The Grave of Ebenezer Bishop

         The graveyard was quiet . . . too quiet. The moon—full and bright white—shone down from the clear sky, giving everything a ghostly, shadowed look. The markers, though old, were in decent shape, courtesy of a seventy-two-year-old caretaker with a limp and a hunchback. The grass glistened damply in the moonlight. Several strong oak trees overhung the lane through the monuments. The undersides of their leaves were dark, their trunks shadowed. An owl's lonely call momentarily broke, but did not relieve, the stillness, sounding harsh and evil in the cold dark. Even the wind, blowing softly through the low-hanging branches of the trees, could not get the leaves to rustle.

          Jeremy Monahan walked through the iron gates onto the cement pathway leading through the cemetery. This was his shortcut home every night; it was much quicker than walking the ten blocks around the cemetery, along the county highway (not that he would have minded the walk, of course). He liked the peace and quiet the final resting place brought, and sometimes he would wander a little, reading the names and dates. Tonight, however, he only wanted to get through as soon as possible. He did not like the silence. Apart from the owl’s brief cry, the scraping of his shoes on the cement was the only sound.

          As he stepped into the oldest part of the cemetery—the last part before he was out and on his way home—he saw a grave he’d never visited before. He didn’t really want to look at it, would rather go straight home, but the apparent age and elaborate design drew him. He had never seen one made so: its amazing height, rivaling the nearby oaks. The aged marble—overgrown in spots with moss so that it could hardly be seen in the shadowed cemetery—had not been worn away at all over time. The horrible visage carved into it hardly resembled anyone human.

         The name read Ebenezer Bishop. Somehow, though Bishop had died in 1814 (born 1721), the stone was just as sturdy as the day it had been erected. The words still stood out clear, and the statue of an angel at the top, attached only by her two feet, had not broken off.

          “Well, Ebenezer Bishop,” Jeremy muttered to himself as he backed away from the marker, “that’s a nice stone you’ve got there.” How had he never seen this stone before, he wondered; it was the sort of thing one noticed. He put it out of his mind, turned, and continued on his way.

          Before he had walked five feet, he heard the sound of scratching behind him, as if . . . No, ridiculous. Nevertheless, he turned to look.

          A small mound had risen up in front of Bishop’s tombstone, dirt and pebbles rolling from the top as the grass fell away. A zombie, he thought wryly, and immediately hated himself for thinking of such a thing in a dark graveyard. Jeremy leaned in close, trying to see what was beginning to poke through. In the darkness, it was hard to see. Maybe a mole, he decided.

          Then something that looked like a hand burst through, shining dry and white in the moonlight, clawing around at the exposed air for a hold. It reached farther, gripping the dirt just in front of it, scraping into the soft soil as it began to pull out the body.

          “Oh, no, no,” Jeremy said, his voice rising to a shout. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open and dried. His hands shook, his palms clammy. He turned again and raced for the gates, anxious to get out.

          “Who’s there?” rasped a dry, emotionless voice. Jeremy stumbled as his heart leapt in his throat. Too curious to keep running (as his brain screamed at him to do) he turned and looked at Bishop’s tomb.

          A long skeleton dressed in rotten rags sat in front of the grotesque stone, pale green lights shining dimly in its empty eyes and a wicked grin etched across its skull. It flexed its hands in front of its face, turning them in the moonlight so it could see the pale bone. Its jaws slowly opened and closed, the long, sharp-looking teeth clacking.

          “It has been a while,” Bishop said, speaking as if the wind whistling through his vertebrae created his voice: without vocal cords, only the breeze could have made a sound. Turning its head—the bones in its neck grated as it moved—it hissed, “And who are you?”

          “Uh, Jeremy Monahan,” Jeremy managed to force out of his dry throat. He tried to lick his lips, tried to get the moisture back, but all in vain.

          The skeleton barked a laugh. “A meal on legs!” It rose from its seat and lurched towards Jeremy, one hand reaching out for him. Before Bishop could get near him Jeremy turned and raced toward the gate again. He nearly fell skidding on loose pebbles, but he caught himself before he went down and was on his way. His heavy breathing, spurred by his fright and the running, nearly drowned out what Bishop spoke.

          “Stop him,” said the skeleton softly. Jeremy looked ahead at the people swarming into his path, thinking only “Thank God!” Then he was close enough to see the sagging, rotting flesh, the swollen limbs, the bits of bone and muscle exposed to the moonlight, and he froze, falling to the ground, all hope of being saved suddenly gone. One of the corpses in front of him laughed—a wet, gurgling sound—losing chunks of skin around its mouth in the process. They came forward as a group, and he could see the pale green light in each of their eyes.

          The sound of bone on concrete behind him caught Jeremy’s attention. The steady, constant click-clack and occasional scrape came from only a few feet at his back. “Almost a hundred years since I last ate.” A claw-like hand gripped Jeremy’s shoulder, flipping him over onto his back. He got a good look at Bishop’s face; it was obviously the skull behind the face on the tombstone, with its long, curved chin, extended cranium, and gaping sockets, placed close together. The jaw gaped in a semblance of a smile.

          “You don’t look like much of a meal,” said the skeleton, prodding at Jeremy’s skin-and-bones frame with one long digit. Jeremy flinched, nearly screamed. “You’re all tough flesh and not enough meat. Still, there’s enough of you to feed me.” Lifting him by his neck, Bishop pulled Jeremy to his feet and lifted him right off of the ground.

          Jeremy brought his hands up, scraping at Bishop’s arm, feeling bone crack under him. His swings were weak as his air was cut off, but he broke through the skeleton’s wrist. He fell to his knees, tugging the bony hand off of his neck and throwing it to the ground. In a flash he was up again, running back for the entrance on the other side of the cemetery, away from the skeleton and his dead companions. His feet thudded on the pavement, scraped on a loose pebble or two. He knew the skeleton watched him; he could feel its eyes on his back.

          “Shit!” he yelled, skidding to a stop in front of the gates. Sometime after he had come in they had been closed, coming together to form St. Paul’s Cemetery at the top. He fell into them, gripping the iron bars with his fists and shaking them. The lock rattled and the rusty hinges squeaked, but the gateway would not open. He beat at them with his fist, screaming, “Help! Let me out!” No one was there to hear, but still he shouted.

          “You won’t get out,” rasped a familiar dry voice. Jeremy collapsed into the gates. Casting one glance over his shoulder, he saw the skeleton standing behind him, its army of dead men and women standing alongside it. It shook its head, its soft tsk-tsking like the wind rustling dry leaves. “You came in here on your own. You asked for this.”

          The line of dead men came forward, their shambling steps shedding bits of flesh and muscle behind them. A few of them reached for him, their bloated, rotting fingers clawing. Jeremy returned to his beating of the gates, screaming for help as they fell on him. His shouts rose and turned to screams, then muffled cries, then died away into silence.

          Once again, the graveyard was quiet . . . too quiet.



Word Count: 1404