Cemeteries aren’t built to honor the dead, or even to stop their bodies from piling up in the streets. On that night I learned the real reason; we carve their names in stone so that they won’t forget. When the dead cannot remember what it meant to be human, we are all in mortal danger.
~
Victoria leans over. Her seatbelt stretches tight as she rests her head on my shoulder, auburn hair cascading down my chest. I find her hand in the darkness and hold it tight. The veins in her wrist pulse hot blood between my fingers, beneath her smooth skin. Marco whistles to himself in front. He raps his fingers against the steering wheel in time to the music blasting out of the stereo. 80s German Disco, I think he said. He discovers a new niche genre every week.
I don’t own a car, and I share a room with my younger brothers. When it comes to making time for Victoria and I, our options are limited. I wouldn’t have asked Marco to drive us all the way to the edge of town if we weren’t both desperate. And, believe me, we are desperate.
The song ends, and Marco quiets the echoing “Tanzen, tanzen, tanzen!” of the next track. He glances back; his grin is lit a cool blue by the dashboard screen. “You know, Mary Shelley lost her virginity on her mother’s grave.”
I scoff. “You say that as if she was bent over the tombstone. It must’ve been nearby, that’s all.” Victoria shakes her head. “What?”
“I don’t care where in the cemetery she was getting fucked,” Marco says. “I care that she was, you know, in a cemetery getting fucked – with her mother’s rotting corpse nearby.”
“Marco. Please,” I say. “It’s not like anyone we know is buried at Precious.” Precious Oak Cemetery, a fading memory at the edge of town. The families buried there have either moved away or died out. No one visits. No one collects the trash that blows over the black-iron fence. And, most importantly, there aren’t any police officers busting teens trying to have a good time.
“Family or not, I wouldn’t want my eternal slumber interrupted.” Marco sighs. “I liked Frankenstein, though. So maybe I’ll join you two.”
“Not happening,” I say.
Victoria stifles a laugh with her hand. “Bring a friend next time, Marco,” she says. I take my hand and brush through her hair, tracing a path down the back of her neck and squeezing her shoulders. The muscle is tight. Victoria’s parents are stricter than mine. If we do get caught, I’d only have to sit through an uncomfortable conversation. Not Victoria. I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a long time.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“Do that again to my shoulders,” she says. “It felt nice.”
And so the car bumps and buckles along the street. We listen to the music, with its erratic beating drum and synth which stretches and squeezes. I follow the gaze of the headlights as it casts a path through the darkness. Heavy clouds hang above our heads, blotting out the night sky.
Through the midnight shade it appears. Two stone pillars engraved with rising spirals meet together at the peak of an arc. Precious Oak Cemetery. The heavy set lettering is infected with rust.
The car creeps past the gates and through the procession of withering headstones. So many have collapsed in upon themselves, their names hidden from the world. The field is overgrown and scattered with litter. This is the place where let-go balloons come to die.
Marco parks at the back. We take a final gasp of light before he clicks the headlights off. He unlocks the front door and steps out. “You know the drill. I keep the keys, give you two some space. Call when you tire yourselves out.”
“Thanks Marco,” Victoria says. He shrugs and shuts the door, plugging his earbuds in and turning on his phone flashlight. We watch through the window as he fades into the night, the pinprick light of his phone wandering away like a lost firefly.
Like a pistol firing at the start of a race, Victoria unclicks her seatbelt. At last we are alone.
She starts to wriggle out of her shirt, but bumps her head against the ceiling. “Ow.” I unbuckle my belt, then struggle to get my pants off my legs. We knock into each other and against the car as we undress – laughing the whole time. “This isn’t very erotic, is it,” Victoria says.
I hoist her up in my arms and onto my lap. She wraps her arms around my shoulders. I kiss her forehead, then her lips. Soon the tight car is hot with our breath, and the windows are veiled with steam. We discover a new world, together, and lose ourselves in the possibilities of pleasure and connection. The world around us disappears. All that remains is the car, her body and mine.
Later, we lay lengthwise across the backseat. Sweat drips down our bodies and across the leather. “I told my mom I was at Sarah’s tonight,” Victoria says. “She baked cookies for me to bring. And I left them in my room because I didn’t want to crush them.” “I’m supposed to be at Marco’s, playing Mario Party with him and his older sisters.”
“Mmm.” A raindrop cleaves through the foggy window. Then another. “I’ve never lied about something like this.” We listen to the patter of the rain as it builds speed and opens up the abyss around us. “In eighth grade, I brought a boy over to my house. To study, of course. We snuck away to my room. And we kissed, that was all, we kissed.” Victoria clears her throat. “I was stupid, I should’ve known. That my parents wouldn’t let me see him ever again.”
A swamp of spit and dread builds under my tongue. I swallow. “Was this a mistake?”
“No,” she says. She hooks her arms tight around my chest. “No, it was amazing. And we’re being totally safe. Which is what my parents would want, right?”
“Right.”
“I just can’t shake this feeling, this- this heaviness in my chest. What if I go home and it isn’t my home anymore? What if my bed is too small and- oh, shit. Marco. Marco’s going to get soaked, isn’t he?” Victoria rifles through the pile of her clothes on the floor. “Why hasn’t he called?” She finds her phone, clicks through and starts to call Marco. The phone rings and rings and rings. I sit up and start to get dressed. “Nothing,” Victoria says. “What’s he doing out there?”
I stare out through the blurry lines of rain into the darkness – and watch that little, shining light bobbing up and down. Marco’s phone flashlight. “Call again,” I say. Victoria obliges, and the two of us watch the dot of light as the ringing goes unanswered. “What the hell is he doing?” I ask.
Victoria hurriedly dresses. “Let’s ask him ourselves.” She opens her door. The sound of the splashing rain roars to life. “Come on.” “Victoria, wait.” Did I hurt her? What now, what can I say to help? “I just-”
“I’m tired, Jonas. I want to go home.” She turns away and exits into the downpour. I sidle across the damp seat and out through the door after her. Warm, spring rain sticks to my skin like honey. We turn our flashlights on, and Victoria waves hers in the air. A vast gulley of shadow stands between our lights and Marco’s. “Hey!” she yells. Her voice is drowned out by the cacophony. “Marco!” “Polo,” I whisper.
Victoria groans and shoves me away. “Not the time, Jonas.”
“Right, right. Sorry.” We press onwards through the thick, humid air. A heavy-trunked tree drips water from its branches – which pools in the fissures and divots in the ground beneath us. We step over the cracks and past the mossy gravestones, surrounded by moats of sunken earth and rainwater. I imagine it trickling down through the soil, and leaking into worm eaten-caskets – turning the dead into paste.
As we near Marco, his light grows brighter and brighter; it shines like a gaping, white sun. I hold my free hand up and squint – trying to discern between his figure and the harsh light and the heavy darkness that lurks in the corners of my vision. “What the hell are you doing?” My eyes begin to adjust – it’s him. Marco.
He stumbles forward, his balance swaying with each step. His neck rolls loosely atop his shoulders, and his chest hangs too far forward. It looks as if he’ll topple over at any moment. “I’m not sure I want him at the wheel,” Victoria says, sighing.
“Are you drunk?” I ask. Nothing. “Hey, Marco.” I snap my fingers in his face, then flicker my light in his eyes. He stares through me with vacant pupils. “Can’t you hear me?” I grab for his phone and try to tug his earbuds free.
“Jonas,” Victoria says. “Why isn’t he wet?”Marco’s clothes are dry. Marco’s hair is dry. Marco’s hand is dry – dry as bone, and so lifelessly cold. He hooks his fingers around my wrist and digs them deep into my flesh. My eyes, now fully adjusted, look to Victoria, whose auburn hair is clear as fire. I trace the strands just to be sure – the image is sharp, with clear and definite edges. I turn to Marco, and a deep chasm forms in my gut.
All of the broad strokes are right. But the details of his body are blurry and unnatural, as if seen through a steaky window. His limbs are misshapen, and don’t match in length. His phone, his earbuds, and his clothes are welded to his flesh – rather, they are his flesh. Worst of all is his face: his smile has been recreated with care but without talent – and his eyes are the soulless eyes of an amateur’s portrait. From a distance, at a glance, I’d believe that this thing is my friend. But no. This is merely an approximation. A gray, alien light glows from its palm – and I feel a strange, boiling sensation where our skin touches. Victoria shrieks, and for a moment the creature’s grasp loosens – in one motion I wrench my arm free – but the creature’s fingers melt through the flesh of my arm like butter as I escape, cleaving my thumb and pinky straight off. “Augh!” I watch in shock as my flesh seeps into its arm, and its edges become a little more distinct, its shape a little more human.
I grab Victoria with my other arm and pull us away. The creature watches our legs as we step back. It attempts to correct the uncertainty in its own gait – and surges forward, reaching for us. It trips. Just before its head cracks against the concrete, a third foot tears through its chest, then a fourth. It lands on its two, new legs. The whole of its figure reshapes itself like clay. The uncanny Marco once again stands before us.
Victoria starts to run and I’m right behind her. Our feet pound against the weathered stone and splash into warm puddles – spraying our ankles with dirt and grime. My fresh stubs throb with pain, sending red hot streaks up the nerves of my arm. Behind us, Marco hobbles forward – but as it watches us it grows more confident in its own legs. As if learning from our example.
In the distance, I see the idling glow of the car. Salvation. Then another small light winks into the dark. And another. All around us, the sparks of phone lights appear. On a stormy, starless night, Victoria and I are ensnared in the center of an all-encompassing constellation. Blurry creatures stumble forth from the darkness.
The unkempt tree with its thick fur dances in the wind. Victoria takes a deep breath. I reach out to her but she steps away. “I shouldn’t have come here. God, I shouldn’t have come here.” She wipes her face with her sleeve. “I need to call my mom-” She clicks through her phone and puts it to her ear. “I need to apologize.”
“Victoria. Wait. Call him.”
For a moment, we hear nothing but the drip-drip-drip of the rain. Then, from overhead, Marco’s ringtone pierces through the downpour. We look up to the overgrown tree. Cowering up high in its branches is Marco, his eyes shut tight and his arms wrapped around the trunk. His right leg is missing entirely. “Oh, Marco!” Victoria sobs.
He opens his eyes. It’s him, as he should be, with clear edges and a quivering lip. “Come down from there,” I hiss. “Let’s take the car and get out of here.”
“I won’t make it,” he says, shaking his head. “Not without my leg.” He turns on his phone and aims the flashlight downwards. A swarm of creatures surrounds the base of the tree. Blurry replicas of Marco, of me, of Victoria – of Victoria and I, naked, stuck together at the hip. The conjoint creature ambles at the tree, claws at it, yearns to smooth out its edges and rediscover the human form.
“I knew this was a fucking bad idea,” Marco says. He stares past his stump leg, down at the mass of ravenous creatures. “I was just sitting, listening to my music. A gray sludge rose up from the dirt and it absorbed my leg – and when we touched, I could understand – I felt it trying so hard to remember – so desperate to escape from here. Because this isn’t a cemetery. It’s a dumpster. These spirits can’t find peace.” Marco rifles through his pockets. “Catch,” he calls, tossing the jingling keys through the air. They land with a ring in my hand.
A silver light emanates from the mass of spirits. They begin to lose their shape and mold themselves against the tree – blurring the distinction between the earth and their bodies and the trunk. As if losing its own sense of self, the tree begins to sink into the damp earth. “Get to the car!” Marco screams. “And tell my sister that I’ll miss them.”
Marco’s scream reverberates through the night, and for a moment the tree holds its ground. A moment, just a moment. Then the feast continues, and the tree is consumed by the amalgamated mass of our bodies. Marco is swallowed whole. “Shit,” I whisper. “Marco…” Victoria sobs. “No, I can’t die like that. No, no…”
“Yes, you can.” The ring of lights is closing in around the car, and will very soon have blocked our path. “And you very much will if we don’t get out of here right now.”
Victoria and I sprint away from the tree, dodging between the forgotten spirits. I duck under the desperate grabbing of Victoria’s warped reflection. A distorted Jonas hooks his arms around Victoria, and she screams and kicks – her skin begins to turn gray, to lose its shape – and with all of my might I slam my fist into my own face – the spirit is pushed back, and we make our final push to the car. “We’re close!” I hold out the keys and unlock the car, click click click. My chest slams against the wall of the car and I swing the door open and hurl myself inside and slam it shut. A second later and Victoria has done the same. The doors are locked and the key is in the ignition.
I turn the key. I turn it again, and a massive, hulking creature slams against the front window. It’s Victoria and I, spooning in our underwear. The spirit smashes its body into the car, over and over and over. Marcos and Victorias and Jonases swarm around us – and like they had at the tree they melt into the car to eat away at its shape – creeping through the definition of what it is what they wish it to be.
“I never should’ve… this was such a mistake… how could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I listen to my parents, why…” Victoria sobs to herself in the back. My head burns hot.
“Will you shut up?!” I scream, slamming my incomplete fist into the car horn. “This isn’t about your mom or your dad. It’s about us. It’s about us and the goddamned ghosts that are about to swallow our souls!”
“Jonas.” Victoria points ahead. “Watch.” The spirits shrink away from the car. Afraid of the noise. After centuries of solitude, they have grown accustomed to the quiet. In seconds, they’ve regained their composure and push in around the car. “Scream!” I say, turning the key again. “I need more time!”
“I-I’m scared!” Victoria shrieks. “I’m scared of losing the relationship I have with my parents! I don’t want to lie to them! They’ve always supported me and I value their advice! But I love you! And I want to have sex, too! I want to have sex nearly all the time!” “I love you, Victoria!” I pound the horn, over and over. “I know this is hard for you, and I want to help!” My throat is sore from the screaming but I have to keep going. These words have been eating away at me – and now, I can finally put it all out there. “It’s okay to lie, to make your own choices and your own mistakes! Your parents raised you well, Victoria, you’re smart, smarter than I am! They should trust you. I trust you.”
“I… trust you too, Jonas.”
With a final turn of the keys, the car revs to a start. I turn the music up all the way. German Disco burns through my ears and blasts through the night as I tear through the mob of spirits. I spin the wheel to the left and floor it towards the mob feeding upon Marco. “Tanzen, tanzen, tanzen!” the German woman screams.
“Return to obscurity, motherfuckers!” The noise dispels the spirits who diffuse into the air and the earth. Marco lays on the dirt, turns over onto his stomach and vomits. His skin is a ghastly gray. All of the fat in his arms and leg is gone – and his bone presses against his flesh, daring to tear free from its paper-thin binding. Victoria steps out and helps him into the car.
“Wow,” Marco says, wiping his mouth. He squeezes his fists and looks at himself in the mirror. “Just wow.” He slouches back into the seat. “What’s my name again?”
“Marco?”
“That’s it.” He wears a thin smile. Victoria squeezes her arms around him.
“Thank you, Marco,” I say. I stare at his stub leg in the mirror. “It’s not right. Just because these dead bastards can’t make their peace doesn’t mean they should steal from us. This is our life, not theirs. So screw em’. Cemeteries are for trash and sex, and the dead belong beneath our feet.”
Marco coughs. “Ah. Okay.” He coughs again. “Can we go to the hospital? I think I might die.”
“Okay,” I say. “I guess I should get this hand checked out, too.”
“I’ll bring you both cookies in the morning,” Victoria says. “They’re homemade.”
The three of us speed away into the night, singing German lyrics that we don’t understand at the tops of our lungs.