Mausoleum

A YA short story

This story is also available in my anthology More Word Associations.

Reminder that I’m also accepting requests for art commissions. Please see this post for details!

---

My little brother's scream broke out from the tombstones behind me. "Help! Help! It's got me! A hand's got me!"

I found Phillip face down in the dirt next to one of the graves, struggling to pull himself forward. The twins, Sarah and Whitley, were already gathering over him. Phillip was still shrieking.

Whitley bent down. "You dumbass, it's just some roots." He pulled Phillip's ankle loose, and Phillip launched himself up at me.

"Marty, I wanna go home." Phillip trembled in my arms, and I was shaking a little, too.

"It's okay, Phil," I said. "I think we're done here. I don't care how much that phone was. This whole thing was a bad idea."

The shadowed forms of the twins loomed in front of us. "Oh no you don't," Sarah said, pointing her flashlight under her face, giving it a demonic flare. "You're not backing out that easily."

"You still got a job to do." Whitley brandished his cracked iPhone. "You still owe me. Don't forget whose fault this is." He jabbed his flashlight in Phillip's shoulder.

I wanted to give Whitley another shove just like I did yesterday. Sure, Phillip could have stood to look where he was going while roaming the neighborhood with his friends. But Whitley could have taken his eyes off that phone for one second and looked where he was going. And he was still the teenager threatening a fourth-grader over a busted screen.

But Whitley had a stubborn head and a persuasive fist, and I could still feel that fist in my gut a day later. It was either pay for the phone or come out here on his dare, and I do not have five hundred dollars.

"Come on," I said, "that scream's bound to have gotten somebody's attention. Someone's gonna come check it out. And how do you think they're gonna react when they see a bunch of kids playing grave robbers?"

"So we won't get caught," Sarah said. "Look around—we're surrounded by hiding places. If anybody comes by, we'll just duck behind a grave."

Phillip and I cringed together. I wanted to keep our desecration at a minimum, but these two weren't going to give us the option.

"At any rate, we made it." Whitley pointed his flashlight at the mausoleum built into the foot of a short slope. It was an archway, with kneeling angels on the outer wall, facing each other. The barred bronze gate hung open, but it was so dark you couldn't see under the arch. There was supposed to be something hidden in there, according to Whitley, but he had yet to tell us what.

He shook the light. "Well, go on in."

I took Phillip's hand and led him toward the mausoleum. His steps got more sluggish the closer we got, until finally he stopped altogether, and resisted when I pulled.

"Look," I whispered, "I know you're scared. So am I. Let's just go in and find whatever they want us to, then we can go home where it's safe, and as soon as they're gone, we'll rat on them."

"No, I'm not going." His voice began to quaver. He was going to start crying, and then the twins would never let him hear the end of it. "I'd rather get beaten up. Please, let's just go home."

I gave his shoulder a squeeze, then placed myself between him and the twins. "That's it. I've had enough. You have no right to treat us this way. He's only nine years old! I don't give a crap what kind of phone you broke. Pay for it your own damn self."

He flicked the flashlight into my eye. "That's some balls you got there, kid. I still gotta be compensated for damages."

"Fine." I raised my fists. "I got your compensation right here. You caught me by surprise yesterday, but I'll fight you, right here, right now. Just leave my brother alone, asshole."

He flipped the flashlight in the air. "What did you call me?"

"You heard me. I'm through being afraid of you. What are you waiting for? Come at me." I tightened my knuckles. "Unless you're chicken."

"Oh, this is amazing." Sarah shone her flashlight at me. "Here, Bro. This oughta make things easier. Just save some for me."

"You got it." Whitley marched toward me and reared back his hand, the one holding the flashlight.

In a split second I realized the mistake I made, challenging an older kid to a fight after dark. A kid who'd been pushing kids like me around as long as I can remember, and who had a blunt instrument in his hand. And it was too late to back out.

I lifted my arm just in time to catch a strike from his flashlight. It stung, but I was able to launch a fist and hit him in the jaw. He grabbed me by the collar, and swung the flashlight again. This time it got me right in the face.

But I didn't let up. By now my head was hazed with adrenaline. I kept on punching and grabbing and kicking, and occasionally connecting. So did he, but the noise and energy inside me drowned everything out. I didn't let a single blow stop me.

We grabbed each other, and in the tangle, we fell together to the ground, him on top of me. In the confusion he dropped his flashlight. I snatched it and swung it into Whitley's head. Then I found an opening. I brought my shin up, right into his crotch. Whitley rolled off. I got up.

But he recovered quickly. "You son of a bitch!" He charged at me, reaching for the flashlight. As much as he grappled, I wouldn't let him have it.

Then Sarah cried, "Oh shit! I just saw a cop car! Everybody hide!"

She came up and joined Whitley in spinning me around, and together they shoved me and Phillip into the mausoleum.

"You two wait in here," Whitley said. "We'll come back when the cops leave."

He slammed the gate. I heard the lock catch.

Sarah broke out laughing. "I'm sorry, did I say 'cop car'?" she said. "I meant, 'cat.' I saw this cute tabby right over there. Listen, it's been great, but we gotta go. Have a nice night."

"Why you—!" I shook the gate. "Let us out!"

"How?" Whitley said. "Do we look like we have the key?" He leaned his bruised-up face in closer. "Consider the debt paid, you piece of shit. You can keep the flashlight."

And he and his sister strolled off into the night.

I leaned on the gate. My head ached. So did my face. And my arms. And a spot in my side. He'd gotten in some good hits, and I had a feeling they were going to hit even harder tomorrow. But that was nothing compared to getting tricked like this. Especially considering where we were.

"Well, Phillip," I said, "looks like your dear brother has gotten us well and truly screwed. Should've known better, but no, I just had to… Phillip?" He hadn't made the slightest peep since we got in here. "You there?"

I pointed the flashlight. He sat curled up in a corner, his face as pale as a harsh winter, and shivering like one as well. And why not? There were shelves of occupied coffins all around us. We were surrounded by the dead. By death. The skin on my back began to crawl. Was I really so much more scared of Whitley than I was of coming here?

I knelt in front of him. "Hey, Phil, you okay?"

All he said was, "D-d-d-dead b-bodies."

"Yeah. I know." I touched his shoulder. I couldn't let on that I was almost as terrified. "It'll be okay. They're not going to hurt you."

"Y-y-you're sure?" he said. "Wh-what if they decide to get up? What if they're undead, and and it turns out kids are their favorite food?"

"No, of course not, Phil. You're too old to believe in stuff like that. There's no such thing as zombies or vampires, and even if there were, I don't think they'd be in a random neighborhood cemetery. These people here? They're dead, and last I checked, dead still means dead." That didn't stop me from flicking my eyes around, making sure all the coffins were still shut. "And if anything does happen, I'll protect you. I'm probably at least useful as a meat shield."

He let out a weak chuckle. "I dunno, you can put up a fight. You were doing pretty good against Whitley back there."

I rubbed my cheek. "If you say so. I don't even know what I was thinking. But once it started, I just… I couldn't stop."

"I especially liked when you kicked him in the nuts," Phillip said. "Serves him right. You almost won, too. I'll bet that's why Sarah stopped it."

I leaned back, trying to ease myself onto the cold marble wall. It took a few tries, with the chill biting through my shirt. "You're probably right. But I'm starting to get the feeling that sticking us in here was the plan all along." I pointed the flashlight at myself. "How do I look?"

"Pretty beat up. Your nose is bleeding, you got a cut right here, and a bruise right here."

I touched my fingers to my mouth, and they came back with spots of red on the tips. "Yeah, Mom's gonna have questions about that. I'll bet Whitley's not looking too hot, either." I tilted my head back again. "He's not going to take this lying down. Even if we get out of here, the twins are still gonna make our lives a living hell for this."

"I dunno. Maybe they'll leave us alone from now on. I mean, not like anybody usually fights back. I sure couldn't. I can't even walk to Grant's house anymore, because Whitley's always around, wanting to 'wrestle' me. And sometimes Sarah's even worse."

"Ugh, I know. All her put-downs? Or the way she'll start a joke and then slap you and scream at you like that's the punchline? Or that time, when I was your age, she pinned me down and dangled spit in my face."

"She did that to me, too! I tried telling Mom, but I don't think she believed me."

"She doesn't take the twins seriously. She never has, because they're kids just like us. Which means we're stuck fending for ourselves."

Crickets chirped outside, and an owl hooted. The moon formed an eerie halo behind the cloud that had drifted in front of it.

Phillip had stopped shaking. "At any rate, thank you. You've never stood up for me like that before."

"It wasn't just you, though. We've been dealing with those two our whole lives. I couldn't take it anymore."

"Still, I appreciate it," Phillip said. "Now what?"

"Good question. I left my phone at home, so that's out. Not that I really want Mom figuring out where we've been."

"You told her we were going to Jason's?"

"Yup." Jason lived close enough that Mom didn't really mind us staying out too late. "It'll probably be another hour before she starts to actually get worried."

Phillip clutched his head. "But I wanna go home now."

"I know, me too. But all we've got right now is this flashlight." I pointed it toward the gate. The beam went through the bars, and out in the graveyard, happened to light up the trunk of a cherry tree. "Hang on." I crawled to the gate and pulled myself to my feet. The beam flickered on the tree as I wiggled my flashlight. "If I keep doing that, somebody's bound to pass by and check out what's going on. A groundskeeper, a police officer, a jogger… Anybody."

"You don't think they'll be creeped out by a weird light in a cemetery?"

I paused the light for a moment. "Come on, they're adults. They're too old to get spooked out by that sort of thing." I started wiggling again.

Phillip came up and sat next to me by the gate. If nothing else, playing with the flashlight kept us distracted from the dead bodies lying all around us.

Soon he tugged at my shirt. "I hear footsteps!"

I heard them, too, padding up the hill from the King Street entrance. I shook the flashlight even more fervently. A man's silhouette approached the tree, and as he got closer, the beam bounced off the reflective stripes on his shirt and shorts and running shoes. I stuck my hand out through the bar. "Hey! Hey you! Can you get us out of here? We're stuck, and—"

The jogger gasped and ran away in a mad dash.

"Told you so," Phillip said.

"Quiet. It's still our best shot." I held the flashlight out to him. "Here. My arm's getting tired."

He took it from me and sat at the gate shaking it at the tree. "So when we get out of here," he said, "what are we gonna tell Mom?"

"Ugh, I don't even wanna think about that right now. She'll probably kill me for bringing you out here, then kill me for getting into a fight. Or I dunno, maybe she'll go easy on us since we got stuck in here."

"Whitley's so thoughtful, coming up with a punishment so Mom doesn't have to."

"Stop, the last thing I want is to owe him anything."

Phillip started leaned against the wall, then gazing back toward the inside of the mausoleum. "I wonder who's in here." He turned the flashlight around.

"What do you think you're—?"

"It'll just take me a second." He pointed the light at one of the plaques on the wall. "Barbara Carroll, born 1892, died 1958. Herman Carroll, born 1884, died 1962. Must have been her husband. Samantha Carroll, born 1918, died… 1940." He muttered the math to himself. "She was only twenty-two. I guess that must be more Carrolls on the other side."

"Must have been pretty well off," I said, "to build one of these for the whole family. But who cares? Come on, Phil, back to the gate."

"I guess if anybody has a key, it's one of the Carrolls. Like a grandkid, or a great-grandkid. Hey, this guy has the same birthday as me."

"Phil, I mean it." I heard an engine hum downhill, and soon headlights came creeping along the street. "A car! Quick, Phil! Point it at the tree!"

"Huh? At the tree?" He shot the beam outside, but it was too late. The car's tail lights were already shrinking away.

I pounded on the wall. "Dammit! That could have been our chance! All right, Phil, give it back. I don't care who's buried where. From now on, the light stays on the tree, got it?"

"Okay, fine. Here." He thrust the flashlight into my chest. "Excu-use me for being curious. It beats the hell out of being scared and wiggling a flashlight and making everybody think this graveyard's haunted."

"It's the only way."

"No it isn't! Eventually Mom's gonna start looking for us, she'll ask the neighbors for help, and they'll find us."

"You'd seriously rather wait around with a bunch of corpses?" I said. "You were friggin' paralyzed when we got here."

"Hey, you stood up to Whitley, I can stand up to them." He then grumbled something under his breath. I distinctly heard the word "shove."

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing."

"That didn't sound like nothing." I pointed the flashlight at his face. "If you have something to say, say it."

Phillip squinted. "Fine! I said we wouldn't even be in this mess if you didn't shove Whitley yesterday!"

My grip on the flashlight tightened. "Oh really?" I moved it closer to his eyes. "You think so? And who was it that pissed him off in the first place? Don't forget, I only did any of this to save your ass. Maybe if you watched where you were going, Whitley wouldn't have that crack in his phone, and I'd never have had to shove anybody!"

Phillip glared at me.

He slung his fist into my arm. It didn't hurt, but it sent the message.

"What, you wanna fight?" I snickered. "You think I'm gonna fight you? Get real. I'm bigger, I'm older, and I've got the flashlight, so right now, what I say goes. And I say we're going with my plan." I pointed the beam at the tree. "You little turd."

Phillip punched me in the side. Right on a bruise Whitley had left.

I pressed my palm to his face and pushed him back, far enough that his punches would just fly past me. "Phil, stop it. You're not helping anything."

"It sure—huff—helped with—huff—Whitley."

"In what way did fighting Whitley help?"

"It… um… Well…" He let his arms drop. "It got us the flashlight."

"Yeah, great," I said, sending the beam back out. "Super effective." At least he was coming around on it. "Look, you're right, I shouldn't have said all that. You're not a turd, and it's not your fault. It's Whitley and Sarah's. But I want out of here, and I want out now, or else…" My heart was pounding. "Or else…"

Phil stepped forward defiantly. "Or else what?"

The words caught in my throat. But Phillip was staring at me, waiting with arms crossed, so I forced myself to spit it out. "Or else I won't stop thinking about what's in those caskets." My whole body shuddered as if I'd been holding it back for hours. "Ohh God…"

"Really" Phillip said. "You're scared? You? I mean, yeah, they're creepy and gross, but you said yourself, they're not gonna hurt anybody."

"I know, I know. That's not what I'm afraid of. It's not even just that they're dead." I propped my head on one of the bars. "It's that they're rotten. All dried up and decomposed and nothing left but bones and skin, and probably maggots. Maggots. Maggots. And the people in the ground are probably even worse."

Phillip cringed toward me. "Okay, Marty, I get it. That's enough."

"Sorry. But all I can think about it when I'm here is, this is what's going to happen to me someday. To you. To Mom. To everybody. Just like it happened to Dad."

He stepped up to the gate next to me. "You never did like going to see him."

"No," I said. "Never did." Because unlike Phillip, I wasn't too young to remember. He was only a toddler when our father, once so lively and athletic and energetic he could lift us both in each arm without even trying, began to waste away in front of us, seeming to shrink to half his size. Phillip had even slept through the whole funeral. Meanwhile I remember staring at that box, unable to tear my eyes away, unable to believe the bundle of flesh and bone we were burying could actually be my father. Sometimes I still don't believe it. But to this day, every time I see the tombstone, I see the body in the casket.

Phillip hardly even knew our dad. It was a damn shame.

Phillip had managed to calm down, and I was keeping the flashlight on the tree. Clouds started to gather and block out the few stars that the city lights left visible. The wind's eerie whistle made me and my brother squeeze each other's hands. I had a bad feeling it was going to start storming.

Behind me was death. Up ahead, life.

Something shuffled on the grass uphill. A faint shadow crossed the flashlight beam. I called out, "Hello?"

The shadow stopped for a moment, but then the footsteps became louder, and a young woman walked between the gate and the tree. She wore an oddly old-fashioned white dress. "Is somebody there?"

"Yes!" I stuck my hand out of the gate. "Me and my brother, we got stuck! The gate's locked! We need somebody to get us out. Can you find a groundskeeper or somebody? Anything?"

She crooked her brow as she approached the gate. "And what are you doing in my family's mausoleum?"

"Uh… Your family?" I wanted to creep back into the darkness, if only it didn't bring me closer to the corpses. "Let's just say it's a prank that got out of hand, and we're really sorry."

"You look sorry. With a face like that, you probably belong here more than anybody."

I turned my head away.

"You're one of the Carrolls?" Phillip said. "Does that mean you can get us out?"

"Right, I'm Sam Carroll. And I can't very well just leave you here, can I? You two are lucky I happened to be out and about and decided to stop by here on the way home. By the way, are you the one who did a number on your big brother?"

Phillip chuckled. "Yeah, I wish."

"Well, we all need to have goals," Sam said. "You mind stepping back?"

"Sure." We did, but not too far back. I poked Phillip with my elbow. "You wish?"

He crossed his arms. "Nothing against you. Just maybe I wanna stand up for myself someday. I'm not gonna be smaller than you forever."

"Just keep your head outta the clouds."

The door swung open. "Done. You're free to go."

She stood aside, and Phillip and I rushed out onto the open graveyard just as the first drops of rain were about to fall. "Ah, finally," I said. "All right, Phil, let's get home before it really starts pouring."

"Right!" He turned toward the mausoleum. "And thanks a lot… Sam?"

She was gone. We were the only people in the cemetery… at least, the only ones on two feet. The only other sounds were the rustling of the cherry tree's branches in the wind and the faint drips of rain on the tombstones. Sam had been right next to us, right at the gate of the mausoleum, but now had vanished without a trace.

"Okay, now that's creepy," Phillip said.

"No kidding." I started up the hill, my eyes toward the ground, away from the tombstones. "Let's just get the hell out of here already."

"Right." Phillip trailed close behind me. At the top of the slope, we would just have to turn right onto Edgar Avenue and walk two blocks to the house. With enough luck, we'd get there before it became a real downpour. "You know," Phillip said, "I wasn't sure whether to bring this up, but 'Samantha' was one of the names in that mausoleum back there."

I halted for a moment. "What are you saying?"

"I dunno. What do you think I'm saying?"

I refused to look back. In a place like this, at a dark hour like this, there could be anything lurking behind us, maybe just in the corner of the eye, but there nonetheless. Not even necessarily unfriendly, but still close enough to death and decay that I wanted no part of it. Right now I'm alive, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to go home and live.

Phillip smirked sinisterly, as much as a nine-year-old can.

I said, "I don't want to talk about it," and led him onto the sidewalk, and on toward our house. Even the twins couldn't have been further from my mind.