The Mourning After

Condolences on the passing of your friend…

Not quite.

With heartfelt sympathy on the loss of your cat…

Definitely not.

May your soul find peace during this time…

Maybe?

Eric released a beleaguered sigh as he flipped open the sympathy card. A long poem in embellished cursive script scrolled down the page, spouting off some maudlin drivel about memories and lost seasons of time. This looked like the best bet. But really, how did one appropriately say, “Sorry that your kid went nuts and ate his friends”?

Such unfortunate timing, too. Right when he’d worked up the nerve to ask his neighbor Sheryl out on a date, her son had to go and pull a Hannibal Lecter.

Card in hand, Eric wandered to the grocery store’s floral department, where a depressing assortment of wilted carnations and shriveled mums greeted him. Deciding a bouquet of dying flowers might not best convey his condolences, he headed to the checkout area.

The cashier seemed in no rush to ring up his item. She launched into a long-winded diatribe on the evils of the greeting card industry, oblivious to Eric’s curt, monosyllabic replies and the long line of disgruntled customers forming down the aisle. He snatched the receipt from her hand, then hurried to his car.

Sheryl had stayed at her parents’ house the past four days, but this morning when he left for work, Eric caught her sneaking back into her house. No doubt she was trying to avoid a media frenzy.

A seed of hope sprouted. Maybe she would open her door for him.

The sun disappeared over the horizon when he pulled into his neighborhood, a reminder that, once again, he’d lost track of time at the office. Costumed children cavorted up and down the streets, screaming and chasing each other from house to house.

He startled. What were they doing? Oh, wait. He checked his phone calendar.

Halloween. Just great.

After a quick check to make sure his porch light was turned off, Eric crossed his yard to Sheryl’s house. He rang the doorbell and waited for several minutes. Discouraged, he knocked harder on the door. “Sheryl? It’s Eric. Are you in there? Sheryl?”

Another minute went by. Something shuffled inside.

The door creaked open, and Eric clamped his jaw to hide the shock that rippled through his core.

He’d never seen her in such a state of disarray, with her copper-colored hair sticking out everywhere in fraying wisps and a rumpled robe hanging haphazardly on her frame. Her face was a soggy mess.

“Uh, this is for you.” He proffered the card he’d purchased.

Her green eyes, puffy and red-rimmed, crinkled as she gave him a semblance of a smile. “Thanks, Eric.” A sniffle caught in her throat. “You’re such a wonderful neighbor.”

Offering solace wasn’t his forte. Tears, grief, strong displays of emotion . . . it all made him uncomfortable. But he swallowed back his nerves for her sake. “Let me take you to dinner.”

“Oh, Eric.” Already she was shaking her head.

 He had to plead his case fast. “You shouldn’t be here alone. It’s Halloween, and I don’t want you harassed by nosy reporters or trick-or-treaters.” He held his breath.

Doubt filtered across her face, but she gave a tiny nod of assent. “Okay. But I don’t think I can really talk about . . . what happened.”

That was fine with him. The less emotionally charged conversation to navigate, the better.

He waited on her sofa while she drifted into her bedroom to get dressed. Sitting back, he glanced around the living room. Pictures of her son Aiden mounted several walls. A frame on the coffee table held an old snapshot of Aiden with the two friends he’d killed, Lucas Montrose and Rory Hastings.

The kid seemed so normal. Who’d’ve thought he was a psychopathic killer with a taste for human flesh?

But isn’t that normally the case? It’s the ones you never suspect.

When Sheryl resurfaced, he drove her to the Bonefish Grill in Montgomery, making his best attempts to keep the mood light.

Over plates of Chilean sea bass and steaming scallops, he related tales about the office wars at his work. Doug from the IT department was irate to find someone had knocked over a cup of coffee onto his keyboard. In response, he’d erected a barrier out of stacked filing cabinets to his work space, much to his cubicle mate’s consternation. Meanwhile, Katrina in accounting kept blasting out mass e-mails with petitions to ban the use of animal products in the clothing industry. Her attempts only goaded Marcus from customer service to wear his leather jacket and alligator skin boots to work every day.

Sheryl listened, polite in her responses, though her eyes remained glassy and distant. She pushed the food around on her plate, but little of it passed her lips.

When the check came, she set down her fork and glanced at Eric. “Could I ask you a favor?”

“Sure. Anything.”

She took a deep breath. “I know you’ve done so much for me already, but is there any way you could take me to Montgomery Memorial Cemetery now? They buried Rory’s—” her voice caught, “um, remains earlier today, but I couldn’t bear to go to the service.”

He stared down at the remnants of his fish. “I dunno, Sheryl. It’s awfully late, don’t you think?” When he lifted his gaze, he caught desperation in her eyes. He changed tactics. “I mean, it’s Halloween and everything. A lot of troublemakers roam around the cemetery. You’ve heard the stories about all the hazing incidents, the violent pranks that happen this time of year.”

She laid her hand over his. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but please, Eric. I have to pay my respects to Rory. He deserves that, at least.”

The warmth from her hand shot up his arm, disconnected the neurons that processed all logical thought. Before he could stop the words, he found himself blurting out, “Okay, I’ll take you there.”

Sheryl gave him a tremulous smile, and he couldn’t help but soak up her grateful expression.

He clenched his stomach to settle the deep apprehension that roiled inside of him. A late-night visit to the cemetery? On Halloween, no less?

But Sheryl looked almost manic in her need to visit Rory’s grave. Guilt was engraved in the sorrowful features of her face, in the leaden weight on her shoulders. She obviously felt responsible for the deaths of the boys her son had killed . . . and partially eaten.

Eric escorted her out of the restaurant to his car, opened the passenger door for her, then stood back while she seated herself. The interior light caught glints of gold in her red hair, and he paused for a moment, mesmerized by her unassuming beauty.

With a delicate, heart-shaped face and patrician features, Sheryl exuded class, even in her distraught condition.

Eric’s brother Dan had married a ginger-haired spitfire, and after the divorce he’d often joked, “Never date a redhead. They hold a monopoly on the definition of psychotic.”

Sheryl wasn’t like that, though. Shy and reserved, she was a hardworking single mom who always put the needs of others in front of her own. Rarely, if ever, did she ask favors of anyone, which was perhaps why Eric felt so compelled to grant this strange request.

That, and she was hot.

Sweat broke across Eric’s forehead. Grave sites gave him the heebie jeebies, even in the broad light of day.

Sheryl remained silent, her gaze preoccupied during the ride. Every now and then, she choked back a sob or blew her nose on the crumpled handkerchief he’d given her. But otherwise she reminded him of a graveyard statue, frozen in an eternal pose of mourning.

When they reached the cemetery, Eric followed her lead through the long, winding rows of graves. Decaying leaves crunched under their shoes, and he tried not to think of the bodies that likewise decayed in the ground below.

 Vandals had already been active tonight. Toilet paper streamed in ribbons from nearby trees, waving eerily in the wind like the torn sails of a ghost ship. Some aspiring graffiti artists had sprayed words best left unread on the gnarled tree trunks, and the fumes mingled with the boggy musk of damp earth in a malodorous union. As an extra insult to their crimes, the perpetrators left their empty spray cans littered across the ground.

A scream from across the cemetery grounds tore Eric from the disparaging observations.

He jolted and turned toward the sound.

A frenzy of tiny light beams flashed into the foggy night sky, and another piercing shriek sent shivers down his spine.

Then laughter rippled into the air.

Next to him, Sheryl loosened her shoulders. “It’s some kids playing flashlight tag.”

At a cemetery? Eric scowled at the irreverence of it all, but Sheryl resumed her trek toward Rory’s grave. He quickened his pace to catch up with her, all the while castigating himself for agreeing to come here. Every cemetery-featuring horror movie he’d ever watched rose up in his mind to taunt him.

As he dispelled mental images from Army of Darkness and Poltergeist, Sheryl came to a stop. He halted beside her and spied a freshly dug plot.

She gestured to the placard that marked the grave. “This is it. It will take them a couple of weeks to get a real headstone.”

“It looks nice.” Wow, that was stupid.

“Luke’s service will be held on Saturday.”

He nodded, afraid anything else he said would come out equally as idiotic.

They stood there for several long minutes until Eric felt an uncomfortable prickle crawl up his spine. They should head back. He cleared his throat.

Sheryl tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I visited Aiden again today.” Her voice was brittle and detached.

“Why didn’t you call me? I said I’d go with you.”

She hunched her shoulders hunched in a defensive posture. “They said he goes crazy at night. He has these—these episodes, and he attacks the hospital staff.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. She turned and looked at him with wide, imploring eyes.

He shifted on his feet. How he was supposed to respond to that?

“The psychologist evaluated him, thinks it might be some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. But why would that cause him to reenact what that—that vile man did at the school?” Her bottom lip quivered. “My lawyer says we have a good chance with the insanity defense, but I don’t know. I just don’t know, Eric!” With a loud sob, she buried her face against his shirt.

He gave her an awkward pat on the back. “Uh, I . . . uh . . .” He darted a glance across the cemetery in a helpless search for words.

The game of flashlight tag played on in the distance. Crazy kids. His gaze traveled back to Rory’s grave, and he stiffened.

Was it his imagination, or was the ground moving?

Dimly aware that Sheryl’s tears were soaking into his dry-clean-only shirt, Eric’s focus zeroed in on the shifting ground at their feet. It’s just nightcrawlers. Just worms and bugs that got churned up with the soil.

Sheryl’s breathing grew ragged. The hands that gripped his arms tightened.

“Hey, are you okay?” He didn’t know how to deal with hysterics. “I think you’re starting to hyperventilate. Take deep breaths.”

Her fingers bit into his arms with bruising strength.

“Ouch! Sheryl, you’re—”

She looked up, her face unrecognizable. With her mouth distorted in an ugly grimace and her eyes wild and unfocused, she appeared . . . inhuman.

Eric took a step back. “What—”

She pitched forward. Her teeth sank into his cheek, and he screamed as they scraped against bone. With brunt force, he shoved her back.

Stumbling, she fell to her knees.

“What’s gotten into you? You’re acting—” He dodged the swipe she made at him.

This was insane. She was insane. He turned and sprinted down the aisle of graves. The wind picked up, whistling through the air, whipping up leaves around him. They swirled across his face, grazed his cheeks, blocked his vision. Get me out of here!

Sheryl’s labored breathing grew louder.

He turned a sharp corner, and his foot caught on the side of a headstone. His leg wrenched to the side, sending a ripping pain through his knee.

Sheryl jumped him from behind. Pain rocketed up his shoulder as her teeth made contact with his scapula. Yelping, he shook her off, and while she floundered and rolled across the ground, he staggered to a nearby tree.

Biting back tears, he pulled himself onto a low-hanging branch and shoved upward. He ignored the torturous burning in his knee, the throbbing ache in his shoulder, the blood coursing down his cheek.

Once secure amongst the oak’s hardy limbs, he reached for his phone and dialed 9-1-1. He stared down in disbelief at Sheryl, who clawed at the trunk of the tree, fury burning in her eyes.

In a disoriented haze, he rehashed the scenario to a skeptical emergency operator.

 Sheryl continued her attempts to attack him, her bared teeth dripping saliva. She screamed in rage, her eyes following his movements.

Suddenly, she froze.

“Sheryl?” Eric called. He lowered his phone. “Are you back with us?”

Her head whipped to the side, to the boisterous teens still playing tag across the graveyard.

“Sheryl, no!”

She took off in their direction.

He shifted to lower himself to the ground, but the stabbing pain in his knee flared into unendurable agony. As the teenagers’ laughter melted into screams of terror, a wave of vertigo forced him back against the branches.

Vision blurring in and out of focus, he lost sense of time, and the 911 operator’s voice dulled to a distant flow of nonsensical words.

Blaring sirens drew him from the brink of unconsciousness. A tall, shadowy form stood at the base of the tree, and a gruff voice called up to him, hands beckoning him down. Eric descended from the branch, latching onto the stranger as his feet touched the ground. A patch on the man’s uniformed shirt identified him as an EMT.

Leaning most of his weight on the burly medical technician’s arm, Eric limped to a waiting stretcher.

A paramedic waited for him at the back of an ambulance. “Whoa, what happened to you, buddy?”

Eric dropped onto the stretcher and gasped for air while the man turned to retrieve an oxygen mask.

When the paramedic’s face swam back into view, Eric wheezed, “Don’t ever date a redhead.”

“Oh, yeah?” A sympathetic smile lifted on the guy’s face. “Why’s that?”

Eric closed his eyes. “They hold the monopoly on the definition of psychotic.”

 

Photo Credit: † massimo ankor via Compfight cc