A Stranger's Grave Read online

  Jane gave birth to a little girl who her father named Emily.

  Sister. Mother. Daughter.

  The same father for all.

  Mrs. Harrison hit her daughter one last time with a skillet, crushing her head. In the end, she looked just like the daughter she gave birth to.

  And Maude’s anger, self-loathing, and Jane’s eternal confusion, were all born right there in a little girl called Emily, the vessel for their hate for their father, and more powerful for it. A little girl with anger she did not understand, passed down in her genes, into her soul, and beyond, into the grave, and then on, through the eyes of a killer named Elton Burlock.

  *

  Black Angels

  There’s a vicar who walks through a cemetery in a small Norfolk market town.

  He pushes a buggy, a heavy old thing with rubber wheels, made of metal, with springs that rock as he pushes, back and forth. He was born in 1901. He died in 1961 after murdering his own child, born of his own incestuous depravity.

  He did not feel guilt. He was an evil man, evil to the core, a man that corrupted each of his three daughters.

  But guilt was what killed him, because in 1961 the sole living daughter, a woman by then, called Maude Harrison, finally returned and found the strength to cut her father’s throat.

  She cut three times. Once for each daughter.

  The deepest for herself.

  *

  90.

  Elton took his ear defenders off.

  Three sisters watched him. They knew. He could feel it.

  Harrison smiled.

  Elton smiled, too. Because he was cold and dead inside, but while he could destroy, he could love, and he could never destroy love.

  He looked at the little girl, Emily Harrison. She never had a chance.

  Jane Harrison, beautiful, and yes, more beautiful even than Georgia, but broken inside, somewhere deep inside that lasted beyond the grave.

  And Maude. The strongest of them all, maybe, but maybe the weakest, too, because she had held her pain until she died, at age 86.

  But they all came back, and somehow, Maude had known that a man would come who could finally lay them to rest.

  The inscription said so, honouring their sister, Jane’s daughter, with her name. A beautiful epitaph, inscribed at the base of three beautiful dark angels. Women, perhaps, without sin.

  They had killed. But then so had he.

  And he knew now that they could never have been saved in life, but that in death he was their only chance of salvation.

  They couldn’t touch their father. He ruled them still, even in death, and he could sense it, sense their hatred and fear, and yes, love, too, for the bastard.

  But Elton could touch him. And he knew how.

  ‘Thank you, Elton,’ said Harrison. But Elton did not listen.

  The sisters watched, hungry, or hopeful. He thought now that it was hope on their faces.

  He covered Emily’s bones with the oil cloth. Though it was just her remains, he did not want them to get wet. Then he walked back the way he came, a single lantern in his hand, and a shovel, and a pick.

  *

  91.

  Harrison followed, and his daughters followed with him, silent, hanging back. He still held them all in his thrall, even in death.

  ‘You know, Elton...maybe I didn’t explain things so well.’

  Elton ignored him, as best he could. Pipe smoke swirled about the old bastard’s head in the rain.

  Now Elton hated that smell. He imagined just how much his daughters must have hated that smell, hanging around Harrison’s head like an aura, stinking as he came to the two girls’ beds at night, full of lust and yes, evil.

  Evil lies, he knew, and he’d never seen. All this time, he’d been blind.

  The deaths of the two boys weren’t evil...it was a little girl who’d never learned to control her anger – she’d never had a Georgia. Never had a Francis.

  All she’d known was evil and the man that was her father, Henry Harrison.

  Elton reached the end. His anger was back, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing at all, because he couldn’t beat a dead man. He could smash Harrison’s bones, smash his face, his chest. He could grind him to dust.

  But then, he knew it wasn’t for him to do.

  ‘Elton, now, you don’t want to do this. Just think of all the trouble you’re in already. A murderer? A man like you? That policeman’s coming, you know...’

  Elton heard the same words in his head, but spoken to Maude, to Jane.

  ‘Just think of all the trouble you’re in already,’ Harrison had said, as he unzipped himself. Elton had heard it through Emily, and God, that one little phrase was more than he could take.

  Elton realised he was crying, but he didn’t know why.

  He pulled his ear defenders back over his ears. The rain fell, light and clean. He put the spade against the ground and dug up Henry Harrison’s corpse.

  *

  92.

  Harrison tried to stop Elton, but Elton knew the old man was light. The hands grasping at his shoulders couldn’t stop him.

  The stink of smoke, of his own anger, his own stupidity...it drove him on.

  His muscles didn’t burn anymore, but he gripped the spade so hard his hands ached and cried out for him to stop.

  He spoke, but he couldn’t hear his own voice, as he could not hear Harrison. Without looking up at the old man pulling on his soaked t-shirt, he dug deeper and deeper, throwing dirt to one side, then the other when the pile got too high.

  The spade hit the top of the casket. He drove it down, again, again, fury lending him strength, and then there he was.

  Harrison’s body still had flesh attached. There was no smell because his corpse was dry. But Elton thought he could smell the stale smoke, even on the old man’s corpse.

  He pulled him out. He couldn’t carry his spade and lantern, but that didn’t matter because he didn’t need to see in the dark to find the angels. He could feel them, feel the sister’s hunger, drawing him on.

  The three sisters and Harrison faded into the dark behind him as he carried the body in his arms. He walked through the night, straight and true.

  *

  93.

  Elton came back into the light by the foot of the three angels, and threw the body at the sisters’ feet. The one in white, the one in black, the little girl, sensible shoes on her feet.

  Took off his ear defenders and turned to see Harrison behind him.

  He didn’t speak, he couldn’t, not anymore, because the little girl laid her finger on the corpse’s lips. Like, shh. Shh, Daddy. Don’t wake the baby.

  Like maybe Harrison had once said to Maude, way back when it first started.

  Harrison brought himself to this. Damnation in death.

  ‘Do it,’ said the little girl, speaking to Elton. ‘Do it,’ and he knew precisely what she meant.

  Wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before.

  He raised the spade and drove it deep into the earth. He missed taking Harrison’s head off completely, cutting through one side and the bone.

  The vicar’s ghost screamed, a gargling scream like someone with blood in their throat.

  Elton raised the spade again.

  *

  94.

  ‘Yes, do you see? Do you see, Elton? Do you?’

  Elton saw Georgia looking down at what Elton had done.

  A corpse, mutilated beyond recognition. The arms were off, the head, the legs. Elton was in the middle of the torso, chopping this to pieces, too.

  He’d been in the black of anger, pure black anger, not red, like some people think.

  ‘What have you done?’ she said, and he was going mad.

  Elton laughed. ‘Chopped him back to sleep,’ he said and he looked to the sisters. The sisters smiled. The little girl might have giggled, little Francis in her arms like a little dolly, like Jane had once been to Maude.

  ‘Elton?’ said the woman in black.<
br />
  Jane looked at him sadly, her ghost as beautiful as she’d ever been in life.

  The dead bore their wounds, even in death.

  Georgia next to Jane, both beautiful, and a great sob heaved in Elton’s chest.

  ‘Leave him. Leave him finish. It’s not done, is it?’ said Jane Harrison.

  ‘No,’ said Elton. Because you did a job until it was done.

  ‘Elton,’ said Georgia. ‘I can’t. I can’t let you do this.’

  ‘Stop me, then,’ he said, and raise the spade, but Georgia could not, because she wasn’t there, nor was Francis, but the three black angels were, watching him, watching him while he chopped, then dug down deep.

  Sunlight was an hour off, maybe two.

  He dug. At four feet six inches he hit the top of the first casket.

  *

  95.

  What punishment could ever be enough?

  He cleared the dirt from the top casket and cracked it open with the pick axe. It took a few tries, because his muscles wouldn’t work anymore. And yet he was not done. He couldn’t rest.

  Because what punishment could ever be enough?

  ‘Stop,’ said Georgia, her voice harsh because of her crushed larynx.

  A skinny kid named Declan watched him, too. And a boy called Wayne. And a man named David King.

  The dead in the cemetery watched.

  He knew well enough who was real and who was not. He knew Georgia and Francis and Declan and Wayne and King were not there, because he saw them every day. He’d seen them every day since they died. They were the weight he carried with him, his ghosts and his alone.

  He knew they were not real, but what punishment could ever be enough?

  He pulled the pieces of the lid aside.

  But of course, it wasn’t right.

  He pulled out the casket. It was heavy, but he was still strong. Years of weights, getting older, maybe, but strong enough to pull the casket out. He only had to get down four feet, so he dug himself a longer trench and heaved the casket up on end. He felt Maude’s body slide in the casket, a heavy thud as her head hit the top.

  The dead watched, the angels watched. Harrison didn’t watch, because his ghost was gone. There was nothing left for it to hold onto.

  But what punishment would ever be enough?

  Elton wasn’t Henry Harrison's judge. The three sisters were.

  With the top casket on end, Elton could reach Jane Harrison. He cracked the last casket, his arms shaking with fatigue. And there she was, just bone, one side of her once beautiful face caved in by her own mother.

  He took Emily Harrison’s bones and laid them in Jane Harrison’s arms.

  Stepped out, pulled Maude back over the top, to protect them both for eternity.

  Then he pushed the remains of Henry Harrison into the earth as the first hint of sunshine hit the sky.

  No time left, but still work to do.

  Jane laid a kiss on his cheek. It was chaste. He sat for a moment, staring down into the pit, and when he turned to look again the dead were gone.

  Then, all his rage and sadness spent, Elton Burlock fell asleep right there next to the grave.

  *

  96.

  He dreamed a sweet dream, cradled by the dead. He held Georgia and Francis in his arms, and somewhere below him he could hear a man laugh, but his laughter sounded like tears.

  Who can judge a man, but the dead, whether they bear heavy on his soul or lightly?

  *

  97.

  ‘Mr Burlock?’

  Elton felt someone shaking his shoulder.

  ‘Mr Burlock? Wake up, Mr. Burlock. Elton? Wake up.’

  Elton sat up, rubbing his eyes. Looked around. He’d fallen asleep on the grass. He was covered in dirt. He hadn’t had time to fill in the graves and PCs James and Davis were standing over him.

  But then, the grave was covered.

  The turf undisturbed.

  ‘Mr. Burlock, if you don’t mind, what the hell have you been doing?’

  Elton’s mind ticked over. For the first time in twenty-six years, he couldn’t see his own ghosts, following him. He woke and all he could see was his cemetery, and the two policeman, and the other side of him, three black angels.

  His mind raced.

  ‘What’s it look like I’m doing, Constables?’

  James sighed. ‘Looks like you’ve been sleeping in a grave.’

  ‘Well...I haven’t. Working late last night. I hit my head, dropped my...’ the lanterns were gone, the oil cloth gone...the spade, covered in bone and flesh...gone.

  ‘Well, I hit my head. Couldn’t sleep. Got to walking about in the dark. Pretty stupid for a man of my age.’

  ‘That sounds like a crock of shit, Mr. Burlock.’

  Elton smiled. ‘Shit’s all I’ve got, PC James. Shit’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘Tania Reed’s come around. They’re keeping her, but Terry finally got to interview her. You’re a lucky man, it seems.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elton, looking around at the cemetery. Pristine. Like a job had been done and done well. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said and smiled, because for the first time in twenty-six years he felt it.

  ‘What time is it?’

  PC James looked at his watch. ’11 am. You really did hit your head?’

  ‘At some point,’ shrugged Elton. ‘At some point, no doubt.’

  James and Davis looked down at him. He shrugged. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a damn thing. You know it, too, and no one likes a smart arse.’

  ‘Not being smart, Constable. Just...doing a job. Like you.’

  His muscles burned and he could barely move, but he dragged himself over to the angels so he could read the inscription there.

  It was the same at the top, yet something was different.

  At the very base, the inscription had changed.

  It now said:

  Maude Harrison 1921-2011

  Jane Harrison 1932-2011

  Emily Harrison 1958-2011

  Sister. Mother. Daughter.

  And below that?

  Henry Harrison 1901-2011

  Father.

  Elton smiled, a little smile that the constables could not see.

  ‘You won’t be having any more trouble in the cemetery,’ said Elton.

  ‘And how do you figure that?’ said Davis.

  ‘PC James knows, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t know a damn thing, and all I’ve got is shit.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Elton.

  *

  The Gatekeeper

  There’s a gatekeeper in a cemetery in a small Norfolk market town.

  His name is Elton Burlock.

  People see him from time to time, walking round, or just sitting on his ride on mower, mowing the grass. Giving the dead a haircut. People say he’s a warm man. Well liked. He works hard on that cemetery, and it’s the pride of the town.

  He works hard on his cottage, too. He’s always up weekdays, in the winter, long before the sun. Tending the dead. Making sure they stay asleep.

  Every year he lays flowers on a grave, marked by three black angels.

  He works hard to keep the dead asleep, but sometimes, on a weekend, he sleeps in late. He cooks, too, and people passing his cottage smell herbs and spices and sometimes late at night his light is still on, and he sits on a pew reading a book.

  He sits on a bench dedicated to Lily Anne and Frank Holt, sometimes, too. And people say they see him talking to two women, one old, one beautiful. The beautiful one wears a white dress and rocks an old style buggy back and forth, back and forth, like she’s trying to keep her baby asleep.

  Elton Burlock talks to them, sometimes he laughs, and sometimes he smiles, because these dead are his dead, and they weigh lightly on his soul.

  There’s a gatekeeper in a cemetery in a small Norfolk market town, and he’s happy, at last, and home.

  The End

  Bonus Sample

  The Lo
ve of the Dead

  by

  Craig Saunders

  I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.

  The Book of Lies - Aleister Crowley

  *

  High priest the mesmorous, the soul auctioneer,

  Sells scorpion tightropes, while surfing on fear

  Soul Auctioneer - Death in Vegas

  *

  Shimmy on down baby

  Shimmy on down

  Troubled Times - Screaming Trees

  Part One

  The High Priestess

  Chapter One

  Monday 10th November

  Some time after the killing started, some time before it ended, Beth Willis sat at her kitchen table with a glass of whiskey. Beth needed a focus for meditation and preferred a whiskey tumbler. It worked best if it was full to begin with, empty later on.

  She stared at the still liquid, her brow drawn tight, cross, but not really knowing why. What was the point at being angry with the dead?

  She didn’t want to meditate, but spirits were demanding bastards.

  It didn’t matter that this was stupid. It didn’t matter that she was probably wasting her time, or that her son had kept her up playing the Xbox long after last night’s binge should have put her to sleep.

  Breathe out, breathe in. Relax. Let calm wash over her.

  Damn she wanted to drink it. Focus on that. Let it go where it will.

  The theory behind meditation was easy enough. Some people counted. Others focused on a candle flame and said ‘Om’ while their legs went numb from twisting into stupid positions. Meditation was supposed to be comfortable, but she had a hangover and was liable to fall asleep. So she sat.