“Like the City Slicer?” Art asked.
“Scream blue blazes and run like hell. Look, yes, any city seems to draw more crazies. That doesn’t mean that weird or bad things can’t happen here.”
Tommy Hilliard barely suppressed a laugh. “Like a ghost — or a vampire rising?” he asked.
Officer Claymore looked at him. “Who knows about Ethan Fray, hmm? But I guess it was before your day, Tommy Hilliard. While legends may be legends, what people do with them can be bad. Trust me — nothing good happens after midnight in that cemetery.”
Art let out a soft laugh. “Ah, come on, Officer Claymore! No disrespect intended, sir — but it’s a cemetery.” Art was getting tall, too, but he had a lean build. He could run like a rabbit, and he had done the community proud with many an amazing touchdown.
“Right,” Frank Legrand said. “The dead don’t really come back to life.”
“No?” Claymore asked, smiling slightly. “There’s been a saying for years — don’t go into the old cemetery after midnight.”
“Someone cursed it, right?” Mary asked nervously.
“Of course!” Marcy said.
“Ah, come on,” Art said. “Every good cemetery should have a curse. Even an ‘after midnight’ curse. I mean, we’re all creeped out by death.”
“Mr. Richard—” Claymore began, using the customary pronunciation of the name.
“Ree-chard,” Art corrected. “Old Cajun family,” he told Claymore, shaking his head and looking around. “Not Art Richard. Art Ree-chard.”
Claymore nodded. “All right, Mr. Ree-chard. The curse supposedly came with our famous vampire, Elizabeth Barclay. She supposedly came back to life — even with her heart cut out and burned — and warned people to stay out of the cemetery after midnight. And in 1923, cops back then found a pair of lovers with their throats slit in front of the Barclay vault on a fine, sunny morning — they’d last told friends they were heading into the cemetery for real privacy.”
“A century ago,” Frank murmured. He smiled. “But that’s cool, Officer. We’re here to just have a slumber party in the parlor — you know we all graduate and go off soon, and this is... well, you know, we’re going to just kind of have some quality time before going in different directions.”
“1950,” Officer Claymore continued. “Someone strung up a man like a scarecrow — on the side of the Barclay vault. And in 1980 — not long after the vampire craze hit New Orleans and surrounding areas — we found an unidentified woman drained of blood and left... left right by the gate to this house. Maybe she was trying to escape the cemetery and the curse and just didn’t make it. She wasn’t found in the yard — her body was in the cemetery. So, hey, I’m a logical man. But I still say, don’t go fooling around in the cemetery now. Is the cemetery cursed, or do crazy killers just like cemeteries? I don’t know. Just watch out now because it is after midnight.”
“Thank you so much, Officer Claymore,” Marcy said. She smiled brightly. “We’re all in for the night.”
He nodded to them briefly and turned to go.
Marcy closed the door and leaned against it. “At last! Give him ten minutes and then we can go out and set up our little tents and tell more tall tales.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Hayley said. “Marcy, maybe we should just stay in.”
Frank made a squawking sound and acted like a chicken.
“Hey!” Mary protested.
“Ah, come on,” Art said. “Claymore was making fun of all of us — he’s probably laughing his ass off right now, thinking he’s scared the shit out of us and we’ll just stay here, quaking or running on home. Let’s do what we came to do — sleep in the cemetery!”
“Let’s do it,” Frank said. He smiled and headed to the back of the house; the canvas sacks containing their sleeping bags and two pop-up tents they’d acquired from an on-line shopping source waited there, out of sight from the front of the house.
“He’s right. Let’s do this,” Tommy said, striding after Frank.
“I don’t... I don’t like it,” Mary said.
“You can go home,” Art suggested. “I mean... we’re all here, but if you’re afraid in a group of six, well...”
Mary shook her head. “No, I want to be with you all, but... okay, let’s go.” She looked at Hayley, maybe hoping that Hayley would protest.
“There are six of us,” Hayley said.
She wasn’t sure why she had an uneasy feeling. But then, she’d thought it a strange thing to do from the get-go. Even after moving to New Orleans, she’d come back frequently to spend the weekend with her cousin.
She’d grown up with the cemetery as part of her family life.
Maybe she was just being like Mary — spooked by the legends, or by Officer Claymore. She knew, of course, that the things he had told them were true. Her uncle knew, too, but he didn’t believe in curses — he believed in bad people doing bad things.
As she followed the others out, she looked up to the sky. There was no rain forecast; it was spring, and the night was just right, hovering around seventy degrees. Here, even the nights could sometimes be sticky hot once summer was in full bloom, but tonight...
The temperature was beautiful; there was a light stir of breeze in the air. And overhead...
It was a full moon. A shimmering, bright full moon. As beautiful as the weather, except... tonight, it made her shiver.
“A full moon!” Mary breathed, walking beside her.
Frank, just a bit ahead, heard her. “Hey, the place is cursed by a vampire, Mary, my love.”
“Right,” Tommy called. “Sorry, the place is home to no werewolves.”
Hayley gasped suddenly, looking through the tombs in their neat rows, noting that the moon had certainly made the night brighter — but it had also allowed for strange shadows to form. And...
She thought she’d just seen a shadow move.
“What, what, what?” Mary asked worriedly.
Hayley laughed. “Sorry, I just... I think I dropped my ring. I’ll be right back.”
She was an idiot. No, she knew this place, had grown up knowing this place...
Still, dumb! It was after midnight!
What the hell am I doing? She asked herself.
Well, running through the vaults alone because you saw a shadow. Brilliant.
She’d only gone two rows in and stood in front of the McCafferty vault when she saw her “shadow.”
The vault was unusual in that it had an open alcove, an area before the giant gated door that was covered and offered two benches in front of a statue of St. Francis. Hayley’s history had taught her that Judith McCafferty had loved animals and brought about some of the first laws that punished human beings for cruelty to animals. She loved the vault; she sometimes brought flowers herself for the metal holders that held them while they were fresh and living and allowed them to be easily removed when they were not.
Her shadow was there; she thought at first she had come upon an unknown form of monster because she just saw a dark form seated on one of the tile benches. Then she realized it was just a man. A bearded and somewhat scraggly-looking man, slightly bowed as he sat, hands in prayer as she came upon him.
He looked up fast, as startled as she was.
“I... hi!” Hayley said.
She saw him wince, saw the weariness in his sad eyes — powder blue, she thought — as he looked at her.
“I’m sorry; I can get out. This alcove here... it shields you from the wind and rain. When there is rain. I know I can’t be here. You’re the caretaker’s daughter.”