Supernatural Noir

I drove back to the office and sat around there for a few hours, and then I went home and changed into some old duds, left my hat, grabbed a burger at Dairy Queen, and hustled my car back over to the cemetery. I drove by it and parked my heap about a half mile from the graveyard under a hickory-nut tree well off the main road and hoped no one would bother it.

I walked back to the cemetery and stood under the tree near Susan’s grave and looked up at it. There was a low limb, and I got hold of that and pulled myself up, and then climbed higher. The oak had very few leaves, but the limbs were big, and I found a place where there was a naturally scooped-out spot in the wood and laid down on that. It wasn’t comfortable, but I lay there anyway and chewed some gum and waited for the sun to set. That wouldn’t be long this time of year. By five thirty or six, the sun was gone and the night was up.

Night came, and I lay on the limb until my chest hurt. I got up and climbed higher, found a place where I could stand on a limb and wedge my ass in a fork in the tree. From there, I had a good look at the grave.

The dark was gathered around me like a blanket. To see me, you’d have to be looking for me. I took the gum out of my mouth and stuck it to the tree, and leaned back so that I was nestled firmly in the narrow fork. It was almost like an easy chair.

I could see the lights of the town from there, and I watched those for a while, and watched the headlights of cars in the distance. It was kind of hypnotic. Then I watched lightning bugs. A few mosquitoes came to visit, but it was a little cool for them, so they weren’t too bad.

I touched my coat pocket to make sure my .38 was in place, and it was. I had five shots. I didn’t figure I would need to shoot anyone, and if I did, I doubted it would take more than five shots.

I added up the hours I had invested in the case, my expenses, which were lunch and a few packs of chewing gum. This wasn’t the big score I was looking for, and I was begi

I wanted to check my watch, but I couldn’t see the hands well enough, and though I had a little flashlight in my pocket, I didn’t want any light to give me away.

I twisted around and looked behind me. The fork in the tree split in the direction of the creek. It was the only direction I couldn’t see easily, so I checked it out for grins. All that mattered was I could see the grave and anything that came to it.

I’ll admit it: I wasn’t much of a sentry. After a while, I dozed.

What woke me was a scratching sound. When I came awake, I nearly fell out of the tree, not knowing where I was. By the time I had it figured, the sound was really loud. It was coming from the direction of the grave.

——

When I looked down I saw an animal digging at the grave, and then I realized it wasn’t a dog at all. I had only thought it was. It was a man in a long black jacket. He was bent over the grave and he was digging with his hands like a dog. He wasn’t throwing the dirt far, just mounding it up. While I had napped like a squirrel in a nest, he had dug all the way down to the coffin.

I pulled the gun from my pocket and yelled, “Hey, you down there. Leave that grave alone.”

The man wheeled then and looked up, and when he did, I got a glimpse of his face in the moonlight. It wasn’t a good glimpse, but it was enough to nearly cause me to fall out of the tree. The face was as white as a nun’s ass, and the eyes were way too bright, even if he was looking up into the moonlight; those eyes looked the way coyote eyes look staring out of the woods.

He hissed at me and went back to his work, popping the lid off the coffin like it was a cardboard box. It snapped free, and he reached inside and pulled out the body of a girl. Her hair was undone, and it was long and blond and fell over the dirty white slip she was wearing. He pulled her out of there before I could get down from the tree with the gun. The air was full of the stink of death. Susan’s body, I guessed.

By the time I hit the ground, he had the body thrown over his shoulder, and he was ru

Now that he was ru

I chased him to the back fence, puffing all the way, and then he did something that couldn’t be done. He sprang and leaped over that spear-tipped fence with Susan’s body thrown over his shoulder, hit the ground ru

That fence was easily six feet high.

——

I started to drive over to Cathy’s place. I had her address. But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t go there and I didn’t go home, which was a dingy apartment. I went to the office, which was slightly better, and got the bottle out of the drawer, along with my glass, and poured myself a shot of my medicine. It wasn’t a cure, but it was better than nothing. I liked it so much I poured another.

I went to the window with my fresh-filled glass and looked out. The night looked like the night and the moon looked like the moon and the street looked like the street. I held my hand up in front of me. Nope. That was my hand, and it had a glass of cheap whiskey in it. I wasn’t dreaming, and to the best of my knowledge I wasn’t crazy.

I finished off the drink. I thought I should have taken a shot at him. But I hadn’t because of Susan’s body. She wouldn’t mind a bullet in the head, but I didn’t want to have to explain that to her sister if I accidentally hit her.

I laid down on the couch for a little while, and the whiskey helped me sleep, but when I came awake, and turned on the light and looked at my watch, it was just then midnight.

I got my hat and my gun and my car keys off the desk, went down to my car, and drove back to the cemetery.

——

I didn’t park down from the place this time. I drove through the horseshoe opening and drove down as close as I could get to the grave. I got out and looked around, hoping I wouldn’t see the man in the long coat, and hoping in another way I would.

I got my gun from my pocket and held it down by my side, and walked over to the grave. It was covered up, patted down. The air still held that stench from before. Less of it, but it still lingered, and I had this odd feeling it wasn’t the stink of Susan’s body after all. It was that man. It was his stink. I felt sure of it, but there was no reasoning as to why I thought that. Call it instinct. I looked down at the grave. It was closed up.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up like I had been shot with a quiverful of little arrows.

Looking every which way as I went, I made it back to the car and got inside and locked all the doors and started it up, and drove back to town and over to Cathy’s place.

——

We were in her little front room sitting on the couch. There was coffee in cups on saucers sitting on the coffee table. I sipped mine and tried to do it so my hand didn’t shake.

“So now you believe me,” she said.

“But I don’t know anyone else will. We tell the cops this, we’ll both be in the booby hatch.”

“He took her body?”

I nodded.

“Weren’t you supposed to stop him?”

“I actually didn’t think that was going to come up. But I couldn’t stop him. He didn’t look like much, but he was fast, and to leap like that, he had to be strong. He carried your sister’s body like it was nothing.”