by David Wood
Back home in Memphis her red skirt and black blouse would have been perfectly normal, but in Stillwater the skirt's hem being above her knees was probably scandalous, as was the open neck of the blouse and the fair amount of cleavage it showed. Her black sandals were sensible, though, and for that small mercy she was grateful. She figured the small West Virginia town didn’t see too many black people. The fact that her father was white probably wouldn't have raised her stock any. Her skin was darker than theirs, and that was all that mattered.
Still, racism aside – though it wasn’t ever – that couldn’t account for the things she felt clawing at her mind as she walked to the nearby counter and took a seat. The atmosphere was too charged for that, too…she searched for the right word…imbedded. Everything was coated with it, like the counter around a cooktop slimy with grease and congealed bacon fat. As her hands settled on the counter she felt darkness in the chipped Formica, sensed it in the vinyl seat beneath her. There was evil in this place, and it was more than human. Much more. She bet if she dug down into the soil she’d find more of it, straight down to the bedrock. The evil in Stillwater was far worse than she’d imagined, and she’d only just arrived.
Maya, what in the hell have you gotten yourself into? she wondered, not for the first time.
The waitress shuffling toward her from behind the counter didn’t look like she was the head of the town’s welcome wagon. Her bare lips were set in a slanted smirk, and eyes the color of used dishwater peered out at Maya from beneath bottle blond hair, dark roots splitting her scalp like a hatchet wound. She had the same dull tone to her skin as the rest of the people in the diner had. A greasy white apron struggled to cover her gut and heavy, sagging breasts. Frayed jeans rode low on her hips, exposing a roll of fat riddled with stretch marks like a road map of poor choices. The name badge pinned to her chest read DOLORES.
“What do you want?” Dolores didn't bother getting her order pad out.
Maya wasn’t sure, all thoughts of eating now gone. Between the horrible vibes and the sullen diner, she didn’t imagine she’d eat anything until she was back home. But, she still had a job to do, so she plastered on a smile, checked her bag to make sure the recorder was on, and got on with it. “This place looks amazing, and I'm really hungry. How are your burgers?”
Dolores pursed her lips and snorted. “Like everything else we got – greasy.”
Maya’s fake grin widened. “That sounds...great.”
“I bet,” Dolores replied with a smile that stayed far away from her eyes. “You want fries with that?”
Fries were the last thing Maya wanted. She thought of the digital recorder in her purse and wished like hell it was a gun instead. “No, Ma'am, just the burger.”
Dolores nodded, the fat in her neck squishing together like a dog's chew toy, then turned to shout at the kitchen. “Dean, order up! One burger!” When that was done she looked back at Maya, and again Maya saw a flash of black eyes leading down to darkness so old it seemed outside of time. Delores ran thick fingers through her oily hair, and as her hand moved across her face, the image vanished. It took every ounce of Maya’s courage to not leap up from the chair and run. “That'll be three dollars.”
Reaching into her purse blindly, Maya's fingers found her wallet. The bills were in her hand as quickly as she could get them, and when she put the money on the counter her hands were shaking. Being afraid was bad enough, but to show it mortified her even more.
When the waitress picked the bills off the counter, she used the tips of her chipped nails to do it, then stuffed them in her apron like she was putting away something unseemly. After that she turned and shuffled away, her job done.
The man on Maya's left leaned toward her, his breath a heady mix of tobacco and whiskey. “We don't get many of your kind around here.”
Maya leaned away to get clean air, but she put on a smile when she turned toward him. His half-closed eyes floated in the same whiskey coating his breath, and the salty beard circling his mouth was stained brown and yellow beneath his pockmarked nose. His plaid work shirt and jeans were stained with dirt. Maya figured him for a farmer, though he probably had a bottle in his hand more often than a hoe.
“My kind?” Maya pretended she hadn't heard the undercurrent of his words. “You mean out-of-towners?”
The woman on the other side of him snorted with laughter. She was much younger than he was, but she had the same rheumy eyes and unpleasant nose. She was also dressed like him, though a lot more dirt was worn into the cuffs of her shirt and on her knees. “No.” The woman barely turned her head Maya's direction. “He meant niggers.”
Maya's gasp was inaudible over the laughter that rumbled from the people in the diner. When Maya had been called that word in the past, it was usually said so no one else could hear, or when no one else was around, but these people had no such discretion. She looked from one sallow face to another, hoping she’d find someone as insulted as she was. In the back booth were a couple of teenagers, both of them probably fresh from a long day in school, and their eyes were wide open in shock, but when she looked at them they ducked their heads and tried to disappear. Everyone else, though, stared at her bold as brass. Their open hostility held her spellbound.
“Here's yer burger.” Dolores dropped a grease-stained brown bag on the countertop. The sound of the paper slapping against plastic snapped Maya out of her momentary daze. Dolores snorted again before turning away to wipe down the serving counter behind her. “I made that to go, so you should do that. Now.”
Maya's shock at being openly treated like a worthless animal quickly turned into fury mixed with fear. She knew, though, that standing her ground or saying something would only make things worse, so she grabbed her bagged burger, got up, and walked out of the diner with her shoulders straight and her head high. As soon as the door closed behind her, she threw the bag in a nearby garbage can and hurried to her car. The engine barely turned over before she reversed out of the parking space and headed back the way she'd come. Her hands shook so hard that she had to grip the steering wheel extra tight to hold onto it. When Hurley's Hardware slid by on her left, she stopped in front of it again.
“No!” Her voice boomed in the car's interior. “You are not going to let those assholes bother you. You're not. You're better than that, better than them. You came here to do a job, and that's exactly what you're going to do. Fuck those small-minded bigots. The only person who runs your life is you, so get it together girl and move on.”
She knew she looked stupid sitting in her car talking to herself, but she didn't care. Each word took away some of her fear, until eventually her hands relaxed their death grip. After several cleansing breaths, she squared her shoulders again and picked up the Google Map. She'd told herself she still had work to do, and that was true, so she pushed the diner from her mind as best she could and looked over her options. With the hour being what it was, there really was only one.
Turning the car around, Maya drove past the diner, went down two more blocks, and then turned right. Next to the road was a small brown sign. On it was printed the name of her destination – STILLWATER CEMETERY.
Maya was special. Most parents say that about their kids, but with her it was true. For as long as she could remember she’d heard things no one else heard, saw things most others were blind to – cold spots, groaning walls, strange breezes. For her, weirdness was just a fact of life. So, when she’d visited her first cemetery at the age of twelve, she’d been filled with dread. The dead were already too much a part of her life.
Her father's sister, Teresa, had been married to a Memphis businessman with deep roots in the community, so when she passed away from breast cancer she was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Maya barely knew her aunt before she died, so the church funeral had bothered her only so far as it had meant a great deal of grief for her dad, whom she loved dearly.
Maya had worried her head would explode when she crossed over the white bridge that led into Elmwood. But, to he
r amazement, she'd felt nothing. As far as her sixth sense or mind's eye or whatever she had in her was concerned, Elmwood Cemetery was as free a place of supernatural spookery as she could have wanted. Her sigh of relief had been long and satisfying.
Since that day she'd gone to many other cemeteries, some for work and some not, and all of them had been just as free, just as clear. It wasn't until she heard a comedian joke about how having a prison near your town wasn't a bad thing because anyone who broke out wasn't likely to stick around and check out the housing market that she understood why cemeteries were so psychically blank. In all the world, what could be more unappealing to a spirit than a place no one wanted to stay for long? Spirits, both kindly and not, sought out the one thing they didn't have - life.
Standing beneath a ratty umbrella that barely kept the rain off, Maya knew Stillwater Cemetery was no different. The wrought iron text that arched over the entrance gate said it had been established in 1906, and judging from the number of tombstones and grave markers littering the land beyond the tall black fencing she believed it. It was a reaper's garden that had been well tended and fruitfully planted. In the distance, graves continued up the side of a mountain that rose up at the rear of the cemetery, as though the dead were being led to Heaven.
Cemeteries said a lot about a community. It wasn't just in how well they were maintained, but also in how many graves had flowers or other tokens left by loved ones, and in what had been inscribed on the tombstones. But, what she liked even more, were the grave markers themselves, especially the ornate ones. She'd stood before more towering spires and life-sized weeping angels than she could count. The biggest and boldest one she'd ever seen was a ninety-foot tall granite pyramid in Richmond, Virginia's Hollywood Cemetery that had been erected to honor the tens of thousands of enlisted Confederate soldiers buried nearby. That marker had humbled her more than any other.
The cemetery in Stillwater fell a bit short in Maya's estimation. The grass was halfway up to her knees, and long dead flowers wilted in soggy arrangements over several gravesites. It wasn't terribly neglected, but if someone didn't come out soon it would be. After her recent trip in town, she didn’t know why she’d hoped for better.
The gravestones nearest the gate looked old, their engraved faces weathered and faded, with some of the words and dates on them unreadable. She walked slowly through the wet grass from stone to stone, getting a feel for the area, seeing who had died, when, and perhaps even how. Life had been hard back near the turn of the twentieth century, especially for miners, and the graves were a testament to that. Most of the people were lucky if they lived longer than forty years, though from the epitaphs it looked like the love of those left behind was powerful, sometimes even poetic. The grave of Mozell Watkins, 1872 - 1913, read, “Mother's love was as the sun, and it warms us even after it has set.” It was a beautiful sentiment, especially given the black clouds that never seemed to stop pouring down.
The further Maya walked from the gate, the newer the graves were, and the easier it was to trace family lines. Some families were even grouped together in large plots bordered by stones or poured concrete borders. The Conways were energetic breeders judging by the number of tombstones clustered beneath a red mulberry tree, as were the Harrods grouped close by. The largest collection of graves, though, belonged to the Tazwells. They were also the only family in the cemetery with a mausoleum.
The grave markers continued up the mountain a ways, and she turned to continue her tour, but a stone marker sitting far off to itself near the base of the rise caught her attention. She walked over to it, careful not to slip on the wet grass. She hadn't realized how far it sat from the rest of the cemetery until she'd walked the distance, but it was easily twenty yards. A distance like that wasn't accidental.
Sure enough, as she rounded the tombstone, the situation became clearer. The marker, a standard granite gravestone without any frills or familial touches, memorialized someone named Stanley Wellen, born September 3rd, 1980, died March 15th, 2008. Beneath the dates was etched, “May he find the peace in death he could not find in life.” It was a rather unremarkable headstone, but words spray-painted in white across it gave the marker a special touch - “ROT IN HELL U FUKER!”
That wasn't the only bit of vandalism the headstone had suffered – various swear words, renditions of middle fingers, and chisel marks were arranged artfully across its face – but the white spray paint was by far the largest. It was also the most recent judging by the condition of the paint.
The grass around the grave lay wilted and brown, probably from someone pouring chemicals on it, while beer cans, bottles of whiskey, and cigarette butts littered the ground. Whoever Stanley Wellen was, he hadn't been well loved.
Something about the name struck a bell in Maya's head, so, using the hand not holding the umbrella, she patted her pockets for her phone to try a quick internet search, found only her small Nikon digital camera; her phone was back in the car, charging. With a well-practiced hand she took out the camera and snapped off a few pictures of the desecrated headstone. The grave itself probably wouldn't have any bearing on her research, but the pictures would remind her to look up Stanley and see why people took such delight in defiling his grave.
As she tucked the camera back in her pocket a sudden shiver ran up her spine, and her entire body shook as a deep chill closed around her like a corpse’s embrace. She stumbled backward, her breath fogging the air, and instantly realized her earlier presumption was wrong.
The cemetery wasn’t empty.
A hand erupted from the earth at her feet, skeletal fingers clawing through dirt and withered grass. Maya jumped backward and squealed in shock. Another bony hand tore through the ground, strips of flesh stretching over joints and blood oozing across the mangled turf as the hand reached out and pulled its way upward.
This isn’t real, she told herself as she closed her eyes and slowly backed away. This isn’t real. It’s just a spirit too stupid to move on trying to scare you. They feed on that. Don’t give in. Deny it. Don’t be afraid.
“It’s coming, Maya,” a voice said, the words sliding over her like clouds slipping across the moon. “And it will devour you whole.”
She knew keeping her eyes closed would only make her more afraid, and therefore more vulnerable to the spirit’s hunger, so Maya forced her eyelids open. Slime covered bones and ragged bits of bloody skin filled her vision, but it was the gaping black maw of Stanley Wellen’s skull that made her clutch her umbrella like a bat and shuffle away. Pale white orbs rested in the skull’s eye sockets, and ratty hunks of stringy blond hair hung from the cracked dome, but it was the mouth – the impossibly moving mouth – that filled her with horror. Beyond the broken teeth and clacking jawbones was a darkness unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Bottomless. Eternal. Devoid of light, and joy, and life. It was a black from before the creation of the universe, and through it spoke the dead. It terrified her, yet drew her in like a riptide swirling around her feet.
“What’s coming?” Maya asked the question before she knew the words were leaving her lips.
Stanley’s vile spirit dragged its blackened ribcage up from the spreading muck of its grave and laughed. “Fire, you stupid half-breed bitch. And blood. And death. It’s coming, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” Chunks of putrefied organs slithered between his ribs and plopped onto the mud.
“You’re lying.” She spoke the words with all the conviction she could muster, but even as she did she knew the lie was hers.
Heaving upward, the rotted body of Stanley Wellen nearly came free. Only its lower legs remained buried in the grave. “Look at you, a frightened little black bird thinkin’ your tiny wings will carry you away from the evil that’s comin’. Sorry to tell ya, but it’s too late. It’s already here, all around you, and soon the world will suffer. Won’t that be grand?!”
Stanley tossed back his skull and cackled like shards of glass being jammed in Maya’s ears, but then it lunged forwa
rd in the muck and grabbed her ankles. The bones of his hands were ice cold and hard as stone where they gripped her flesh, and she felt the burn of his deathly touch creep up her legs. Her mind panicked, her heart leapt into her throat, and all she could think to do was close her eyes and swing her umbrella. It was a convenience store piece of shit, little more than thin strips of metal, pink plastic, and waterproof fabric, but in her terror she wielded it like a flaming sword. Her arms rose and fell, rose and fell, and her voice cried out, “No! No! Let me go! Get away from me! No!” Stanley’s laughter pounded against her. She beat the ground, screamed, kicked, flailed, fought for life with all she had. It wasn’t until she fell down and the umbrella slipped from her hands that she dared look at the grasping skeleton again.
Other than a few gouges in the earth, Stanley Wellen’s grave was unmarked. Of course it is, she thought, her pulse beating so hard she felt it in her temples. It was either his damn spirit playing with me, or it was…something else. Hell, maybe it was neither. Or both. Shit.
Regretting she’d ever heard of the town of Stillwater, Maya calmed her breathing as best she could, then picked herself up and grabbed her umbrella, which was now useless. Tufts of dead grass and yellowish mud clung to the bent tines and torn fabric. She didn’t give the grave another look as she turned toward the cemetery’s entrance. She wanted to run back to her car, but she’d already given into her fear enough, so she kept to a slow jog.
“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day,” she said as the cemetery gates slid past. “Alan will be here tomorrow, and together we’ll find out what is really going on around here. Yep, that’s what will happen. Yes indeedy.”
Worried that if she started laughing she’d never stop, Maya exhaled a warm gust of air from her nose, opened the car, and got in. Her next stop was a motel room and a very long, hot shower. As she drove away, part of her wished she’d had her EM detector and video recorder with her at Stanley Wellen’s grave. He might have scared the crap out of her, but actual evidence she could post on her site would have almost made the experience worth it. Not enough, though, for her to turn around and try her luck again.