Gravestone (9 page)

18. The Discovery

This place feels cold.

Maybe it’s me and my imagination. But my skin is not making this up. I can feel the prickles all over my body as I step through the doors into the large foyer. A voice keeps telling me to avoid the creepy pastor at all costs, to sprint and get out of there if I see him coming. But of course I don’t always heed my voices, and there he is, the guy with the frosted and spiked hair, zeroing in on me with his beady eyes behind the black-frame glasses.

I freeze, both my legs and the half smile on my lips.

I’m not fooling anybody with that look. I’m probably white as a ghost.

“Good morning, son,” he says to me.

“Hi.”

“Is it just you today?”

The way he glances at me really feels weird. Creepy in a way I can’t explain. Not creepy in an axe murderer way, or creepy in a guy-living-next-door-doing-icky-things way.

It’s just …

Creepy.

“Yeah, just me.”

“I’m glad you came, Chris. I really am.”

Then I wait for something new. Something else. Something bizarre. Something like “I will be roasting the cat in five minutes, son” or “I will dedicate the Marilyn Manson song to you.” Something like that.

“The tension will go away eventually,” Pastor Marsh says. “It’s a battle of spirits, Chris. You might not understand this—you might not believe it—but it’s true. Maybe someday I’ll be able to show you.”

I wait for something else, for something more, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he goes to greet someone else.

He’s just like any pastor, you idiot.

But I don’t buy it.

I’m not making this up.

And I’m here this morning because I want some answers.

I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, going with the flow. Ray’s invited me here because he wants me here. Or maybe
they
want me here. For some reason. So I’m here.

Maybe I’ll discover that this church is really covering a secret network of terrorists that oh yeah also happen to be undead.

I stop my ridiculous thoughts and go to find a restroom. I see a set of wide steps going downstairs. Couples and families are walking up and down them. I follow suit, curious.

And going with the flow.

There is nothing sinister or even mildly strange in the church basement. A large hallway opens up to two more, where there are rooms for the nursery and for Sunday school or whatever they call it. Dad brought me to a few churches like this in Illinois. Once I sat in a big, open room that had several hundred high school students singing and praying and hanging out. I felt really out of place and told my dad afterward that I wasn’t about to go back.

If only you could have known what would await you in Solitary.

I find a restroom and then get turned around when I walk out of it. Instead of finding the steps, I find a door that leads down another hallway. This one is different. There are no tables with pamphlets and sign-up sheets. No paintings and crafts from kids adorning the walls. No pictures or friendly messages like “God Is Love” or pictures of Noah and his big boat. This hallway is stark, even with the lighting. There is one door at the end of it.

For a minute I consider going back. I know I’m not heading the right way.

But what’s behind this door?

I’m curious, and I’m safe because I’m not a cat. Right?

I get to the door and try the handle. It opens easily.

For a brief second, as my eyes see nothing but darkness in the room in front of me, I picture figures in robes standing in the dead of night.

Stop it, Chris.

It’s very cold inside. I take a breath and can taste the musty air, as if nobody has stepped foot inside here in a while.

I move to the edge of the doorway and feel against the wall. Nothing. Then I try the other wall and find a light switch. Dim fluorescent lights fill the space before me in a strained glow.

It’s a large room, apparently used for storage, though the first thing I see isn’t extremely comforting.

It’s a long black coffin.

I do a double take, thinking it’s just my eyes playing a trick on me. But no, it’s really a coffin, placed on some kind of stand that looks like an antique.

Okay, enough seen, now it’s time to go bye-bye.

The door closes behind me.

I look around with wonder and fascination and quite a bit of fear.

I suppose the stuff in this room could be found in a church anywhere, though I’ve never heard of keeping a spare coffin on hand, but then again it all feels just a tad bit off.

There are several thick wooden pulpits all in a row. A painting on its side, about as big as I am, that depicts what looks like a couple being interrogated by an angel. A bunch of chairs, all different types from different years. Some instruments.

What is that?

Beyond the coffin in the dim light of the corner of this room is some kind of—

Is that a statue?

I squint my eyes and try to make it out.

I think of crazy Aunt Alice who Mom and I visited, and remember that mannequin sitting in her living room.

This isn’t a mannequin or a statue. This is more of a wax figure.

How do you know it’s not real?

But the hands are outstretched and not moving and it looks exactly like Pastor Marsh.

I laugh. Who would make a wax figure of the pastor? And why?

I step closer to the thing. It’s standing in the corner, the arms firmly in place as if he’s making a point, the smile just like the one I saw a few minutes ago, the black glasses the same.

I inch forward a little more, expecting to see the smile bend or the hands shift.

Get out of here, Chris.

I reach the thing and touch it, expecting to feel warm skin. But it’s just hard plastic or whatever the material is.

I study it, trying to see if this is some kind of joke, wondering why someone would go to the trouble of making this.

Behind me something shifts.

Then I hear a sucking sound, and I turn and see motion behind me. A few feet away, the top of the coffin is open—

And that’s when I bolt without seeing or hearing anything else.

My shirt gets stuck on something, and I howl because I half expect it to be the wax figure grabbing me. But it’s just a coat rack.

The sucking sound, it’s someone gasping it’s someone choking desperate for air.

I reach the door and tear out of the room without shutting off the light. By the time I reach the end of the hallway, I try to get composed and calm.

But I’m soaked in sweat and probably look like a possessed man.

I go back into the bathroom and close the door to a stall and stand there for a few minutes, breathing in and letting my heart slow down and shaking my head in disbelief.

19. The End of the Road

This road is called Heartland Trail. I wonder if the founders were playing a practical joke with that one. Or if it has a deeper, more sinister meaning.

Or maybe it’s just another street name.

I’m walking to warm myself as I head away from the church, away from the pastor and the greeters and the music and the smiles and whatever the heck I just saw downstairs in the storage room. I’m walking down Heartland Trail, the opposite way from where it comes in through the forest off the main road. If I were forced at gunpoint to show on a map exactly where I was, I’m pretty confident the gun would end up going off. I don’t know if Heartland Trail leads to anything other than a dead end. But I don’t want to chance heading the other way and being picked up by someone asking me why I’m leaving.

The road drops away from the cleared-out section of trees and the hill the church stands on. Soon I find myself following the road through dense forest again, leafless trees that are massive and ancient looking.

What are you doing, man?

I don’t know.

I really don’t know.

I wanted to go to church to get some answers, and I only scampered out with more questions.

If you had a little more guts maybe you would’ve stuck around.

But the guts thing hasn’t been working so far, has it? I got a gun and tried to do what I was supposed to do—warn away the gang of hooded weirdos in the middle of the countryside. I tried to stop them. I tried to get to her.

I tried. I really tried.

I feel tears on the edges of my cheeks and claw at them to get them off my face. I’m tired of tears. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of this moping, this sad sadness.

After walking for twenty minutes or so, as the paved road becomes a dirt lane, I have a feeling of déjà vu. I don’t know why. But this looks and feels familiar.

I soon reach the dead end of the road at the edge of the forest. For some reason, even though it’s sunny out today, the woods in front of me appear darker and denser. I’m half tempted to head into them to see where they take me, but I have no idea if they’ll ever end. I can see myself getting lost and wandering around for days.

Doubt many people around here would mind.

It feels colder where I’m standing, the wind a little stronger. I shiver and look into the shade of the trees in front of me.

I wonder if someone is in there, watching me.

Someone or something.

I turn to head back down Heartland Trail.

Maybe by the time I make it back to church, the service will be over and I can still catch my ride home with Ray.

Something itches at me to turn around one last time before the road veers around the corner.

As I do, I suddenly recognize where I’ve seen this before.

The magazine clipping from Jocelyn’s locker. The one that turned up in mine with the handwritten quote on it.

The line from the Robert Frost poem.

I looked it up. Should’ve recognized it. If it had been a song lyric, maybe I would have.

This is the image. The only difference is the time of year the photo was taken.

Why did someone take a photo of this place? And more importantly, why was it in my locker?

So many questions, I think, as I see the church nearing.

So many questions and so few answers.

20. Below

The cabin feels quarantined. Midnight is there on the couch, but Mom is nowhere to be found. It takes a while to find the note.

Hey Chris.

Will be home late. Helping out at work.

Mom

I look at the note for a while, find a pen and doodle little happy faces all over it. It soon resembles a crowd of people laughing. I can’t tell if they’re laughing at me or at my mom.

I find some lunch and eat it while I watch television. But I don’t really pay attention. I’m staring at moving pictures and hearing noise and voices, but I’m really somewhere far away.

My eyes move to the windows. I can see the sky and the mountains in the distance. I scan the room, feel the hard couch, move the cushion to get more comfortable, flip through forty channels.

I wonder about this restlessness. The way I feel. Trapped. Wounded. Hurt. Imprisoned.

God wouldn’t do this to someone, Jocelyn. He couldn’t.

If this were a postcard sent to heaven, I’d add a third rhyming line.

He shouldn’t.

But I don’t know anything. I look at the walls and wonder if somehow my life is getting smaller, duller. Most definitely sadder.

I close my eyes and picture Jocelyn.

Love doesn’t go away. It’s always there, like the sun and the moon and the stars. It’s always there even if it’s cloudy or if it’s daytime or if you’re inside and you can’t look up to the heavens. It’s always there, hovering and beaming and brilliant.

It’s there, and it won’t go away.

The pounding wakes me up.

At first I think I’m back home, hearing my father in the garage working on something. But my father never worked on stuff in the garage. Not when he was a lawyer and worked on so many other things that made him stay away from the family. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a hammer in my father’s hand. Even after becoming born again and quitting his job to go into “ministry.”

In the darkness I think and worry about Mom. I can’t see my clock, but I know it’s gotta be twelve or later. I realize that the noise is coming from above me, on the roof. Hail.

But part of me doesn’t believe it—can’t, in fact—because it sounds so loud and so violent. I’ve been in a few hailstorms back home, but never have any of them sounded so …

Dangerous.

I leave Midnight tucked in the corner of my bed and go downstairs. I see the opened door to Mom’s bedroom and know she isn’t there, though I still call out her name and turn on the light. Or try to turn on her light.

No power. Once again.

I look outside the front window and can see the blurry motion outside. I open the front door, but when I do, the hail tries to force its way inside. I hear things cracking, the icy bits flailing against tree limbs and anything else they can find. I cringe as I hear the sound of the cracks on my deck, like baseballs being ripped against the wood and the railing and the rooftop.

I wonder how Mom is going to get home.

I shut the door and really, truly feel imprisoned now.

The wind howls as if it knows, as if it can feel my tension inside. The hail mocks and surges into an avalanche of racket and wreck.

I move to the middle of the room and then I drop to the floor.

The pelting continues. Pounding, banging, beating away.

I start to shake, putting my hands over my ears.

The whole house seems to be rumbling. I wonder if there’s a chance that it could slide off the mountain like those houses in California mudslides.

That’s crazy stop it Chris.

But my imagination is the only thing to occupy my thoughts and hold my hand. The lawyer-turned-quasi-pastor is gone. The mother-turned-quasi-barfly is gone. The girl-turned-quasi-love-of-my-life is gone. Everybody is gone.

With my hands now holding my head, not my ears, but my head as if some part of it is cut and bleeding and leaking, I hear it.

Laughter.

It’s loud—it’s gotta be loud—because I can hear it amidst the blaring storm outside.

Then I realize something.

It’s not from outside.

I hold my breath and move my hands and listen. It’s not from upstairs or from somewhere in this room. It’s beneath me.

I look at the dark carpet underneath me, so worn it no longer feels like anything resembling carpet, and I try and think what’s under it. What’s beneath this floor.

There’s nothing but dirt there, and that laughter is all in your mind.

But I think of the house on the sloping hill.

I suddenly realize something fascinating and terrifying.

This house
does
in fact have a basement.

The laughter I’m hearing is coming from it.

And suddenly I get up and sprint upstairs, biffing it on the third step and landing hard on my chest and arms, then getting up in stride and moving and getting in my room and locking the door.

Then waiting.

Waiting for the storm to go away and the sun to come back.

Waiting for the noise to let me be.

Waiting for silence.