Dead Stop (3 page)

And with half of
Masonfield at the KofC dinner and the other half at tonight’s High School
football game, the truck stop ought to be pretty much local free. Also, the
idea of staying out late, watching the storm’s fireworks, and reading a book
with a never ending supply of coffee at her disposal had a certain appeal.

“Woohoo,” Rachel
sighed as she followed the Hollis’ truck down their long driveway. “The things
I do for excitement nowadays.”

###

Afternoon -
Amos

Amos Godfrey
disengaged the clutch on the attached mower and pulled his tractor to a stop in
the shallow ditch alongside County Road 498.

His back ached
from the long hours in the tractor and his hands were almost numb from the
vibration of the steering wheel. It had been a long day. But it was almost over
and only one chore remained.

The gates of the
Mazon County Cemetery stood just ahead, representing his last job for the day.

“Amos, old
man…you’re getting too long in the tooth for this.” He was already a couple of
years past retirement age but the economy, being what it was, made leaving an
option best put off a little while longer.

The man reached
down and grabbed a plastic milk jug half full of water sitting next to the
tractor’s seat. He took a long slug of the lukewarm liquid then poured some
over his head. It didn’t cool him much, but at least if felt good to get the
sweat off his face. The air today hung thick with moisture, despite the absence
of rain. That would be coming later. Somewhere nearby, a locust unaware the
summer had passed still buzzed its lazy drone in the heavy atmosphere. Even on
a late October afternoon, mowing the roadsides was hot work in this part of
Texas.

Amos capped the
water jug and surveyed the area.

The cemetery sat
alongside the back country road, bordered on two sides by brown rows of corn
stalks and large piles of dirt on the third. The dirt had recently been brought
in by the county, after making a deal to get it on the cheap from some wildcat
copper mine reopened a few counties over. They had dumped it in great raw piles
in the space between the cemetery and Clark Creek, to be used on future
roadwork projects.

The old man
shook his head in disgust at the eyesore.

When a couple of
locals objected, the county commissioners had replied the piles would provide
extra protection against Clark Creek eroding its way into the cemetery. Amos
knew it was a ridiculous argument…the creek flowed too slowly and lay too far
away to be a threat. But it silenced the objections. Now people visiting their
deceased loved ones got treated to large piles of dirt for background scenery,
to go along with the corn.

The county road
worker dismounted the tractor and headed for the gates. His job was to cut the
grass of the cemetery every month when his route of mowing roadsides brought
him back around to it. The tractor pulled mower was not feasible for this job,
but the county had an old riding mower stowed in a tool shed hidden in the
trees at the back of the graveyard.

A quick peek at
his watch told him he had about an hour before it started getting dark, so Amos
picked up his pace. It left just enough daylight to get the job done if he
wasn’t too picky, and get out of here before the rain started falling. A quick
glance to the northwest revealed the heavy clouds marching in, and a distant
rumble promised atmospheric mayhem in the future.

He needed to
move, and get this over with.

  Then he
would be finished for the week, and could get home in time to change and go
watch his grandson play football at the high school. The Masonfield Pirates had
a good team this year. They were only two wins away from getting themselves a
place in the state tournament. And with their running game, the rain tonight
would favor them over the visiting Bulldog’s vaunted passing attack.

Amos strode with
hurried purpose through the tombstones, intent on the little aluminum shed
under the trees in the back. The sun already hung low in the sky. This resulted
in much of the place being cast in shadow, both from the dirt piles and the
tree line of Clark Creek. At least this took the edge off the heat, but it
still counted as a stark reminder he needed to hurry if he didn’t want to be
mowing a cemetery alone after dark.

His eyes fixed
on the door to the little shed and he hustled straight to it. A few seconds of
fumbling in his pocket produced the key ring he used to hold all his county
keys. As he flipped through the keys, Amos noted how much darker it was here
under the trees and wondered if perhaps it was already too late to be starting
this.

For a brief
moment he paused and considered the idea of putting it off till next week. Then
he remembered Monday would be the last day of the month and he had to finish
the rest of his route by then.

It must be done
now.

With a sigh, he
found the right key and inserted it into the padlock. It opened with a
satisfying click and the chain rattled in a loud, metallic staccato as Amos
pulled it free from the door handles. He wasted no time in opening the doors
and stepping inside.

The mower
squatted in the center of the gloom under a black plastic tarp.  Amos
yanked the tarp off and threw it into the corner before moving over to the
shelves loaded with containers of different shapes and sizes. Most were
fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals necessary for the maintenance of a
green graveyard, but he found what he sought on the bottom shelf next to a coil
of rubber hose.

The county
worker pulled the gas can out, and gave it a quick shake. Satisfied with the
weight and slosh of liquid within, he set it next to the mower. Amos wished the
shed came with electricity so he could have better light for this. Kneeling by
the mower, he fumbled in the murk for the gas cap and started unscrewing it.

Thoom!

He had just
pulled it free when a loud thump against the side of the shed almost made him
jump out of his skin.

“What the
hell?!”

Amos dropped the
gas cap in surprise, and nearly kicked over the fuel can while stumbling to his
feet. The confined area made sudden movement difficult, and he almost fell
before reaching out and grabbing the shelves to keep from going down. The
rickety apparatus shook under his weight. A jug of weed killer started to
topple from the top shelf but he managed to turn and steady it before getting
himself drenched in herbicide.

Finally catching
both his breath and his balance, Amos straightened to his feet and stared
wide-eyed at the walls of the shed.

What the hell
was
that
? He was supposed to be alone out here.

Wasn’t he?

Once again, a
thump sounded against the thin walls…but this time it sounded softer, and he
could tell it was coming from the side of the shed opposite the doors. It was
followed by a dragging sound, like somebody or something was leaning against
the outside and moving slightly. Whatever it was, it definitely didn’t come
from a low tree branch or something along those lines. This had the quality of
something alive.

A cow maybe?

Amos frowned at
the wall and started a slow retreat away from it and towards the door.
Something
was
out there, and it wasn’t supposed to be.

He thought about
calling out and demanding whoever it was to identify themselves, but the mental
image of him yelling at a cow like a scared old fool squelched the impulse.
Besides, if it turned out to be one of his idiot coworkers out here trying to
scare him, he damn sure didn’t intend to give them something to laugh about for
the next two weeks.

And as soon as
he thought of them he realized the bang had almost certainly been somebody
slapping their hand against the shed before dragging it down the wall. Either
the other tractor operater, Manny, or his buddy Curtis in Sanitation, must have
known this was the day he mowed the county graveyard and had been waiting here
in hopes of scaring him. They were both jerkoffs and prone to pulling this type
of crap.

Well it wasn’t going
to work.

“Nice try, you
jackasses!” He stepped out of the doorway then headed around the corner of the
shed. “But next time you might want to think about waiting until…”

He came to a
stop as he rounded the second corner, bringing the back of the shed and what
leaned against it into view.

It wasn’t Manny
or Curtis.

Amos stared in
shocked astonishment at the dim figure only a few feet away in the shadows.

It was a
girl…and she was filthy.

She was leaning
forward with both hands placed against the back wall of the shed as if for
support. Her head drooped, and long black hair hung down obscuring her face
from view. What looked to have once been a cream colored dress was coated with
streaks of dirt and filth, and its entire back was covered with a large, mossy
black stain.

And she stank.

He started
towards her, then came to an abrupt stopped as she reacted to his presence.

“Holy shit! Oh,
holy shit!” the old man gasped and stumbled back as the girl straightened and
turned her head to face him.

Her skin was dark
gray and cracked like old paint. It had a certain inert quality more associated
with things than people, like the skin of a mummy only not quite as desiccated.
Her eyes and mouth were tightly closed, and her face as immobile as a mask. It
also had a sunken appearance that convinced him more than anything else this
could be no joke.

This was real.

He was alone in
a graveyard, with a dead woman standing only a few feet away.

“This is
bullshit…” he whispered in weak disbelief. He could hear a slight crackling
sound, like knuckles popping, as she tilted her head and seemed to be trying to
locate him by his voice.

The apparition
had a disturbing blend of animate and inanimate qualities, suggestive of both a
person and a thing…and yet neither.

Amos watched in
horrified fascination as the dead woman removed one hand from the wall and
stretched it awkwardly in his direction. She groped about with it blindly, her
eyes still tightly shut. Her slender fingers were blackened with dirt and
corruption, and pale points of bone showed at the end of them as if they had
been worn or chewed off.

The man took
another step backwards, just to put a little more distance between him and the
thing. The sound of his step must have to helped her locate him, for the corpse
took a tottering step away from the wall in his direction. Then it stumbled to
a stop, now flailing sightlessly in the air with both hands.

The effort
looked almost comical, despite the fact it came from something that shouldn’t
exist. It wobbled before him like a bad performer on a tightrope, and was
forced to take a step backwards to widen its stance and keep from falling. Then
the wretched thing just stood there, its arms out in front of it like a
sleepwalker, slowly feeling the air in front of it.

Apparently it
couldn’t open its eyes.

That’s right,
the old man realized,
they sew their eyes and mouths shut! Or glue’em or
something.

His initial
terror started to fade as he watched the shape stand there in the shadows,
weaving back and forth in blind disorientation. Despite its ghastly appearance,
the thing also possessed a certain pitiful quality…more like something lost
than something resurrected. As the shock of its appearance faded, he realized
it seemed less threatening by the minute.

It’s clumsy.
It’s slow. Hell, it’s a girl for God’s sake! It can’t weigh more than a hundred
pounds…a hundred and ten tops. I’m almost twice its size.

Amos squinted at
it in narrow concentration and took a slow step to his right, taking care not
to make any noise as he did. As he expected, the few times the thing grabbed
outwards it reached for where he had been standing before instead of his new
position. And as he watched it grasp in futile desperation at the air, the old
man started to think of it more as a “she” than a thing.

Whatever it was
now, this had once been a woman who had walked this earth alive. She had lived,
loved, hurt, and hoped before death had come and taken all that away from her.
She must have had a family and friends, for somebody had loved her enough to
see she had been buried in what must have once been a nice gown…a gown he now
realized had most likely been a prom dress.

This had been a
young woman, hardly more than a girl.

He could even
make out a withered sprig of a flower lovingly pinned on the front of the
garment.

Now horrors of a
different kind rose in his thoughts.

Was this still
her? Did she know what had happened to her? Did she understand where she was
and what state she was in? As unbelievable as it sounded, was this an alone and
confused girl who somehow awakened in her coffin? Trapped alive in a blinded
corpse?

Compassion began
to war with fear, as he watched the wretched thing waver in what looked to be
silent misery. Amos was a kind man, and even though he didn’t understand how
this had happened, or how it was even possible, he realized what stood before
him might be a tragedy of the most monstrous type. And while there was nothing
he could imagine doing for somebody in her plight, the thought of abandoning
her to a fate like this felt monstrous as well.

He had to know
if she was in there.

“Miss?” he
called softly, taking a careful step back as the figure immediately zeroed in
on his voice and started reaching his direction. “Miss, can you understand me?”

She took a
halting step in his direction, then stopped as she nearly stumbled and fell
again.

Amos took
another step to the side, eyeing her with both pity and caution.