by Mitch Goth
Close to ten minutes of aimless roaming through the extensive field had brought the distraught and still heavily confused Nate to his breaking point. It was at this time that he decided to ignore Mike’s previous advice. He pulled out his phone and began fidgeting with it.
“What are you doing?” Mike wondered, noticing this.
“Calling the cops,” Nate replied.
“Didn’t I already explain this to you?”
“Yes, and the more I think about it, the more I think that not calling them right now is an awful idea.”
“Chill out, Nate, we’ll get out of this corn soon and we’ll figure something out.”
“I’m figuring something out now. I’m calling them,” Nate said as he began dialing his phone, but after a moment he paused. “I don’t have any service.”
“Yeah,” Mike nodded, looking at his, “a few square miles of corn can’t be good for cell signals.”
“But we just had service,” Taylor exclaimed.
“But we’ve also walked a good ways into the middle this agricultural hell,” Mike replied.
“Alright, we need to find a way out of the corn, then I’m calling the cops,” Nate began trudging faster through the rows.
“Don’t go too fast, Nate,” Mike called to him as he struggled to keep up, “you could get lost or trip and fall and get run over by a combine.”
“I think we’d know if there was a combine coming,” Taylor observed.
“Yeah,” Nate agreed, “and besides, what could I possibly trip and-” his sentence was cut short as his leg caught something and he tumbled to the ground.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying,” Mike asked smugly.
“Shut up,” Nate replied, getting up and staring down at what he’d tripped over. The sight had him perplexed. “It’s a headstone.”
Sure enough, the others looked down and aiming right back at them was a short, dirt colored headstone that’s writing had been worn away by decades of weather.
“Look,” Taylor aimed a finger a few feet further down the row, “there’s another one.”
Another, much taller but similarly worn down gravestone jutted up from the ground at a heavy angle, confusing the trio further.
“What the hell?” Nate wandered down the row, followed closely by Mike and Taylor. As they continued on more headstones became visible and the corn stalks began to fade away. In only a few seconds they were standing at the edge of a small, derelict cemetery.
“Awesome,” Mike said in awe of the sight before them.
“What is this place?” Taylor questioned.
“I’m not an expert,” Mike shrugged, “but it looks like a graveyard of some kind.”
She shot him a contemptuous gaze.
“Wait,” Nate raised a hand in a quieting gesture, “do you hear that?”
As they all stood silently, a peculiar noise wafted through the warm summer night breeze. Music. Some singing and the strums of a guitar flew faintly into their ears. The song seemed to come from the other end of the cemetery. The sky had gone mostly dark and the source of the sound could not yet be seen.
All thinking alike, the trio crept through the dark and eerie landscape, being careful not to stumble on any of the smaller headstones. The music gradually got louder and they soon spotted a figure in the shadows. As cautiously as the three of them could, they got even closer to this mysterious musician. But once more features on this person were made out the cautious feeling was replaced with pure bemusement.
“Bobby Berrer?” Nate spoke up as soon as he recognized the figure.
“Bobby fuckin’ Berrer,” Mike laughed at the oddity of the moment.
Bobby fuckin’ Berrer, as Mike had pegged him, was a fellow graduating Senior in their class. Bobby was the kind of guy you would see listening to Hendrix on full volume because it ‘took him back to the good ‘ol days’ he never actually experienced first hand to begin with, the kind of guy who would sew his own clothes, the kind of guy you’d expect to be out in an abandoned cemetery at night, serenading the dirty slabs of granite.
Bobby hopped off the stone he was perched on, leaned his guitar on another nearby headstone and strode over to them. He brushed his shoulder length red locks out of his face and greeted them with a warm and inviting smile.
“What’s happenin’ guys? Fancy seein’ you out here.”
“I was about to say the same thing to you,” Mike replied.
“What are you doing out here Bobby?” Nate asked.
“I like to think dead people still like to hear music every now and then, you know?” Bobby explained.
“No, actually I don’t know.”
“It’s kinda hard to explain. So what are you guys doing out here at this time of night? Come to rob some corpses?”
“No,” Taylor said, disgusted, “is that a serious problem around here?”
“Not really, but you guys kinda strike me as the grave robbing type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Okay,” Nate cut in, “we don’t have time for this.”
“What’s the rush man?” Bobby asked. “Stay and chill out for a while.”
“Look, Bobby, I want to hang out in an old cemetery at night just as much as the next guy, but we have a serious problem on our hands right now.”
“What problem could be so important in a place like Woodburn? The last crime that happened around here was when that convenient store clerk got held up at broom-point last year.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Mike nodded.
“Mike,” Nate brought him back to reality, “we need to go! Where’s the way out of here?” he addressed Bobby once more.
“What’s the problem, guys?” Bobby spoke with slightly more concern.
“Alright,” Nate sighed, “some guys with guns showed up at a party we were having and both Cady and Cera got taken by them.”
“Let me get this straight,” Bobby paused for a moment, “your girlfriend,” he pointed at Nate, but quickly shifted to pointing at Mike, “and your sister got kidnapped by a group of people you don’t know.”
“That’s about the gist of it,” Nate nodded.
“What’d they look like?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t stop to observe them.”
“Well maybe you should’ve.”
“Can you just show us the way out of here so we can find a place with cell reception and call the cops?”
“I think we should look for them on our own first,” Mike repeated his opinion.
“I think that’s an incredibly stupid idea, Mike. The cops know how to handle this, they have blood hounds, and squad cars, and guns and we don’t have any of those things.”
“You don’t have a gun?”
“No,” Nate scoffed, “do you?”
“Never really saw the need until about a half hour ago. Taylor?”
“I’ve never even seen a gun before,” she answered.
“Well, there you go,” Nate said, his point proven.
“I have a gun,” Bobby entered the conversation.
“Seriously?” all three of them said in unison. Bobby Berrer was the last man they expected to own a weapon of any kind.
“Where?” Nate inquired.
“My car, I can show you if you want.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Mike said. “Plus you could take Taylor’s seeing a gun virginity.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Bobby smiled, grabbing up his guitar and gesturing for them to follow.
They walked back into the corn and down a thin trail Bobby had created through his trips to the graveyard. In no time they were on the side of a dark country road where Bobby had parked his car. He popped the trunk and set his guitar inside before reaching to the very back and grabbing a large, dirty metal case. It creaked heavily as he flipped it open and retrieved the contents.
“Um, Bobby?” Nate spoke in bewilderment.
“Yeah?”
“What the hell is that?”
Th
ere, in Bobby’s hand, was a type of gun none of them had ever seen before. It looked like a short shotgun, but with a much wider, thicker barrel. It looked like a musket, a short, fat musket.
“It’s a blunderbuss,” Bobby replied gleefully.
“Why is there a blunderbuss in your trunk?” Taylor asked.
“It’s a family heirloom.”
“Why is there a family heirloom in your trunk?”
“Where do you keep your family heirlooms?”
“How is that going to be of any use to us? It’s three hundred years old,” Nate groaned.
“First of all, it’s two hundred and twenty years old,” Bobby retorted, “secondly, it has an updated percussion cap system from the eighteen thirties or something.”
“How modern,” Nate said with heavy sarcasm. “Do you even have any caps for it?”
“No, but the gun store up on Sharp Street doesn’t close until eleven, we can go there for some.”
“Or we could call the police.”
“Nate, enough about the police,” Mike said. “Let’s just go to the gun store quick, and look around town for any signs for a while.”
“What makes you think that’s a better idea?”
“That’s my sister out there, don’t you think I want what’s best for her as well as Cady in this situation? I’m tellin’ you, Nate, if we call the cops their bureaucratic garbage will waste time we don’t have. We may not have the guns, or dogs or cars they do, but we can get things done faster.”
“Don’t cops drive new Impalas?” Bobby wondered.
“Yeah, why?” Mike replied.
Bobby simply pointed over to his vehicle. A dark red, fairly new, Chevy Impala, “All we’re missing are the dogs.”
“You think cops these days carry around muskets?” Nate nodded to the weapon in his hand.
“It’s a blunderbuss, there’s a difference. And maybe they use newer guns, but it’s a start.”
“If we’re going to go to the gun store, I suggest we do it soon,” Taylor said, looking at her watch.
“Alright,” let’s go,” Mike walked towards the car as Bobby pulled his keys from his pocket.
“Fine,” Nate sighed, still heavily skeptical in Mike’s idea of what’s best.
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