by Brian Hodge
Silence agreed. He was a little nervous as to what was going to be on the tape. Since his accident, he had always felt a special kinship with the dead and he knew if any place was haunted, it was Greyson’s Cemetery.
Children had been vanishing for almost 150 years in their town. Some of them were later found mutilated and murdered on the shore of Lake Angel. Many people had reported seeing Civil War soldiers marching through the cemetery as well, a confederate flag fluttering in the wind behind them as they marched through the tombstones.
“I wasn’t so much afraid of the cops,” Dylan said, lighting up a Marlboro. It looked out of place between his thin lips, like a child trying desperately to appear tough. “I was afraid of some sicko copying that dude Gabriel out there.”
Gabriel Walker was caught making snuff films earlier in the year. He was using the cemetery as a set, mutilating and raping young women on camera. Their small town had made the national news for months after he was caught.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Craig said. “I don’t want to be no star of a snuff film. I was thinking how the ghosts of Gabriel’s victims were probably still lurking around out there, too. If Lukas is on this tape, though, I think I’m gonna cry.”
Silence had no argument with that. If Lukas is on that tape, he thought, I will never sleep again.
Lukas went into the cemetery to record EVP’s, but vanished just like the dozens of other children throughout the years. They had dared him to go in alone, something they regretted after he was nowhere to be found the next day. Lukas had always promised if he died, he would come back as a ghost.
“I bet the Nightwalker got Lukas,” Dylan said, his voice lowering to a whisper. Even uttering his name was considered a bad omen to any child growing up in Rawley.
Craig laughed and pointed at his tiny friend. “Look at Silence! You’re freaking him the hell out!”
Silence was terrified of the Nightwalker. Over the years, he had become a sort of southern Boogeyman. The legend of the Nightwalker had been born out of the townsfolk’s inability to solve all the children’s disappearances. Every Rawley child had heard the phrase, ‘If you don’t be good, the Nightwalker is gonna get you.’ It was said his rotting flesh was covered with the faces of dead children, all of them moaning and hissing as he walked through the night.
Dylan smiled at Silence and the tiny boy shot him the middle finger. “He doesn’t even want us to talk about the Nightwalker.”
“The Nightwalker is fucking cool,” Craig said, voice trembling with hero worship.
Silence shook his head and gave a quick glance behind him to make sure the Nightwalker wasn’t lurking.
“You better watch your back,” Dylan said. “If the Nightwalker catches you alone, you won’t even be able to scream.”
Silence shot Dylan an ‘Are you stupid?’ look, but smiled to show he was amused.
They tape recorded near the Fenwick mausoleum, the oldest grave in the cemetery. Edward Fenwick was the first kid to be murdered by the Nightwalker. They found his body in mangled and nearly unidentifiable pieces in the early 1900’s, scattered all over the shore of Lake Angel.
They had just let the tape roll as they sat quietly on the rotting steps of the Fenwick crypt, their eyes scanning the shadowy tombstones for any signs of movement.
Silence decided he would be brave and search away from the mausoleum steps for signs of Lukas. He knew it was a stupid thing to do, but he really wanted to prove to his friends that he wasn’t the coward his father thought him to be. Every time he moved his head to look in a different direction, he could swear he saw tiny figures dancing in his peripheral vision. Some of the tombstones were so white they glowed in the moonlight.
The statues that protected some of the graves looked particularly ominous by the light of the moon. Each time the cool October wind rushed into his hair, he felt he was being visited by a presence. When he saw the police headlights stabbing through the outstretched stones of the cemetery, he was almost relieved. It meant they would be able to leave.
When they arrived at the house Dylan stuck the tape into his stereo, turned on his black light, and sat back onto the bed. “I have a feeling we got something.”
Craig sat on the floor nervously playing with his shoelaces. Silence was staring at the speaker like it was the giant screen of a television, his small body tense. He knew if little Eddie Fenwick were on the tape he would suffer nightmares for the rest of his life. The only reason that he had even become part of the whole thing was because he missed Lukas. Lukas and Silence had been friends since they were in kindergarten. They had even invented their own sign language, much to the annoyance of their teachers.
At first they heard nothing on the tape but the soft hiss of the recorder and the chirping of crickets. Dylan sat on the bed assuredly in the eerie blue lighting, tapping his fingers onto his skull.
The sound of a child crying filled the bedroom, a shrill and heartbreaking sob that broke the hiss on the tape. Dylan started biting his fingernails, his face giving away the fact he never believed they would really get anything of substance.
Silence stood up and paced the room, his legs threatening to give out underneath his wiry frame. The crying went on for about forty seconds and then it dropped to a low and harsh breathing.
“Crowlin keeps us,” a child’s voice whispered. “The black one is with Victor, but I wouldn’t disturb him.” There was a soft humming and his voice went in and out like phantom radio waves, each word seeming to come from even further away. “…Killed…water…branches…run.”
The child shrieked, his voice far away as if he was being pulled into a dense and thick fog.
A man’s voice seemed to slither from the speakers, grave and ancient, a deep southern accent soaking each word. “Our family is doing so well.”
It was at this point on the tape that Silence could be heard racing through the graveyard.
“What the hell is Silence doing?” Dylan said on the tape, laughing. “He looks like he saw a ghost.”
Dylan sprung up from the bed and turned on the ceiling light. “Holy shit, dude!” He held out his hand. “Look at my arm. My goosebumps are like zits!”
“I’ve never been so scared in my life, man,” Craig said.
Silence was standing before the speaker, his diminutive body dwarfed by its massive size. He ran his hands through his dark hair. It was only at this point he realized he was not even breathing. He let his fists drop to his sides and he exhaled. The dark circles underneath his haunted eyes made him look like a dying child.
As the night went on, Dylan played the tape over and over as Silence transcribed the cryptic words into his notebook. They listened to the tape, speaking only in hushed and serious tones.
It did not take the boys long to figure out some of the clues on the tape. Silence knew immediately that Victor Cannon was one of the men killed in the snuff film that had been made in Greyson’s Cemetery. Lukas was African American, so it was assumed he was the “black one” who was in the Cannon grave. The name Crowlin sounded familiar to Silence, and it was agreed he would go to the library the next day to see if he could dig anything up.
Jakep Crowlin was a wealthy local merchant in the late nineteenth century, Silence found out the next day as he perused some of the older newspapers on microfilm. At the age of seventy, Crowlin was suspected of killing some of the local children. When a customer visiting his general store saw the bonnet of the young and missing Bessy Kane, cries of murderer! could be heard all over town. Bessy was the fifth of seven children found missing that summer, and the town of Rawley had become paranoid and edgy.
Jakep Crowlin was found dead in his general store, hanging from the rafters, his tongue sticking out of his fat lips like a black worm. It was speculated a vigilante father had murdered him.
The next day, after an exhaustive search, they found the Crowlin Mausoleum. It was in the older part of the cemetery, snake-like weeds wrapped protectively around the its gray-green w
alls. The date of his death was July 27th, 1890.
Although he tried, Silence was unable see through the glass on the doors. It was covered with thick grime, almost like soot. A stone head of Christ jutted out from the top of the mausoleum doors, its eyes filled with green moss underneath its concrete crown of thorns.
A massive pine tree, decayed and rotted, loomed just over the stone building, forbidding and overbearing in its size, thick branches seeming to claw torturously towards the sky. Oddly, no needles grew from its finger-like branches. Sap poured from dozens of rotting holes in the wood like puss and termites covered its decaying base. Silence let his finger touch the sap and then pulled away quickly when an odd burning sensation stung his flesh.
“You’re crazy for touching that thing, Silence,” Dylan said, staring at the tree in disgust. “God knows what’s in the soil underneath this cesspool.”
Silence stared into his friend’s eyes and frowned. Of all the things he did not want to do, digging up Victor Cannon’s grave later that night was the highest on his list. Only his loyalty to Lukas kept him from retreating back to the misery that was his home.
That night, they stood over the Cannon grave and prayed, their imaginations torturing them with what they would find beneath their feet, their sweaty hands banded together. The voices on the tape made the cemetery a much creepier place than it had been the night before. Every time the wind blew, they would freeze up simultaneously, their ears and eyes straining for something that would give them the excuse to flee.
A couple of times, Silence could swear he saw some glimmer of light coming from Jakep Crowlin’s mausoleum like a warning. He wanted to alert his friends, but feared they would only taunt him, and let his eyes drift back to where Dylan and Craig stabbed their shovels into the dirt. Every five minutes, Silence would turn on the flashlight to allow them to get their bearings as he shivered in the darkness.
When the shovel finally struck the wood of the coffin, they stood there for a few minutes, their bodies shaking in the cold air. None of them wanted to open it.
As far as I’m concerned, Silence thought, the fact that we had a real ghost on the tape meant that anything could be in there. This man died in a snuff film, for God’s sake. Silence imagined Victor leaping out of the coffin, screeching dust from his throat, his decomposing body falling apart.
“We ready?” Dylan asked, his voice quivering.
Craig and Silence both shook their heads back and forth.
Dylan snickered. “Me neither,” he said and stuck the crowbar into the coffin lid. “Get ready with that flashlight, Silence.”
Silence wished he were the one holding the crowbar. A flashlight isn’t going to do me much good against ghosts or the undead, he thought.
The coffin groaned under the force of the crowbar. Silence aimed the flashlight towards the spot on the wood where Victor’s head would be. The coffin creaked open, a cloud of rancid air enveloping them with a puff.
Lukas was in the coffin on top of Victor’s rotting corpse, his white eyes wide in the sea of his dark flesh. His mouth was open, his teeth jutting out above his dried-out tongue. Red lines ran from his eyes as if in his final hours he had cried tears of blood. A low ripping noise emanated from the coffin, as if something was about to tear open and throw itself upon them.
Silence dropped the flashlight and tried to scream, but all that came out of his mouth was a silent hiss of air. Craig promptly bolted into the tombstones, crying and whimpering as he ran, soon vanishing into the black night.
“Don’t run, Silence,” Dylan whispered, his voice taking on an inflection Silence had never heard before. “Something has my arm. I can’t move.”
The flashlight had fallen at the base of the reeking coffin, its light giving the newly dug hole an eerie glow. The contents of the coffin remained dark, although the whites of Lukas’ eyes could still be seen glowing in the gloom.
Dylan suddenly jumped a few feet, pulled roughly as if held by spectral puppet strings, and Silence fought the urge to leave his friend behind.
“Oh God, Silence,” Dylan said, his voice now a whispery whine. “Something is pulling me.”
Silence grabbed the flashlight and turned the beam onto his friend’s face. Dylan’s eyes were so wide he could clearly see the red veins snaking around them. He let the light follow Dylan’s line of site and flinched when he saw the bottom of the wrist. The outlines of fingers could clearly be seen on the arm, the thin, bony lines sinking deep into the flesh.
Dylan was suddenly pulled away from the light, an animal-like squeal firing from his lips. He was hyperventilating, his breath breaking the hushed air like a whispery heartbeat.
Dylan’s scream was cut off quickly to a dull muffle. Silence aimed the shaking beam back at his friend’s face and saw the indentation of fingers just to the left of his lips, his eyes so far open in his panic they looked like they were about to pop from his skull.
Silence watched, unable to move because he was so terrified. A single tear fell from Dylan’s eye and rolled into the air near his cheekbone, seeming to drip over an invisible hand, floating in the air momentarily before falling to the ground.
Dylan was suddenly jerked backwards as if he had taken flight, his body hurling through the graveyard in a hazy blur. His muffled scream and boots dragging over the graveyard grass were the only sounds.
For the second time that night, Silence forgot he couldn’t speak. He opened his mouth and howled with everything he had, but the only thing that came out was a sharp Ssssssssss.
His mind shrieking for him to flee, Silence faced the direction of Dylan’s muffled screams, his teeth biting painfully into his bottom lip to chase back a sob.
I’m not a coward, Daddy, Silence thought. Someday you’ll see that.
Silence ran after Dylan into the darkness of the jutting tombstones, the jumpy beam of the flashlight cleaving through the air around him. Off in the distance, he could see Dylan’s white face traveling through the cemetery like a floating orb—then it vanished with a soft splash.
Silence whimpered, his frayed nerves twitching on his face as he moved towards the splash. Something had taken Dylan into Lake Angel, the very same place he had almost lost his life.
Silence remembered the cold and slimy hand that had clutched his ankle as a child. Not a day went by he did not recall the glowing white eyes in the murky depths of Lake Angel. He had left the lake without his voice, vowing never to go near it again.
Two drag lines led through the mud and into the water of the jet-black lake. Silence let the flashlight beam travel out into the gently undulating water and sobbed.
Dylan was in the creek about fifteen feet away, his shaven head protruding out and glistening in the light. Bubbles of water shot from his nose. Though he could not scream, his eyes did it for him, widening to the point that they looked like white shrieking mouths.
Then he was gone, pulled into the coal-black water in a quick splash. Bubbles broke the surface—an anticlimactic sound to what Silence knew was a scream sharp enough to wake the dead.
There was whispering coming from the large pine tree just above the Crowlin mausoleum, a rush of hissing from the shadowy branches. Silence turned to face the mausoleum.
It feels like I was supposed to be here, he thought, almost like I was required to finish something that had started almost 100 years ago.
Something grabbed his palm, a child’s hand, both cold and warm. It pulled him gently toward the tree and he felt himself moving through the thick, damp air of Greyson’s Cemetery. The dark windows of the mausoleum were illuminated in a dull, muddy glow.
Within the bony branches of the pine tree perched dozens of children, their legs dangling and swaying as if to their own ghostly breeze. White faces radiated in the darkness above like miniature moons. Their eyes were blots of black on their pale faces, their mouths small and pulled tight in painful frowns. One little girl cocked her head to the side slowly, almost like a dream, and studied Silence, her head dri
fting back and forth. Dylan’s ghost stood under the tree, his ebony eyes staring ahead without emotion. Silence cried, his sobs exploding from his small body, nearly costing him his balance.
Some of the children were moaning, their mouths opening and closing. They cried out, a ghostly choir, their sad faces looking upwards as if to a Heaven that would not accept their souls.
Silence knew, then, that the children had been buried underneath the pine tree. All of the missing. Jakep Crowlin had been a clever murderer. He had known the townsfolk of Rawley would not think to look in the cemetery for their missing children.
With a rusty groan of protest, the mausoleum doors creaked open behind Silence’s tiny form, a faint glow covering his body like mist. Never in his young life was he more painfully aware that he was unable to scream. The children above all turned to face the doors, low, melodic wails rustling from their dead lips. Dylan just stared ahead, his body rocking and back and forth drunkenly.
Jakep Crowlin, the Nightwalker and child murderer, stood before the open doors, a cryptic smile on his phosphorescent face, his malevolent eyes narrowing into slits. His long hair flowed around his face like underwater reeds. Craig’s body was on the stone floor inside, his right arm resting over his throat as if he had struggled to breathe before he died.
Crowlin nodded and held out his long arms, his dark eyes blazing with quiet rage. Silence felt himself drawn to the figure, the wispy and ethereal forms of dozens of dead children pushing him forward and into old man’s arms, their moans singing a morose lullaby.
Crowlin embraced Silence fiercely, his frosty arms wrapping around his slender frame like the loving father he never had, both inviting and suffocating.
Silence looked up into Crowlin’s dusky eyes and felt dead and rancid breath blow from the decrepit mouth.
The last sound he heard before he died for the second time in his life was the harsh slam of the mausoleum doors closing behind his back in a rush of frigid wind.
Silence perched in the pine tree, his brothers and sisters lodged in the limbs around him as he clung to the dead branches. He felt oddly sad watching his Dad search for him through the cemetery. Silence could tell by looking at his father’s face that he had really loved his son, and that he had many regrets. Many people had searched the graveyard for the missing children, but Silence merely watched from the tree, neither caring nor remembering why anything mattered.