Cemetery Lake

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

I’m out of shape. I can feel it in the first few strides. My socks slide on the floor and the chase is almost over before it begins. I can hear the officer behind me, and a moment later the first one I saw appears at the other end of the corridor, running toward me. I pull the door; it opens into the corridor and blocks the path of at least one of my pursuers. Then I grab the basin of holy water and throw it in the opposite direction. It clatters on the ground without hitting anybody, but a moment later there’s a sliding sound and then the man behind me yells “Shit!” as he slips and falls. It forces his partner to slow down. I keep running.

I hit the line of trees as the two men burst from the building behind me. I change direction and keep running, not slowing when my feet crash into tree roots or get punctured by pieces of bark and acorns and stones. I can hear them following me, closing the distance. I make a left and a right, and keep making them. I can see the beams of their flashlights falling on me, on trees around me, but then they appear less frequently. The rain is pouring down heavily, drowning out all sounds of pursuit. I keep running, altering direction through the trees. Suddenly I’m out of the trees, heading across the cemetery between gravestones and graves. I have no idea where I am, and the best I can hope for is that a cemetery at this time of night in this kind of weather is a hard place in which to follow anybody.

A car comes toward me from the road and I duck down behind a gravestone. It passes me by. There is yelling and confusion. I look out and see one of the officers is only a few meters away. He comes toward me and I duck back down. He passes me and keeps going. He’s making quick ground. I crawl toward another grave and then another, staying hidden for a few more seconds. I look back up-the officers are now twenty meters away. I stand up and run deeper into the cemetery. My feet sink slightly into the grass. Another car travels along the road and I have to hide again. The cold air makes it harder for me to breathe, and I start sucking down oxygen in deep lungfuls that burn and make me dizzy. I hide behind a tall grave marker and look back in the direction I’ve come from. I can see flashlights moving around the trees and graves not far from me. I’m unsure now of what direction to run.

I stay low and move further away, putting more grass and graves and meters between me and the flashlights. More patrol cars arrive-I can see their headlights, hear doors banging. I reach another cluster of trees and rest for thirty seconds or so. My feet are aching and probably bleeding, but I don’t want to look. I check back in what I believe, though am not certain, is the direction of the church. I panic for a moment about whether my wallet or keys are in the jacket I left behind, and I quickly check. My keys are in my pants pocket, and my wallet-I remember now-is still at home. I stick with the direction I was heading. I’m aware of more cars arriving, and rest for a few more seconds behind another grave marker to watch the show. Their pooling location shows me where the church is. There are no sirens sounding, but there are plenty of flashing blue and red lights from patrol cars through the trees and from others moving through the cemetery grounds. I keep running. And running. I think about the extra weight Schroder told me I’d put on, and I can feel every kilogram of it slowing me down. The contours of the land change. I head up and then down and then up again, hitting slight slopes that feel steeper than they really are, and they soon make it difficult to see anything behind me. I reach another section of the cemetery, but still have no idea where I am. I forge ahead, trespassing over the dead. I keep looking back. No more light. No more patrol cars. Not that I can see. More trees ahead of me, another stretch of graves. I burst through another patch of bushes and grass, then suddenly I’m at a fence line. I want to scale it, but I can’t, not yet, not for a few more moments, not until my heart rate slows some and my body is convinced enough to keep going.

The fence backs onto somebody’s house, an old clapboard home with a huge gap between the house and the garage. I drop down into the backyard and I run for the gap. There is no other fence. I reach the road and look left and right. I know where I am. There is a bus stop a few meters away from me. I walk down to it and then decide it’s a bad place to be waiting. I cross the road and sit down behind a hedge. I take some slow, deep breaths in an effort to bring my heart rate back to normal.

I start back toward the car, ready to duck down behind a tree or a bush or whatever else I can find at the first sign of any other cars or people. Ten minutes later I’m heading along the same road as the cemetery. I can see lights and commotion way up ahead, but the car is a good two blocks short of it. I unlock it and duck into the driver’s seat, traipsing mud and leaves and blood into the car floor. I set the envelope of photographs on the passenger seat. It’s been a bit bent out of shape, but is mostly dry except for two of the corners. I start the engine, but leave the lights off until I’ve rounded the first corner. I think about the shovel in the trunk and I figure tonight wasn’t the best night to go digging anyway. Besides, there’s something unnerving in the thought of returning Dad’s car to him after it’s been used to drive a corpse around. That hadn’t been on the agenda when I borrowed it.

By the time I get home I’m bordering on exhaustion, though I don’t feel tired. It’s sensory overload. Without the benefit of alcohol to keep things running smoothly, without sleep, I know I’m going to crash and burn.

I take a quick shower and check my banged-up feet. They’re grazed, but not as bad as I’d expected. Then I take the pictures from the damp envelope and separate them so they can dry out. I don’t look at them closely. Not right now. I can’t. But I can’t leave them out either in case Landry or Schroder show up. I wipe them dry with a hand towel, then put them into a fresh envelope and throw out the old one. In the corner of my bedroom I lift up the carpet, figuring that since it worked so well for Alderman and Julian, it’s got to work well for me too.

I hit my bed and fall asleep without even willing it.