A Dead End

I looked up at the old iron sign dangling over the entrance by a single rusty chain. It had lost a few letters over the past hundred and fifty years or so. Now the words “Memori Cemete” swayed back and forth with the occasional squeal of ancient metal.

“You sure we want to go in?” I asked, looking over at William who stood beside me with his hands in the pockets of his well-worn slacks.

“I think we have to.” The dusty shoulders of William’s jacket seemed to bounce with his shrug. “Only choice we have left.”

“But we haven’t tried…” I started to say.

“We’ve tried everything, Frank,” William interrupted me, and I let him.

“You’re right,” I conceded, knowing he was. We were out of options. No other choice. Dead end, if that’s not too ironic to say.

“I’m just tired, Frank.” He looked over at me then, and I could see it in his pale eyes. “Well, let’s just call it weariness.” He gave me that broken, half smile of his before looking back into the darkness in front of us. “We’ve traveled together a lot,” he said, and I could hear the weariness of which he spoke. “Before and after.” I simply nodded and let his words hang in the night air for a while.

“Let’s go a bit farther then,” I said finally, nodding toward the entrance. I picked up the shovel I’d rested against my leg and started walking. William followed suit a second later. “Been a while since we were here last,” I said, trying to fill the silence. “Sign’s a bit more run down than I recall.”

William looked up only briefly as we walked between the tall stone pillars that held the rusty old sign. He didn’t say anything as we passed the first of the wide stones standing in the overgrown lawn. He simply shook his head sadly and dragged his feet along the rocky, weed-covered path. Several gnarled, elderly trees grew beside the path and I near stumbled over the many roots protruding from the ground.

“It’s all really gone downhill,” I observed as we passed more stones. Some had fallen over, and more than a few lay broken and half-covered with grass and soil. The writing on many was so worn or dirt encrusted that I could barely read them. I tried to straighten my jacket as we walked, fastening it with the one remaining button. I wondered if William and I looked as unkempt as the cemetery.

“You remember where they are?” I asked, unsure myself as to where we were going. I looked off into the darkness on either side of us, and across the many faces of those worn and broken tombstones.

“They’re just ahead here, up on the right,” William said, nodding in that direction. We both came to a stop at the edge of the path, and I followed his gaze. It was dark, and the standing stones seemed even older, if that was possible.

“You really think it’ll work?” I asked, looking over at William.

“That shaman said it should,” he answered, continuing to gaze into the darkness. “But if it doesn’t, we just keep going, I guess.” I could hear the fear of hopelessness in his voice. I didn’t bring up that the old man had never tried it before, and had no proof that it would work. William knew it all as well as I.

“Let’s go then,” I said, and together we stepped off the path and into the tall grasses.

Our destination was only a few dozen paces away, and we soon stopped before a pair of ancient and worn stones. The writing on each was faded but readable. The names, I knew, and the dates, so long ago.

“Died of influenza,” I read, “1919.” Both stones held the same epitaph. “It’s 2020 this year, right William?” He only nodded.

Neither of us spoke as we pushed our shovels into the ground. The soil was hard but forgiving as we worked our way down one scoopful at a time over the next two hours. William’s shovel hit wood first and I heard him scraping away for a few minutes before I, too, struck the lid of the coffin. Several minutes later, we stood together, looking down into the fresh pair of deep holes.

“Why do you think they did it?” I asked, not for the first time. I looked again at the stones and the names there.

“What would you have done, Frank?” William asked. “They’d lost so much that I just don’t think they could stand to lose any more.”

“It’s happening again, you know,” I said.

“It is,” William replied. “I just hope today’s generation don’t try what our families did” He stood there, hands in his pockets like they so often were when he was lost in thought.

“Do you think it’ll work?” I asked again after a minute of silence.

“I hope so, Frank.”

“Alright, William, after you,” I said, turning to the hole he had dug. “It’s my job to get you there first.”

“But, how will you…” William started.

“I’ll figure it out,” I interrupted. “Don’t worry about me.” I put a hand on his shoulder as I spoke. “It’s time to go, William.”

I helped William climb back into the hole. The lid of the coffin was open, though half of it was broken and splintered. I could see that the once-white silk of the interior was rotten and covered with a century’s worth of dirt. The casket I had unearthed was in a similar condition. He looked up at me as he lay down in the empty coffin.

“Goodbye William,” I said simply.

“Goodbye Frank,” he said. “You’ve been a great big brother.” With that, William pulled the lid closed. I could still see his face through the broken half of the coffin as I began to shovel the dirt back on top. Somehow, I knew it had worked. I knew that William was finally at rest again.

I looked over at the headstones as I worked at refilling the hole. The names “Willaim Henry Northcott” and “Franklin Edmund Northcott” stared back at me. If I could have cried I would have, but there had been no tears for many years. More than a century, actually. We’d taken ill at the same time, my brother William and me. And we’d died side by side within hours of each other. The Spanish Flu had taken so many, even before we’d gotten sick. Our wifes and children had somehow been spared, but not so our parents and countless others.

How our families had brought us back, we never found out. We both woke in our coffins and had to dig ourselves out. When we finally made our way back to our families, they were shocked that whatever they had done had worked. But, it had been too long, our bodies were too far decayed. William and I spent the next century as far from people as we could. But we were tired and ready for the end. So we found a wise man who told us a way.

I turned to my own grave and looked down at my coffin. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could do it. I could pull the dirt down on top and follow William back to rest.

“There! Zombie!” I turned at the shout. “Get it!”

Six men were running toward me holding lights. Some held hatchets or machetes. I heard a gunshot and felt something hit me in the arm. I felt no pain, had no loss of motion. I took one last look at the mob before turning to flee. None of them were wearing masks and I felt sorry for the lot of them. Would they, too, end up with their names on a broken stone in an overgrown cemetery?

My foot caught the edge of a root before I’d taken a single step. I felt like I was falling forever when I landed hard in my coffin. The lid slammed closed on top of me and I looked up through the splinted hole. I began to panic as the dirt I’d inadvertently knocked loose spilled into my grave, covering my coffin.

As I closed my eyes, I heard voices somewhere in the distance. William’s, my wife’s, my children’s. All there, all calling me to rest.