We Woke the Dead
BY DANE G. KROLL
Dedicated to
Uncle Bill and Joe
Thanks for
the inspiration
Chapter 1
Dr. Alex Edmunds was out of options. The geologist had found sanctuary up in a tree at the fenced edge of the oil field. The perimeter fence was only twenty feet away from his perch. He could read the sign that told everybody on the opposite end of the fence, “No trespassing.” Not that it mattered. It had been almost twelve hours and not a single soul had walked by to read the sign or hear Alex’s calls for help.
The ground below was muddy; thick mud that took any loose article of clothing it could claim. Alex lost his shoes on the run to the tree. His socks were easily consumed by the suction of the mud and never to be seen again. His feet still hurt from the climb up to the lowest branch on the tree. The wounds were starting to congeal, but they still stung to the touch, and Alex often reopened the wounds as he tried to move from branch to branch in a venture to escape.
Alex had climbed to the highest perch of the tree, but it was still not high enough to get past the tree line. Even then he would be yelling out into the open fields of either the fracking field he had come from or the cemetery just a few miles away. The company had bought out the rest of the property in the nearby area. The houses that weren’t demolished to make room for the drilling field were long ago abandoned by the previous homeowners.
The hope for escape was dwindling. Alex craved a drink of water. His mouth was dry as a bone. There had been no rain to relieve some of the pressure Alex was feeling. He hadn’t the energy to climb anymore. The safest spot on the tree was closer to the ground, just ten feet away from the muddy earth that waited for him.
Running was out of the question. The soggy, thick mud made it near impossible to gain any speed while running, and Alex’s feet were in no condition to even stand let alone travel some distance to civilization. And most importantly, there was something below the surface.
Alex never saw it.
His coworkers’ screams were enough of an indication that something had gone terribly wrong around the rig. There was a panic. Everybody started to run in every direction. The ground began to flood. There was a breach of some kind.
The early tests were inconclusive. Alex and the others on his team had never seen soil samples like it. It hadn't been there before. But their deadline was approaching. The managers were breathing down their necks. Progress had to be made. So, it was Dr. Edmunds that chose to move forward. He buried the results in red tape. He said what his bosses wanted to hear and they continued digging. That was when all Hell broke loose.
But before anybody could do anything about it, people were getting pulled underground. Their screams were muffled by dirt and water.
Alex didn’t know how many people had made it out. He was the only one that he knew of. He prayed that others had made it to salvation. He prayed they would find help and a rescue team would come. He prayed they would at least find his body and pass along a note to his wife.
The makeshift rope was almost complete. Alex was left in his underwear. The rest of his clothes from his pants to his foreman jacket were ripped into pieces and tied back together. Alex was confident it would hold. He prayed it would.
There was nowhere left to go but down. Alex had an escape from the monsters below the surface. He double checked the note secured in the waistband of his underwear. It wasn’t going anywhere. Then Alex wrapped the rope of clothing around his neck. He used the comfort fabric from his pants lining for that section of the rope. Even its soothing touch did not relieve the pain of his soar thirsty throat or alleviate any of the dread of the moment about to come.
Alex looked down at the muddy ground one last time. The swampy oil field was still. There was nothing coming: above or below. He said his final prayer, and said good-bye to his wife before placing a pencil in his mouth. He bit down on the writing utensil, tasting the wood and lead.
Then he jumped.
The rope tightened and abruptly stopped Alex’s fall. His neck snapped and Alex’s mouth bit down breaking the pencil into two. The pieces continued their descent and hit the mucky ground just below his feet.
Alex’s body swayed in the air just inches above the muddy ground. Below his feet the earth began to stir. The mud swirled, consuming the pencil pieces, but ultimately being denied Dr. Edmunds, dangling just a little higher in the air.
Chapter 2
The blue sky was a pleasant reprieve from the usual somber mood Rosemary Cemetery gave off. Despite the hard work all of the groundskeepers put in to make the place look pleasant: the daily cut grass, trimmed bushes, litter pick up, and more, there was still no escaping the ever present feeling of mortality surrounding them.
Just a few miles away was the newest addition to the serene cemetery surroundings. The industrial towers of mechanical drills could be seen out in the distance and heard from even farther away. A constant clash of a drill grinding into the ground pierced into the air around the cemetery and eventually embedded itself in the background. Its rhythmic heartbeat sending vibrations mocking the dead six feet below.
At seven in the morning the cemetery had only recently opened for the day, but already a few cars pulled in to talk with lost loved ones and pay their respects. It was the largest cemetery in Auburn, Pennsylvania that spanned over a mile. The area was broken down into various lots, some separated by trees, others by fences, and several stretched out all the way to the main road leading to the cemetery.
Emma slowly drove her car through the open gates of one of the oldest sections of the cemetery. Some of the oldest and wealthiest families of the city were buried in that part of the cemetery. Auburn was old money; just a few generations off from being one of the founding towns of the state. Many of the families still lived in the town to that very day. Their plots had been bought and paid for generations ago. While many people had moved away, the plots were handed down to the next generation to decide whether or not they wished to be buried with their ancestors. Some people moved away only to come back for their final resting place.
It was a place that Emma had come to recognize easily over the past few years. Her father passed away from a sudden heart attack while playing a round of golf. It was too late by the time the paramedics were on the scene to help Emma’s father.
He was now buried there, tucked away surrounded by a few mausoleums, statues depicting angels or Jesus Christ watching over the dead, a couple of headstones designed as benches, and more. Now, Emma’s father was finally accompanied by the love of his former life, Emma’s mother.
In the passenger seat of the car was Cara, Emma’s sister. While most people confused the two sisters for twins Cara was older than Emma by four years. It had gotten to a point where Emma changed the color of her from brown to black to avoid the confusion and jokes only to discover that Cara decided, on a whim, to dye her hair a similar color. “Sometimes life just inspires me. I don’t know where it comes from. #FreeGirl,” was posted along with the picture of Cara and her new hair. Cara’s post about her hair got over a hundred likes. Emma declined to comment about the situation.
The two women had barely spoken to each other over the past couple of years. Emma had stayed home to care for their mother after their father died. Cara was stuck in Chicago, she claimed. She was always too busy to call or message Emma or their mother directly; usually just a post like here and there and an embarrassing, usually for Emma, Throwback Thursday link every week.
As Emma drove through the cemetery, Cara pushed the volume on her Iphone higher to drown out the sounds of the drills thundering through the area. The earbuds were put in place the moment Cara had gotten s
ettled in the car back at their mother’s old home. It was too early for Cara to carry a conversation she said. Emma rolled her eyes and got in the car. Nothing had changed.
A groundskeeper was walking around their section of the cemetery with a weedwacker. He was cutting along the edge of the lawn as Emma passed him. He nodded his head toward Emma as his form of greeting. Emma smiled, and nodded back. She recognized the man, but had never learned his name. He was always busy tinkering away with his tools making sure the cemetery looked its best.
“Here it is,” said Emma as she pulled the car over to the edge of the road. She could see the freshly laid plot that now held their mother. The tombstone was not ready yet, but a place marker could be seen sticking out of the ground. The flowers at her father’s gravestone were knocked over, and several of the buds were dead. Already prepared for that, two bouquets of flowers were in the back seat of Emma’s car.
Emma had noticed the needed upkeep the previous day during the funeral; the funeral that Cara was unable to sort her schedule to attend.
Once out of the car, Emma was already used to the sounds of the fracking drills out in the distance. They could be heard all the way back to her mother’s home. The noise was even louder at the house, but her mother was defiant and stubborn. Their mother was one of the last to hold out selling their property to the company. Offers came in every week, but she was adamant that she was going to die in that house. Her wish had come true. Now, Emma and Cara had several decisions to make later that day, but Emma wanted Cara to come to the graveyard first to say her proper good-byes to their mother.
Cara remained seated as Emma got out of the car. Her music drowned out the sound of Emma’s voice. She was saying something, but Cara was too tired to listen. Cara looked down at her phone again. Once this song was over she would get out; be motivated for the day. Then Cara frowned. She had her phone plugged into the car’s charger during their entire drive across town, but it had done nothing. Cara’s phone battery was sitting in the red. How would she get through the day without her phone?
Nearby where Emma parked was the groundskeeper’s maintenance truck, a van parked alongside the road, and even farther off was a pick-up truck loaded to the brim with camping gear and two canoes tied to the top. Emma took a quick glance around the cemetery before Cara mustered up the enthusiasm to step out of the car. The groundskeeper was on approach with his weedwacker. Emma would have to move soon or be in the man’s way and get further drowned out by his noise.
A young couple was standing over a small gravestone. The wife looked to be barely able to stand while her husband gently braced his arm around her. Even from the road, Emma could hear the woman’s sobbing cries of disbelief. Emma wanted to believe they were the owners of the truck and the two canoes, but sadly Emma doubted it. She knew that area of the cemetery well enough. It was the children’s section.
Over to Emma’s right she could see the other visitor of the cemetery that morning. A man, in his mid-twenties, stood hunched over with his hands in his cargo short’s pockets. His head bobbed up and down as if he was speaking, but Emma could not hear him. It was none of her business really.
She turned around to say something to Cara, but Cara had yet to get out of the vehicle. Emma let out a small gruff of air then walked to the passenger side of the car. She knocked her knuckles against the window of the car to get Cara’s attention.
Cara’s eyebrows rose over the rim of her sunglasses. She took a sip of her mocha latte, one she insisted Emma drive her to get before the visit to the cemetery. “Okay, okay,” said Cara, finally stepping out of the car. Cara immediately began to walk deeper into the grass to get away from the noise of gardening tools.
“I thought you’d be a little more ready for this,” said Emma. She almost had to shout over the noise of the fracking field and the groundskeeper.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” said Cara. “We’re not all morning people. I had a dinner party the other night. Then I was on a flight to get here as soon as possible. I’m tired. Plus, your charger sucks. It didn’t do anything to my phone.”
“The cord is tricky. Sorry,” said Emma.
“My battery is almost dead, now,” said Cara.
“Then you shouldn’t have been wasting your battery life,” suggested Emma.
“I had emails to reply to,” defended Cara. “I’m really busy. I barely got away for this.”
“You still missed mom’s funeral,” said Emma. “You should have been there.”
“I had clients I had to deal with,” said Cara. “I couldn’t get away. You should have scheduled it for another day.”
“I’m sorry,” said Emma.
“Now I missed burying mom,” guilted Cara. “It’s a little hard for me to come here late.”
“I didn’t realize,” said Emma as her voice got softer. They were clear enough of the noise to talk normally.
“Where is she again?” Cara asked.
“Over here next to dad,” said Emma, directing Cara with her arm to the two graves in the center of the cemetery lawn.
“When was the last time you were here?” Emma asked her sister.
“I think it was dad’s funeral,” said Cara.
“You never made it since?” Emma asked.
“No,” said Cara. “I’ve been busy, and whenever I’m here I was busy taking care of mom. I didn’t have time to come to the cemetery.”
“I’d bring mom here at least once a week,” said Emma.
“That’s nice,” said Cara.
“I’m just saying mom probably would have liked to have come with you,” said Emma.
“I don’t have time for this,” said Cara. “I don’t want to argue about who was the better daughter. Not now. I’m here to see mom and then we have to go meet with the lawyer. Remember? You’re hurt that I did not come to see dad. I get it. I’m sorry, but this isn’t all about your feelings.”
Emma lowered her eyes and bit her lip as Cara was talking. She wanted to hold back some of her feelings. Cara was always the hothead. Emma hated getting into arguments with her and just started to avoid them over the years. But this was one argument that was just waiting to occur.
“About the lawyer,” said Emma, finally summoning the courage to speak up. “I’m not selling the house.”
Cara glared at her sister. The sunglasses were not enough to hide the daggers coming out of her eyes. “What?”
“I’m not going to agree to sell,” said Emma. “Mom would not want that.”
Cara took several deep breaths. The air fumed out of her nose with heavy judgment. “That is something we will have to talk about,” said Cara.
“I already thought about it,” said Emma. “I’m not selling. I’m going to move in to the house.”
“Why?” asked Cara. “Why on Earth would you want to move into that house? It’s dated, it’s old, and oh yeah, the land is worth a fortune.”
“It’s where we grew up,” said Emma. “I can’t just throw that away.”
“Emma, please, you have to think this through,” said Cara. “When we’re done here, we can grab some brunch and talk about this. We need to sell. It’s the best option.”
“No,” said Emma. “I’ve been practically living in the house for the past year taking care of mom. The house is fine. I will be more than happy there.”
“You’re so stupid,” said Cara.
“Fuck you,” said Emma.
“Do you know what you could do with the money?” Cara asked. “You can travel. You can buy a new house. A better one far away from this bullshit area. How do you even think with this noise? You can go back to school. You can start a business. You can buy lottery tickets. I know you love that. All I’m saying is this is the better option than keeping the house.”
“Mom did not want me to sell it to the company,” said Emma.
“Mom was too stubborn for her own good,” said Cara. “And you just blindly follow her lead. You were always her perf
ect little girl.”
“Stop,” said Emma. She fought back the tears welling up in her eyes. “Just stop. Okay. I just want to say good-bye to mom. We can deal with this later.”
“Fine,” said Cara. “Give me the flowers.”
Cara took one of the bouquets of flowers from Emma’s hand and stormed off toward her parents’ gravesites. She didn’t bother to wait for Emma who held back to give herself a moment to find her composure.
Emma didn’t mean to start crying, but Cara knew what buttons to push to get Emma to quiet up. Emma couldn’t help it that she was closer to their mother than Cara was. It was just how their personalities meshed. She never wanted to be compared to her sister. It was never a competition for Emma, but regardless people always said Emma was the better child.
Steady breathing calmed Emma down. Her eyes began to dry up and a swipe of her sleeve drove away a lot of the wetness. Emma looked over at the man still standing over the grave in the distance. He was putting a picture on the gravestone. For some reason it made Emma smile. There were still people that cared.
Over at the tombstone, Thomas found it hard to step away from his friend’s grave after he placed the picture on its base. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but he thought he would have found the strength to say what needed to be said by now. Instead, he stood over Mathew’s grave just talking about anything that came to mind. Stalling.
Even though Thomas knew he was talking to his dead friend, he still found that he was speaking with a raised volume in order to be heard. The groundskeeper was getting closer to Thomas’ location. Stupidly, Thomas was worried he was going to have to shout so Mathew could hear him.
“This is going to be the last trip,” continued Thomas. “I’m probably not even going to stay there the whole time. I grabbed your canoe. Still had it in my garage. She wasn’t sure what to do with it. I’ll let it sink in the river. Probably where it should have been years ago.”
Thomas chuckled to himself at the memory of Mathew arriving for a trip one year with his canoe in his arms. It looked like duct tape and glue was over a quarter of the canoe at that point. They all laughed at Mathew for his absurdity, but somehow the canoe worked like a charm for the most part. Eventually, a bet was made between Thomas and the rest of their friends on how long Mathew’s canoe would last. Thomas said this year. And every year, despite all odds, Mathew returned with his trusty canoe under his arms and the cocky smile on his face. “Not this time,” he’d say.
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