The thing about the guy was nobody really trusted him when he first got into town. He was like a ghost, coming in without anyone really seeing him but still having some kind of presence in the town. Or over the town. But our town was going through some tough times, so we couldn’t really afford to chase him away, either. Mayor Bob talked him up about what he’d bring to the town, like jobs and development. He bought three lots together, sight unseen. The old Jenkins place, the Harpers’ right next to it, and the empty lot behind the Harpers’. That was fine with everyone. The guy knocked both houses down and built, and that was fine too. This was still before he’d actually got to town.
When he did get here, he brought some exotic animals with him. It sounded cool in principle, but it actually freaked a lot of us out once he got here with them. Most of us didn’t see the animals when he first moved in, but we’d hear things. Things that didn’t quite sound like a lion or tiger—definitely weren’t wolves, but something else, and he never talked to anybody what they were. Mayor Bob asked him once about opening up the yard to tours now and then, letting the community see the exotic animals. I guess the guy just laughed and told Mayor Bob to get off his property.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the guy went and bought one of the cemeteries not long after getting to town. Like I said, the town didn’t have a lot of money, and graveyards aren’t really profitable in a town like ours, and I guess he made a good offer. The guy bought it not long after Mayor Bob went to visit about the animals. At first, we didn’t think much of it. The guy was obviously kind of an oddball, so maybe he just liked the idea of owning a cemetery. But then some people saw things, driving by it at night. Like the guy was letting his animals run loose.
The first person to see something was Gary W.—and you know Gary W. likes to drink—so we just kind of laughed it off.
“Sure Gary, maybe he has werewolves running around checking for zombies.” But then other people started seeing it too. Never quite seeing what exactly was there, only that it was too big to be a raccoon or a dog, and it didn’t look like a person. And we went to visit our loved ones buried there, things were different. Not ruined, not dug up, but there was a kind of energy that made us feel uncomfortable. It didn’t take long and we were all creeped out whether we went inside the cemetery or not. Felt a little shaky when we went by it. Kids would draw weird pictures in school. Teens would dare each other to go in at night, but they’d always chicken out, which was probably best. After a while, we asked Mayor Bob to go talk to the guy, and Mayor Bob tried, but the guy told Mayor Bob that he’d bought the land and that was that. It was true, so Mayor Bob couldn’t do much but come back to us and apologize.
There was talk of going and pounding on the guy’s door, telling him he couldn’t let wild animals run loose over our dead loved ones, but people lost their nerves when it came time to choose who would head that up. Those growls and howls were so strange, and you couldn’t really tell when the guy was in the house. Most of us never saw him.
The only person who didn’t lose nerve was Kay Lerner (you know she’s a little off, but that comes in handy sometimes). Kay told us not to worry about it, which, of course, worried us. Or, it made us worry more and differently. After a couple of weeks of knowing that weird animals were running loose in the cemetery, nobody could sleep well to begin with. We were all tired and jumpy and generally on edge. Most people had stopped visiting their loved ones’ graves all together, and, even if she was a little off, none of us wanted to see Kay get hurt.
Kay didn’t go knock on the guy’s door, and she didn’t talk to Mayor Bob. She just asked a group of ladies to watch outside the cemetery as she went in one night. She went over to where her mom and dad were buried, and she started laying things out on the ground. It didn’t take long, and some shadows started prowling around. The ladies outside started yelling, but Kay didn’t pay any attention at all, just kept laying things down and talking to the graves. When the guy eventually came to the front gate, Kay stood up, even before he went in.
The guy looked at all the women, said, “You shouldn’t be here,” and went into the cemetery, closing the gate behind him.
Kay and the guy had words, though none of the women outside could quite make out what was said. Eventually, Kay did come out. She stopped by the women and said, “I thank you for witnessing. You can go home now.”
They waited a bit after Kay left, then, they did go home. The guy stayed in the cemetery, the shadows prowling around him. It was two days later that Kay was found. Her body was on the side of a backroad when a group of teens found it. Her throat was ripped out and part of her face was eaten off. Most of us didn’t see it, but everyone who did said that the half of Kay’s face that was left looked shocked or sad or something. They couldn’t quite describe it, but it was clear that whatever did it wasn’t human.
On the one hand, we all knew that the guy’s exotic animals had done it, probably with him training them to. On the other hand, not a single one of us could prove it, so there was nothing that we could do. Just talk in hushed tones and get more creeped out about what was happening in the cemetery.
What some rich prick was letting happen to the bodies of our parents, our siblings, and, for a few, our children. The night of Kay’s funeral, all of the women who’d been standing watch had the exact same dream. Kay told them not to worry but anything, she’d take care of it.
Leading up to the funeral, there was some back and forth between Mayor Bob and the guy about what should happen to Kay’s body. At first, he didn’t want Kay to be in the cemetery, but he wouldn’t explain why, and Mayor Bob was sure that, if she didn’t end up there, there’d be torches and pitchforks.
Eventually, the guy just shrugged it off and Let Kay be buried in there. That was his second mistake, we all figure. His first was sending those animals after Kay. Or maybe those were his second and third, and his first was to buy the cemetery in the first place.
Whatever the case, it was only a few days later when the howling and yowling started. Everyone in town heard it, even if you didn’t exactly hear it. You felt it in your bones. At first, nobody wanted to check it out, and we all stayed in our houses. But, then, after it went quiet all of the sudden, some of us got even more spooked, and the phone calls started. So Andy (our sheriff), headed over to the guy’s place. He called to the guy, but nobody answered, so Andy opened the front gate, pulled out his gun, and walked to the door. He looked around, waiting for some kind of bear or big cat to come after him, but there weren’t any to be found, so he knocked on the front door. Still nothing. He called to the guy again, looked around, and, eventually, figured that he had to bust down the door.
Poor Andy. When he went in, he saw something in the shape of a man, but all the parts of a man were gone. Eye sockets empty, all the teeth ripped out, no insides to speak of. It was like someone had put a vacuum tube up inside the guy and sucked out everything but the skin, hair, and bone. Not any blood, just a lifeless husk sitting in a chair waiting to be found. Andy ran out of the house to throw up, and none of us blamed him.
The official story was that the exotic animals must have attacked and killed the guy, then they must have escaped into the woods in the area, but nobody believes that. That’s because of the ladies’ shared dream and one other detail. That detail has to do with the gravesites of Kay and her two parents. Now Kay’s grave, you’d expect to have fresh dirt, because she’d just been put in, but it looked for all the world like her parents’ graves had fresh dirt, too. We only ever noticed because a few of us went into the cemetery to see if the animals were there. The new dirt on the parents’ graves didn’t make any sense, but nobody wanted to question it. Especially given that we were finally sleeping all right again (all except for Andy, that is).
The night after the guy was gone, we all slept like babies. The town itself was quite as a grave, and we all hope it stays that way. //
About the Author
Zeke Jarvis (he/him/his) is a Professor of English at Eureka College. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Posit, and KNOCK, among other places. His books include, ‘So Anyway…, In A Family Way,’ ‘The Three of Them,’ and ‘Antisocial Norms.’ His website is zekedotjarvis.wordpress.com
About the Author
