Death is coming...how will you greet him? One of four stories from Edge Of Darkness.
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The shadowy figure moved from behind one of the gravestones a few rows left of Amy’s. At first, I wrote it off as my eyes adjusting from sleep. But it moved again. This time moving past Amy’s row continuing across the yard toward the front gate of the cemetery. I tried to tell myself that it was a cloud passing overhead. It moved out from the headstones into the open area just before the gate, I saw that it was a man. A very large man from my vantage point, but from the distance could not make out anything other than his massive shape. I watched the figure move out of the front gate out onto the street. Once there he stood in the shadows of the pine trees on the other side of the road. I lost sight of him. I figured he was someone out doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Probably a drunk who wondered in from Rowley, the neighboring town, to find something to do at two in the morning. I stared at the spot I last saw the figure, straining to see if he was making his way up the hill or wondering down the road back to Rowley. I saw nothing. Then he was standing at the crest of the hill. Looking right at me.
Panic rushed over me. I pulled myself quickly along my bed away from the window hoping he did not see me. I smashed my left knee against the corner post of the bed and though I could not move my legs an inch, I felt every ounce of the pain. I pulled myself into my bed and yanked the covers up to my chin. My heart pounded somewhere between my throat and eyes. I closed my eyes trying to catch hold of myself. I realized I left the window wide open. I listened. Just beyond the pounding of my heart, I heard the footsteps of the man pass beneath my window. The steps grew softer as they moved farther up the street until the night became silent once again. I slept no more that night.
That morning I confessed to my mother what had taken place during the night, somehow hoping that telling her would make the incident seem less frightening. And it did- a little. She explained to me while fixing breakfast that men were often hired to dig the graves at night for the next day’s funeral. She reasoned that the grave keepers, as she called them, had worked late into the night preparing more then one grave. The explanation had merit. However, my rebellious mind continued to pose defying questions I refused to ask aloud. If he was digging graves, why didn’t he have any light? Where was his help? No one man could dig a grave by himself in one night. I bypassed these thoughts as I picked at my breakfast. At least my mother’s rigid rationalization had at least allowed me to sleep again.
It was nearly two weeks before I noticed the shadowy figure lumber out of the graveyard again in the middle of the night. I had woken again from the same strange dream and found myself at my window looking out on to Magnolia Street. This night the moon was not as bright as the first night I saw the grave keeper. Clouds from a looming storm raced past the gazing quarter moon. There was the distant rumble of thunder somewhere to the west. A refreshing wind blew in my window hugging my face as I sat with my chin resting on folded arms on the windowsill. I listened to leaves randomly dance around on the ground below. Then I heard the noise I had heard only once before but immediately recognized. Footsteps. Somewhere between the random sounds of the wind and leaves came the rhythmic footfalls on the pavement. This time the grave keeper passed just below my window near the curb of the street. Though again I could only make out his large form steadily moving up Magnolia Street. A cramp tightened in my stomach when he stopped directly outside my house looking up at me. I felt my breath being ripped from me in terror. Though I could not see his face, I knew his eyes were locked on me.
I had seen hundreds possibly thousands of people outside my window in all the time I spent there. People rushing to or from work in Rowley, children playing, elderly couples stretching their legs on evening walks. I had remained for the most part unnoticed. Occasionally getting a wave or a hello from someone who expected me to sitting in my window watching the world live. This man appeared to have expected me to be in my window even at this late hour. He knew I was there. I stopped being the noticer and became the noticed. The theft of my anonymity was terrifying. This man- this grave keeper- noticed me.
Our meeting that night lasted not more than a minute. I knew because I could only hold my breath for less then a minute before it came bursting out of my pressed lips. I had held my breath for the duration of our meeting. However, this time I did not cower away into my bed smashing my knee on the corner post (which had by then turned to an ugly purple and green bruise). Instead, I had stood my ground, even though I was frightened to the verge of losing my bladder. I watched as he continued up Magnolia avoiding the revealing light of the street lamp. A smell drifted in on the air. Something I hadn’t noticed the first time. It was the sour sweet smell of freshly spoiled milk. I buried my nose in my arm to lessen the sickening effect it brought. The odor faded with the footsteps as the grave keeper moved on.
From that night on, I made it a ritual to force myself awake around one a.m. in order to see if I could get a glimpse of the grave keeper. As luck would have it almost every single night, the shadowy figure would make its way across the graveyard and onto Magnolia Street. I would hear the steps on the pavement as he neared the top of the hill. Each night he would stop and look up at me from the darkened street. I even had mustered the courage one night to wave to him, though the wave went unreturned. Sometimes I would have to wait no more then ten minutes before I caught sight of him in the grave yard while other nights I had to wait almost to dawn to see him on his quest up my street. Each and every time he passed, he was followed by the rancid smell of sour milk. I had planned before going to bed one night to call down to him. However when the moment of truth came, I couldn’t raise a peep from my throat. Looking back, I was not so much afraid of him seeing me as me being alone in the world with him. I didn’t know for sure, if my mother’s prediction of him being a grave keeper was correct. An escaped lunatic from Golden Meadows hiding out in a graveyard was an easy fit for his job description also. Vampire, ghoul, and ghost came to mind also.
There was a sense of aloneness when the moment came each and every night for us to exchange our glances. Just him and I in the entire world. At that age, the prospect was not just startling but down right terrifying. I continued with my voyeuristic ritual every night because I had the protection of my house. There was at least one locked door between him and my perch in my window. There was something unthreatening about him. His routine of passing beneath my bedroom window on his way to do whatever seemed passive. There was nothing threatening about his stride or movements. Tough he stopped and looked up at me every single night. We continued this every night for months. Me noticing him and him noticing me. I never had the opportunity to see his face though. It seemed that the world dimmed around him, casting him in some mystic shroud of darkness.
It was early fall when I finally realized who I had grown so accustomed to watching every night. During the autumn, my window remained open allowing the crisp cool northern air to visit, saving momma money on the electric bill. I had just manned my post at the window when the grave keeper came into view. The moon was a brilliant white, like fresh linen on washday. As usual, the figure followed the routine of making his way up the hill towards my house. However, this time he did much more than look up. This night he turned towards me. I felt a flash of hotness in my throat. The grave keeper had broken our solemn noticing ritual. He moved from the middle of the street to the sidewalk just below my window. I pushed myself backward in my chair. Why? I asked myself. Why had he broken our sacred bond? I heard the footsteps on my front porch. I sat alone in the middle of my now way too dark room. My mouth felt dry- as if I had finished eating saltine crackers with nothing to drink. I began to roll myself out my room to wake my mother. I had managed to open my bedroom door just in time to hear the front door downstairs swing open. I froze. The grave keeper had entered my house. My sanctuary had been defeated.
There are human reflexes and instincts that at the age of nine that have not quite ripened yet. One of these being common sense. Looking back I should have began shouting and screaming to alert my mother to the intruder. Not that I am sure that would have done much good. Instead, I made my way back to my bed, catapulting myself in and under the covers. My heart wedged itself in my throat. All I could do is listen with my eyes closed firmly. Tears pressed out, rolling down my reddened cheeks. I listened. Footsteps. Down stairs foyer.
“God please let him go away.” I prayed under my quickening breath.
No such luck. The footsteps tracked across the foyer to the edge of the stairwell. Eighteen. That’s what I thought. Eighteen stairs. With good working legs it was nothing. For me it took extended an effort and nearly fifteen minutes to haul my gimp legs and ass up the stairs on my hands. Sure as sure enough, the solid steps of the grave keeper began his ascent of the dozen and a half steps. With each footfall I said a silent prayer that my mother would wake up and grab her .38 revolver she kept in her nightstand. In my terror-struck mind, she would fill the intruder full of lead. Then I would count the eighteen steps backward as he fell down them dead. No such luck there either. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. The footsteps stopped. The grave keeper stood silent at the top of the stairs- my stairs. I felt myself become dizzy as the realization that he now stood between my mother and me. Her room was at the other end of the hall, between there and here the top landing of the stairs. I held my breath and listened. Silence. Too much silence. It was sound of a predator just before it pounces on its prey. Then I smelled it. Sour milk. It crept into my room like darkness at sunset. I clenched my teeth trying to maintain some train of thought. I felt helpless.
It seemed as if a short eternity passed before the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps, now in the hallway outside my room. The sound seemed to come from no particular direction. It was everywhere outside my door. Then I remembered that the door was open. I dared not look. I envisioned him staring down the hall at me cowering in my bed. The footsteps sounded to close in on me. They approached the doorway to my room, and then they stopped. The door closed. Bells and alerts rang in my head warning me to run or scream. Or both. To do something. I could not do either. I didn’t know if he was in my room. I held my breath but the noise from my racing heart and some throaty whine that rose in my mouth was all I heard. Darkness came rushing from behind my closed eyes and I fainted.
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The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
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