FOREWORD

 

Mournful voices haunted her in the night…

The words were barely distinguishable, as dead and fragile as the cracking of dried leaves. From where they called to her, language was only a memory. A fragment of sound no longer carried over vocal chords, rasped between withering lips.

Sometimes, when they were near, she heard a hiss, like the rustling of a snake through undergrowth.

Worse than that was the sound of scratching.

She kept a light in her room, until the candles were extinguished or morning came, whichever was first.

She kept a gun beneath her pillow. The best sleep came at dawn, when those that whispered to her sought the sanctuary of their graves.

 

 

Luella arrived in town with one trunk and a suitcase.

The trip had been a long one. The train stopped two cities away, and from there she rode a coach up to Lazarus.

The town was small: a church, a city hall, a Sheriff’s station. A few stores, including a bakery and a commissary. The saloon and hotel sat further back from the street, the windows dark beneath the shutters drawn tight against the blanching desert heat.

Luella entered a small, dark building, and leaned over the counter to speak to the man behind it. “May I speak with the Sheriff?”

The deputy, a man named Sully, roused himself from his daydreaming and blinked.

The woman wore a fine, pale blue dress and matching hat. As hot as the afternoon was, he didn’t see a bead of sweat on her. She regarded him coolly, her brown eyes narrowing as his stare slipped from her face to the swell of her décolletage.

“Miss, uh, can I help you?” Sully asked. “If you’re here to report a crime, then I am the man you need to speak with.”

She smiled. “No sir, that’s not why I am here. I have specific business in which the Sheriff will take an interest.”

“Business. From a woman,” he muttered under his breath. “Well have a seat, ma’am.”

She stared at him for a moment, and seeing no other choice, took a seat in the corner.

Sheriff Drake didn’t come back into the office until a little past twelve. He saw the young woman sitting in a chair, playing with a timepiece in her palm.

“Miss?” he said.

She snapped the timepiece shut and looked up at him. “Are you Sheriff Drake?”

“Yes, I am ma’am. And you are… Miss…?”

“Mrs.,” she corrected, “Luella Pembry.”

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.

Her eyes flashed over at Sully, who pretended to read paperwork on the desk in front of him. “No sir, not at all,” she replied.

“Well please, come into my office, and we can discuss whatever it is you need.”

The Sheriff’s office was cramped. The desk seemed to take up most of the space in the room. The window behind the desk was open, but the air that sifted in was hot. Sitting across the desk from him, Luella was aware of just how close the space was.

The Sheriff was a tall man with black hair and dark eyes. He had a cleft chin, and olive skin. He grinned, and the expression lit his eyes.

“You’ll have to excuse Sully,” Drake said, “his manners could be better. I was a few doors down, talking with one of the shop owners. I’d have come if I knew you were waiting. Are you settling here in Lazarus?”

“That’s my intention,” she replied.

“Then your husband will be joining you?”

 “No, he won’t. I am a widow.”

 “I’m sorry for your loss ma’am. Is his passing recent?”

“Somewhat. It’s been little over a year.” she paused. “I’ve come here to get a new start.”

“You have relatives nearby?”

“No. Which is part of the reason I came to California.”

“Well I do suppose family can be both blessing and curse. So what brings you here to see me today, Mrs. Pembry?”

She sat back in her chair. Staring out the window, Luella paused before looking back at Drake.

“My husband was a wealthy man. I’d like to buy property here in Lazarus. I am told that, even with the means to buy, it’s very difficult for a lady like myself to secure land on her own. I was also told that certain exceptions could be made and that you’re the man with whom I should speak.”

“Mrs. Pembry, I do sympathize, but the town’s laws are what they are. I hope you’re not suggesting….”

“What I am suggesting is that I can be of service to you and your town. And once my services are provided, I’d like to purchase a plot of land here to build my own home, in my name.”

“Services? What would that be?”

“Sheriff Drake, the train’s been coming in to Roseville for a few years now. That’s a stone’s throw from here. By all rights, your town should be prospering. The old families stay, but new ones don’t come. There’s a reason for that.”

“Mrs. Pembry, I don’t recall you saying exactly where it is you’re from.”

“You don’t recall because I didn’t tell you. My husband and I lived in Boston. That’s where he was born. But I’m from Louisiana.”

“Then how is it you think you know so much about Lazarus?”

“I don’t think. I know,” she leaned forward in her chair, her voice dropping to a whisper. He could smell the scent of rosewater on her skin. “You and I both know that people are afraid to stay in this town, and for good reason.”

“Since you know all about the local folklore,” Drake spat, “let’s talk plainly about it, then. What is it you‘re getting at?”

“You’ve got a problem keeping the dead in their graves here,” she said. “And I can help you.”

Drake stared at her. A moment elapsed, and they were both silent.

“How did you come to hear of our local…folklore?” he pressed.

“People say things. I listen. It’s not as well kept a secret as you and Mayor Cole think that it is.”

“Mayor Cole…?”

“Jasper thinks that he knows everything,” she continued. “So do you. It’s one of the things you have in common. But as of late, it’s happening more often, isn’t it? The dead are restless.”

“Who are you?” Drake asked. “Who are you really?”

“That’s not the right question.”

“Then what  are you?”

She stood. When she smiled, the expression did not touch her eyes.

“Certainly, Sheriff Drake,” she said, “you can figure that out on your own.”

_____________________________

©2010 Lori Titus

Want more? This novella has been published through The Library of the Living Dead Press, and is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Lazarus-Lori-Titus/dp/1453775722/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285486200&sr=1-1

Edited by Felicia A. Tiller

Cover Art by Tony Smith

“Let’s cut through the cemetery,” cried Dugan as he wrenched at my arm.
 
“No,” I protested, “the crows don’t like people going through there.”
 
“Crows?  Don’t be a baby.”
 
Arguing with Dugan was pointless.  In the end, he’d get his way so I begrudgingly shuffled behind him and we slipped into the green-gray of the forgotten dead with their silent tombstones and fading identities.
 
“But the legend,” I whispered, “What about the legend?”
 
My eyes darted from side to side searching for movement.  They were here.  There were always here.
 
Ahead of us loomed a dozen tall gravestones gathered together like a fortress guarding the exit hole through the hedge and into our neighborhood.  On each gravestone stood several crows, all perched and gazing directly at us.
 
Dugan let go of me.  He knew the legend and while I suspected he didn’t really believe the tales of Joey Morton’s death two years earlier, seeing so many motionlessly watching our every step made even him reconsider for a moment.
 
He let out a giant yell as he ran to scare them off.  Not one moved.  Dugan got perturbed and reached for his sling shot.  As he carefully mounted a rock into the cracking leather pouch and pulled back the elastic, a piercing caw from behind broke his aim and the rock ricocheted off the stone of Archibald Hones, resident of the last of the readable inscriptions.
 
“What the…” yelped Dugan.  We were being ambushed from behind.
 
“I told you,” I screamed as I launched into a full on sprint to the hedge hole.
 
Dugan was dazed but not out of control.  He reloaded his sling shot and in an aspiring scene right out of a Spaghetti Western he whipped back around and fired his shot directly into one of the perched watchers.  The crow dropped with a lonely thud onto the stone below, sending the remaining watchers screeching in a flurry of black darting every direction.
 
“I got one,” shouted Dugan as he made a desperate run to the hole and into the safety of Mrs. Beezer’s back yard garden.
 
“Whew, that was close.”
 
“They don’t forget,” I warned him. 
 
Dugan knew the legend of Joey Morton.  Every kid we knew had told that story over and over.  Like any fantastic tale, the real details were long lost.  All we did know was that summer Joey accidentally threw his boomerang over the hedge and into the cemetery killing a crow. 
 
Afterwards, Joey kept telling everyone that the crows wouldn’t leave him alone.   By the end of summer they were driving him mad.  No one actually saw what happened the night of his death, the doctors concluded that he died of massive head trauma; a result of running head first into one of the cemetery tombstones. 
 
The other scratches across all his arms and legs were what really helped fuel the legend that the crows had attacked him though.
  
“They don’t forget,” I repeated that night while brushing my teeth.
 
“Yeah, you already told me.  You know what?  I do,” snarled Dugan and he got into bed.
 
After school the next day, I followed Dugan on my bike as we made our way down Chase Street.  There was a long wooden fence running up to the sidewalk.  At first I didn’t notice them but with each passing slat of fence they grew thicker, blacker.  Their lurking presence took us both by surprise and caused us to crash. 
 
I crashed my bike into the fence and flew off the seat and rolled to a stop on the sidewalk.  Dugan wasn’t as lucky.  I gazed over and he wasn’t there.  It wasn’t until I realized that the traffic around me was stopped on the road that I began to realize what had happened.  He swerved left off the curve and right in front of a passing garbage truck.  After that:  blackness.
 
 “Let’s go home,” said Randy, my older brother, at the hospital.  Randy rarely ever got involved in our doings.  He was five years our senior and considered himself all grown up and beyond our childish stuff.
 
“They never forget,” I thought from Randy’s back seat.  My stomach gurgled.  Dugan’s loss was terrible and I hadn’t even come to the realization he was gone but this was about me.  This was about them.
 
Randy lived up from the edge of the cemetery on Berma road that climbed to the plateau above.  Taking that route, I knew they would be there…watching.
 
I swore I saw something black perched on a guardrail across the road.  I was about to dismiss it when a large black crow landed directly onto his hood and stood looking at him. 
 
“Yikes,” he squealed and swerved.
 
The car ripped the guardrail up as if it were made of paper and swung precariously over edge teetering on two wheels.  Every small movement seemed to sway the car up and down inching it closer to a full on plunge over the edge.  A crow landed on the corner of the car hanging over the edge.  More landed.  The car began to sway toward the edge.
 
“Cut your seat belts,” yelled Randy as he threw me a pocket knife. 
 
With three car seats tied together I formed a makeshift lasso and caught a piling above.  We held tight as the car slid off the edge and dropped to a grizzly crash landing below. 

“We don’t have much time, they never forget.”
 
Indeed, the crows seemed intent on surrounding the seatbelt looped around the guardrail post.  To my horror I saw that the webbing was connected by a seat belt buckle still hooked in.  They were trying to open it and disconnect us!  The unison caw and the ominous click were the last things I heard before blackness.
 
Nearly six months went by; much of it in a hospital recovering from multiple fall related injuries.  After that, I kept my distance from the old neighborhood.  Preparing.  Stockpiling.  Plotting.  Because, I too, will never forget.

———————-
©2010 Edmund Welter

 Ed Welter writes various genres of fiction.  He currently maintains a short story blog called A Tale of Words (http://taleofwords.blogspot.com) and a popular humor blog he writes under the writer’s pseudonym “VE” called VE’s Fantastical Nonsense (http://vehow.blogspot.com)