AN OLD NEGLECTED CEMETARY

Rick McQuiston
©2007

The gash on his palm was beginning to throb. A small crimson lake was forming, speckled with tiny grains of dirt which stuck to the cut like glue. The possibility of infection crossed his mind but he pushed it aside. He had to focus on the task at hand…getting into the cemetery.

Several obscene words directed at the rusty padlock and the unseen wires around it escaped his lips and drifted up into the swaying, leafless October trees. He knew the gate would not open but he still grasped the lock anyways and paid a painful price for it. But it would be worth it, he reasoned to himself. To finally get some answers about the old place would be worth the price of admission.

The cemetery had always been a source of morbid fascination for him. He'd passed it countless times dating as far back as he could remember. He recalled riding his bike, newspaper bags dangling in the back, past the old graveyard on his way to his route every day of the week. Even then, the wrought iron fence which encircled the grounds was intimidating. Back then it had seemed twenty feet high, an untouchable barrier which mocked those who wished to pass through it.

Why they kept it locked in the first place always puzzled him. His dad had told him it was to keep vandals out. He said punks would desecrate the graves and tear up the ground, even though there was more weeds and dirt than grass.

Indeed the graveyard was an enigma. A three quarter acre silent companion which peered at him as he peddled his rusty yellow bike and newspapers past it every day.

Sometimes he even caught himself looking back at the museum of death half expecting to see desiccated hands clawing their way through the soil which had served as a prison for them for so long. Mindless things that life had passed by whose only link to the memories of man was a stone or wooden ledger with their lives condensed into a name and birth and death dates.

He felt embarrassed every time he turned his head. He, Paul Samath, a young man who had a great deal of common sense falling victim to frightening and alluring but nonetheless impossible scenarios. He knew better. He always prided himself on his firm grip on reality, even when that reality was attacked by old graveyards full of weathered and tilted tombstones.

The pain in his hand jolted him back to the present. The wrought iron fence loomed in front of him, circling the grounds as a mother would a child. It had lost most of its paint to time but still exuded a powerful aura. He took a deep breath and vaulted himself as high as he could. He clenched the horizontal bar along the top of the fence and jammed his feet against two of the brick pillars that were stationed evenly apart. With an effort that pleasantly surprised him, he easily lifted himself up to and then over the top, carefully avoiding the studded spikes along the edge.

His hand was bleeding worse now, leaving its bloody trail behind him. Ripping a small piece of his shirt along the bottom, he wrapped it tightly around his palm. He hated to lose his shirt, he had received it as a birthday gift, but his need for a tourniquet was greater.

Surveying his surroundings he took in the morbid yet interesting sights. His curiosity had gotten him into this situation and now it needed to be quenched completely.

Dozens and dozens of grave markers greeted his eyes. Ancient, neglected things that were intermittingly scattered throughout the grounds. Many tilted severely as if they were in the process of falling over. He looked over the crumbling memorials whose epitaphs were barely legible and whose sole purpose was jeopardized by time and the elements. Most were similar in size and shape, ranging from small wooden crosses to granite slabs, but a few were large obelisks well over six feet tall.

He gathered up all the common sense he had accumulated over the course of his life. He wielded it like a weapon to stave off the irrational fears that such a place would undoubtedly spawn. There were no zombies pulling themselves free from their graves. There were no ghosts malevolently floating between the headstones. There was no evil, unseen force emanating from the ground. There was nothing but an old, neglected cemetery with a somewhat foolish twenty-two year old man standing alone near its center. A young man whose whole existence had been spent rationalizing every aspect of his life, always seeking to logically explain every anomaly and to understand everything beyond his comprehension.

And yet this same young man finds himself alone in a cemetery, inexplicitly drawn to it. A pupil anxious to find out the answers from his mute teacher.

The blood began to soak through the makeshift bandage as he tried his best to ignore it. He had to find out the reason he had come here. He had to understand what was happening to him.

He began to frantically search the grounds, hoping for a clue or a sign of some sort. He scanned the stone ledgers all around him, not knowing what he was looking for or where to find it. The reminders of mortality seemed to look back at him; silent stone and wooden faces reluctant to reveal their secrets. The inscriptions on most were too weathered to read but he managed to make out a few lines on several.

	A.H. Jonesh born July 3, 1915 died Aug. 7, 1937	Mariah Nettle born Nov. 14, 1923 died Dec. 3, 1945	Benjamin Tether born March 23, 1900 died July 22, 1922

Names which were meaningless to him. Names and dates that offered no insight to the ever-increasing desire he felt for answers. He fell to the ground and cupped his face in his hands, ready to accept defeat.

Then one marker caught his eye. A small cross, darkened with age, not more than two feet high, sitting quietly off to his left amid a row of much larger headstones. Why he noticed it he wasn’t sure at first but it became clearer as he moved closer to it. The inscription literally knocked him down.

	Paul Samath beloved son born July 3, 1982 died Oct. 17, 2004

October seventeenth two thousand four, that was today! He felt his head grow light as he struggled to keep standing. The chances of someone with the same name being buried in this cemetery was a million to one. And what about the dates? July third was his birthday. Did this mean he was destined to die today? His whole life was spent seeking logical and sensible explanations but now he was standing four feet from an unexplainable and disturbing fact. A fact in the form of a small cross in an old neglected cemetery.

The throbbing in his hand was steadily increasing. Looking down, he saw that a small pool of blood was forming. Before his eyes, the blood rapidly soaked into the ground. As more drops hit the dirt they would vanish immediately. He turned his head and looked behind him at the path he had come earlier. The trail of blood was completely gone. Not a single drop remained, not even on the fence he had climbed to get into the cemetery.

Clearing his head proved to be difficult. There had to be an explanation. There must be a logical, reasonable explanation.

When he suddenly realized what was really happening, the sheer absurdity of the explanation almost caused him to hesitate. Fortunately for him he did not for he barely managed to escape the cemetery before it rumbled to life in an ear-splitting shriek of inhuman noise.

Safely outside the confines of the fence, he looked on in horror as his twisted, disturbed and all too real thoughts manifested into reality before his eyes. The cemetery thing lifted its tombstones, or rather its bait, high into the chilly October air before crashing back down again in a malevolent chorus of evil. He could see it writhing just beneath the fallen leaves and twigs, full of rage that its prey had escaped.

He peddled as fast as he could trying to escape what could not possibly be.

After he rode a hundred or so feet he gave in to the curiosity that had outlined his life and turned his head back in the direction he had so quickly left moments earlier. The cemetery was still there, as silent and intriguing as it had always been.

BACKGROUND ............

Rick McQuiston is a 39 year-old father of two who loves to read,write and play drums. He has had 87 publications so far and is currently working on his second horror novella. You can check out his new horror fiction ezine at www.geocities.com/many_midnights.