He heard the grunt a second before he felt the man’s fist strike his lower back. Max arched as the man grabbed his head and tossed him into the wall. His left arm blocked much of the impact, but still he saw little blue flashes in the darkness.
He heard Sandra scream. He heard the man yell. He heard a body smack into something hard and drop. As he forced himself to stand (he only just noticed he had fallen to the floor), Max felt hands grab hold of his arm. He yanked back, flailing in the dark.
“It’s okay. It’s me,” Sandra said.
“Where’s—”
“I don’t know. He grabbed me and I bit his hand. Then I swung my fist and hit him—I think in the head but I’m not sure. I can’t see anything. Can you walk?”
“I’m okay,” Max said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and using her as a crutch. His head blazed, and he wanted to vomit but managed to keep setting one foot in front of the other.
They reached the stairs and clambered up to the main floor. Light from the streets pierced the darkness in sharp slivers—enough to move fast. Max took three deep breaths, let go of Sandra, and focused on walking in a straight line. Each step sent stabs up his side but he pushed on. Knowing the danger just one floor below motivated him plenty.
Sandra darted ahead, reached the backdoor and rattled the handle until it opened. He could see her triumphant smile. “I got it,” she said.
She put her arm around his waist for support, and together they stepped into the backyard, light rain dancing on their faces and filling the chill night air with its fresh smell. They hurried along the path leading to the garden and the fenced-in crops. Max expected to hear the man slam open the door and chase after them but nothing came. Not yet. Sandra slipped on the wet ground, causing Max to stumble as well, but they managed to stay standing and rushed to the garden’s end.
“Can you climb over?” Sandra asked.
The fence was made of wood and only chest high, but Max knew the climb would hurt. The idea of going back and around the fence did not sit well, though, so he nodded. Wincing and grunting, and with the aid of Sandra, he managed the small feat.
“The car’s this way,” Sandra said, heading left.
“No,” Max said. “They might be waiting for us.”
“They? There’s more than one?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not risking it. Let’s go around, take the long way, and we’ll circle back. If there’s only one or a whole gang it won’t matter. Either they’ll have left by that time or we’ll be able to see them as we approach. We’ll know then and figure it out from there.”
“Okay,” she said, scanning the area. “We’re on Old Salem Road.”
“Follow it to the right. I think it curves a few blocks up and connects with Main Street.”
As they walked along the glistening street, several cars shot by. Max felt too unsteady for this street. He kept seeing himself weave into the path of an oncoming car. With a nod, he led Sandra back onto Salt Street, heading away from their car and paralleling Old Salem Road.
He checked over his shoulder for any pursuit. Just empty street. White streetlamps dotted the right side of the road, one with a white street sign—the paint chipping off. The left side had a brick sidewalk and homes. The cracked pavement pooled water. A weird sensation formed in Max’s chest, worked upward until it reached his face, and emerged with a fit of giggles.
“What are you laughing at?” Sandra asked, smiling at his infectious sound.
Max tried to suppress the noise, clamping his mouth down, but it only served to strengthen the laughter until it burst from his nose. He shook his head as he laughed, wiped his tearing eyes, and said, “I’m just thinking about that guy. He’s all acting tough and then Wham! You nailed him.” The laughter erupted again.
Sandra joined in. “I wish it hadn’t been so dark. Can you picture his face? Duh!” she said and crossed her eyes. Max laughed so hard he stopped making sound and clutched his side in pain yet unable to stop smiling. After a few more feet, they had to sit on the wooden steps of a house until all their tension had been released. With a cleansing breath, Max said, “Oh my. We shouldn’t laugh. When we get back we should call the police or somebody. That guy might’ve gotten hurt.”
“So what? You really care what happens to him? He tried to kill you.”
“I don’t know if he would’ve gone that far.”
“They’ve already shot at you.”
“I just don’t want to become like them. We can be better people. You know?”
Sandra squeezed his arm. “Okay. We’ll call. But right now, let’s keep moving. Whoever they are, they probably don’t care about being the better people.”
“Good point,” Max said. They got back to their feet and headed along the street, their steps not filled with as much dread as before. Up ahead, the road ended. The grass rose steeply for just a short step and off to the right they saw a giant, silver coffee pot, at least ten-feet high, probably more, surrounded by flowers. “What the heck?”
A small plaque explained that the large tin coffee pot had been created in 1858 by the Mickey brothers as an advertisement for their tinsmith business. Max shook his head. “This place is nuts,” he said.
“I think it’s neat,” Sandra said. “It’s like a touch of the modern day seeping back into history. Granted, advertising isn’t the best aspect of us to have seep back but still it just makes me …”
“Are you okay?” Max asked. Sandra turned around and stared. Max followed her gaze and saw nothing. “Another ghost?”
She nodded. Then she whispered, “It’s coming straight at us. It’s beckoning us.”
“Tell it to go away. We’re done for the night.”
“I can barely hear him.”
“There’s nothing worth hearing.”
“Shush already.”
Sandra leaned forward and cupped one ear. She looked so ridiculous, appearing to listen to the giant coffee pot, that Max felt another wave of giggles rising. But before he could utter one chuckle, Sandra stepped back with her face drained of color. A few months ago, Max would have said, “What’s the matter? See a ghost?” Of course, now, he knew she had and that something far worse bothered her.
She turned her gaze toward him and said, “He says he’s been watching us tonight. He says he knows what book we want. We just have to follow him.”
“So, what’s the matter?”
“We have to go over there,” she said pointing further along the way they had been traveling.
“Why’s that scare you? I just see trees and the street. Is there something else?”
“One more street over—that’s where we’re going.”
Without offering more, she walked away. Max hurried to her side and attempted to get her to talk, but she behaved in a weird, zombie-like manner. Shock, he thought. But from what?
They passed a white building with tall columns that once may have been a mansion or a public assembly but now served as apartments. Turning up Bank Street, they saw sleek black statuettes lining the outside of the apartment building—a lion, a retriever, and some other dog Max did not know. The statuettes held relaxed poses that filled Max with more dread than if they had been menacing in appearance—as if their calm lay in knowing they had to exert such little effort to capture their prey.
“Where’s it taking us?” Max asked, not expecting an answer but needing to hear a voice even if it belonged to him. He tasted blood in his mouth and swallowed it down. Sandra moved on, one hand out as if feeling for the ghost more than seeing the thing.
Bank Street rose steeply, and when they finally reached the next street over, Max huffed as he stared at the gothic structure. A church, he thought. Then he understood Sandra’s behavior. Before them, stretching off into the distance was a low, brick wall with white fencing completing it. An arched gate led into an enormous field. A sign read:
SALEM MORAVIAN GRAVEYARD
“GOD’S ACRE”
1771
PLEASE BE REVERENT AND
RESPECTFUL OF THIS SPECIAL PLACE.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When they passed through the archway, everything changed. Until that moment, even as they crossed the street and approached the cemetery, Max would have been glad to call it a night. His body ached, his nerves jangled, nothing felt right. But when they entered the stone fields, though his fear compounded, his mind swelled with awe—never had he seen a cemetery like this one.
The graves were all the same—flat, white tablets laid in orderly squares; men and women separated; a few American flags the only vertical aspect to the burials. Enormous, ancient trees protected much of the well-manicured area.
Max figured that in daylight this would be a charming, peaceful place. At night, however, the eerie uniformity and stark whiteness of the tombstones mixed with the thick silence surrounding the cemetery created a stomach-twisting sensation. He felt burdened by the graves as if a giant child had placed them so carefully and now hawked over to make sure he did not disturb a single thing.
“There’s too many,” Sandra said, squinting in the dark. “I can barely see.”
Max saw nothing but imagined well that his wife suffered from the many ghosts of a graveyard. He wanted to push her to find the one they had followed but kept silent. She didn’t need him to bug her about the obvious.
“This way, I think,” Sandra said, picking up her pace while shielding her eyes with her hand.
As they walked, Max read the name, dates, and epitaphs off several graves. From his research he recognized many of them. Joseph Harris (1821-1883) The Lord is my Shepard. William Whitt (1900-1923) Innocence Taken Early Will Shine In Heaven. Rebecca Burman (1818-1890) A Light in Our Days. Eve Hull (1750-1837) Tucker Loved Her.
Max paused to read the marker again. So Eve had chosen Tucker after all. Only something must have happened to bring her home. No way would the Moravians bury her here if she was still married to a magic dabbling sinner.
“Honey? Can you see the ghosts?”
Max looked up at Sandra, surprised to see the concern on her face. “No. Only Drummond. Why? What are they doing?”
“The one we’re following—it stopped here.”
With a nod to the grave, Max said, “That’s why.” He let out a long breath. “I suppose I’ll be digging quite a lot tonight.”
“Max,” she said, a sudden tremble in her voice that tightened around Max’s neck and shoulders.
“What’s wrong?”
Stepping back with her hand gesturing to the air in front of Max, she said, “The ghost. It’s reaching toward you.”
“Tell it to stop.”
“Stop it! Please,” she said, her eyes glistening. “It won’t listen.”
A scraping, shuffling sound rolled in. They both peered back toward the street. A dark figure approached, dragging one foot behind, clearly disoriented but determined.
“It’s him,” Max said.
“Run. Go. This ghost looks mean. I think it’s going to do something bad. I think—”
But Max did not move. He watched the emptiness before him, wondering what it wanted with him. Why bring him all the way out here and show him the grave, if it only had wanted to harm him? Why approach slowly, cautiously, if it only had wanted to attack? “It’s okay, honey,” he said, knowing he sounded weak and unsure. “I think it wants to help us some more.”
“You can’t see this thing. Run!”
Max heard the shuffling from behind and felt the air in front of him grow cold. Don’t be an idiot, he thought. He turned away, reached for Sandra’s hand, and pushed off his feet but running away did not occur. Instead, he felt ice break into the back of his skull.
“Max!”
He faced Sandra, and before he could wonder what had caused her ghastly countenance, he saw the ghost. It floated next to him, wore a suit, tie, and derby from the late-1800s. Its face had rotted away leaving behind a skull with bits of stringy skin hanging from its jaws like seaweed from an ancient wreck. And it had its hand thrust into Max’s head. The cold spreading throughout Max’s brain brought sharp flashes of pain.
“Stop it!” Sandra screamed at the ghost, but it did not budge. “Max! Max! What’s it doing to you? Are you okay?”
Max looked back toward the man that had been pursuing them. As he turned his head, he saw the blinding light of thousands of ghosts. “I can see them,” he said. “This hurts, but I can see them all.”
As his ear began to freeze, Max tried to focus on the book. The ghost had helped them get this far, maybe this ‘sight’ it had given him was also meant to help. Hurry, his cold brain implored.
Awestruck by the multitude of transparent figures floating throughout the graveyard, Max could not stop gawking—even as the cold and throbbing pain reached downward toward his chest, even as the man bent on killing them came closer. Like a grand masked ball, there were people of all ages dressed in all forms of clothing from the eighteenth century to present day. A young couple strolled hand in hand as if on a Sunday afternoon. A bent man hugged another man with a loud welcome. They all moved with grace like swans in morning fog.
“Max!” Sandra said, snapping him back.
The book. He scanned the nearest ghosts, hoping one of them carried it. The hand stuck in his head pushed him to the ground so that he looked upon Eve Hull’s grave. He started digging around the edges, the stone cold to the touch—or perhaps his fingers had just gone numb, he couldn’t tell.
“Hurry,” Sandra said, knelling beside him to help dig.
The ghost that held him tugged and pushed. Max ignored these encouragements—he moved as fast as he could and no amount of pressure from a ghost would change that. He glanced up at the approaching man. “Damnit,” Max said, turning toward the ghost, the pain in his head firing high at the movement. “Instead of hurting me, get your friends to stop that guy.”
As he turned back, he saw at least ten, maybe twenty, ghosts soar toward the man—arms outstretched. As they prodded the man, slipping their hands into his head, arms, legs, stomach, and chest, the man convulsed with each attack. He fought against this invisible assault, forcing himself several steps forward. More ghosts flew in creating a blinding white light centered on the man. In the end, he turned away and scuttled from the cemetery.
As Max turned back to the grave, the cold spreading over his stomach, he saw a ghostly outline inside the grave next to Eve Hull’s. It was a glowing rectangle—like a book. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. He pointed but Sandra did not see his shaking hand.
When he fell to his knees, she looked up. “Enough!” she said. “You’re going to kill him. Let him go. We’ll find the book. Just let him go.”
The ghost turned its hand more and Max groaned. Sandra stood and with a sound colder than Max’s body felt, she said, “Let go of my husband.” When the ghost did not move, she pulled back a fist and smashed the ghost in the stomach. It fell back and disappeared but not before uttering a shocked cry.
With a gulp of air as if he had been drowning, Max doubled over. Warmth flushed his body and every nerve tingled as if it had fallen asleep. “How … did you … do that?” he said through gasps.
Sandra smiled with bewildered excitement. “I figured if they can touch us—”
Max looked around but now only saw darkness. “Is it still here?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much. They’re all just standing around waiting. I think I’ve freaked them out a little.”
“Come here. This grave. The book is here. That’s what the ghost wanted to show us.”
Exhausted, but excited as well, Max and Sandra dug around the edges of the stone. Their fingers dirtied with the muddy ground, but they did not stop. Sweat mingled with drizzle, but they did not stop. They had been through too much that night to stop over such minor matters as discomfort.
When they had dug beneath the stone, Max gripped it with the tips of his fingers and lifted. Straining, he pulled the stone from the suckin
g ground. Sandra grabbed on from the other side and pulled. The gravestone lifted a little bit, but its weight threatened to bring it right back down. With a low grunt, Max lifted harder, getting one foot underneath him and pushing upward. The ground emitted a loud slurp and the stone broke free, sending a wave of warm air upward. It smelled bad, but bad odors were among their least concerns.
Sitting in the middle of the mud square that marked where the stone had been was a wrapped package. Neither Max nor Sandra moved at first. Stunned by the simple object that had caused so much trouble, Max felt a wave of guilt rush over him like he had when he was a kid and broke the law by stealing a comic book. He looked around the empty cemetery, half-expecting to see the police come zooming in with flashing reds and blues.
“Take it,” Sandra said. “Take it and let’s get out of here.”
Max snatched the package and tucked it under his coat to protect it from the drizzle. Like a child anxious to receive a reward, he hurried his steps, clutching the package close to his stomach, protecting it like a baby. It pressed against his skin with a warm touch and the smell of decay drifted toward his nose as they headed back.
Though both wanted to get to the car and leave Old Salem, they took a long route around to continue avoiding Main Street. A car drove by—the lonely sound of its motor in the quiet night reached them long after it had passed. When they arrived at the small Salt Street lot and saw their car sitting under the large tree where they had left it, Max felt both relief and worry. Sandra gripped his hand.
They stood across the street, watching the car, wondering if the man who had assaulted them watched it, too. With water dribbling off of Max’s head, his body cold except for the warmth of a package torn from the grave, his bones aching from the night’s exertions, part of him just wanted to walk home. The hell with this moron. But the idea of walking for miles, of taking hours before he could safely open what rested against his stomach, was more than he could stand.
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