The cemetery was five blocks from the house. We hadn’t bought the house with that in mind, but after Miranda’s death, I had walked out my bereavement on the sidewalks between our house and the cemetery. I knew the cracks in the cement, the staples on the telephone poles that bore witness to missing animals and party plans people had wanted to broadcast to the neighborhood. I knew which dogs barked when someone passed. Joe had never known where I went on my frequent walks, but still, he had resented them, and tried to stop me. He wanted to take away anything that meant anything to me, but I had often managed to slip out for moments at Miranda’s grave. I gave her my tears.
I zigzagged between sidewalks tonight to avoid all houses with barking dogs and made it to the cemetery without problems. There was a place in the hedge I knew to slip through. Vandals had found it before me, and Randy, the night watchman, checked it regularly; tonight he was nearby, leaning on a headstone and smoking a clove cigarette. “Mrs. B,’’ he said. “Thought I might see you tonight. How’s it going?’’
“Not so well, Randy.’’
“Mr. B,’’ he said. “That got you broke up?’’ He sounded doubtful.
Randy knew me. “No. It’s Miranda.’’
“Oh?’’ He followed me as I headed for my daughter’s grave.
“Do you see ghosts, Randy?’’
“Hear ’em now and then. At least I think that’s what makes that talk in the ground. I’m walking past a lot of graves of a night, and sometimes there’s a murmuring. I figure it’s ghosts sorting stuff out, but I don’t listen too close. None of my business.’’
“I saw something like a ghost during the funeral today.’’
“What’d it look like?’’
“Something pale over Miranda’s grave. I have to see if she’s all right.’’
“Okay.’’ He turned on his four-D-cell flashlight and lit the path for us. No hesitations; we’d come this way before.
Randy had a gentleness to him. For a big man, he was careful. He never touched me except to grasp my elbow if it looked like I was about to trip. He knew how to be silent when a person wanted to disappear inside oneself, and he knew how to be company when one was walking away from a grave and having trouble pulling oneself out of the ground. He never mocked me. Randy was the closest thing I had to a friend and a counselor. I wished I could help him, but I didn’t know how.
Maybe Joe had left me something good, something I could give to Randy.
“Want to be alone, Mrs. B?’’ Randy asked. The flashlight shone on the words MIRANDA BROUSSARD, BELOVED DAUGHTER; SHE IS IN A BETTER PLACE NOW.
“No, Randy. Thanks. I’d rather have you with me, if you can stay.’’
He glanced around the cemetery, away from the cone of light from his flashlight. It was a half-moon night; mist rested in rags here and there. I didn’t see any movement.
“Go ahead,’’ said Randy.
I knelt, my knees on the grass over my daughter’s grave. There lay the dark glove I had dropped earlier in the day. “Miranda,’’ I whispered. “What troubles you? How can I help?’’
“Mama,’’ whispered someone under the ground. “Run away.’’
“What do you mean?’’
“Run away, Mama. He’s coming back.’’
I glanced behind me, toward Joe’s grave, where fresh, mounded earth lay, a little too tall for the ground, and not yet covered with squares of turf.
“How can that be?’’ I whispered. I put my hands flat on my daughter’s grave. This was the first time I had heard her voice since Joe killed her. I felt a terrified delight. “Miranda. Are you all right?’’
Randy switched off his flashlight, leaving us in darkness. “Someone’s coming.’’
I hid behind my daughter’s headstone. Randy moved to a nearby tree and blended his silhouette with its shadow.
Someone in black was approaching. A faint breath of perfume traveled before her. I recognized Mother by the scent of White Shoulders. She looked large in the darkness; she was wearing some shapeless over-garment with no arms, and at her side she carried a bulky bag.
I gripped the edge of Miranda’s rough-hewn granite stone.
Mother stopped at Joe’s grave, dropped the bag. She rummaged through it, came up with three candles, and lit them. She dripped wax onto a white plate and stood the candles upright on it. They glowed red. She laid other things out before her, but I couldn’t see what, except a white square of cloth, a handkerchief, which she snapped open. “Her tears,’’ she muttered.
I remembered Helena Whittaker’s nod to my husband after I cried on her shoulder. Had Joe known even then that this day would come? Sent Helena to collect my grief over the loss of my daughter? Who was the man I had married?
“I’m sorry, Joseph,’’ Mother said after she had arranged things on my husband’s grave. “I don’t know what’s become of her. I drugged her milk the way we planned, but she didn’t drink it. She’s out roaming around like the faithless girl she’s always been. My blood will do just as well.’’
“Run,’’ whispered Miranda.
I couldn’t let go of the chill rock. I couldn’t rise and run.
Mother started a small fire on Joe’s grave; I could see the dancing light on her face. She chanted, held things up to the night sky, then dropped them into the fire. One of them glowed in the darkness: the handkerchief.
Had my mother always been a witch? How could I not have known?
Cold invaded my clothes, chilled my feet. Joe had said something at breakfast the day before I poisoned him, something that frightened me. Something about our wedding vows lasting beyond the grave. “You’ll always be mine. Always, Nicolette.’’
Part of me had thought: why do you even want me when you think so little of me? Part of me had thought: this has to stop, now, before he knows about Child. I can’t bring Child into this kind of bondage.
What if Mother could bring Joe back? If he was somewhere beyond dead, could he die again? Would I ever be rid of him? What would he do to Child?
Mother lifted a knife that gleamed in the flickering light. She cut across her left forearm, held her arm so the blood flowed, black and wet in the firelight, onto the grave.
“Run,’’ Miranda whispered again.
Mother’s murmurs rose louder. I heard words, but I didn’t understand them, until she said, “All the conditions are now fulfilled. Joseph, rise. Walk again with Death at your shoulder.’’
A great shifting in the dirt, as though from below something opened a door.
My pale, embalmed husband sat up out of the ground. My mother reached down to help him out of his grave. In the flickering light of the small fire he looked ghastly, his eyes black pits, his hair perfect, his face catching hell’s orange from the flames. Soon enough he had gained solid ground, and was dusting grave dirt from the pleats of his pants.
“Thank you, Trudy,’’ said my husband. “That was quite refreshing.’’ He grabbed my mother around the waist and pulled her to her feet, then pressed his lips against her mouth. She tried to scream, but his kiss muffled her. She struggled in his grasp for a little while, then went limp. A few moments later, he dropped her. “Well preserved,’’ he said, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Fine wine. She aged well. Nicolette?’’
I could not move, even for Child. No: I had to move for Child. But I felt frozen solid. I could not rise.
Joseph walked past the red candles on his grave, strode toward our daughter’s grave.
“Too late now,’’ whispered Miranda.
“I’ll be with you,’’ I whispered.
“No,’’ she said. “You aren’t dying in innocence. You won’t come where I am. Wherever you go, though, remember I love you.’’
“No use trying to hide,’’ Joseph said. “I can smell you, Nikki.’’ He took a deep sniff. “Ah, lilies. When did you start wearing the smell of lilies, Nikki? It doesn’t suit you.’’
I felt dried, a husk, an empty cocoon. I had killed my h
usband and changed my direction. Miranda told me that I was a night creature, a moth, while she was a butterfly, a creature of day. We would be in two different worlds after I died. “Take care of Child?’’ I whispered.
“I will,’’ whispered my daughter’s spirit.
“You should smell of almonds and orange blossoms,’’ said my husband. He reached behind Miranda’s headstone, grabbed my shoulder, and hauled me to my feet. “How long did you plan my death, my dear? You should have spent more time. I didn’t suffer. Very little art was involved. I always hoped I’d have a more dignified murder.’’
“Sorry,’’ I whispered to the ground.
I should fight. I should fight for Child: but then I thought, Child, half his, and half mine. I am a murderer, and this man, my husband, is worse. Perhaps it would be a mercy to Child to die now.
“Oh, well. You undoubtedly did the best you could; it’s all of a piece. Pitiful. And now you pay. I’ll need souls to sustain me in my new state, and a wife to help me survive, pathetic though your help has always been. I need to bind you to me again. Give me a kiss.’’
He set his lips on my neck, and their touch was the chill behind chill. He sucked the warmth up through my skin.
I closed my eyes, wondering what he was doing to me.
He pressed his lips to mine and breathed into my mouth a taste of rot and darkness, a hint of desire, a sullied joy. I wanted to spit out the taste, but he pinched my nose until I had to breathe it in. My stomach lurched. Below it, I felt a flutter. Joe was changing me again. What was he doing to Child?
The clunk of Randy’s flashlight connecting with my husband’s head came as a shock to both of us. My husband staggered back, and Randy struck him again and again. “Get back, you freak,’’ he cried. “Mrs. B, go, now!’’ He shoved me.
I ran, though I feared it was too late.
At the gap in the hedge, I looked back, saw that Joe was choking Randy. Randy, who had been kinder to me than anyone else after Miranda died. Randy’s arms flailed, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on Joe. Joe leaned forward, pressed his mouth to Randy’s shoulder. I remembered the chill he had breathed under my skin.
I should protect Child (but perhaps it was too late for both of us). Randy deserved help, too; he hadn’t polluted his life with bad choices, as far as I knew. I ran back, stopping only long enough to pick up a stick under a cedar tree.
“Joe,’’ I said, just before I hauled off and hit his head with the stick. I beat his back, jabbed at his face until his mouth loosed from Randy’s shoulder. He turned to me, annoyed, but he didn’t let go of Randy’s neck. Randy was limp now, his head sagging.
“Leave the boy alone. I’m the one you want.’’
Joe laughed. He released Randy, who collapsed in a coughing heap on the ground. “I want you, and I want a hundred more. I’ll need new people every night. I’ll have you in a different way. I’ll finish what I’ve started, and then you’ll never be able to leave me.’’
He reached for me, and I hit him with the stick. He laughed again, wrenched the stick from my grasp and crushed it in his hand. “You don’t understand what I’ve become,’’ he said. He embraced me. His arms were cold and heavy, but he did not hug too hard, the way he had before he died. I felt as though clay had risen from a pit and wrapped itself around me, and I thought, oh well, maybe this is all I deserve.
Was it all Child deserved? I tried to lift my arms, push Joe away, but the weight of his embrace trapped me tight.
He would let go of me. Once he had changed me, he would let go of me, and I would find a way to hurt him. He would turn his back on me sometime. I kindled anger inside me, fed it the stored fuel of all my rage at how Joe had treated me. My anger held back the invading chill of Joe’s kiss. To protect Child, to protect all the other people Joe might hurt, I would find a way to stop him.
I smelled something burning, the fuel not wood, but cloth. I opened my eyes: light flickered behind Joe, and then flames raced up the back of his best jacket, spread across his shoulders, ate into his hair. He released me and staggered back, with a cry like the screech of metal scraping across metal. He dropped to the ground and rolled on his back, but it was too late. His hair was alight; the smell changed to scorched hair and cooking flesh, at once repulsive and almost inviting, and the flames ran over him like water.
I swayed, took a step to steady myself. Randy was on his feet. He came around Joe’s rolling, rocking, screaming body with its consuming flames, put his arms around me, supported me and pulled me away. We staggered toward the gatehouse. The flicker of Joe’s fire stained the headstones as we passed them.
Randy led me around back of the gatehouse. For the first time I saw his apartment, a small room with attached kitchenette. He settled me in the one chair, an ancient red cracked leather La-Z-Boy, filled a kettle from the tap, and put it on the hotplate. He settled on the bed nearby, facing me, his elbows on his thighs and his big hands dangling between his knees. His neck was a mass of bruises in the shapes of fingers and palms. Joe had ripped open his uniform. There was a blood-dark mark on Randy’s shoulder where Joe had kissed him.
I pressed my hands to my belly, where Child rested, infinitesimal yet. Had Joe’s touch killed Child, or changed Child into something other than human? My mouth still tasted foul, and my stomach roiled. I put my hand over my mouth.
Randy opened a closed door, revealed a tiny bathroom with commode, sink, and shower. I went in and threw up. He offered a glass of water to me when I had finished retching. I rinsed and spat, rinsed and spat. I couldn’t get the moldy taste out of my mouth, but my stomach settled. Shadows still clouded my thoughts.
Randy helped me into his chair. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Presently he touched my shoulder and handed me a mug of herbal tea. “Peppermint,’’ he rasped. “Settle your stomach.’’
“Thank you. Thank you, Randy, for everything.’’
“Yeah, well.’’ He drank from his own mug, coughed, lit up another clove cigarette with a lighter that had a Harley Davidson logo on it. My salvation. “You get some rest, Mrs. B. I gotta go tidy up. Hate these revenant nights. The bad ones are always messy. You want I should bury your ma with your husband?’’
I swallowed my surprise, thought, then said, “Yes, all right.’’
“More tea in the pot on the table if you want some, and sugar, too. Don’t you worry, Mrs. B. Sleep if you can.’’ He put a blanket over me and went out.
I huddled under the blanket and thought again of the dark charge Joe had sent through me with his kiss. Had it reached Child?
I hoped not.
THE PERFECT MAN
Fran LaPlaca
Rob Zombie was playing on the radio, and Oliver’s head was pounding. What in hell did I drink last night? His eyes were glued shut, but he didn’t feel up to opening them anyway. But, God, would someone please turn that horrible music off?
“Hey! Hey, Fancy Boy, he’s waking up!’’
Oh, my God, Oliver thought. The western twang in that voice is worse than this so-called music.
“Stop calling me Fancy Boy,’’ an irritated voice said. “I know he’s waking up. Give him a minute, you dumb redneck.’’
“Hey, new guy?’’ This was a third voice.
What the hell?
“Hey, new guy!’’ the third voice said again. “Cat got your tongue? What’s your name?’’
“Oliver,’’ Oliver tried to say, and he heard the word, but he knew he hadn’t opened his mouth.
“Oliver, huh? Maybe Ethan should call you Fancy Boy, too, that’s a fancy-schmancy name. What’s your line of work, Oliver?’’
“I’m a lawyer.’’
What in hell was he doing, so hung over he couldn’t even open his eyes, talking to a bunch of . . . of what? Voices in his head?
“Ha! Voices in your head! That’s a good one, Ollie.’’ That was the third voice again. “M’name’s Ike, by the way, and the voices aren’t in your head. They’re in Mario’s head. That’s
Fancy Boy, as Ethan so elegantly calls him.’’
What in hell did that mean? Oliver decided he didn’t care. The pain was beginning to fade a bit, and he tried again to open his eyes.
“You can’t do it,’’ said a new, depressed voice. “They’re not your eyes. I’m Zach. I’m a poet, and I was the answer to the sensitive part of the ad.’’
He hadn’t been stupid enough to do shots of tequila again, had he? Oliver strained his memory, but all he could dredge up was a pair of gorgeous brown eyes, and a significant amount of cleavage.
Great. A hooker. She drugged me, and now I’m probably on a boat to Singapore. A white slave. I’ll have to service some old, ugly hag for the rest of my life.
“Oh, she’s no hooker. She’s a doctor, actually.’’
How many guys were in this room/cabin/black hole?
“Six now, counting you. And I’m Brett. Brett Jamieson.’’
“Brett Jamieson,’’ Oliver squawked. “The movie actor? You’ve been kidnapped, too?’’
“Not kidnapped, no,’’ the rich, velvety voice of the movie star answered. “Murdered, pal, murdered. Just like you.’’
Good lord. The last time he’d been this drunk was . . . Oliver couldn’t remember when he’d been this bad. Murdered. He would have shaken his head, but couldn’t seem to do that, either.
“It’s true,’’ the second voice said. “And I’m Mario. Call me Fancy Boy and I just may murder you a second time. I’m the good-looking part of the ad.’’
“Mario’s the only one who’s not really here,’’ the cowboy explained. “He’s just the body. Sense memory, Zach thinks. I’m Ethan, Ethan Corbett. And we’ve all been murdered, ol’ son. By those ever-lovin’ brown eyes and great big knockers you’re still dreamin’ about.’’
“And what part of the ad are you?’’ Oliver said sarcastically.
“I’m the rugged, outdoorsy part,’’ Ethan said with a chuckle. “And since Brett is the romantic part, and Ike is the sense of humor, you bein’ a lawyer and all, I figure you must be the intelligent part. Which means,’’ Ethan said gleefully, his twang becoming even thicker, “that we’re complete.’’
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