Old Friends

This story contains some swearing and brief horror.

“There’s been many tools that were meant to raise the dead, but there is one sure fire way you can.” Bill says in his Texan Twang. Bill is what you picture when you hear ‘cowboy.’ Six foot five with a muscular frame, he is never afraid to shoot from the hip and ‘give it to ya straight.’ He never goes anywhere without wearing his cowboy boots and a ten gallon hat, they’ve just become part of him. He is sitting around a small table with two similar ‘cowboys’ who usually take everything he says as gospel while leaning in to hear him.

“What’s that then, Bill?” another flannel clad cowboy asks. This one, unlike Bill, was young and wiry. 

With a dead stare he tells them, “You have to eat a whole onion, raw, burn three cloves of garlic and say the name of the deceased three times at the site of their grave.”

The other cowboys remain deadpan and are quiet for about five seconds, then burst out laughing. 

“You have got to be kidding me, Bill.” Says another cowboy, “There ain’t no way, no how, that works.” 

Bill counters, dead seriously, “Fine, Rye, don’t believe me then. I won’t be doing it anytime soon. It’s like all the movies, they don’t come back the way they should.”

“Bill, you crack me up. I love onions just as much as these guys, but, hell, I’m not eating one like a dang ole apple.” Rye takes off his hat and covers his face to collect himself after almost keeling over laughing. 

Bill throws his hands up and says, defeatedly, “I suppose all of you don’t believe in this stuff. I know what I know.”

The flannel clad, wiry man chimes in, “What in the hell got us on this topic anyway?”

“Don’t you remember, Brett? Bill, here, started telling us all about the new cemetery he had to start taking care of.” Rye gestures with his coffee cup. 

Bill works for the city and with them down a person it was his job to mow that and the ditches on top of that. All the guys let out “woos” and “shoots” as they decompress from laughter. They get up and walk to the door of the dinky convenience store in their small town. 

“Hey, I’ll see y'all tonight for that poker game.” Brett points at Rye and Bill as he branches off to his own, rusty pickup truck. Rye and Bill approach and enter the same truck in order to get to work on time. Morning coffee at the local Mobil station wasn’t always necessary, but they like checking in before a long week ahead of them.

Nothing much happened in the small town of Rodell, TX, and it was nice that way. 

The drive to the township office is not too long, but Rye sparks up some conversation anyway. “Bill, is that really true? You reckon you can actually raise up a dead body?”

“I don’t think it’s true, I know that it’s true.” Bill says with surety, “Ya know, that kid that I told you about? The one in the cemetery before I took my mowing assignment?” Bill says while looking out the window.

“Yeah, what about him?” Rye doesn’t see anything all that peculiar about it.

“He was out there trying to contact someone.”

“How do you know?”

Rye stops at the only traffic light in town. Bill exhales with tears welling up in his eyes, “I helped him.”

Rye is speechless and flicks the blinker on to pull into the township parking lot. 

“You helped him?” 

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t believe what I saw. Like I said, they never come back the same.”

Bill opens the door and steps out, leaving Rye to stew on that. Rye doesn’t like stewing much, everything gets the better of him, so he hops out of the truck, hustles, and intercepts Bill. Rye points a finger at him. “We’re talking about this at lunch. Cemetery. Noon.”

“Deal,” Bill responds. He is visibly shaken and needs to take a minute.

Bill gets on with his morning duties like getting blades sharpened, filling up the extra gas cans, and grabbing his hardhat. The super duty pickup roars on startup. Bill pulls out of the driveway and sees the young man that raised his loved one. Bill jumps out of his truck and flags the guy down. 

Bill catches him in a big hug, “I’m really sorry I had to do that to your brother.” Bill starts crying and so does the young man. “I didn’t know what I could have done.”

“You did what you had to do. He was never like that.” The young guy says with tears streaming down his face. 

Bill releases him and reaches out for a handshake, “I never did get your name.” 

“Tyler, Tyler Strand.”

“Well, it was nice to meet you. Of course, never in those circumstances. I’m very sorry.”

Tyler sighs, “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

An awkward silence deafens the two men and they stand looking around.

“I have to get back to work, I have to mow that cemetery again.” Bill points at the truck and walks toward it.

Tyler waves and thanks Bill again. If anyone else had seen this interaction they would think it was the most awkward interaction between two humans. Bill waves back and pulls out of the driveway. 

Bill gets to work and time flies by while he mows his normal spots and before he knows it, the hot September day sets in and Bill could feel it. He takes off his button up to reveal his white under shirt. He is already done with the ditches by the elementary school and just now gets set up to mow the cemetery. 

Noon is approaching. Bill lifts his left arm and checks his watch, 11:45 am. He lets out a sigh and hopes that he can explain to Rye how it actually happened. The truck is the best place to take a fifteen minute break, he is overdue for one after all. Bill walks to the truck after backing out the mower. He scans the cemetery and sees the fresh dirt that Tyler replaced with him that fateful day. 

Bill pulls out a large sports drink, and the leftover burger he packed for lunch that morning. He sits in silence and stares at the road with a dead face and quietly eats. Out of his periphery he sees another pickup stop by the fence to his left. Rye and Brett get out of the truck.

The large man puts down his burger and gets out of the truck. “Hey, fellas.” Bill turns to Brett and points to Rye, “Did he fill you in on what I told him this morning?”

Brett responds with raised eyebrows, “Yeah and I don’t know what to think of it.” 

“Shoot, I didn’t know what to think of it either. I’m still not sure.”

Rye looks at the mound of fresh dirt. 

“Yeah, uh, that’s where it happened.” Bill looks down at the gravel that all the men are standing on.

“What’s that whole story? You said it worked and you did it. So how did this come about?” Rye asks Bill to put the whole story out in the open.

Bill starts: “While I was unloading my truck I saw a kid, around 22, sitting next to a gravestone. I had to tell him that I needed to start mowing.  He started to explain what he was doing. He was performing a ritual.” Bill uses air quotes for ‘performing a ritual.’

“So I started to tell him that it was all a bunch of crap and that he was wasting his time. And he comes back with ‘if you think I’m wasting my time, let me do it.’ So, hell, I thought, no skin off my back, I’ll let him waste his time.”

Brett cuts into the conversation, “How did he know about the whole ritual you were goin’ on about this morning?”

“He said he had gone into that shop that doesn’t look like it serves much other than tetanus and someone told him this was a certain way to make it happen. But, they told him to remember that they don’t always come back the same as they once were. He thought he was up to the task. I can assure you boys. He was not.” 

Brett and Rye eyes wander and they both meet at the dented shovel standing on its end in the back of the truck. 

Bill notices their sight lines, “I’ll get to that, trust me.”

“So I let him waste his time, or so I thought. He lit his candles that he thought would help and started a small fire with some dried grass in the dirt where the kid’s brother was buried. He tossed in three cloves of garlic and pulled out the onion to examine it. I need to eat this, he says to me. I shrug my shoulders and tell him to get to work. He took a bite and choked it down. I could see he wasn’t gonna make it through and offered to eat the onion for his little ritual,” Bill dons his air quotes again for the word ritual. 

“As I ate it, the sun started to get blotted out by more and more clouds. I’m not shittin you when I tell you it was dark as night in the middle of the morning, like 10 am. Finally, the cloves of garlic started to turn into ash and the wind blew out the candles. Tyler, the kid, then chanted his brother's name slowly. The ground started to shake and a hand broke through the soil.”

“Bill, you are spinning one hell of a yarn here, what the hell were you watching last night? You have to be kidding me, right?” Brett tries to break up the story. Brett has half a smile on his face. Both Rye and Bill are dead serious.

“I’m not spinning any yarns here, I am telling the truth.”

Bill senses Rye’s belief. This reassures him and hopes that Brett will come around. Rye says, “Brett, I’m telling you, this has to be the truth. You ever see Bill like this?”

“No, that’s what’s got me. This isn’t the normal you, Bill.”

“Cause all of this is true.” Bill says with a voice that begs the others to believe him.

Brett eases up and lets Bill continue with his anecdote.

“So, after Tyler uttered his brother’s name for the last time, the ground shook and his brother started crawling up from where he was buried. His skin was paper white and his eyes were black like a shark’s. He turned and stared at Tyler and me. Tyler thought he was still his normal brother, must have. It was like he was in a trance. I think Tyler actually saw his brother in the… thing… that was in front of him. Tyler went in for a hug and started struggling as his brother went in for a bite.”

“You brought back a zombie?!” Rye says, visibly shaken.

“I guess we did..” Bill trails off, “I didn’t know what else to do so I grabbed what I had closest to me, my shovel, and struck the thing in the head. He went down but still struggled, so I hit him again and he, uh, he… didn’t struggle much more after that.” Bill puts his face in his hands and starts to sob.

“Bill, you did what you had to do. You saved that kid.” Rye says. 

Bill did think he did the best thing for Tyler. He didn’t think he could have let Tyler’s brother kill him. It is a hard pill to swallow even now after it all happened.

Bill takes a breath and wipes his face, “After that we gathered ourselves and dug up the grave plot and buried his brother without a word. We went our separate ways after that.” Bill starts to calm down and takes a few deep breaths. “I saw him this morning and he thanked me.” Bill raises his eyebrows with a sad smile, “He didn’t even blame me for what I did.”

All three men are silent and stare at the dirt pile in front of the head stone. Rye and Brett pat Bill on the back, as to say, ‘it’ll be okay.’ Bill thinks, in the back of his head, that he isn’t going to be okay. What if there are bad omens that follow him after this, or he is part of some dark magic that attaches to him. 

Bill sighs, “I don’t know if I want to cut this lot anymore.”

“Hell, I don't blame you.” Brett tells him. 

“I can take care of this one, buddy. Take Brett back with you to the next spot I am assigned.” Rye tells Bill and the three men walk to their trucks. “And, Bill, don’t worry about it too much. I know having someone there with you will help. We’ll be over tonight, right Brett?”

Brett nods, “Absolutely, I’m not gonna miss out on our poker game. Especially if that means we are helping out a good friend.” He pats Bill on the back again. 

Brett and Bill take off and Rye starts the mower. While mowing he keeps his eyes on the fresh mound with every pass. He isn’t sure what he expects to happen but watches it to make sure the dead really will stay dead.

On the road, Brett mulls over the details of the story that Bill told. 

Brett pulls into the local grocery store to get lunch. He turns to Bill, “Hey, I’m gonna run in and pick something up for lunch. Want anything?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll wait out here.” 

“Alright, be right back.”

Brett hustles into the store. He picks up a deli sandwich and makes his way to the cash register. While the proprietor is ringing up his sandwich, the sale on select produce catches his eye. 

“Anything else?” the cashier asks him.

“Yeah, hold on.”

Brett runs over to grab a small onion and a bunch of garlic.

“That ain’t goin on your sandwich, is it son?”

“No, these are for a picnic with an old friend of mine.” 

“It’s always great to have a meal outside with a good friend.”

“It is. I can’t wait.” Brett smiles with the corner of his mouth, “It’s been forever since I’ve seen them.”