Riverwatch

Chapter Twenty-eight: Forest Green Revisited

Having left Sam asleep on the couch, Jake now stood beside his Jeep, staring across the street at the entrance to the cemetery, forced by his own logic to see if his theory was true.

Two spotlights lit the concrete arch in a brilliant glare, making the darkness just beyond seem that much darker. It looked to him to be a solid wall of black, and as he strained unsuccessfully to see into it, Jake had the uneasy feeling that something was hidden within its swirling depths, hiding just beyond the range of his vision, crouched there in hungry anticipation of his arrival.

You don’t want to go in there, an inner voice warned. There’s nothing on the other side of that arch; no grass, no graves, no cemetery. Just one great, sprawling nothing, and it’s waiting for you.

Waiting to swallow you whole.

"Bullshit!" he said aloud. The echo of his voice in the otherwise empty silence of the night made him jump in surprise. It’s just dark, that’s all. That’s why you brought the flashlight, remember? he told himself. Though he knew he was being ridiculous; knew it was just an illusion created by the contrast of the lights and the night’s darkness, he still couldn’t help but cringe when he passed beneath the arch, expecting in that instant to be sucked away into the void, never to return.

Of course, nothing like that happened, and he emerged on the other side unscathed.

"Nothing to it," he muttered beneath his breath as he wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his brow.

Turning on the flashlight, its beam lighting the way before him for a good twenty feet, Jake set off, knowing if he hesitated he might lose his nerve and turn back.

The darkness pressed in from all sides.

It was a hungry beast waiting to pounce, and more than once he stopped in his tracks and swung the flashlight in a slow arc around him, assuring himself that he was, indeed, alone. On the last such pass, a sudden realization came to him, and it was one that did nothing to improve the state of his already frayed nerves. Seeing the glistening marble of the headstones that stood in silent rows on either side of the path on which he stood, Jake remembered he wasn’t alone.

Not really.

Not by a long shot.

He had the dead for company.

He imagined them in their holes beneath the ground, lying languidly in their coffins, their flesh rotting from their bones, their lips pulled back to reveal grinning teeth, their eyes open and staring. Eyes that were alive with unnatural life. Eyes that could see him despite the wood and earth that separated them. He pictured their grins growing wider at the sight, their arms slowly rising off their chests to reach upwards toward him?

Jake shook himself violently, trying to dispel the images. He wasn’t entirely successful. The hair rose on his arms and the back of his neck. He had to force himself to keep moving. It couldn’t be much farther, he figured.

If you go on, you might not be able to turn back, that disturbing little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he ignored it and continued on.

Five minutes later he turned off the path, his feet seeming to know the way on their own accord. Despite his unease, Jake really couldn’t believe he was doing this. Back home, with the night’s excitement still rampaging through his system and Gabriel’s voice echoing in his ears, the idea that some supernatural being was hunting in Harrington Falls had seemed possible. The strange coincidences that had been occurring around him had added fuel to the fire, seeming to add up to that conclusion as naturally as two and two make four. But here, in the depths of the cemetery in the heart of the night, Jake was no longer so certain.

Jake wrestled with his thoughts for several more minutes, until he realized he had reached his destination.

There, not ten feet away, was the tomb.

Maybe it was the sense of evil which pervaded the place, or the nerve-jabbing feeling that all was not as it should be here or the perception of wrongness that penetrated to the bone like an ice-cold February rain, but whatever it was, Jake suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his conclusions had been right. He could feel it in his heart, in his head, and in his soul. Where five minutes before he had come close to convincing himself that it was all nonsense, now, staring at the crypt, all his suspicions were swept away by a mental tide of profound certainty.

The beast was real.

As if in confirmation of that fact, the open door of the crypt creaked loudly.

Jake felt his breath vanish in a sudden rush. "Oh, God," he said softly.

Shining the light out on the ground before him, his feet suddenly unsteady, Jake cautiously made his way closer to the crypt until he stood only a foot or so in front of the door.

He was sick with dread.

Praying that his mind was right and his instincts were wrong, Jake lifted the flashlight until its beam shone directly into the tomb.

He felt his mind tilt crazily at the sight before him, and his knees grew dangerously weak. He knew that if he fell here, this close to the tomb, he might not have the strength to get back up. That was the last thing he wanted right now. If he didn’t get away from here, he knew he’d go crazy. As it was, he couldn’t bear to look any longer.

Try as he might as he slowly backed away, Jake found he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight before him.

The beam of light shone directly on the rear wall of the tomb.

The emptiness of the chamber seemed to mock him in return.

As impossible as it was, it was true.

The tomb was empty.