Work Text:
Beginning on October first, Andrew adjusted his working hours. The sun began to set earlier and rise later, leaving fewer hours for work that required the light of day. But raking and cleaning could be dun by lantern and memory far into the night when edgy teens and thrill chasers tried to break in after closing.
“No respect for the dead, honestly Dot,” he murmured to the grave marker etched with the name Dorothy as he tossed the red heels into his non-compost bag. Some asshole thought themself funny but old paperwork at the office still had record that only sunflowers may be left at her grave. Andrew wondered how many late Dorothy’s suffered the same ruby fate.
This area of the cemetery was Andrew’s favorite to care for. The trees in this corner were older, larger and fewer and they tended to drop their leaves all at once for easy cleanup. Elsewhere, paths were lined with dozens of young trees that layered the grounds with leaf litter from the last day of summer to the first snow. One and one, that’s what Andrew preferred.
He did not prefer doing his job throughout the night. But he had been denied security cameras on the grounds yet again and there was always someone finding their way in past the one at the front gate. His vandalism prevention had been lauded last year for saving them so much money but nobody took into account that lack of proper sleep does things to a person. Not like he had a union to fall back on. He was contracted, not an actual city employee. He had no leg to stand on in the face of a council that only looked at the line budget of his work.
But the pay was steady, the housing was adequate, it was adequate, and the clientele were marvelous company.
"We have to stop meeting like this, Albert. What would your wife say?" He asked the old stone that grew vines faster than he could uproot. Albert’s wife had little to say about their clandestine 2am meetings on account of also being dead and buried in the adjacent plot. Andrew imagined her sitting on the headstone with a sour look on her face. She looked an awful lot like Allison in a vintage dress.
Heblinked hard, pinched the bridge of his nose. The ghosts were coming early tonight. He hadn’t napped long enough after lunch to make up for the shift change. Three o’clock was the safest time to stop, close enough to morning that nobody would try to jump the back wall. It was only an hour away and the nights had been quiet so far this week. He could go to bed now and things would probably be fine when he woke up. Who would break into a cemetery on a Wednesday when the full moon would be on Saturday?
Nobody.
Probably.
Fuck, he was so tired.
At 2:15, Andrew turned off the flood lantern and sat on the half full bag of vines and leaves by Albert’s mostly clean headstone and let his eyes adjust to the grey moonlight. There was no wind but the stagnant chill was enough to keep him conscious until he was ready to trek to the cottage at the other end of the property.
/
The full bag of vines sat neatly tied next to Albert’s grave almost exactly where Andrew had left it four hours ago.
Almost.
Tired or not, Andrew didn’t forget. Last night, the bag had been placed against the back of the headstone for him to sit on. Now, it was full, tied off, and nestled between Albert and his wife.
Andrew didn’t bother looking around for the culprit. They never stuck around, especially not until daylight.
What kind of vandal cleaned the grave of some nobody? And whe4re was the trash bag?
Whatever.
He wasn’t paid enough to care about that.
/
Until it happened again.
Nobody could prove that Andrew did it on purpose. He just knew his job well enough to know that nobody would be breaking in last night and so left his half finished bag of compostables by Alice. So what if he hadn’t been tired enough to imagine ghosts. It wasn’t like he had a time clock, just a set of chores to accomplish.
He could go to bed whenever.
And now he was staring at a grave he had not finished cleaning and a bag he had not finished filling that were both fully cleaned and filled.
What the fuck.
That day, he made sure to get a good long nap in after lunch and had an entire pot of coffee with dinner. All he had tonight was some raking and preparing for Saturday, the second busiest day of the week, and Saturday night, a full moon in late October and the second busiest night for wall hoppers.
He raked by lantern, filling his bags and making rounds just in case somebody did try to break in. At two o’clock, he left the last bag half full near Dot and Albert and Alice, left his rake, and left for home. He walked to the cottage by moonlight, in through its front door and out through the back. He followed the tall rock wall around the perimeter in the opposite direction, off the paved path, between trees and shrubs. The walk was long and quiet with only the occasional rustle of wind. If nothing came of this endeavor, at least he got a peaceful walk out of it.
Lazy.
In the silence, the loud whisper was distinct. Andrew froze between the wall and weeping willow to listen. He stared, moonlight blocked by the towering crown of the tree until the breeze swept the curtain of branches. There, between the headstones, the same greyscale blue as everything else.
Andrew locked eyes with the man before running through the tent of branches.
And found nothing.
He stood as still as he could, ears straining and eyes unfocused enough to notice any movement in his periphery.
And found nothing.
Andrew was neither tired nor crazy. In fact, he had never felt more awake or sure of anything before. The voice. The man. Both lived as perfect recreations in his mind. It was not the first time he’d been called lazy but it was the first time he had seen that face. This was no ghost of his sleep-deprived imagination who always resembled someone he knew.
Andrew did not believe in ghosts but he could not control the adrenaline pumping through his veins. No movement, not shadows, no sound of footsteps. Dozens of headstones to hide behind but for how long? Long enough to wait out him?
Yes, it turns out. Because standing perfectly still in the dark until 3am was not something he was going to do.
Andrew finished filling the bag and took it back to the maintenance building before going to bed.
In the morning, the rake had been returned, too.
/
“I thought you had weekends off?” Nicky pouted as he flipped through the rack of mismatched jackets between them. Andrew flicked through the shirts on his side. He shrugged. Nicky connected the dots without any help and made a sympathetic face. “Ah. Unruly teens? You should get some cameras of your own if the city won’t pay for them.”
Yes, because he was shopping in a thrift store for the fashion choices it offered. Why not spend all of the money he was saving on a security system for a public cemetery? Again, Nicky filled in Andrew’s side of the conversation without him having to actually talk. “I’m sure Aaron would be okay if you did.”
“His scholarship doesn’t cover housing, I doubt he would be okay.” Like hell he was allowing his brother to take out loans just because med school wanted to bleed him dry. And he barely had time for studying, let alone a part time job.
“Stubborn,” Nicky scolded.
Lazy.
The tone was the same, Nicky’s scathing comment softened by his endearing expression. The disembodied voice he’d heard last night hadn’t had that element. Andrew shoved a handful of shirts down the rack with more force than necessary.
“Hey guys, fancy seeing you here this fine Saturday.”
“Finer now that you’re here, Matthew,” Nicky simpered with an exaggerated wink. Matt snorted and didn’t bat an eye. His arms were full of various dress shirts and some actual dresses. “Something to share with the class, Mr. Boyd?” Nicky asked as he flicked up the hem of one of the dresses.
“Nah, just rebuilding some of my stock for students who don’t have formal wear. Homecoming was last night which is a pretty heavy hitter.”
Nicky patted Matt’s cheek, who couldn’t swat it away with the load in his hands. He swung the bundle about to get him off and ended up dropping a pair of shoes.
Andrew watched the red heels tumble to the ground.
That couldn’t be right.
“Aren’t these a little outdated for high schoolers?” Nicky said as he picked the red shoes back up and put them on top of Matt’s pile. From their new neat angle, Andrew could clearly see that they were the exact same shoes he’d tossed in the missing bag Wednesday night. He didn’t wait around for either of them, left what he’d found and went to the worker at the front of the store.
“Do you keep a record of where your donations come from?” he asked. The girl raised an eyebrow at him. They’d seen each other enough here. She knew he knew she wasn’t paid enough to care about that, let alone actually do it.
Fair enough.
He left.
Matt caught up with him on the sidewalk, empty handed and far too eager to talk to him.
“Hey, wait up man,” he said even though Andrew was already waiting for him. If he’d left his haul at the drop of the hat, he obviously had something to say. “I was gonna give you a call so I’m actually glad I ran into you.”
Was anyone ever actually glad to run into him?
“I’ve heard some chatter among the students about trying to sneak into that new mausoleum. You know the one.”
Oh, Andrew knew. It was a monstrosity, a sickening display of wealth and an eyesore of the eastrn side.
“I just wanted to give you a heads up. I know you put up with a lot of bullshit this time of year.”
“Not gonna go to the pigs about it?” He challenged. Matt gave him an offended look.
“About some kids being dumbasses? Nah, man, I’m telling you, for whatever actual good it might do.”
Andrew stared up at Matt who knew better by now than to take it personally when he turned and left without a word.
/
Saturday night was cool and clear because of course it was. Andrew resigned himself to a long night when he had to kick people out at closing who insisted they were there because of a dear lost relative and the ouija board was something they carried about all the time.
That had been at seven.
It was ten o’clock now and Andrew was on his third cigarette. When smoked slowly enough, one lasted him one half of a loop around the perimeter. Andrew stubbed out his current cigarette and tossed it to the ground next to the steps of the mausoleum knowing full well he’d have to pick it up later. That was a job for future Andrew, for working Andrew. He refused to actively do any work tonight and was only wasting his Saturday night away to prevent future Andrew from having to clean up after vandals. Picking up a few of his own cigarette butts was nothing compared to scrubbing pigs blood off of granite.
Because that is exactly what these assholes would do to the Wesninski mausoleum.
Oh, Andrew knew all about the story of the Wesninskis. The missing wife and son of the decade’s most prolific serial killer, presumed dead when his crimes had come to light after his own grizzly death. As far as Andrew could tell from the paperwork, some relative had commissioned the mausoleum for his cemetery because of its picturesque views and paths reminiscent of a Victorian strolling park.
Andrew would never understand why such things mattered. The building was empty save for an old stuffed animal and some jewelry.
He would know. He had been the one to oversee its construction.
Not that remains- or lack thereof- mattered.
Because ghosts weren’t real.
“Not gonna lie, Nathaniel, I thought tonight would be a little more exciting,” Andrew said as he leaned against the cold white granite of the structure.
Oh fuck off.
Whisper quiet but distinct. Andrew reached for another cigarette just for something to do with his hands, pretending he hadn’t heard anything. If some teenagers thought they could get the drop on him in his own domain with sloppy work like that, they had another thing coming. He wasn’t about to run after them. In fact, he turned off his lantern and pulled out his flashlight, ready to turn it on the moment they approached. He tucked the cigarette behind his ear.
It took a while. Not long enough for the shadows to change shapes but long enough for Andrew to almost want the kids to show up already. Get it over with.
“Booooriiing,” he sing-songed under his breath.
Then go home, came the whisper from the trees to his right. Asshole.
“Oh, I’m the asshole, am I?” He countered to nothing. There was no answer, of course. Whoever had managed to get in here after closing was losing their patience with him. Good. Impatient people were sloppy.
They’re going to get hurt.
Hm? Andrew straightened just slightly, tilted his head toward the perimeter wall to his left. There was the distinct sound of scuffling and shushing a ways down. It was obviously someone climbing over the wall but Andrew was torn. There was clearly someone much closer, already inside the cemetery, someone more skilled at staying hidden. Someone who had stayed hidden. Someone who would probably continue to stay hidden whether he remained at his post or not.
If Andrew had been the sighing type, he would have as he pushed himself off the wall to follow the sounds of thumping and oofs and frantic whispers. He waited a few rows of headstones away until he was sure everyone in the group was finally over. Then, he aimed his flashlight and flicked it on, flooding out their cell phone lights and earning a wave of high-pitched shrieks.
“We’re closed,” he told the gaggle of teenagers as they panted and clutched hearts and braced against knees. It was, he’d admit, mildly amusing.
“Fuck man, I thought you said the coast was clear.”
“It was clear, dude.”
“Oh my goooooddd I’m so fucked, my mom is going to kill me.”
“Hey, where’s- oof ow what was that for, dick?”
“Shut up and pick up your shit.” Andrew cut in. “If I find a single tarot card, candle, or sage stick after I throw you out the front gate, you’ll be cleaning graves every night until Christmas.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Fuck around and find out. Let’s go.”
Andrew marched the five teens down the center path to the front gate, dutifully ignoring their hushed arguing. There was little satisfaction to be had in the stupidity of others but there certainly was in the locking of the gate when they were gone. His night wasn’t over, not with the whispers coming from the trees, but he suspected the excitement had peaked.
He walked back by moonlight, his memory of the cemetery lit by the silver light reflecting off polished stone. It was a shame places like this were given such stigmatized reputations. It was just a park when all was said and done.
Then again, he was quite content with the amount of traffic he had to deal with.
Nearly half way back to the mausoleum, the screaming started.
Andrew didn’t hesitate, he broke into a run and left the path to cut through the graves. The screaming stretched on, shrill and terrified and undoubtedly that of a teenager. He ran until the screams were coming from right in front of him, until a body collided with his own. Only years of playing a contact sport- even as a goalie- stopped him from throwing the girl to the ground. As it was, he held her at arm's length by the shoulders.
“Stop- Stop screaming. Tell me what happened,” he demanded.
“He’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna chop me up into little pieces!” The girl sobbed. Her cheeks were shining with tears.
“Nobody is going to kill you.”
“He is! I saw him! He had a knife!”
“Did you see what he looked like? Which way he went?”
The girl choked on her answer, hiccuping and pulling her jacket close around her body. “Th-The Butcher!”
Alight. This time, he did sigh. He was someone who sighed, now. He began leading the girl back toward the entrance with one hand on her shoulder and one on his flashlight. Too bad he’d left his lantern.
“Nathan Wesninski is dead. Don’t kids these days read the news?” Kids these days. Who was the real monster here?
“It was! I swear. I’m not stupid. It looked exactly like him and he had a huge knife! I’m not making this up. Please!”
“Shut up,” Andrew growled out. He should have expected shit like this when that fucking sensationalist eyesore was proposed. It wasn’t a grave, it was a monument for people who hadn’t gotten a say in their histories being publicized and scrutinized. It was useless and disrespectful and drew in all sorts of shitbags who wanted to tell ghost stories of dear little murdered Mary and Nathaniel. Didn’t you know? They were chopped up into little pieces and that’s why they can’t be found. Did you know if you knock on the door three times and call out their names you can hear them cry for help? Didn’t you know?
“Don’t do this shit again,” Andrew said as he shoved the girl out by his grip on her shoulder. She put her face up to the wrought iron bars of the gate as he locked it.
“I know what I saw. I know it,” she insisted. Andrew didn’t acknowledge her and walked away to her indignant shriek at being ignored. He had to turn his flashlight off and sit in a nearby grove of headstones to cool off before he even thought about going after the rude whisperer. He would probably punch the next person he saw (and only because he purposefully didn’t wear his knives for precisely these situations).
After a while, when his head was level and his eyes were acclimated, Andrew made his way back to the east side. He kept off the path, kept his steps quiet as he approached. Whoever was here with him did not know the cemetery as well as he did. He could weave between graves and behind trees without so much as a twig snap.
So when he stood beneath the bare branches of a cluster of birch trees, he was able to see the back of the man staring up at the front of the mausoleum. He was still, the same blue grayscale as everything else around them. Andrew took careful steps closer, heel rolling to toe, pause, repeat. The man didn’t move, didn’t clock his slow, steady approach, giving Andrew time to see why he was staring at the building.
Even without enough light to distinguish color, he could see that it was blood that had been splashed across the parted french doors. It dripped down the steps and disappeared into the grass, soaking the ground where the man stood.
“Why did they do this?” The man whispered, so quietly it could only be to himself. “Haven’t I seen enough blood?”
Andrew came up right behind the man, close enough to grab him if he ran but unwilling to just yet. Instead, he stepped slightly to the side so his presence would be seen.
It was. The man whipped around with a gasp that got lost on the wind. Andrew didn’t believe in ghosts, but in that moment he might be convinced. He was something straight out of a horror movie; wide, scared eyes translucent with the full moon shining directly on his face, wounds littering his cheeks, and a stripe of blood, black in the night, down the center of it all.
Neither moved. Andrew knew why he was still- waiting- but there was no good reason for this man to be so frozen. Was he even breathing? Was he even really there?
Slowly, so so slowly, Andrew took his lighter from his jacket pocket. He threw it at the man’s head.
The tension broke with the silence as he cursed and grabbed his bloody forehead.
Not a ghost.
“Really? Haven’t I been through enough tonight and now I have to be assaulted?”
“You’re trespassing.”
“Hardly,” the man said. But that didn’t make sense. Andrew was sure his was the voice he’d heard in the trees so he must be aware of his plight. He’d complained about it enough to the dead.
“The cemetery closes to the public at 7. Which you know, since you've been trying so hard to stay hidden at night.”
The man shrugged. He pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his palm to wipe at his face. The blood streaked over the marks on his cheeks. Andrew noticed how the stripe of it was solely down the center of him, his arms and sides clean. He let his eyes flick to the open doors of the mausoleum.
“Why were you inside there?” he asked. The man shrugged again.
“I’ve been living there.”
“Not even going to try and hide it?”
“What’s the point?” There was an edge that cut through the discouraged lilt of his voice, a sharpness that had Andrew tilting his head in curiosity. “We’re here. We’re talking. No point pretending what comes next.”
“I kick you out, clean your mess, and go to bed?” Andrew guessed.
“Hey, it’s not my mess. It’s those fucking kids who think it’s so fun to torment the son of a violent mobster. Find the girl that threw this shit at me and have her clean up. My mess. I know you’re too lazy to do your job most nights but immature, asshole, true crime wankers targeting me is far from my mess.” The man’s eyes were wild as he ranted, slashing his bloody hand through the air for emphasis. His word choices were interesting. He’d never heard of Nathan Wesninski referred to as a mobster, or even as any mob affiliation.
He tilted his head in the other direction to take in the man’s features. With the blood mostly wiped away, beneath the angry wounds he couldn’t determine as fresh or scarred in the dark, his face could almost be familiar. Could almost be a younger version of the image slapped across every news outlet and social media site. Or an older version of the one shared far less often. “Guess you’re not so dead,” he accused.
Nathaniel met his gaze evenly. His mouth moved as if he was prodding the insides of his cheek wounds with his tongue. Andrew didn’t try to pretend to understand the situation this poor sod had found himself in. Missing obviously hadn’t been kind to him and presumed dead possibly less so. He also didn’t see why it was his problem.
“Why the fuck are you squatting in your own fucking grave? This isn’t Buffy. You’re going to freeze to death in there eventually and you know whose problem that’s going to be?”
“Well, not yours surely,” Nathaniel cut in sarcastically. “I know how to not freeze to death. I just had nowhere else to go.”
“The homeless shelter? Your rich fuck uncle who commissioned this monstrosity? The FBI? The bottom of the river?” Andrew provided helpfully.
“Fuck you and your assumptions,” Nathaniel snapped. “Sometimes things aren’t so easy. Take your high horse and ride if off the closest cliff.”
He turned to walk away but Andrew grabbed him with a hand on his arm, only to find a knife pointed right for his own cheek. It was big, a kitchen knife he hadn’t seen anywhere until it was at his eye.
“No wonder that girl ran screaming that she was going to be chopped into pieces.” He could feel the tip of the knife poke him as he spoke. “Planning to take after daddy dearest with that thing?”
“I’d barely gotten back in when the girl started carving shit in the door. When I opened it, she threw the knife and a bucket of blood at me. Not my father’s usual cleaver but you can understand why I’m not feeling very particular about the details after all the shit I’ve already put up with before tonight.” He gestured to the slices down his cheek with the knife and shook himself from Andrew’s grip. Then he threw the knife into the wet puddle at their feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go figure out how much of my shit is ruined. I’ll be out of your hair by morning if you don’t throw a fit about all this.”
Andrew was too tired to throw a fit. He heaved a sigh, because he was a person who sighed now, and shoved Nathaniel into the mausoleum. It was just as bleak as it had been when it had been built, but fuller. The stuffed fox and pearls were still behind their glass and plaques, but now there were things strewn about the floor. With a click, light blinded him in the small white room. Nathaniel had turned on his flood lantern.
“That’s mine,” he said.
“I’ll return it after I clean up. Too bright to use too often.” Nathaniel set it by the entrance, away from the small amount of blood splatter that had made it past his body. Andrew could see the beginnings of letters in the wood of one side of the door.
Nathaniel began throwing things in a duffel bag, candles Andrew recognized from graves he’d cleaned, a half empty water bottle, several cigarette butts but he couldn’t smell any evidence of them being smoked in here. The sleeping bag was being evaluated for its blood stains and deemed clean enough to be rolled.
“Are you really just gonna stare at me like some zoo animal?” He said, pausing his fight with the sleeping bag to breathe heavily. Andrew turned his attention from signs of life to the sign of the living. Nathaniel was a pathetic sight of too skinny in too-loose clothes with too many stains. The scars on his face were only just that, still fresh enough to be an angry pink. And while his words were just as harsh and biting as everything else he’d ever said, the bruises under his eyes and the slump of his mouth and shoulders told a different story.
“Don’t trust you not to disappear if I don’t keep an eye on you.” Nathaniel looked confused. “Isn’t that what ghosts do best?”
“Ghosts aren’t real.”
“And Nathaniel is dead. See? I can state useless facts, too.”
“You can talk in circles, is what you can do.”
Andrew could not become a person who sighed three times in a single night. He couldn’t. “You’re not listening.”
“Then say something useful.”
God that smart mouth was going to get him into some sort of trouble. “Nathaniel is dead,” he said again.
“I’m obviously not.”
Don’t do it. Don’t sigh.
He grabbed a handful of dirty red hair and tilted his head to look up at him. The fire in his expression, the cut of his jawbone and blue of his eyes made him feel some sort of way that was a problem for future Andrew.
“Nathaniel is dead. So who the fuck are you.”
Dawning realization was a good look in those eyes. Andrew resisted squeezing the hair in his fist to see what it would do to them.
“Neil…. I’m Neil.”
“Well Neil, you’ve got some explaining to do and I’ve got a shower.”
“What else is there to explain?”
The red shoes, the vines, the decision to live in his own tomb. There was enough to fill the rest of the night but Andrew didn’t think he would feel tired again for a very, very long time.