Undead Read Free

him, to show her annoyance, and he followed her around the side of the church.
    There was no lawn, no gate—just tombstones, sticking up in the tall grass, under the trees, where a few scattered dead leaves crackled under their feet as they walked. The tombstones began in the grass just a few yards from the church and spread out, among trees and foliage, toward the edge of the surrounding woods.
    The stones ranged in size from small identifying slates to large monuments of carefully executed design—an occasional Franciscan crucifix or a carved image of a defending angel. The oldest tombstones, grayed and browned and worn with age, almost seemed not to be tombstones at all; instead, they were like stones in the forest, blurred by the darkening silence engulfing the small rural church.
    The gray sky contained a soft glow from the recent sun, so that trees and long blades of grass seemed to shimmer in the gathering night. And over it all reigned a peaceful silence, enhanced rather than disturbed by the constant rasp of crickets and the rustle of dead leaves swirling in an occasional whispering breeze.
    Johnny stopped, and watched Barbara moving among the graves. She was taking her time, being careful not to step on anybody’s grave, as she hunted for the one belonging to her father. Johnny had a hunch that the idea of being in the cemetery after dark had her frightened, and the thought amused him because he was still angry with her and he wanted her to suffer just a little for making him drive two hundred miles to place a wreath on a grave—an act he considered stupid and meaningless.
    “Do you remember which row it’s in?” his sister called out hopefully.
    But he neglected to answer her. Instead, he smiled to himself and merely watched. She continued going from stone to stone, stopping at each one that bore a hint of familiarity long enough to read the name of the deceased. She knew what her father’s tombstone looked like, and she could remember also some of the names of the people buried nearby. But with the approaching darkness, she was having trouble finding her way.
    “I think I’m in the wrong row,” she said, finally.
    “There’s nobody around here,” Johnny said, purposely emphasizing their aloneness. Then, he added, “If it wasn’t so dark, we could find it without any trouble.”
    “Well, if you’d gotten up earlier…” Barbara said, and she let her voice trail off as she began moving down another row of graves.
    “This is the last time I blow a Sunday on a gig like this,” Johnny said. “We’re either gonna have to move Mother out here or move the grave closer to home.”
    “Sometimes I think you complain just to hear yourself talk,” Barbara told him. “Besides, you’re just being silly. You know darned well Mother’s too sick to make a drive like this all by herself.”
    Suddenly a familiar tombstone caught John’s eye. He scrutinized it, recognized that it was their father’s, and considered not telling Barbara so she would have to hunt a while longer; but his drive to get started toward home won out over his urge to torment her.
    “I think that’s it over there,” he said, in a flat, detached tone, and he watched while Barbara crossed over to check it out, taking care not to step on any graves as she did so.
    “Yes, this is it,” Barbara called out. “You ought to be glad, Johnny—now we’ll soon be on our way.”
    He came over to their father’s grave and stared at the inscription briefly before taking the wreath out of the brown paper bag.
    “I don’t even remember what Dad looked like,” he said. “Twenty-five bucks for this thing, and I don’t even remember the guy very much.”
    “Well, I remember him,” Barbara said, chastisingly, “and I was a lot younger than you were when he died.”
    They both looked at the wreath, which was made out of plastic and adorned with plastic flowers. At the bottom, on a piece of red plastic shaped like a ribbon tied in a large