AFTER MIDNIGHT part 4

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Part 4

By R. Peterson

“Light must always follow darkness … one does not exist without the other.”

The violent shaking continued. More than half of the ancient graves in Black Rose Cemetery were split open. And the dead crawled out. The man who called who called himself Avidità smiled as the cadavers assembled around him. “An army marches on its stomach,” he said. “My troops are famished! Some haven’t eaten for years!” He spread his arms wide and walked about with a supplicating gesture. “Who among you would volunteer to feed my ranks?”

            Trout looked horror stricken. “What do the dead eat?”

            “Why the living of course!” Avidità snapped his fingers just as two Mortuary Frost forks took off running. The hooded bear and jackal chased them down. The screaming went on for less than a minute. The creatures returned licking bloody lips and dragging the two bodies. Bits of torn-flesh stuck to their matted hair.

            Trout began to babble nonsense as tears rolled down her face. “I should have held them. David Williams had only one season! It was Jeff Andrew’s first Ceremony of Týr.”

            “Shut up!” Avidità slapped her so hard she crumpled to the ground.

            Any thoughts of escape were quickly extinguished as the three other Goth covens found themselves surrounded by the Seven Deadly Skins and an army of recently animated corpses.

            “We are prepared to preserve ourselves!” Avidità ordered.

            “Which coven?” Ham asked.

            “Let’s get this done with shall we?” Avidità spread his arms wide. Joanie noticed what looked like tiny streams of electrical current flowing between his fingers. “Every spoon under the moon … with their fingers splayed on the ground! Blood will spill much too soon … and no more forks will be found.”

Joanie stared at Hamilton Fisk. The leader of Abra Cadaver was always the most powerful witch until these new comers arrived. She was strangely silent. Joanie edged closer to her, careful not to be conspicuous. “Can you do anything?” she whispered.

            “All power has a weakness,” Ham said. “We must discover theirs.”

Ham nodded to her followers and they formed part of a large circle. The members of Mortuary Frost looked for guidance from their leader but Trout remained crumpled on the ground. Baby Bat nudged Joanie. The whites of her eyes showed all round. “Are we going to do this?”

            “I don’t think we have any choice,” Joanie whispered. She turned to Ham. “Perhaps Avidità is over confident of his skills. He must think he is all powerful if he thinks he can take us all on at once!”

            “Will the forks be equal?” Ham asked the man prancing in the top hat.

            “Of course not!” Avidità smiled. “I shall use but one fork against ….” He paused to count the coven members sitting on the ground in a large circle. Joanie noticed sparks came from the ends of his fingers. “Forty-four … you may add a few more if you like. I want this to be fair!”

With a nod from Joanie, nine Cloverdale forks joined the circle and placed combat forks in their hands.

Joanie stared at the dozen or so men with their white faces painted like skulls. “I wonder which one is their champion?”

            “Winner takes all?” Avidità stared at them.

            “We agree!” Ham said.

-------2-------

Joanie and Ham helped Trout to her feet and together they walked around the circle blindfolding each member and placing a black candle behind. When they were finished, all three Goth Queens closed their eyes and the candles lit themselves. The flames would be a link to the minds of those without sight and the eyes which guided them.

Abra Cadaver, Cloverbone and Mortuary Frost all began to chant in the common tongue as the back door to one of the hearses opened. Eight of the men with white faces catted a black coffin and set it in the circle. Avidità looked at the sky in all directions (the moon glowed like a huge spotlight and no clouds covered any stars) before smiling. “Let my power come forth!”

Streams of blue/green electrical current flowed from Avidità’s fingertips toward the coffin and it opened.

Joanie and Ham both gasped at the same time. Trout fainted. A creature with the head of a black cat and the body of a dwarf sprang from the black box and danced around the circle. He appeared to hiss at each blindfolded member and whispered things in their ears that no one else could hear. Finally he placed his clawed fingers on the grass in front of Ham’s best fork.

            “Are you ready?” Avidità smiled. For the first time Joanie noticed the flashing sequins covering his dark suit. She wondered if he had hidden batteries somewhere on his body. He looked like a recently dug-up Elvis,

Ham stood behind her blind battle-Goth and sent mental images to him as the fork in his hand hovered over the splayed fingers on the grass below.  With lightning speed the fork was thrust into the ground missing the fingers by inches. The strike was so fast Joanie couldn’t be certain but at the last minute she swore the fork moved to one side as if pulled by a magnet.

            “That’s one!” Avidità said as Ham began to remove the corresponding fork ring from her finger. He shook his head.

            “Let us go again …. Double or nothing?” he suggested.

-------3-------

Ham readily agreed to Avidità’s terms and they moved to the next encounter. It was a repeat of the first. The downward thrusting fork missing the cat headed dwarf’s fingers by inches. “Come, come why so glum?” Avidità chanted. “Surely you must draw at least one drop of blood … and when you do … all your servants are returned to you!”

Ham became increasing agitated as she moved about the circle. None of her battle-Goths could make contact. The cat faced dwarf never moved his hand, but no matter how much mental imagery she sent, the forks always struck wild.

Just as Hamilton Fisk found her last fork defeated a commotion came from the corpses gathered outside the circle. A half dozen of the rotted dead suddenly attacked a robust gentleman who looked to have been recently placed in the cold earth. They knocked him to the ground and began peeling large strips of flesh from his bloodless body.

            “It appears my new army is famished,” Avidità said. He looked directly at Joanie. “As host of this ceremony I believe it was your responsibility to provide refreshments?”

            “If you think I’m going to dig up graves to provide you a buffet your crazy!” Joanie told him.

            “It doesn’t have to be human meat,” Avidità suggested. “A nice helping of beef seems to keeps things together!” He pointed toward one of the corpses just as two ribs fell to the ground. “Unless you would rather we feast on those we’ve recently won in battle?”

            “No!” Ham and Joanie both said at the same time.

            “Good!” Avidità laughed. “I noticed a small herd of cattle grazing in a field near here. Bring them to us and I shall spare your members …. for a time!”

            “I’m tired of doing your bidding,” Ham spat. “If you want cattle stolen do it yourself!”

At that moment, an image of Melania’s Tarot card returned to Joanie and she whispered urgently to Ham, “Tell him we’ll do it. I’ve got something that might help us … but we need to be alone to decide how to use it.”

            Ham grudgingly gave Avidità her consent. She and Joanie had just started walking toward the closed cemetery gates when Avidità and a dozen of his men stopped them. “When I send someone on a mission they always wear my garments,” he said. “I insist!” He smiled as they reluctantly removed their coats and accepted the black hoods. Joanie’s red blouse made her upper torso look like it was covered in blood under the moonlight.

As Joanie had suspected, the gates were closed but not locked. Scratches near the rusted lock mechanism showed a key had recently been used. “I hate leaving my coven behind,” Ham said. “But if you have something from a real witch that might help us … then this might be our only chance!”

            Joanie shook her head. “We’re all real witches,” she said. “Melania gave me a Tarot card Melania but it’s in my coat pocket. So now Avidità has it. I only hope I can get my coat back when we return.”

-------4-------

            It was less than half a mile down Vineyard Road to where Seth Johnson kept a dozen Black Angus grazing in a pasture next to his barn. It was a warm night and both girls removed their hoods when they were out of sight of the cemetery. They fastened them around their waists like belts. The bright moonlight made it easy to open the gate made of barbed-wire stretched over a pole-frame. “I’ve never herded cattle before,” Ham whispered.

            “It’s easy,” Joanie said. “You just walk in front of them and pretend you’re a bale of hay.”

            “Where are you going to be?”

            “I’ll be walking behind throwing sticks, rocks and anything else I can find!”

They were almost to the open gate when Joanie heard a noise behind her. In the distance a dog was barking and then another. The largest Black Angus bull she’d ever seen stood behind her pawing the ground with a hoof as big as a dinner plate. Hot steam pouring from the monster’s flaring nostrils made him look like a steam locomotive. “Run!” Joanie screamed just as the bull charged.

TO BE CONTINUED ….

AFTER MIDNIGHT part 3

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

“There is great good in the world … and so there must also be great evil.”

            Joanie Otter and Marsha Heron (Baby Bat) walked through the graves toward the oldest section of Black Rose Cemetery. A full moon, partially shrouded by moving clouds flashed the names on the headstones as they past. Like a middle-school classroom taking roll-call. The night would be attended by the living … and the dead.

            “Where are Snake and Talon?” Baby Bat whispered. “I thought they would be here before us!”

            “Don’t be a doom-cookie,” Joanie hissed. “Jason probably had trouble sneaking out of his house.”

There was an open-grave near the back; someone had removed the plywood and artificial grass that covered it until tomorrow’s funeral. “Trout” Marlow stepped from behind a large oak. As she snapped her black-nailed fingers together, the members of Mortuary Frost from Anaconda appeared from behind trees and bushes as if by magic. “Welcome Grave-queen and Cloverbone spoons?,” she crinkled her nose and stared at Marsha as she lingered on the s. “I hope you did not summon a Ceremony of Týr without forks!” (boys)  Her eyes glowed like tiny green lights. “It would be a shame if we had to eat you rather than your kindergoth.”

            “We tolerate none but Deathbats,” Joanie spit a wad of black gum and Trout had to step sideways to keep from getting it stuck in her bulging afro hair. Joanie shook her head with distain as she glanced at the nine Gothkind Trout had brought with her. “Looks like you could use a few Gravers (new members).”

            Two forks appeared on either side of Trout. The Mortuary Frost spoons had begun to form a circle around Joanie and Marsha. But then a red flash exploded on a nearby grave. Even as Trout spun around to gawp, another grave exploded, then another and another. Icicle, Talon, Snake, Bait, Rats, Boils and Bitch all appeared resting in mortuary posture on grassy beds, illuminated by the glow of emergency flares stuck in the foot of each grave. Zombie-like they rose slowly from invisible caskets and spoke as one ethereal voice from the beyond. “Hear our cries, Mistress of the dark! Favor us come forth to do your bidding. Let us once again barb these worms before they slide away from this Catostomus …who has gorged herself on them!”

            “Nice entrance,” Marsha whispered to Jason as she and Joanie were joined by the entire coven. Trout and her followers huddled together like a drama team that finds itself down thirteen applauses in the first act.

A soft breeze blew overhead tree limbs one direction … and then another. The ancient saplings appeared to be coming together like uninvited trouble at a wedding … a gossip of leaves speaking in harsh whispers to night brides.

            Trout broke from her group and raked her fingernails at the moon. “The hour of witching has come. If no others dare this night … let the blood belong to those here who stand.”

           

-------2-------

Joanie glanced at the skull-shaped watch she wore on a chain around her neck. It was just after midnight. It did look as though they might be the only covens to show for Týr. She was just about to agree with Trout when deathly silence began near the cast-iron gates and spread throughout the cemetery. Joanie and all those standing around the open grave gasped.

“Ham”, Abra Cadaver’s Gravequeen, appeared riding a broomstick (a 1938 Adler Damenrad ladies’ bicycle) in the air six-feet above a swirling mass of black robes.  A woven picnic basket open and strapped above the rear wheel of the classic Wizard of Oz vehicle showered carpet-tacks down on the barefoot coven members marching below. Bloody footprints, illuminated by the moon, made for a spectacular entrance.

When Ham and her followers were seated, thirteen black candles that were arraigned in a circle around the grave-guests lit themselves … and the ceremony of Týr began.

-------3-------

Ham told Mortuary Frost to preserve themselves. She seated a Blowfish wearing her spoon on the ground opposite Trout’s Deathbat. The Anaconda spoon looked nervous as a gob of mud made from grave dirt was placed over each of his closed eyes and he was then blindfolded.  “Blood and bone,” Trout hissed in his ear.” Both Goth males placed their left hands on the grass, palm side up.

Mortuary Frost had been challenged so they went first. Trout’s most vicious soldier hovered a muscled arm above the ground as he clutched a silver fork. He was blind and listening to Trout’s mental instructions. At her unspoken command he slammed the points into the grass drawing blood from three of his opponent’s fingers.

Soft hissing from Abra Cadaver sounded like a hungry wind chewing on the trees. After a lingering silence where Joanie could hardly breathe, Ham’s fork blindly floated to a spot directly above the enemy’s spayed hand and with a ferocious downward thrust impaled the Mortuary Frost palm almost in the center.

Joanie blew doom crumbs, Abra Cadaver had drawn the most blood and the advantage belonged to them. They were lethal good.

Trout slipped the twisted fork-handle ring, which matched the fork-end her soldier wore around his neck, from her finger and gave it to Ham. Her coven member now belonged to Ham. She watched as her former fork was dragged, by Ham’s coven, bleeding to a circle of withered black roses from whence many suspected (incorrectly) that the cemetery got its name. There the captured Goth male would be Black lipped (sexually initiated) and have his tongue dipped in tar (take new coven vows).

“Would you like a few minutes to say your final farewells?” Ham had a way of speaking that sounded like vicious laughter as she addressed Joanie. Cloverbone was up next.

Joanie was trying to think of something dark to reply when everyone was startled by headlights turning into the cemetery. “More of your friends?” Ham hissed. Three vehicles stopped for a few seconds and then rumbled through the open gates.

The automobiles were long and as dark as shadows. Baby Bat had the best night eyes. “They’re not cops,” she muttered. Still none standing around the open grave felt any relief.

“They’re hearses!” Trout gasped as they moved slowly down the single blacktop lane.

“Who schedules a funeral at midnight?” Ham and Trout both scowled at Joanie as if she were making a joke.

“Those who would not be caught dead in daylight,” Baby Bat finished.

-------4-------

Joanie noticed the Nevada license plates on each of the long black cars as they pulled to a stop near them. A large group of men, their faces and hands painted white to resemble skull and bones climbed out. A robust black man wearing an antique business suit and nineteenth century top-hat approached the group smiling. He was followed by six shapes wearing dark hoods. “I was hoping you would be here.” His smile grew broader but it did nothing to dispel the sudden fear that gripped Joanie.

“Who are you?” Ham asked.

“We are like you, contenders for the crown of Týr,” the man said almost laughing. “Although it’s really not necessary that we immerse ourselves in such unorthodox contests … but by your own coven bylaws, victory would appear to have some benefit to us.”

“You never answered her question.” Joanie found her voice.

“Why we are of course the Seven Deadly Skins from the most sinful city on Earth,” the man said. “Las Vegas is as close to Perdition as is possible for mortals to produce … especially in the summer. How many times have you heard people describe their costly misadventures in the lights that lie … as hot as Hell?”

The man took off his hat and bowed. “Il mio nome è Avidità … and please excuse me if I couldn’t summon humans with the necessary desires and abilities to be my disciples. They just weren’t bad enough.” He gestured to the first figure behind him. “This is Pride!” The figure removed the hood and revealed itself to be a large lion. It gazed at Joanie and the others with hungry eyes. Avidità went on. “What’s a coven without Envy?” The second figure turned out to be a leering African jackal. “Always following …. waiting for that one slow-one to fall … but gluttony is everywhere!”  A shadow behind his skull- men turned out to be a large dog digging up old bones. “Lust, Anger and Sloth … and I believe we’re complete!” The man who called himself Avidità laughed as three more of his followers removed their hoods revealing themselves to be a huge Rabbit with red eyes, a snorting Bull with vapors coming from its nostrils, and a snoozing Bear with the remains of a small animal caught in its teeth.

“You were not invited here. Leave now!” Joanie sounded more forceful than she felt.

“Oh, no one is allowed to leave just yet,” Avidità said. He removed an enormous key from his coat pocket and brandished it like a musical conductor’s baton. With a wave of his hand Joanie and the others heard the distant iron cemetery gates slam shut.

“You’re locking us in here?” Trout was almost screaming. One of her spoons took off running and the Lion dropped it to the bloody ground within seconds.

“Oh the gates are not locked,” Avidità  insisted. “In fact I took great pains to see them opened!”

“You’re the ones who stole the cemetery gate key from the library!” Joanie gasped.

“What do you want?” Ham was trying to keep her coven from bolting.

“Why the same things you do.” Avidità smiled. “An army of the night of course … only on a much bigger scale.”

The ground began to tremble and at first Joanie thought it was an earthquake. Then one grave opened and then another. Walking corpses some rotted for more than a century crawled from the ground and began to assemble around the man? who called himself Greed.

TO BE CONTINUED ….

AFTER MIDNIGHT part 2

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Part 2

By R. Peterson

“We are on different paths … but we all wander a dark world looking for light.”

Joanie demanded a large order of fries, two Cokes and shook the catsup bottle next to the salt and pepper to make sure it was full. Even though Spare-A-Dime was overflowing with customers, most of them avoided staring at the Goth-dressed teenage-girls. Those few, who did, quickly turned away. Baby-Bat thumbed through the Select-O-Matic mounted just below the window looking for songs. Outside, traffic on Townsend Avenue was heavy for a Tuesday night in Coverdale.

“I want to hear about how you punished Tommy Poole.” Marsha dropped a quarter into the slot punched two buttons and Psychotic Reaction by Count Five began to blast over the load-speakers. A scowling waitress hurried to the main jukebox located at one end of the dining area and cranked down the volume to a faint buzz. Baby-Bat shook her head and then bent a fork around the salt shaker. She then concealed it behind the napkin holder just before the same waitress brought their order.

“He was throwing spit-wads and one piece of paper had his signature on it,” Joanie gulped a mouthful of her Coke and chewed on a mouthful of ice.

“What did you do with the luminary?”

“I tossed it on the floor and Tommy tripped coming back to his seat.”

“You still have it?”

“No I looked everywhere … the paper-star must have gone into hiding … after its crime.”

“Pity,” Baby-Bat said watching the waitress balance five large orders of biscuits and gravy on a tray and start over towards a table filled with truckers. She poured a bloody lake of catsup on the plate and began to dip the fries. “Sometimes there’s just enough residual energy left … for an encore.”

“I think we need to find out what’s going on with the Black Rose gate key before the ceremony tonight,” Joanie said as she finished her Coke.

“How we going to do that?”

“Pay a visit to a real witch,” Joanie said standing up and stuffing the last of the fries in her mouth.

“Oh I was afraid you were going to say that,” Martha moaned.

-------2-------

Most of the lights were off inside the ancient mansion on the corner of Main and Galbraith Streets. What looked like a single candle light shown from what was probably the kitchen. Bent and twisted shrubs, that looked as if they hadn’t sprouted growth for half a century, lined a stone pathway like mourners at a funeral. Joanie banged the heavy iron knocker, cast in the shape of a grinning gargoyle, three times on a tarnished brass strike-plate. Both girls prepared for a long wait but the door creaked open in less than a minute. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you,” Joanie said to the young woman who opened the door, “but we’d like to speak to Mrs. Descombey … if that’s possible.”

“Oh you didn’t disturb me,” the girl said. “I was just reading. I’m not sure Melania is up to having visitors but I’ll check … please come in.” She opened the door wide and both girls stepped inside Baby Bat with slightly more hesitation than Joanie. The entrance hallway was dark with the only illumination coming from a room beyond and the girl turned on a light switch. “My name is Allison Weatherbee and I’m a friend of Melania’s.” The young lady must have noticed the girls were dressed like witches but she didn’t react. They followed her toward the kitchen.

Everything in the room looked to be at least a hundred years old although clean and very well preserved. Joanie noticed the hands on an elaborately carved grandfather clock showed four nineteen and appeared to be running backward. Alison noticed her stopping to stare.  “Oops,” she said turning. “I sometimes tinker with the fetish in this house to give myself an advantage. She snapped her fingers in front of the clock’s glass front and the hands began to move in the correct direction.

“What kind of advantage?” Joanie gasped.

“Anything I can use,” Allison said. “This house attracts all kinds of magic … black and blacker. If a girl is not careful, she’ll get whisked away to a dark place where bad dreams spring out of the ground and the things we’re all afraid of … hide-in-wait … behind creeping trees.”

“That sounds awful,” Baby Bat moaned.

“I’m sorry!” Allison laughed. “Actually I find this house endlessly fascinating … and I love every minute that I’m here.” She took a ceramic pot from a cabinet over the sink and began to fill it with water. “Would you care for a cup of tea?’

“We just came from Spare-A-Dime,” Joanie blurted.

“I insist,” Allison said as she put the tea pot on a gas burner and then took three cups and a metal container from the same shelf and placed them on the table. “Sit down and try to relax, while I see if Amante is up to entertaining visitors.”

“I wonder what kind of tea she’s going to make us?” Baby Bat whispered as Allison left the room.  She rotated the metal box on the table to look at the baked-enamel artwork. A distraught woman wearing a long eighteenth century dress was forcefully holding a splintered door closed on what appeared to be a farmer’s shed. Clawed fingers jutting from a mangy fur-covered arm were trying to force the door open from the inside.  Sky blue lettering under the illustration proclaimed “KEEP CLOSED FOR FRESHNESS”

“I don’t know,” Joanie muttered. “But I’ll bet it’s not Lipton’s.”

-------3-------

Melania was propped-up by three large pillows in the center of a queen-sized bed when Joanie and Martha entered the room. The flesh on her wrinkled face sagged and showed a woman of extreme old age; only her eyes appeared bright and youthful. “So Rose Brown’s cemetery gate key is missing,” Melania said.

“Yes,” Joanie stammered. “How did you know?” She was starting to feel the effects of the tea they had consumed only minutes before. Her feet felt like they were barely touching the floor.

“Sheriff Walker stopped by while you both were tormenting that rude waitress in Spare-A-Dime.” Melania smiled. “He thought you two would also be along for a visit.”

“Then you know about the key?”

“Of course,” Melania said. “The key was locked safely away in my attic for many years. I donated it to the library for safekeeping when my storage area was unfortunately occupied by something dark and evil.”

“We are hosting a kind of meeting in the cemetery tonight at midnight,” Joanie blurted. “We don’t want anything to go … wrong.”

“I know all about your Ceremony of Týr,” Melania said. “Every night for you is Halloween. I don’t wear black leather but I have broken a few black crayons and I’m no stranger to the dark arts. I knew Rose Brown when I was just a girl. Cloverdale was then called South Fork and it was as wild a frontier town as Tombstone or Dodge City. The city founders paid Rose for every body she buried at her farm and she grew rich from all the killing. If I remember right, the fence and gates were imported from an ancient cemetery near Castello Di Poppi in Italy. Rose had problems keeping the dead in the ground almost from the time of her first burial. Some ground is cursed from ancient times. Folks said she used the walking dead to work her farm when no one was looking. Half the people buried there were no good rustlers and outlaws. If she did, she got more work out of them than anyone ever did when they was alive.”

“Will there be trouble tonight?” Baby Bat wrung an invisible rag with her fingers.

“Not if someone doesn’t unlock the gate,” Melania said.

“And if that happens ….” Joanie felt like she was starting to float.

“Most of the spirits that reside in Black Rose are harmless,” Melania said. “Just ordinary folks come to the end of their mortality. The gates are locked to keep the really bad ones in the ground. After the fence and gates were torn down in Italy and shipped to America three nearby villages were almost completely wiped out by horrible night murders in less than six months.”

“Night murders?”

“What should we do?” Both girls spoke at the same time.

“Enjoy yourselves,” Melania told them. “The road of life is a crooked path passing between shadow and sunshine. Learn to love the light and the dark and realize that one cannot exist without the other.” The old woman noticed the fear in the young girl’s eyes and motioned for Allison to bring her a carved box that rested on a shelf on the far side of the room. “If you find yourselves in trouble,” she said as she pulled an ancient and very old Tarot card from the box. “Recite the words on the back of this card while gazing at unobstructed moonlight. Whatever evil is drawn from the ground must return where the beams of light direct.”

Melania handed Joanie the card and then closed her eyes. Joanie rotated the reversed six of pentacles in her hand but no matter how she turned it … it always remained upside down. The writing on the back appeared to be in Latin. After almost a minute of silence, Allison pulled the covers up and gently tucked them around her employer. “I think that’s all for tonight,” she said. “Can I give you two a lift somewhere?”

“We have to be at Black Rose Cemetery at midnight,” Joanie said, “but that’s still hours away.”

“I’d better drive you,” Allison said as they walked down the stairs. “Time has a way of moving in all kinds of directions in this house.”

Joanie noticed the tall clock as they made their way to the front door. The hands behind the glass were on eleven twenty-six.

-------4-------

Joanie and Baby Bat rode in the large front seat with Allison. The nineteen forty-nine Buick Roadmaster hugged every curve and seemed to float over bumps even at seventy miles per hour. Allison tuned the radio dial to a station that neither girl was familiar with and then cranked up the volume when a group called Sex Gang Children began to play songs from the album Blind.

Allison parked the classic Buick so that the headlights shone on the open gate with the lock mechanism. “It looks still locked to me,” she said. “I think you’ll be okay … well not okay but you know.” Joanie and Baby Bat climbed from the car. A tiny light that looked like it might be a candle flickered from the back of the cemetery and then went out. In the faint distance dogs began to bark furiously.

“Looks like you’re the first ones here,” Allison said.

“I hope so,” Baby Bat said as they began to walk.

Something made Joanie turn and the classic Buick and Allison had both disappeared. A wind came from the east and touched mortuary-cold fingers under her hair as they walked among the tombstones.

            “I have a bad feeling,” Baby Bat whispered.

            “I know,” said Joanie as she felt for the card in her pocket. It was like touching the waxy skin on a dead person.

It was the spring equinox, nearly midnight … and the Ceremony of Týr was about to begin.

TO BE CONTINUED …

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

By R. Peterson

Joanie Otter brushed the tacks onto the floor and sat down amidst muffled laughter. She placed her books on the shelf under the desk and glared at Eddie and Tommy. Both boys made devil-horn signs with their fingers. “Where’s your broomstick?” Eddie Hicks taunted. “Better sweep-up them frog-spikes before someone gets hurt.”

“Is it true that Satin’s brides have only three toes?” Tommie Poole leered from the desk to her left. “Take off one of them tomb-boots and let’s have us a look.”

Joanie wasn’t the only Goth in Cloverdale High School but she was the only one in this class. Everything she wore was black. A leather skirt with spider-lace stockings and knee-high boots with silver buckles and zippers covered her long legs. Her face was white with black lipstick. Dark eye-shadow made her green eyes appear to sink into her skull. The fact that her mother was the mayor of Cloverdale and that Joanie was a sixteen year-old beauty made no difference. She was different and that dissimilarity attracted ridicule from … almost everyone.

“Leave her alone!’ Chloe O’Brian turned in her seat. “At least she don’t come clomping in here smelling like cow exhaust!” Chloe and Joanie were opposites. Chloe O’Brian was the head varsity cheerleader and the most popular girl in school … Joanie was a reject and a nobody.

Tommy Poole’s face reddened. He self-consciously hid his grungy shoes under his desk. He milked forty Holsteins each morning before school. “Watch out dark enchantress!” Hicks leaned forward and yanked Joanie’s hair just as the teacher came into the room. He whispered just loud enough for her ears. “The good book says we shall not suffer your kind to live!”

            Tommy Poole spent the first ten minutes of the class period tearing bits of paper from his notebook and rolling them into tiny wads. He flung them at Joanie whenever the teacher wasn’t looking. Joanie pulled the paper wads from her hair and carefully unrolled each one looking for something. She had nine tiny pieces of wrinkled paper smoothed-out on her desk when she finally found what she was looking for. Tommy had torn the  pieces from an old test page that he had signed and this last scrap had his signature on it.

            It took Joanie only seconds to tear the edges of the paper into a perfect square and then fold it into a magical star. Now she had him.

            When Tommy got up to use the pencil sharpener, Joanie tossed the magic star on the floor so that Tommy would have to step over it on the way back to his seat. She buried her head in her hands and meditated on the word kritums repeating it over and over until she heard the crash.

            Tommy lay sprawled on the floor with his now broken pencil looking bewildered as he had tripped on nothing. The paper star had vanished.

“Open your American History books to page two twenty-six,” Mrs. Dern ordered. “Today’s lesson is on the Salem witch-craft trials of sixteen ninety-two”

“I’ll get you for this,” Tommy whispered.

 Everyone in the class turned to stare at Joanie.                                                      

-------2-------

            Marsha (Baby-Bat) was waiting when Joanie stepped outside the school’s main building. “I had to punish Tommy Poole today,” Joanie told her. “We might have trouble!”

            Baby Bat snapped her fingers and three forks appeared from behind a giant elm tree on one corner of the school grounds. The forks: Brent Hawke, Tony Crea and Jason Lynx all followed exactly nine steps behind. Everyone was dressed in black. A group of students waiting to catch their bus thought they looked like a funeral procession.

As the coven marched past Eddie Hicks and Tommy Poole, Joanie felt something whiz past her head. She turned. Hicks had thrown a small piece of gravel at her. “Freaks!” he taunted just before him and Tommy took off running. They wouldn’t dare do more when the coven was guarded by forks.

Tony, Jason and Brent stopped before they parted at the corner of Townsend and Wallace. “Are we still on for tonight?” Jason asked. Baby Bat twisted his arm and kicked him.  “You’re a dog and I’m the moon!” she hissed. “And you don’t howl … until we ask!”

“Black Rose at ghost-hour,” Joanie replied when Jason was on his knees and tamed. “If we drink first blood, we will bow only to Abra Cadaver in first choosing.” The ceremony of Týr was the most important event for the Goth of the northwest United States and occurred twice a year during the spring and fall equinoxes. It was always held in a secluded cemetery at midnight … and if possible next to a fresh grave. Three Goth-kind would be sacrificed (given to the control of a rival coven until the next Týr.) This time Joanie and her coven, Cloverbone, were hosting the event.

“I might have trouble sneaking out …” A furious Baby Bat started toward Brent Hawke but Joanie brought her to heel.

“Your parents go league bowling on Tuesday nights in Butte don’t they?” Joanie hissed.

“My mom sprained her leg in a yoga class,” Brent said. ”I think they’re staying home.”

Joanie opened her purse and searched until she found a small pink packet tied with a black ribbon. “Slip a gram of this into each one of their Bailey’s Scotch and Seven Up’s and stir just before you add the three ice-cubes. Give it to them during the first commercial break as they watch Lawrence Welk on TV,” she said. “By the ten o’clock news … both your parents will be dancing in accordion dreamland for the rest of the night.”

“How do you know so much about my family?” Brent was stunned.

“I am the eyes and ears of the night,” Joanie told him as she stared and then dropped the packet into his trembling hand. “I know everyone’s secrets.”

After the three boys begged to be released and then crossed the street, Marsha nudged Joanie. “So what was in the packet?”

            “Just a sugar substitute from one of the tables at Spare-A-Dime,” Joanie told her. “I painted the paper with mom’s nail polish. The spell is for Brent … not his parents.”

            “And you are the eyes and ears of the night because we spent all those hours window-peeping at the Hawke residence last summer!” Marsha laughed.

            “I’ll make a witch of you yet,” Joanie told her.

-------3-------

            There was a police car parked in front of the Comanche County Library with its lights flashing as Joanie and Marsha walked down the street. Joanie started to run and Marsha followed. Joanie’s mother and her friends held their weekly LSD (Ladies for Student Development) meetings in one of the library rooms.

            “Mom!” Joanie gushed when they burst into the building. “What’s wrong?”

Sheriff John Walker and one of his deputies were searching through a shattered display case. Glass shards covered the floor.  “It looks like someone broke into the library after the cleaning people left and stole one of the historical artifacts,” Margaret Otter said. “Doris says she was sure the old key was in there yesterday.”

            “Key?”

            “Yes, that’s the odd part,” Margaret said. “The only thing that appears to have been taken is the antique skeleton-key that opens the cast-iron gates to Black Rose Cemetery.”

            “But the cemetery gates are left wide open day and night.” Joanie gasped. “I’ve never seen them closed. Why would anyone want the key to something that isn’t locked?”

            “Beats me,” Margaret said. “The key is huge, made of some kind of engraved metal and very old, but it can’t be worth more than a few dollars to a collector.”

            “Rose Brown started the cemetery and built the mansion where State Hospital North now stands,” Doris Hicks was reading from a card that had been propped in the case as she talked. “The cast-iron cemetery fence and gates were imported from some place called Castello Di Poppi in Italy. Dang! That must have cost her a fortune! That’s just one reason folks say Black Rose was as crazy as a hog stuck in a corn crib! The graveyard was closed every night and opened every morning for over forty years,” Doris went on. “After the old darky gal died … nobody bothered locking the gates … and it was kept open all the time.”

Sheriff Walker and his deputy finished examining the broken display and walked over. “I’m going to write this up as a sad case of juvenile vandalism, Madam Mayor,” he said. He turned and gave Joanie a wink. “Too bad all the teenagers in this town aren’t as well behaved as your daughter and her friends!”

            “Thank you sheriff,” Margaret beamed at the compliment. “But I know my Joanie sometimes flies a little lower than our other angels.”

            “Mother!” Joanie rolled her eyes and turned away.

            “It’s okay dear.” Margaret put a loving hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Remember that time you cut school to go ice skating when you were eight? I’m just saying no-one’s perfect.”

-------4-------

            “Do you think Sheriff Walker suspects us of having the key?” Marsha asked when they were outside walking toward Spare-A-Dime.

            “If he did, he would have asked us,” Joanie said. “John Walker has a way of looking at people and figuring them all out with one glance.”

            “We all wish the night could be a darker color … but what’s bothering you?”

            “The Ceremony of Týr is tonight in Black Rose Cemetery and now someone has stolen the key to the front gate.”

            “What’s the problem?” Marsha asked. “The gates are always open … so who needs a key?’

            “I was just thinking,” Joanie said. “Some of the magic in this world is actually real. And maybe it’s not the fence and the gates that are there for a reason … but the lock.” They were almost to the café on the corner. Joanie stopped. “Why is there always a fence around every graveyard?”

            “Well it’s not to keep cows and sheep from wandering in like everyone thinks,” Marsha said. “All my crayons are black, and because they are, I know the fence is to keep twitchy spirits from escaping.”

            “And what if all these years the old gates have been wide-open … and yet still locked?”

            “And someone or something plans to open the lock … tonight!” Marsha gasped.

            “You’re becoming more witchy every day,” Joanie told her.

Every table in Spare-A-Dime was full when they walked inside. Joanie pointed to the one she wanted and three burly truck drivers stood-up and left without finishing their coffee.

TO BE CONTINUED ….