Bloodless

28

Toby Manning shimmied up the wrought iron fence and tried to swing his leg over the spikes, but his pants got hung up and he fell to the ground on the far side with a loud ripping sound. He lay there, a little shaken but otherwise unharmed, as his pal Brock Custis looked on, laughing uproariously.

“You bust ass like that again,” Brock said, “and half of the dead here are going to rise up and give you the finger.”

“Help me up, fagmeat,” Toby said.

Still laughing, Brock extended a hand and Toby grasped it and was hauled to his feet. He checked his jeans and found a two-inch tear along the side. “Shit.”

Annoyed, he slapped away the dirt and leaves and looked around. “Creepy place.” A full moon hung in the night sky. Strings of low-lying mist drifted through the twisted oaks and ghostly shapes of tombstones stretching in front of them.

Brock managed to stifle his laughter long enough to pull a pint of Southern Comfort from his pocket. “Here, take a shot of this.”

Toby grabbed the pint and sucked down a couple of mouthfuls before handing it back. He could feel the heat of the liquor spreading through his gullet, and it restored his mood. “The grave is supposed to be at the far end, by the river,” he said.

“Lead the way, asswipe.”

Toby pulled out his cell phone — relieved to find it intact — and turned on its light. It cast a feeble glow over the white gravel path that led off into the misty darkness of Bonaventure Cemetery. He had a momentary shiver. “Gimme another hit.”

Brock handed him the bottle. Toby drained it and gave it back. Brock stared at it, frowning. “You bogarted all the Sudden Discomfort!” he said, flinging the bottle over his shoulder. Toby heard it shatter against a tomb and winced.

“Three points.” With a grin, Brock slipped out another pint. “Go easy on this one.” He cracked the cap and they each had another swig.

Now they walked down the path, lined on either side by massive trees hanging with moss, the gravel crunching under their feet. Toby had never seen tombs as elaborate as these: miniature Greek temples, life-size marble angels, huge obelisks and crosses and urns and slabs of marble. They passed a statue of a little girl with the saddest imaginable look on her face, seated next to an ivy-covered tree stump, all pale, glowing marble. Her name, Gracie, was carved on the base.

Brock lurched to a stop. “Will you look at that,” he said. “You know why she’s so sad?”

“No,” said Toby.

“Because she’s fucking dead!” And he howled with laughter as he continued staggering down the path.

“Jesus,” Toby murmured, shaking his head as he followed. He wondered if this was such a good idea after all.

Soon they were deep in the cemetery. Toby silently went over the directions he’d been given: Go to the far end, where the river is; turn right; count three alleyways and take another right. The tomb he was looking for would be on that path, just a ways down.

Or was it four alleyways?

“What’s the name of that statue we’re looking for again?” Brock asked.

“Bird Girl.”

“Bird Girl? What the hell does that mean?”

“Because she’s holding two bird baths, one in each hand. It was on the cover of that famous book.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“It’s interesting, that’s all.” He paused. “We don’t have to find it. We can just wander around.”

The path they were on came to a T, with a mass of trees beyond. The mists were thicker here, and Toby thought he could smell mud. They must be close to the river.

“Here’s where we go right,” he said.

They were moving into a more out-of-the-way section of the cemetery, where the tombstones were smaller and plots unkempt, with weeds and cheap vases of plastic flowers, some toppled over, spilling their sad contents. That was all right with Toby: less chance of coming across a caretaker or, worse, a cop.

“Sure you know where we’re going?” Brock asked.

“Yeah.”

They passed the bottle back and forth again. Clouds had covered the moon. Now the flashlight of the cell phone barely penetrated the murk.

“Think we’ll see a ghooooost?” Brock said with an exaggerated moan.

Here was the third path. It was almost invisible, covered in grass, and it wandered behind a row of tombs into a still more overgrown section of the cemetery.

“This is it,” Toby said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

The path was hard to follow. They had to step over a few fallen tombstones. The Bird Girl was supposed to be on the right, but there was nothing like that around: just more broken tombstones.

“Admit it,” said Brock. “We’re lost.”

Toby ignored him and kept going. The cemetery was huge and Toby hoped they could find their way out again.

They came to a marble tombstone with a winged angel striding along with one arm raised, splotched with lichen.

“Now, there’s a zombie angel if I ever saw one,” said Brock. “Man, this is a perfect place to drain the main vein.”

“Jesus, don’t do that, it’s a cemetery—” said Toby, but Brock was already giving the angel a good hosing down.

“We’re lost,” said Brock when he was finished. “And you know it.”

Toby, feeling the liquor kick in, shrugged. “Totally.”

Brock laughed. “What the fuck time is it?”

Toby checked his cell phone, momentarily blinding himself with the light. “Three eleven.”

Brock took another long swig of Southern Comfort, then began singing, using the bottle as a mic.

His drunken words floated off into the darkness as he hammed it up, dancing around the graves like Mick Jagger. Suddenly he stopped. “You hear that?”

Toby said nothing. He, too, had heard something, like wind in the trees, and smelled a faint stench like burning rubber. But there was no wind. The air was deathly still. He held the light up as he looked around. Nothing. Brock resumed singing behind him.

Then Toby heard it again: or rather, felt it. It was a broad flutter, a stirring of air. Brock’s singing abruptly ceased. Toby spun around, but Brock had vanished.

“Brock? Where are you?”

There was no answer. Toby waited, holding his breath. And then, off in the darkness, he heard the shattering of the pint bottle.

“Brock!” he called, taking a step back, blood pounding in his ears. He had a sudden and profound sense of dread. “Cut it out, man, it’s not funny!” He held the cell phone light out in front of him, moving it this way and that, probing the darkness. All he could see were swirling mists.

And then he felt something warm and humid brush his face.

He stumbled back, waving the light. “Who’s there?”

But nothing was there. It must have been just a warm nighttime draft, nothing solid.

“Brock!” he yelled.

And now he heard a wet sound, a sort of gush, and then a hot, heavy burst of wind — no mere draft this time — struck his face. The foul smell grew much stronger: burning rubber, but now mixed with something like vomit or old socks. He screamed, stumbling backward, twisting away, and then turning to run. He felt the nightmare wind rush over him again, damp and horribly fetid, and then he tripped over a broken tombstone and fell hard, the cell phone flying out of his hand and off into the darkness. He struggled to his feet. Where was his phone? He looked around but could see no light, the darkness closing in upon him like a damp cloak. Something unlike anything he’d ever felt before suddenly brushed the side of his face and, with a scream, he broke into a blind run, clawing his way through undergrowth, stumbling and rising, choking and sobbing, the dark fastness of the old cemetery absorbing his cracked, shrill cries.