Alone

© 1998 BY BOBETTE BRYAN

Peter Dalton was certain that if hell existed, this was it.

With trembling hands, he clutched the thin fabric of his nylon jacket, his gaze sweeping the ancient graveyard. The early autumn air didn’t just chill him; it bit into his skin like razor-sharp teeth.

“How the hell did I get here?” His voice sounded thin, swallowed instantly by the silence. He racked his brain, but the memory was gone. Cleanly excised.
Was this a nightmare?

He studied the weathered headstones and the stark, barren hills flanking the cemetery like fortress walls. A cold knot of panic tightened in his chest. The unyielding isolation, underscored by a faint, sickeningly sweet scent of decay, stretched his nerves to a breaking point.

The graveyard was trapped in a low-lying basin, surrounded by oppressive ridges. He turned. Gazing. There appeared to be no way out. He forced the thought away. That’s crazy, he told himself. Of course there’s a way out. There has to be.

He shuffled forward, picking his way through a labyrinth of tilting markers and choked undergrowth. In his haste, his shin struck a jagged branch jutting from a twisted tree. Pete yelped, sinking to the damp earth. He braced himself as he yanked up his pant leg, expecting a gruesome sight–torn flesh, a jagged bone, a gush of blood.

Yet, there was nothing. No cut. No scrape. Not even a flush of red.

He shook his head, staring at his unblemished flesh. The way the damn thing throbbed, he expected a bloody mess. Better this way, he thought, swallowing hard. He couldn’t stomach the sight of blood. That was why he had managed accounts for Baylor Hospital instead of becoming a physician, much to his mother’s enduring disappointment.

He pulled his jacket tighter across his chest to block the biting wind, though the cheap nylon offered little protection. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stand. Taking a measured breath, he tried to calm his racing pulse.

A clinging mist hovered over the ground, weaving through blackened, oddly deformed trees. The entire valley bled an aura of decay and abandonment, as if the living hadn’t set foot here in years. The only aggressive sign of life was the thick English ivy choking the mausoleums, draping over the stone vaults like a heavy shroud trying to suffocate the dead within.

If nothing else, this place could be a horror-film set. Production wouldn’t need a dime for special effects.

Pete knew lingering on the morbid scenery wouldn’t save him. He needed to move.

Tracing the cracked remains of an old cobblestone path, he kept his eyes locked straight ahead, refusing to look at the sky. If there was a full moon tonight, he didn’t want verification. His paramedic friends in the ER back at Baylor had warned him about full moons, which were harbingers of bizarre accidents and other chaotic trauma cases that kept the staff running on adrenaline.

Instead, he relied on the starlight for direction.

The sky was deceptively clear, casting a silvery sheen over the tombs. The light bled into the shadows, turning the mist into a surreal palette of blue and gray. It was beautiful in a terrifying way, like standing inside a deranged painter’s canvas.

As the path narrowed around a sharp bend, a lifeless face materialized from the gloom.

Before he could process what he was seeing, Pete let out a raw scream. His heart chugged violently as he stumbled backward, desperate to breathe. He imagined the arterial seams bursting and spurting in his chest, flooding his lungs with red. Stop it! he told himself. Wake up.

But it wasn’t a specter. He was staring into the weathered face of a marble angel guarding the entrance of a crumbling tomb. Ivy consumed most of its body, leaving only the stone face and outstretched arms bare to catch the ethereal starlight. Too bad you aren’t real, he thought, his racing pulse slowing to a dull throb. She looked peaceful, easing his panic. I could use a real angel about now.

Cursing beneath his breath, he pushed past the statue. He stumbled along for what felt like miles, the scenery repeating in a monotonous loop of stone, mist, and shadow. He froze when a sharp snap echoed behind him. He spun, eyes scanning the darkness, but he saw nothing. Just the wind playing tricks on his mind. Swallowing the fear in his throat, he kept moving.

If I’m not careful, I’ll end up walking in circles. Maybe I already am.

He had a terrible sense of direction, a fatal flaw his mother-in-law loved to point out. He pushed her out of his thoughts. His current reality was frightening enough without conjuring her ugly beak.

But his wife, Gabriella, weighed on his mind. By now, she was surely pacing their living room rug, frantically calling local precincts and emergency rooms, terrified out of her skull. Even if he could, how could he explain his disappearance when he didn’t even know where he was or how he’d gotten here? He shook his head. He would worry about that when, and if, he actually made it back.

The shadows lengthened, deepening the gloom, until the cobblestone path terminated abruptly at a pair of massive wrought-iron gates. A heavy padlock secured the chains. Pete dashed forward. Face twisted in agony, he grabbed the bars and shook them with everything he had, but was rewarded only by the agonizing screech of rusted iron.

“Damn it, let me out!” he screamed into the empty night. “Is anyone there? I just want to go home!”

Panic eroding his control, he tried to remember the deep-breathing exercises from Gabriella’s prenatal classes. He quickly found that the techniques were useless here.

He stared up at the barrier. The fence rose at least fifteen feet from the rocky ground, smooth and devoid of footholds. Even if he managed the impossible climb, the top of the gate was a crown of gleaming spikes designed to impale anyone foolish enough to try.

What kind of madman built such a fence to keep people out? Or was it meant to keep people in?

The thought sent a shiver through him. Pressing his face between the iron bars, he looked out at the tree-lined road on the other side. It looked like freedom, but it was unreachable.
Defeated, Pete dropped his forehead against the cold metal. He snapped his head back up when the distinct sound of footsteps crunched through the dry grass nearby. He whipped around, staring back into the labyrinth of headstones.

Nothing. No one. He was alone.

The cemetery seemed to grow darker. An oppressive sorrow settled over his chest like lead, instilling a profound wave of loneliness. Unable to hold it back any longer, Pete buried his face in his hands and wept. He didn’t care about looking tough anymore. No one, at least alive, could see him anyway; the residents of this valley had returned to dust ages ago.

Time had stopped for them. If he didn’t find a way out, it would stop for him, too.

Wiping his eyes, Pete turned away from the main gate. If he was going to survive this night, he had to find a weakness in the perimeter.

The thought sparked a faint glimmer of hope. Surely, somewhere along this iron cage, the metal had rusted through. Right? Had to. Maybe mischievous teenagers had forced a gap for a midnight thrill. Or, hell, maybe another gate hid beyond the nightmare of overgrown weeds.

To his right, set back from the overgrown cobblestones, two grand mausoleums loomed like twin monoliths. Between them lay a narrow footpath. Pete rushed toward it. He scrambled through the gap, forcing his way forward for several minutes until he stumbled into yet another stretch of the graveyard. He checked the fence line. Still solid. Unbroken. No way out.

He pressed on anyway, his muscles aching, navigating a dense thicket of moss-draped trees. He rounded a cluster of oaks and gasped. A house. At last, a sign of civilization. A caretaker’s house could mean a key, a telephone, and possibly an escape from this Stygian hell.

But as he drew closer, his hope evaporated. No one lived here. Nothing living, that is.

The house was a sprawling Second Empire, its grand mansard roof and ornate Victorian eaves sagging under decades of rot. It was just as decayed as the corpses buried beneath the hills. The gray facade tilted precariously, looking as though a sudden gust of wind could topple it. Most of the windows were smashed or boarded up with weathered planks. A tattered, sun-bleached curtain drifted through a jagged hole on the second floor, its frayed fabric streaming out into the night like skeletal fingers beckoning him.

Pete closed his eyes, his mind spinning. An instinct deep in his gut warned him to stay away from the place. Yet, the air was turning wintry, and the wind’s wail had deepened into a painful moan. His teeth chattered so violently he feared they would splinter. He needed a reprieve from the elements.

Limping toward the porch, he froze. There it was again. A distinct movement behind him, the snap of a branch, the rustle of leaves, a scrape against a headstone. Pete refused to turn. He couldn’t. If some horrific entity was closing the distance, what could he do? He was too exhausted and sore to fight. He had nothing left inside him.

Besides, an intrusive thought crept into his head: If something out there means to kill me, I hope it does it fast. From behind. Before I have time to think or feel it..

When no blow fell, he reached out, his stiff fingers gripping the warped doorknob. He twisted, and the rusted hardware broke free in his palm. He chucked it and simply pushed the unyielding wood. The door creaked open, admitting him into the gloomy interior.

His footsteps groaned against the worn pine floor. The wood splintered beneath his weight, echoing through what had once been a grand entry hall. Remnants of past elegance remained in the shadows. To his left, two Italianate settees sat opposite one another before a fireplace, their horsehair stuffing bursting through split seams like a decaying corpse.

Pete approached the hearth longingly. If only he had a match. He could tear down the rotting molding and build a fire. But his pockets yielded nothing but a stale handkerchief and a wallet full of useless plastic. For the first time in his life, he bitterly regretted never taking up smoking.

Shivering uncontrollably, he stared into the empty hearth, trying to conjure the phantom warmth of roaring flames. But a place this dead had likely never known the comfort of a fire. He realized that he might be trapped here until dawn. He could already picture the disbelief on his coworkers’ faces back at Baylor when he told them he’d slept in a spooky cemetery house.

They’d never believe it. Who would? Pete was the guy who avoided the dark. He’d been raised on superstition and fear, thoroughly traumatized by an older brother who swore the Boogeyman would torture them both if the bedroom lights went out. As a kid, Pete had believed every word.

Because when Pete was a child, he had seen what lurked in the dark. And that horror had never truly left him.

Leaning heavily against the mantelpiece, his mind drifted back to his grandmother’s post-war house. He’d been sitting alone in the front room, the television blaring, when a bizarre scraping sound started on the enclosed front porch—like furniture being dragged across the floor. His Uncle Mike had hanged himself on that very porch years earlier.

Pete had been paralyzed with fear–his grandmother asleep on the couch, dead to the world, and his grandfather downstairs, deep in his cups. Pete had tried to force happy thoughts into his brain, the way his grandmother always told him to, but the terror was too overwhelming. The sounds on the porch had grown louder, culminating in a wet splunk and followed by the agonizing creak of tightly strained rope. Then came the rhythmic sway of a weight swinging back and forth. It’s just the wind, he had whispered to himself. Just the wind.

He recalled what had happened vividly; heavy footsteps creaked across the porch slats. A sudden, freezing draft wrapped around him until his breath misted in the air. A blinding, unnatural light flooded the room. Pete had turned and found himself staring at the twisted manifestation of his mad uncle. The entity stood in the doorway, eyes wide and maniacal, wearing the black Sunday suit he’d been buried in. As Pete dove beneath his blankets, wicked, echoing laughter made the window panes rattle.

Beneath the heavy quilt, he could barely breathe. The floorboards groaned. A shadow fell over him, and a heavy hand materialized through the fabric.

Pete had screamed with a primal force that should have awakened the entire neighborhood. It jolted his grandmother awake like a fire alarm, but in the dismissive way of adults, she had simply patted his head and said, “There’s nothing there. It was just a bad dream.”

Now that Pete was a man, he understood the truth. Adults didn’t believe their own lies. Grown-ups were just as terrified of the dark as children; they only claimed monsters weren’t real so they wouldn’t have to face their own terror. Humanity rationalized the unexplained. The phantom floating past was a trick of the light. The shifting floorboard was just the house settling. The moan in the dark was just the wind.

Skepticism wasn’t truth; it was a safety shield.

Yet, alone in this freezing house, listening to the gales ravaging the broken windowpanes, Pete found himself clinging to that exact same shield.

“It’s just your imagination,” he whispered into the rotting room, his voice cracking. “It’s just your imagination. There’s nothing there.”

The phrase did nothing to assuage the black fear twisting his gut into knots or slow the frantic racing of his heart. Desperate to derail his thoughts, he turned to search the house for a light. He was about to step into a room off the parlor when a metallic glint caught his eye. A silver object rested on a warped table at the far end of the hall.

He approached it, acutely aware of the pitch-black staircase looming to his right. The object was a heavy brass hand mirror, an antique from a bygone era.

He couldn’t see his reflection; the glass was buried under a thick velvet layer of dust. He didn’t know why it mattered so much, but an obsessive need to see his own face, to look at something familiar and indisputably real gripped him. Wadding up the hem of his shirt, he aggressively wiped the grime away until smooth glass met his fingertips. He hurried to the front window, where silver starlight poured through the fractured panes, and he tilted the mirror to catch the best possible light.

He looked. And a terror unlike anything he had ever known pierced his entire being.

He didn’t recognize the face staring back.

The skin was rotted through, bloated and swollen beyond recognition like a corpse pulled from a river. Sunken, hollow sockets stared back where his eyes should have been. His flesh, a sickening palette of gray and fleshy red, seemed to be dripping from the bone like melting wax. The lips had dissolved entirely, exposing a stark, perfect row of white teeth–the capped teeth his parents had paid an orthodontist a fortune for when he was a teenager.

Even his hair, his best attribute, was gone. Not a single strand of his thick, wavy blond locks remained. His finger roamed to his head to find a patchworked, decomposing scalp and the glistening white of his skull.

Pete dropped the mirror. A high-pitched scream tore from his throat, echoing off the cracked plaster walls. What was happening to him? Was he dead?

No, he told himself, pacing the floor frantically. I can’t be dead. I would remember dying. It’s an illusion. A trick of the shadows and the bad light.

His chest heaved as panic triggered a violent volley of palpitations. He balled his hands into tight fists and glared at the ceiling. “Why? Why am I in this place? None of this is real! I’m dreaming. I’m going to wake up!”

But the empty words offered no comfort against the image burned into his mind. Trembling, he reached up to touch his face. His skin felt perfectly normal. Smooth. Fully intact. This time, when he touched his scalp, his blond locks were right where they belonged. He even bit his lip until it stung. The sharp spike of pain was reassuring; dead men didn’t feel pain.

In a near panic, he dropped to his knees, clawing through the shadows until his fingers found the handle of the mirror. It hadn’t broken. Steeling himself, he stood back up by the window, took a deep breath, and looked again, praying to see his own face.

The same rotting specter stared back at him.

With a choked cry, he hurled the mirror against the wall. It barely dented, so he stomped on it, grinding his heavy boots into the glass, taking a manic pleasure in the crunching sound beneath his heels. When he finished, he was on the verge of tears. The dust he had stirred up whirled around him, choking his lungs.

He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. The sensation felt strange, numb and tingly. When he pulled the cloth away, his nose and a large portion of the surrounding tissue sat nestled inside the balled-up cotton.

A raw scream ripped from his lips. He begged aloud for a miracle, for anything to end the nightmare.
The wail of the wind was suddenly cut short by a sound that froze the blood in his veins: maniacal laughter. Then came the rhythmic creak of footsteps descending the stairs.

Pete spun, tracking the shadow on the staircase. Little by little, the entity materialized as it stepped into the starlight. First the legs, then the torso, the neck, and finally, the head.

Pete’s heart battered his ribs. The terrifying visage of his wicked uncle stood before him. The old hemp noose was still embedded deep into the purple flesh of his neck, the frayed end of the rope trailing into the shadows behind him. He flashed the same twisted, tormenting grin that had haunted Pete’s childhood.

“Well, Pete,” his uncle rasped, his voice like dry leaves scraping pavement. “I’m glad to see you’ve finally joined me. I’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

Adrenaline surged through Pete’s limbs. He hit the front door in a flash, bursting out into the freezing darkness of the cemetery. Where he could possibly find sanctuary in this hell was beyond him, but he knew he had to get away from the man who’d spent a lifetime torturing small animals and terrorizing children for amusement.

Wasn’t that mental derangement the reason his uncle had hanged himself? Pete’s mind raced as he ran. There had been a trial coming up for something unspeakable. The adults had whispered about his uncle’s atrocities when they thought Pete was asleep. He’d always known the man was evil.

Pete ran blind, tearing through the labyrinth of stone and brambles as the mocking laughter echoed through the valley, amplified as if spoken through a megaphone.

“There’s no escape, Pete! This is the end for all eternity!”

Pete refused to believe it. Even if this was his fate, he would fight it.

He ran for what felt like hours, his feet blistering and bleeding inside his boots, the endless scenery of decay blurring past him. He didn’t know where the stamina was coming from; his lungs burned, and his muscles screamed.

Rounding a sharp bend, he skidded to a halt. Hidden beneath thick weeds was a set of overgrown limestone stairs leading up the steepest hill in the graveyard.

He paused to catch his breath and made the mistake of looking back. His stomach dropped. It wasn’t just his uncle pursuing him anymore. A shambling army of corpses was tracking his path through the fog, their clothes tattered, their faces rotted and hollow. Leading the pack was a figure holding a rusted lantern—the gravekeeper Pete had desperately hoped to find earlier.

They were coming for him. They wanted to tear him apart. He felt it. Wanted to make him a permanent resident. They moved with the slow certainty of hunters who knew their prey was cornered.

But Pete had the stairs.

Even though the stone steps seemed to lead straight into the empty sky, as if they had once belonged to a grand mansion that had long since vanished, Pete didn’t care. He scrambled up the limestone, hearing the angry howls of the mob below.

The gravekeeper moved surprisingly fast. Midway up Pete’s ascent, a skeletal, dirt-caked hand shot forward, jabbing Pete squarely in the spine. The touch carried the paralyzing cold of the grave.
Instinct took over. Finally. Pete spun on the step and kicked with all the strength he could muster, his boot catching the phantom flush in the chest. Shrieking, the figure tumbled back into the crowd. The lantern flew from its grip, shattering in a spray of sparks. The entire mob went down like bowling pins, tangling in a mass of limbs and tattered fabric.

Gasping for air, Pete turned and continued his climb.

At the top of the stairs, he reached a wide limestone landing. He paused, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath after his breakneck flight. He whipped his head around, looking back into the gloom to see if his uncle still pursued him, but to Pete’s shock and utter relief, the madman was nowhere to be seen. The shambling army of spooks had vanished completely into the mist.

He sighed with relief. Had he imagined the whole thing? Was he merely hallucinating?

He had no idea, but he was glad they were gone. Turning away from the steps, he trudged to the opposite edge of the landing and looked down at the sprawling valley below.

Thousands of lights sparkled in the distance, the brilliant, breathing skyline of the city he called home. A wave of pure joy warmed his heart, and his dark eyes welled with tears. The city where he had been born and raised, the place where he worked his mundane accounting job and lived with his wife and teenage daughters was within his grasp. He knew every street, and had probably traversed every hill and valley at some point in his life. Yet, no matter how hard he racked his brain, he could not remember this cemetery or the steep, fortress-like hills surrounding it.

But there was no time to dissect the mystery now. All that mattered was reaching the warmth and safety of his home.

At first, it appeared the stairs were just another dead end in this sinister place. But as he strained his eyes over the precipice, he realized a second flight of steps descended the opposite face of the hill—leading out of the graveyard and back into the world of the living. A path straight home.

He didn’t waste time weighing his options. Though the stone steps were steep and heavily choked with weeds, he began his descent. But after only two steps, his boots slipped. The surface was slick, coated in clinging vines that exuded a peculiar substance, which was as sticky as glue and as slick as oil. The hazard forced him to slow his pace, moving down in agonizing baby steps.

He had only made it halfway down when a familiar, blood-chilling sound echoed through the valley. His uncle’s wicked laughter.

Pete gasped, gazing upward. The twisted specter was already materializing at the crest of the landing. Before Pete could even swing his limbs to react, his uncle was right behind him on the narrow path. A frigid, powerful hand clamped onto Pete’s shoulder, delivering a violent, shove. Pete let out a sharp yelp, arms flailing wildly as he tried to catch his footing, but the slick algae offered no traction.

He lost his balance, falling… falling… falling… falling… falling… falling… falling… falling… falling… falling—

“Wake up, Pete!”

“Whoa. What?” Pete blinked hard, yawning as he tried to parse the angry words piercing the dark.

“Wake up! You’ve been thrashing and screaming in your sleep all night. And you’ve pulled all the covers off me as usual. I’m freezing my ass off!”

It was Gabriella’s voice. When the familiar words finally penetrated his thick skull, a massive sigh of relief escaped his lips. He forced his hammering heart to slow, as he took in the safety of his surroundings.

He wasn’t falling. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t a rotting, stinking, corpse trapped in a desolate cemetery. It had all been a nightmare. A mere nightmare. The graveyard, the sagging Victorian house, his manic uncle were all just the cruel work of an overactive imagination.

“Pete, did you hear me? I’m freezing. Give me the blanket!”

“Okay. Sorry, dear,” he muttered, his voice still weak and gravelly from sleep. He sat up in the darkness, leaning over the side of the mattress. He fumbled blindly against the floor until his fingers brushed against the fabric of the snug blanket. He clenched it tightly, savoring the solid reality of its softness.

“Pete!”

Tenderly, he pulled the heavy covers across his wife’s frame, drawing them up to her shoulders before leaning down to press an apologetic kiss against her cheek. Apparently satisfied, Gabriella rolled over and drifted back to sleep.

As he pulled his hand away, his knuckles brushed something hard and jagged resting in his pajama pocket. Frowning, he pulled the object out. It was a rough stone, identical to the limestone rocks he’d seen flanking the cemetery roads. Shaking his head in confusion, he set it quietly on his bedside table. He would ponder how it got there later. Right now, his bladder was full to bursting.

Still feeling weak and uncoordinated, Pete slid out of bed and staggered toward the master bathroom. He didn’t bother turning on the light; enough illumination streamed in from the bedroom windows, and having lived in this house for fourteen years, he could navigate the layout by muscle memory alone.

After relieving himself, he turned back toward the door, eager to return to the coziness of his bed and the comforting warmth of his wife. He swore to himself that he’d never take his ordinary life for granted again. But as his hand reached for the doorknob, an unrelenting, obsessive desire gripped his chest. He needed to see his face. He just wanted one last bit of closure to wipe away the lingering residue of the nightmare, one final assurance that everything was fine.

He flicked the wall switch by the door, flooding the room with bright light, and turned to face the oval mirror above the sink.

When his eyes met the glass, a horrific scream ripped from his throat, his heart slamming violently against his ribs.

The face in the reflection was bloated, festering with green and grey decay, the exact same decomposing monster from the cemetery house.

Panic shattering his mind, he bolted into the bedroom, desperately seeking his wife’s comfort. But the sight waiting for him at the bedside froze the breath in his lungs.

A body lay motionless on the mattress, drenched in a pool of blood. The skull had been violently bashed in, the facial features crushed beyond all recognition, but he knew instinctively that it was his beloved Gabriella. Resting on the pillow right beside her ruined head was the heavy limestone rock he had just taken from his pocket. It was thoroughly slick with fresh blood.

“No!” Pete shrieked, rushing to the mattress, his hands slamming onto her shoulder. “Wake up! Gabriella, wake up!”

He shook her body frantically, then stopped dead. He brought up his hands. They were sticky with blood. He looked down at the front of his pajamas. The fabric was saturated with heavy splashes of blood as well.

A wicked chuckle issued from the dark corner of the bedroom. The sweet scent of rotting meat instantly filled the air.

“They thought you were too young to kill, Pete. Blamed the whole thing on me. You did many other cruel things too. Didn’t you?”

“What?” Pete’s eyes rolled wildly, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

From the shadows, Uncle Mike stepped forward, his twisted, tormented grin stretching wide beneath the embedded noose. “It’s high time for justice. They’re waiting for you, Pete.”

“Waiting?” Pete whimpered, backing away. “Who’s waiting?”

The bedroom walls began to dissolve, the familiar plaster melting away into a thick, swirling gray mist. The bedroom floor turned into damp earth, and Pete suddenly found himself standing back in the low-lying cemetery.

From every direction, the dead were crawling out of the undergrowth, moving toward him with outstretched, skeletal arms, their ragged burial clothes whipping in the howling wind. And marching right at the front of the line was his wife, her bashed-in face staring hollowly back at him.

They crept closer and closer, forming an unbreakable circle, squeezing him into their decaying fold as their bony fingers reached out to claim him.

Uncle Mike laughed, the sound echoing through the fortress of hills. “I told you, Pete, there’s no way to escape the ever after. Now come on … and give your old uncle a hug.”

–The End–

© Bobette Bryan, 1998-2024