Chapter Eleven #2
“What do you think?” Phil asked, pausing to shine a light on the snow-coated grounds and then bringing the camera back to me.
“I think we need to investigate the cemetery before we go back to speak with the rider again. If there are spirits who can corroborate his story about a mass grave, then we have to follow that to its conclusion.”
“Which means what?”
I started walking, stepping into snow about a foot high, wishing I did not have to do this. Graveyards were always so overwhelming. So many spirits that wanted to be heard.
“Which means we speak to a few residents, find out if they know of a communal grave, and then we turn that over to the proper authorities. Because if the staff here just chucked people into a hole without any identification, that’s beyond horrid.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s really terrible.” Phil crunched along at my side, his longer legs making the trek through knee-deep snow a little easier.
We moved through overgrown gardens, arches and trellises with last summer’s wild roses hanging off them, brown and frozen.
We picked a path through some trees, tall stately pines that gave us some protection and less snow to tramp through.
Neither of us was especially talkative. What the hell could you say at a time like this?
Being witty seemed crass. Spouting out supernatural tidbits felt gross.
So we just pushed on, around the back of the massive structure, until we found an acre or so with a dilapidated fence around several dozen headstones.
Heavy clouds blew by, shaking snow from the boughs behind us.
Stone angels, wings unfurled, watched us approach.
I could see them already, spirits, sensing a seer, levering themselves from their burial plots to move closer.
A few men, but many women of all shapes and sizes.
All pale as the moon glow falling down on us.
Most of the phantoms were well-dressed in clothing of their particular eras.
Top hats, derbies, corseted gowns, bustles, all that jazz.
I stopped ten or so feet shy of the fence. They floated closer, curious as cats. My headache was reaching a good level eight on the pain scale sheet you found at the doctor’s office. Nothing OTC would relieve either. Ah, the joys of being a psychic.
“Hello,” I called out. Many gasped. Some drew back. A tall gent with a slapping handlebar mustache pressed through the crowd of stymied specters to come to the fence.
“What matter of living being are you that you can speak to us?” he demanded, bristling up like a rooster.
“I’ll have you know that I was not only a duly elected representative of this fine state, but I also was quite the pugilist. So if you’re here to indulge in some sort of rowdiness, I shall be forced to give you a sound thrashing! ”
He held up two beefy fists. I turned to Phil and the viewers.
“Okay, so there is some big guy in a trilby hat and a killer handlebar mustache threatening to engage in fisticuffs with me if I’m here to engage in any rowdy manner.
” I had to smile. “He claims to be a state rep, so if anyone out there would like to check this dude out…”
“Do not speak to your hired hand as if I am not here, you upstart!” he barked, bringing my attention back to the well-to-do patients who were eyeing us up with concern.
“Okay, so for starters, this is my boyfriend and not my hired hand,” I hurried to explain.
Two women fainted right out of existence.
Several more gasped. Two men sputtered. And Beefy Mitts lowered his fists to fish out a monocle attached to a gold chain.
He leaned over the fence as much as he dared, bound to the cemetery as he was.
“You don’t look like a fairy sort of man. Well, your boyfriend doesn’t, but perhaps you do have the gilt of a molly now that I see you more clearly.”
“Right. Enough with the slurs,” I asked as the crowd whispered amongst themselves, several of the female phantoms pulling out fans to cool their shocked faces. “Can you tell me if there’s a burial site for the indigent on this property?”
He squinted at me through his monocle for a moment, furry brows knitted, clearly unsure if he should speak to a man who enjoyed the company of other men. Old ghosts could be so bigoted.
“And why should we tell a deviant such as you?” Beefy Mitts asked. I threw my hands up and started to stalk off. “Hold now! You! Oriental sodomite. Surely you have been trained to listen to your betters!”
I held up a cold middle finger as I thundered on. Phil was wide-eyed as he jogged easily to catch up to me. “That’s not at all the way to reply to a man of my station. I’ll have you know I am quite the liberated man. I’ve employed several freed—”
“Sir! Sir! The grave…it’s behind the incinerator outbuilding!
” a woman called out. I stopped and turned and saw a slim young woman with a parasol standing by the gate to the cemetery.
Gaunt to the extreme, more skeletal than human phantom, her death was either the result of starvation or an eating disorder.
Many women were locked up with “female hysteria,” which, yeah, is a pretty broad term that men used to cover a multitude of medical issues in women.
“They took children there, little ones. It wasn’t right.
Not even if they were Negro or Catholic. ”
Well, at least one of them had an ounce of compassion.
I pulled out my phone, found the map of Cornwall Cove, and stormed along.
An incinerator was situated in a small cinderblock building far from the main hospital.
A brick chimney poked at the moon. How it was still standing was a miracle in itself, as the rest of the incineration building was rotted beyond safe entry.
“This is where they took whatever needed to be burned.” I waved a hand in the general direction of the incinerator.
Stopping by the northern wall, where a massive furnace had once roared day and night, I reached out with my senses, easing my mind open a crack.
The first shiv hit me right between the eyes.
I groaned. Phil grabbed my arm. Another cry for help, then another, and another, and another, and another, and another…
my knees buckled. “They’re so scared,” I coughed out as Phil slid an arm around my middle, easing me into him.
The camera light fell to the ground as he hoisted me upward.
They were begging for release. For justice.
For peace. Bile rose up the back of my throat. I swallowed the acrid liquid down.
“What is it?” Phil eased me away from the incinerator, my steps sluggish as I fumbled along beside him, on the verge of passing out. So many voices…
“Something bad, so many souls…” I whispered. He pressed my back into a tree. Clumps of wet snow fell to the ground, hitting the piles of white with soft poofts. “Oh God, I need to be sick.”
“I got you,” Phil said, and he did. He held me as I brought up my dinner and about a quart of coffee.
Dark roast racing through your nose is not pleasant.
I spit and sputtered when my stomach was empty, just realizing the camera was on me.
“Bet I look…good,” I tried to tease, but the pounding in my brain and the cries from beyond the grave erased any trace of humor I may have possessed.
“She was telling the truth. Behind the incinerator building. So many lost souls. Phil, we need to get some help on this.”
“Right, yeah, shit, okay. Tray, peeps, can someone get us some info on…oh, the mustache dude is Representative Theodore Snippens.”
“Representative Snippens was a racist. Just so history knows,” I wheezed as I pulled my sleeve over my lips.
Gross. So gross. The only thing worse than puking was having the runs.
Both at the same time? Just shoot me now.
“Thanks for the info, subs. We need to get someone out here tomorrow. And yeah, I know…I’m going to have to tell them a ghost told me they were there. ”
“Cops will love that,” Phil muttered while taking snow in his hand, melting it, and then rubbing it on my overheated face.
It felt pretty good. He threw up air quotes and said sarcastically, “Hey, Sarge. Gay Asian seer is at the front desk talking about ghosts and a mass grave. Should we lock him up or send him to the psych ward now?”
“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” I sighed, taking a second to rub my hot cheeks. “Let’s go back inside. The rider was telling the truth. We need to talk more with him.”
Phil watched me carefully as I took his hand to stand. “You’re pale and warm. We should go home. You’re going to pass out if you burn up more of your life force.”
“Nah, I’m golden,” I lied. But I did make it back inside.
Just. When my legs went rubbery at the fountain in the lobby, Phil handed me the camera and tossed me over his shoulder in a bridal carry that not only surprised me but included a good sixty seconds of the camera on his fantastic ass.
A treat for the viewers. Once I was placed back on my feet, I gave him a dark look as I shoved the camera into his chest.
“I know when you’re fibbing,” he informed me and turned the camera on my pasty face.
I didn’t have to see it to know it was pasty.
It felt pasty. Just as your skin does when you realize you might be coming down with a fever.
Oh, fun times! “Tray says we need to talk to the cops about the mass grave. Unless they’re watching this stream, then they’ll meet us at the gate probably. ”