by Judy Clemens
Exactly what Pastor Sheila had said back in the Harvest Church of Saints.
“Justus said if I saw you not to tell her anything. You know, so I don’t have to lie. Now that would bring on guilt.” She pulled the papers from the printer and slid them across the desk. “Take a look. If it’s right, sign your name at the bottom.”
“And Austin?”
Whistler shrugged. “If Officer Craphole calls or comes by asking again, Austin will send him to me. I’ll do what I can to send him away unsatisfied. I can’t promise anything, though. These guys may be corrupt, but they’re also persistent.”
Death’s trench coat drooped. “Not exactly the confidence I was hoping for.”
Casey pushed down her unease, and signed her name.
Chapter Eighteen
“Casey. Hey. Wake up.” Death swooped low over the bed, curled in a misty, dreamlike wisp.
Casey pulled the quilt up to her chin. “Whaddo youwann?” She rolled onto her side. It had been late when she returned from the police station, and she had finally fallen into a deep slumber.
“Casey. Sleeping Beauty. I want to show you something.”
A cold breeze blew over Casey, forming icicles on her eyelashes. “Stoppit.”
“Then wake up.”
Casey groaned, flopping onto her back and raising herself onto her elbows. Her ribs ached. She took a deep breath through her nose and blinked open her icy eyelids. “What? What couldn’t wait till morning?”
“It’s important. Get dressed.”
Casey forced herself out from the covers. She sleepwalked through a dressing ritual, pulling a sweatshirt over her head and warm-ups over her shorts. She jammed her feet into her running shoes, then climbed out the fire escape.
Death waited in the shadows, eyes bright, clothes dark. “Ready?”
The cool night air woke Casey, and she stretched her arms toward the sky, then down to her toes. She dipped her chin to her chest, tipped her ears to her shoulders, took several deep breaths, and straightened her back. “Where are we going?”
Death didn’t answer.
They set off down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, past the police department, the bank, the houses leading toward the edge of town. They kept going.
The clouds surrounding the moon shone with a silvery glow, the moon itself peeking out every few minutes, casting stark shadows. Death floated in front, leading Casey past the sleeping town. Casey shuddered, remembering the atmosphere of Beltmore only a few days earlier. Armstrong had its issues, but at least it didn’t feel like a town forgotten.
“Where are we going?” Casey asked again.
Again, Death remained silent.
They continued into the country, passing a mint field, partially harvested. The sharp smell stung Casey’s nose, and she marveled at how that crop became the scent and herb so many people loved. Lights pinpointed farmsteads spread across the land. Casey wondered if those families had been at the movie night fiasco, or whether they kept to themselves and let the town folks hang with their own.
After a few minutes of walking Death took a left into a beet field, leading Casey onto a well-worn track, used by machinery with wide tires. Lights from the central farm, which Casey assumed went with the field, glowed in the distance, and Casey hoped the owners weren’t watching with shotguns as she trespassed. She needed her phone’s flashlight now that she was off the road, but kept it pointed at the ground with her hand cupped around it.
The dry earth sent up puffs of dust, and Casey sneezed.
“Almost there,” Death said.
Casey stumbled over a rock and righted herself. Death had stopped.
Casey placed her phone against her leg, shutting out the light. “What am I supposed to do? Stargaze?”
Death gestured to her feet and Casey looked down, leaking some light from her screen. She hadn’t tripped over a rock. She’d tripped over a gravestone.
Casey jerked the flashlight up to see that Death had reverted to the traditional Grim Reaper garb, a dark hooded robe and a scythe, held in skeletal fingers. No face was visible, just a dark void within the hood. Rather than being freaked out by this appearance, Casey felt mollified, like things had returned to their origins.
“We’re in a graveyard? Out here?”
“From many years past.” Death’s voice echoed, as if spoken through a tunnel. “A generation has passed since the last soul was here laid to rest.”
Casey rolled her eyes at the dramatics. “And why are we out here in the middle of the night instead of during the day?”
“This is the hour at which all secrets will be revealed.”
“Seriously?”
The scythe dipped as some of the starch went out of Death’s posture. “I thought it would be eerier this way.” Death sounded like a disappointed child.
“Save it for Halloween.”
“Which is coming up!” Death clapped, now like an excited child, ready for sugar.
“So…” Casey rolled her hand to move things along.
Death suddenly wore denim overalls and a John Deere cap. “Take a look at the gravestones. You may see a familiar name.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“It’s not that big a graveyard.”
“Listen, Father Time. It’s late. It’s dark. I’ve already tripped over a stone.”
Death stepped back, arms crossed.
“Fine. But if I get shot, it’s your fault.” Casey swung her light in front of her. A small plot lay spread out before her, maybe a dozen graves across, with as many deep. She ignored the sleep itching at her eyelids, and began with the stone at her feet. Beverly Adams, 1901-1954. She walked up and down the rows, skipping the stones with illegible markings, and ones which had fallen on their faces. A breeze started and she glared at Death, who hummed “Memory” from Cats. Casey zipped up her sweatshirt and kept on. Lots of local names, or at least, groupings of names. Gifford and Dryden. Ochoa and Barrios.
Finally, in the second to last row, she halted in surprise. “Daily? As in Vern and Dottie Daily?”
“As in.”
Casey squatted by the stone, which sat to the side of a larger family one. Angels had been carved into the granite, and there was only one date. June 2, 1964. Above it loomed the name, Anne Marie Daily. Underneath, in cursive script, Beloved daughter of Vernon and Dorothy Daily. Born into Heaven.
Casey groaned. The epitaph was a phrase meant for stillborn children. How awful. She knew what it felt like to lose a child. But the Dailys had never gotten to know their daughter. Would that be harder than losing one in later years? Or easier? Or was it unfair to compare two unthinkable scenarios?
She placed her hand on the child’s name. “Do you know what happened?”
“Dorothy contracted the German measles while Anne Marie was in utero, which caused complications. She died a week before her due date. I came and got her myself. I don’t like the young ones to be afraid.”
Casey swallowed. Death came personally to retrieve Omar, as well. That’s how they first got acquainted. “And the Dailys—they never tried to have more children?”
“I’m not privy to everyone’s thoughts. But you can see they don’t have any.”
This explained the haze of sorrow Casey felt the first time she entered the Dailys’ house. It wasn’t just Dottie’s illness, but a black emotional void. How do you get over the loss of a child? If anyone anywhere knew the answer, Casey certainly hadn’t heard it.
Casey stood, her heart heavy. “No wonder Dottie’s bitter. No wonder they don’t have any family photos.” She stared blankly at the house across the field, the lights shining. “Wait. Their baby died in 1964? How old would Dorothy have been?”
“Nineteen.”
“Wow. So young. Wait. She met Vern in Portland the summer right after high school, right? If she was only ninete
en when the baby died, it was conceived that summer. Before they were married.”
“That happens.”
“I’m not judging. But back then was different. People weren’t so forgiving of teens making mistakes. She did say she and her sister don’t speak. Think it was because of this?”
Death swirled suddenly in a circle, back in Reaper gear, robes billowing. The displaced air smelled hot, like singed hair.
“What’s wrong?”
Death didn’t answer, and the circle grew larger, larger, until Casey was in the midst of it, lost in the churning darkness, growing colder. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Ankou? What are you doing?”
The circle of Death encompassed the entire cemetery now in a suffocating whirlwind. Casey’s hair blew around her face, whipping her eyes and cheeks, blowing into her mouth.
And then the storm grew an eye, like a hurricane, expanding from the middle, blowing past Casey to the edge of the cemetery, until it exploded, silently, into nothingness.
Casey’s breath came fast and loud, and she collapsed onto the ground. “Ankou? Azrael?”
Death appeared where the storm had begun, hunched in the Reaper robes, face a black hole, voice echoing. “Something is not right here.”
“Something with the graves? The names? Dates?”
“I do not know.”
The night lay still around them, even the insects silent.
“I do not know,” Death said again.
Casey shivered, chilled from Death’s disturbance. “What do we need to do?”
Death’s tension dissipated, until the robes ceased their whirling and hung in suspended tension.
“You’re okay now?”
But Death’s aura had become even darker than usual. Deep…and dark…and ageless.
“Santa Muerte?” Casey’s voice dropped to a whisper.
Something cold and ancient seeped from the place where Death’s face should be. “I am not okay. But I’m not sure why.”
“What can I do?”
Death’s robes swished and straightened one more time.
“Simply come. Come, my love. It’s time to go home now.”
“No,” Casey said. “Armstrong is not home.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
Casey peered up at Death. Had Death become home? Was that why she was here, in the bone-numbing darkness, shivering under the onslaught of fear and uncertainty and doubt? She considered the setting, where once more she found herself among the dead, her only companion the one who literally was at home among graves and tombstones and corpses.
She tipped onto her back and gazed at the moon, hidden now behind the clouds. Why couldn’t she find her way among the living? Why was this world, whether here in the cemetery or at home in Colorado, so full of pain and regret, why was it the only place she could discover? All it did was hold her back, hold her hostage, hold her down.
“Casey?” Death’s robes fluttered over her. “It’s time to move on.”
Casey closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She held it until she began to feel dizzy, then let it out. When she thought she could stand, she rose to her feet and made her way down the track toward the road.
Chapter Nineteen
She was halfway to town when she heard the car. Death left without explanation several minutes before, so she had no advance warning of upcoming traffic. She was immediately taken back to the night in Beltmore and scanned the landscape for a hiding place, but there was nothing. No trees. No deep ditches. Not even a crop high and thick enough to hide her. She prepared herself to run.
“Casey?”
A cop car pulled up beside her. Casey kept walking until she was even with the driver’s door. “Hey, Officer.”
Whistler looked behind Casey, as if expecting to see someone else. “What are you doing way out here?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Again? Isn’t that why you caught Lance that first night?”
Casey didn’t tell her that this time it was Death’s doing. “Adrenalin was a little out of whack after what happened at the movie.”
“Yeah.” Whistler tapped her thigh. “Want a ride?”
“Sure.”
Whistler leaned across to open the passenger door, and Casey rounded the hood of the car and slid in. Whistler eased back onto the road, driving slowly toward town.
“What about you? What brought you out this way?”
“Nothing exciting.” Whistler snorted. “Unless you like this sort of thing. Some cows got loose and I had to help round them up.”
“That’s in your job description?”
“Everything’s in the job description of a country cop. Cats up trees, keys locked in cars, one woman even called when her microwave stopped working.”
Casey laughed.
“Of course there’s all the usual stuff. Underage drinking, strange noises people think are burglars, cars breaking down. You never know from one night to the next. Keeps it interesting.”
“I bet.” They rode in silence for a bit until Casey said, “You know anything about a cemetery out this way?”
The officer raised her eyebrows. “You mean the old Raglund plots?”
“Don’t know what they’re called.”
“Out in the middle of the beet field?”
“Down a tractor trail.”
Whistler studied her in the dim light of the dash. “Is that where you were? How did you find it?”
She couldn’t exactly tell her that. “Research.”
“You’re interested in graveyards?”
With Death as her companion, it did make sense. “I guess. Kind of. I saw a name there that interested me, for sure.”
“Barrios?”
“No, Daily.” Who was Barrios?
“Ah.” Whistler checked her mirror and settled into her seat. “Vern and Dottie’s baby, right?”
“So sad.”
“From what I hear they’ve never gotten over it. At least, she hasn’t. Did they tell you about it?”
“No.”
“One of those unusual things, the German measles, even then. Mrs. Daily was unlucky, I guess, and the baby died.” She shook her head. “Can’t imagine losing a child.”
Casey looked at the passing fields, the moon out in more strength now, casting its otherworldly light over the earth.
It was quiet for a minute before Whistler said, “Lots of interesting stories in that graveyard.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s old, you know. Newest graves in there are from forty or fifty years ago, and it goes back way farther than that. 1800s. Maybe earlier.”
Some of those stones Casey couldn’t read.
“So there’s a husband and wife killed in a flood, a man caught in an auger—pretty gruesome, an unnamed man traveling through a hundred years ago…” She glanced at Casey. “He didn’t speak English and died of some unfamiliar disease. The Dailys’ baby isn’t the only infant. That used to be a lot more common.
“Vern’s got other family in there, too, since he grew up here. Both his parents. His mom died when I was a kid, but his dad’s been gone a long time. The same year as the baby. Maybe a couple months later.”
Casey had seen the family grave, but hadn’t thought about it once she saw the baby’s marker. Thinking about Vern’s dad made her angry, the way he decided for them the way their lives would play out.
They reached the edge of town and Whistler slowed even more, until they were barely crawling. “But the best story…well, the most mysterious and weird, was from right before that cemetery was closed. The last person to be buried there was a woman who died at a Halloween party. That’s the Barrios I thought you were talking about earlier.”
Where was Death? This was right up Death’s alley.
“I wasn’t born yet, bu
t my aunt told me, and every once in a while it comes up. Especially with that generation, you know, the older ones.” She turned a corner, the opposite direction of the Dailys’, her hand draped over the steering wheel. “When you were at the graveyard, did you look around for lights? Homesteads?”
“Sure. Saw a few.”
“The closest one, to the east, did you see that?”
“Yeah. I figured they were the ones who own the field.”
“They do. They’re the next generation. The woman there at the time, the wife, she hosted the Halloween party. Invited all the women from the town—well, the ones in her age range, which was young mothers—to come in costume. Two people crashed the party, tied the women up, and threatened to set the house on fire.”
“Holy crap. Did they?”
“No, but it didn’t matter. The Barrios woman was so freaked out she had an anxiety attack and died.”
“Are you serious?”
“Crazy, right? Another woman pissed her pants, and legend has it she wished she would’ve been the one to die, instead, she was so embarrassed. Can you imagine?”
Wanting to be dead? Peeing her pants? Threatening a group of women with imminent death? Casey could imagine the first and second, but definitely not the third. “Who were the people who crashed the party?”
“They wore masks. From what my aunt says, people had their suspicions, but no one was ever charged for it.”
Casey would have to ask Death for details. Unless one of Death’s faithful yamadutas had taken care of it, then Death might not know. There would have been plenty of mischief and mayhem going on that night all over the country, seeing how it was Halloween. Death would have been busy.
Whistler rounded another corner, glancing at the dark houses. “The woman who hosted the party was going through a nasty divorce, trying to keep her husband from gaining custody of the children, wanting to keep the house. So people said maybe he was going to burn the house down so she couldn’t have it. He was mortified people thought he would kill all those women. From what I hear, he never recovered from the accusations.
“Another woman’s husband was known as a groundhog. Whenever land came up for sale he snatched it before anybody else had a chance. He couldn’t even farm it all, he had so much. Some people thought it was in retaliation for that, since his wife was there and he adored her. He’s dead now, so there’s no interviewing him, even if they wanted to.”