* * *
The last mile of the road was a single lane, flanked closely on both sides by tall trees in full bloom. With no moon, the darkness was complete. Just past a hundred-eighty degree turn, the road dead-ended in a dirt cul-de-sac and the entrance to the cemetery.
There were no cars, so obviously Lisa hadn’t driven. She must have come on foot, the same way he had. Odd. It was hard to imagine a girl like her being able to hoof it alone twenty miles to the middle of nowhere.
A dirt path cut through the center of the cemetery, headstones on either side. Most of them had fallen over from a century of weather-wear. Others appeared to have been toppled by vandals. Paul felt a momentary pang of sadness for the poor unfortunates whose final resting place had become a sight-seeing stop for people looking for a thrill.
At the periphery of his vision, as the trail was swallowed in distance and darkness, the path crossed underneath an enormous oak tree. Standing next to it, arms folded in front her, was Lisa. As before, she faced him directly, smiling, her big brown eyes fixed unblinkingly on him.
Moving slowly onto the path, she said in a teasingly, “I was beginning to get worried that you wouldn’t come. You’re late.”
“I am?” he stammered. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I walked all the way from Radcliff and I don’t have a watch or anything so I don’t know what time it is.”
She smiled even wider, moving toward him.
“It’s alright, Paul, I’m just razzing you.”
She said my name, he thought with a thrill. Just as if she’d said it a million times before. Just as quickly, he tried to retract the thought, worried that perhaps she could hear what he was thinking. Were the two of them in his mind right now?
He walked toward her slowly. He wasn’t really even conscious that he was moving at all, so focused was he on what she said and the smile on her face.
“Where are we?” he asked her.
Raising one eyebrow, she answered cryptically in a faux-spooky voice, “Casey’s Cemetery—The Gates of Hell.”
“No, I mean—yes, I know that. Of course. But how is this possible? Are we seeing each other in our minds? Are you psychic?”
They had finally come face to face on the path and stopped. Lisa was slightly shorter than him, but to Paul she seemed larger than life, her eyes drawing him into their infinite depths. It took his breath away, being so close to someone so beautiful.
Perhaps realizing his discomfort, Lisa finally unfolded her arms and reached out a hand. She placed it on his left arm just above the elbow and kept it there, looking him in the eye.
“We are at the Gates of Hell,” she repeated. “We really are here. The most important part of us is, anyway. We are both here, now, in this cemetery. You can feel my hand on your arm, can’t you?”
Paul nodded. He most certainly could, and most certainly didn’t want her to pull away, but she did. She slowly loosened her hold on his arm and, still smiling, let one finger trace down to his elbow as she lowered her hand to her side.
“You really don’t know, do you?” she asked.
“Don’t know what? I don’t understand. Please—I’ve been trying to figure this out for so long. Please tell me what you know.”
“Oh this is as good as I hoped it would be!” Lisa exclaimed, clearly delighted. “A true virgin to Walking. We are going to have so much fun! There is so much to show you and so much to tell you.” She grinned. “Paul, I think we’re going to be very good friends.”
“Walking?”
Smiling even wider, if that were possible, she said, “That’s just what we call this. I don’t know if there actually is an official or accepted name for it. But the short answer is yes.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I suppose I’d better start at the beginning. Come over to the tree and sit down. I’ll explain everything.”
Placing her hand lightly on the center of his lower back, she gently steered him toward the tree she’d been standing under when he’d first arrived. Her touch was electrifying, the butterflies in his stomach working so hard it almost burned. It was just a light, guiding touch, one that she probably didn’t realize had such an impact on him, but for the few moments they walked toward the tree, her simple proximity gave him an unbelievable rush.
As he moved aside a low-hanging branch and held it out of her way, she gave a small gasp and looked at him with an appreciation that bordered on outright adoration. Chivalry wasn’t dead, so it seemed. He followed her to a spot at the base of the tree and sat down cross-legged next to her.
Also cross-legged, Lisa sat with her hands folded in her lap and her head bowed, as if she was trying to decide where to begin. She stayed like that for a few moments. When she finally lifted her head, her gaze was clear and direct.
“We are both very special, Paul, because we share a talent,” she began. “We are here. We are here right now, and at the same time we are still in our bedrooms or wherever it is that we fell asleep. Our bodies are there, resting, completely independent of the most important part of ourselves. Call it your soul, call it your essence, your spirit—call it whatever you or your religion prefers. Whatever it is that makes us ‘us’—that is the part of you that is here right now talking to me.”
“Astral projection?” Paul asked, stunned, almost in a whisper.
“Sort of,” Lisa answered. “It’s hard to call it projecting once you get used to the idea of how it works. So much of what makes us this way, and our limitations, just doesn’t mesh with the stories of people who claim they can astral project. Saying that you project this part of yourself implies that you’re making an effort to do it. You aren’t. You don’t have a choice. You’re here because something about the way you’re built places you here every night.”
When his only reply was to give her his full attention, she continued. “The first thing you need to know, and probably the most important thing, is that no one can see us or hear us. You probably already think you know this. I’ve seen you on that bench. You don’t even look up when someone sits down next to you. But do you really know it? Do you realize the freedom that comes with that? You can go anywhere you want and no one will ever say a thing, because they’ll never know. You can see anything you want and no one will stop you. They couldn’t if they wanted to. You have an all-access pass to the entire world. Literally. Think about that.”
He did think about it. He’d never considered testing the boundaries of his dream. It just never occurred to him. He was always so engrossed in his own self-pity that he hadn’t realized that his condition could be seen as anything but a curse. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a gift. The idea of ‘anywhere’ and ‘anything’ was mind-blowing. It was like trying to imagine the concept of forever.
“I can see that sinking in,” Lisa said. “I’ve known what I can do since nearly the first night it happened, and it still gives me goose bumps. It will for you, too, Paul. We can know anyone’s secrets. We can go into any house we want. Paul, we could go into the White House if we wanted to.
“But there are some limitations to it. You have to be careful of mirrors and shadows. Sometimes you leave a faint glimmer of yourself in a reflection or in the way lights pass through you. You can always go anywhere you want in the dark, but when you’re in lighted places, like when you’re indoors or in a city, you have to be careful. Walkers are where nearly every ghost story comes from. Stand in front of a mirror in a darkened room and say the words ‘Bloody Mary’ three times. That’s us. The sight of someone standing in an upstairs window when no one is in the house. Us again. The faint, blurry outline of a person in the background of a photograph when no one is actually there. All of those things are us and have been twisted into urban legends and bedtime stories.”
Stunned, trying to take in everything she was telling him, Paul murmured, “It’s like a bad horror movie.”
Laughing, Lisa said, “Yup. Except in our case it’s not scary at all, it’s awesome. But like I said, there are some limitations. Here, check this ou
t.”
Standing up, she beckoned him to follow her to the chain link fence that surrounded the cemetery. Inviting him to pay attention, she drew her arm back and grunted like a tennis player, swinging her hand into the chain mesh as hard as she could.
The fence didn’t move, nor did it make the ringing sound that chain link fences usually make when they’re disturbed. The only sound was the dull thud of her hand against the metal. It was as if she wasn’t there and hadn’t touched the fence at all. Or rather, as if the fence had only touched her, but not vice versa. She then reversed her swing and slammed her palm down on top of the nearest fence post, again as hard she could, again with the same effect. She grunted a little in pain, but gave no other reaction. Appalled, Paul watched but said nothing.
“We can’t move anything,” she explained. “It could be something as small as a pebble, but it may as well be as big as a Buick—we can’t budge it. This is one of our biggest limitations, because it means that we can’t carry anything with us when we’re Walking. We can’t call each other on a phone or drive a car. All the things we take for granted in the daytime, the tools we use to accomplish regular tasks, we have to find a way to do on our own. It’s almost like stepping back a hundred years when we’re here. The worst part is that for us to get anywhere, the way has to be open. Literally. We can’t push open doors or even turn a knob. Even curtains are an issue. We can’t move a thing.
“But now… this,” she held out her hand for him to see. “This is definitely one of the perks. Take a look.”
He looked down at her palm, but couldn’t see what it was that he was supposed to notice.
“I don’t see what you’re showing me,” Paul said.
“Exactly,” she answered. “It’s just my hand. There’s nothing wrong with it. I just hit that fence as hard as I could and even though it stung like crazy when I hit it, nothing really happened to me. When we’re here we can’t get hurt. The same way that we can’t move objects, they can’t move us. You could jump from a rooftop and do a belly-flop onto a fence post and still be fine. The pain of your landing would make you see stars for a while, but you’d be okay because here in the dream you don’t have a physical presence. You’re all soul, baby.”
“This is insane. This doesn’t seem real,” Paul marveled.
“I know,” Lisa said. “But once you’ve had some time to get used to it, you’re going to realize that this, being here, is in a lot of ways more real than when you’re awake. You’ll get to where you prefer this world to the other—we all do, for so many reasons—and you’re going to get to the point where one will blur into the other. You have to be careful of that, because so many of the rules that apply to our existence at night that don’t apply in the daytime. Sometimes, because you spend close to the same amounts of time in each, you end up taking certain things for granted, like not being able to be hurt, and I’m sure I don’t have to explain how that can have some pretty serious consequences.”
It was so much to process. Paul sat back down, head reeling, his back against the fence. A light breeze rustled through the leaves of the oak. It was actually quite nice in Casey’s Cemetery. “Tell me more,” he said.
“Well,” Lisa settled in beside him, her leg touching his. He was very aware of that leg. “Some of it you should already realize. You just walked twenty miles. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine,” he replied. “What do you mean?”
“Are you tired? Are your legs sore? You don’t have to answer, because I know they aren’t. We don’t feel physical strain at all. Think about it. Didn’t it occur to you that somewhere during that long walk you should’ve gotten at least a little thirsty? Your body needs hydration whenever it exerts itself, but your body isn’t here. Paul, you could’ve run the entire twenty miles if you’d felt like it—sprinted, if you wanted—and arrived here without being out of breath or even breaking a sweat.”
Paul’s head was spinning. Could this really be happening to him? He kept waiting to wake up and realize it was all in his head. Maybe he would. But after last night, and then today with the note under his tray, he would have a hard time believing it wasn’t real.
“You won’t get sick here,” Lisa continued. “You won’t get cold or hot. You’ll always feel exactly the way you feel right now—a nice, perfect medium. With one exception. Anything you do to yourself in the day will follow you here. If you break your leg tomorrow afternoon, your leg will be broken here tomorrow night as well. Somehow, your essence is linked to your physical body and always mirrors the way you currently are.”
“Lisa, this is all so much,” Paul said. And he meant it. They hadn’t been speaking for very long, but she’d said so much. And she acted so sure of herself, so confident in her knowledge. How did she know all of it so certainly? “You said you knew what you could do since nearly the first night that it happened. And you’ve said ‘us’ more than once. How? How did you know? And when you say ‘us,’ it must mean that you know more people like me. Do you? How many do you know?”
Lisa laughed. “You really are a smart one, aren’t you? You don’t miss a beat. I’ll answer all of your questions, but not tonight.”
She stood up, smoothing her hands up and down her legs unconsciously. “Come on,” she invited, holding out her hand. “Let’s take a walk.”
He started to object, but decided that the idea of holding her hand and taking a walk in the middle of the night was too appealing to pass up. He had so many more questions and was impatient to get the answers, but this was her show. Throughout the night she had never blatantly flirted with him, but she had given plenty of small hints that made him think there was a good chance she felt an attraction. He wasn’t about to screw up one of the best things that had ever happened to him. She was holding all the cards and he knew it. If he tried to force her to tell him what she knew before she was ready, she might decide never to tell him at all.
He stood up, took her outstretched hand, and allowed her to lead him out of the cemetery and down the road back the way he had come. They walked slowly, in silence, their hands swinging lightly with each step they took.
He looked over at her, wondering if he should say anything. He wanted to. There was a lot he wanted to say, and tonight’s revelations were only part of it. He was exhilarated by everything she’d told him, but he didn’t want to ruin it by rushing her along. He wanted her approval very badly.
She walked with her head slightly bowed, not really watching where they were walking, trusting him to guide their path. Her hand fit snugly into his. Every now and then, she made little twitches with it that might have been involuntary, but he liked to believe they were small signals that she was enjoying the contact.
They rounded the hundred-eighty degree turn in the road, nearing the intersection where Ethan’s party was. They’d been walking so slowly, it had taken a lot longer to get there than it had on his way in. Lisa still hadn’t said anything. He began to wonder if he’d said or done something wrong.
It was quiet, now. He didn’t hear the party or see any lights.
“It must be later than I thought it was,” he remarked.
“It is,” she replied. “It will be sunrise soon and we will have to go our separate ways.” She gave his hand another small squeeze. “Whether we want to or not.”
Lord, he felt good. Things like this just didn’t happen to me, he thought. And he wasn’t just thinking of the amazing revelations in regard to his dreams. He was thinking that something good had happened, something both big and good. And from the way it looked, he was on his way to beginning a relationship with the kind of girl he could only have daydreamed about a few days ago.
They crossed the intersection and stopped in front of Ethan’s house, standing in almost the exact same spot he’d been earlier. A few lights glimmered faintly in some of the downstairs rooms. The porch and front yard were littered with empty cans and bottles.
“Take a good look, Paul.” Lisa said. “This is their life. This i
s what they do, and it is all they can do. They don’t know, they will never know, and would never believe it if you told them what we can do. The people that are your friends are good people and I’m sure they care about you, but with what you now know nothing will ever be the same between them and you. You belong to something now. You’re part of a very special group, and the only ones who know about that group are the ones that are members.”
She turned and faced him, putting only a few inches between them. She looked up into his eyes. As the first rays of the sun began to peek over the horizon, she said, “As of this moment, your life will never be the same.”
Watchers of the Night Page 13