Pleasant City of the Dead by Lawrence Barker

Michael

Pleasant City of the Dead
by Lawrence Barker

Jarrad Hawler's old pick-up truck rattle-banged from the icy road. It sailed through the guardrail, and down the long bank toward the Kentucky River 's shallow muddy north fork. Jarrad's infant son, Carl, bounced from the seat beside him. Jarrad swore at his wife Nicola. Had that woman liked her nerve pills or his neighbor Guthrie Bates a little less, Jarrad would have left Carl at home with her and the boy wouldn't be in such a bad place right now. Brief second thoughts about never having held with citified notions like seat belts flashed through Jarrad's mind. Then the truck slammed into the river's frozen bank. Jarrad's head gave the windshield a few new cracks, and his vision turned red.

Jarrad awoke in a darkened vehicle that ran much smoother than the old truck he had never gotten around to fixing. Everything smelled of wood alcohol and thick, sticky flowers. "Where am I?" he shouted. "Where is ever body?" Instead of sitting upright, as intended, he shot up like a fish-line bobber. He floated above the tinted-window hearse that he had repainted for Horis Amburgey's Funeral Home only last summer. The hearse, heading a long line of cars, plodded along the dirt road to the Pleasant City of the Dead Cemetery.

Jarrad watched the wintry trees crawl by as he floated a few inches above the hearse. His concentration slipped for an instant, and Jarrad snapped back through the tinted-window hearse's ceiling. The light was dim, but he could still see. A metal coffin, festooned with red and white carnations—Nicola's favorite flowers, ones he had never cared a whit for—filled the hearse's back. He reached out to brush the flowers aside. His hand, a shadow of a breeze, passed through them.

Memories drifted through Jarrad's mind: his cousin Jake, working for Horis Amburgey when he couldn't hold his usual truck-driving job, often came home smelling of wood alcohol. Had that smell, same as the one about him now, been embalming fluid? Jarrad frowned. His hand slid through the coffin's cold lid. He touched a hard, cold mockery of the rounded, warm face he had shaved every morning for the last twenty-six years. His thoughts of maybe being in a hospital bed, hallucinating on morphine, vanished. "Ain't no two ways about it," Jarrad whispered. "I'm dead and getting buried."

A mournful wail struck Jarrad with mulish force: young Carl, crying. "Hang on, buddy," Jarrad called. "Daddy's coming." Jarrad shot through the roof. A muddy-grilled hearse followed about twenty feet behind his. Jarrad darted toward it. An invisible force dragged him back toward the tinted-window hearse. The further he went, the stronger the pull became. At about ten feet, the pressure became worse than any hurt that Jarrad had known since he, eleven years old and dumb, had grabbed a hot horseshoe from his Uncle Gano's forge.

Jarrad grimaced. Pain was pain, but Carl needed him. He gritted his teeth and shot toward the muddy hearse. He passed through its cold windows. A baby coffin rested in the middle, among more damned carnations. The instant he had accepted his own death, Jarrad had all but known that Carl was gone too. Still, seeing the coffin hit him hard. But he couldn't let feelings hold him back when he had work to do.

"Daddy's here," Jarrad crooned. He scooped up what remained of Carl besides the coffin's cold hard clay contents. "Daddy won't let nothing happen." Carl's frantic cries turned to soft contented cooing.

Jarrad let himself relax a bit. The unseen pull jerked him back to his body, leaving the baby behind. "Damn," he muttered.

Jarrad noticed that Carl had stopped crying. Maybe his brief presence had calmed the baby. At least he hoped so. Jarrad tried to go back to Carl. Without meaning to, he shot past the muddy hearse and into the well-waxed pick-up behind it.

That no-good Guthrie Bates sat behind the wheel, wearing that two sizes too big winter coat that he usually did. Beside him was Nicola, broad hips a little too wide for that black dress she had squirmed into. Jarrad studied his wife's face, complete with eyes that said she had cried less than Jarrad thought right. Maybe a hand's span separated her from Guthrie. "Ain't you got no decency, woman?" Jarrad snarled in disgust. At least she still wore her wedding ring

Jarrad's second-sighted Granny had often seen ghosts about the Mount Olivet Cemetery, usually somebody who died by accident or murder. The old woman had also said that spirits sometimes pushed the living into doing the dead's bidding. Jarrad figured that a knowing-woman like Granny was likely right. Only how would spirits go about moving people?

Acting on his best guess, Jarrad slipped his unsolid self into Nicola's body. He matched her posture until his spirit tangled Nicola's like lambs wool caught in briar. The numbing tingle of her last batch of nerve pills, almost worn off but still lead-sinker heavy, crept over him. "Danged old pills," he muttered. Jarrad willed Nicola to scoot a few inches away from Guthrie.

"Don't want to," she muttered. Guthrie glanced at her, looking confused, but kept driving.

Jarrad strained to move Nicola. Finally, she moved a half-inch away from Guthrie. Jarrad felt the pill's dullness fade a tad, maybe from the exertion of fighting Jarrad. As the grayness died away, Nicola's will hardened. She slid back to her previous position, close to Guthrie. "Damn," Jarrad muttered.

Guthrie's truck stopped. Jarrad's concentration broke, and he snapped back to his body. The hearses had reached the Pleasant City of the Dead Cemetery. Horis Amburgey, the funeral director, pulled off his black wool mittens and rolled Jarrad's coffin from the hearse. Estill Blair, Mel Turntrout, and others from the body shop where Jarrad worked—all wearing ill fitting suits and ties—had lined up as pallbearers. A toward-the-cemetery pull replaced the one that had yanked Jarrad toward his own corpse. He supposed that was natural. If something didn't hold them there, what reason would ghosts have for clinging to their burying places?

"I been waiting for you," a tobacco charred voice boomed out from the cemetery. Jarrad turned. Preacher Rockhard, the one that had married Jarrad and Nicole, perched on the cemetery's unmortared stone fence. The Preacher's crooked toothed, cigarette stained smile split his narrow face. It was the only non-sour look that Jarrad had ever seen the Preacher wear. Jarrad wondered what a man who had gotten fried from a storm downed power line had to smile about; especially one that, like Preacher Rockhard, had been gone since early summer. "Not that I've been waiting for you in particular," the Preacher continued, grating laugh punctuating his words. "Anybody who died unnaturally would have done."

"You're a ghost too?" It wasn't polite, but it was the first words that entered Jarrad's mind.

"Dead, prayed over, and buried." The Preacher dropped from the fence and, looking happier by the moment, flew over to Jarrad. "Course that praying and preaching didn't keep me from getting stuck with this here job." He stretched his arms and shoulders, as though letting a burden roll from them. "And, let me tell you, it's done wore me to a shade of a shadow." He bubble-laughed at his feeble joke.

Jarrad frowned. "Job? What job?" Something about the preacher's smile seemed even less pleasant than his gargled laugh.

"Look," the Preacher said. He gestured toward the pines and the winter-bare sweet gum trees surrounding the cemetery.

Jarrad turned. Creatures that resembled horse tranquilizer hallucinations perched among the pines and looked longingly into the cemetery. Bat winged, bear bodied, and long jawed lizard-heads drooled drops of wet cement slime. Red eyed, gray toothed, vine limbed little men chipped at the cemetery's stone fence. Black feathered buzzards with scythes for beaks, pitchforks for talons, and eyes that glistened with meanness croaked with one another, planning who knows what evil.

"Heaven have mercy," Jarrad whispered.

"Well, son," the Preacher said, resting his hand on Jarrad's shoulder, "that's the problem. What passes for Heaven, at least as far as I've seen, is mighty thin." He nodded at the leering monstrosities. "And all standing between the souls getting what little rest the grave offers and them there Hell-boogers coming for them," he said, gesturing from the quiet graves to the leering nightmares crowding outside the cemetery, "is you."

Jarrad turned back toward the Preacher and frowned. Had that downed wire scrambled the Preacher's brain?

"Haven't you wondered why, besides you and me, you don't see no other ghosts?" The Preacher gestured at the crowd assembling for the funeral. "And why they ain't noticing them things?"

Jarrad clenched his hands. As the Preacher said, no other ghost floated about the Pleasant City of the Dead. And, best he could guess, the living couldn't see the cemetery boogers any more than they could see ghosts.

"Last one buried here what died 'fore their time," the Preacher continues, "has to fight for the dead's rights to the grave-sleep they deserve. Stand sentry until somebody else takes their place." He nodded. "That's how it was told to me by Amos Crabbe, who watched the Pleasant City of the Dead 'fore me. And somebody else told him, and somebody else told him, way back to the first body going into the ground."

"Resting in a grave while some poor soul keeps monsters at bay is all the Heaven there is?" Jarrad pursed his lips in confusion.

"Around here. Don't rightly know if other cemeteries work different." The Preacher sniggered, a sound like a coughing mule. "Stands to reason that things are the same all over, though."

"I'm supposed to fight with them things?"

The Preacher shook his head. "Not exactly. Whatever goodness is in you repels them." His thin-fingered hand rubbed his face. "And that hurts. Hurts bad, and hurts ever minute." An alarmed look flashed across the Preacher's face. "Guess you'll learn sooner than I expected. Here they come now."

Jarrad turned. As the Preached said, the nightmare creatures descended on the cemetery, screaming and howling with jagged-toothed viciousness.

"Do what I do," the Preacher said. He floated to the edge of the fence. Jarrad cautiously joined him. The Preacher spread his arms. "Gather what's worthy in you like you would summon your strength before plowing with a stubborn mule," the Preacher advised.

Thinking good thoughts, Jarrad spread his arms. The creatures swarmed over him. Pain that made him forget that long ago hot horseshoe exploded from every bite or pinch. He wanted to scream. Then he thought of Aunt Carlie and Uncle Kinley, both sleeping in this very cemetery. Such fine folks didn't deserve having their rest undone.

Jarrad's righteous anger struck at the swarming creatures. For an instant, the pain became a white-hot poker. Then a bluish light flashed from all around him, and the things fell back to the trees.

"Well, you beat them. For now," the Preacher said, nodding knowingly. "But they'll be back. Count on it." The Preacher brightened. "Since you're replacing me, I can get me some sleep." He gestured at the cemetery. "And, in case you notice, few more buryings is all the Pleasant City of the Dead has room for."

Those words sent a chill through Jarrad. "Meaning what?"

"That, since maybe nobody else what died 'fore their time will get buried here, the cemetery guard after me might stand lookout until Judgment." The Preacher looked solemn, and that was even worse than his laughter. "That might be a spell." The Preacher floated up over the wall and into the cemetery. "Keep hoping," the Preacher called as he reached his grave. "Maybe somebody will take your place, be the one to stand watch forever instead of you." He gave a final 'goodbye' wave and sank into his grave.

He dashed to the Preacher's grave. He called, but got no response. Guarding the cemetery was no job for him! Let Preacher Rockhard do it! Jarrad tried to reach into the grave, to pull the Preacher back out. Something blocked his hands only a few inches deep. "I guess Preacher Rockhard's rest is too final for the likes of me to disturb," Jarrad sighed, surrendering to his likely fate.

Jarrad looked around the cemetery. After he and Carl were buried, the cemetery would hold three, maybe four, more graves. What were the chances of one of them being someone who died before their time? Not good.

He watched his coffin get carried to the grave as the mourners assembled. "Guess I'm stuck," he muttered. Jarrad glanced over his shoulder at the waiting monstrosities. The long limbed little men snarled at him. The bat-bears skulked behind their wings, and the buzzards seemed to laugh at him.

Jarrad's eyes lit on Carl's coffin, new removed from the hearse. Carl's contented cooing reached his ears. Jarrad smiled.

"You still want Jarrad buried first?" Horis Amburgey asked Nicola. Nicola nodded.

Jarrad froze in horror. The last one buried would be the one that was stuck. "No!" Jarrad shouted. "Ain't no child of mine fighting those things!" Jarrad dashed to Horis Amburgey, to the unfamiliar preacher—probably the one that had succeeded Preacher Rockhard at the Full Tabernacle Gospel Church—who stood by Jarrad's open grave. "Bury me second!" Jarrad shouted. He dashed to Nicola, even to that no-good Guthrie Bates. "Bury Carl first!"

There was no response: the living could neither see nor hear the dead. Jarrad turned. His coffin stood on the edge of its grave. The preacher opened his Bible to begin to read out loud.

Frantic, Jarrad dashed back to Nicola. "Woman, don't you realize what you're doing?" he shouted. The only response was the buzzards' soft giggling.

He had ghosted inside Nicola once and, spirits linked, gotten her to do something. Protecting Carl was way more important than keeping Nicola away from Guthrie Bates had ever been.

Again, Jarrad slipped his spirit into Nicola. Everything he was willed her to speak the words, "Bury Carl first and Jarrad second." Nothing happened. He tried harder, desperate as the preacher proceeded through the service. No matter how he tried, going up against Nicola's will felt like pounding on a brick wall with bare hands. How long would he have before he was buried, and Carl was stuck?

Then it hit him. Nicola hadn't wanted to move away from Guthrie. Making her do something she wanted to do would be easier than making her do something she didn't. Nicola had escaped his grip when her pills had less of a hold on her. So drugs made bending her to his will easier. And, if there was one thing that Nicola wanted, it was those danged pills.

"Swallow your medication," Jarrad commanded.

Without resistance, Nicola withdrew her pills from her purse and dry swallowed one. Like Jarrad anticipated, Nicola's medicated numbness washed over him. Nicola's will wavered before a torrent of medication. The brick wall he had been pounding on softened to new-washed linen.

Jarrad, with the advantage of not being quite so new at being dead, spoke. "Bury Carl first and Jarrad second," he said. Nicola, now serving Jarrad's desires instead of her own, parroted the words.

The preacher and Horis Amburgey objected to the sudden change in plans. Pill-numbed Nicola said nothing more. Jarrad smiled. The preacher and undertaker might complain, but the grieving widow and mother would get her way.

Jarrad relaxed and separated himself from Nicola. He floated over to Carl's coffin and scooped up the child spirit. "Daddy's going to take care of you," Jarrad whispered. Baby Carl purred contentedly in response. Jarrad flashed one last smile, then returned the baby to his coffin. "Rest well," he whispered.

He watched in satisfaction as Carl's coffin went into the ground before his own.

When Jarrad had been buried, the living had left the Pleasant City of the Dead Cemetery. Then, Jarrad Hawler, the last unnatural death buried there, floated to the stone wall's top. He eyed the dark things that darted through the pines. "Come on, you sons of bitches," he called, shaking his fist. "I've got something worth protecting from you," he said, casting a loving glance at Carl's grave. Then he sat and waited.

The End

Story Copyright © by Lawrence Barker. All rights reserved.

_________________
Tower of Light Bookstore
Lulu Storefront