Ordinance 72
Was written for a reason.
Deer were a common sight in Hillgate Cemetery. Rabbits and the occasional turkey too. The graveyard bordered the woods, and given how tranquil it was most days, animals felt safe to venture into it.
Early in the morning or after closing you might see deer browsing, munching on shrubs and fallen acorns from the trees around the grounds. They had no idea that the only reason they could wander through the grounds without fear was due to a sign just past the fence.
‘No Hunting in Cemetery — Ord. 72’
Dale hated that damn sign.
He’d heard the story about how years ago a turkey had led three armed — and probably piss-drunk — men through the cemetery on a wild chase. Headstones were toppled. Flowers were trampled. The Carterhaugh mausoleum’s windows were shattered while they were trying to shoot the damn bird.
Also the turkey got away.
Supposedly it was a combination of that disastrous hunt and the garbage left behind by hunters that led the ordinance to be passed. One one hand Dale got it; no one wanted to see beer cans, food wrappers and other garbage shitting up their loved ones’ eternal resting places or their headstones knocked over.
On the other, the ordinance barred people like him from being able to hunt there. He wasn’t going to litter or trample someone’s grave chasing a turkey. All he was going to do was go in, hopefully bag a deer, and be on his way.
The night of the hunt, he stepped over the low stone fence and whistled for his dog to follow. Blue was a big girl, clearing the fence with ease. She trotted along at his side, tail wagging.
They’d gone deep into the graveyard, almost back to where the woods began when Blue stopped mid-step. Growled. Dale tried to get her to move, calling her name three times with increasing sharpness, but the dog wouldn’t budge. She just kept her eyes on the tree line.
At first Dale thought that a deer had finally come along.
What came into view was anything but.
It walked on all fours like a deer, had antlers like a deer, but that’s where the similarity ended. It wasn’t human. Wasn’t an animal. Dale wasn’t sure what it was aside from shadows, antlers, and eyes that shone like searchlights. It didn’t have a face to speak of, but it didn’t need one for Dale to figure out that it was pissed.
It reared up, easily ten feet tall, and screamed. The sound was horrible, somewhere between a trumpeting elk and a human cry.
Blue bolted, gone before he could even blink. Dale should have followed. Following would have been the smart thing to do.
‘Smart’ was not what anyone would have called Dale.
He lifted his rifle and fired.
The next morning, chunks of what used to be Dale were strewn across the grass. No animals to be seen, but Jacob expected that by now. There never were any for at least a day after it came around.
He’d been the cemetery’s groundskeeper for thirty years. When he’d first seen the…results of one of the spirit’s attacks decades ago, he’d thrown up all over himself. Would have quit on the spot if he didn’t need the money.
The old groundskeeper, Raleigh, just rang a bell, scattered a handful of salt, then told him to go hose himself off and come back with gloves, a sack and a couple of shovels. Later Jacob had asked the old man how he could be so calm. Someone had died horribly, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash. No shock, no concern, no calling the police.
“Get used to it or quit. Those are your two choices,” Raleigh had said. “As long as there’s anyone fool enough to try hunting in this place you’re gonna have to clean up a mess every once in a while.”
Saltiest bastard he ever knew.
One day he asked Raleigh what exactly was haunting the graveyard. The old man looked at him and just shrugged.
“Don’t know for sure. If I had to guess I’d say that a little bit of all the dead, man and beast alike, stayed behind to protect the place. Graveyards are sacred. Honor that, and you’ll be fine.”
He’d taken that advice to heart and it had served him well all these years. The few times he’d run across the spirit it hadn’t laid a hand on him. It had just stared at him for a second with those huge, glowing eyes and tilted its head slightly, like it was giving him a polite nod, before going on its way.
Right after he rang his bell and scattered salt across the dirt road, a whimper caught Jacob’s attention. Cowering among the gravestones was a shaggy grey dog, frightened but unharmed. He whistled to the animal, holding out half of his sandwich to entice her over. At first Blue just whined and stayed in place, but then her nose twitched, catching the scent. She crept over, low to the ground and tail tucked, but eyes firmly fixed on the sandwich.
The lure of bacon could not be denied.
Jacob left her to eat while he got a pair of heavy gloves, a burlap sack, and a shovel. The remains had to be gathered, the grass hosed down, gravestones cleaned and a fresh hole dug.
Later he’d locate the dead man’s family and break the sad news to them. ‘Killed by a deer’, he’d say. An angry buck got him right in the heart with those antlers. Or a bear; humans weren’t the only ones that knew there was game to be had in the cemetery.
Under no circumstances would he tell them what really happened.
He’d let them grieve, offer to take them to the gravesite, see if anyone was willing to take the dog. If not? He’d keep her. She seemed like a good girl.
Just had a fool for an owner.
The turkey hunters made for a good cover story. Let everyone think that the only reason for the ordinance was three idiots causing mayhem in the cemetery and not something far stranger.
The truth would remain between the spirit and those that tended sacred ground.
Hell yeah