by P J Parrish
He settled back in the seat, watching the empty land, feeling the cold swirl of air from Phillip’s cracked window against the back of his neck.
There was no sign for the cemetery. Only a listing black iron gate stuck deep into the mud, as if it had been left open for quite some time. Two towering pines stood guard on each side of the entrance and the land beyond it was a flat expanse of brown grass bordered by thickets and trees. As they walked up to the gate, Louis could see a silent backhoe sitting at the far end next to a heap of black dirt. Near it was a gangly yellow hoist, used to lift the concrete vaults from the graves. Three muddy vaults sat off in the far corner of the cemetery.
Only the cawing of crows broke the still cold air. Louis looked up and spotted two of the birds staring down at them from the two sentry pines.
Phillip walked on ahead and Louis followed, scanning the ground. The grass wasn’t very high, only five or six inches, but Louis didn’t see any headstones or monuments. A yard or two into the cemetery, he spied a plot of freshly disturbed ground where he guessed someone had been dug up and the hole refilled. Then there was another, and a third, before Phillip finally stopped.
At his feet was an open grave, the bottom puddled with dark water. Phillip knelt at the head of the grave and pushed aside the dead grass. Louis stepped closer.
A small stone square was pressed into the ground, no larger than six inches by eight inches. Louis squatted to look at the stone. It was well worn, but someone, probably Phillip, had scraped away the moss and mud, and the engraving was easy to read.
No name. Just a number—1304.
“What kind of cemetery is this?” Louis asked, looking up at Phillip.
Phillip rose slowly, his eyes drifting back to the road they had driven in on, and beyond, to a cluster of taller trees. “There’s a hospital over there. This is where they buried their unclaimed dead.”
Louis looked off in the same direction as Phillip, but he saw nothing. “What kind of hospital?” he asked.
“A sanitarium.”
“An insane asylum?”
“Yes.”
“Your friend died there?”
“Yes. At least that’s what I was told.”
Louis looked back at the stone marker embedded in the grass. “And all these people got were numbers on their graves?”
“I suppose it started out as some kind of privacy thing, maybe to keep the curiosity seekers from coming in and vandalizing the graves,” Phillip said. “There were a couple of well-known criminals who were sent here back in the fifties and sixties.”
Louis looked off at the far trees. Something was coming back to him. He stood up, facing Phillip. “This is Hidden Lake, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “You know about it?”
Louis hesitated. He knew. He had heard about Hidden Lake many times, mostly in hushed conversations with other kids. Talk of crazy people screaming behind iron bars, stories of secret operations, torture, and brain removals. No one he knew had ever seen Hidden Lake, but every kid knew what it was like. Hidden Lake was hell, Halloween, and a chamber of horrors all rolled into one. It was where all the really crazy people were kept, where your mother would threaten to send you if you were bad. It was where all the insane killers were locked away.
A memory came to him suddenly. A serial killer from the late sixties, a man who prowled lovers’ lanes, chopping off heads and eating the eyeballs of teenagers. The killer had been sent here, hadn’t he? Or was that just another story whispered in tents at a summer camp, a story spawned of some boy’s fevered imagination?
He knew now that none of it was true. He knew, too, that mental illness was something to be treated, not feared. Still, as he tried to imagine Phillip’s friend in a place like Hidden Lake, he couldn’t shake the images that were suddenly crawling out of the locked box of his own childhood nightmares.
He walked a few feet away and saw another stone marker almost hidden in the grass. “You mentioned that maybe some numbers got mixed up. Were you able to check that?”
Phillip shook his head. “No one will talk to me. The company in charge of transferring the bodies claims it’s not their problem. And the hospital is being dismantled and there’s only a few people left to clean things up. The records are either lost or just gone.”
“What about the local police? Have you tried them?”
Phillip nodded. “They said if the hospital doesn’t feel the need to report this, then it’s not really their business. I get the feeling that all anyone wants to do is level the hospital and forget it ever existed.”
Louis pulled a small camera from his coat pocket and came back to the open grave. He took a picture of the stone marker, then moved to the nearby marker, brushed aside the grass, and took a photo of that one, too. He did the same with all four surrounding graves, hoping that having the numbers might help verify any errors.
He looked back to Phillip, who had knelt down by the open grave. He was pulling the dead weeds and grass away from the stone marker.
“What was her name?” Louis asked.
Phillip rose slowly and brushed the dirt from his hands. “Claudia. Claudia DeFoe,” he said. He walked slowly away, his hands in his pockets.
There was a sign on the backhoe: SPERA & SONS EXCAVATIONS. Louis wrote it in his notepad. He looked over toward Phillip, who was standing at the cemetery entrance under the huge pine tree, lighting a cigarette. Phillip was wearing a gray overcoat, which seemed to accentuate his height and thinness, and his chopped gray hair was the same color as the sky. For a moment, he seemed to disappear before Louis’s eyes.
Louis went over to him. “I think you need to show me this hospital,” he said.
CHAPTER 4
They backtracked on U.S. 50 about a half mile. There were no signs for Hidden Lake, but Phillip easily spotted the small side road obscured by a tall stand of trees and slowed the car for the turn in.
Another iron gate, this one in better repair than the one back at the cemetery. There was a discreet sign on the gate that read HIDDEN LAKE. A uniformed man emerged from the red brick guardhouse as they pulled up. Phillip rolled down his window and the man leaned in to peer at them.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
Phillip glanced at Louis, so Louis leaned across the seat.
“We wanted to see someone about claiming a deceased patient,” he said.
“Sorry. We’re closed for the weekend.”
“We need to talk to someone in charge,” Louis said. “If we come back Monday, who do I see?”
The guard shrugged. “Not sure. There’s only a skeleton crew and I’m just here to keep folks out. But you can come back Monday and see for yourself.”
Louis glanced at Phillip. He would have to come back alone Monday; he didn’t want Phillip to have to lie again to Frances. Phillip started to put the car in gear.
“Wait a second,” Louis said, leaning back over. “Can you tell me where . . .” He pulled the notebook from his jacket pocket. “Spera and Sons Excavations—do you know where it is?”
The guard had to think for a moment. “Go back up to U.S. 12 and head west. Just past the Mystery Hill, take your first left. Go a half mile and you’ll see ’em.”
“Thanks.”
Phillip swung the car back onto the highway. He had been quiet since they left the cemetery. As they drove deeper into the hills, Louis stole a glance at him. Phillip was staring straight ahead out the windshield.
They passed through a town with a shimmering lake and dark clusters of pines and bare birches. A small wood sign welcomed travelers to Ardmore and underneath it read WHERE THE PAST IS PERFECT.
A few miles farther, Louis saw a sign for Mystery Hill. As he turned the corner, he saw Phillip twist his neck to look back at the faded yellow building.
“You want to stop?” Louis asked.
“No.”
They saw the sign for Spera & Sons Excavations and Phillip pulled into the gravel parking lot. The compound was
enclosed by a high chain-link fence, the top coiled in barbed wire. Behind the main building, Louis could see backhoes and other machinery in the muddy yard. There was a warehouse and beyond that a large white tent. If Louis was guessing right, this small company had won this hospital contract only because it was local and that the tent was probably a temporary holding area for remains not yet claimed or transferred to other graveyards.
Louis hesitated as he got out of the car, thinking Phillip should not go inside. But Phillip was already heading to the main building. Louis caught up with him and opened the door.
Inside, it looked like a construction company office—scuffed linoleum floors, harsh fluorescent lights, and scarred metal desks. The walls were covered in bulletin boards. The largest board, Louis noted, held a schematic of the cemetery. It was marked in a grid and shaded where graves had already been exhumed.
The office was empty, but a radio was playing softly, tuned to a country-and-western station. There was a door leading out into the warehouse.
“Hello! Anyone here?” Louis called out.
His eyes were drawn to a second bulletin board. It looked like an old architect’s plan of a huge factory or development of some kind. He went over to get a better look.
The legend below the drawing identified it as HIDDEN LAKE FARMS ASYLUM AND HOSPITIAL. The drawing showed a sprawling compound of maybe a dozen buildings set down amid farm plots, pastures, and a small lake, all enclosed by a fence. Beyond the fence to the west, set away from the main compound in the surrounding woods, was a place designated only as CEMETERY. Without his glasses, Louis had to squint to read the date: 1895.
The flush of a toilet drew Louis’s eyes back to a man emerging from a door. He was a big guy, with a wisp of black hair and glasses, the shoulders of his blue flannel shirt hanging loose on his round frame. He was carrying a yellowed paperback of Robert B. Parker’s, Looking for Rachel Wallace.
“I’m John Spera. Can I help you?” the man asked.
Louis introduced them both, then told the man they were here to ask about one of the patients.
Spera set down the paperback and slapped open a thick ledger. “Name?”
Phillip answered, “Claudia DeFoe.”
Spera’s eyes came up quickly. “You’re the guy who called.”
“Yes,” Phillip said.
“I told you on the phone, this isn’t our problem, Mr. Lawrence. If the hospital wants to bury rocks, they can bury rocks. We just get paid to dig up the caskets.”
Phillip’s face twitched, and Louis stepped forward quickly. “Can we see her casket?”
Spera hesitated.
“What can it hurt?” Louis asked. “It’s just rocks, right?”
“I don’t—”
“You do have it, don’t you?”
“Sure we do. We keep everything until someone claims it or we’re told to send the remains somewhere else. Even rocks.”
Now Louis was quiet, watching Phillip. His face was tight but his eyes had a flicker of something Louis read as distress.
“All right, but I got to warn you,” Spera said. “There’s other remains out there. You sure you want to go?”
Louis looked to Phillip, who nodded. They followed Spera out the back door and across the gravel lot. Despite the cold, Louis detected a familiar scent in the air—the sour mixture of decomposition.
“Phil, you sure about this?” Louis said quietly as they walked.
“When I was in Korea we got caught in a bad night battle once, the kind of thing where nobody knows what’s going on,” Phillip said. “In the morning, I looked out and there were bodies hanging on the barbed wire and the sarge just said, ‘You, you, and you, go clear the field.’ So we did. I’ve seen dead bodies before, Louis.”
They stopped and Spera threw back the flap of the tent. The smell engulfed them and Louis’s hand flew to his nose. He glanced quickly at Phillip.
“Let’s go,” Phillip said quietly.
There were sixty or seventy tables set up in the tent. Each table held a pile of dirt and wood and one large clear plastic bag. The wood was what was left of the caskets, Louis guessed, the cheap boards now warped or waterlogged, some just in pieces. The bags held the bones and tatters of cloth. The few caskets that were still in one piece were stacked on plywood shelves at the back of the tent.
“How many graves are in the cemetery?” Louis asked.
“Over six thousand,” Spera said.
They followed Spera as he wove his way through the tables. Louis couldn’t help but look down as they passed. Each heap of bones had a tag attached, printed with two sets of numbers, Spera told them: the graveyard identifying number and a new number assigned by Spera. No names on any of them.
Spera finally stopped near the back of the tent next to a screened window. The outside flap was whipping against the canvas, and Louis was grateful for the fresh air.
On the table lay a pile of medium-size rocks, a scattering of dirt, and a few shards of boards dark with age and rot. The tag had the same number as Claudia’s grave marker—1304. Spera had given her the number 51.
Louis looked at Phillip. His skin was ashen as his eyes flicked over the pile of the rocks.
Louis cleared his throat to get Spera’s attention. “The graves next to this one were untouched,” he said. “Can you let us know when you get to them?”
Spera had to pull his eyes from Phillip. “I could do that.”
Louis had asked mainly for Phillip’s sake. He knew that the chances of Claudia’s remains being in a neighboring grave by mistake were almost nil. Even if Claudia’s remains were still in that cemetery somewhere, they could be in any one of those thousands of unnamed graves.
He touched Phillip’s arm. Phillip turned away and started wandering the rows of tables, peering down into each heap.
“Mr. Spera,” Louis said, “what can you tell me about the hospital?”
“Well, it’s been here forever,” Spera said. “It’s just something we’ve all gotten used to over the years. When we were kids we used to hear these stories about—”
Louis shook his head and Spera stopped himself, watching Phillip.
“I do know,” Spera said, “that out of all these graves, only twelve have been claimed by relatives. Seems most have been forgotten or folks just don’t want to acknowledge them.”
“What’s going to happen to those that aren’t claimed?” Louis asked.
“We send ’em over to county and they’ll rebury them somewhere else,” Spera said.
Louis turned back to Phillip. He had stopped at a plastic bag and was fingering the edge. Louis wondered if he had heard what Spera had said. But Phillip just walked away without looking up.
“Look, if you don’t need me anymore,” Spera said.
“Thanks, you’ve been a big help,” Louis said.
Spera left. Louis stayed for a few moments, his eyes on the pile of rocks. Thousands of people buried in that cemetery but only twelve had been claimed. It was beyond sad, almost grotesque.
He looked up and didn’t see Phillip. Then he spotted him over in a far corner of the tent. Louis started toward him and as he neared, he saw the white casket. It was sitting on a table by itself, apart from all the other decrepit wooden boxes. It was pearly white with gleaming silver handles. There was a tag attached to one of the handles on which someone had scribbled HOLD FOR P. LAWRENCE. Phillip was just standing there, staring at it.
“This was for her,” Phillip said. “This is the one I picked out.”
The cold air swirled in from the open tent entrance, the smell of decay eddying around them. Phillip reached out and put a hand on the coffin. He pulled in a deep breath that caught in his throat.
“Come on,” Louis said, taking his arm. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 5
Louis stripped off his jacket, taking a second to stand under the ceiling vent to warm up. When he reached back to take Phillip’s coat to hang it on the peg next to his, Phillip was already headi
ng to the kitchen.
Louis followed him. Still wearing his coat, Phillip veered off into the dark dining room. He opened a breakfront, pulling down a glass. He popped open a lower cabinet door and grabbed a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Frances came in from the kitchen just as he was pouring the drink.
Her eyes went to the glass and then to Louis. “I was getting worried about you. How was the trip?” she asked.
Louis waited for Phillip to answer. When he didn’t, Louis gave it a shot. “Fine. It was very cold.” Louis nodded at the bottle still in Phillip’s hand. “Phillip, pour me one. I could use some warming up, too.”
Phillip took out another glass, poured a shot, and handed it to Louis. Louis didn’t like bourbon, but he hid his grimace as he took a drink.
“So where did you go?” Frances asked, her eyes still on her husband.
Phillip took a slow drink.
“Did you go visit your friend?” Frances asked.
“Yes,” Phillip said. “Louis and I were talking about him last night and I thought I’d take him out there.”
Louis looked down into his glass.
“Maybe I should come with you sometime,” Frances said.
“It’s an old army buddy, Frances. You know I don’t talk much about that.”
“You’ve never even told me his name, Phillip.”
Louis took a drink, wishing he was somewhere else. Jesus, this was awkward. Here they were, standing in a dark dining room, not able to look into each other’s eyes, pretending everything was normal.
“Where is this cemetery?” Frances asked.
Phillip turned the glass slowly with his fingers. He wasn’t going to answer.