Traffic was
still zipping up and down Main Street, life moving on without me. I kept close
to the building, in the darker shadows, as I glanced up, down, and across the
street. The last thing I needed was for my guardian angel to take me by
surprise again. The sidewalk was clear, and from this distance, I couldn’t see
anything by the park across the street, next to Anthony’s building. I had never
really registered that he lived across the street from Cemetery Park, so named
because it was an active cemetery up until the early 1940s.
Sometime in the
sixties, the city decided to convert it into a park, but they never moved the
bodies. The place always creeped me out, especially when I saw people playing
fetch with their dogs or taking a picnic with their kids, knowing they were on
top of hundreds of unmarked graves. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw that
night.
Dozens and
dozens of spectral entities were all around the park, obscuring the finely
manicured lawn. In the last few days, I had seen other ghosts’ fleeting forms,
but none as tangible as me and none returned my gaze. Here though, when I
crossed the street and stood in front of the park next to Anthony’s apartment
building, no less than four spirits turned their deathly gaze upon me. For a
moment, I felt as though I couldn’t move, like a mouse caught in a corner as
the big angry cat hunkered down in front of it, just waiting.
Of the four
staring at me, two were small girls who looked to be about nine and ten years
old. They both wore plain white dresses that hung past their knees and cinched
up to their necks. Their high-top black dress shoes were practically lost in
the shadows. Another of the four was a war veteran. Of what war I couldn’t be
sure, but he didn’t look much older than me as he glared my way. The last was
an old, hunched over Chumash woman. Her bedraggled, dark hair swung down,
obscuring her face from time to time as she swayed where she stood. Her face
was a relief map of wrinkles, a testament to the long life she had before she
died.
I wasn’t sure
who to keep my eyes on; they were all glaring at me but spread out enough that
I had to make an effort to look at each of them. The larger of the two girls
tilted her head to the side, drawing my attention to her. Her large eyes looked
black in the night. She blinked slowly, her mouth opening slightly, as she
lifted one hand and crooked her pale finger, beckoning me to come. Absurdly, I
felt the desire to step forward, to answer her call, just like the pull of the
White Light.
I managed to
keep my feet planted on the sidewalk, though my toes were dangerously close to
the edge of the grass. I had the feeling that if I crossed the line of cement
and desecrated ground, that tiny waif of a girl would be on me like a rabid dog
on the last bone in the world. I shifted my weight and took one small step
backward. I heard the howling of the lost souls milling about the grounds. The
girl’s head snapped back, and her mouth opened into a terrible black maw. She
screamed long and loud before she rushed for me.
Her fingers were
crooked into claws and her hands stretched out as she flew across the ground in
her mad rage. I flinched against the sounds she made, feeling something for the
first time in days, and covered my ears. I panicked and scrambled backward,
tripping over my own feet, and fell to the ground. She was nearly on top of me.
I started to gather the shadows about me, ready to flee, but as she reached the
edge of the grass, she slammed into an invisible wall, then bounced off and
tumbled backward.
The milling mass
of spirits began to shift toward us. The noise and reverberating energy drew
their attention like moths to a flame. I pushed back, putting a little more
distance between me and the edge of the cemetery, before I got to my feet. I
dusted my hands off on my jeans out of habit and straightened my sweater. When
I finally found the courage to look up again, the entire population of the
cemetery was pressed close to the edge of the grass, practically looming over
me. I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from shaking and lifted my
chin. They couldn’t cross the line to get to me, and there was no way they
would get me to do it for them. I was fine; I just had to stay on the sidewalk.
The soldier
caught my attention, pulling it away from the still glaring, screaming girl in
white. He stepped forward out of the crowd. A few tendrils of pale white
slipped from his shoulders. He wasn’t quite at the grass line. His face was
calm and sad. I watched as he inclined his head toward me in a nod, which I
returned. One corner of his mouth lifted in a small half smile. I stepped
forward.
He lifted his
hand, his fingers splayed as if he would intertwine them with mine. I lifted my
hand, opening my fingers and began to reach for him. I took another half-step
forward, a few blades of grass bending over the toe of my boot.
“Shayna, no!” a
voice called out like a ringing bell in the still, silent night.
Title: The Runaway Queen.
