Midnight Vigil

Jason’s search for comfort had become an exercise in futility. No matter how he shifted and twisted, the ancient limestone drained the warmth from his body. At the age of 17 Jason was still in the midst of absorbing life’s many lessons, this one being the fact that headstones made lousy back supports.

This particular headstone belonged to Constance Pritchard, who had departed the planet sometime in the 1650s. Marie had spotted it as they strolled arm in arm through the midnight gloom of Center Street Cemetery. She chose the grave the moment Jason’s flashlight beam fell upon the winged skull etched into the headstone’s mottled surface. According to Marie, the stone was “delightfully creepy.”

They had arrived at the agreed time, a radio boom box under Jason’s arm and cigarettes concealed in Marie’s pockets. Their job was to pick a suitable site, somewhere well beyond the notice of patrolling police, and await the arrival of Jeffrey and Alan, who were alleged to be carrying at least two six packs of Lucky Lager. Together they’d celebrate their last high school Halloween in style.

When the clock at St Mary’s tolled midnight, Jeffrey and Alan had yet to arrive. With little else to do, Jason and Marie settled into a leaffilled depression above the remains of Constance Pritchard. Jason curled his arm around Marie’s waist and savored the warmth of her body. She responded by leaning into his shoulder and resting her head on his chest. After minutes of listening to the rustling leaves, Jason gently turned her head for a much-needed kiss. But instead of lifting her chin to meet him, Marie issued a soft, purring snore. Sleep had taken her at last.

An hour later Jason still found himself effectively alone and gazing wearily through a maze of black headstones. In the shadows cast by a nearby floodlight, a granite angel beckoned to the heavens from atop a family crypt. Its arms were outstretched, fingers spread against the stars. The angel’s head was titled skyward, mouth agape.

Jason closed his eyes and sighed, pulling his coat tighter against his chest. He had surrendered all hope for Jeffrey and Alan, as well as for the prospect of a romantic Halloween night with Marie. She was sound asleep on the grass beside him, her last words a request that he awaken her when Jeffrey and Alan arrived.

Once again Jason shifted his weight against the stone. His growing discomfort was more than physical. He had been abandoned to the company of his thoughts and tonight they were exploring new territory. Jason had always smirked at the idea of Halloween superstition, but there was something about this place that even his skepticism couldn’t dispel. Above him a fitful breeze stirred the few leaves that still clung desperately to the branches of a giant oak. He thought of the tree’s roots probing deep into the soil, pushing headstones aside and drawing nourishment from sources he dared not contemplate.

Jason tried to blunt his unease by considering how he would explain the curfew violation to his parents. His father would be furious; a week’s grounding was a solid possibility. It had been worth it, though. Their Halloween night had been a blast, at least until an hour ago.

The cold radiating from Constance Pritchard’s headstone was persistent. It seeped into his body, pulling his mind back to the present, back to the cemetery.

 Was Constance a teenager when she died?, he wondered. People died young back then.Jason shook his head. Constance is three hundred and fifty years gone. A collapsed, rotted casket and bones beneath my butt and nothing more.

“Someday I’ll join her,” he whispered. The abrupt thought shocked him and he shivered. Marie stirred with a mumbled protest and snuggled against his leg.

Beyond the hazy streetlights at the edge of the cemetery his Chevy Impala awaited. Warm. Comfortable. Jason decided that it was time to end the wasted vigil and make for home.

As Jason turned to awaken Marie, he heard the crunch of shoes on gravel. He froze and stared down the narrow pathway. At first he thought it might be Jeffrey and Alan at last, but there were no voices. Jeffrey and Alan were among the most obnoxious people he knew; there was no way they could hike through a graveyard without waking the dead with their babble. No, this was one person…alone.

 Suddenly Jason was blinded by a dazzling light. He threw up his hands and squinted against the flashlight glare.  

 “Jason Mullenkamp,” a deep voice said firmly. It was a flat statement, not a question.“Yeah. Who is it?”

 “Someone you didn’t expect to meet, boy.”

Jason’s heart sank into his stomach. Obviously he had missed seeing the headlights of the police cruiser. He glanced down at Marie, but she didn’t speak. As far as Jason could tell, she was still asleep.

 “Look, sir, we didn’t do anything. We’ve just been sitting here. I was getting ready to leave.”“Uh huh,” came the reply as the flashlight clicked off. As Jason eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see a figure standing beside the massive trunk of the oak. The figure was tall and thin. Nothing else was visible. It was a silhouette of absolute black against black.

 “There has been some vandalism in the cemetery lately. A couple of punks broke a bunch of grave stones in the north end a month ago.” “I know,” Jason replied. “It was in the paper.”  

 “And I don’t suppose you know anything more about it, huh? Maybe someone at school has been talking?”  

 “Not at all,” Jason replied and swallowed hard.“Should I believe you? Perhaps,” the figure replied. It took several steps and sat slowly on the slab of a marble vault. The rising moon sent shafts of light through skeletal branches and brilliantly illuminated the stone, but the figure remained in shadow. “So what are you doing out here, Jason?”

 “We were waiting for friends. We’ve been out all evening and thought --”“It might be a cool place to be at midnight on Halloween, right?” Jason nodded and started getting to his feet.

 “No need to get up,” the figure said with a wave of a silhouette arm. “At least not yet. Sit down.”Jason fell back against the stone. Despite the cool autumn night, beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead. Marie still lay on the ground, unmoving. “Are we under arrest?”

 “Arrest? Oh, no. I’m not a policeman.”

 “Uh . . . who are you?” Jason asked as he fished in his coat pocket for his flashlight.  

 “A caretaker,” the figure replied with a sweep of his arm. “These are my charges.”  

 “The graves?”The caretaker seemed to ignore Jason’s question. “It’s not easy keeping everything orderly and in good repair. One of the headstones that were shattered last month was more than 200 years old. Did you know that?”

 Jason’s pulse quickened. “No. Like I said, I just read about it in the paper.”“It was a shame. Such a mindless act. The remains resting under that stone belonged to Jeremiah Hogue. He was your age when he died. Poor kid fell under his father’s hay wagon and was crushed. You could hear his father’s screams from a mile away.”

Jason peered into the darkness. His mouth was suddenly dry. “How do you know how old I am? If you’re not a cop, how do you know my name?”

 “It is my job to know such things. I’m also well acquainted with your lovely friend Marie Colonese. A rather deep sleeper, isn’t she?” Jason forced a chuckle and shot a glance at Marie. “I guess so. Maybe she had a hard day.”“Not as hard a day as poor Constance Pritchard, the lady directly beneath you. Smallpox took her on a bitter winter afternoon when the wind drove snow through gaps in the log walls of their pitiful cabin. Her husband never really recovered from his grief.”

 “Look mister,” Jason began, “we really need to get home. Our parents are going to be super upset.”“Indeed they will be,” the caretaker replied. A gust of wind whipped through the branches of the oak, causing them to creak and groan. Jason’s hand closed around the hilt of his flashlight.

 “Time for you to get up, son.”  

 Jason scrambled to his feet and drew a ragged breath. “Marie. Get up. It’s time to go.”There was no response.

 “Marie!” he barked.

 “Jason, I need you to take about five steps to the left,” the caretaker said calmly.“What? What are you talking about?”

 “Just five steps to the left, please. Humor me, won’t you?”

The temperature seemed to be suddenly plummeting. Jason zipped his coat and began walking. He didn’t bother to count the number of steps.

 “That’ll do,” the caretaker said.  

 “I don’t understand,” Jason replied, his voice quavering. “What do you--”There was an explosive snap from somewhere above. A black branch as thick as sewer pipe crashed out of the darkness and thudded into the earth atop Constance Pritchard’s grave, sending twigs and shards of bark flying through the air. The wooden shrapnel peppered Jason’s chest and cut into his cheeks.

“Marie!” he screamed as he lunged forward, his flashlight now in his hand. He stared in astonishment at her sleeping form. She was resting in a cage of twisted branches that dug into the soil like javelins. The nearest was mere inches from her face. Marie turned slightly, smiled and resumed snoring.

 “Like I said, Jason, she is a sound sleeper.”“What the hell?” Jason shouted. He panned the beam of his flashlight in the direction of the vault, but there was nothing. He swung it wildly among the trees and headstones. Shadows lurched and danced in every direction.

 “Where are you? What did you do to Marie? She could have been killed!”Another gust of icy wind tore at his face. “Your friend has not been harmed. I simply allowed her to doze through what would have otherwise been an upsetting incident.”

Jason turned off his flashlight and listened. The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The only distinct sound was the trip hammer pounding of his heart and Marie’s gentle breathing. Even the wind was suddenly still.

“Calm yourself, boy. Look where you were sitting. Marie was in no danger, but you certainly were. I’d say you just had a close call with eternity.”

 The caretaker was right. The heavy branch had fallen exactly where Jason had been just moments before.  

 “I don’t get it,” Jason whispered. “This is nuts.”“It’s perfectly rational, son, and there’s nothing to ‘get.’ I simply decided that it wasn’t your time. If you’d been stubborn and hesitated a few seconds longer, poor Marie would have awakened to a ghastly sight. That tree was but a sapling when they put Constance in the ground, but dry rot and beetles have gotten to some of its bigger branches. A few decades from now they’ll declare this stately oak a hazard and cut it down. Pity.”

Jason thought he could see the black outline of the caretaker standing in the middle of the pathway, but he couldn’t be sure. His head felt like a balloon floating free of his shoulders.

 “How did you know?”“Jason, I know you, Marie, your parents, their parents and a stream of humanity that stretches into infinity. I see lines of causality zigzagging through space and time like fractured glass in a colossal mirror. Great age brings such knowledge and I am old indeed. In fact, I was old when the surface of this planet was molten and new.”

 “Who are you?”“A caretaker, as I told you. Do you want a name? Which would you prefer? Mictlantecuhtli, Ereshkigal, Osiris, Thanatos … take your pick.”

 “I’ve never heard of you. My dad works at the town hall. He knows everyone.”  

 Jason heard what he thought was a sigh.“So this is the sad state of education these days? What do I have to do? Appear as a skeleton in a black robe? I always thought that was an idiotic bit of imagery. Ingmar Bergman cast me as a grand master of chess. Now that was impressive.”

Jason found sufficient strength to raise the flashlight and click it on. The trembling beam found its mark this time. The figure it revealed was human in outline but utterly empty, a black form hovering in the circle of light. A moan escaped Jason’s throat and the flashlight fell away.

“If your education was better grounded in the classics, you would know exactly who I am. Have you been assigned the Bhagavad-Gita yet?”

 Jason slowly shook his head.“It’s tough sledding, but there is a wonderful line when Krishna displays His universal form to Arjuna. He says, ‘I am become death, destroyer of worlds.’”

 Jason tried to speak, but his voice died in his throat. “Death,” he finally croaked.“That’s as good a name as any, son. Life, death, good, evil. You humans have a penchant for dualistic thinking. The truth of the matter is that things simply are. I simply am, and have been since the beginning of time, yet even I don’t know what preceded me, or what will follow.”

 “Please. I’m … afraid.”“Of course you are. You’d be insane if you weren’t. Look at it this way, you were fortunate that I chose to manifest here. I saw you and I was moved to pity, an emotion I haven’t felt since Ebenezer Winship, whose grave lies just behind you, fell victim to a particularly virulent flu in 1779. He was a young officer at the Continental Army’s winter encampment at Putnam. Like you, Ebenezer was full of potential. Had he lived, he would have changed history. I didn’t intervene then, but tonight I couldn’t help myself.”

A deep shiver began in Jason stomach and raced throughout his body. He heard a rustle at his feet and saw that Marie was stirring. Her eyelids flickered.

“Better extract Marie from the branches, boy. Both of you need to be on your way.” The voice was suddenly hollow and distant. For the moment, Jason was rooted fast to the ground. He could barely breathe.

“Get on with it, boy!”

 “Thanks,” Jason sputtered.

“It’s funny how certain tendencies flow through generations,” the caretaker said as Jason shoved a large branch aside. “Take your daughter, for example. She’ll find herself here on a brisk Halloween night in 2037, not far from where we are right now. Her oversexed boyfriend will work his wiles, but she’ll resist. Like you, they will arrive home far too late.”

“Who are you talking to?” Marie muttered. She pawed at the nearest small branches, snapping them off in rows. “What happened here, Jason?”

Jason stretched out his arms to Marie, but then turned back. “Wait!” he shouted. “My daughter? Here? Will I still be around to be pissed off about whatever she’s doing, or will I be . . .?”

The reply came drifting on the autumn breeze. “You will be waiting in your living room, struggling against the temptation to trigger the micromonitor you planted in her purse, the one that will reveal her precise location and provide audio to go along with it. You’re better off trusting her upbringing, Jason. She’ll make you proud.”

Marie grabbed Jason’s arm and rose to her feet. She stared wideeyed at the remains of the tree. Jason continued to look away, straining to hear. The voice was almost inaudible, but the last words still reached his ears. “Tell Jeffrey and Alan that confession is good for the soul. It can make all the difference in determining which paths their lives will take…and how long those paths may be. We all meet in good time, but some sooner than others.”

 END