Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. Meatloaf owns Bat Out of Hell. I am making no profit from this story.
Prologue
"I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell . . ."
Hands stuffed deep into his pockets, the boy leaned his upper arm against a regal oak – one that had probably been planted two-hundred years earlier when the cemetery was first commissioned for public burials. He was close enough to make out the minister's words, but far enough away that if anyone noticed him, they made no indication.
"We gather here today to commend one of God's children to His merciful love."
A dark-haired woman hugged her arms tightly around her own body, as if she were supporting herself because there was nobody else to lean on. She let out a tight sob and quickly regained control, but then hunched forward a little more.
The man beside her stood with a blank expression. He might just as easily have been attending an auction. Every so often he took a deep shuddering breath and reached up to brush a hand through his damp hair; when he did, the sleeve of the cheap suit he wore rode up his wrists to display the inadequacy of its fit.
"We ask you, God, creator of all life, to forgive your son of his sins, and to welcome him to your holy kingdom."
Another group of people, separate from the man and the woman, hung their heads. They were men and boys, all of them, and not a one of them looked comfortable in the suit he wore. The smallest one, pale and shaky-looking, wrung his tie with his hands repeatedly as he stared at the ground in front of him.
"Let us pray together. Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with Thee. Blessed art though amongst women . . ."
As he leaned against the oak listening to the familiar words, an unwelcome but all-too-familiar tightness crept into the boy's throat. Swallowing only seemed to feed the lump until it felt like it was cutting off his airway; and when he saw the largest man in the group place a steadying hand on the pale boy's arm in a show of brotherly support, he struggled desperately to shake off the emotional wave that threatened to knock him to his knees.
". . . now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. Lord, open your arms to this, your son, and grant solace to those who loved him as you do."
Tears blurred his vision as he watched the graveside ritual – the third one he had attended in his life.
The first had been many years ago, and he retained very little memory of it. There had been black pant-legs, and tall people, and he hadn't understood why nobody wanted to play hide-and-seek with him. His father, surrounded by mostly unfamiliar men and a few uncles, had been stoic, and his mother was busy and preoccupied; after the funeral, he had finally been taken for a walk to look at the new spring flowers in a nearby park. That, he remembered well, and the memory of the smiling dark-haired boy who had taken him for that walk was enough to bring tears spilling out as he choked back a sob.
Don't be gone, please don't be gone, make it all a be mistake, he begged for the hundredth time that week; but he knew it wasn't, and he knew that he would never wake up from this nightmare.
Stop it, he reprimanded himself. Get control of yourself. Don't let anyone see you cry. Not here, not now.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . ."
The dark-haired woman hunched forward and gave in to the sobs she had been fighting. None of the others wept outright, though even from where he stood he could see that their expressions bore the grief and pain nurtured by the permanence of death.
Brushing away the tears and swallowing around the lump, he watched the mourners briefly console one another before they slowly scattered toward the edges of the cemetery and their waiting cars. Within moments, a few burly grounds men approached the gravesite to activate the apparatus that would lower the casket. He watched, fixated, as it was swallowed by the earth. The men detached their chains and ropes, gathered everything together, and left.
It was then that he emerged from the shade of the oak to take what felt like endless tentative steps toward the open hole in the ground, which would be filled later, without ceremony, by a roaring backhoe.
He approached the edge of the hole with caution, annoyed by the eerie feeling that gripped his gut at being alone in a cemetery.
As soon as he was close enough to see the edge of the casket, he stopped.
It was plain, it was brown, and it bore no ornate decoration and no indication that the person inside had been anything but a poor boy whose life would be forgotten as easily as the autumn leaves that give way to the green buds of spring.
"So, this is it," he finally spoke, startled at the volume of his own voice, which he had expected to emerge sounding soft, weak, and frightened. It didn't, and he was glad. If this dead boy did hear him, he would know that it was a strong and confident person who spoke – not someone who was unsure of himself and afraid of the life that stretched before him.
"This is it," he repeated. He wanted to say more. He felt it inside, and he had thought it through, everything he wanted to say. But now, here, standing in front of this box that couldn't hear him, the words seemed pointless. If the boy in the casket could hear the words, then surely he could also sense the feelings of the person who stood before his grave.
He took a shaky breath and turned away, but walked only two steps before deciding that there was something he did want to say out loud. Not bothering to stop, he turned to walk backwards as he spoke. "You deserved it, John Cade," he whispered, his breath catching in his throat when an unexpected sob escaped. "And I hope you burn in hell for what you did."