Murder a Decade

She had never been fond of graveyards. The feeling of near guilt as you step through the tombstones, almost as if you were disturbing the sleep of those who couldn’t do anything but rest; the fog that always seemed to linger even on the clearest of days, and most of all- the fear of abnormal activity. As foolish as it sounded, most people who found themselves wandering into the maze of still stone blocks were not afraid of being alone- they were afraid they weren’t alone. Of course, those were only in circumstances when you expected to be alone, when you knew no one else should be there. It was completely different when two people were purposely meeting.

A woman’s silhouette illuminated by the glowing moon. She suddenly smiled when a man’s voice called out, “Hey, you there?” 

-----

The sudden death of Gracie Crawlford started a trail of rumors that soon formed into something much more vicious and unforgiving- accusations. Citizens pointed fingers, scared to roam the streets alone, scared to acquaint anyone in this small town at the corner of somewhere so close to the rest of the world, yet so far inside their own little heads. The people of Santa Webay were absolutely terrified, because for the first time in a decade, a murder had been commited.

With a population so small it could be fitted into a large building stretched towards the sky, murders were rarely heard of. One might think that because the town is smaller, it would only lead to the frequent start of newfound relationships, which would lead to reasons and realizations of hate and resentment, but as it goes, most citizens there would only experience the horror of someone being unlawfully killed by another human about six or seven times, eight if they lived long enough. 

Gracie Crawlford, many people thought that her first name was a shortened nickname of some sort, perhaps for Gracelyn, or Grace, but it was just Gracie. Always had been since the date of her birth, September 14th, 1971. Born and raised in Santa Webay, she had grown close to the small number of people who lived there, as she was the kind of person they thought everyone should be- quiet, unnoticeable, in other words, as monotonous as the town they lived in. Perhaps that was why her death had been far more impactful than the last murder that had occured ten years ago, because unlike the last victim, Gracie was liked.

Frank Brucer, age 78. He was not missed by many people, in fact, people had almost been waiting for the old man to pass. He’s asking for it now, they would say while he was alive, and then after his passing, it was nearly time anyways, he was going to go one way or another. The reason he was so disliked? He was loud. Loud and talkative, social and playful, different. Santa Webay could never accept someone like him, no, he was too much of a that rather than a this, a ‘when?’, more than an ‘if’. He stood out, he was memorable, someone you would think of and wonder about years after seeing his face on the street once. He wasn’t another person lost in the sea of nameless faces that Santa Webay was, he was the breeze itself, pushing and drifting against the sea. But the sea didn’t like that. They didn’t like the wind disturbing their peaceful waters. They felt threatened by the change Frank Brucer brought. 

-----

“Do you miss her?” The woman asked. She stared blankly at her companion, the only other in the graveyard. She sat with her legs sprawled out underneath her, knees bent as she leaned on her arm for support. She blinked once. Usually she listened and her companion talked, she had only just recently started asking her own questions after the request of her friend. 

The man looked up, hands still working around the clementine, slowly shedding its bright orange skin as it stained his already yellowing fingernails. “No.” He said blankly. “I don’t miss anyone. Not a single person, alive or dead, in Santa Webay will be missed by me.” 

“You talk as if you’re not alive yourself.” The woman said softly. Her large amber eyes looked down at the now naked clementine the man was offering her, and shook her head. 

Stuffing the whole fruit into his mouth, he replied, “How can one be dead and sittin’ above the ground, surrounded by the tombstones rather than dirt? If I were dead I’d be lyin’ down there.” He waved towards the dead grass, an amused smile playing on his face. He grabbed three more of the orange fruits out of a plastic bag lying beside them. 

His companion looked towards the ground. “It was rather foolish of me to say, wasn’t it?” She smiled meekly and traced circles onto her navy dress, perfectly polished nails lightly digging into her leg. “I guess our surroundings have me more paranoid than I think. It does freak me out more than I like to think it does.”

“No. That ain’t it. Nothing is foolish or stupid if yer sane enough to say or do it.” The man threw the clementines into the air, juggling them as he glanced down at the woman. 

The woman watched the man juggle for a bit, her eyes following one of the fruits, before switching to another, then to the last one. “Don’t you mean if you’re insane enough?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘nothing is foolish or stupid if you’re sane enough to say or do it.’, don’t you mean insane? Not sane.”

“Nah, I meant what I said.” Suddenly, he caught all three clementines, and looked the woman dead in the eyes. “The people here, they ain’t sane. They are anything but sane. They’re insane for letting their minds rot so much.” He suddenly smiled again, his easy and bright expression returning.

“Children.” 

“Eh? Ya gotta stop with these one words y’know, can’t understand nothin’.” 

“You said ‘childrens’. It’s ‘children’.” The woman said blankly.

The man chuckled. “So yer one of those people.” He looked up at her, his gray eyes integrated with yellow as the moon gleamed over the trees and shone down on the two. “The crazy ones. The insane ones. The ones that think that being the same as everyone else is going to help ya lot.” 

She furrowed her eyebrows, eyes questioning. “It is, isn’t it? Being different doesn’t help anyone, I mean, look at that man, what’s his name? He got murdered ten years ago, and people reckon he was asking for it.”

“Frank Brucer.”  

The woman sat up, finally taking a clementine from the man. “Yeah, that’s him.” She put a slice of the sour fruit into her mouth, the juice leaking out as her teeth bit into its flesh. “Say, what’s your name? You never told me since that day we met.”

The man grinned, pulling his colorful shorts up as he started to stand, untucking his shirt and adjusting his suspenders. “Why does it matter if we had fun perfectly well without you knowing it?” And he walked off. 

The woman sat there a bit longer, a puzzled expression on her face. Who was this man she had grown so close to?

-----

Frank Brucer had one mourner- a kind man in his forties who had lived long enough to have known both Frank and Gracie. He didn’t have any special connection with either of them, or at least he didn’t physically have on. He had always felt a draw towards Frank Brucer, and he had never even met the man! He had tried so many times to figure out what this connection was, but it only left him utterly frustrated and more confused than before. He had only seen Frank twice in his lifetime.

He remembered playing with the other kids when he was nine, laughing, but making sure to not laugh too loud, enjoying, but making sure not to enjoy too much. Everything was like that here, you didn’t want too much of a good thing, it was unnatural, and was basically begging to get it taken away. At nine years old he had already known this, so it puzzled him when a man as old as his father had started playing and laughing with them too. Isn’t he too old for this? Surely others will see, and surely, they won’t approve. He had been right. Adults shook their head as they walked by, parents pulling their kids out of the group, hastily dragging them along as the children turned their heads to see the man giggle and jump. 

“John! John! Time for dinner, it’s six, now hurry in, c’mon.” John was now alone with the man, all his friends being taken home for dinner. He glanced at the man, and hesitantly asked, 

“How old are you?”

The man had just smiled still jumping on one foot and bobbing his head side to side as if some imaginary music was playing- perhaps it was all in his head- and he said, “Why does it matter? We still had fun, knowing my age won’t change that!” He had smiled one last time, before turning away.

“Johnathon! What were you doing with that man? Frank Brucer? Honey, honey- look at me.” Her cold hands still dripping with water from the sink touched the side of his cheek lightly, but forceful enough to turn his head to face her. “Don’t talk to him, okay? People don’t like him here, if they associate us with him, they might not like us either.”

John hadn’t seen why he had to make everyone like him, but he had still nodded his hand gently as his mother led him into the kitchen. 

Now that he thought about it, Frank would’ve been forty-four. John had been nine then, and he had just recently turned forty-three, this had occurred thirty-four years ago.

The second time he had seen him was in much different circumstances. Mainly because Frank Brucer was dead. He had seen him in the casket, face waxy and eyes staring off into the distance, but John couldn’t place where he was staring so intently at. They had closed his eyes gently, nobody had bothered to do so until now. Although his face was still and long past moving, a ghost of a smile traced his face, as if he had had the last laugh even as he was dying. 

Why was John here? At a funeral of a man he had only seen once thirty-three years ago? He wasn’t sure, and that’s when he realized he felt a certain pull towards the man. Perhaps it was his smile, that most people had tried to avoid, turning away when he grinned at them. Perhaps it was his laugh, that had filled the tiny streets of the town, that so many citizens had disapproved of as they crossed the street to avoid him. Perhaps, just maybe, it was the fact that he was different, almost as if smiling, laughing, and refusing to let age tamper with his fun was a small act of resilience against the worn stone wall in front of him. But John knew, no matter how strongly the wall was built, they eventually came crashing down.

------

“These flowers are quite nice, aren’t they? Lovely pure white.” The woman touched the petals lightly, a small and careful smile placed on her lips.

Careful, like everything else she did. Whether she laughed, smiled, or even talked, it would end as abruptly as it started, but even that was done with so much care. She would laugh at his jokes, and make small talk, but it seemed as if she cut herself off just when she thought it would draw attention. He hated it.

“Boring if you asked me. Now how about this one?” He picked a flower (eliciting a gasp from the woman and a small “poor thing!”) and placed it on his lap. A blue one, with dancing greens and tints of feathered yellows, the stem healthy and green, brighter than the ones of most other flowers in the graveyard. 

The woman smiled, “It’s okay, if you like it then I guess it is beautiful.”

The man shook his head and threw the flower, his acquaintance’s eyes widening. “Ya neva have yer own opinions, y’know that? It’s always ‘whateva ya like,’ ‘I guess its’kay’, why dontcha say yer own thoughts, huh?”

“I- I don’t want to…” The woman’s voice trailed off, her eyes wandering somewhere. “I don’t want to sound rude, or obnoxious. It would draw attention if I started arguing with someone.”

The older man stood up stretching his legs as he yawned. “I neva said that. I neva said ya had to argue with someone to have yer own opinions. Just say them, it’s not askin’ for attention, it’s bein’ entitled.”

“For someone so adventurous and loud, you’re really smart sometimes.”

“I said I talked a lot, neva said I was dumb in the head.” The man grinned.

Once again, the woman wonder, who are you?

-----

John walked slowly to the graveyard. He didn’t understand why he was heading there, but he felt nearly compelled to. At the funeral, other than a small handful of others who had worked with Frank, he was the only one. The graveyard was small, afterall, even after centuries of generations there were still less people dead than alive.

It was a short walk to Frank Brucer’s grave, a small, simple stone to the left in the centre row. There weren’t any flowers around it, and it seemed cold and deserted. John shivered slightly, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the bitter wind or where he was.

Suddenly, he heard a voice,a faint one, it seemed so far away yet close simultaneously, and he felt drawn to it, as he got closer, he realized it was a males.

“...neva said I was dumb in the head.” A laugh followed, startling John. It wasn’t the volume of the laugh, it wasn’t loud, nor weird. It just seemed… foreign. It was a hearty laugh, a deep chuckle that made you grin without even noticing, the one that can’t help but make you laugh too. John slowly walked towards it, once again, captivated by the sound.

“Can’t you tell me your name? We’ve talked for so many nights and I still don’t know what to call you.” John stopped. A woman’s voice? Strangely, although as obvious as it sounded, John hadn’t thought about there being another person, and his steps grew more hesitant as he drew near them. 

“Why does it matter? We-”

“Yes, I know, we still have fun talking to another without that information, but it would be quite nice to put a name to your face.” The woman spoke again. Her voice was very boring and dull compared to the man’s, more like the monotonous drone of the people in Santa Webay.

“I see yer interrupting me now! Pretty bold for ona those townsfolk.” The man chuckled again, his jokingly teasing voice cutting through the air.

The woman sighed, and as John grew closer, he now saw that she was wearing a simple navy dress, a clear coat perfectly painted on her nails, her auburn hair tied in an updo. If John had seen her in the streets of the town, he wouldn't have given her a second glance. The man beside her though, caught his eye. His colorful shorts were cut above his knees, looking a little too short on his tall and skinny figure. A few veins bulged out on his pale legs, making them look nearly frail. But nothing else about this man was ‘frail’, in fact, he was now jumping around, juggling bright red apples which contrasted against his purple shirt. He slowly dropped them one by one, then picked one up and bit into it.

The woman opened her mouth, “Once again, you talk as if you aren’t alive.”

The man chewed on his apple for a bit, then swallowed. “Eh? Whatcha mean?”

“I remember you telling me you lived down in the town, yet you always refer to them as if you’re not with them, as if… as if you’re separated from them- and I was thinking, perhaps the difference of life and death?”

“Now what’s this nonsense about ghosts an’ dead people wheneva ya see me, ya believe in that stuff?” The man took another bite, a dribble of fruit juice dropping down onto his shirt. 

The woman's eyes widened, the golden flecks between the hazel pool of her iris glowing as the moon illuminated them. She looked around, seeming flustered, until she screamed out, nearly hysterically, “What’s your name? Tell me your name. Please, I don’t think I can build up the courage to tell you mine until I hear yours.”

The man turned towards the woman, tossing away the apple core. “I don’t need to know yer name, I’ve been watchin’ for the past ten years, waiting for your death. ‘Ello Gracie Crawlford. The name’s Brucer, Frank Brucer.” The old man grinned, sticking out a hand as if introducing himself for the first time.

The woman nodded her head vigorously. “I knew it, I knew it. I knew that I wasn’t the only one here who- who-”

 “Who was dead? Yer right about that. Yessiree, since my death I’ve been watching you, waiting for you to pass to keep you company here in the graveyard.” The man suddenly turned his head to the tree John was standing behind. “Now you wait for yours for the next ten years.”

The woman's hands shook, tugging on the man’s shirt. “My what? What do I wait for?”

Frank Brucer seemed to look directly at him, eyes piercing through the tree and staring into John’s. Jonathan shivered, suddenly frozen even though his legs desperately wanted to move. “The next victim of Santa Webay.”