I haven't updated in a really, really long time. I know! I'm sorry! Stop throwing stuff! Real life got in the way but thanks to people that have written me over the years and kept asking what their favorite painter is doing I have finally finished this chapter. As always: please, please comment, good or bad to rock_on_Summer@yahoo.com. Also I'm not a native speaker, so I'm sorry for any misspellings, grammar mistakes or whatever mistakes I might have made.
Disclaimer: I wrote this, don't copy it unless you ask. This is fiction. If there are people who are similar to the people in the story or have the same name, I didn't intend it. Beware, teen sex, gay sex! Don't like that don't enter, you have been warned.
Why are you still reading this when you could be reading the stuff that comes next?
I was standing in the dim yellow light of the street lamp staring at the way too cliche black wrought iron gate that was overgrown with black ivy. I tried to open the big heavy gate to the cemetery. No such luck. A black plate with gold writing told me that the cemetery was locked after 18.30. Probably to keep out teenage Goth kids that lit black candles on graves and cut themselves to Evanescence music. Great! I circled the cemetery and finally found a small gate in the thick wall that had been left unlocked. I half expected the iron hinges to squeak but it swung open without a sound.
I tried to put all superstition and fears of ghosts aside and entered the graveyard. It occurred to me that it was easy to say, "I don't believe in ghosts" when the lights were on. During the daytime and if some whacko hadn't kidnapped my boyfriend, I would have found this place quite calming. There were a couple of large pine trees and every grave was like a flowerbed. They all were differently decorated according to the taste of the one buried or their caring wives, mothers, children - or the gardener. Some were overflowing with evergreen or small bushes, some had an abundance of colorful flowers planted on them that were now pale in the twilight. Others were decorated with additional cemetery vases with cut flowers, some fresh, some dying. The smell of pine, earth and flower was in the air and had it not been for the headstones this could have been a park. A park with long straight dirt lanes. Now in the dark everything seemed a little creepy. The names on the headstones barely readable, the shadows of the trees pitch-black dark. The dirt under my feet felt like it was hollow and I was wondering if I was walking on old graves that had been leveled? I mean they did that, right?
There were no lamps and I wished I had thought to bring a flashlight. I passed a grave that must have belonged to a child because it was decorated with all sorts of toys and there was a teddy bear engraved on the headstone. Emily Baker. 2001-2009 "loved and missed".
I tore my eyes from the headstone to look at my cell phone. The white light of the display seemed way to bright for this place and I had the feeling that I could be seen from three miles away. When Case had bought the thing for me he insisted that I needed the newest, bestest and hardest to use technology. Which meant I had a GPS system in my cell phone. Case said that it would help me find my way out of a desert if I ever got lost. I had replied that we lived in a moderate climate-zone and there were almost no deserts here. He had retorted that I had a talent to make the impossible happen and would probably manage to find and get lost in one. He was probably right, as always. I had asked the people at the cell phone store to show me how to use it and they had warned me that the accuracy was not very good which wouldn't matter in a dessert but did on a cemetery. I had to search in a radius of 3m. Which meant a square of 6m wide. I suck at guessing distance. It showed when I tried parking my car. It was either way too far from the others or ended up with a dent. I blame it on Case who insists that his "member" is 20cm (we both know it's not - not that I care as long as he knows how to use his tongue). When I had him back he could tell me it was a meter long and I'd believe it all, no matter how much it messed up my parking skills.
The black bundle of technology led me to an open space in front of a small capella surrounded by a couple of large stone angels. The white winged creatures were sitting on sockets almost as tall as I was and looked down at me with empty marble eyes as if to say "What are you doing here? Don't you know that we turn into demons at night? Like the whole world around you"
I looked at my display. It had to be here. I walked to the entrance of the chapel. The little green arrow on my display pointed back to where I came from. I had left the 6m circle of GPS accuracy. I tried the heavy wooden doors to the chapel just in case. Locked. Of course. Would have been too easy.
I walked back to the white angels and walked in a circle. I walked away from the chapel, the arrow on the GPS screen pointed back to where I had been. This was a cemetery, it could be underground. The dirt didn't look like it had been dug up, so there had to be a sort of catacomb like most of the old cemeteries have. When I turned to walk back I noticed a couple of bars at the socket of one of the angels. I walked closer hoping to find an entrance to....well something. Bingo. This was a gate. Unfortunately it was a locked gate.
I resisted the urge to hit my head. Stupid me had of course not prepared for a lock and had not brought any tools. Because it hadn't seemed likely that Case was locked up or in cuffs? What was I thinking? I guess I hadn't. I had been panicking.
I walked in a circle in front of the gate, panicking again, palms getting sweaty. I walked back to the gate and smelled it - smelled like cold iron. I knew I was running out of time, the Creep was probably already on his way back here, Case (or at least his cell phone) was down there, maybe already dead and buried and I was standing here in front of a gate. Something as simple as a gate was going to keep me from rescuing Case?
I walked to one of the other Angels. It had a gate too. Also locked. Turned out all of the Angels had a gate in their sockets. On one of them the lock was broken and it was secured by a small black bike chain-lock, which was wrought through the bars of the door and the gap between the stone and the iron doorframe. This had to be the right gate. Unfortunately to me a bike lock was as hard to open as a normal lock. Where was McGuiver when you needed him?
Ok Lucy think. What can you do? a) take a rock, beat the shit out of the lock and hope it opens b) hide in the bushes, hope I don't pee my pants and when the creep comes back (if he comes back) try to take him down when he opens the door c) go get tools, which means that I have to leave again and may miss The Creep d) cry
Ok scratch d. And I'm indecisive, so you decide. Whoever wants option a) raise your hand and read on at letter A. If you think option b) is good, read on at letter B, for option c) go to letter C. If you think all of this is nonsense and you can come up with a better plan write an e-mail to the author because this is all her fault anyways.
A (you're looking silly with your hand up in front of the screen. It's kind of cute though ;)
I found a chunky good-sized rock and started beating the lock with a rock. The lock was unimpressed. I tore and swore but nothing happened. I shook the bars. This was a dumb idea! I decided hiding in the bushes would be more productive right now.
Read on at B
B
I had to pee. Sitting in the bushes was boring and unnerving at the same time. I was scared to be discovered but time was passing soooo slowly. It was dark and seemed to be getting darker. I wanted this guy to come over so I could ambush him and go get my man. I wanted him to be without a scratch, take him home and burn the couch and this from my memory. My foot had fallen asleep from crouching and by now I was not so sure that The Creep was even going to pass through this place. I was scared for Case and I couldn't bare this anymore. I had to do something
(Read on at letter C)
C
I tried to sneak trough the abandoned cemetery as fast as I could to get back to the car. I was hurrying through the lines of graves, passing Emilie's grave. I finally made it to the car, racing of in search of a hardware store. I bought something that looked like a scissor to cut iron, a lock picking set and a flashlight. Glad that I had thought to bring Case's credit card I gathered the stuff and hopped back into the car.
I parked in a side street of the cemetery and didn't use the flashlight when I got to the cemetery, just in case The Creep was already back. I ran back to the gate as fast as I could and in one (ok maybe four) swift movements I opened the lock. How easy was this!? And it didn't make any noise either. A lot more effective then this crazy idea I had about hitting it with a rock! I swung the door open and listened for any sound. Just the dark and moist smell of basement. Other then that - nothing. Just then my cell phone rang.
X
I was wondering if there was such a thing as fate when I read the caller ID. It said "Home."
"Hello" I said, sounding out of breath when the chirping of my phone against my ear told me that I hadn't hit the right button yet.
"Hello" I tried again, sounding slightly calmer.
"You were right, this is not what I want. This is shit" the Creep announced angrily.
"Wow, that's harsh" I said, knowing that Case was probably a safe distance away from him.
"I wanted a painting, a memory of my girl. What you made is absolute trash! You think anyone could put this in their living room? And what's with the dirty pear? This looks nothing like my girl" he sounded mad.
"Well, what did you expect?" I bitched back
"Not a painting of a cadaver. Something like the painting of your Asian boy! Something real that seems like you can touch it, like it would start to laugh when you gave it a new doll, or that would get mad when you told her she couldn't have candy before dinner! Something that would help me remember her. Make it better this time. More like her...more like the paintings of the Asian boy" I had always kind of assumed that the Creep had somehow killed the little girl on my couch but now I wasn't so sure. Maybe he was just a crazy grieving man and I felt a pang of sympathy at the hurt in his broken voice. I took a few seconds to phrase my answer carefully.
"Well...I love that Asian boy and I know him well. I know how his hair moves when he shakes his head and how his eyebrows knit when he frowns. I know what kind of chocolate he likes best and which wine will give him a headache. But I don't know anything about this girl. To me she's just a stranger on a couch. So that's all I could paint. I'm sorry..."
Was I apologizing to the guy that had kidnapped my boyfriend and put a dead body on my couch!? I guess I was.
"...you know...it might help if you told me a little more about her...so I can imagine how she once was... maybe that way I will be able to do a better job" I suggested carefully.
"What do you need to know?"
And he talked. Her name was Emily, who it turned out was his daughter. She had died from stomach cancer at 10 years old. Her mother had passed away when Emily was born and now Robert - that was Creepy-man's real name knew that he was going to suffer from dementia. He was going to loose all memory of her and he couldn't bear it. He talked about random things, little memories, her hair, that she had liked horses like most little girls, had taken ballet classes and had loved the fluffy inside of biscuits. She had had a little kitten named Spiffy and a turtle named Michelangelo. He told me everything I needed to imagine what she was like and what might have become of her if she hadn't died way too early.
"It would have been easier to write me a letter and send me some pictures. Would have saved both of us a lot of trouble" I flat out told him.
"I know, but would you have helped me?"
"I don't know" I answered honestly. I might have. Or maybe not. Maybe I would have been angry at being burdened with someone else's problems. Maybe I would have been happy to help. It would have depended on my mood. But it didn't matter now.
"So...what are you going to do with her now?" I asked him
"Burry her. Put her back in the ground I guess. To me she is still beautiful and I can still see how she was when she was alive. I guess it makes sense that you can't. I'll put her back to rest" - take the cootie-couch with you!
"Can you send me a picture of her?" I asked
"A picture? Do you mean you are going to try again?" he asked, surprise in his voice.
"Well....I guess. With what you told me about her I can imagine her much better..."
"Thank you. I really appreciate that. You can come home now. The Asian boy will come to you soon after you get there" that last sentence made my heart skip a beat. I had hoped for that. But with a little luck my Asian boy was coming home with me right now.
Next chapter coming up. Hopefully sooner then the last one. Feedback? Mail me at rock_on_summer@yahoo.com