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"Back To the Graveyard You Go"
"Back To the Graveyard You Go"
10/29/1988
I.
No one was looking. Jimmy checked both ways again, the country road was empty as far as he could see in either direction. Right in front of him was a deep puddle a foot across. He raised his right hand and tried to focus every bit of his will power on the ruby-red gem inset on his ring, visualizing what he wanted to happen. What was that feeling of resistance? Try harder. Suddenly a sort of barrier in his mind yielded and a surge of intense heat rushed down to evaporate the puddle with a gout of steam. Only a dry pothole remained.
At sixteen, Jimmy Lawson was still a bit under six feet tall and gawky, with the long arms and legs of a growing boy. He had the family's dark auburn hair, a bit shaggy and untidy, but he had missed out on the green eyes his mother and sister were so proud of. Jimmy's eyes were a mundane dark brown. On this brisk October afternoon, he was wearing his favorite bright red jacket over a black T-shirt, matching the black jeans and red sneakers. Lowering his hand, he fought not to laugh out loud. Using the Flame Gem was getting easier all the time. Wherever he was summoning superheated air or actual fire from, he could call it easier every day.
Delighted with life in general and his new powers in particular, Jimmy started striding quickly down the road again. He couldn't understand why his family was so reluctant to use the Buliwyf talismans. Dad with the Earth Gem and Mom with the Water Gem both acted as if nothing had changed since they had come back from that cavern. His older sister Lisa did experiment a little with the Air Gem. A few times late at night, he had caught her rising up into the dark sky on a roaring column of hurricane winds she had summoned, but she was awful timid about fooling around with her gift, too.
What were they waiting for? Why were they so hesitant? He was going to put this incredible ability to good use, no matter if they cautioned him to be secretive or not.
Only another mile along the King's Highway and he would be at the convenient mart in Walston for some soda and chips, maybe a magazine. He didn't mind walking, Saturday meant all day to do whatever he wanted. In all fairness, he had genuinely put in applications for jobs all over Walston but no one seemed to be hiring. It would be nice to have some cash but he went plenty of places with his friends and it didn't cost much to go swimming or hang out at the Central Valley Mall. Always an excellent time with Gil and Fred.
When he came within sight of the One-Stop convenient mart, he cheered up even more at spotting the familiar white VW bug at the gas pump. Sure enough, there was the stocky form of Gilbert Ostrander, oldest of the gang at eighteen, with the taller skinnier Fred Bessolo next to him. And Fred's sister Grace as well, with all that strawberry-blonde hair down her narrow back. The expected hormonal surges rushed through Jimmy at seeing her. The past year, Grace had been turning up in some warm steamy daydreams even though he had to admit she had shown nothing but contempt for him since grade school.
"Jimmy! Hey, hurry up!" Gil said as he replaced to the hose to the pump and screwed the gas cap back on. "We're motoring out there now."
"We are? And where's that?"
"The cemetery. The one by St Anne's. Hustle it dude, get in." Gil went around to the driver's side. Just once, Jimmy wished that Fred would sit up front. That would leave him huddled in the back seat next to Grace. But no such luck. The unwritten rule of teendom dictated that girls got the shotgun seat whenever possible. Jimmy resigned himself to climbing in the back alongside Fred. Not that there was anything wrong with Fred, who wore black horn-rimmed glasses and had a pageboy haircut and was a total heavy metal head but leaning up against Grace seemed like a better deal any way you looked at it.
"Am I crazy or did you say we were going to the cemetery?" Jimmy asked at the VW rolled out onto the road.
"That's yes to both questions," replied Grace promptly.
"At least YOU'RE not driving," he snapped back. "Because then we'd be going to the cemetery to stay."
"Mellow out, you two," Gil broke in. "You mean you haven't heard the news? Everybody's talking about it."
"I didn't have the radio on today. What's the big deal?"
Next to him in the back, Fred intoned with enormous drama. "Dude! It's grave robbers. Ghouls right here in Walston. This morning, Father Salvucci arrived at the church and spied a big open hole where that fireman was buried Sunday. Whatzisname, Mr Schupp? Pile of dirt by the gravestone. No coffin, no body."
"No way."
"Way," responded Fred. "It's wholly bogus, right? Why would anyone do such a thing?"
Jimmy exhaled sharply. "Ummm, was he buried with anything valuable? No, he was just a local volunteer, he worked at Sears. I dunno, I'm stumped."
"That's nothing new. If you ever had an idea, it'd be lonely," Grace volunteered.
Despite the way she talked to him, Jimmy enjoyed watching her breasts bouncing under the thin calico-streaked blouse too much to get mad. "Well, what do you think happened?"
"How would I know!? What kind of stupid question is that?"
Gil shook his head. "Tell you what, how about I pull over right now and both of you can walk to the cemetery? We'll meet you there."
"We're here already," Fred said. "Throw an eyeball at the cars."
St Anne's Church sat at the bottom of Donnegan's Hill Road, a white-boarded structure more than eighty years old. The graveyard circled halfway around the church, some of the stones being too eroded for the inscriptions to be legible. There were indeed eleven cars lined up along the road and a considerable crowd near them but the police weren't letting anyone on the grounds. Two town cruisers and a dark blue and yellow State Trooper car had their lightbars flashing.
Slowing down to a crawl, Gil spun the crank down on his window. "Dammit, I can't see anything. Stupid Fuzz in the way, ruining the view. Maybe we can come by later and see if everyone got bored and went home."
"I can't figure this out," Jimmy said as they zipped around a turn in the road. "That's an odious lot of work, digging up tons of dirt and then hauling a heavy coffin away. Mr Schupp was a big heavy guy even without a coffin. No one would do all that just for kicks."
From the front seat, Grace presented her pug-nosed profile with a sniff. "It's obviously a sick twisted prank. Only two days to your favorite holiday, Lawson boy. Saturday's Halloween."
II.
Heading up Dutch Town Road with woods on either side for miles, Gil made a disgusted noise. "Still no weed. The town is dry. Everybody is grinding up seeds and stems, it is most degrading."
"What about Crazy George?" asked Jimmy.
"He wasn't home. This bums me out big time," Gil said.
"You guys smoke too much anyway," volunteered Grace sweetly. "That's why you never have any money."
"I notice you never pass it without taking a big hit." Jimmy turned to face Fred next to him. "What happened to that guitar you were gonna buy from Tony?"
"Dude! What an atrocity, it's a Sunburst with a crack. And the whammy bar doesn't go with it. Me spirit is crushed."
"You're never going to get a triumphant video on MTV unless you both have guitars," Jimmy began but Grace cut him off with a scoffing noise.
"What the HELL!" barked Gil, who was turning into someone's driveway to back out again into the direction from which they had come.
"Whoa. Gil my amigo, that was most unexpected," complained Fred.
"Look at the shack to our left. Just get a good look. Tell me what you see."
In a second, they buzzed past a wide brown-wood bungalow which had a black Charger and a Suzuki motorcycle parked in front of it. Standing by the side of the building were three figures. In the second they had to observe as they passed by, the four friends saw one man was unremarkable, wearing work clothes with his denim jacket open. Another was thin and seemed to be hiding his face from the way he had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low and oversized mirrored sunglasses. But the third one...
Definitely obese with a round belly hanging down over his belt, this man wore a neat new black suit with a white dress shirt and black tie. The round bald spot on the back of his head was distinctive. This man was standing with legs braced well apart, arms out for balance and his mouth hung open.
Inside the VW bug, a burst of excited voices crowded over each other. "I saw it! It's Leo Schupp! I know it is!" screamed Fred.
"Dude, how's that possible? He was six feet under. His obituary was in the paper. The guy is conclusively dead," Gil yelled.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," added Grace. "It's like that movie with the living dead. They're gonna come in our houses tonight and eat us."
"Settle down there. There has to be some real world explanation. Did Mr Schupp have a brother?"
"No. No, I've known his family all my life," Fred moaned. "He's got no brothers. Did you see his eyes? All white, like they were rolled up in his head. Makes me wanna hurl."
"Don't hurl in my car, dude, show some courtesy. I'm freaking the freak out. No wonder his grave is empty, he went to get some fresh air and didn't come back."
From the back seat, Jimmy Lawson spoke with an unexpected restraint that calmed them down. "Any of you guys know who lives in that cabin?"
"Not me."
"No, but I've seen that car there a few times. Lights on at night," Gil said.
"Should we tell the police? Maybe we should go to Town Hall, it's only a few miles away, we can let the cops know we're gonna all be eaten by zombies," Grace said.
"Will you STOP with the 'being eaten' crap?" Fred snapped. "We have to think. Those pigs, I hate them, they hassled us for swimming at the Overhang this summer. I don't want to look at their fat faces again."
Gil slowed as they reached the intersection where Dutch Town Road met King's Highway. "It's getting near six, dudes. Tonight is mac and cheese with hamburgers and my mom always makes enough for a family of ten. Even though it's just her, my dad and me. Let's shovel it all down and talk over what to do. She won't mind."
From the back, Jimmy realized he was excited over the mystery but not at all frightened. No one else knew he could summon walls of flame and oven-hot air from nowhere, but it gave him confidence he could handle any possible emergency. Even zombies.
III.
At eleven-thirty, the four of them were back in the VW. "I'm going to need a few bucks for gas, you guys. Cough it up before I drop any of you off."
Grace had been oddly silent after dinner, when she had warned Jimmy to stop eating when he reached the plate. They had watched a few TV shows and, when Gil's parents had turned in as the Eleven O'Clock local news came on, the gang had said goodnight to them and gone outside. She had not said much even during her favorite comedy. Now, she took a shaky breath. "Anyone want to drive past that house again?"
"What? I thought that's the last place you'd want to see, especially after dark," Gil scoffed.
"It's been on my mind. I read a lot about ghosts and apparitions and stuff. Maybe that's what we saw today. It can't hurt just to buzz by, ya know?" She turned toward the back seat. "Dudes, what do you say?"
Fred's response was prompt enough. "I vote yes, sure, why not? With everything that happened today, I'm not going to be going to sleep soon, anyway?"
"And of course, you're scared, Lawson," she went on. "You want to get under the covers with your teddy bear to keep you safe?"
I'd like to get under the covers with more than a teddy bear, he thought, but Jimmy said only, "Let's take a look. Might as well start Halloween early this year."
Soon enough, they rolled slowly past the bungalow, seeing that the windows were lit and the car was still there. "Man, I got chills big time. Did someone slide an ice cube down my back or what?" grumbled Gil.
"Pull over by the little bridge. Yeah, out of sight." Jimmy reached into his jacket and took out a pencil flashlight. "I don't know if you guys feel like staying here, but I think I'm going to sneak through the woods and watch that place for a while."
"You don't have to do that to impress me," said Grace. "Mostly because nothing you do would impress me."
"Dude!" Fred put in, starting to open his door. "I am all over this. Maybe I can write a song about this, you know? As an artist, I must suffer for my work."
"As an artist, you're going to trip over things in the dark and hurt yourself," Grace warned.
"I'm going, too. Seeing Mr Schupp standing around while his grave is unoccupied..." Gil's voice trailed off. "It is most distressing."
"Oh and leave me here by myself? Like hell. Let's get this over with. We'll probably just see some geezer sleeping in his easy chair with the Late Show on." Grace was first out of the car. With Jimmy using his flashlight carefully, holding two fingers over the lens so only a sliver of light showed, he led the way through the pine trees and thick undergrowth until they were crouching at the rear of the tiny back yard of the bungalow. To one side was a tool shed five feet to each side and Jimmy crept up next to it.
"Looks peaceful enough..." Jimmy whispered. "Maybe this is a waste of time."
Even as he spoke, a rustle behind them made their hearts miss a beat or two. All four friends froze into position as well as any startled rabbit could have. Then the glare of a powerful flashlight blinded them.
"Remain quiet," said a silky voice with what sounded like a vaguely East European accent.
"My associate has a large automatic pistol ready and I assure you that he had already killed more innocent youths than you are. Stand up but do not run. Good." In the backsplash from that flashlight, the speaker was revealed to be the tall thin man they had seen earlier but no details could be made out.
Coming around to their side was the other man they had seen that afternoon and he was indeed pointed a Colt .45 in their direction. What could be seen of his flat, impassive face was not reassuring. "Orders, boss?"
"These three... these two and the girl... lock them in the shed for now. I sense something odd about this other one. The boy in the red jacket. There is gralic energy about him but I can't quite place it."
Once Grace, Gil and Fred had been secured in the tool shed, the man with the flashlight ordered Jimmy to go in through the back door of the bungalow. They passed through a kitchen into a well-lit snug little parlor with unremarkable furniture but a distinct sickly sweet odor of decay.
"Stand over by that wall," ordered the thin man, snapping off his flashlight. Between the downpulled hat and the upturned collar of his coat, only a glimpse of cold staring eyes could be seen. "Good. Stay calm, my friend, this may not turn out as badly as you fear. Stan, check on the others and make sure they are staying quiet."
"Can do."
After the gunman had left, the secretive man stood motionless, studying his prisoner. "Yes, I distinctly felt your presence out there. Gralic force is all about you, but I don't recognize what kind it is."
"Mister, we don't mean any harm. We're only high school kids fooling around. I apologize for trespassing but there's no need to bring the police out here..."
"Heh. It would be a reprieve if your Human police should show up. Child, you are dealing with the greatest sorcerer the Nekrosim have ever produced, this is Velasco you face." With that name, the man tossed his hat aside and folded down his collar to reveal a hairless head that exactly resembled a skull tautly covered with dry bloodless skin.
IV.
The skull-faced man tapped the flat of a ceremonial dagger against the palm of one hand. It was hard to read expression on that nearly fleshless face with no eyebrows. "Are the others locked in the shed, Stan?"
"Sure, boss. If they start squawking, I'll go out and bruise 'em up a little." The big man had closed the door behind him when he had stepped back into the living room. That old-fashioned Colt was unspeakably terrifying to Jimmy.
All this was simply too much to process. His friends had been taken away at gunpoint by a sullen man who seemed completely ready to kill them all. And he was being scrutinized by a horror with a face that looked like a skull with wide grinning jaws and a mere snub of a nose, Valesco, the man had called himself.
"There is something Midnight War about you," the weird man went on musingly. "You are too young to be a Tel Shai knight, surely? Do you have some inborn gralic ability of your own? Or perhaps you carry an Eldar talisman? I am most curious."
Swallowing hard, Jimmy croaked something unintelligible and then tried again. "I don't know what you're talking about. I really don't. We're just some kids hanging out in the woods, you oughtta let us go."
Valesco leered, making his features even less attractive. "It is too late for that. You have seen what you must not tell others of. Slave! Come in here."
Through the open doorway to a bedroom behind them, the remains of Leo Schupp staggered awakwardly forward and stood staring up at nothing with blank eyes. There was no possibility that this was only a living person putting on an act. Deep primal instinct screamed at Jimmy Lawson that he was in the presence of something that should not be. His heart was pounding. If not for the automatic aimed straight at him, he would have gotten out of that room if it meant diving out through a window.
"My first try is not much of a success," Valesco grumbled. "This fool was dead for too long. His mind is gone. I want my revivals to be aware and conscious of what is going on."
The man called Stan frowned and stared uneasily at the corpse standing almost within arm's reach. "That's about as fresh as we're going to be able to get, boss. Maybe an Orthodox Jew gets buried within twenty-hours but everyone else goes through a wake and a funeral and all that."
The Nekrosan sorcerer looked down at his dagger and thumbed its edge thoughtfully. "Ah, there is a better way. We have four... volunteers. They can be restored within minutes after going to the Great Mystery."
"Wait, wait, stop a minute." Jimmy's voice cracked in his fear. "You don't make any sense. Are you seriously going to kill someone so you can bring him back? Why?"
"You know nothing of my Race, or of our creed. Since the beginning, we have been limited by the way a sacrifice can only die once. I intend to change that. My serum will restore life to fresh meat, so that a sacrifice can die and be brought back and die again many times." Valesco chuckled and leaned toward the teen. "I will be the greatest Nekrosan in history."
"Whoa, boss, hold on a second," said Stan. "I, uh, signed on for some manual labor and maybe breaking a few bones or something. This is more than I bargained for. I don't know if I wanna get any deeper."
"You can not turn back now, my Human friend. Do you want a dozen slaves like this one to stalk you? Slow and clumsy they may be, but they know not fear or pain. You will empty your gun into them but they will still clutch at you and sink cold fingers into your throat..."
"Awright! Awright already, I get it. I signed up, I gotta go through with it."
"Start with this boy," Valesco said. "My serum is ready, I might as well test it tonight. Send him to the Great Mystery."
When he saw that infinite black tunnel of the .45 muzzle raised to his eye level, Jimmy Lawson felt terror slip away somehow. Anger took its place. The ring on his right hand warmed up uncomfortably, a feverish flush surged through his body. He glared at the gunman with the first literal urge to kill he had ever known in his life.
Stan screamed and flung the automatic far to one side, grabbing at his hand. "Ahh! Jeezus, that hurts!"
The skull-faced sorcerer was taken aback. "Fool, what is wrong with you?"
"My hand! It's burned. Look, there's already blisters on it. My gun got red-hot somehow."
Valesco swung back toward the uncomprehending Jimmy. "You! You did that. I was right, you are Midnight War somehow..." He twirled the curve-bladed dagger in one bony hand and raised it point upward. "No matter, I will gut you like a beast for the banquet."
Jimmy Lawson had no premonition what was going to happen then. With a loud whoosh, his body became surrounded by a nimbus of blindingly bright white flame. The gush of superheated air drove both Valesco and the injured gunman staggering back in pain and alarm. Behind them, the curtains caught fire and in a second, the couch also was blazing.
V.
Yet Jimmy felt nothing. He was not uncomfortable at all. He stared down at his hands and his body and was unable to take it all in. Flames crackled around him, searing a black spot into the ceiling overhead but they weren't hurting him.
"The Heirs of Buliwyf!" shrieked Valesco, raising an arm to shield his face. "Of course, you wield the Flame Gem, that was what I sensed. Margoth take your soul, child!" He tried to lunge forward but the oppressive heat was forcing all the air from the room. The Nekrosan wheeled about and ran from the room into the cool night air, with his stooge right behind him.
A few seconds later, the sound of a car engine starting up and the twin cones of headlights swerving away told Jimmy that his life was no longer in danger. Or was it? The bungalow was burning away in earnest now. He had better get out of there but then what was going to happen to him anyway? He couldn't go through life as a burning man, it was insane. Maybe if he could find a stream or pond to dive in? Then, without his intention, the aura snapped off as sharply as it had sprung up around him. He hadn't been hurt. His clothes hadn't even been singed.
Part of the ceiling crashed down as a support beam burned through. Jimmy gave a start and moved toward the open front door but even in his alarm, he hesitated as he saw the body of Leo Schupp lying face up on the rug. Really dead this time? It sure seemed so. Even though he was desperate to get out of there, Jimmy rushed over to check. The glassy staring eyes were all he needed to see. "Back to the graveyard you go," he said out loud. "Rest in peace this time." Then he dove through the doorway out into the darkness.
Now, the full events began to sink in. It was taking a while for everything to register but yes, the Flame Gem had saved him. Or rather he had saved himself by using it. What could his dad's Earth Gem or his mom's Water Gem do? Why weren't they using these supernatural abilities? Jimmy wiped at his soot-smudged face and only then remembered that his friends were prisoners.
Looking back at the raging conflagration, a strange thought occurred to him. How much control did he have over fire? What if... He stared at the building and concentrated as much as any child making a wish. The gushing black smoke and yellow flickers died down to scattered sparks within seconds. Jimmy shook his head. He had to find out more about these gems, about whoever Buliyf had been, why his parents kept such fantastic power without ever using it.
But first, Gil and Fred and Grace. There was the shed, with a wheelbarrow and a few tools like a rake and hoe next to it. Jimmy sagged, suddenly weary as his body shifted down from its high adrenalin output. The door wasn't padlocked, it just had a pin through a hasp. Before opening it, he had enough presence of mind to shout, "It's okay! It's me, Jimmy, I'm okay. Those guys are gone. I'm going to let you out."
When he swung the door open, three pale taut faces peered out suspiciously. Then, to his surprise and delight, Grace threw herself into a fierce embrace as if hanging on to him kept her from falling off some cliff.
"I thought you were dead," she managed to blurt out. "I thought we were all going to die." When Jimmy tried to disengage himself, she held on tighter and he could feel her body shaking.
"Dude. What did you DO?" asked Fred, pointing at the smoldering wreckage from which thin wisps still rose.
"Me? I didn't do anything. I don't know how a fire got started but those weirdos took off in their car and I didn't stay in there either. Maybe a short in the wiring of the house, who knows? I'm just relieved they're gone."
Moving a little closer, Gil whistled. "Smell that stink, huh? Wild. What happened to Mr Schupp?"
Before answering, Jimmy Lawson decided what he had to keep secret. He needed time to think. What would happen if he told his friends about the man with the skull face? Or how he had been wrapped in white hot fire which hadn't hurt him? It was too crazy. He had to come to terms with it all. "He's dead, Gil. I guess he was dead all the time."
"But we saw him. You did, we all did, he was standing outside this afternoon."
Jimmy was getting to enjoy feeling Grace pressed up against him that way. Her trembling had stopped. "I don't know," he said to Gil. "Maybe we saw his ghost? It's beyond me."
As Grace finally unclinched, she wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. "Sorry to get all girlie, Lawson. Hope you don't expect that more often, you don't deserve it."
Jimmy did not answer her directly. He felt like he couldn't stay awake a minute longer. "You guys, let's get out of here. Maybe a fire truck will be pulling up here any second if someone saw the place burning. I need to change my clothes and get this stink off me, I smell like I was next to a bonfire all night."
"Yeah. I'm kinda shaky myself," Gil said. "Fred, you okay?"
"You know me, I am most flexible when it comes to the unexpected. But I tell you what. Gil, Grace, Jimmy, we have to swear we're never going to tell anyone what happened tonight. We could get blamed for the fire and end up in juvie hall. Promise, everyone. Promise you won't say a word about tonight no matter what."
"Not a problem," Jimmy said. "It'll be like it never happened." But in the back of his exhausted mind, an uneasy feeling stirred that some uncanny door had been opened in his life. For the first time in a comfortable life, he was afraid of what the future might bring.
6/13/2022
10/29/1988
I.
No one was looking. Jimmy checked both ways again, the country road was empty as far as he could see in either direction. Right in front of him was a deep puddle a foot across. He raised his right hand and tried to focus every bit of his will power on the ruby-red gem inset on his ring, visualizing what he wanted to happen. What was that feeling of resistance? Try harder. Suddenly a sort of barrier in his mind yielded and a surge of intense heat rushed down to evaporate the puddle with a gout of steam. Only a dry pothole remained.
At sixteen, Jimmy Lawson was still a bit under six feet tall and gawky, with the long arms and legs of a growing boy. He had the family's dark auburn hair, a bit shaggy and untidy, but he had missed out on the green eyes his mother and sister were so proud of. Jimmy's eyes were a mundane dark brown. On this brisk October afternoon, he was wearing his favorite bright red jacket over a black T-shirt, matching the black jeans and red sneakers. Lowering his hand, he fought not to laugh out loud. Using the Flame Gem was getting easier all the time. Wherever he was summoning superheated air or actual fire from, he could call it easier every day.
Delighted with life in general and his new powers in particular, Jimmy started striding quickly down the road again. He couldn't understand why his family was so reluctant to use the Buliwyf talismans. Dad with the Earth Gem and Mom with the Water Gem both acted as if nothing had changed since they had come back from that cavern. His older sister Lisa did experiment a little with the Air Gem. A few times late at night, he had caught her rising up into the dark sky on a roaring column of hurricane winds she had summoned, but she was awful timid about fooling around with her gift, too.
What were they waiting for? Why were they so hesitant? He was going to put this incredible ability to good use, no matter if they cautioned him to be secretive or not.
Only another mile along the King's Highway and he would be at the convenient mart in Walston for some soda and chips, maybe a magazine. He didn't mind walking, Saturday meant all day to do whatever he wanted. In all fairness, he had genuinely put in applications for jobs all over Walston but no one seemed to be hiring. It would be nice to have some cash but he went plenty of places with his friends and it didn't cost much to go swimming or hang out at the Central Valley Mall. Always an excellent time with Gil and Fred.
When he came within sight of the One-Stop convenient mart, he cheered up even more at spotting the familiar white VW bug at the gas pump. Sure enough, there was the stocky form of Gilbert Ostrander, oldest of the gang at eighteen, with the taller skinnier Fred Bessolo next to him. And Fred's sister Grace as well, with all that strawberry-blonde hair down her narrow back. The expected hormonal surges rushed through Jimmy at seeing her. The past year, Grace had been turning up in some warm steamy daydreams even though he had to admit she had shown nothing but contempt for him since grade school.
"Jimmy! Hey, hurry up!" Gil said as he replaced to the hose to the pump and screwed the gas cap back on. "We're motoring out there now."
"We are? And where's that?"
"The cemetery. The one by St Anne's. Hustle it dude, get in." Gil went around to the driver's side. Just once, Jimmy wished that Fred would sit up front. That would leave him huddled in the back seat next to Grace. But no such luck. The unwritten rule of teendom dictated that girls got the shotgun seat whenever possible. Jimmy resigned himself to climbing in the back alongside Fred. Not that there was anything wrong with Fred, who wore black horn-rimmed glasses and had a pageboy haircut and was a total heavy metal head but leaning up against Grace seemed like a better deal any way you looked at it.
"Am I crazy or did you say we were going to the cemetery?" Jimmy asked at the VW rolled out onto the road.
"That's yes to both questions," replied Grace promptly.
"At least YOU'RE not driving," he snapped back. "Because then we'd be going to the cemetery to stay."
"Mellow out, you two," Gil broke in. "You mean you haven't heard the news? Everybody's talking about it."
"I didn't have the radio on today. What's the big deal?"
Next to him in the back, Fred intoned with enormous drama. "Dude! It's grave robbers. Ghouls right here in Walston. This morning, Father Salvucci arrived at the church and spied a big open hole where that fireman was buried Sunday. Whatzisname, Mr Schupp? Pile of dirt by the gravestone. No coffin, no body."
"No way."
"Way," responded Fred. "It's wholly bogus, right? Why would anyone do such a thing?"
Jimmy exhaled sharply. "Ummm, was he buried with anything valuable? No, he was just a local volunteer, he worked at Sears. I dunno, I'm stumped."
"That's nothing new. If you ever had an idea, it'd be lonely," Grace volunteered.
Despite the way she talked to him, Jimmy enjoyed watching her breasts bouncing under the thin calico-streaked blouse too much to get mad. "Well, what do you think happened?"
"How would I know!? What kind of stupid question is that?"
Gil shook his head. "Tell you what, how about I pull over right now and both of you can walk to the cemetery? We'll meet you there."
"We're here already," Fred said. "Throw an eyeball at the cars."
St Anne's Church sat at the bottom of Donnegan's Hill Road, a white-boarded structure more than eighty years old. The graveyard circled halfway around the church, some of the stones being too eroded for the inscriptions to be legible. There were indeed eleven cars lined up along the road and a considerable crowd near them but the police weren't letting anyone on the grounds. Two town cruisers and a dark blue and yellow State Trooper car had their lightbars flashing.
Slowing down to a crawl, Gil spun the crank down on his window. "Dammit, I can't see anything. Stupid Fuzz in the way, ruining the view. Maybe we can come by later and see if everyone got bored and went home."
"I can't figure this out," Jimmy said as they zipped around a turn in the road. "That's an odious lot of work, digging up tons of dirt and then hauling a heavy coffin away. Mr Schupp was a big heavy guy even without a coffin. No one would do all that just for kicks."
From the front seat, Grace presented her pug-nosed profile with a sniff. "It's obviously a sick twisted prank. Only two days to your favorite holiday, Lawson boy. Saturday's Halloween."
II.
Heading up Dutch Town Road with woods on either side for miles, Gil made a disgusted noise. "Still no weed. The town is dry. Everybody is grinding up seeds and stems, it is most degrading."
"What about Crazy George?" asked Jimmy.
"He wasn't home. This bums me out big time," Gil said.
"You guys smoke too much anyway," volunteered Grace sweetly. "That's why you never have any money."
"I notice you never pass it without taking a big hit." Jimmy turned to face Fred next to him. "What happened to that guitar you were gonna buy from Tony?"
"Dude! What an atrocity, it's a Sunburst with a crack. And the whammy bar doesn't go with it. Me spirit is crushed."
"You're never going to get a triumphant video on MTV unless you both have guitars," Jimmy began but Grace cut him off with a scoffing noise.
"What the HELL!" barked Gil, who was turning into someone's driveway to back out again into the direction from which they had come.
"Whoa. Gil my amigo, that was most unexpected," complained Fred.
"Look at the shack to our left. Just get a good look. Tell me what you see."
In a second, they buzzed past a wide brown-wood bungalow which had a black Charger and a Suzuki motorcycle parked in front of it. Standing by the side of the building were three figures. In the second they had to observe as they passed by, the four friends saw one man was unremarkable, wearing work clothes with his denim jacket open. Another was thin and seemed to be hiding his face from the way he had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low and oversized mirrored sunglasses. But the third one...
Definitely obese with a round belly hanging down over his belt, this man wore a neat new black suit with a white dress shirt and black tie. The round bald spot on the back of his head was distinctive. This man was standing with legs braced well apart, arms out for balance and his mouth hung open.
Inside the VW bug, a burst of excited voices crowded over each other. "I saw it! It's Leo Schupp! I know it is!" screamed Fred.
"Dude, how's that possible? He was six feet under. His obituary was in the paper. The guy is conclusively dead," Gil yelled.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," added Grace. "It's like that movie with the living dead. They're gonna come in our houses tonight and eat us."
"Settle down there. There has to be some real world explanation. Did Mr Schupp have a brother?"
"No. No, I've known his family all my life," Fred moaned. "He's got no brothers. Did you see his eyes? All white, like they were rolled up in his head. Makes me wanna hurl."
"Don't hurl in my car, dude, show some courtesy. I'm freaking the freak out. No wonder his grave is empty, he went to get some fresh air and didn't come back."
From the back seat, Jimmy Lawson spoke with an unexpected restraint that calmed them down. "Any of you guys know who lives in that cabin?"
"Not me."
"No, but I've seen that car there a few times. Lights on at night," Gil said.
"Should we tell the police? Maybe we should go to Town Hall, it's only a few miles away, we can let the cops know we're gonna all be eaten by zombies," Grace said.
"Will you STOP with the 'being eaten' crap?" Fred snapped. "We have to think. Those pigs, I hate them, they hassled us for swimming at the Overhang this summer. I don't want to look at their fat faces again."
Gil slowed as they reached the intersection where Dutch Town Road met King's Highway. "It's getting near six, dudes. Tonight is mac and cheese with hamburgers and my mom always makes enough for a family of ten. Even though it's just her, my dad and me. Let's shovel it all down and talk over what to do. She won't mind."
From the back, Jimmy realized he was excited over the mystery but not at all frightened. No one else knew he could summon walls of flame and oven-hot air from nowhere, but it gave him confidence he could handle any possible emergency. Even zombies.
III.
At eleven-thirty, the four of them were back in the VW. "I'm going to need a few bucks for gas, you guys. Cough it up before I drop any of you off."
Grace had been oddly silent after dinner, when she had warned Jimmy to stop eating when he reached the plate. They had watched a few TV shows and, when Gil's parents had turned in as the Eleven O'Clock local news came on, the gang had said goodnight to them and gone outside. She had not said much even during her favorite comedy. Now, she took a shaky breath. "Anyone want to drive past that house again?"
"What? I thought that's the last place you'd want to see, especially after dark," Gil scoffed.
"It's been on my mind. I read a lot about ghosts and apparitions and stuff. Maybe that's what we saw today. It can't hurt just to buzz by, ya know?" She turned toward the back seat. "Dudes, what do you say?"
Fred's response was prompt enough. "I vote yes, sure, why not? With everything that happened today, I'm not going to be going to sleep soon, anyway?"
"And of course, you're scared, Lawson," she went on. "You want to get under the covers with your teddy bear to keep you safe?"
I'd like to get under the covers with more than a teddy bear, he thought, but Jimmy said only, "Let's take a look. Might as well start Halloween early this year."
Soon enough, they rolled slowly past the bungalow, seeing that the windows were lit and the car was still there. "Man, I got chills big time. Did someone slide an ice cube down my back or what?" grumbled Gil.
"Pull over by the little bridge. Yeah, out of sight." Jimmy reached into his jacket and took out a pencil flashlight. "I don't know if you guys feel like staying here, but I think I'm going to sneak through the woods and watch that place for a while."
"You don't have to do that to impress me," said Grace. "Mostly because nothing you do would impress me."
"Dude!" Fred put in, starting to open his door. "I am all over this. Maybe I can write a song about this, you know? As an artist, I must suffer for my work."
"As an artist, you're going to trip over things in the dark and hurt yourself," Grace warned.
"I'm going, too. Seeing Mr Schupp standing around while his grave is unoccupied..." Gil's voice trailed off. "It is most distressing."
"Oh and leave me here by myself? Like hell. Let's get this over with. We'll probably just see some geezer sleeping in his easy chair with the Late Show on." Grace was first out of the car. With Jimmy using his flashlight carefully, holding two fingers over the lens so only a sliver of light showed, he led the way through the pine trees and thick undergrowth until they were crouching at the rear of the tiny back yard of the bungalow. To one side was a tool shed five feet to each side and Jimmy crept up next to it.
"Looks peaceful enough..." Jimmy whispered. "Maybe this is a waste of time."
Even as he spoke, a rustle behind them made their hearts miss a beat or two. All four friends froze into position as well as any startled rabbit could have. Then the glare of a powerful flashlight blinded them.
"Remain quiet," said a silky voice with what sounded like a vaguely East European accent.
"My associate has a large automatic pistol ready and I assure you that he had already killed more innocent youths than you are. Stand up but do not run. Good." In the backsplash from that flashlight, the speaker was revealed to be the tall thin man they had seen earlier but no details could be made out.
Coming around to their side was the other man they had seen that afternoon and he was indeed pointed a Colt .45 in their direction. What could be seen of his flat, impassive face was not reassuring. "Orders, boss?"
"These three... these two and the girl... lock them in the shed for now. I sense something odd about this other one. The boy in the red jacket. There is gralic energy about him but I can't quite place it."
Once Grace, Gil and Fred had been secured in the tool shed, the man with the flashlight ordered Jimmy to go in through the back door of the bungalow. They passed through a kitchen into a well-lit snug little parlor with unremarkable furniture but a distinct sickly sweet odor of decay.
"Stand over by that wall," ordered the thin man, snapping off his flashlight. Between the downpulled hat and the upturned collar of his coat, only a glimpse of cold staring eyes could be seen. "Good. Stay calm, my friend, this may not turn out as badly as you fear. Stan, check on the others and make sure they are staying quiet."
"Can do."
After the gunman had left, the secretive man stood motionless, studying his prisoner. "Yes, I distinctly felt your presence out there. Gralic force is all about you, but I don't recognize what kind it is."
"Mister, we don't mean any harm. We're only high school kids fooling around. I apologize for trespassing but there's no need to bring the police out here..."
"Heh. It would be a reprieve if your Human police should show up. Child, you are dealing with the greatest sorcerer the Nekrosim have ever produced, this is Velasco you face." With that name, the man tossed his hat aside and folded down his collar to reveal a hairless head that exactly resembled a skull tautly covered with dry bloodless skin.
IV.
The skull-faced man tapped the flat of a ceremonial dagger against the palm of one hand. It was hard to read expression on that nearly fleshless face with no eyebrows. "Are the others locked in the shed, Stan?"
"Sure, boss. If they start squawking, I'll go out and bruise 'em up a little." The big man had closed the door behind him when he had stepped back into the living room. That old-fashioned Colt was unspeakably terrifying to Jimmy.
All this was simply too much to process. His friends had been taken away at gunpoint by a sullen man who seemed completely ready to kill them all. And he was being scrutinized by a horror with a face that looked like a skull with wide grinning jaws and a mere snub of a nose, Valesco, the man had called himself.
"There is something Midnight War about you," the weird man went on musingly. "You are too young to be a Tel Shai knight, surely? Do you have some inborn gralic ability of your own? Or perhaps you carry an Eldar talisman? I am most curious."
Swallowing hard, Jimmy croaked something unintelligible and then tried again. "I don't know what you're talking about. I really don't. We're just some kids hanging out in the woods, you oughtta let us go."
Valesco leered, making his features even less attractive. "It is too late for that. You have seen what you must not tell others of. Slave! Come in here."
Through the open doorway to a bedroom behind them, the remains of Leo Schupp staggered awakwardly forward and stood staring up at nothing with blank eyes. There was no possibility that this was only a living person putting on an act. Deep primal instinct screamed at Jimmy Lawson that he was in the presence of something that should not be. His heart was pounding. If not for the automatic aimed straight at him, he would have gotten out of that room if it meant diving out through a window.
"My first try is not much of a success," Valesco grumbled. "This fool was dead for too long. His mind is gone. I want my revivals to be aware and conscious of what is going on."
The man called Stan frowned and stared uneasily at the corpse standing almost within arm's reach. "That's about as fresh as we're going to be able to get, boss. Maybe an Orthodox Jew gets buried within twenty-hours but everyone else goes through a wake and a funeral and all that."
The Nekrosan sorcerer looked down at his dagger and thumbed its edge thoughtfully. "Ah, there is a better way. We have four... volunteers. They can be restored within minutes after going to the Great Mystery."
"Wait, wait, stop a minute." Jimmy's voice cracked in his fear. "You don't make any sense. Are you seriously going to kill someone so you can bring him back? Why?"
"You know nothing of my Race, or of our creed. Since the beginning, we have been limited by the way a sacrifice can only die once. I intend to change that. My serum will restore life to fresh meat, so that a sacrifice can die and be brought back and die again many times." Valesco chuckled and leaned toward the teen. "I will be the greatest Nekrosan in history."
"Whoa, boss, hold on a second," said Stan. "I, uh, signed on for some manual labor and maybe breaking a few bones or something. This is more than I bargained for. I don't know if I wanna get any deeper."
"You can not turn back now, my Human friend. Do you want a dozen slaves like this one to stalk you? Slow and clumsy they may be, but they know not fear or pain. You will empty your gun into them but they will still clutch at you and sink cold fingers into your throat..."
"Awright! Awright already, I get it. I signed up, I gotta go through with it."
"Start with this boy," Valesco said. "My serum is ready, I might as well test it tonight. Send him to the Great Mystery."
When he saw that infinite black tunnel of the .45 muzzle raised to his eye level, Jimmy Lawson felt terror slip away somehow. Anger took its place. The ring on his right hand warmed up uncomfortably, a feverish flush surged through his body. He glared at the gunman with the first literal urge to kill he had ever known in his life.
Stan screamed and flung the automatic far to one side, grabbing at his hand. "Ahh! Jeezus, that hurts!"
The skull-faced sorcerer was taken aback. "Fool, what is wrong with you?"
"My hand! It's burned. Look, there's already blisters on it. My gun got red-hot somehow."
Valesco swung back toward the uncomprehending Jimmy. "You! You did that. I was right, you are Midnight War somehow..." He twirled the curve-bladed dagger in one bony hand and raised it point upward. "No matter, I will gut you like a beast for the banquet."
Jimmy Lawson had no premonition what was going to happen then. With a loud whoosh, his body became surrounded by a nimbus of blindingly bright white flame. The gush of superheated air drove both Valesco and the injured gunman staggering back in pain and alarm. Behind them, the curtains caught fire and in a second, the couch also was blazing.
V.
Yet Jimmy felt nothing. He was not uncomfortable at all. He stared down at his hands and his body and was unable to take it all in. Flames crackled around him, searing a black spot into the ceiling overhead but they weren't hurting him.
"The Heirs of Buliwyf!" shrieked Valesco, raising an arm to shield his face. "Of course, you wield the Flame Gem, that was what I sensed. Margoth take your soul, child!" He tried to lunge forward but the oppressive heat was forcing all the air from the room. The Nekrosan wheeled about and ran from the room into the cool night air, with his stooge right behind him.
A few seconds later, the sound of a car engine starting up and the twin cones of headlights swerving away told Jimmy that his life was no longer in danger. Or was it? The bungalow was burning away in earnest now. He had better get out of there but then what was going to happen to him anyway? He couldn't go through life as a burning man, it was insane. Maybe if he could find a stream or pond to dive in? Then, without his intention, the aura snapped off as sharply as it had sprung up around him. He hadn't been hurt. His clothes hadn't even been singed.
Part of the ceiling crashed down as a support beam burned through. Jimmy gave a start and moved toward the open front door but even in his alarm, he hesitated as he saw the body of Leo Schupp lying face up on the rug. Really dead this time? It sure seemed so. Even though he was desperate to get out of there, Jimmy rushed over to check. The glassy staring eyes were all he needed to see. "Back to the graveyard you go," he said out loud. "Rest in peace this time." Then he dove through the doorway out into the darkness.
Now, the full events began to sink in. It was taking a while for everything to register but yes, the Flame Gem had saved him. Or rather he had saved himself by using it. What could his dad's Earth Gem or his mom's Water Gem do? Why weren't they using these supernatural abilities? Jimmy wiped at his soot-smudged face and only then remembered that his friends were prisoners.
Looking back at the raging conflagration, a strange thought occurred to him. How much control did he have over fire? What if... He stared at the building and concentrated as much as any child making a wish. The gushing black smoke and yellow flickers died down to scattered sparks within seconds. Jimmy shook his head. He had to find out more about these gems, about whoever Buliyf had been, why his parents kept such fantastic power without ever using it.
But first, Gil and Fred and Grace. There was the shed, with a wheelbarrow and a few tools like a rake and hoe next to it. Jimmy sagged, suddenly weary as his body shifted down from its high adrenalin output. The door wasn't padlocked, it just had a pin through a hasp. Before opening it, he had enough presence of mind to shout, "It's okay! It's me, Jimmy, I'm okay. Those guys are gone. I'm going to let you out."
When he swung the door open, three pale taut faces peered out suspiciously. Then, to his surprise and delight, Grace threw herself into a fierce embrace as if hanging on to him kept her from falling off some cliff.
"I thought you were dead," she managed to blurt out. "I thought we were all going to die." When Jimmy tried to disengage himself, she held on tighter and he could feel her body shaking.
"Dude. What did you DO?" asked Fred, pointing at the smoldering wreckage from which thin wisps still rose.
"Me? I didn't do anything. I don't know how a fire got started but those weirdos took off in their car and I didn't stay in there either. Maybe a short in the wiring of the house, who knows? I'm just relieved they're gone."
Moving a little closer, Gil whistled. "Smell that stink, huh? Wild. What happened to Mr Schupp?"
Before answering, Jimmy Lawson decided what he had to keep secret. He needed time to think. What would happen if he told his friends about the man with the skull face? Or how he had been wrapped in white hot fire which hadn't hurt him? It was too crazy. He had to come to terms with it all. "He's dead, Gil. I guess he was dead all the time."
"But we saw him. You did, we all did, he was standing outside this afternoon."
Jimmy was getting to enjoy feeling Grace pressed up against him that way. Her trembling had stopped. "I don't know," he said to Gil. "Maybe we saw his ghost? It's beyond me."
As Grace finally unclinched, she wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. "Sorry to get all girlie, Lawson. Hope you don't expect that more often, you don't deserve it."
Jimmy did not answer her directly. He felt like he couldn't stay awake a minute longer. "You guys, let's get out of here. Maybe a fire truck will be pulling up here any second if someone saw the place burning. I need to change my clothes and get this stink off me, I smell like I was next to a bonfire all night."
"Yeah. I'm kinda shaky myself," Gil said. "Fred, you okay?"
"You know me, I am most flexible when it comes to the unexpected. But I tell you what. Gil, Grace, Jimmy, we have to swear we're never going to tell anyone what happened tonight. We could get blamed for the fire and end up in juvie hall. Promise, everyone. Promise you won't say a word about tonight no matter what."
"Not a problem," Jimmy said. "It'll be like it never happened." But in the back of his exhausted mind, an uneasy feeling stirred that some uncanny door had been opened in his life. For the first time in a comfortable life, he was afraid of what the future might bring.
6/13/2022