Buccaneers of Black Pond Chapter 8
#10 of Tiger Troopers
The boys are deep in enemy territory and surrounded by insurmountible odds. Will they accomplish the task? Or be buried by the pressure?
Chapter theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY
Under the amber lights of the King's Highway the fog lingered, the boys looked glossed in yellow as they walked. They reached Billy's house at 3:30 P.M., and upon finding his dad sound asleep, left heading north by 4:00 P.M.. Clanking shovels against the railway and dragging a length of three strand nylon rope, they reached the back of the cemetery right at sunset.
"So where did the big eared lady say her dad was?" Roger asked, climbing over the steel barred fence.
"I didn't ask," Billy answered, already inside the limits of the fence, smacking his fidgety flashlight back to life against his hand.
Frank's pencil-like arms wobbled as he raised himself over the fence. "Ddd-did you carrot to ask?" He wheezed.
"We don't need to." Billy said. Soon after, the flashlight hummed and Billy pointed it to his left. "New burials were over here."
Billy walked westwards, not bothering to wait for the others.
"Why is he walking?" Roger questioned, leaning on his shovel. "We should be hurrying to find it before the cops pass by."
Roger then covered his eyes, blinded by the bright headlamp sported by Mike as he turned to him to answer his question. "He knows where he's going, Roger. Just give him space."
It wasn't called The Old Cemetery because it fell out of use. Nor because there was a better place to bury the dead in Catuvella. Real estate, conservation grounds, zoning laws and a generally small year-round population of three-thousand deterred the need for another, grander graveyard. Even if Catuvella had three more funeral homes than the next three towns over, didn't mean they had three times the deaths. Just meant it was a nice enough town, a quiet enough populace. Perfect for the dead who had friends all over yet no particular home of their own.
It is called the Old Cemetery much like how revered elders are called old.
A title of disobedience, fitting those who lived long and either garnered respect, or compelled trepidation.
This final resting place, so belittled by those who ended up there, its slander was made official years ago. A metal sign placed at its gates, labeled "Catuvella Old Cemetery, Est. 1800." For the sons of sailors, and wives of fishermen, and brothers of landscapers, did not fear death when they had the comfort of life.
Though some were less comfortable than others, and that could be said true for Billy.
He circled around the same block of stones towards the west end of the cemetery and read each name.
Jenconner, Jeffries, Poutine, Wallace.
Twenty stones and bevels and pyramids and little sarcophagi and not one he desired.
Not that he expected an easy search for the stone.
He was a stranger. He never knew Elizabeth's foster father other than what he had read in the papers and, and what his father had said.
But he'd thought it be over here, near hers.
And so every time he passed by he thought he'd find it and then he'd feel less stupid glancing at her grave over and over. Much like how one feels stupid saying goodbye and then running into that person moments later.
Especially someone who couldn't speak at all.
"Did you find the grave?" Yelled Roger as he ran up to his team captain.
"Its not where I thought it would be." Replied Billy. "So we're gonna have to split up and search."
"Again?" The freshman dropped his shovel and sat down. "Listen, maybe this is a sign we should give up. We're committing a sin. God's gonna fuck us over if we keep it up. So let's take this as a sign and-"
Billy knelt and covered his mouth with a gloved hand. "Shhhh!" He pointed at Mike and Frank, who were close by, and in a loud whisper ordered "Get down!"
"Hello?"
Only three meters behind the boys flashed a light, the white beam dissipating in the thick fog. As it came closer, the boys shuffled ever away, ducking and hiding behind the graves. As Billy peaked over the side of a large slab, he recognized the man holding the light.
It was none other than their history teacher, Mister Young. The man looked about the graves but didn't dare shuffle off the path, missing the boys. Huffing, Mr. Young turned around and walked from where he came from.
"Let's follow him" whispered Billy, and he set down his shovel and rope. "We'll come back for these."
Moving from grave to grave to remain unseen, The students tailed their instructor. Tracking him all the way to the end of the cemetery where they had hopped the fence, they watched.
"What's he doing?" murmured Roger as he snaked next to Billy.
"Shh."
Mister Young stood before the massive grave, an obelisk capped by a fleur-de-lis. Kneeling before the memorial, a deep breath sounded from the teacher.
Hearing the grown man sob, The highschoolers cringed.
After ten minutes, the teacher sniffled, wiped his nose with his sleeve, and left.
When they were sure they were without company, Roger was the first to speak. "What the fuck was that about?"
"He must've had a grave reason." Frank joked, walking to the obelisk and shining a flashlight on it. "Oh- guys check it out!"
He kept the light on the stone as they stood gathered around the grave marked Dovin-Basil.
"Alright, that's our guy!" Billy started to walk where he had left the digging gear.
Fifteen minutes later, Mike asked "Why do you think Mister Young of all people was visiting this grave?"
"Don't know." dismissed the team captain.
"Teacher's have social lives." Roger watched his three friends while he sat against the obelisk. "Maybe Young and this guy were relatives."
In Between coughing from all the hard work, Frank joked. "Maybe...Young...Digged...This guy."
"Franky, you haven't gotten any funnier since we left the store."
"I'm ... anxious." The boy in dreadlocks said as he wiped his brow.
"Raj, why don't you help if you're just gonna distract us."
"I'm giving you guys light." He waved the flashlight around the three-foot deep hole. "And watching for the police." There was a second where the light seemed to veer away as the boy rubbed his eyes. "Also, I'm fatigued."
Another five minutes passed and the hole was five feet deep. Rocks started to fly off their shovels instead of dirt the further down they went. When they finally struck the tomb, Roger felt the need to offer one last comment. "I still don't approve of this."
"Whatever Raj." Billy pulled himself out of the grave while his fellow grave robbers started to scrape the dirt caked atop the elmwood casket. Once it was fully uncovered, they too scrambled to the top of the hole.
"I don't like being down there." Coughed Frank. "Can we just open it now?"
"We gotta haul it up first." The blonde boy said unraveling the rope off his shoulder. "Then it should open easy."
He gave Frank the rope, and then slid down the hole. "Hold on while I secure it. Mikey, you throw yours down too."
While his friends worked, or rather while Billy tied the ropes and Mike and Frank stood idly watching with flashlights pointed at the hole, Roger walked off.
He had started to regain his energy as he became increasingly annoyed. "We're gonna get in trouble." He got on the concrete path lining the graveyard and started for the entrance. "We're gonna get fucked."
Before the exit looking at main street, Roger stood. He thought maybe it'd be best to start walking home now before shit hit the fan. "At least I can say I told you so."
The short boy reminisced against a tombstone. "I'm gonna start for home. I'm going to go straight to bed. I'm going to go to school tomorrow. And I'm gonna say when I see them enter the school with an officer escort 'I told you so.'
He wore a shit eating grin like it was a metal. "Yeah. I can hear the sirens already."
Sirens.
Instinctively Roger ran to the Dovin-Basil obelisk.
"Oh now you've decided to join us." Chided Billy, standing next to a closed casket. "Well while you're here, can you pick a lock?"
"Dude the fucking cops are coming!"
Frank, laying on the grass from exhaustion, rolled on his stomach, stood up and ran for the fence.
"Coward!" Yelled Mikey. He turned towards the team captain, looking for orders, just as he heard a DINK. Shining in the flashlight's luminescence was Billy's shovel, embedded between the casket and its top.
"Get over here and help me wedge this thing open!" Ordered Billy. The two boys gripped the shovel as the sirens came closer. Blue and red lights intermingled in the fog to reflect purple off the leafless trees. Roger got on his knees and started to pray.
"One! Two! Three!"
Crack.
The lock on the casket gave way, the wood surrounding it shattering under the boy's strength. With no time to lose, Billy threw it open. He paused to shine his light at the corpse inside.
The skin had turned gray, and crinkled like paper around the eye sockets and mouth. Teeth had fallen out and jangled in the back of the skull. The nose had collapsed and left a razor-thin shark fin over the nasal concha.
It smelled, rightly so, like someone had died.
The sirens were just at the gates now.
"Billy..?" Mikey asked, a flashlight aimed at the ground.
"Go dark." Billy put his light in the coffin to shine at the deceased's left hand.
Mikey turned his flashlight off. Roger did the same, and then came over to the casket.
"What are you doing?" Roger whispered anxiously.
"I'm putting the ring on the right hand."
"Thats his fucking left!"
"That's what I mean!" While with one hand he pulled out the J.C. ring, With the other Billy lifted the hand up. Several rings already on the dead man's finger slipped off and clattered against the wood. Flinching at the noise, Billy also dropped his ring.
"Good Job smart ass."
"Guys." Mike went prone and pressed himself against a couple of graves. The sound of men talking was coming ever closer.
Rushing to attach the rings to the crusted digits, Billy brought each ring up to the light. Then he noticed it.
There were two bronze rings labeled J.C.
"Mr Dovin-Basil already has a ring like this!"
"I knew this was for nothing!" Roger squeaked, causing Billy to drop the ring on the soil. Billy almost yelled, but instead he shuffled over to the coffin's lid.
"Help me close the lid. We'll throw him back in the grave and make a run for it."
They closed the lid as Mike dragged himself over to help. With a thud, the boys had pushed casket into its resting spot.
Then Mike and Billy picked up their equipment and started throwing it over the fence, while Roger stayed behind.
Uttering what little he remembered about the prayer to the deceased, Into the grave he moved handfuls of dirt. As his hands sifted through the soil, Roger's grip closed around the ring. Rather than fulfilling the heretical wishes of the rabbit, he pocketed the trinket. Just as he was about to finish the burial, a thimble of light streaked across his face.
The police walked by the obelisk, not a second after Roger ducked. They carried on their search, never having noticed him.
With a silent curse Roger rung his hands and made for the fence. He hopped it and landed amid an entanglement of limbs. Struggling, he almost screamed when a hand clasped against his mouth.
"SHHH" Said Billy, covered in leaves.
Within the cemetery, lights swirled all around as radios blared from the police. Then one by one, the voices calmed, the lights dissipated, and then the sirens disappeared off in the distance.
Roger, Billy and Mike waited ten minutes, and then they scrambled for the railway.