Cry on the Wind
written by Thomas Cooney - Vol 2 Issue 16

The air was crisp, with a smell of fallen leaves. Overhead a full moon shone fat and yellow down on Toby and I as we walked along the dark and dusty road home. Another mile and we would arrive to the warmth and comfort of hot apple cider and a roaring fire to warm our coldness. An owl hooted softly from an old oak tree and was echoed by another farther off in the woods. We passed old man McKinney’s farmhouse, our bags of candy feeling heavier and more leaden with every step. We stopped to take a rest, sitting on the curb. A slight breeze had sprung up and pushed the leaves against our feet, making whispering sounds in the apple trees behind us. We sat quietly, not making a sound, not talking from the tiredness. I leaned back and looked at the moon. Someday men will be there I thought to myself. Maybe we’ll have homes, parks, schools, and places just like here.

It was time to get going. We needed to be getting back home before it got too late. The clock in the courthouse downtown began to chime. The lone bell tolled sadly ten times. It was late and we still had to pass by Ravenswood. That name sent a shiver down my spine. Some said Ravenswood Cemetery was haunted. We had heard the stories the old men told in the barbershop. Stories we kids weren’t supposed to hear, but we peeped in the windows and heard the men’s talk float through the door until we were chased away. Haunted they said. That girl who lost her life in the accident on Old Mill road one cold fall night twenty years ago. She never saw the car they say, never knew what hit her until the impact sent her flying into the big elm. They say you can still see the spot where her head hit it. Made that dent in the old gnarled bark. One minute she was walking along, the next she was on the slab at the undertaker. The guy who hit her was so unnerved they said, went and put a bullet through his head later that year. Now’s he’s up there with her, over in a family plot by the west wall, under that huge oak they put him. The girl was just sixteen, and pretty as a peach with blonde hair and those blue eyes. She was a ringer for Jean Harlow. “Looked more like Thelma Todd, if you ask me,” said old Doc Lindstrom. “ I should know, saw every one of Thelma’s movies”. “Hell, I delivered Jenny into the world” wiping his forehead. “She was destined for better things than the cold grave”, he said with a sigh.

She had a fight with her boyfriend at the dance at the grange hall, started walking home and never made it back. They said she’s still there in Ravenswood, but not in peace. Roams the graveyard at night. She was trying to find her way back home, to warmth, to loving parents who didn’t need to bury their daughter so young, to the boy who loved her. The young man they say, well after her death, he went and joined up with the army. He never came back either. Killed in the last war. “Died in France” said old man McKinney. “It wasn’t France you fool”, replied Mr. Bartlett the grocer. “He died in Germany, fighting the krauts he did. Died near Berlin when his platoon wandered into that kraut minefield. Buried over there he is. His body was so bad blown up they almost couldn’t identify it. Would have cost the family a pretty penny to have what was left shipped home, so they had him buried there”. Now she’s looking for him they said. Wants to set things to rights and be with the boy. Was going to get married and have kids and a nice little house here in town. She won’t rest till she finds him they said. “Such a shame, such a shame”, said old man McKinney, so young and beautiful and he shook his head.

A bat flittered above in the moonlight as we approached the familiar gray wall of Ravenswood. It’s said the stone for it came from China. Was brought over in the hold of a ship before the Civil War and then built stone by stone. Tall, stark, and oppressive, it stood guard over those entombed behind its chiseled wall. I could feel a shiver as we approached the gates that made the place even more imposing and sinister. We stopped and looked at the rows and rows of cold marble slabs, crosses, angels, obelisks, marble mausoleums built by the wealthiest townspeople, built to last an eternity, and to keep their secrets with them. What were once living flesh and blood now lay rotting in the ground, or sealed behind the stone and wrought iron doors of their cold crypts.

We stood and watched for what seemed like an eternity, until I said that perhaps we should leave. I was tired. I wanted to get home to safety and warmth. To feel my mother hug me and ask if I got a lot of candy this year. To take off this skeleton costume and slip beneath the coolness of the sheets and drift off into sleep and explore exotic worlds and places in my dreams. Toby seemed fixated on something behind the cold iron gates. I tried to get his attention as he stared, his eyes seeing something I couldn’t. He said he had to go in there. He wanted to see what it was. He said he saw someone in there, up on the hill, someone staring at us, watching us with sad eyes. I felt a cold chill on my spine, and I swear, I swear to God himself I could hear the sound of what seems to be crying in the wind as it picks up and blows the dead leaves across the cemetery.

We can’t go in there I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. I told him the caretaker locks the gate every night. He closed it at sundown and put the heavy iron lock on it and everyone in town knows that once the gates are locked they stay that way until morning when he comes back with the key to open it. But still my words fall away as Toby stared between the bars. I reach out and place my hand on the bars and give the gate a shake, to show that it was locked and we couldn’t get in. To my horror I heard the sound of the lock coming open. I look down and what only a man with a key could part is now hanging on one side of the gate. Toby pushed me away and opened the gate. I had to follow him, I had no choice, I had to protect my friend.

We started up the dirt path, wet still from the rains, with the ruts of cars and the hearse running down its middle. A cold weeping angel looked down on Toby and I as we started climbing the incline in the road. In her hand she held a wreath made of laurel, a final tribute to Jack Simpson who died in the war to end all wars. I swear I could see real tears streaming from those dead eyes, glinting with silver in the light. My feet became heavier and heavier, but still something pulled me forward up that desolate hill. Toby ran ahead and I yelled for him to stop and wait for me, but he didn’t hear. I started running after him, my breath getting heavy and loud as I tried to catch up with him.

I stopped. There was Toby standing at the top of the hill, but to whom was he talking? It looked like a woman. But why was she here, amongst the cold and unfeeling stones? She glowed with a blue light that made my heart clutch in my chest. I could see her face, the remnants of tears still on her cheeks, her blonde hair wafting behind her while her gown made a rustling sound as the wind caught it and made it flow behind her like a wave of blue silk on the ocean. I could see her corsage made of orchid on her bosom, the silver reflection of her necklace of pearl. She reached a hand out to Toby and touched his face. I stood in fear as she caressed his face and on the wind I heard her say,” lover, you’re here at last, it’s been so long”.

A dark cloud passed over the moon, obscuring it and it plunged me into darkness. I heard the scream, the scream of terror, of horror, and a scream of death itself. It plunged into my very soul like a knife blade of ice. I dropped my bag and reversed my course back down the muddy path. I slipped and fell. A sudden sharp pain coursed up my body. I got up and tried to run again, but the pain hurt me so bad. I could see the gates at the bottom, if only I could reach them, I’d throw them open and run home. Home to my family, my pets, my safety. Limping I got to the bottom, but the gates were closed and locked. They were open. I know they were. I shook them and rattled them. Perhaps someone would hear and come and open the gates and let me out of that desolate and frightening place. I shook and shook them as hard as I could. I started to cry, and huge wracking sobs burst out of my mouth. I fell to the ground and cried. I cried tears of fear and desperation. I wanted out of there. I don’t know what happened to Toby, why wasn’t he there to help?

I collapsed and I felt myself drifting off, Sleep; sleep would help calm my fear. Someone was bound to drive by and see me; perhaps they’d call the police and let me out. I could wait. I wasn’t scared anymore. The dawn came and the breeze picked up and scattered the leaves, which covered my sleeping form. I was awake, but why was I was still here? It all seemed like a horrible dream from which I never thought I would awake from

They never found Toby. I’m the only one who knew what happened that night. I tried to tell the others, but they couldn’t hear me. It’s as if I didn’t exist. Why did they ignore me and walk past? I sat here on this cold marble stone and cried because no one knew I was here. I’ll always be here, a nameless child who will never grow up, never have a first kiss, or see his children and grandchildren. I will be here until the end of time. I will be here to watch the seasons change. For you see, I never made it out either.

The next day, they found me. I lay by the gates, a pile of leaves at my head, my candy bag a short distance away. Old Doctor Lindstrom knelt over me and told the others I had died of shock and the cold. What I had possibly seen to frighten me to death, they couldn’t say. They’ll never know. My parents claimed my body at the county morgue. My mother was in hysterics as they laid my coffin in the ground. I can still hear that awful sound of dirt hitting the top of the coffin, the muffled voices above getting more and more silent with each shovel full of earth. Now I wait for my story to be heard.