I live in a townhome across the street from a cemetery. It’s a small-town cemetery, with a little over a thousand tombstones. There is one looping road that circles the perimeter. To get to the gravesite, most people have to park, and walk. It seems to me that there’s not much room left for any more burials. The lot is dense with corpses. Sitting at my desk, I can see the entire cemetery from my bedroom window. There are five streetlamps spread out along the road. Four of them are sodium orange lights, but one, in the very distant corner, next to the sharpest curve in the road, is an old green streetlamp, shorter than the others. At night, before bed, I open up my window, turn out the lights and just stare. Sometimes I listen to a little music, but normally I like to listen to the silence emanating from the cemetery. That sort of silence can both relaxing and unnerving.
There are times when I will watch a burial, but I don’t make a regular habit of it, simply because most of those are during the day, when I’m either in school or if its Saturday, hanging out with my friends. There was one particular burial I didn’t want to miss though. Shannon Taylor, a cheerleader, had died in a car accident. It took them three weeks, with volunteers and cadaver dogs to find her body. Her prick boyfriend had been drinking and lost control of the car, skidding off of Devil’s Elbow and into the Cumberland River. Devil’s Elbow is a treacherous narrow winding road, with a steep embankment. Kevin Williams had convinced her that he was alright to drive. He was a piece of shit, so I didn’t really care much if he died. With his passing, a good number of people at that school had their lives exponentially improved. I mean he was a sadistic bully, not just your ordinary run-of-the mill bully looking to release a little stress. No, this guy loved causing other people pain. He loved causing misery. Shannon, on the other hand, was the nicest person I had ever encountered, and she was gorgeous. I had a serious crush on her. I loved everything about her, her style, her looks, even something as simple as her mannerisms, or her walk. How could someone so perfect love such a douchebag? I couldn’t understand it.
I didn’t know Shannon that well. I was too shy to ever approach her. I hated myself for being such a coward, but I’d rather not know for sure if I had a chance or not. I’d rather live in an unsure fantasy than a certain sad reality. I heard she was buried in her cheerleading outfit, which offended me, because I thought to summarize her whole life as nothing but a cheerleader was to trivialize who was she was as a person, plus I just thought it was dumb as shit.
All the popular kids were there, feigning sincerity at her passing. I couldn’t see the coffin, but I could tell when she had been lowered into the ground, buried under the earth. There was a visible wave of grief as those who truly loved her realized that she was gone forever. There’s something about packing down that last batch of dirt that evokes weeping.
I stayed in my room watching the scene unfold, until the last person was gone. I remember looking at that fresh mound of dirt and feeling a deep sense of loneliness. I walked down to her plot and said a little prayer. There were wreaths and flowers littered about her grave. I saw one with a picture of her and Kevin at a waterfall. I took the picture and put it in my pants pocket. Her plot was right under one of the orange lights. I thought how gawdy to have her grave under a streetlamp. I wish she would have been under a tree, maybe a beautiful oak, anything but a streetlamp. She deserved a peaceful, serene setting.
After some time, I walked back home. I cut Kevin out of the picture and threw that half away. I gazed at the photo of Shannon for a good while and then placed the picture in my sock drawer. The guys and I were going to a throw-back arcade, with pinball machines and retro video games. I get lost in that place. It’s like meditation without effort and the uncomfortable stillness. I don’t have to chase thoughts away. The ringing and the lights put me in another mental state, a peaceful nothingness, separated from the anxiety of life, but that night I couldn’t enjoy it. Shannon had intruded upon my Nirvana.
When I got home that night I went straight upstairs to my room, got her picture out of the sock drawer, and sat at my desk. Her grave was illuminated under the orange light. There was a weird anticipation on my part, like I expected something ghastly to happen. I couldn’t move my eyes from the plot but to my surprise something did happen, not where I expected, but under the green lamp. I saw passing under the light a girl dressed in what seemed to me a cheerleading outfit. She was pacing back and forth. I could only she her when she was under the light, but when she ventured outside the light, she was invisible. This went on for about five minutes and then she was gone for good. I reasoned that I was sleepy and probably hallucinating, that there was nothing there. I waited for a few more minutes but nothing else happened. I went to sleep and thought nothing else of it until the next night.
The next night I was too curious not to look. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and sat at my desk, moving the curtain aside to get a clear view of the green light in the cemetery. Nothing at first but after some time elapsed, she appeared. This time she wasn’t pacing but looking in my direction. She motioned for me to come to her. It had to be Shannon. I just knew it. I closed the curtain and crawled back into bed, but again, I couldn’t sleep. I got up and got dressed. I looked out the window, but she wasn’t there.
I quietly made my way downstairs, doing my best not to wake up my mom. I got through the creaking front door without any trouble. The hinges on that front door sing like hysterical banshees. There was no way anyone would ever be able to break in through the front door without alerting me to their presence. My mom on the other was a deep sleeper. The house could burn down, and she would never notice. I walked through the front lawn and across the road. It was a clear night and there was a full moon. It had been a sweltering hot day with no rain, but when I stepped into the cemetery the ground was saturated with water, pools of dark murky water scattered throughout, reflecting the moon’s light. I sloshed through the mud to the back end of the lot, near the green streetlamp. I looked up at the sky and it seemed like it was undulating. I felt as if I was looking up at the surface of a river, while trapped on the bottom. My chest was throbbing, and I started to choke for air. I moved toward the green light. It was all I could see now, my vision clouded, the light scattered by an ever-thickening fog.
From the light I could see a hand reaching out towards me. The skin hung loose, wrinkled, and pale, the last two fingers broken and bent upward. The hand grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into the light. I immediately gasped for air. I could feel my lungs working, the blood moving throughout my body with much needed oxygen. I fell to the ground and gazed upward. It was Shannon but she wasn’t beautiful. What was left of her blond hair was thin and matted, exposing much of her bald head. One eye was missing, and the other eye was bulging, skin and eyelid eaten away by some unknown scavenger. Her skin was a pale blue, with deep bloody gashes in her face, arms, and legs. She was dressed in her cheerleading outfit. She began to speak. It was difficult for her to enunciate through her mangled mouth, upper lip missing, broken and missing teeth, an eternal damnable smile.
“Kill him.”
I was shoved out of the light and back into the darkness of the cemetery. The ground was dry, and I could breathe. There were no pools of water, no movement in the sky other than the few wispy clouds that skirted in front of the moon. I made my way back home, with the thought of being trapped in a car underwater lodged in my head. It made me anxious. I felt I couldn’t move. My muscles were atrophied. It took all my energy to get back home and into bed.
The next morning, I woke up late to the sound of activity in the cemetery. I got up and looked out the window. The scene looked familiar. I watched as family and friends gathered around the grave of a loved one, exactly where Shannon had been buried. I was confused. I got dressed and rushed down to the grave. I noticed Shannon’s parents wailing and some of the people from school listening to the preacher. There in front was the wreath, attached in the middle, a picture of Shannon and Kevin with a waterfall in the background.
“What are you doing here?” I heard an angry whisper. It was Melissa, another cheerleader, but one with a nasty disposition. I just ignored her and started walking back towards my home. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone in the woods behind the cemetery. Someone watching, waiting, looking for an opportunity to say goodbye.
I changed my course and started walking towards the woods. I got closer than I imagined I would have without being noticed. The spying person looked up. We looked each other in the eyes. It was Kevin, alive and well, perfectly fine. He was teary eyed, and his face expressed a tangible fear. He turned and ran deeper into the woods. I didn’t want to follow him. I didn’t want a confrontation. I was pondering whether or not I should report him to the police. I hated him but I also feared him.
That night, whatever damn night it was, as I lay sleeping in bed, I heard the front door open. The hinges screaming in ecstasy, piercing my ears, and shocking me out of sleep. I laid there for a while, working up the courage to check and see who was in our house. I finally made my way out of bed and went to the landing. Downstairs the door was wide open. A trail of wet footprints went from the living room hardwood floor to the kitchen, and back through the living room and up the carpeted stairs. They went past my room and to my mom’s room. I saw that her door was open. This was odd and out of character for my mom. She always locked her bedroom door for fear of intruders. I walked over to the door and peered inside. Standing over my mother was a water drenched witch, in a cheerleading outfit, with a knife in hand, ready to stab my mother in her sleep. Shannon turned her gaze in my direction and lowered the knife.
“Kill him.” Shannon backed into the dark corner and was gone. I turned on the bedroom light. No one was in the room, the only evidence being the wet footprints.
“What… what are you doing?”
“Nothing mom. Go back to sleep. I just thought I heard something.” I shut off the lights and closed the door.
The next morning, I woke up early. I went to the woods behind the cemetery and waited. The line of cars meandered through the road and in front of the gravesite. People slammed their car doors. There was muffled conversation. I hid in a patch of brush, knowing exactly where Kevin would be. I could hear the preacher start the ceremony. I had brought a hammer with me. In the distance, amidst the trees, I saw Kevin sneaking up the trail. He positioned himself so that he could watch without being noticed, bent down and out of sight. I waited and kept my focus on Kevin. After the burial he watched everyone leave and then waited what seemed to be an hour more. He stood up and jogged over to the gravesite. He just stood there, looking and weeping. I felt sorry for him. I didn’t know exactly what had happened. I imagined several different scenarios, but the most reasonable to me was that he felt guilty. I didn’t see him as a killer, just a dumb drunk teen who wasn’t able to save his girlfriend. Then again, I really didn’t know. He grabbed the photo off of the wreath and started to leave. As he came to the trail, I let him get a little in front of me. I wrestled myself free from the brush and snuck up behind him. I stepped on a stick, it snapped, he turned, and I reflexively hit him in the forehead above his left eye. He fell to the ground unconscious. I knew he wasn’t dead; I could see his chest moving up and down.
I dropped the hammer to the ground. I couldn’t believe I had done it. I had changed my mind but at the last second, I had swung without thinking, only reacting to the situation. I had no time to panic or feel sorry for myself. My one chance was to dump him unconscious into the river near Devil’s Elbow. Let the authorities find him where they had expected him to be. I ran back home and got the car. I drove on the cemetery road all the way around to where the woods were. I had to pull off the road and into the grass to get the car as close to Kevin as possible. I popped the trunk. Kevin was heavy, but I could feel the adrenaline pumping. I dragged him by the ankles to the back of the car. I picked him up like a fairytale maiden and dumped him in the trunk. I went back and retrieved the hammer.
When I got to Devil’s Elbow, I had to drive down past it to the bottom of the hill and closer to the river. I parked the car on the shoulder of the road. A couple of cars passed. I waited until it was clear and made haste, opening the trunk and dragging Kevin out onto the road. I could hear another car coming, tires rubbing against the road, atop of Devil’s Elbow. I wouldn’t make it in time so I dragged him as fast as I could to the other side of the car, out of sight. I quickly popped the hood and acted like I was broken down.
The car passed without even slowing down. I left the hood up, thinking that another car would be approaching, and it would be best to keep the charade going. I went and started the arduous task of getting Kevin’s body into the river. I grabbed his ankles and heard him moan. I couldn’t do it. I thought about grabbing a rock and crushing in his skull, but he would suffer. I closed the hood and the trunk, started the car and drove off.
I was looking in the rear-view mirror as I drove away. I knew this was the end for me. I was going to jail. I saw Kevin get up and stagger out into the road, not realizing where he was. Coming down the hill was a motorcycle, doing about a hundred miles an hour. People loved taking motorcycles down Devil’s Elbow. It was a game, a thrill to brag about. This guy just happened to choose a day when a zombie pedestrian had been unwillingly installed into the course. The motorcyclist didn’t see Kevin until the last second. He swerved trying to miss Kevin, but instead the bike wobbled and blasted right into him, tossing Kevin and the cyclist into the air and over the side of the embankment. I stopped and pulled off to the side of the road. I could see both their bodies being swept down the river, neither appearing to be alive. There was no effort to swim back to shore. They were faced down in the water, looking into the void of the deep moving river.
I drove home, parked the car, and went to bed early. Later on in the night, I heard my mom watching television downstairs.
“Devil’s Elbow got another one. Some motorcycle lost control and went into the river. Oh, and they found that boy Kevin. He wasn’t too far from where the motorcycle went in. Weird, isn’t it?”
I walked upstairs and sat at my desk. I pulled the curtain back. There under the green cemetery light, stood a cheerleader, with what was probably her boyfriend. She had her back turned toward me, but the guy was looking in my direction, motioning to me, inviting me to come into the green light. I looked down into the waste basket and saw a picture of Shannon and Kevin, standing in front of a waterfall.