by Brhel, John
This behavior, cemetery dining, continued for weeks and Mark became comfortable with his program. He had small hiding places to sit down and picnic in if there were a funeral or a jogger, or general activity in the cemetery. He had even found a perfect little marble overhang that kept him dry during a particularly bad spring rain.
One lunch break, a newer colleague, Dave, insinuated himself into Mark’s routine. Mark had been telling Dave of the great burgers at the diner, and Dave wanted to have lunch with him. Mark tried to get out of the obligation as the hour drew near, but Dave was polite and seemed to really want to make a friend. Mark was low on friends, so he reluctantly agreed.
When the pair walked into the diner together, Mark was sweating profusely.
“Hey, Mark,” said Annie. “You guys getting double burgers?”
“Yes, the usual, please. Dave here can’t wait.” Mark and the waitress shared a knowing look. He was trying to play it cool as if Dave was one of the guys he had regularly gotten lunch for. When the waitress returned with greasy bags and drinks Dave torpedoed Mark’s story.
“Mark says the food here is really great. I’ve been wondering where he disappears to each lunch break.” Dave was not trying to embarrass Mark, but Mark certainly turned a shade of red that screamed of embarrassment. He grabbed the food and nudged Dave out the door.
“Back to the office then?” Dave thought they would just eat at the diner.
“Nah, it’s such a nice day. I’ll show you the spot.” Mark led the way into the cemetery. He brought Dave right over to his shade trees and sat down in the lush grass.
“Eat in the cemetery?” Dave was put off by the surroundings but did not want to hurt his coworker’s feelings, especially after he had picked up on the bigger man’s discomfort back at the diner.
The pair ate their food, split evenly between them, and made little small talk. Dave practically wolfed his down just so he could leave the creepy environs and his awkward, obese pal. When Dave left, Mark was mortified to think that he would tell everybody back at work what had transpired—the encounter in the diner, worst of all, Mark’s regular picnic spot.
He was still hungry, having only eaten half his normal lunch. And thinking about the prying, judging eyes waiting for him back at the office made things so much worse. He dug through the bottom of the paper bag hoping for errant french fries; nothing but napkins and wrappers came of his search. Mark momentarily considered grabbing another quick burger.
He sprawled back on the grass and picked at weeds and dandelions. As he plucked at the yellow flowers he absentmindedly put the stem of one in his mouth. Not bad, he thought. He chewed the head of a dandelion for a few seconds and spit it out. Yuck!
Mark sat up and looked around at the surrounding graves. Some had wilting flowers and one looked like it had an arrangement placed that morning. He crawled the ten or so feet to the nearby flowers and popped a few into his mouth. Terrible. Like the dandelion. Disgusting.
The third variety of flower he tried was an orange lily that had just begun sprouting among the headstones. It was edible and Mark thought it quite tasty, consuming each of the five or six orange lilies he plucked from the ground around a particularly weathered stone.
It was hard returning to work. Dave had told a few of his coworkers what had transpired, and Mark knew they were snickering behind his back and judging him. What made matters worse was that he was incredibly gassy all afternoon. His flatulence was far from floral. A girl in an adjacent cubicle even gagged and asked to be moved due to his stench.
The following days, Mark’s habit of eating away his feelings only worsened. His lunch hour in the cemetery became longer and longer, as he would seek out the orange lilies that seemed to be sprouting up all over. He was in deep with his boss, as he was always running late and stinking up the office. He lay in the grass and happily passed gas as he munched on lilies.
One day, when Mark was two hours late following lunch, his supervisor asked Dave to show him Mark’s favorite midday hideout so he could confront him. The men made the short walk down Memorial Drive, past the diner and into the cemetery. They were overtaken by all of the orange everywhere. It looked like a field planted with one type of flower—just a blanket of lilies covering everywhere that was not already asphalt, marble, or concrete.
“Isn’t there a caretaker?” asked Mark and Dave’s boss. They were amazed at the unkempt scene before them.
“I must not have noticed them earlier in the week.” Dave was shocked at the change in scenery from Monday to Friday. He led his boss to the shady poplars and the mass of marble and granite that concealed Mark’s preferred picnicking area.
They smelled the stench well before they reached their destination. It was notoriously Mark’s—a sulfuric, rotting meat odor, mixed with the slightest of floral scents. The duo held their pocket squares over their noses as they battled the foul smell and navigated the shrubbery and various grave markers.
“What in God’s name?!” screamed Mark’s boss at the sight of a burst, bloated abdomen. Mark’s stomach and intestines had torn his belly open like an overinflated balloon. The two men began gagging and puking at the scene. Flies had already begun swarming, gorging, and laying their eggs in his exposed innards. The sun beat down on that extraordinarily warm spring afternoon, making matters (and the smell) far worse.
Dave spoke for a few minutes with the paramedics when they arrived. He told them how Mark often ate his lunch in the peace and quiet of Valleyview. Mark was clutching a handful of orange lilies where they found him, and the paramedics asked Dave if Mark had eaten any of them. He responded that he didn’t know.
The paramedics contacted a local botanist to identify the flowers and she arrived within the hour.
“So many flowers are poisonous and shouldn’t be ingested. These almost look like the daylily, which is edible, but no—this variety had to have been planted here. It’s indigenous to Central America and incredibly rare.”
SCRY THE CROW
Amanda Clegg had a very troubled son. He had quit school and barricaded himself in his room for weeks before madness took hold and seemingly manifested itself in the form of demonic possession. Doctors had no answer for his sudden change in behavior and recommended institutionalization.
Amanda’s husband and parents were gone. Her siblings lived across the country. It had been just the two of them in that little house at the edge of the park. She was sure a father figure was what her son needed to set him back on the right path. She was at her wit’s end when she begged her parish priest to meet with her son.
Young Father Falco was one of the last to graduate a North American seminary school with a specialization in exorcism. He came to the house with his deacons and performed the ritual to no avail; the boy’s condition only worsened. The priest continued to meet with the teenager, day by day and week by week, until they ultimately disappeared together late one night.
The police and the local Catholic parish were of little help. Her son was seventeen and left of his own sound mind and body—according to the police, anyway. The monsignor and his staff wanted to keep the issue quiet and told Mrs. Clegg they’d sent out their own investigators to look for the pair.
In the weeks following her son’s disappearance she hired a private investigator, Jerry Javitz, to locate him. Jerry had updated her periodically, for months, before he ceased communication. During this time Amanda was wracked with guilt, fear, and depression, and even attempted to find her son herself—venturing into the seedy underbellies of nearby towns and cities.
The following is the final letter Amanda received before the private eye himself vanished:
January 8, 1974
Dear Mrs. Clegg,
I’ve found your son. He’s living not quite twenty minutes from your front door. Over the past six months I’ve tracked him from Chenango to Oxnard to Itaska, and finally to Lestershire. The heretical priest is still with him, along with two older women. There may be more who’ve joined the
group since.
I would like to share as many of the details of his and my wanderings as I’ve time for. I’m not in the area, actually far from it. I’m sorry I couldn’t convey this information to you in person. You’ll come to understand why I fear for my safety.
I picked up his trail from the bar he frequented in Chenango. The barman heard he was headed north on Route 12, so I followed him from town to town, gas station to gas station, and plenty of folks remembered the priest and specifically your son’s hands. He again bears the stigmata.
The sheriff near Oxnard was looking for the pair and questioned me when I came to town. Two of their farm cemeteries had been vandalized; the second apparently held what they were looking for. I found the small tomb they desecrated. It bore a window which they broke; and the deputy at the scene told me they had taken a young boy’s skull. For what purpose, I still have no answer.
After the Oxnard sighting, I could find only bits and pieces of information regarding them. At some point, two older women, sisters apparently, joined your son and the priest. I’m assuming in Itaska, as they were living through the fall and early winter in an abandoned Methodist church on the river.
In that chapel I found a journal full of Indian script and some black books in English, the contents of which I won’t disturb you with. I was able to secure translation of the Indian text at moral and spiritual cost to the translator. It was essential in locating your son and how I was able to find his current quarters.
In the forest, northeast of the cemetery in Lestershire, there is a small shack. I came upon it only by accident as I was tracking their coming and going from the graveyard. I staked out the small clan for weeks before I witnessed their purpose. The following is as accurate as I can describe and interpret from my own eyewitness account.
The priest only seemed to assist your son, who was constantly in a state of possession. They kept a number of caged crows for a very specific task. The priest would remove a crow, break its neck, and drop it in its throes. Your son seemed to be reading something of the crow’s movements or its final resting state—thereby the group would wait for him to speak in tongues. The language I can only assume is Indian.
This would go on until nightfall, when they moved their dark ritual to a corner of the cemetery, repeating the crow sacrifice and scrying. Eventually, they took over a concrete mausoleum with a rusted green door to continue their black mass. When during the day I attempted to enter the structure, the two women (whom I did not see standing watch in the treeline) attacked me with long knives.
I was stabbed in my right leg and received stitches to both of my hands at the local clinic. Mrs. Clegg, they knew me by name. They knew I had been following them from the very beginning. Your son is not a seventeen-year-old boy. There’s something much older about the way he speaks, something Indian in him. The priest isn’t directing him as we originally thought. Your son, Mrs. Clegg, is gathering followers—for what purpose I cannot begin to guess.
Sincerely,
Jerome Javitz, P.I.
See Appendix B for more information.
VERMIN
It was late afternoon on a hot summer day when Clyde Neely pulled his 1955 Ford pickup off Memorial Drive and into Valleyview Cemetery. His partner, Darryl Pook, sat next to him, drinking a Coca-Cola and bobbing his head to a new song by Johnny Cash playing on the radio. Darryl’s younger cousin, Seth, sat between them, talking their ears off about some blonde with a nice pair.
Clyde parked the truck along the eastern fence. They got out and each pulled a shovel from the truck bed. The new plot was up a gravel path, and they would have to walk the rest of the way.
"I tell you, she looked like Marilyn Monroe's long-lost twin sister," said Seth. He ran his hand through his ginger hair. "Walking down Main Street like she just walked off a movie set. Oh, man, you should have seen her. Woo-wee."
"You're full of shit," said Darryl, shaking his head. "No woman in Lestershire looks half that good."
"Let's get a move on it, guys.” said Clyde. “Parker wasn’t pleased about the last job. Said it was messy.”
"Parker can lick my boot," said Darryl as they arrived at the marked plot. "Cheap bastard. Always making us work overtime. I'm getting tired of it."
Seth, who couldn't work five minutes without smoking a cigarette or leaning on a fence post, nodded in agreement. "All Parker does is sit in that office of his all day—flogging his log, probably—while we slave away out here.”
"Are you two tired of eating? 'Cause you won't be doing much of it if you keep slacking off. Now, dig." Clyde broke the ground, picked up a pile of dirt, and tossed it over his shoulder.
"I could go back to mowing lawns. Easy work," said Darryl.
"Yeah, and get paid jack shit," said Clyde. His shirt was already dusted with earth. "Cemeteries don't bother me none. I don't believe in ghosts or ghouls or any of that kid shit. Thing I do mind is missing out on a day's pay."
He shot Darryl a serious look, and his partner started digging.
Seth walked over with his shovel, already blabbering away. "You ever think about the bodies rotting away under here? All those worms crawling in and out of their noses and—"
"Shut up!" Darryl gave his cousin a good whack on the shoulder, and the kid got to digging.
A couple hours passed. The sun hung high in the summer sky, and the men baked in that hole, which had grown four feet deep.
"Gentlemen!"
They looked up to see Parker, the caretaker, standing over the hole. He was a big, burly man with a buzz cut, beady eyes, and a permanent scowl. His dog, Hooch, a St. Bernard, was sitting next to him, a nasty, pink tongue hanging out of his mouth.
"Good afternoon, Parker," said Clyde.
"Floral Nursing Home had three deaths in the last two days, and we have the special privilege of burying all of the bodies here at Valleyview. In order to accommodate this unusually large number of burials, I'm going to need you three to work overtime tonight. I need the holes dug by sunrise. You got it?"
Darryl plunged his shovel into the dirt. "Three plots by tomorrow morning? Sam hell, Parker, that’ll take us all night! We're only halfway done with the first one."
"It might,” said Parker, a tiny smirk on his face. “But if you want to work for me again, you'll do it."
"I don't gotta put up with this," said Seth. "Murphy's Deli is hiring clerks, and I heard they treat their employees real nice. Even let them take home a pound of meat a week."
Parker smirked, the expression of a man who knows he has the upper hand. "Is that right? Well, maybe you boys ought to pile up in that rust bucket truck of yours and go ask Bill Murphy for a job."
Clyde quickly stepped in front of Darryl and Seth. "It's fine. My partners have just gotten too much sun. We'll have this done well before morning, Mr. Parker."
"Good," said Parker. He patted Hooch on the head. "Make sure it looks clean, too. I don't want any beer bottles or shit lying around like last time."
"Of course," said Clyde, giving his pals a sideways glance.
"And if you see any squirrels running around here, you have my permission to kill 'em. Little vermin run around chewing up flowers and pulling up flags. Took out four with my shotgun just this week." He walked back to his office, Hooch at his side.
Darryl spit in Parker's direction. "Son of a bitch. He's crazy if he thinks we can get this done in time. We really will be here all night."
Seth dug his shovel into the ground and leaned on the handle. "Takes at least four or five hours to dig a decent hole. I ain't that good at math, but there's no way we can get this done on time. They'll have to toss the rest of the bodies in the Quee-Hanna and call it a day."
Clyde pretended he didn't hear Seth. "Listen, if we work fast and don't bullshit, we can get out of here before midnight. Alright? Get home and maybe even have some time to make it with the wife."
Darryl laughed. "Yeah, right."
"And what the hell is he talking about with squirrels?" said
Seth.
Darryl shook his head. "Who knows. Guy's a little nuts, yuk-yuk.”
“Now, c'mon. Let's get back to work,” said Clyde. “Time's a-wastin’."
They dug, and they dug some more. With each foot of dirt they uncovered, the sun traveled an interminable distance westward. Around 8:30 p.m. Seth went back to the truck to get the oil lantern.
They were talking about whether or not the Yankees would make it back to the World Series—Seth was yammering on about his god-awful Mets—when they heard a long howl off in the distance.
Seth gave Darryl a worried look.
“Coyotes,” said Darryl.
“Coyotes?!”
“You get used to hearing them out here. Don’t piss your pants.”
“I’m not afraid of any coyotes,” said Seth. “I’ll tell you though, I’ve heard some strange things about this place. Don Barker, guy washes windows down on Taft, told me some wild story about his dad. Gave me the spooks.”
Clyde rolled his eyes at Darryl.
“Don said his dad was out here one evening, years ago, tending to his mother’s grave, when he sees a crazy looking guy run out of the forest. When the guy got closer, he could see it was an Indian—looking like he was straight out of Gunsmoke. He couldn’t believe his own eyes ‘til he saw the long knife in the Indian’s hand. His dad ran right out of the cemetery and lived to tell the tale.”
“Geez, Seth, did he have a bow and arrow too? Was his name Tonto?” Darryl chuckled.
“Go ahead and laugh. But I tell you, this place is—” Seth paused as another howl echoed throughout the cemetery. Not two seconds later, what sounded like a whole pack of coyotes was crying out to the moonlight.