by J. Thorn
Hank sat in the Dodge for several minutes before putting the key in the ignition. He had a debate inside of his head. He believed Lori had a right to know what was happening in her town, and more importantly, how her best friend’s parents were involved. He knew once he told her there would be no going back. Lori would be in the know and her fate would be tied to his. Hank didn’t entirely understand the emotional power Lori could bring to Michelle’s summoning, but he felt it. He needed Lori’s help even though he couldn’t articulate why.
Hank thought about her husband Dom and her kids. He wasn’t sure he had the right to involve them, so Hank decided he would let Lori choose. But first, he’d have to prove to her he wasn’t insane from grief over Michelle’s death and the occurrences in Cleveland Heights were real.
Chapter 25
“I can’t do this. I’m married.”
“One night. All I’m asking for is one night and if you want to go back home you can,” Hank said.
Lori laughed and the sound of it warmed Hank’s chest like a shot of expensive whiskey. He smiled at her over the table as the waitress delivered a basket of chicken wings and fries.
“Seriously. I want to take you somewhere and if you don’t feel what I feel, I promise that will be the end of it. I will never bring this up again.”
“You’re fucking insane. You want to drag me through a cemetery at night, hoping there are ghosts? You would have had an easier time convincing me to sleep with you.”
Hank tipped the beer back and the foam tickled his lip. He used the back of his left hand to wipe it away. He grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye.
“You know how much I loved Michelle.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You know I’d do anything for her. For Corey.”
“Yes. What’s your point?”
He let go of her hand and rocked back in the chair.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “This isn’t fair to you.”
“Listen,” Lori said. “Let’s do this and get it over with so you can go back to being a single dad. I know some ladies from the coffee shop. They’re nice, they give great blowjobs and—”
“C’mon, I’m serious.”
“So am I. Michelle is dead and buried. It’s time you stop acting as though you are as well.”
“Fine. Make a deal with me. We go to Lake View and if you don’t feel anything, don’t hear anything out of the ordinary, I’ll let you hook me up with all the desperate housewives you know.”
Lori raised her glass in the air.
“Deal. Cheers.”
Hank nodded. They left the bar, agreeing to meet two hours later.
Hank waited for her in the parking lot of the Giant Eagle Supermarket in South Euclid. Less chance of someone spotting them together if they met in the next town over. He always found Lori seductive. She wasn’t in his league, but at times she made him feel as though he could pinch hit if necessary. He shook his head as if trying to dislodge his thoughts. This was about getting Michelle back, not about bedding her best friend.
He watched families pushing carts through the parking lot. Children laughed and jumped, some carrying pumpkins while others sat inside the shopping cart. The aroma of cinnamon and apple cider came from the cafe inside the supermarket.
Stacks of hay and bundles of cornstalk adorned each side of the sliding glass doors. Leaves scurried across the pavement, pushed by the wind into frantic bursts of reds and oranges.
Hank took a deep breath. Fall was his favorite season, full of warm days and cool nights. The scent of ripe apples and the brilliant colors of the foliage were something burned into his most powerful childhood memories. He missed it when they lived in California, even though the sunshine made it tough to feel anything but grateful. He missed trick-or-treating with Corey. The boy didn’t go after the lightning strike. But even if he had, he would not want to walk around with his old man. The family life Hank craved died a little each day.
The headlights cut through his thoughts. He was blinded for a moment and regained his vision when the car turned and pulled alongside his truck. Lori waved at him through the open window of her Honda Civic. The air was cool but pleasant. She had her hair pulled back and was not wearing makeup. Hank looked hard, thinking the makeup took ten years off of her, then he chastised himself. It wasn’t fair and it didn’t matter.
Lori stepped out, looked around the parking lot and slammed the door shut. She walked around the front of the Civic and stood outside of Hank’s driver’s side window. She wore a black hoodie and black jeans with black Chuck Taylor All-Stars. She looked like she was about to burglarize the neighborhood.
“Hank.”
“Hey, Lori. You ready?”
He knew it was a stupid question, but it was impossible to retract.
“No,” she said. Lori looked over a shoulder. “Can I get in? This feels really weird, like we’re up to no good.”
He waved her around to the passenger side. Hank brushed a stack of papers and empty coffee cups to the floor so she could sit. Lori opened the door, waited for Hank to finish and sat down. She closed the door but continued looking straight ahead through the windshield.
“I have to know something before we go,” she said.
“Of course,” Hank said.
“You have to promise me two things.”
“Sure.”
“First. This,” she said, waving her finger back and forth between them, “is not some play, not some clever ‘math professor’ way of you getting in my pants. I find you physically attractive but I’m happily married and even if I weren’t, you were my best friend’s husband. I don’t think you’re using an elaborate scheme to fuck me, but I need to put that out there.”
“Well, if we’re being brutally honest, I’ve always found you attractive but that is not what this is about. I love Michelle. I’ll always love her. This is about my family, about reuniting and getting back what was lost.”
Lori turned her head sideways and frowned, unsure if Hank’s response made her feel better or worse.
“Okay,” she said. “Second. If I feel or sense whatever spirits you claim are there, if I honestly say I can see them or hear them or smell them, you tell me everything.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I mean everything. Including what you’re up to with all of this. Those are my conditions and the only way I’m walking into Lake View Cemetery in October, at night.”
“Understood.”
Hank turned the key in the ignition and turned right on to Mayfield Road toward Lake View Cemetery.
Chapter 26
“You didn’t consider the gate would be locked?”
Hank sneered at Lori and tapped his fingers on the top of the steering wheel.
“Let’s park on one of the side streets and walk in.”
“Walk through the locked gate?”
“No. We’ll find another way in. I know of at least one place where there’s a hole in the fence.”
“Do what you need to do,” Lori said with both hands in the air, palms out.
Hank spun and put his arm on the headrest behind Lori before putting the truck in reverse. For just a moment, they made eye contact, their faces inches apart. Hank looked into the mirror instead, backed the truck out and pulled it curbside across from the main gate.
“Where?” she asked.
“Where what?” he asked, killing the engine and shutting of the headlights.
“Where is the hole in the fence?”
“Behind the observatory.”
“Shit. Seriously? Where the gangbangers hang out and sell drugs?”
Hank ignored Lori and stepped out of the truck. He pulled the collar of his coat up tight around his neck and waved at her to get out too. It was close to eleven o’clock at night and the traffic on Mayfield Road was thin. Hank walked across the four lanes without checking both ways and Lori followed. He turned right down the sidewalk, toward the observatory. He looked up and saw the shap
e of the observation domes in the sky. He nodded at them as Lori came up alongside him on the sidewalk.
They stepped over empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts. The closer they came to the observatory, the more trash they passed on the sidewalk.
“We’re not going in that thing, are we?”
“No. We’re heading around the back and down the hill. There’s a break in the fence back there.”
“I probably don’t want to know how you know that.”
“You don’t,” he said.
Hank took the lead and Lori followed close behind. She left her purse in the truck and now continually felt for it on her hip.
Hank ducked below a few low-hanging branches before reaching the chain link fence. It was rusted and coarse with barbed wire across the top, the kind they use on the perimeter of prison yards. Before she could ask Hank how they were going to get through, he crouched down and looked over his shoulder at her. He had his shaggy hair tucked behind his ears and beneath a black ski cap. His eyes cut through the gloom.
“The chain link is cut. We can slip through like it's a curtain.”
He thought about Fred and Martha coming through this fence, Singleton and his crew carrying some hideous thing on a stretcher. Hank closed his eyes and he could almost feel its presence. Lori’s hand touched his shoulder, shaking him from the thought.
“Let’s go before I change my mind.”
Hank nodded and ducked, stepping through the fence. Lori followed and they stood on the other side, on the grounds of Lake View Cemetery. Lori giggled.
“What?” he asked.
“I was expecting to be stopped by a ghost in chains or warned off by a witch.”
Hank rolled his eyes before stepping around the tree and winding his way deeper into the cemetery. She followed, stumbling over fallen branches and brambles.
“This would be easier with a flashlight.”
“It opens up in another fifty yards or so, then we’ll be on the manicured grounds.”
Lori followed him and the trees did part, revealing the black asphalt path running through Lake View Cemetery. They stood at the top of the hill at the base of the Garfield Memorial where two picnic tables sat in front of the monument, trees surrounding them like skeletal guardians. Lake Erie glistened in the distance while leaves chattered along the path.
“I don’t remember the last time I was in here,” Lori said. “If you grow up here, you kinda take this stuff for granted. It's more of a tourist stop.”
“A cemetery?” Hank asked.
“I don’t know. People are weird.”
Hank walked to the nearest picnic table and bent down to tie his shoe. At first, he thought the head rush was from bending over so quickly, but he could tell that wasn’t it. His insides felt oily and his ears began to ring. He sat on the bench while Lori remained standing in the middle of the path, gazing at Lake Erie. The cool, October wind pushed her ponytail back and forth and she looked like a disgruntled teenager in the darkened silhouette.
“Come here,” he said.
Hank saw the Brainard crypt appear inside of his head. Like before, the stone house of the dead was calling him, pulling him closer. Something was there he had to know, and now was the time to see if Lori had to as well.
“What?” she asked.
“Can you feel it?”
Hank thought she would immediately say no, slap him on the shoulder and call him an asshole. But she didn’t. At least not the first two.
“Yes, you fucking asshole.”
He waited.
“It's like someone is inside my head, whispering. But I can’t hear what they’re saying.”
Hank nodded and took Lori’s hand.
“I’m not making this up and I’m not losing my mind. There’s something in this cemetery and it's trying to get our attention.”
“It's got mine. Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t. You know that. We have to find out.”
It was Lori’s turn to nod and she allowed Hank to lead her by the hand. He walked on to the path and down the slope that would lead to the Brainard crypt. It was at the bottom of the hill where the cemetery flattened out before buttressing up against the neighborhood of East Cleveland.
They walked in silence, descending through the empty graveyard. Hank felt the vibrations return and they became stronger, pulsing as if he was standing on top of a backup generator. The air was colder now and Hank was not sure if that was because they were getting closer to a maleficent force or because the night always became colder in October.
“I can’t.”
Hank stopped and pulled Lori alongside him.
“We have to.”
“I know. God, I know. I feel it and I can almost make out the words. It wants to show us something, something we won’t want to see.”
Hank paused. Lori deduced more from the vibrations than he had, so he listened.
“Once we see it, there’s no going back. The thing, the power or demon or whatever is down there is not ever going to let us be the same again. Are you sure you can live with yourself?” she asked.
“I don’t have a choice. I’m doing this for Michelle. You can turn around and go home now.” Hank said it, but he didn’t believe Lori would go. He knew she was too far in to turn around. “Last chance.”
“I’m coming with you. You might have to drag me the last fifty feet, and I have no fucking idea how I’m going to walk into that crypt, but I’m all in. I loved her too.”
Hank shook and his legs felt weak.
Shit. We’re going inside the crypt. Fuck.
“We’ll do it together. C’mon.”
They walked stride for stride like lovers on a Sunday stroll, squeezing each other’s hand as they moved closer to the old crypts at the bottom of the hill.
Hank began to sweat despite the cool autumn air. His knees hurt and he felt his ankles throbbing as if the universe was doing everything in its power to keep him away, while the unknown force pulled him closer. He looked at Lori and saw the same internal struggle in her eyes. Hank thought of all of the old sci-fi movies he watched as a kid.
They got us in the tractor beam, he thought. They’re pulling us in.
The land flattened at the bottom of the hill and they could no longer see the light reflecting off the glimmering water of Lake Erie. Behind them, the Garfield Memorial stretched into the sky like a finger pointing at the eternal void of space. The wind stopped. Not even the fallen leaves moved.
Hank turned to his right, looking back up the hill where the Brainard crypt jutted out from the hillside. This time, the stone brick behind the wrought iron door was gone and the door itself was ajar. A single spark filled the center of darkness and the light flickered on the walls inside.
“Did someone light a candle in there?” Lori asked.
Hank shrugged and took a step toward the crypt. The ivy leaves lay on the ground but the branches remained twisted and curled around the stone, as though trying to strangle the spirits from it. The moss covering the lower levels of brick looked black in the faint light and the hill rose up behind the crypt. “It wants us to go inside.”
“No shit,” she said.
Hank tried to smile but couldn’t. His mouth was dry and his head throbbed, like a rat was in his brain trying to claw out through his eye sockets.
Deposits.
The single word entered both of their minds at the same time. Lori looked at Hank, her mouth open but unable to speak.
“C’mon,” Hank said as they walked toward the door to the crypt. The wind came from the west, pushing dead leaves across the stone with a low, insistent howling. The scent of pine mixed with decay brought a bitter taste to his lips, like vinegar. Black moss swallowed the carved relief and decades of acid rain pockmarked the stone.
He stepped inside first and pulled Lori along. They stood in a cramped, stone mausoleum. The crypt held stone sarcophagi stacked on each side. The darkness obscured the back wall and the iron gate slammed s
hut. Lori turned around, grabbed the bars with both hands and shook. Hank heard her whimper and realized he was doing it as well.
“No, no,” she said.
Hank grabbed the bars and pushed. He heard the metal innards of the lock rattle, but they did not move. Whatever summoned them would keep them for as long as it needed.
“Show us,” Hank said as he turned around.
Lori let loose of the bars but she continued to whimper.
“You brought us here. Now show us what we need to see.”
The vibrations they felt at the top of the hill faded and were replaced by sounds inside of their heads. Screams and cries rattled their skulls, forcing Hank and Lori to cover their ears with their hands, even though the terror was coming from within.
This is their prison. For eternity.
Hank looked up to see the lids of several of the stone sarcophagi sliding backward into the walls of the crypt. A single candle flickered to life in a sconce on the side of the wall. It flared up like a torch, casting light inside the caskets. Hank felt a force push him forward, like a stiff wind at his back.
They rot. The insects feast on their precious flesh.
He tried closing his eyes but the force was too strong.
Hank couldn’t even blink. His eyes burned from the dry air. Something pulled his chin down while pushing on the top of his head, fixing his line of sight to the inside of the coffin. Hank felt like a dog having his nose shoved in shit.
“No, please,” he heard, but couldn’t tell if it was Lori or him who said the words.
The force ignored the plea and the torch flared higher.
Hank looked into the coffin.
Judging from the length of the hair, the corpse was a woman. Her skin was gone leaving nothing but green-tinted bones and ragged clothing. The mouth stood open in an eternal scream and a single centipede exited her left eye socket and entered the right. Hank winced as the stench hit his face. It smelled rancid and earthy, like a mouse decomposing in a wall. The force pushed his face down harder as if wanting him to kiss the deceased.
You must save her from this.
Hank knew. He understood the message and wondered if a similar one was being delivered to Lori.