd thing? It was coming from over there. There’s a plot—no marker or nothin’—who knows who’s down there. Three nights ago I finally got the nerve up to investigate myself and—” He paused and Kelly stared at him before realizing the old man was shivering.
“You okay? Wanna get out of here?”
“Yes, but this is important. Well, maybe you want to walk over with me?”
“Why? What’s going on over there?”
“I felt it move. I went over and stood on the grass—on the plot, I s’pose—and could feel it churning beneath my feet. Like something really big and old was turning over down there.”
“How do you know it was old?”
“I felt it. Like the dead skin on the heels of my feet.” The old man shrugged. “I don’t know it another way to explain it.”
“Let’s go on over,” Kelly said. “Before I lose my nerve.”
As if I’d ever had it, he thought.
The old man nodded and led the way. They crossed over several mounds of earth, Kelly feeling a wiggly jolt up his spine each time he walked over someone’s grave. They stopped at a jagged hole twenty feet away from Martha Jones’, beloved wife and mother, grave.
“It’s just a hole.”
“I swear to you, son. It was filled last time I checked.”
The earth was disturbed several feet north of the hole, as if someone had used a machine to churn up the ground. They both followed the trail of disturbed ground until they saw the naked feet of a man facing away from them.
His long white hair swayed in a breeze that didn’t touch Kelly. He was naked, tall and powerfully built, but didn’t seem bothered by the cold. Kelly heard him chewing and swallowing and wondered where he’d found something to eat.
“Are you Kelly Greene?” the man asked, his voice as deep as the dark itself.
The Beggar's Bowl Page 3