The Crow
A Poet's Grief
By NiteFenix
Chapter 3 – Time
DEPARTED to the judgment,
A mighty afternoon;
Great clouds like ushers leaning,
Creation looking on.
The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
The bodiless begun;
Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
And leave the soul alone. – Emily Dickenson
Death. The answer loomed. It was just beyond his grasp. But he had it again. His mind raced. What's going on? He struggled frantically. It was dark, darker than anything he could remember in his life. Then another answer to unasked question struck him.
They buried me alive. It's impossible. Why would they do something like that. He was trying to make sense of it all when he heard something in the depths of his mind.
"I just thought I'd call to tell you I love you Eleanor Jones". He heard his own voice echo in his mind.
"Oh my James, that is rather sudden don't you think?" Eleanor's sweet voice followed up his own. His mind raced.
Eleanor. Where is Eleanor?
"Not sudden at all Eleanor, in fact, I want to marry you". His own voice came through loud and clear again.
He became even more frantic. Where the hell is Eleanor?
"Let me think about it James" Eleanor's voice came through again with mocking clarity.
He finally lost it and started banging at the lid of the coffin. Suddenly, to his own surprise the entire wooden structure heaved and he felt it crack under his fists.
What the hell is going on here? He thought to himself. Then he thought of Eleanor and his rage was fuelled anew. He pushed up with all his strength and the entire ceiling portion of his grave gave way.
The rush of air almost made him fall back into his grave as he clawed his way out onto the snow covered ground surrounding his grave site.
As he turned around to survey his surroundings, his eyes fell on a solid granite slab planted firmly on the ground and as he read out the inscriptions it confirmed the fact that he was buried.
He looked down at his tattered clothing and noticed that he was a mess. His black suit was torn to shreds due to the decay. He ripped off the jacket and started walking towards to the exit of the graveyard.
As he walked by a grave he saw a curious creature gawking back at him. A bird, black as night. A crow, he thought to himself. Brilliant.
The squeaking of the hinges on the graveyard's gate sent shivers down his spine as he stopped out into the gravel road leading into the graveyard.
The crow fluttered it's wings as it flew over to the post of the gate and cried it's lonely cry after Jim.
"Yea, you too." He croaked and walked into the cold streets of Boston.
*-*-*-*-*-*
The neighborhood had changed since he was there. Rubble was strewn everywhere and nearly all the houses in the entire area had been abandoned. Houses he recognized were shadows of their once beautiful semblances. Boarded up windows. Front doors covered with nailed up wood. Broken windows, dirt where grass and gardens used to be.
A cat hissed at him as he walked past it where it was sitting perched on a tipped over trashcan.
"Get lost you mangy animal." He croaked at the cat. It felt strange to talk, like he had had a cold.
In the distance he heard loud banging as the yearly festival marched through the streets. He slumped up to what used to be his home. A house left to him by his father. It had been in the family for years. The Bradbury's were a wealthy family and they wanted only the best for their offspring.
As he walked around the rear of the house he heard voices from the yard next door. He looked over the fence and saw a couple of homeless people sitting around a trashcan with fire spewing over the top. This really is a sorry sight. He thought to himself.
He found his backdoor open. Looking at it caused another painful memory of that night.
He was coming out of the door with his pistol, ready to shoot anything that moved. He remembered the screams in the distance and the two gunmen out in the street. The chalk outlines of their bodies had long since faded, but the stench of them still hung in the air.
Walking into the kitchen from the backdoor the first thing he noticed was all the trash on the floor. It was like somebody else had been living there. He slumped through the kitchen and into the main hall. The carpet had rotted from the rain that soaked through the ceiling.
A fire burned in his old study. He walked towards the light and found two homeless people lying on the floor, asleep. Anger welled up inside him as he walked closer to them.
"Get out! Get out of my house you worthless pieces of crap!" he shouted and the two homeless grabbed what little possessions they had and ran towards the kitchen.
Everything had been carried away during his absence. All that remained from his former life was a single mirror hanging on the wall.
Perfect, he thought. The only thing that could cause any more bad luck.
Another painful memory struck him. He was rummaging through his things in the study, looking for a weapon. Panic racing through his mind. Eleanor.
Sudden anger flared up inside him again as her name came into his mind and he crashed his fist into the mirror.
"I will kill the man who did this to us...to me." He looked at himself in the broken mirror and looked at his hands. A big piece of the mirror was sticking out one of his knuckles. He looked at it curiously and pulled it out as if it was nothing more than a splinter.
With shock he saw that the wound in his hand healed itself. A smile came to his lips and he brushed his long blonde hair out of his eyes as he contemplated the possibilities.
"Yes, Johnny will pay. I will find him no matter what it takes." He turned on his heel and walked down the long hallway to his former bedroom. An old closet stood in the corner of the room which he pulled open revealing some outdoors clothes which he usually wore when he went out camping. It consisted of fatigues, a t-shirt and a hunting jacket.
As he pulled them on he noticed something else in the room. Scattered on the floor was one of Eleanor's make-up kits. He thought back to the night before the killings. They went out on a date, and because they were in a hurry Eleanor had to bring her makeup kit with her to save time before they left. She had forgotten it there.
He slowly picked it up and looked at the little brush lying on the inside of the case. Something he once saw on television flashed into his mind. Mimes. They were sometimes seen as vengeful types, the man on television had said. He felt vengeful tonight.
He walked back to his study and started applying the make-up to his face. When his face was pure white he looked at himself, grinning.
"It's missing a little something." He mused and took out the black mascara. Applying dark outlines around his eyes and tear shaped lines underneath and above his eyes completed his new look.
"Much better". He said to himself. "This is the way a vengeful mime would look like."
As quickly as he had walked into the house, he stalked out and wandered back onto the snow covered streets.
He knew his next move. He had to find out what happened on that night and the only way he could accomplish that is to go somewhere where he could find information freely.
The library, the biggest source of info in the entire city.
*-*-*-*-*-*
The telephone rang on his desk. The ringing was like an echo in his ears. As if it was coming from a distant place and not across the room.
He stood up and walked over from the couch where he had been reading the paper. He looked at the clock on the wall between the window and the bookcase. It was one am. Who could be calling at this hour? He wondered and picked up the phone out of the cradle.
"Hullo?" He said into the receiver.
"Paul Ramsey?" A raspy voice asked.
"Yes this is he" Ramsey replied.
"Come to the Lambert Cemetery in 15 minutes if you want to know what happened that evening at the Jones' Residence."
"Who is this?"
Click-
The telephone went dead and all Ramsey could hear was a dial tone. It must be a trap of some sort. He reasoned with himself. And why would anybody be calling me about this now?
He'd been retired for six months. Chief Law allowed him to go after a very serious argument and the embitterment of their friendship. They hadn't talked in about as long as he had been retired.
He figured he had no choice. This person on the phone sounded serious and what did he have to lose anyway? He walked out of his study and removed his coat from the coat hanger at the door and stepped out into the cold December breeze.
The night sky was eerie, as if a storm was brewing, but it was dead calm. The silence before the storm has always been considered to be a bad omen. He felt a chill run through him. Not from the cold, but from something else. Something he could not quite place...yet.
Lambert Cemetery wasn't very far from his apartment. It was a couple of blocks' walks at the very least. He tucked his arms under his armpits, hugging himself from the cold and set off down the street wondering what this could be about.
*-*-*-*-*-*
He arrived at the half ajar gate of Lambert Cemetery about 10 minutes later. The hinges squeaked as he pushed it open to walk inside.
"I hate graveyards." He muttered to himself and walked on along the path leading past graves and coliseums alike.
The wind whistled around corners and the trees rustled and it gave the whole eerie night a whole new edge. Ramsey looked up into the sky and saw the source of the eerie atmosphere. The moon, it was huge in the night sky. He had never seen it so huge before in this part of the country.
It scared the hell out of him.
He thought for a moment about shouting out to his caller, to let him know that he was here, but the police officer side of himself cautioned him and he kept walking into the final resting place of so many of the residents of Boston.
Something caught his attention, which he hadn't noticed on entering the property. Something seemed wrong with a grave on the east side of the graveyard. He cautiously walked towards it, trying not to draw too much attention to himself in the case that the mysterious caller was indeed around and possibly dangerous.
At Fifty Nine Paul Ramsey was not as fit as he used to be and without a weapon – oh man I should have brought a pistol – he was defenseless.
As he approached the odd looking grave he finally realized what was wrong with it. It was empty and from the looks of it, somebody didn't dig it up, somebody dug out of there.
"That's impossible!" he gasped.
"Small minds." He heard a raspy voice behind him say.
Ramsey spun around on his heel in search of the unexpected yet expected visitor, finding nothing and nobody.
"Who-who's there?" He stammered.
The visitor chuckled dryly.
"Not who, my friend, but what?" He heard it say.
Ramsey turned around again and looked down at the gravestone.
"Here lies James Bradbury. Beloved brother and co-worker." Below the usual printed information was a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. The Raven.
"Touching isn't it?" The voice asked again once he ascertained that Ramsey had finished reading the poem.
"I remember this man." Ramsey said. "He was the boyfriend, he got killed that night."
"Very good Mister Ramsey" The voice said gleefully.
"What does this mean?"
"It means...the game is afoot."
Ramsey stood in silence for a while and finally realized that his mysterious malefactor had disappeared again.
"The game is afoot." He repeated to himself and started walking toward the gate.
*-*-*-*-*-*
A/N Sorry for the late update. Been busy these last few weeks. I'll try put up new chapters often. R & R please!
A side note, as you may have noticed, I use fictional names in some cases so don't mind the false names and such, there's a reason I choose the names, such as the cemetery's name, which will be revealed later on.
Chapter 3 – Time
DEPARTED to the judgment,
A mighty afternoon;
Great clouds like ushers leaning,
Creation looking on.
The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
The bodiless begun;
Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
And leave the soul alone. – Emily Dickenson
Death. The answer loomed. It was just beyond his grasp. But he had it again. His mind raced. What's going on? He struggled frantically. It was dark, darker than anything he could remember in his life. Then another answer to unasked question struck him.
They buried me alive. It's impossible. Why would they do something like that. He was trying to make sense of it all when he heard something in the depths of his mind.
"I just thought I'd call to tell you I love you Eleanor Jones". He heard his own voice echo in his mind.
"Oh my James, that is rather sudden don't you think?" Eleanor's sweet voice followed up his own. His mind raced.
Eleanor. Where is Eleanor?
"Not sudden at all Eleanor, in fact, I want to marry you". His own voice came through loud and clear again.
He became even more frantic. Where the hell is Eleanor?
"Let me think about it James" Eleanor's voice came through again with mocking clarity.
He finally lost it and started banging at the lid of the coffin. Suddenly, to his own surprise the entire wooden structure heaved and he felt it crack under his fists.
What the hell is going on here? He thought to himself. Then he thought of Eleanor and his rage was fuelled anew. He pushed up with all his strength and the entire ceiling portion of his grave gave way.
The rush of air almost made him fall back into his grave as he clawed his way out onto the snow covered ground surrounding his grave site.
As he turned around to survey his surroundings, his eyes fell on a solid granite slab planted firmly on the ground and as he read out the inscriptions it confirmed the fact that he was buried.
He looked down at his tattered clothing and noticed that he was a mess. His black suit was torn to shreds due to the decay. He ripped off the jacket and started walking towards to the exit of the graveyard.
As he walked by a grave he saw a curious creature gawking back at him. A bird, black as night. A crow, he thought to himself. Brilliant.
The squeaking of the hinges on the graveyard's gate sent shivers down his spine as he stopped out into the gravel road leading into the graveyard.
The crow fluttered it's wings as it flew over to the post of the gate and cried it's lonely cry after Jim.
"Yea, you too." He croaked and walked into the cold streets of Boston.
*-*-*-*-*-*
The neighborhood had changed since he was there. Rubble was strewn everywhere and nearly all the houses in the entire area had been abandoned. Houses he recognized were shadows of their once beautiful semblances. Boarded up windows. Front doors covered with nailed up wood. Broken windows, dirt where grass and gardens used to be.
A cat hissed at him as he walked past it where it was sitting perched on a tipped over trashcan.
"Get lost you mangy animal." He croaked at the cat. It felt strange to talk, like he had had a cold.
In the distance he heard loud banging as the yearly festival marched through the streets. He slumped up to what used to be his home. A house left to him by his father. It had been in the family for years. The Bradbury's were a wealthy family and they wanted only the best for their offspring.
As he walked around the rear of the house he heard voices from the yard next door. He looked over the fence and saw a couple of homeless people sitting around a trashcan with fire spewing over the top. This really is a sorry sight. He thought to himself.
He found his backdoor open. Looking at it caused another painful memory of that night.
He was coming out of the door with his pistol, ready to shoot anything that moved. He remembered the screams in the distance and the two gunmen out in the street. The chalk outlines of their bodies had long since faded, but the stench of them still hung in the air.
Walking into the kitchen from the backdoor the first thing he noticed was all the trash on the floor. It was like somebody else had been living there. He slumped through the kitchen and into the main hall. The carpet had rotted from the rain that soaked through the ceiling.
A fire burned in his old study. He walked towards the light and found two homeless people lying on the floor, asleep. Anger welled up inside him as he walked closer to them.
"Get out! Get out of my house you worthless pieces of crap!" he shouted and the two homeless grabbed what little possessions they had and ran towards the kitchen.
Everything had been carried away during his absence. All that remained from his former life was a single mirror hanging on the wall.
Perfect, he thought. The only thing that could cause any more bad luck.
Another painful memory struck him. He was rummaging through his things in the study, looking for a weapon. Panic racing through his mind. Eleanor.
Sudden anger flared up inside him again as her name came into his mind and he crashed his fist into the mirror.
"I will kill the man who did this to us...to me." He looked at himself in the broken mirror and looked at his hands. A big piece of the mirror was sticking out one of his knuckles. He looked at it curiously and pulled it out as if it was nothing more than a splinter.
With shock he saw that the wound in his hand healed itself. A smile came to his lips and he brushed his long blonde hair out of his eyes as he contemplated the possibilities.
"Yes, Johnny will pay. I will find him no matter what it takes." He turned on his heel and walked down the long hallway to his former bedroom. An old closet stood in the corner of the room which he pulled open revealing some outdoors clothes which he usually wore when he went out camping. It consisted of fatigues, a t-shirt and a hunting jacket.
As he pulled them on he noticed something else in the room. Scattered on the floor was one of Eleanor's make-up kits. He thought back to the night before the killings. They went out on a date, and because they were in a hurry Eleanor had to bring her makeup kit with her to save time before they left. She had forgotten it there.
He slowly picked it up and looked at the little brush lying on the inside of the case. Something he once saw on television flashed into his mind. Mimes. They were sometimes seen as vengeful types, the man on television had said. He felt vengeful tonight.
He walked back to his study and started applying the make-up to his face. When his face was pure white he looked at himself, grinning.
"It's missing a little something." He mused and took out the black mascara. Applying dark outlines around his eyes and tear shaped lines underneath and above his eyes completed his new look.
"Much better". He said to himself. "This is the way a vengeful mime would look like."
As quickly as he had walked into the house, he stalked out and wandered back onto the snow covered streets.
He knew his next move. He had to find out what happened on that night and the only way he could accomplish that is to go somewhere where he could find information freely.
The library, the biggest source of info in the entire city.
*-*-*-*-*-*
The telephone rang on his desk. The ringing was like an echo in his ears. As if it was coming from a distant place and not across the room.
He stood up and walked over from the couch where he had been reading the paper. He looked at the clock on the wall between the window and the bookcase. It was one am. Who could be calling at this hour? He wondered and picked up the phone out of the cradle.
"Hullo?" He said into the receiver.
"Paul Ramsey?" A raspy voice asked.
"Yes this is he" Ramsey replied.
"Come to the Lambert Cemetery in 15 minutes if you want to know what happened that evening at the Jones' Residence."
"Who is this?"
Click-
The telephone went dead and all Ramsey could hear was a dial tone. It must be a trap of some sort. He reasoned with himself. And why would anybody be calling me about this now?
He'd been retired for six months. Chief Law allowed him to go after a very serious argument and the embitterment of their friendship. They hadn't talked in about as long as he had been retired.
He figured he had no choice. This person on the phone sounded serious and what did he have to lose anyway? He walked out of his study and removed his coat from the coat hanger at the door and stepped out into the cold December breeze.
The night sky was eerie, as if a storm was brewing, but it was dead calm. The silence before the storm has always been considered to be a bad omen. He felt a chill run through him. Not from the cold, but from something else. Something he could not quite place...yet.
Lambert Cemetery wasn't very far from his apartment. It was a couple of blocks' walks at the very least. He tucked his arms under his armpits, hugging himself from the cold and set off down the street wondering what this could be about.
*-*-*-*-*-*
He arrived at the half ajar gate of Lambert Cemetery about 10 minutes later. The hinges squeaked as he pushed it open to walk inside.
"I hate graveyards." He muttered to himself and walked on along the path leading past graves and coliseums alike.
The wind whistled around corners and the trees rustled and it gave the whole eerie night a whole new edge. Ramsey looked up into the sky and saw the source of the eerie atmosphere. The moon, it was huge in the night sky. He had never seen it so huge before in this part of the country.
It scared the hell out of him.
He thought for a moment about shouting out to his caller, to let him know that he was here, but the police officer side of himself cautioned him and he kept walking into the final resting place of so many of the residents of Boston.
Something caught his attention, which he hadn't noticed on entering the property. Something seemed wrong with a grave on the east side of the graveyard. He cautiously walked towards it, trying not to draw too much attention to himself in the case that the mysterious caller was indeed around and possibly dangerous.
At Fifty Nine Paul Ramsey was not as fit as he used to be and without a weapon – oh man I should have brought a pistol – he was defenseless.
As he approached the odd looking grave he finally realized what was wrong with it. It was empty and from the looks of it, somebody didn't dig it up, somebody dug out of there.
"That's impossible!" he gasped.
"Small minds." He heard a raspy voice behind him say.
Ramsey spun around on his heel in search of the unexpected yet expected visitor, finding nothing and nobody.
"Who-who's there?" He stammered.
The visitor chuckled dryly.
"Not who, my friend, but what?" He heard it say.
Ramsey turned around again and looked down at the gravestone.
"Here lies James Bradbury. Beloved brother and co-worker." Below the usual printed information was a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. The Raven.
"Touching isn't it?" The voice asked again once he ascertained that Ramsey had finished reading the poem.
"I remember this man." Ramsey said. "He was the boyfriend, he got killed that night."
"Very good Mister Ramsey" The voice said gleefully.
"What does this mean?"
"It means...the game is afoot."
Ramsey stood in silence for a while and finally realized that his mysterious malefactor had disappeared again.
"The game is afoot." He repeated to himself and started walking toward the gate.
*-*-*-*-*-*
A/N Sorry for the late update. Been busy these last few weeks. I'll try put up new chapters often. R & R please!
A side note, as you may have noticed, I use fictional names in some cases so don't mind the false names and such, there's a reason I choose the names, such as the cemetery's name, which will be revealed later on.