Halfway to the Grave

Bones made a noise that was almost a sigh. “I wish it were, but it isn’t.”

“You’re serious? You want me to go to a cemetery and ask a ghost about dead girls?”

“Come, now, Kitten, is it really so hard for you to believe in ghosts? You’re half vampire, after all. I wouldn’t think ghosts would be such a stretch of your imagination.”

Put like that, he had a very good point. “And ghosts don’t like vampires, so I guess I shouldn’t mention my mixed lineage. Do I get to know why ghosts don’t like vampires, by the way?”

“They’re jealous, since we’re as dead as they are, but we can do as we please while they’re forever stuck as a hazy apparition. Makes them right cranky most of the time, which reminds me…” Bones handed me a bottle of something clear. “Take this. You’ll need it.”

I held it up and swished the liquid around. “What is it? Holy water?”

He laughed. “For Winston it is. That’s white lightning. Pure moonshine, luv. Simms Cemetery is right past that line of trees, and you might have to bang about a bit to get Winston’s attention. Ghosts tend to nap frequently, but once you’ve got him up, be sure to show him that bottle. He’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to go stomping through a graveyard brandishing a bottle of booze to rouse an unrestful spirit so that I can interrogate him?”

“That’s it. And don’t forget this. Pen and paper. Make sure to write down the names and ages of every girl Winston tells you about. If he can include how they died as well, so much the better.”

“I should refuse,” I muttered. “Because interrogating a ghost was not part of our agreement.”

“If I’m right, this information will lead to a group of vampires, and hunting vampires is part of our agreement, isn’t it?”

I just shook my head as Bones gave me the pen, a small spiral notepad, and the bottle of illegal liquor. A vampire was having me go out and wake the dead. Guess it proved I wasn’t psychic, because if someone had told me four weeks ago that I’d be doing this, I would never have believed it.

Simms Cemetery at midnight wasn’t a soothing place. It had been hidden from the road by thick bushes, trees, and that rocky cliff. True to Bones’s description, a tree still protruded over the precipice, and there was also a large evergreen in the midst of the dilapidated headstones. Seeing some of the dates clarified his earlier comment about Winston being a railway worker in the sixties. He’d meant the 1860s. Not this past century.

A figure behind me made me whirl with a little scream, my hand whipping out a knife.

“Are you all right?” Bones immediately called out. He was waiting out of sight beyond the cemetery, with the explanation that this way none of the dead dead would see him. The thought of vampires and ghosts not getting along was just too weird. Even in the afterlife, different species still couldn’t play nice?

“Yeah…” I said after a beat. “It was nothing.”

It wasn’t, in fact, but it didn’t require help. A hooded, shadowy form swept past me, literally floating over the cold earth. It went to the edge of the cliff and then disappeared with a faint sound, like a whispered scream. I watched in fascination as moments later it returned out of nowhere and walked the same path, culminating with another ghostly wail.

To my left, the indistinct outline of a woman was bent over another headstone, sobbing. Her clothing wasn’t of this era, from the hazy glimpses I could catch of it, and then she, too, faded into nothingness. For a few minutes I waited, and then her outline blurred into view again. Soft, almost inaudible cries came from her until they, and she too, vanished once more.

A record stuck on a turntable, I thought with dark appreciation. Yeah, Bones had given a pretty accurate description of it.

In the corner of the cemetery, there was a headstone with barely visible etched letters, but I saw a w and a t in the first name, while the last one started with a g.

“Winston Gallagher!” I called loudly, rapping on the frigid stone for emphasis. “Come on out!”

Nothing. A breeze made me tighten my jacket while I shuffled my feet and waited.

“Knock, knock, who’s there?” I said next, driven to absurdity by what I was doing.

Something moved at the edge of the trees behind me. Not the cloaked phantom, who was still traveling the same unaltered path, but almost a fuzzy shadow. Maybe it was just the bushes rustling in the wind. I returned my attention to the grave at my feet.

“Oh, Winssstto

“Cursed, insolent warm baggage,” a voice slithered on the air. “Let’s see how fast she can run.”

I stiffened. That didn’t sound like any person I’d heard before! The air in my vicinity got colder all at once even as I turned toward that voice. The shadow I’d previously observed stretched and changed, taking form, revealing a male in his fifties with a barrellike belly, squinting eyes, brown hair overrun with gray, and untrimmed whiskers.

“Hear that, do you?” Another odd keening came out of him, eerily echoing. He shimmered for a second, and then the leaves near where he hovered scattered in a burst of concentrated air.

“Winston Gallagher?” I asked.

The ghost actually looked over his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone behind him.

I put more stress into it. “Well?”

“She can’t see me…” he said, presumably to himself.

“The hell I can’t!” I marched over in relief, anxious to get out of this creepy place. “Is that your headstone? If the answer’s yes, then tonight’s your lucky night.”

Those squinty eyes narrowed further. “You can see me?”

Was he this thick when he was alive? I wondered irreverently. “Yeah, I see dead people. Who knew? Now let’s talk. I’m looking for some newly deceaseds, and I heard you could help.”

It was almost fu

“Get out of here or else the grave will swallow you and you’ll never leave!”

Boy, did he make it sound intimidating. If he had anything to threaten me with, I’d have been concerned.

“I’m not afraid of the grave; I was born half in it. But if you want me to get out of here”-I turned as if to go-“fine, but that means I’ll just have to throw this in the nearest trash can.”

Out of my jacket came the clear bottle with the lightning bolt. I almost laughed when his eyes fastened on it as though they were magically welded. This had to be Winston, all right.

“Whattt’ssss that you’ve got there, mistress?”

He drew the first word out in a lustful hiss. I popped the cork, waving it under where his nose appeared to be.

“Moonshine, my friend.”

I was still uncertain how Bones thought I was supposed to bribe him with this. Pour some on his grave? Hold the bottle inside his disembodied form? Or splash him with it?

Winston made another keening noise that would have chilled anyone near enough to hear it.

“Please, mistress!” Gone was his hostile tone, replaced instead with one of desperation. “Please, drink it. Drink it!”

“Me?” I gaped. “I don’t want any!”

“Oh, let me taste it through you, please!” he begged.

Taste it through me. Now I knew why Bones hadn’t mentioned how to entice Winston before. That’s what I got for trusting a vampire even in the littlest thing! I gave the ghost an irritable look while promising myself revenge on a certain pale-ski

“Fine. I’ll drink some, but then you’re going to give me names of young girls who’ve died around here. No car accidents or diseases, either. Murders only.”

“Read the paper, mistress, why do you need me for that?” he barked. “Now drink the ’shine!”