The Night Watchman by Brian Jackson

Vincent, the night watchman, strolled the grounds of the old town cemetery carrying a hooded lantern in one hand and cradling Daisy May, his trusted double barrel, in the other. Knowing that tonight was likely to be a busy one, he kept his eyes peeled and tried hard to maintain a keen awareness of his surroundings. As with the previous nights, a low, dense fog had crept onto the grounds making it difficult to keep track of all the goings on. Of course, Vincent knew from experience that this only meant that he would have to depend more heavily upon his other senses, particularly his sense of hearing, to ferret out trespassers. Because that's what he was here to do this night, to protect the grounds from outsiders, those who did not belong, and in that he was determined.

Rounding a large, above ground, burial crypt, Vincent was startled near out of his wits to find Roscoe standing in his path. Dressed in his glad rags, replete with bowler hat, Roscoe was leaning against the crypt picking at his phantom teeth with an illusory splinter of wood. As was too often the case, Roscoe had anticipated his arrival and had lain in wait for him, eager to be in on the action.

"Crimony, Roscoe!" Vincent bellowed at the near translucent apparition standing before him. Taking a moment to catch his breath and settle his heart, he directed a disgusted look at the specter still blocking his path.

"Don't know what you're so upset about, mate. I'm the dead one here," Roscoe replied with a snort of amusement.

"You scared me half witless, you reprobate," Vincent countered. "Why do you have to sneak up on me like that? Can't you just announce yourself like ordinary people would do?"

"Don't know if you've noticed, chum, but I'm not exactly ordinary people."

Vincent had to concede this point; in fact, being an apparition he supposed that Roscoe could only distantly be considered people at all, let alone ordinary. Even worse, since Vincent had begun working the night shift at the cemetery he had less and less to do with the ordinary, and more and more to do with the extraordinary.

"So, are you going after the beast tonight?" Roscoe prompted enthusiastically.

"No, Roscoe. I'm simply making my rounds like I do every night." Of course, Vincent had heard of the beast striking in town during the previous week and knew that as a result of this activity extra attention would be directed his way. But he tended to shrug such things off preferring to treat everything, especially the peculiar, as business as usual.

"You realize that it's probably here, somewhere, waiting?"

"Yes, Roscoe. I recognize that possibility."

"And if it is here, it knows about you."

"Yes, I recognize that fact as well."

Vincent continued to walk as he talked and tried not to be annoyed by Roscoe's habit of seemingly going out of his way to walk through headstones and other obstacles rather than walking around them as would ordinary people. He was headed to the far corner, to the Catholic portion of the cemetery where he had recently seen signs of trouble brewing.

"Good evening Vincent. Where are you going?" he heard a petite female voice enquire from nearby, behind a particularly large and ornate headstone.

"Oh crimony, not you as well," Vincent howled.

"So happy to see you as well, Vincent," the female apparition responded floating over the tombstone to join in the procession. Dressed in gown and hoopskirts complete with wig and party mask, she was and would always be the beautiful women she had been the night she took her own life. "Since when do you address me in such a manner?"

"I'm sorry Grace, its just that I have things on my mind this evening and don't particularly need to be distracted," Vincent tried to explain.

"Well, far be it for me to distract you," Grace replied in a huff.

"He means that you're beauty is a terrible distraction," Roscoe explained, intervening on Vincent's behalf.

While Roscoe soothed, Vincent slowed upon nearing the corner of the cemetery property. The mist was thick in this part of the grounds. Although there was a full moon out tonight, Vincent had to look hard to penetrate the low lying fog that meandered between the canted and damaged tombstones, for this was an older and less well maintained portion of the cemetery. In the distance, Vincent heard the howl of a wolf and then below that he heard the scratching noise he had come to expect.

"What's that?"

"Quite Grace, the man is trying to work."

Realizing that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Vincent crouched down into the mist and waved Roscoe and Grace away. Being a bit of a coward when it came to confrontation, Roscoe obediently led Grace away to her great annoyance. Creeping forward through the fog, Vincent wove between headstones and over thrust up roots in the direction of the noise. The further he went, the more pronounced the noise became, until it sounded like it was coming from directly in front of him. At this point, he stood to his full height and addressed the villain before him.

"Alright, stand up and show yourself, for I'll want no trouble here."

For a time, there was no response to his challenge other than a cessation to the scraping and scrabbling. Then, with deliberate slowness, a pale creature unfurled itself from the depths of the hole it had been digging over the last several nights. Its skin was white as alabaster and its spine stuck out from its back like the skeleton of the mighty whale one might see at the House of Spectacles. What little hair it had on its head was long, dark, stringy, and unkempt. As it turned it displayed eyes that were far too large for its face and clawed fingers far longer than the eyes were large. Vincent gasped as the meaty, liver colored lips parted to emit a pathetic, whimpering groan.

Standing his ground, Vincent swung Daisy May into firing position and cocked her massive hammers. He then shouldered the weapon and trained it on the misshapen creature that now stood half in the mist and half out.

"Be off with you, you foul beast, you" Vincent warned, always believing in giving warning rather than simply harming any living thing.

Again, the creature within his sights whimpered, and it was then that Vincent noticed that it held the arm of a corpse in its grasp. Half consumed, it appeared that Vincent had caught the ghoul in the middle of its repast. Vincent shuttered at the worm infested, decomposing flesh on the arm bone upon which the creature had been supping. God only knew how long that body had lain in the ground, undisturbed, until this abomination had dug it up. Again sighting down the barrel of his shotgun, Vincent said a prayer and than pulled the duel triggers.

The venting of Daisy May's wrath produced an earth shattering repercussion that sent Vincent staggering backward several feet and ultimately tripping over a low rising headstone. Falling on his back amid broken branches and damp leaves and moss, he tried to look up to see the result of his gunshot, but saw only swirling mist in the wake of the blast. Vincent had no way of knowing at first whether he had vanquished the creature, wounded it, or simply given it a terrible fright. All he knew for sure was that it was gone. Then he spotted it standing on the crest of the wall bordering the property. Looking his way it clawed at the sky and hissed, then vaulted away into the woods beyond the wall seemingly unharmed.

Rising to his feet, Vincent felt his aching muscles for any signs of dire damage but found none. He had simply knocked himself over in his urgency to expel the beast from his sight.

"And don't come back," Vincent yelled into the woods after the fleeing creature.

"Well done, my lad," he heard Roscoe call from behind the cover of a nearby sepulcher.

"Yes, valiant move," he then heard Grace concur.

Rather than respond, Vincent simply swept the dirt and muck from his trousers with his hands and then bent to pick up his much beloved double barrel. Unsure whether he'd eliminated his problem, he was at least pretty sure that he wouldn't have to be dealing with the creature again this night. Breaking down his gun, he pulled the spent cartridges from their barrels and reloaded from his breast pocket. Snapping the barrels back into place, he scanned the mist around him for any further signs of danger before recradling the gun and moving on. No sooner had he stepped back onto the path leading to the heart of the cemetery than Roscoe and Grace appeared from out of the ground at his side.

"One can certainly see why the town hired you to watch over the things at night," Roscoe commented, proudly.

"My, yes," Grace agreed, fanning herself from all the excitement.

"Are you two going to follow me all night long?"

"Most probably," Roscoe replied, smugly.

"Well then, do you mind keeping the chatter down?" Vincent chastised. "This next part is most likely going to be rather dicey."

"I knew it; you're going after the beast, aren't you?" Roscoe asked in excitement.

Stopping and turning to face Roscoe, Vincent repeated his admonition with all seriousness: "I said, quiet down." Roscoe looked hurt at this second warning, but did as he was told. Unfortunately, he continued to dog Vincent's heels as he turned to continue his rounds.

The small party's ramblings through the cemetery took them from the older, Catholic grounds to the more upscale properties containing family crypts and much more elaborate headstones. As they walked, Vincent pulled his coat tighter against the chill in the air and contemplated returning to his shack where he would make himself warm and have a slice of buttered toast and a dram of the good stuff.

Rounding a bend in the path, Vincent came upon the most recently built family crypt which had coincidentally also accommodated a recent interment. Walking to the massive front doors of the tomb, he produced a key from his waistcoat and placed it into the lock. Rattling the key around a bit, he was finally able to turn it and undo the lock. Looking aside, he was pleased to see that both Roscoe and Grace had once more left him to face his fate alone.

Stepping into the crypt, Vincent felt an icy chill as he always did when entering such places. Bring Daisy May to bear on the stone sarcophagi resting upon a platform in the center of the vault, Vincent was shocked to find that the lid of this stone container had already been slid off onto the floor. Perhaps, he thought, it was simply too difficult to slide the lid back into place from the inside.

As Vincent stepped forward, keeping the open sarcophagi always in his sight, a shadow in the corner of the vault dissolved to reform as a man who quickly strode to Vincent's side to grasp him by his neck. Dropping his firearm at the shock of the sudden impact, Vincent was whisked off his feet to be pinned against the far wall of the crypt. Kicking his feet in an attempt to free himself, he felt his windpipe slowly begin to collapse under the increasing pressure of the beast's grasp.

Looking into the beast's eyes, Vincent could see that his death was eminent. Trying to plead for his life, he was able to barely move his lips but no words would come out in his defense. Sensing that his vision was beginning to shut down within a tunnel of swirling darkness, Vincent was surprised when the head before his eyes disappeared with a swish to be replaced by gushing gouts of blackness from the neck upon which it had rested.

Feeling the pressure on his neck released, Vincent was dropped to the floor of the crypt where he sat with his back against the wall trying to regain his composure. Before him, the beast lay on the floor wreathing in seeming death throes.

Vincent watched in fascination, and then saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning he saw the ghoul standing in the entrance to the crypt, bloodied claws outstretched before it, and with what could only be described as a smile on it's ghastly maw.

"This place is mine," the creature hissed in a ruined, alien voice. And with this pronouncement it was gone, bounding back into the depths of the cemetery to disappear into the night.

With the final jerking movements of the beast having ceased, Vincent felt well enough to rise to his feet and gather Daisy May. Propping the gun up in the corner of the vault, he spent some time placing the decapitated body back into its coffin before retrieving his gun, closing the door, and locking up. The lid of the sarcophagi being too heavy to lift back into place, he left that for another day when he might find someone to help him.

Walking back down the cemetery path while rubbing his painful throat, Vincent wasn't surprised when Roscoe and Grace soon appeared.

"Blyme, that was a close call, mate," Roscoe opined.

"I should say a might bit too close," Grace amended.

"I would say you owe that ghoulish one a favor or two, captain."

Vincent gave this last statement a ponder as he wondered on scratching the scruffy thatch on his head.

"I'd think I can manage to leave the older part of the cemetery alone for the next couple of months," Vincent agreed. "Besides, if I can put up with you two, I should have no problem putting up with a ghoul or two."

This comment afforded Vincent an earful as he proceeded on his nightly rounds.

© 2009 by Brian Jackson