Alone

© 1998 BY BOBETTE BRYAN

Peter Dalton was certain that if hell really did exist that he was in it.

He clutched his nylon jacket with shaking hands as he looked around the old cemetery, the cold air of the early fall penetrating his flesh like arrow tips.

“How the hell did I get here?” he said out loud. “I…I just can’t remember.”

Was it just a nightmare?

As he studied the gravestones and the stark, treeless hills that flanked the graveyard like the walls of a fortress, horror filled his dark eyes. The mad urgency of his untold predicament, coupled with the sweet scent of decay permeating the air, strained every nerve to the max.

The brunt of the cemetery was situated in the low-lying valley of the forbidding landscape, which was full of obtuse hills, and there appeared to be no way out. That was a crazy thought though, and he knew it. There had to be a way out. Just had to be.

He shuffled along through a maze of headstones and thick undergrowth, determined to find an escape but only succeeded in striking his leg on a broken branch that jutted haphazardly from a twisted tree. Letting out a yelp, he sank to the ground, raising his pant leg to just above the knee to examine the injury. He braced himself, expecting to see something awful like a jagged bone protruding from his shivering flesh. Yet no wound was evident–not a single sign of an injury.

He shook his head. The way the blasted thing hurt, one would expect, at the very least, a bruise or a drop or two of blood. Better for me that there isn’t, he thought, for he couldn’t bear the sight of blood. That was the reason, much to his mother’s disappointment, that he’d become an accountant instead of a physician.

Tugging his jacket firmly across his chest to block the skin piercing sharpness of the wailing wind, little good did it do, he gritted his teeth. As he stood, gazing desperately at his unwelcoming environment, he sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to convince himself that everything was fine, that everything would be all right, the same kind of bull they tell patients before a painful medical procedure.

He was certain that there could be no better place in the world to film a horror movie. The endeavor would require no costly special effects. From the heavy mist that permeated the air, to the oddly bent and blackened trees, the cemetery had a definite air of death and disaster. Even the tombstones were busted, bent, and broken, every bit as obtuse as the trees and the surrounding hills. It seemed as if the entire place had been forgotten by mortal man for centuries.

The only other bit of life in the ghastly milieu were the thick patches of English ivy that hung from the mausoleums and large tombs. The tenacious greenery had virtually buried some of the structures whole, as if attempting to consume the darkness and death within.

But Pete realized that he wasn’t helping himself by dwelling on such dire thoughts. It was time to move on. There had to be an exit somewhere, and he was determined to find it.

Following the remains of an old cobblestone road, he never stopped once to glance at the sky. If a full moon hovered above him, he didn’t want to know. A hand full of paramedics were among his many friends, for he’d been in charge of the Emergency room accounts at Baylor Hospital. These friends had often warned him that “strange” things happened during a full moon. That was when the ER was always on demand due to peculiar accidents and odd disasters, which kept the staff on their toes.

Pete was lucky that, at least, the stars were bright tonight, illuminating the environment. They cast a silvery, effervescent glow over the tombstones and mausoleums, blending with the black to make a mysterious blue-gray haze. The colors were so brilliant, so vivid and intense that he might have been inside a painting, the work of some twisted genius.

As he rounded a bend where the trail narrowed, he found himself looking into the white face of a woman who seemed to materialize in the darkness. He released a long, bone-jarring scream. Heart galloping, it took a moment for him to gather his wits.

The vision before him was no ghost. He was merely gazing into the face of a tarnished statue, possibly of an angel, that rested eternally before one of the old tombs.

Most of the statue’s body was covered with ivy, and only the face and arms could be discerned. But these parts faintly glowed, shimmering beneath the starlight. Too bad she isn’t real, he thought. She was lovely, resplendent and ethereal in some strange way as if she were a real angel. He could really use the help of such a being about now.

Cursing beneath his breath, he forced himself onward, and forged ahead for what seemed like forever, the scenery along the way all the same, converging into a spectral pallet of never-ending darkness and death. He paused momentarily, hearing the crunch of a twig. His eyes landed on the eerie surroundings, but he saw no one. Had he imagined it? Sucking in a breath, he resumed his way through the darkness.

As the voice of the wind haunted his soul and stroked his flesh, he thought that if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself walking in circles. That sounded like him. He sometimes seemed to have no direction, or so his mother-in-law was always quick to point out, but he certainly didn’t want to think about her. His situation was dire enough without adding her terrifying visage to his thoughts.

His wife, Gabriella, however, was heavy on his mind with each step he took. She was likely pacing the living room, calling every hospital in town, out of her skull with worry. How in the world was he ever going to explain his absence to her when he had no idea how he’d gotten here? He sighed. He’d deal with that situation when, and if, it arose. Right now, the only thing that mattered was finding the way out of here.

The heightening shadows serving only to further the darkness and decay around him, he came to the road’s end only to find himself before two iron gates that had been secured with a padlock. He tugged at them desperately, but was only rewarded with the squeak of rusty iron.

“Damn it, let me out of here! Do you hear me? I want out of here! I just want to go home!” he yelled to no one in particular.

He was loosing control, and he knew it. But exactly how was he to remain calm in such a situation? He doubted that even the deep-breathing exercises that he’d learned in his wife’s prenatal classes would help him now.

His hands clasped the frigid metal, and he gazed up. The fence was way too tall to climb, rising easily fifteen feet from the stony ground, and there was nothing to get a firm grip on. Even if he successfully reached the top, he’d be ripped to pieces by the gleaming iron spikes there.

What madman had put those spikes on the fence in the first place?

He shivered at the thought. Poking his face between the bars, he gazed at the tree-lined road on the other side. It seemed a world apart from this dire place, but how to reach it?

Feeling utterly defeated, he lowered his head, but he brought it up fast when footsteps echoed through the darkness accompanied by the rustle of grass. He turned back toward the cemetery but saw no one. Had he imagined it?

The forbidding view seemed darker by several shades. A heavy feeling of sorrow and desolation filled him as if the atmosphere had penetrated his soul. Or was it that he felt so very alone?

On the verge of tears, he put his head in his hands and cried, filling his palms with tears. He no longer cared about upholding a masculine front. No one was around to see him cry anyway. All the inhabitants of this place had probably rotted into dust. Time had stopped for them long ago.

It would stop for him as well, he told himself, if he didn’t find a way out.

He decided that if he hoped to escape this nightmare, that he’d have to find a weaker area of the fence.

The thought gave him a little hope. Surely there was a place somewhere along the length of the formidable enclosure where the rusty iron had deteriorated. Or perhaps there was a place where mischievous teenagers had forced their way through for a midnight rendezvous. Or, hell, maybe there was another gate somewhere in this world of nightmares.

His eyes fixed on two grand mausoleums to the right, several feet back from the road. Between them was what appeared to be a narrow footpath. He dashed in that direction, struggling along for several minutes until he emerged in yet another part of the unending garden of death. But much to his frustration, the iron fence was strong and firm and no exit was in sight.

Still, he continued his plight, every muscle aching, passing through a thick den of moss covered trees. Eyes wide, he gasped with excitement when he saw the house. Perhaps, at last, he’d found the caretaker and a means of escaping this Stygian hell.

But as he drew closer, his muddled brain registered the image of the house into some sort of concrete logic, which sucked away his hope. No one lived there–at least no living being. By the looks of it, no one had lived there for a very long time.

It was a sprawling Second Empire with a hip roof and fancy detailing along the eaves and overhangs, but little finery of the Victorian era remained, and the house appeared to be as decayed as the inhabitants of the cemetery.

The whole place sagged and sunk here and there, giving the impression that the slightest wind could topple it like a house of cards. Just about every window that had once graced the gray facade had been busted or boarded up. Some of the panes had slipped out, for many of the sills had rotted and had fallen away like the bark of a diseased tree. A tattered curtain blew through one of the gaping holes on the second floor, the long tendrils of fabric streaming out like spectral fingers.

Pete closed his eyes for a moment trying to get a fix on this situation. An inner voice told him that he didn’t want to go inside that place, but, at the same time, he must. The weather was already frigid and was getting colder by the minute; the wind had picked up, the wail turning into a pained moan. Already, his teeth were clattering so fast that he was surprised he hadn’t gnawed them into dust. He desperately needed some warmth and a place to rest his weary soul.

Before long, he limped toward the house. He paused one, swearing hearing movement from somewhere behind him, a snap of a branch, a rustle of leaves, a rake across a headstone. But whatever it was, he couldn’t bring himself to turn and look back. He thought that he’d be a fool if he did, because if he did see something awful, there was nothing he could do about it. He was too tired, sore, and numb to wage much of a fight, and he doubted that he had much of a fight left in him anyway.

Besides, if something intended to kill him, he’d rather it did so fast, from behind, before he had a chance to react so that death could come quickly–maybe before he even knew it.

But nothing happened as he made his way to the front door and grabbed the warped knob, twisting it as hard as he could with his frozen fingers. Unsurprisingly, it came off in his hand, and he had only to push the heavy door back to gain entry to the dispirited abode.

His footsteps creaked eerily along the worn, pine floorboards, and he could swear he heard wood crack and splinter in his wake as he made his way into what was once a grand hallway.

Remnants of the good old days remained. To the left were two Italianate settees whose horsehair stuffing gaped through worn fabric. They were positioned across from each other before a massive, stone fireplace. He earnestly paved his way toward the hearth. If he had a match, he’d be gathering the wood that the house had shed and making a toasty fire. But there was nothing in his pocket except a stale handkerchief and a wallet full of useless credit cards.

For the first time in his life, he wished that he’d taken up smoking.

Icy shivers racing through his body, he wistfully stared at the fireplace, and imagined warming, golden-red flames burning brightly within it. But, perhaps, in this dark world, such a fire had never burned in that hearth. He wondered if he would have to spend the night here. He could just imagine the disbelief on his friends’ faces when he told them that he’d not only spent the night in a cemetery, but had also slept in a dilapidated cemetery house that was fit to be bulldozed.

They’d never believe it. He avoided anything supernatural, had been raised to be superstitious and afraid of the dark, for his older brother had thoroughly traumatized him with his tales about the Boogie Man. He’d tell Pete that the Boogie Man would torture and kill them both if they turned their bedroom light off. And Pete began to believe it.

Then too, when Pete was a child, he’d seen a ghost, and the experience was so horrifying that he never wanted to see one again.

He stood near the fireplace, leaning into the mantel as he thought about that time. He’d been at his grandma’s house, sitting in the front room and watching television in her post-WWII war house, when suddenly odd sounds came from the enclosed front porch, including a scraping sound as if furniture was being moved. As his Uncle Mike had hanged himself there years earlier, Pete had shivered with fear, but he’d had no adult to seek for comfort.

Like usual, his grandma had fallen asleep on the couch, even with the television blaring, and his grandpa was deep in his cups in the renovated basement. He’d tried to ignore the sounds and think happy thoughts like his grandma had always told him to do, but that had done no good. His fear only heightened as the activity on the porch grew louder, followed by a resounding splunk, a horrendous creak, and the whine of tightly pulled twine. Then a swinging sound of something heavy filled his ears, which had lasted for several minutes.

“It’s the wind,” he’d told himself. “Just the wind.”

Then heavy footsteps had sounded on the old porch slats. A cold breeze had wafted into the dark room, wrapping him in cold that made his breath visible, and then a near blinding light filled the room. The young Pete had turned to see the full image of his mad and twisted uncle, eyes huge and crazy, standing at the doorway in misty, spectral form. His uncle had worn the same black “Sunday suit,” he’d been buried in. As Pete dove beneath the blankets, wicked laughter bellowed from his uncle’s lips.

He could barely breathe as footsteps made the floor creak. Through the woven blanket, a shadow moved toward him. His heart skipped a beat when a spectral hand rose above him.

Pete had screamed so loudly that folks might have heard him on the other side of town, and the horrified rail had awoken his Grandma as effectively as a fire alarm. Yet, in the typical way of adults, she’d simply said, “There’s nothing there. It was just a bad dream!”

Now that Pete was a man, he knew that adults don’t really believe that line. Adults are just as afraid as kids about the things that lurk in the darkness, and the only reason they tell kids that there are no ghosts is because they don’t want to get scared themselves.

People have a natural tendency to convince themselves that the dark phantom that floated past them was merely a shadow or trick of eye, that the strange noise in the hall was just the house settling, that the moan in the night was just the wind. Eventually, usually by adulthood, they began to believe it, because skepticism made people feel safer.

Even knowing as much, as he stood there listening to the wind moan through the windows and cracks in the walls, Pete found himself quoting that old familiar line.

“It’s just your imagination. It’s just your imagination. It’s just your imagination! There’s nothing there!”

Still, just like when he was a kid, the phrase did nothing to assuage the black fear that was twisting his gut into knots and making his heart race as if he’d ran a marathon. He turned, trying to detour the dangerous path of his thoughts by searching the house for a lighter or matches. He was about to enter a room off to the right, probably the parlor, when he noticed that there was a shining object on an uneven old table on the far side of the hall.

He examined the object, aware of the forbidding black stairway to the right as he did. To his surprise, the mysterious object was a handheld mirror, a fancy brass one like the ladies used long ago.

Only, he couldn’t see his reflection, because the mirror was coated with a thick layer of dust. He didn’t know why he cared. He guessed that he just wanted to see himself–to stare at something he knew and recognized. Wadding up the bottom of his shirt, he wiped at the grime until clear glass emerged against his fingertips. Excited, he rushed toward the large window at the front of the hall where the silvery light streamed in and carefully positioned himself so that he could get the best view possible in the mirror. Yet when he held the mirror before him, terror like he’d never known raced through his entire being.

He didn’t recognize himself. Not anymore.

His face was rotted through and through and was so swollen that his identity was indiscernible. He looked like a bloated corpse that had floated in the river for a month. Sunken black holes filled the space where his eyes once were, and his flesh, in shades of gray and red, dripped from the bone like melting wax. The tissue that had composed his lips was already gone, exposing the set of perfect white teeth that he’d paid a fortune to the orthodontist to cap.

Even his wild mane, one of his best attributes, was no more. Not a single strand of wavy, blond locks remained. All he saw on top of his head was patches of rotted skin and glistening bone, as white as his teeth. Part of his scalp had sagged to pool over the tips of his ears.

Dropping the mirror, he screamed, the high-pitch reverberating through the house. What in the world was going on? What had happened to him? Was he dead?

No, he told himself, I can’t be dead!

He paced the worn floor. I’d remember it if I had died. It just an illusion, just some terrible trick of the eyes, the imagination, and the light.

The anxiety setting off a round of palpitations, he balled his fingers into tight fists and stared at the ceiling.

“Why? Why am I here in this atrocious place? This can’t be real, any of it. I’m just dreaming. I’ll wake up soon!”

But his own words failed to ease his mind, and he remained horrified as he recalled the decaying visage he’d glimpsed in the mirror. He dared to touch his face only to find that it felt perfectly normal. All his flesh felt fully intact, and when he ran his fingers through his hair, he found that it was still as full and lush as ever. He even bit his lip just to make sure it still existed. It hurt and that was reassuring as it meant he was alive.

In a near panic, he dropped to the floor, searching for the mirror that the shadows had hidden. When he found it, he resumed his position by the window, glad that, by some miracle, the mirror hadn’t broken. Taking a deep breath and bracing himself, he gazed into it again, telling himself that he’d see his normal reflection this time.

But when he peered into the mirror, that terrifying specter of himself gazed back at him.

He threw the mirror against the wall, but it barely had a ding and so he smashed it repeatedly with his boots. He took great pleasure in hearing the glass crack and crunch beneath his feet. Yet when he’d finished, he found himself on the verge of tears once again, and the dust his movements had uprooted whirled obnoxiously around him, taking his breath.

He took the handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Only the action felt strange in some unexplainable way. When he drew away the cloth, he found his nose and a good portion of the tissue that had surrounded it nestled in the balled up cotton.

A scream ripped from his lips. He begged for help, begged for a miracle to end this horrible nightmare.

He fell silent when maniacal laughter met his ears, followed by footsteps…creaking…and more footsteps on the stairs. Gulping in the foul air, he spun to see the forbidding and luminous image of a man slowly emerging from the heady shadows and descending the worn stairway.

Little by little the legs materialized, then the torso, the neck, and at last, the head.

Pete’s heart raced against his ribs when he saw the familiar features of his wicked uncle, the selfsame image that had horrified him so long ago. The noose remained embedded deep into his uncle’s flesh, the end of the rope trailing into the darkness. Even now, the ghost gave him that same twisted and tormented grin that had filled Pete’s nightmares.

“Well, Pete, I’m glad to see that you’ve joined me at last. I’ve been waiting a long time for you!”

Heart thundering, Pete was at the door in a flash, then racing into the darkness of the cemetery, though where he could possibly find sanctuary from his mad uncle in this dank existence was beyond him. All he knew was that, even if he was dead, which he certainly didn’t believe, he wanted nothing to do with the crazy uncle who’d made torturing small animals and terrorizing children a hobby.

Wasn’t that why he’d killed himself? Hadn’t there been a trial for something awful coming up? Pete was unsure. The adults had been quiet about such things when he was around. He’d only caught an occasional whisper about his uncle’s atrocities. Even so, he’d known that there was something intimately wicked and sinister about the man.

As the minutes ticked by, and he became one with the cold and the darkness, he wasn’t watching where he was going or paying heed to his direction, for wicked chuckles came from somewhere behind him, spurring him on.

“There’s no escape, Pete!” his uncle yelled in the distance, the voice reverberating oddly as if spoken through a bent megaphone. “This is the end for all eternity!”

But Pete didn’t believe it. And even if this was the end, was his fate, he intended to fight it.

He ran for what seemed like hours, until his sore feet were surely bloody and blistered, the endless images of death along the way only vaguely registering in his mind. He wondered how in the world he found the strength and endurance to keep going.

Gasping for air, he rounded a bend in the road and couldn’t have been more surprised when he came to some overgrown limestone stairs that led to the summit of a hill.

He paused for a moment, looking back, and when he did, he regretted doing so. Not only was his uncle heading his way, but an army of corpses were in pursuit as well, their clothes ragged, their features decayed and distorted. One of them, most likely the grave keeper, held a lantern in his rotted hand and led the others on. To think that this was the person he’d hoped to find earlier.

He knew they wanted him, wanted to slowly torture him and make him a permanent resident of the graveyard. They must have thought there was no way that he was going to escape.

But he’d found the stairs.

The only problem was that the stairs appeared to lead nowhere. It was as if they had once been a part of a building, perhaps a great mansion that no longer existed. Still, in this sinister world, Pete had learned that not all was as it appeared, and he had no time to weigh his options anyway. So, he dashed up the stairs, hearing the howls and jeers of the devious congregation behind him.

The grave keeper had followed in close pursuit. Midway up the stairs, the phantom had reached out with a bony hand and jabbed Pete in the back, touching him with the shocking coldness of death.

Pete spun and kicked it as hard as he could. It gave a scream as it tumbled into the herd, lantern flying and giving off sparks. The motley crew went sailing like pins struck by a bowling ball.

Breathing labored, Pete turned and continued his mad dash up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, he came to a landing. He paused, struggling to get a breath after his break-neck plight. He looked back to see if his uncle still lingered in the shadows, but, to Pete’s shock and relief, the madman was no where in sight. All of the other spooks had vanished as well.

Had he imaged the whole thing? Was he merely hallucinating?

He had no idea, but he was glad they were gone. He turned, trudged to the opposite edge of the landing to look down at the green valley below.

Thousands of lights sparkled in the distance of the city that he called home. Joy like he’d never known warmed his heart, and his eyes filled up with tears. It was the place where he’d been born and raised, the place where he worked and lived with his wife and teenage daughters. He knew the place well, and had probably traversed every city road at some time in his life, but no matter how hard he searched his mind, he couldn’t remember this cemetery or the steep hills that surrounded it.

But, there was no time to think about it now. All he wanted to do was reach the warmth and comfort of his home.

At first it had appeared that the stairs were only another dead end in this sinister place, but, as he strained to look out over the edge, he saw that there was another set that lead out of the cemetery and into the world of life, a set that would lead him home.

He didn’t consider his options long. Though the stairs were steep and overgrown with vines and weeds, he began his descent. But after he’d made it down the first two, he discovered that they were so slick that they might have been covered with algae. The slickness came from the vines. They seemed to exude some peculiar substance that was as sticky as glue and as slick as oil. The hazardous surface forced him to descend slowly and carefully.

He’d made it halfway down when he paused, his uncle’s wicked laughter roaring in his ears. He gazed up to find the specter materializing at the crest of the landing. Before he could react, his uncle was somehow just behind him. A cold, mighty hand brushed across Pete’s shoulder, and then pushed him with considerable force. Pete let out a yelp, trying to regain his footing, but it was to no avail.

He found himself falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…falling…

“Wake up, Pete!”

“Whoa. What?” Pete yawned, trying to make sense of the angry words.

“Wake up! You’ve been yelling and screaming in your sleep all night. And you’ve pulled all the covers off me, and yourself, as usual. I’m freezing my ass off!”

It was Gabriella’s voice. When her words finally penetrated his thick skull, he sighed with relief, trying to calm the urgent beating of his heart as he appraised the situation.

He wasn’t falling. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t rotted, stinking, and ever decaying. And he certainly wasn’t trapped in a desolate cemetery. It had all been a nightmare. A mere a nightmare! There truly had been “nothing there.” The cemetery, the house, his uncle, all of it, had merely been the work of his imagination.

“Pete, did you hear me? I’m cold. Give me the blanket!”

“Okay. Sorry, dear!” His voice was still weak from sleep. He sat up, then, he leaned over the side of the bed, fumbled a bit until he found the blanket…the wonderful, snugly, warm blanket. He clenched it in his hands, savoring its softness.

“Pete!”

Tenderly, he laid it across over his wife, drawing it up to her shoulders, and then he gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. Apparently satisfied, she turned over and went back to sleep.

He felt something hard in his pocket. He took the object out and saw that it was a rock. It reminded him of those he’d seen at the cemetery. Shaking his head, he sat it on his bedside table. He’d ponder it more later.

He laid back and almost drifted back to sleep, but his bladder was full to bursting. Still feeling weak, he arose and staggered toward the bathroom off the master bedroom. He didn’t bother to turn on the light as light streamed in from the bedroom, and, having lived in the house for fourteen years, he knew his way around.

After doing his business, he turned, eager to return to the coziness and comfort of his familiar bed…and to the warmth and softness of his wife. He swore that he’d take nothing for granted again. But as he was about to exit the bathroom, he had an unrelenting desire to see his face. He just wanted that last bit of closure to his horrendous nightmare, that last bit of assurance that all was well.

He flicked on the light by the door, then turned toward the oval mirror above the sink.

And when he saw his reflection, he screamed, heart pounding in his chest.

His features were bloated, festering with decay just as they’d been in the cemetery.

He returned to the bedroom, seeking his wife’s help, but what he saw there, shocked him. A dead body laid in a pool of blood on the bed, the face bashed in and beyond recognition, but he knew it was his beloved wife. Beside her was the rock he’d found in his pocket. It was covered in blood.

“No!” he cried, rushing to her, hands touching her shoulder. “Wake up! Wake up!” He shook her, and then stopped, noticing the blood on his hands. He looked down at his pajamas. They were covered in blood as well.

A wicked laugh issued from behind him. The putrid scent of decay effused the air.

“They thought you were too young to kill, blamed me.”

“What?” His eyes were wild.

His Uncle Mike grinned. “It’s high time for justice. They’re waiting for you, Pete!”

“Waiting? Who?”

The bedroom walls faded and Pete found himself in the cemetery again, the dead coming toward him, arms outstretched, tattered clothes blowing in the wind. Among them, he saw his wife with her bashed in face. They crept closer, circling him, squeezing him into their fold, reaching out with their bony fingers.

“I told you, Pete, there’s no way to escape the ever after! Now come, and give your old uncle a hug.”

–The End–

© Bobette Bryan, 1998-2024