The Crossroads

Judy had hired a babysitter, Nicole Murray, a teenager recommended by Mrs. Emerson.

“Keep an eye on the boys, but try not to let them see you. I don’t want them to think I think they’re babies who need a sitter.”

“I’ll stay inside unless I hear something.”

“Great. And help yourself to anything in the fridge.”

“Okay. What if I need to reach you?”

Judy handed Nicole a slip of paper. “Call my cell.”

“Cool. So where you going?”

“The graveyard.”

“Really? At night?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome.”

It was ten p.m. when Judy pulled out of the Rocky Hill Farms subdivision and merged onto Highway 31.

When she reached the crossroads, she turned left.

She headed west for a couple hundred yards, then eased onto the soft shoulder in front of the graveyard, stopping in the same spot where she and Bud had fixed that flat tire

Judy knew from reading the old newspapers that this was the Haddam Hill Cemetery and that Bud Heckman was buried here. None of the others who died that night were laid to rest in North Chester, but their spirits roamed around near the crossroads because that was where they had died. It didn’t really matter that some, like the Rowdy Army Men, were buried as far away as Indiana or Tennessee. Their ghosts still haunted Connecticut.

Judy switched on her emergency flashers. She didn’t have a flat tire but thought if she pretended to be in automotive distress, Bud might show up again like he had that first time.

Judy’s eyes quickly adapted to the darkness. She looked up the hill. Weeds and tall grass grew between weathered headstones. A spiked fence penned in the rectangular plot. Angels with frozen stone wings topped a few monuments.

A car came up the road. Its headlights made Judy squint. When the lights passed, she could see that it was a truck, not a car. Some kind of pickup. It didn’t stop. Judy was relieved.

She looked up at the graveyard.

Still nothing. No Bud. No army soldiers stumbling around the headstones. No bony skeleton hands poking up through crumbling topsoil like they always did in the movies.

Judy stepped out of her car and onto the gritty shoulder of the highway. The night was warm, the moon full. Crickets screeched their noisy lullaby. She walked into the field, felt long strands of straw whip against her jeans.

She looked up the hill and saw the shadowy outline of a tall man.

Behind the fence.

He moved quickly and carried some sort of satchel: a small suitcase like you might take with you on a Greyhound bus trip from Boston to New York!

The man slipped out of view when he crossed behind a shed-shaped mausoleum.

Judy moved faster, crouched lower. She made her way to the fence and heard voices. Giggling. The man and now a woman. Not in the graveyard. Beyond it. Near the fence on the far side. Judy crept past the corner post and saw two silhouettes sitting on the ground, pointing up at the stars.

“Hello?” Judy called out. “Is anybody there?”

A woman’s voice answered: “Judy?”

Oh, no—one of the ghosts knows my name!

“Is that you, dear?”

A battery-powered lantern snapped on. Judy saw Mrs. Emerson sitting with a thin man in his sixties. They were eating sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.

“Mrs. Emerson?”

“Hello, dear. Care for a deviled egg?”

“No, thanks….”

It was a picnic basket, not a suitcase.

“We came out,” Mrs. Emerson said, “to see if there were any souls doomed for a certain term to walk the night.”

“That’s Hamlet, right?” the man said.

“Actually, dear, it’s the ghost of Hamlet’s father.”

“I mean, it’s from Hamlet.”

“Yes, dear. Judy, allow me to introduce my husband, Henry Emerson.”

“Most folks call me Hank.”

“That doesn’t make it right, dear.”

“How long have you two been out here?” Judy asked.

“Since sundown,” Mrs. Emerson said.

Mr. Emerson winked. “She told me we were coming out to watch the submarine races.”

Judy smiled. “Seen anything interesting?”

The Emersons stood, brushed specks and flecks and burrs off their pants.

“Nothing,” Mrs. Emerson said.

“Too bad. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Indeed. After all, tomorrow will be the fiftieth anniversary of the bus accident. But tonight? Not a soul is stirring.”

Mr. Emerson winked again. “You might say it’s totally dead!”

Judy went home, paid the babysitter, checked on the boys and the dog asleep in the tree house, and then went upstairs to bed.

She had forgotten all about the pickup truck that had passed by the graveyard earlier. It was now parked very close to the crossroads.

Waiting.