The sky grew darker. I looked up to see a large gray cloud drifting over the sun. It was the perfect ominous change, given our conversation.
"I want to believe it's over," I said. "But if it is, for the rest of my life I'm going to wonder why it happened, and if I had something to do with Cooper's death."
"I know," she said. "I feel the same way. But there's nothing we can do to bring him back."
I heard a far-off rumble. The wind picked up. Was a storm coming in?
"I hear you, Sydney, but I have to know. What if I could have prevented it from happening? We wouldn't be sitting here right now."
"Do you really want to know that?" she asked. "What would it change?"
The cloud moved on, but strangely the day had turned from sunny and bright to dark gray.
"It might stop it from happening again," I answered.
"Okay, sure. You're right. We should try to figure it out. All I'm saying is, I don't want to lay this on my parents. Not right now. Maybe in a few months, after--"
"What was that?" I asked. I heard something unnatural. Like a scraping sound.
Sydney shrugged.
"Listen," I said.
I heard it again. It sounded like a stick was being drawn across cement. It was faint but growing louder. Sydney heard it.
"Where's it coming from?" she asked.
"The wind's kicking up. It must be knocking some branches around."
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The sound stopped and we both relaxed.
I said, "Look, I don't know the right thing to do. I hear what you're saying about your parents and maybe now isn't the time to tell them. But at some point we're going to have to face--"
"There it is again," she said.
It was louder this time. The instant I realized where it was coming from, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The electric feeling was back. Sydney looked to the mausoleum on the far side of the reflecting pool.
"Tell me it's not coming from in there," she said, her voice quivering.
The scraping got louder. It was joined by another sound. It was a dry shuffling that sounded as if someone was dragging their feet across the ground. Or through the mausoleum. The wind grew stronger. On top of the hill the weeping willow tree swayed violently. Sydney slid closer to me. The scraping and shuffling grew louder, as if whatever was making the sound was coming closer to the door of the mausoleum. From the inside.
"Is this real?" she said in a hoarse whisper.
Before I could answer, the sound stopped. All sound. Everything. The scraping. The shuffling. The wind. The rumble. An impossible void had descended on the cemetery. The only sound was a steady drip . . . drip . . . drip from the pool in front of us. At least I thought it was from the pool.
A moment passed. Two moments. I could hear Sydney swallow--that's how quiet it had become. She squeezed my hand.
"It's not over, is it?"
Boom! The double doors of the mausoleum blew open, tearing them from their hinges and throwing them across the courtyard. All sound returned. A howling wind blew from the dark crypt. It smelled old. And dead.
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"Out of here!" I yelled, and pulled Sydney to her feet.
We jumped off the bench and turned toward the hill. The hill with the weeping willow. We both looked up to see we weren't alone anymore. Standing beneath the swaying tree . . . was Gravedigger.
The nightmare wasn't over.
It had barely begun.
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Chapter 23
"My car," Sydney said breathlessly as we ran together, dodging our way past ancient graves.
The sky had become impossibly dark, making it look more like night than day. There was no rain, but the swirling wind made it seem as if we were in the middle of a storm. Or would be soon. We ran around the base of the hill, trying to move fast and not trip on a gnarled root or a sharp stone hidden by long grass.
"Is he coming?" Sydney asked.
"Don't know. Don't care. Don't want to be here."
We rounded the hill and got a view of the new section of the cemetery below us. Sitting on the road by itself, not far from Cooper's already covered-over grave, was Sydney's Beetle. Every last person from the funeral was long gone. People didn't hang out in cemeteries after the show was over. I wished we hadn't. The car was a few hundred
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yards away. Still, it was in sight. The only thing that stood between us and our escape was a sea of tombstones, statues', and mausoleums.
"Keep moving," I said, and we began winding our way across the grass and the graves.
We had only gone a few steps when the ground shuddered.
"Did you feel that?" Sydney called while still running.
"Earthquake?" I replied. I'd never been in an earthquake, but it was the only thing I could think of. Another jolt hit that was so strong, I was nearly thrown off my feet. I stumbled toward Sydney and she caught me before I went down.
"Don't stop!" I commanded.
We tried to run, but the ground was shaking so violently, it made it impossible to move. Sydney and I held on to each other and dropped to our knees.
"Gravedigger must be doing this," I said. "They don't have earthquakes around here."
"So it's an illusion," Sydney shot back.
We were both nearly knocked down by another strong jolt.
"A really good illusion," she added.
There was a cracking sound, like rocks grinding together.
"Look!" Sydney shouted.
She was pointing to a large mausoleum about five yards from us. A jagged crack made its way up the cement wall, like an egg breaking in two. The crack ran up toward the marble roof. When it hit, a section of the wall fell away, revealing two wooden coffins inside. The rumbling knocked them off their shelves and they tumbled out.
Sydney screamed.
I would have too, but I was too horrified to open my mouth. We both turned away before seeing what happened when the coffins hit the ground.
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"We gotta keep moving," I said. We helped each other to our feet and struggled to move forward. The earthquake, or whatever it was, intensified. We held on to each other for support and managed to stumble closer to the car. All around us, tombstones and statues were falling over and smashing. I heard a sharp crack and looked up.
"Move!" I shouted, and pushed Sydney forward just as a marble cherub fell from the top of a tomb and smashed to the ground, barely missing us.
Sydney was crying, but that didn't stop her from moving. We were both focused on getting to the car. It was our only way out of danger. We were maybe fifty feet away from it when the ground shook so violently that we both fell down. I hit the ground first. Sydney landed on top of me. We rolled and got back to our feet to continue our dash for the car . . . when the car moved. It shook, rocked on its wheels, and rolled forward slowly.
"Nobody's driving," Sydney cried.
For a second we both feared some demonic force had gotten behind the wheel and was about to drive away. What did happen was far worse.
"It's not the car," I declared. "It's the ground."
The roadway beneath the car was cracking apart. A huge gash appeared that ran directly under the silver Beetle, front to back.
"Hurry!" Sydney shouted, and ran for it.
I grabbed her.
"No, it's too late," I said.
She was desperate to get to the car and fought to pull away, but I held her tight. We both watched the ground beneath the car being torn apart by some horrific force. The gash in the road grew very wide, very quickly. The Beetle tilted to its side, then tumbled into the chasm with a metallic screech of metal against cement.
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"No!" Sydney screamed, and pulled away from me.
I didn't know what she expected to do. The car was a goner. I followed and we made it to the edge of the deep, wide gash that had been ripped into the ground. Wedged near the bottom was Sydney's car. Useless. We would have to get out of the cemetery on foot.
The wrecked car wasn't the worst of what we saw down in that rift. When the ground pulled apart, it revealed the remains of dozens of coffins. Some looked ancient, others could have been buried last week. All were rudely disrupted from their resting places and thrown into the rift. Not all of them stayed closed. Bodies tumbled out as the coffins rolled down the side. One silver coffin flipped and sprung open to reveal an occupant that hadn't seen the light of day in a century. There was nothing left but a brown skeleton dressed in the shreds of what was once a suit.
Sydney clutched at me but didn't take her eyes off the chilling scene. A few dozen coffins had been flung into the pit and half of them had sprung open, leaving a trail of bodies in various stages of decay and mummification.
The ground stopped moving. The rumbling stopped. The only sound was the shrill whistle of the wind and Sydney's sobs.
"I'm going out of my mind," she whispered.
"It... it must be an illusion," I said shakily. "It has to be. Like the speedboats. And the blood. This isn't happening."
I didn't think it could get any worse.
I was wrong.
One of the bodies moved.
Sydney yelped in surprise.
I saw the movement but thought maybe the body was still settling after having been so rudely pulled from its not-so-final resting place. No such luck. A man's body that had been flung from its coffin turned its head and looked
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up at us through empty eyes. I couldn't tell if the shreds that hung from its bones were rotted clothes or flesh. Or both. It was dead, yet it was alive. And it wasn't alone. All around it the other disturbed corpses began to stir as if they had been awakened from a nap. A long, dead nap. So much for resting in peace. One after another the corpses pushed to their feet and began to claw their way up the side of the ravine . . . toward us. They all opened their skeletal mouths to let out a sorrowful moan, joining together in a macabre chorus that pushed me closer to the edge of sanity.
"These aren't evil people," I reasoned aloud, my voice shaking. "They're just . . . people."
"Dead people," Sydney mumbled. "Woken up by Grave-digger."
That's all I needed to hear.
"C'mon," I said, and pulled her away from the edge.
The only choice we had was to run for the gates of the cemetery. I didn't know if that would get us away from Gravedigger, but it was a good start. The sky was still dark and the wind hadn't let up. I tried to remember how deep we were into the huge graveyard and feared that we had at least a half mile to go. That was a long way on foot. I glanced back over my shoulder to see skeletal hands reaching up from below the lip of the crevice, grabbing the edge to pull themselves up. Would they keep coming after us? Could corpses run? What would they do if they caught us? Would they blame us for disturbing their final resting place? I didn't want the answers to any of those questions.
"We're okay," I said between breaths. "We just gotta get out of the cemetery. It's a busy road outside. We'll get a ride. We'll. . ."
The rumbling returned. It was like trying to run on top of a volcano that was gathering the energy to erupt. Sydney
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and I held on to each other to keep from falling over, but we kept moving.
"There!" I shouted.
The iron gates that marked the entrance to the cemetery were only a couple hundred yards away. Unfortunately, the road made several sweeping S turns between us and escape. The fastest way to get there would be to forget the road and run . . . straight through a labyrinth of tombstones and mausoleums.
"Straight through," I announced.
Sydney stopped. "I can't. Not over those graves."
I looked back to see the dozen corpses that had climbed out of the rift in the road and were shuffling forward on brittle legs, their moans calling to us. I flashed on Night of the Living Dead. It was a bad flash. Sydney looked back and saw them. It was all the convincing she needed.
"Straight through," she echoed.
She grabbed my hand and ran forward, plunging into the sea of tombs.
The ground continued to move. I feared that it might open up and swallow us the way it had the car. Why not? If Gravedigger was calling the shots, he could make us see whatever he wanted. That is, if this were actually an illusion. We couldn't take the chance. We had to get out of there.
We stayed together, dodging around the marble monuments, moving closer to what I hoped was safety. We skirted one large tomb and came upon a stunning monument. It was a white marble statue of a pure white angel that was kneeling with its arms on a tomb. Its head was resting on its crossed arms as if it were weeping. The thing was bigger than life-size, with huge wings that were held tight against its body. It was stunning.
And it was alive.
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The marble angel lifted its head and turned to us with a lifeless gaze as if upset we had dared disturb its mourning. Sydney and I stopped short. The rumbling intensified. With a roar the doors blew open to a mausoleum, spewing out brilliant light and a musty wind. A second mausoleum across from it blew open, hitting us with light and dust from another side. Between the dust in my eyes and the wind and bright light, I was nearly blinded. Sydney and I stumbled to get away, but we had lost all sense of direction. The marble tomb that the angel had been weeping over exploded. The cement cover shattered as light and wind blew up from below. Through the dust and light I caught a glimpse of the angel. Its wings were spread wide. It was coming for us.
"No!" Sydney screamed, and pulled away from me.
"Sydney!" I shouted, too late.
The angel pounced on her, wrapping its wings around her body.
"Marsh!" I heard her call as her scream faded to oblivion.
I ran to her, too late. She was gone. The stone angel was gone. I heard a cracking sound and looked up to see a tall obelisk toppling over . . . toward me. I jumped away quickly as the marble pillar crashed across the top of the tomb, sealing it off. I stumbled over a gravestone and hit the ground. The moment I landed, the demon wind and light stopped. Both mausoleum doors were closed and the marble tomb was sealed off by the fallen obelisk.
Sydney was nowhere to be seen.
"Sydney!" I yelled. "Sydney!"
No answer. The angel, or whatever it was, had taken her. But to where? How could an illusion make a living person disappear? I ran to each of the mausoleums and yanked on the doors, but they were sealed tight. I tried to lift the marble obelisk off the broken tomb, but it was far too heavy. Wherever Sydney was, I couldn't get to her. I
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heard the moaning of the corpses. I'd almost forgotten about them. They were getting closer. The only thing I could do was escape from the cemetery and get help. That's what I decided. I'd find somebody, anybody, and bring them back. We'd pry open the mausoleums. We'd find Sydney. No more secrets. I didn't care if they thought I was crazy. There was another life at stake. I didn't want Gravedigger claiming another victim. Especially not Sydney.
I ran for the gates. After leaping over several toppled tombstones, I broke out onto the twisting cemetery roadway and stopped to plot my course. The cemetery was surrounded by a black metal fence that was too high to climb. It was in a residential area in a remote part of Stony Brook that had mostly big homes on giant, tree-covered properties. Directly across from the cemetery was a huge stone mansion from the nineteenth century. Farther up the road to the right was an ivy-covered all-girls school. To the left of the mansion was a giant tank that held the town's drinking water. It was a familiar part of town for me. I'd ridden my bike along that road many times. I knew the neighborhood.
But the neighborhood was gone.
Beyond the tall metal fence was nothing. I should have seen trees blowing in the wind and the big stone mansion and the water tank. Instead I saw a dark, swirling soup that had no beginning and no end. The cemetery had become an island that floated in a murky, supernatural sea. There was no road, no sky, no life. The world beyond the fence looked like an ar
tist's canvas that was dripping with colorful paint but with no recognizable image.
"He's trying to keep me here," I muttered to myself.
I ran for the gates, convinced that it was one of Grave-digger's illusions. I was sure that as soon as I got out of the cemetery, the world would return to normal. We had made
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that gamble with the speedboats and won. I was ready to go for it again.
That is, until the cemetery erupted. The sudden, earthquake like rumblings were so fierce that I could barely keep my balance, let alone run. I stumbled and fell on the roadway, then had trouble getting back to my feet. But I was almost there and kept going on my hands and knees. I had to get out of there and if it meant crawling, that was fine by me. Sydney's life depended on it. On the far side of the road, tombstones tumbled and statues fell. Grave-digger was throwing down obstacles in my way. I had to duck and roll and look everywhere for fear that something heavy would land on my head.
I made it to the last paved road before the final stretch of graves. The ground in front of me was littered with the remains of shattered marble and broken statues. I stopped to look ahead and plan a route through the rubble . . . and saw the ground move. Something was under the grass. Something alive. Not five feet in front of me, the grass was being pushed up from below. Whatever was down there was coming up. I couldn't move. My eyes were fixed on the spot. The grass tore apart as . . .
... a mummified head poked up from below. A head! Its hands pushed up through the dirt, tearing at the sod as if making a desperate escape from the world below. Behind it, another skeletal hand reached out of the ground, followed by another.
The rumbling continued. I backed away on the paved road and looked around to see the same thing happening everywhere. It was like this demonic earthquake had shaken awake the dead. Hundreds upon hundreds of corpses in various stages of decay were pulling themselves up and out of their graves.