Jacob and Ezekiel: Necropolis Wanderings
"What are we doing creeping through a cemetery in the middle of the night, Jones?" Stone asked, letting the beam of his flashlight glide across the meticulously cut lawn and marble of the tombstones.
"Well, my clippings book had some ghost sightings in the area and I want to cross body snatching crazy people off my list." I add the last bit just to see if I can get a rise out of Stone. I know it's a sore subject, but sometimes I think our relationship works better when I'm pissing him off.
"I don't want to talk about Collins Falls, Jones. And of course there are "ghost sightings" here, it's a town with sixteen cemeteries, one of which is a pet cemetery. You don't have me out here looking for Cujo, do you?"
"Maybe I should have asked Cassandra to come with me instead. At least she would be nice to me," I responded, knowing that mentioning our favorite red-head will be another great way to poke at the cowboy.
"Cassie doesn't need to be walking around a cemetery in the middle of the night with you. In fact I'd like to keep her away from cemeteries in general."
"Awe, you care about her." I shine my flashlight in his face as I said this.
"Dammit Jones! What are you on about? Of course I care about her," he shouted, pushing the flashlight away from his face.
"Now that, that's settled, what else did you learn about the lovely Town of Colma, California before we left?" Turning my flashlight back to the ground, I start looking for interesting epitaphs on the headstones, but nothing really catches my eye.
"Not much just that it's the smallest town in San Mateo County at two square miles, sixteen cemeteries, about 1,700 living residents and somewhere in the ballpark of 1.5 million deceased residents. A few famous names are buried here too."
"Really. Who?" This could be worth my while. I'm not opposed to grave robbing if there's a possibility of something valuable or really interesting.
"Wyatt Earp, Joe DiMaggio, and William Randolph Hearst are the only ones I remember, but there might've be a few others listed."
"Boring. None of them really appeal to my interests." Stone just glares at me like he thinks they might be interesting to go see. I highly doubt that any of them are buried with anything of interest.
"Jones, why are we really here? I don't think you're afraid of more body snatching, and I know you're not so insensitive that you would've brought Cassie to a town full of cemeteries, so what's the deal?" I can tell he's starting to lose patience with me, and if we're being honest it's not all that hard to do. Frankly, I'm surprised he decided to come with me in the first place.
"My clippings book really did have an article on ghost sightings. All of them at night, hence the hour. I don't know exactly what to expect here, which is why I invited you. I don't do punchy, remember? Of course I'm not going to ask Cassandra to wander around a cemetery with me in the middle of the night, but it is fun to push your buttons. And as much as you like to deny it, she's one of your major hot spots." I could feel him glaring at me, causing me to hide a smile. Why is it so much fun to get under his skin?
"So are these ghost sightings at any particular cemetery or are you just planning on having the two of us walk through all sixteen of them in hopes of spotting something?" he asked, ignoring my mention of Cassandra being a hot topic for him.
"Um, I can't remember." I start checking my pockets for my clippings book, and can't find it. Damn, I probably left it back at the Annex. Stone is going to kill me.
"Jones, I'm about to get punchy with you if you don't get serious soon." For the most part Stone doesn't really scare me, but sometimes he gets this look in his eyes that I can't explain and it makes me want to run for the hills.
"Is it just me or did this ground fog roll-in kind of fast?" I asked, looking down and noticing I can barely read the headstones any longer.
"I'd like to say this is the Bay area and fog is pretty much a given, but yes it was pretty instantaneous."
"I guess now would be a good time to keep our eyes peeled for the out of the ordinary then." Of course in that moment I started seeing shadows with every pass of my flashlight. Maybe I should have come here during daytime hours so I could have a better lay of the land before a midnight excursion.
"Excuse me gentlemen, but what do you think you're doing here after hours? The cemeteries here close at dusk," the officer said. How did he sneak up on us without notice?
"Oh, we'd heard Wyatt Earp was buried out here and we thought we'd look. We're just passing through and thought it would be fun." Way to go Stone for being quick on your feet with a good excuse. I just nodded in agreement.
"Well, I suggest you resume your search during regular business hours. And you're in the wrong cemetery. Wyatt is over at the Jewish cemetery Hills of Eternity this here is Cypress Lawn."
"But Wyatt Earp wasn't Jewish, why is he buried there?" Of course I have to ask the smart ass question, all the while both Stone and the officer are glaring at me. Always antagonizing local law enforcement.
"His wife Josephine Marcus was and he's buried next to her," the officer replied dryly, like this is a question he has to answer on a regular basis. Who knew being a cop also meant you had to be a walking guide book. "Maybe you boys should head out of here and check out Molloy's Tavern over on Mission. Keep yourselves out of trouble while you're here in town."
"Thank you officer, I think we'll do that," Stone promised, pulling out all of that Southern charm. "Come on Jones, let's get outta here. We can come back tomorrow, but I think I drink sounds good right about now."
"Sure, we can talk about you and Cassandra over a few shot," I joked, before running down toward the street where the officer had said the bar was. If I was lucky Stone wouldn't get too punchy with me when I put a beer in his hand.
Here's your history lesson for the day: Due to ordinances passed in 1900 and 1912 there are no cemeteries in San Francisco. The Town of Colma is situated between Daly City and South San Francisco. All of the information pertaining to Colma in the story is true as is the information regarding the three famous names buried there. Other than it's 16 cemeteries and Molloy's Tavern there are also two shopping malls, a card room, and an auto mall...not bad for 2 square miles.
Thank you for all of your favorites and follows! I really appreciate all of you! I hope to have the next chapter up within the next week. It will be the continuation of the conversation between Jake and Cassie in chapter one. If you have any ideas for chapters please let me know, and I'll be happy to try to incorporate your ideas into this fun set of stories. Thanks again for all of your support.