Written in Stone

A little Southern Gothic fiction for this Halloween season

The desolate road snaked under afternoon clouds, coiling through swamplands east of Shreveport. Once a major transportation artery, the crumbling road sat idle, a discarded memory since the local interstate’s completion decades earlier.

Ancient willows emerged from the murky water, their satiated roots anchored to unseen earth. The trees remained perpetually in motion, swaying under the weight of a sticky breeze that never cooled.

James did not feel the damp air through the open window of his Dodge Shadow, a sluggish coupe he bought on the cheap at an estate sale years earlier. He did not see the branches as he passed underneath. He took no notice at the veil of Spanish moss pulled overhead as it cast speckled shade. His gaze instead roamed ahead. To his right, a hill emerged from the swampland’s grasp, rising into a small clearing, free of shadows and spotlit in sun. The glisten of dewy stone caught James’ attention.

He slowed to a stop, not bothering to pull over. Opening the car door, he waited for the electric seat belt to whir past his face. A feature he once detested but had grown fond of over the months of driving, in search of what existed atop the hill.

Rolling his head to combat a stiff neck, he clasped fingers together and stretched, reaching for the sky beyond the trees. His slight frame and underdeveloped, ropy muscles carried tension few people twice his size could handle, though not from the years of sleeping on cots or cheap motel mattresses. Nor from poor posture, as he crouched and bent over his work. That tension he didn’t mind. Pain reminded him of being alive. No, it was the tension of arguing parents, screaming in front of him, that had burrowed into his body. Even when he went outside as a child, to flip rocks and talk to bugs, he felt the whipping crack of his name through open summer windows as they yelled. Every fight rooted deeper, corrupting mind and muscles into a tension he couldn’t forget, no matter how much he tried.

From the back seat, James removed a long broom handle. He pressed the pole against the base of the hill. Swamps were notorious for lurking under ordinary-looking grass, waiting to swallow unsuspecting victims. The broom handle didn’t slip into a muddy sludge or disappear into hidden water. He had knee-high boots available, just in case, but hated slipping the thick rubber footwear on almost as much as he hated prying them off. Satisfied with a few additional probes, James stepped to the hill cautiously, as if a wrong move might send him tumbling through to the center of the earth. Damp, sucking sounds accompanied his steps as he walked to the top of the hill and a forgotten cemetery. Overgrowth consumed most of the headstones, devouring markers and crosses.

Only a single statue of Archangel Michael remained, looking down his moss-covered nose at the ruins of the cemetery. Missing a wing and two fingers, he once pointed at the horizon, the maimed figure waited, biding his time until the swamp claimed him and he too would return to the earth. James studied the figure, his hand running over grime and dirt and whatever land barnacles clung to the stone spores. Looking over the forgotten plot, he counted a dozen lumps of grass, each hiding grave markers, although there were likely more. He would have a better idea once he cleared it all away.

Back at the Dodge Shadow, he used his broom handle to prop the trunk open, as the hydraulics had failed long before he took ownership. Inside, tools of his trade. A weedwhacker and a small gas can mix of fuel and oil sat next to a shovel, trowels, brushes, cement mix, water, and a portable tripod crane. Tucked along the side of the trunk, his stone carving set, wrapped tightly in a weathered canvas satchel. He bought the set soon after the Savannah Bonaventure Cemetery hired him to refinish gravestones. The job fell short of satisfying his archaeological dream, but he had no passion or drive for long-winded academics. Abandoning Georgia Southern without a degree, he discovered restoring gravestones soothed his tension in a way academia never could. He worked on the stones at dusk and dawn, away from the tourists who yelled and asked questions.

Always the yelling. He hated the yelling.

James grabbed the weedwhacker and gas can, then removed the wood broom handle. The trunk slammed shut, disturbing the quiet like a gunshot. Returning to the cemetery, he didn’t notice the movement of shadows on the other side of the road, nor did he feel the pair of eyes watching from the carcass of an abandoned church as he hoisted his tools.

---

Hidden amongst trees and shadows at the crest of an adjacent hill sat the husk of a wooden church. Its missing door and shattered windows ensured all who came could enter. The pews, long since removed, allowed space for the full-moon ceremonies that now took place, seen only by participants and a waterlogged bible, hidden under animal droppings and pieces of a collapsed roof. The outline of a cross remained bleached on the back wall, looking down on the absent congregation, freshly drawn pentagram, and splintered wood flooring. Sleeping bags for the two guardians of the building were strewn alongside wadded food wrappers and spent needles.

Buddy paced aimlessly, his right hand digging at scabs that would never heal. His ragged tank top, stained with dirt and blood and a life poorly lived, hid away a torso more bone than flesh. He was the first to see the car pull to a stop and the man step out. Nobody had ever stopped or paid any attention to the cemetery across the street. Nobody had ever searched the hill or found the unmarked grave at its rear. If someone did, there would be questions, and questions meant attention, and attention meant police. His eyes twitched from the man in the distance to Wesley, his older brother, standing on crumbling steps outside the church.

The coven had made Wesley and Buddy lookouts. Not that Wesley gave a damn about the coven. Or the owners of the blood, now dried on the floor. He cared about the woman who welcomed him in, and he would do anything for her. He already had. And now he watched the man cut away years of overgrowth with a weedwhacker. He wondered if the man would go away on his own or if he would need to be made to go away.

Wesley grabbed at the bottom of his matching tank top, smearing away sweat and dirt from his forehead. “Buddy,” he hissed over his shoulder. “Get the tools. We’re going around.”

---

The coughing rumble of the weedwhacker competed with humidity to fill the air. It blotted out the sounds of insects and the caw of birds, the rustle of wind-tousled trees and creatures moving in shadows. James heard nothing but his memories above the whirring white noise. Sometimes he thought of past grave sites he restored. Work he felt most pleased with. An intricate carving. A moss-covered marker restored to like-new conditions. Stone figures nursed back to prominence with his love and care. Other times he thought of a girl. The way she smelled when he sat behind her in class. Her laugh that bubbled like chocolate milk. The way only one cheek dimpled when she smiled. Like most girls, she didn’t know he existed, let alone know his name. At least he assumed she didn’t. They never spoke. If she looked in his direction, his eyes went to the ground. But he once loved her. Maybe he still did. Occasionall,y thoughts drifted to his parents. How his mom blamed him for her inability to have more kids. How she took that anger out on his father, and how his father took that anger out on him. James didn’t like to think of his parents, though. He’d rather think of the girl.

Making short work of the grass, James set the weedwhacker aside. He managed to clear away the overgrowth from the small cemetery, uncovering fourteen grave markers as well as the collapsed corner of a cast-iron fence. It took some moving of dirt and excessively rooted weeds, but all of the markers were at least visible. Most were in mediocre-at-best condition and would require more equipment than he had on hand to repair, though he rarely restored entire cemeteries.

He had never felt such tranquility as he had during the sixteen months working on repairing gravestones throughout Savannah. It gave him a sense of purpose. A feeling of giving back, even if the offered gift was for the dead. He would have continued with the work, but circumstances arose and he had to leave. James never told management at the cemetery why.

In the forgotten cemetery atop the small hill, the names and dates of most markers were difficult to make out. His fingers followed the cuts and grooves of letters and numbers like braille. His hand stopped reading when he came across the grave he would address. Benjamin Smith. Born January 1905, died April 1905. The grave to the left belonged to Rebecca Smith, died January 1905. No doubt Benjamin’s mother. James wondered if Rebecca took her last breath, hoping for a healthy boy, or if she cursed the baby for ending her life. Like his own mother had cursed him.

Always so much yelling.

Benjamin Smith’s gravestone consisted of a rectangular base with his name and date etched into its face. A small cross once clung to the top but had snapped to the ground. It would not take much to restore the stone. A simple cleaning, the name carved deeper into the stone, and the cross reattached. Grabbing the weedwhacker and gas, James made the short walk back to the Shadow.

Lost in his thoughts, James did not hear the pair of footsteps from the other side of the hill. He did not hear the whispers. He did not smell the twisted potpourri of showerless nights and daily sweat. With a jug of water in one hand, a bag of cleaning tools in the other, he did not see the two men standing above the baby’s grave until he looked up from his feet. The sight of the two men, hair twisting in the breeze, did not deter James. Nor did the handle of a revolver hanging from the thicker man’s pants or the glint of a sickle grasped by the skinny man. James continued to approach.

“This here’s private property,” the thicker man said as James walked to the top of the hill.

“If you show me a deed to the land, I would be happy to leave,” James said as he stopped at the base of the baby’s grave, kneeling to put down his water and brushes.

“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. Besides, we can’t have you just leaving. Need to have a little talk first.”

“I’m not much for talking.” James leaned toward the thicker man, reaching for the broken-off stone cross.

“Wesley,” the thin man whispered harshly. “Do it.”

Wesley held up a hand, silencing the other man.

James partially filled an empty fast food cup with water. He dipped a dusty toothbrush in, then began scrubbing the cross, as if the two men did not exist.

“Hey, we here talking to you,” Wesley snapped.

“Like I said, I’m not much for talking. If you could let me work in peace.” James removed a small bottle of dish soap from the bag, squeezed a drop into the cup, and mixed it with the brush.

Wesley watched James as he sat, cross-legged, cleaning away at the stone cross. He rested a hand on the revolver tucked into his pants, cocking the hammer.

“Yeah, yeah!” the skinny man said, this time not attempting to whisper. “Do it, Wesley. Do it. Do it!” He bounced from side to side in anticipation.

“You hear that?” Wesley said. “My brother Buddy here wants me to put a round in the back of your skull. What do you have to say about that?”

James poured water over the cross, holding it to the light for inspection. “I’d say if you want to put a round in the back of my skull, you probably shouldn’t be in front of me.”

“Getting smart with me?”

“I’m not getting anything with you. I’d just like to finish my work.” James set the cleaned cross to the ground, then turned his attention to Benjamin Smith’s gravestone, sitting close enough to tie Wesley’s shoes.

Wesley eyed Buddy.

“What you waiting for, Wes? They told us to take care of anyone who came near the church.”

“Hush, Buddy.”

James ran a dry brush around the edge of the grave marker, removing large chunks of dirt clinging to the stone. “I ain’t looking for religion, if that’s what you’re implying,” James said.

“It ain’t. God is the last thing you’ll find in these hills.”

“Who said anything about a god?”

Wesley spat, hand remaining snugly around the revolver’s handle. “I’m not going ‘round with you, boy. So why don’t you tell me what exactly you’re doing?”

“What does it look like?”

Wesley ripped the revolver from his pants, digging the muzzle into the top of James’ head.

“I’d suggest you avoid that here sarcasm.”

“Yes! Do it. Do it now!”

James sighed, momentarily stopping, before swapping out the large brush for the soapy toothbrush. “The grave. It’s a child’s. A baby’s. I’m giving him some respect. More than he probably got while he lived.”

“Do it, Wesley! Do it!”

“Shut up, Buddy.”

James delicately brushed around the engraving of Benjamin Smith, taking care not to knock free any excess stone. Wesley’s shadow swayed. The weight of the revolver lifted from James’ head. The hammer clicked back.

“If you ain’t gonna do it, I will,” Buddy said, lunging for the revolver. Wesley pushed him back with his free hand.

“Settle down.”

“But the coven. What they say to do!”

“I’m talking here.” Wesley snorted like a bull, staring down Buddy before turning to James. “Why you do that? Fixin’ the grave, I mean.”

“Because I didn’t get respect from my parents growing up. When they fought about me, I went outside, played with rocks in the yard.”

Pouring water over the gravestone to wash away any lingering dirt, James dabbed it dry with a rag from the bag.

“I can understand that,” Wesley said. “Our parents, if you can even call them that, they ain’t give a damn about me or Buddy here. I was twenty, he was ten when we ran away. Not that we had much to run away from. And they ain’t never even try to look for us.”

Unfolding the canvas satchel of stone carving tools, James selected an eighth-inch chisel and hammer.

“You hear me?” Wesley asked.

“I hear you. What you want me to say?” James placed the chisel a few inches below the born-died dates and began hammering.

“Do it, Wesley! Make him suffer!”

“I want you to say that you know how I feel.”

“Come on! Kill him. Do it now!”

“Goddamn it, Buddy, shut up!” Wesley screeched.

“Please stop yelling,” James said as he continued, carving new letters into the stone.

“But you know what it’s like not bein’ respected. We the same that way,” Wesley said.

“I suppose.”

“Stop waiting, or I’ll gut him for you!”

“You said you played with rocks?” Wesley said, louder.

James nodded, not taking his eyes off his work.

“You said you would play with rocks to get away from your parents?”

“Yes.”

James blew stone dust from a finished word. He started a second.

“Just throwing or breaking them?”

“No.”

“You gotta finish him! You gotta do it now! Do it now!”

“What else is there to do with rocks?”

“Carve things into them.”

“Enough!” Buddy stomped toward James, sickle raised.

“Jesus Christ!” Wesley grabbed his brother by the neck, pushing him back. He waved the gun toward him as he yelled. “Shut your goddamn stupid mouth and let me talk you stupid bitch!” He turned back to James. “What kind of things would you carve? Pictures and stuff?”

James shook his head, blowing away dust from the second word. “No. Of people to kill.” James slammed the chisel down deep into Wesley’s foot. Wesley screamed, reaching for the foot now sutured to the ground, dropping the revolver. James scooped up the weapon, firing a round at the charging Buddy, the bullet shearing through his eye. Before Wesley knew what happened, James had already picked up the sickle and run the blade over his neck. Wesley dropped to his knees, a bubbling hiss of bloody air escaping his throat. He collapsed alongside the gravestone, maintaining life long enough to see “Wesley Buddy” carved into the stone.

When both brothers finally lay still, James returned to Benjamin Smith’s tombstone.

Always the yelling. He hated the yelling.