HALLOWEEK 2020 DAY 5: "The Graveyard" by Clair Willden
"The Graveyard"
by Clair Willden
I didn’t know how heavy a hammer could feel until I nailed myself to the tree. The warm July air made the whole thing hot and sticky. The bones in my wrist cracked and popped with each violent strike.
I got to the graveyard late—my shift at work ran long—but I had to see them tonight. My Dylan. My Sam. I had to see my wife and son. It was the anniversary, after all.
***
A year ago, I had come in for my shift at Ted’s. I had the late shift, which usually put me into a foul mood—especially after Dylan was born. That night, though, I was happy. I was actually happy. Can you imagine? Sam made a nice dinner and we watched a movie together before I went in. Dylan had come out and sat on our laps before falling asleep with his little five-year-old head on my shoulder. Sam laughed at me. God, I miss that laugh. It was a perfect night.
When I walked into work, Alice greeted me with a hug and tossed me her apron. “A late one tonight but shouldn’t be too bad. Thursdays are usually quiet,” Alice said.
She was right. They usually were. And this one was, too. June came in pretty soon after opening. The jukebox played country music in the background while patrons sat at tables and the regular group shot a game of pool.
I laughed. “Something a little harder than usual tonight? I’ve been home with
Dylan and Sam. They had the flu last week, so I played doctor for a little while.”
June hummed. “I see. All better now, I hope?”
I smiled. “Fit as a fiddle, the both of them. How are you?”
June’s face darkened. She finished the glass in front of her. “Brandon broke up with me. But it’s fine. Can I have another one of those?”
I fixed another drink.
“Thank you for that.” She drank half in a single gulp. I felt a deep pang of sympathy for my friend.
“Take it easy,” I said.
“Yeah, no, you’re right. I shouldn’t have too much more anyway,” she said. Her face was flushed and her words were already slurring—I doubted that my drinks were her first that night.
“I hear that. Hey, let me run to the back really quick and check on Alice. Looks like she’s got a few rough orders and might need some calming. Ted?” I beckoned the other bartender over.
June went back to her drink.
“Ted,” I said quietly, “will you make sure she doesn’t get too bad? Cut her off after one more. And do not let her drive. I don’t know how she managed to get herself here in the first place. I don’t think you need to like…take her keys or anything. Just watch her.”
Ted, an older man, nodded.
I jogged to the kitchen and found Alice looking as stressed as ever. Her hair was coming out of her hair tie and floated around her head in great wisps. Sweat beaded her forehead. Something smelled close to burning.
“Whoa, hey, how’re those orders? Seemed like you got a little more slammed than usual,” I said.
Alice glanced at me as she ran from the stovetops to the walk-in. “Yeah, you could say that.”
I nodded and followed her into the cooler to help carry out a huge container of pre-prepped house-made ranch. I had to unstick my shoes from the tile floor with every step. “So, June’s here.”
“Yeah, alright, so what’s new?”
“She’s in a real rough way. We might want to make a plan with her for tomorrow or something. You know Brandon broke up with her?” With a grunt, we set the ranch on a prep table.
Alice nodded as she headed back to the stove. “I heard. Wasn’t she just talking about moving in with him? Jeez, that’s rough.” She removed some chicken from the frier and replaced it with some onion rings. “I’m free tomorrow. You’re right—she probably needs some friend time. You wanna bring Dylan and Sam? We can make a day of it.” The onion rings sizzled in the frier.
I smiled. “I’ll make some plans. Don’t get too overwhelmed in here, okay?”
Alice laughed and shooed me away.
I shook my head and headed back out of the kitchen.
At the bar, June was nowhere to be seen. Just Ted, removing glasses from the washer. “Ted, where’d she go?” I asked.
Ted looked up from the glass he was drying. “Who?”
“Who? June! Where’s June?”
My stomach twisted like a wet dish rag. “Did she drive?”
Ted didn’t answer, but the blood drained from his face.
The phone rang twenty minutes later. Some police officer made the call. My wife, who had said something about needing her allergy medicine before morning, and my
son. My sweet boy. Both dead. June walked away with hardly a concussion. I couldn’t believe—still can’t believe—that I didn't take her keys.
That was a year ago.
***
Tonight, when I got to the graveyard, the grass was already crunchy with frozen dew and sounded unreasonably loud under my feet. It stretched on for what seemed like forever. The graveyard has served my little town for decades and probably will for decades more. Some stones had newly carved names in them that stood out starkly. Others were so worn by wind and weather that, if there ever was a name, it was long washed away.
I didn’t like just how alive the graveyard sounded. The trees rustled. Small animals prowled among the headstones. I caught a glimpse of a black tail disappearing around a mausoleum. And then there was still the dragging. Always the goddamn dragging. Everywhere I went, the sound followed me—had since the day Sam and Dylan died. Like a hard step and then a slow draaaaaaag of something across the ground. It followed me even in my sleep, that terrible sound, but it never seemed to get any closer, like it was made by something always just around a corner, or in another room, or just out of sight.
The dragging tonight was different. It was moving faster now, almost keeping pace with me. Sandpaper over the frozen grass. I could discern nothing behind me and nothing ahead that could possibly make the sound. A chill ran down my spine and I could feel sweat begin to bead my forehead. But I pushed on, walking my well-worn path to where my family lay.
When I got to the grave, someone was already there. I couldn’t recognize her. When she turned around, I swear to God I still didn’t recognize her. But it was…how can I put this. It was me. Truly, you have to believe me here. I was staring at the spitting image of myself.
She smiled. Or I smiled? Whatever. The other-me smiled. She had she same slightly crooked tooth in the front.
She reached out and caressed my face. When I tell you I did not like that—it felt like someone put worms inside my skin and they were wriggling through. It wasn’t a normal touch.
Looking at myself felt like meeting a stranger for the first time. There were freckles in unexpected places on my nose. My eyes, which I always hoped were warm and kind, were cold and metal-gray. Uninviting and sad. The bags under my eyes carried too much, were too full.
The last year had taken its toll on me, that was certain.
“Ellie,” she said, smiling bigger at me. “I knew I would find you here.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Absolutely not. Absolutely not! I know. I know. I know how you guys are looking at me right now and believe me, I understand. When I opened my eyes again, she was still there.
“Ellie, come, come to the grave,” she—I—she said. She grabbed my arm and pulled me forward.
Sam and Dylan’s graves looked just as they always had. The flowers in the glass vase next to the grave had wilted. I thought the gray stone was never a fitting memorial for them. I much preferred the memorial just beyond the cemetery gates. Every time I pass it, I can never help but notice the tire tracks on the sidewalk. My feet always lead me to the spot right in front of the light pole where they died—to the spot where their picture hangs.
It…I’m ashamed to say, it almost makes me laugh. The absurdity of it all. When I stand in front of that light pole, I stand almost exactly on the place where they bled to death. There’s a little plaque set into the sidewalk that says: “In loving memory of Sam and Dylan Henderson. Taken from us too soon; may they always see the stars.”
There’s this little city-sanctioned street sign on that corner. It cautions against drinking and driving. A little too late for that, don’t you think? And that picture. My god, the picture. Ribbons and flowers frame it, left there by people who loved them like me. I mean, no one loved them like me. But people loved my wife and my son. Sam’s face is frozen forever with her head thrown back, that gorgeous laughter completely silenced. And Dylan looks so small there. He was so incredibly small.
I like the light-pole memorial. It feels right. More than the grave ever did. But still I go to the grave and refill the little vase with fresh flowers.
know that you did this? You killed them. You are the reason they’re dead.”
“No. I didn’t…I couldn’t have known—”
“You. Did. This. Not June, not Ted, not Alice or anyone else. You.” Her fingers were digging into my skin, now. “Face it.”
The dragging was getting nearer by the second. I couldn’t think.
“You never apologized to me,” other Ellie whispered. “Never talked to me. Never took my hand like this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ve apologized every damn day!”
“You should be,” not-me replied. “You’re not even sad that they’re gone! You’re moving on! You think I don’t know that you look at other women now? That I, of all people, don’t know that you’ve finally boxed up the last of Dylan’s room? You don’t even care!”
“You don’t know anything! Please!” her nails were drawing blood from my arm. I felt it leak hot and sticky down my skin. There had to be a way to stop this, to stop her, to stop me. “Can I get a little closer, please? To them?”
Other me nodded and I slowly leaned forward. I wrapped my free hand around the glass vase—the one that I kept full of flowers--and, with one motion, swung it around and struck the other-me on the head. I—or she—I’m so sorry, it’s all so confusing—was knocked out cold.
There was maintenance being done on one of the graves and as I saw the tools—the hammer, the nails, the ladder—I knew what I had to do. I had to make her—me—I had to make Ellie pay. She needed to understand the way my hands still instinctively reached for Sam at night, the way I still stumble over some of Dylan’s old toys or step on an old block and cry because it hurts and it’s unfair that it hurts. She needed to feel the dull, throbbing anger that coursed through my body every time I felt the ghost of Sam’s lips on my wrist. I had to make her understand.
After retrieving the tools, I bound my—other me’s—hands. The skin on my wrists felt soft, warm, and thrumming with lively energy. The warm blood flowed just below the surface. For everything I know about ghosts, I didn’t expect them to feel warm. I ran my thumb over the small area below my hand in a small x pattern, marking the spot.
So, I dragged my body across the grass and nailed it to the tree. The blood splattered and dribbled across the trunk and across my body, soaking my shirt and hands.
As I did it, I felt a yawning chasm of nothing open before me. It was as if I was viewing my body from far without, watching a carpenter work, or from far within, a simple organ pumping away. I didn’t feel worse. I didn’t feel better. The dragging had stopped for now.
When I climbed down the ladder to look at my work, my consciousness seemed to slam back into myself again.
“Oh god,” I said.
I looked like a rag doll up there. My head lolled pathetically, dripping blood, and my arms were bent at a strange angle. I looked like a marionette handled by a terrible puppeteer.
I vomited. The bile burned my throat and splattered across the ground.
I was hanging from the tree by my hands and my feet. My arms were nailed through the wrist above my head and were bright white, as though all the blood had gone from them. My feet were stacked, one on top of the other, and nailed through into the tree. Blood worked its way between the cracks in the bark.
The dragging started again. In the dim moonlight, there was nothing to be seen.
Silence. A beat. The wind whistled around my hanging body.
From behind the tree emerged the source of the dragging sound. Long black hair fluttered quietly over an eternal winter smile. A voice, once so soft, rasped, “Take her down.”
“Take her down!” the figure repeated. It stepped closer to me, out of the shadow of the tall tree, and dragged its left leg behind. The leg that had been nearly severed in the crash. I felt my feet bolted to the ground. The same ice that crept through my veins earlier took over my body again. In the full light, my wife, my beautiful wife, looked like a monster. Half of her face was gone, the muscle and bone underneath exposed from where the glass had taken it. Her arms hung limply at her sides, twisted in on themselves. Her sweet brown eyes, once full of laughter, were clouded over and red-veined. And I loved her desperately still.
I reached out for her, my hands pleading.
“Sam? Please, it’s me, please come to me, please.” The sobs tore themselves from my throat. I had to get to my wife. I was screaming myself hoarse to get to my wife.
Sam didn’t move.
“Please!”
A hand grabbed my shoulder.
I jumped. “Don’t touch me! Please, don’t touch me!”
“Ellie! Who are you talking to?”
This was a new voice, not the rasp of Sam’s ghost or even my own cruel taunting. Someone else had arrived.
I whirled around and found myself face to face with Alice.
“Sam. I’m talking to Sam. See? Right there? By the tree? Don’t you see?” I gestured desperately back. Sam had been there. I know it. I know it still.
Alice frowned. She put her hands on my shoulders and turned me back to the tree. “Ellie, honey, there’s no one here. There’s no one here.”
Sam was gone.
“No. No! She was here. She was here. She was here.”
“Ellie, I followed you here earlier. You looked so haunted. Upset. I didn’t want you to do anything stupid.” Alice put her hand on my face gently.
“Ha. Nothing stupid. Don’t you think you’re a little late for that?” I gestured at my body, still stuck to the tree like a grotesque pin-the-tail game.
Alice’s eyes flitted up the length of the tree. She frowned. “I guess I’m…I guess not. But it’s my fault your head got hurt. I found you here, climbing the tree, babbling like a maniac. I meant to help you down the ladder, but you fell.”
“What should I do? Alice, what should I do?”
Alice took my hand. “You should go home. Get some rest. I’ll bring you soup tomorrow. You’re my best friend. My favorite person. I’m with you, here for you, okay? Sam and Dylan were my family too and I can never pretend to miss them as much as you, but we have to be here for each other. We can’t go through this alone. Come on, let’s go home.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. Alice looked completely sincere and I felt, for the first time that night, a surge of love fill my chest. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you. What about…her?”
“Don’t…uh…don’t think about her right now, okay? Things will work out. The important thing is to get you home and cleaned up.” Alice turned me away from the tree and prodded me toward the exit.
Before walking away, I watched Alice turn back to the tree for one split second more. She looked it up and down and sighed to herself before nodding. My body, completely limp and lifeless, hung forward, like a sail full of wind. Alice sighed. She grabbed me by the blood-free hand and gently led me back into the quiet, moonlit night.
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