Abel felt the corpse’s thrashing feet kicking against the inside of the coffin under him. He spun around and clambered out of the grave. In his panic, he leaned back to look behind him, and the ladder tipped. Abel screeched as he toppled off the ladder and landed flat on top of the corpse. Arms wrapped around his chest. Cold breath blew onto his cheek, and the putrid, rancid smell of apples filled the air.
“Gonna sing my song till the very end of time,” a scratchy, terrible voice whispered into his ear.
Abel screamed and writhed. The arms came up to his throat, and fingers cracked as they tried to curl around it. Abel’s hand searched for the crowbar, snatched it up, and swung it back over his head. Something gave a wet, sickening crunch, and the fingers around Abel’s throat loosened. He jolted up and dashed to the end of the grave. Without looking back, he righted the ladder and scrambled up. “Helpmehelpmehelpme,” he mumbled in pure terror as he reached the top of the grave. But hands clutched at his ankles. Abel kicked at them. The ladder rocked back, and he saw the edge of the hole, his only escape, falling away from him.
As the ladder fell, Abel leaped for the edge. A blood-curdling laugh below him split the air. In that hellish laughter, Abel heard his defeat. As his arms stretched forward, taut as steel rods, he feared the end had come. But his hands hit the surface, and his fingers dug deep into the soft, wet soil. He slithered out of the grave on his belly and immediately leapt into a limping run. Until a tight grip wrapped around his ankle. Abel fell, face slamming into the mud. He turned onto his back and saw it. Its hideous face was paler than a haunted moon. The crowbar jutted out of its forehead and evil raged in its eyes.
“Yes, sir, I’m goin’ way, way, way down,” it said again, and Abel heard nothing human in that voice. Clear, sludgy fluid poured from its eyes, ears, and mouth.
“Lemme go,” Abel screeched, but he could do nothing to stop the corpse from pulling him back toward the grave. It dragged him further, and Abel’s legs went back over edge. As he went down into the hole, a bolt of lightning tore through the sky and lit up the darkness of the grave. In that flash of white light, Abel saw a nightmare. Where the coffin had lain, there was now a swirling pit of black gunk that plunged deep into an abyss of darkness.
“Noooooooo,” he cried, when in that thick, black whirlpool, he saw the bodies of thousands of screaming children, arms and legs flaying.
“No, please, no.”
“Time to pay, Abel. Pay for what you did,” the corpse said. A dark creature stared back at him, glowing yellow eyes, a razor-sharp grin that split open like an unstitched wound, and the thing vomited a gush of black putrescence. Abel saw a whole infant in the bile drop down into the black whirlpool. It made no sense but yet, there it was, real as it was illogical. The thing yanked Abel further into the pit. Legs kicked out and fingers raked into the ground, ripping off his nails. Abel tilted his face up to the angry sky, shut his eyes, and screamed a long desperate wail into the night.
“Oh, you are going to love where we are going now, Abel,” the thing said, and Abel gave up the fight, stopped screaming, and let the dread fill him. He felt his body go over the edge, felt the rushing gunk on his legs, felt the tiny parts of all those children grabbing and pulling him.
Blinding white light filled the sky, but his eyes stayed closed. The thing dragged his body deeper into the whirlpool. The current whooshed against Abel, threatening to pull him under forever.
The light never vanished. Instead, it only got stronger. Abel opened his eyes and saw nothing but a blazing white light. His right eye was burning in its socket. He was waist deep in the whirlpool but lodged and sank no further. The thing, submerged beneath the black swirl, yanked, but Abel didn’t budge. He looked up into the light despite the burning in his eye. A shape was standing at the edge of the grave, haloed in the blazes of that radiant white light. Something filled up inside Abel. Hope.
Another yank. This time up. The thing tried to yank him into the blackness but the overwhelming force from above kept Abel firm. Another heave upward and now Abel was up to his knees.
The thing exploded from the whirlpool with a hateful screech. He felt the awesome strength in whatever was pulling him out of the grave.
Another pull up and then another. The thing tried to yank Abel back but Abel kept rising. The invisible arms lifted him further and further out of the grave. He ended up in the intense light, only able making out a hazy kaleidoscopic image of the shape. The intense heat bellowed into him in hot pulses. He heard a screech behind him and rolled onto his back with a frightened gasp. The thing climbed out of the grave like a gigantic black crab. It opened its mouth, spewing bile and body parts. It grasped at Abel’s ankle with a gnarled hand, its black talons bared. Abel shuffled back and into the shape behind him. It stood firm as a steel wall. The thing stalked Abel, ferocious eyes, fixed and venomous. The white light started to twist and swirl upward toward the sky, sucked in a cyclone. Abel felt the hot wind blast up and around him, felt himself being swept up. A pair of powerful hands pushed down on his shoulders, weighing him down. The graveyard darkened as all the light sucked up into this gigantic blazing twister. It stretched kilometers up into the air, drawing in clouds, rain, and even bolts of lightning. Abel stared, gob-smacked.
The radiant sphere of light twirled faster and faster. Abel was sure if the heavy arms weren’t weighting him down, he would’ve gone flying straight into it. The creature roared at the light, its arch-enemy.
“MY GOD,” Abel shouted, his voice barely audible over the thunderous noise. He turned his face into the shape, away from the violent wind. He heard it twisting faster and growing louder. The sound became unbearable, and he feared he was about to go mad. “Make it stop,” he screamed into the shape’s legs. “Make it stop, please!”
The roar continued, reaching an intense sonic climax.
And then silence. A silence that hurt his ears and stilled his soul.
Abel looked out. Nothing. The sky was clear and calm. No sign of the storm or the strange cyclone. The creature was still there, in front of him, also looking up at the empty sky.
“What in the name of—” Abel said. He looked at the creature and the creature looked at him. It smiled—or at least attempted some terrible impression of one—crouched over, and leapt, talons stretched out before a mouth stuffed with curved, razor-sharp teeth.
That was when the world went white.
For a moment, Abel saw a blinding light and nothing else. In a split second, all that light seemed to implode into an intense, focused flash. It shot through the sky, came down like a bolt of lightening, and slammed into the creature as it crashed into Abel. It exploded in a splatter of black gunk. Abel stared out at the empty spot where the creature had been a second ago, his eyes round and unblinking. He looked down at himself with wide eyes and ran his hands over himself searching for any signs of damage.
Instead he got only the slightest hint of burning wood and something else he couldn’t place.
The storm was gone. So was the creature. A silver wafer of a moon shone in a blue velvet sky and washed the graveyard in black crooked shadows. A calm stillness settled over the place. A gentle breeze blew through the graves.
He pressed his back up against the shape behind him.
Abel turned around. “I don’t know what you just did but—” he stopped and stared up at the figure looking down at him. It was not some mighty glowing entity. It was not a majestically, all-powerful angel. It was a child.
And Abel knew she was only eight years old.
“Jamie,” he said, his big eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “It, it...” The words couldn’t form in his mouth at first. “It can’t be.”
The girl smiled. “It is,” she said. “I’m here now, Dad. I’ve always been here. You just couldn’t see me.”
Tears welled up. His mouth trembled. He raised his hand and reached for her. Felt her little knees, her thin legs. His hand lowered down onto her small feet, and his fingers brushed over her
toenails.
“But you’re alive,” Abel said, looking up at her, shaking his head. “My little girl is still alive.”
Jamie’s smile faltered. She bowed her head, and her golden locks fell down over her face. How many times since the accident had Abel longed to smell those locks again, to kiss her cheeks over and over until she shrilled with glee, to tell her a story one more time?
“I can’t stay, Daddy. I have to go,” she said. “They’re waiting for me.”
“Who’s waiting?”
“The Glow Beings,” she said and glanced behind her. Abel followed her gaze. Down at the bottom of the hill, inside the children’s cemetery quarter, he saw four glowing figures floating above Jamie’s grave.
“They said I needed to help you, Daddy,” she said. “But we’re leaving now.”
“Where are you going?” A tear rolled down Abel’s cheek.
“I don’t know exactly, but it’s where we all go after we die.”
Abel looked up at her. He remembered how she had looked on the embalming table two years ago. Her peaceful face that ghastly pale color. That face had come back to haunt him every night since. But now her face looked so beautiful, so much like it was supposed to.
Abel lowered his head and tears poured out. He wrapped his arms around her legs, buried his face into her dress, and sobbed deep, painful sobs.
“My God, I am so sorry, my baby. It was my fault. All my fault. I’m a drunk,” he cried. “You were in the car with me, and you were screaming for me to slow down, but I was drunk. I was always drunk. It was my fault, Jamie. Everything is my fault and…and I miss you. I miss you so much.”
Jamie stroked his hair and then gently lifted his head up to face her.
“Daddy?”
His chest heaved as the tears continued falling.
“I love you,” Jamie said. “I always will.”
This time, Abel slumped over. He didn’t think he could cry anymore, but he did. After a long while, the sobs turned to whimpers, and his breathing calmed. He looked up and found himself alone. The graveyard was dark, but a strange electricity remained in the air.
“Goodbye,” he said.
No answer came, but a slight breeze rose and rustled the leaves of the apple tree. Abel knew his little girl had left.
He opened his hands. A tear hung on the edge of his eye. A small pocket watch lay in his palms. Smaller and daintier than the old man’s. He opened the clasp and read the inscription on the inside.
Happy 8th birthday, Jamie.
May time lay blessed before you.
I love you. I love you. I love you!
Your Daddy
He closed the clasp and stood up. The ladder and shovel lay across a neatly made grave. Abel frowned. He thought he’d have to fill it up again, but the job was already done. He looked back down at the pocket watch. It gleamed in the moonlight. His hand gripped it tightly as if he wanted to make sure it was real.
He turned around and started walking down the hill, realizing his leg no longer hurt. He stopped for a moment, spotting his reflection in a puddle of water. The right eye was no longer the size of a pool ball. He looked back at the watch.
“Happy birthday, Jamie,” he said.
About the Author
Eddie Cantrell loves writing as much he loves music. His favorite time of the day is when he sits down in front of the empty page during the early hours of the morning. (He is a total insomniac.) Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam blare in the background, and so the writing begins. He counts Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, as well as Steven Berkoff as some of his favorite writers. Eddie dedicates this story to his father, Theo, who would’ve given you his last dime, even if all you needed was a penny.
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