The Cemetery - IX

Part 1

Norman

8^th January, 1920

I’m not sure if I’m just falling back into my old feelings of loneliness now that the two boys I had with me are gone. Or if its just that the deep impact of snow and the chill of winter is affecting me more than past years. Or if it’s the inclusion of these damn weird notebooks in my life but I’ve been starting to feel a paranoia that I have never felt before. In my body when I awake I feel a pressure on my chest and an unwillingness to escape my covers. Never before have I felt such a feeling.

                I can’t completely say that reading that journal we found with the bones of that woman haven’t affected me. There was something about them, aside from the horror they displayed that has played a trick on my senses. I’ve never been one to have a fear of the graves. I’ve worked this site for twenty odd years, more than that actually but who keeps count. And no fear of ghosts or the living dead have made manifest a dread in my mind up ‘til now.

                Milling about the stones, brushing off the snow, I felt that someone was watching me. I kept turning to look for someone standing there amongst the graves observing me but in the crisp cool air of the cemetery I was alone. Aside from the wind howling past the stone edifices and the shadows cast by the bright sun, I was alone.

                I’m hesitant to read the next diary I found. I must not let superstition get to me. I have work to do. Perhaps I’ll break the seal tonight or tomorrow. For now I’m off to shovel some more snow. The official closing of the cemetery is next week. The engraver is heading over soon to add the final years to the gate. It’ll be sad to watch the normal rather regular procession of caskets dwindle to zero but it’ll save me the trouble of ever having to use my shovel again.

cont.

I’m sitting here with the next wax covered diary wary to put the wax to the light to let escape the words beyond. What likelihood could both texts hold similar tales? Impossible. How possible is it that two secret journals be recovered from the same cemetery? Less possible when you think about what people deign necessary for a loved ones passage to the great beyond. Hell the Egyptians buried their kings with gold and riches and their servants. So how strange is it that I found a journal? But that first tale, about the woman and the shadows, and Mathias having to kill his own wife. How strange it all seems.

                I can’t let these shivers running up my spine dissuade me. I’ll uncover this damn book and read it. Who gives a damn anyway?

cont.

Well I'll be damned. It's not a book. Just a few bound pages not a full journal as the last. And wrapped around it is a pencil drawing. The sight is grotesque to me. Mostly darkness with a shade of red. What could it be? 

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