The Early Sun Cemetery was created sometime during World War I, and according to records no one has been buried there since 1945. It is about the size of a basketball court and adjacent to a small library which is located across the street from an abandoned Naval Ship yard. There are several old oaks in the middle of the yard and they provide a porous canopy across the hundred or so headstones. The stones are cracked and chipped and many are illegible because years of moss and fungus have faded the original engravings. However, the grass, what little there is, is always neatly trimmed and dead limbs and trash are always picked up by the library’s janitor. In the sunlight the graveyard appears well kept and pleasant, but moonlight shadows cast by a neighboring church’s bell tower and oak trees create a different appearance when the sun falls. The yard appears to illuminate in night with the touch of the moon’s rays.

The tall black iron fence is new and stands in contrast to the old cemetery and presents us with an access problem. I visited the cemetery several times through out the week, looking for a grave and searching for the best place to park. Fletcher’s grave sits away from the trees, so there wouldn’t be many roots to contend with and is close enough to the library as to be out of sight. I first heard of the Early Sun Cemetery back in the summer. I was leafing through a newspaper and came upon this article.

LIBRARY WANTS TO DEMOLISH GRAVEYARD

BY GENE MCDONALD

CULBETTER- Local residents petition for graveyard to be left alone by city. Relatives of the Early Sun Cemetery’s resident had petitioned city council to spare their ancestors resting places from the bulldozer. The hundred year old cemetery has been slated for demolition so the library can make way for a new technology wing that will house personal computers for public use.

Culbetter’s city council has not made a ruling yet, but local sources say that a postponing of the relocation is unlikely. The cemetery is slated to be moved on November 14 of this year. Kitty Bern, whose relative is buried in the cemetery, said,” My great grandfather has laid there for sixty years and digging him up now is a horrible sin.” The library refused to comment. However, the library’s janitor,r who has worked there for years, said, “This cemetery has been here for years. Disturbing the dead jus ain’t right. There planty room for them to add on somewhere else without digging dem graves up.”

The city council will make a ruling tonight. A small contingent of protestors is expected to be present, but similar cases that have come up before the council had not been successful.

I see the janitor as I am leaving the library. He is pushing a Toro across the dirt, grass, and sticks of the cemetery and kicking up one hell of a cloud in the process. The parking lot is filling with a dusty mist that casts a reddish hue when it mingles with the late afternoon’s fading sun. I walk up to him in full confidence and exuding all signs of warm sincerity.

“How are ya?” I extend my hand and he accepts. He is in his late fifties. Six feet or so inches tall, salt and pepper hair, wearing painter’s overalls.

“Just fine young man. What can I do for ya?”

“How long have you been working here?”

“Some twenty-five years come May.”

“Twenty five years, eh? How much do you make an hour, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Looking for a job?”

“Well, it’s for a research paper, that’s all.”

“Twelve, twelve an hour. Plus state retirement and all.” Changing his expression slightly to fit with the answer he gives.

“Yeah! Eh, how would you like to make one hundred dollars?”

“Doing what boy!”

“Leave the gate to that cemetery unlocked next Wednesday night. What do you say?”

“Whatch ya want in a cemetery boy?”

“That’s my business, nothing will be destroyed, believe me. Only one grave will be disturbed, which we’ll cover back up when we’re done.”

“Na, sounds like I may end up with a helluva mest when a bunch ah drunk college boys finish raisin hell.”

“Nope, no mess, no nothing, and it will only be two of us. What do you say?”

“No mess?”

“No mess. Not a bit.”

“It’s done.” I pull two fifties from my wallet and the old man shakes on it. He then pauses, “I feel I mus warn ya though. You go pullin on the devil’s tail you might get bit.”

“What are you saying? Are there snakes?” I reply

“Na, no snakes underneath dem stones, jus ded men. Long ded. You go pullin up one of their graves an yew could end up. Well I hate ta say.”

“You just make sure that gates unlocked next Wednesday!”

“Easy son. No problem there young man. Dat gate will be unlocked for ya, sure as the sun will set!” He says while inspecting the two fifties then shoving them in his dirty pocket.

Next Wednesday arrives and the gate is open as negotiated. Ernesto and I fumble around with our shovels and lights for a while until we are situated. The car is parked across the street as to not attract attention. I break ground first. The moon provides some light through the clouds, but the tree branches scatter the rays in awkward patterns, so the light was very sparse. I light an oil lamp and place it on top of the headstone as we dig. We throw dirt over our shoulders with the warmth of the lamp cascading overhead, the bugs our only spectators.

“What’s his name?” Ernesto whispers, not that there was any point. The place was vacant and I couldn’t hear a thing, not even evening traffic from the boulevard a block away. Neighborhood houses are dark and aside from a few dogs barking in the distance, there is still silence.

“Albert Fletcher. It says it right there on the stone.”

“He was a soldier?”

”Yeah, I guess.” I pause for a moment, “Is that a problem?”

“No, not really, just that I was told it was very bad luck to disturb a soldier’s grave.”

“Look, less talk, more digging. I want to get out of her just as fast as you do.”

Digging down about four feet we hit the coffin. We are both sweaty and covered in dirt but we have only been here for an hour. I scrape the remnants of dirt off the coffin with my hand while Ernesto stands graveside, looking around nervously. I gather his heart was pumping just as fast as mine. I take the blade of my shovel and shove it into the side and pry the rotten box open. The top peels off like a wet band aid and I grab it by the edges and toss it over on a mound of dirt beside the grave. I place both my feet on each side of the box so I am standing over the skeleton.

There is not much left. Worms and time had erased any evidence that this was a human or a human’s remains. Portions of the rib cage, spinal column, and femurs are all that are left, and the skull, it was barely recognizable and had large amounts of dirt and root caked on it. I lean forward and grab what seems to be just a ball of mud and root, but slivers of milky bone peeks through the ancient dirt. Two small indentions indicate where the nose had been. This was it. I had a skull.

I muster my best English accent and say, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Ernesto; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”

Ernesto stops looking around and stares at the huge clump of dirt in my hand.

“Is that it? Is it? Let’s go! Hurry!” He says quickly, as if we were now in a rush for some reason.

But I keep pushing my fingers around the skull letting the flecks of mud slide off my fingertips and onto the ground. A slight wind blows through and I can hear drops of rain hitting the leaves of the oak.

“Let’s go!” He starts shoveling dirt back into the grave, even though I am still in it. I balance carefully on the edges of the coffin, then jump out of the grave and place the skull in a plastic garbage bag we brought.

“Start shoveling, quick! Before the rain comes.” Ernesto shouts. He is furiously throwing dirt into the hole. I join in, but keep glancing back at my prize.

The moon was gone and the rain is pouring by the time we finish filling the grave back in. We hustle out the Iron Gate, leaving it open and swinging. The Oil lamp is left on top of the headstone, still glowing, making our crime scene an eerie highlight in the otherwise black yard.

It was quarter till two when we arrive back at the Frat House. No one was awake and we take the skull into the garage. We wash our hands in a big sink. I take two drafts out of the fridge, handing one to Ernesto. Removing the skull from the bag I place it on top of a work bench and we both stand their in the garage light inspecting what we have stolen.

“Looks kind of fucked up a little.”

“Nah,” I said. “It just needs to be cleaned” I ran some water over it and let the dirt fall until the skull was visible. I place it back on the bench and wipe my hands with a rag.

“Still looks fucked up.” Ernesto says as he places it at different angles letting the light fill the contours and crevices in different ways.

“Nah. It’s fine. It’s just old.” I laugh to myself and Ernesto continues to look at the skull with cockeyed intensity.

“It’s fucked up. Look at it. It’s wrong!”

I grab a rag off the table and remove the remaining bits of mud from the skull, dampening the rag with paint thinner I give the bone a stringent and sterile look. I want Ernesto to see the whole thing, or at least to stop saying it is messed up.

I finish my detail work and stand back. Jesus, I think, it is fucked. One eye socket is immensely bigger that the other, it’s like an orange next to a golf ball. There is a long, thick deformity that runs from the forehead to the back and gives the skull the appearance of a Mohawk. The nasal cavities are too large for any human. The cheek bones are sticking out and give off an alien appearance.

Ernesto smiles, “That’s one ugly skull. God damn! I want to go back and bury that thing.”

“You’re right. Damn! We can’t give them this. They’ll laugh their asses off!” We both stand and stare while sipping our brews, figuring out what to do, or how to present this deformity to the fraternity, if that was possible.

I finally say it, “We gotta go back.”

“Nooo wayyyyy!” Ernesto says. “I am not going back for another skull. You chose the grave and now we are stuck with Albert’s deformed head.”

I start to get pissed, “Look! There is no way we can give this to them, we have to find a replacement. We already have the tools and the gate is still unlocked. It will take two hours, two and a half tops. We should be done by four.” I stop for a brief second and let him digest my logic, then beg, “I need your help.”

“Asshole! Asshole!”

“What were the chances? How could I know the skull would be screwed?”

“Ok, but I ain’t doing a whole lot of digging.”

I felt relief; he agreed to help me do the deed, again. We hop in my car and barrel down the boulevard in the rain. The wipers toss puddles of rain off the windshield as we race against the clock. Frantically, I look over at Ernesto and sense his unhappiness.

“How are we gonna do this in the rain?” He asked.

“We’ll have to! Come on, it won’t be that bad.”

“Why can’t we do it tomorrow night?”

“Because I already spent a hundred bucks to get the gate open tonight and I am not spending another hundred bucks for a skull. Now this shouldn’t take long. Just relax and have another beer.”

“You owe me!” He says this with intensity and then sips his beer.

“I know. I feel cheated in some odd way”, I say, but I know this has to be a case of bad luck and nothing more. I wanted the skull to be perfect and longed for this ordeal to be over.

We race across the street from my car with our shirts over our heads and sliding past the cemetery’s Iron Gate. The oil lamp was still on the headstone, lit and producing a dim beam against the downpour.

We stomp from grave to grave with our flashlights, in the ever deepening puddles that are beginning to form on the surface of the yard. My feet are sinking into the mud with every other step; I stop at a thin tombstone that was taller than the rest. It sits a bit crooked and just has a name and dates, nothing more.

“This one. Here!” I shout.

Ernesto splashes over to where I was standing and shines his light on the headstone.

“Margie Ferrington?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not.”

“A girl’s skull?”

“No one will know except us.”

“I don’t know, just doesn’t seem right, given what we are going to use it for.”

“Well, which one do you like?” He shines his flashlight across the yard and its dim beam points to a white moss covered stone that reads:

To all ye that gaze upon this stone here lies Herald Gossomer. A man who led a prosperous life and died an untimely death. His memory lives on in our works.

“What does that mean?”

“How should I know, but it sounds like he was important or something.”

“Alright. Important is good. Less a chance of him having been the elephant man.”

We break ground on Herald Gossomer’s grave, heaving the mounds of muddy earth into the air in a frantic pace only to have them splash back into the hole. It almost seems like a futile task for a while, but after a half an hour, we hit the coffin.

Same as before, I jam the edge of my shovel into the crevice and pry off the top. The pouring rain immediately floods the box. The rain beats away the dirt this time however, and the skull is more visible than the last. I inspect it with my flashlight and it looks like a fine skull. Ivory white and all the teeth are present. No deformities or abnormal contours. It is a beauty. I toss it to Ernesto who in turn flashes his light underneath, all the beams spill out of the holes.

Then, the rain suddenly stops. All that is audible are drippings from trees and gutters. Tiny drips and splashes of remaining water finding their way to the ground. We are soaked and in terrible shape. I begin to cough as I jump out of the hole.

The night begins to reveal a chill and with our clothes already wet, Ernesto and I begin shaking as we gaze upon the skull. The flashlight underneath reveals strange patterns and I ask Ernesto to turn the light off. He does and it assumes a normal color under the moonlit canopy.

“Let’s take it over to the lamp on the other grave,” I said.

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

We trample over to the other grave which is filled with rain water and mud; most of the remaining bones in the breached coffin have floated out of the hole in the downpour. I rotate the skull under the lamp light and I cannot see anything wrong, no unusual colors or hues.

“Stop, hold the thing right there,” Ernesto said.

“Here?” I held the skull tight and put it even closer to the lamp.

“Yes, I see, there are strange blue patterns, a little yellow, now it’s purple.”

“I see, Jesus, maybe it’s the rain water?”

Just then the whole skull turns a bright green, and gives off a strange glow. I drop the thing right then. It lays half sunk in a puddle, but still pulsing with a warm green glow. Ernesto grabs a shovel and smashes it down on top of the thing, causing the skull to shatter into a bunch of small green fragments that sliver and shine. The bone fragments from the skull begin to take on a life of their own; flapping and squirming around in the mud and water, like grounded little minnows suffocating on a shoreline.

I grab a shovel and begin to cover up the whole scene, Ernesto joins in and we bury every little glowing piece we see. Exhausted, we collapse behind Fletcher’s head stone and I immediately begin to feel weak. I look at Ernesto and see his head shifting shape. The veins pulsating in his face cause the cheeks to tear open. He begins to vomit on the ground and I can see the back of his head growing larger as if some bubble had formed on his brain. His forehead bulges and turns purple, he begins tearing his black hair out in agony. I stand up in panic, he turns and looks at me and his eyes are bleeding. I clasp my shovel and stand back in horrific shock and disbelief. I think I am hallucinating, but his body is pushing the threshold of any human form. His screams and cries crack across the night. Running back to my car I leave him there in self mutilating torture.

Barreling back up the boulevard I keep looking in my rearview mirror to see if anyone is following. I notice my eyes getting larger. I feel a sharp piercing pain run across the middle of my skull and I have blurred vision. I drive faster wanting to make it back to the house to retrieve Fletcher’s skull. Maybe by returning it I could reverse this terrible process that was plaguing us I think to my self, meanwhile my sickness grows worst.. I thought about Ernesto, was he still alive? Could this be explained? “Agggggggggh,” I scream out in agony. My head is pounding with a sharp pain and I feel my forehead and eyes expanding, pushing the skin’s envelope. The blood, turgid against my temple, seems to be boiling beneath my skin. I turn my sight from the mirror and concentrate on the road. The street’s lights trail as my vision becomes worse. I look down at my shirt and see drops of blood. I don’t know where they are coming from. My nose. I reach upwards to feel it but discover just a wet fleshy mound that leaves my fingers dabbled with blood and fluid. I try to focus and keep the car on the road, making it to the garage and that skull is all that matters, this is voodoo of some kind.

After about five minutes of intense pain I look back into the mirror. The vision I see is not me, not in my original form. My forehead is elongated and my eye sockets are drooping and seem to shift shape before my eyes. My chin is now resting on my Adam’s apple and the cheek bones are becoming bloated with fluid.

I crash my car through a huge puddle at the foot of the driveway and pulling my shirt over my head I exit the car and dash inside the garage. Frantically, I bash around the garage barely able to see I place my hands on the deformed skull and shove it underneath my arms. I stumble and fall out of the door. Voices coming up the driveway, but I can only make out blurry and translucent shapes. They are over top of me now speaking.

“Mark, you got it hell yes! What’s a matter man… holy Jesus; fuck Mark, what happened to your face?”

MEDICAL EXAMINER

CULBETTER COUNTY

REPORT OF AUTOPSY

Name: RESTON, Mark Case # 506789 Age: 21 yrs Race: White Sex: Male

Date of death: November 11, 2006 Date of Autopsy: November 14, 2006 at 08:40 hrs

Cause of death: Acute Radiation Sickness caused by external exposure to unknown radiation source. Complete loss of bone marrow and severe internal bleeding then heart failure.

Manner of death: Undetermined

I open my eyes and I am in absolute pain. It takes a while to adjust to the dim light, the moment I open my eyes they fill with water and I have to shut them again. I try to speak , but my throat fills with fluid. I attempt to shout but only gargle sounds. A black blur hovers over me speaking, I assume it is a doctor.

“Well, well, I see you gots bit. By the looks of it you’ve gotten bit good too.” The blur shakes as it laughs. I turn my head sideways and attempt to escape the voice.

“Now come on, the pain, it’ll get worse if you keeps fighting the process. Let me dab yo head with this cool rag. Now, see how much better that feels.”

The moist rag on my forehead eases the burn I feel. I begin to cry I feel hate all of the sudden, intense hate and springing urges to do violent things. Intense images of horrible acts flash through my brain. I feel rushes of rage that subside with feelings of guilt. My mind is changing. I can’t……….

“You going to be the best one yet, I cans tell by the way you let me dab yo head.”