Suspenseful Tales Part 14

Danita tapped his shoulder. "Did you hear me? You've been zoning out all evening. Are you okay?"

He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. He had a date that evening. At midnight. In the cemetery.

"Drew!"

He looked at Danita. "What?"

"What's wrong with you? You aren't yourself."

"The book is coming to me. Finally. I was up all night, spent most of the day on it, too. I don't even remember whether I slept or not. The book is blocking out everything." Everything except Alexandria, that was.

"I see," she said. "Did you take my advice and visit the cemetery?"

"Not yet." He looked away. The cemetery would remain his secret. "The book hit me last night and has been flowing ever since. I've never felt a flow like this. This is unreal."

"Hmm." Her eyes held a trace of suspicion, then she sighed; her suspicion gave way to resignation. "This is what I get for dating a writer. Occasional weird moods and temporary obsession with your work. But I love you anyway." She leaned into him and kissed him.

He broke off the kiss quickly and stood. "Danita, I've gotta go."

"To write?"

"It's taking over me, calling me. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm. . .under a spell."

"I won't pretend that I understand, Drew," she said. "Because I don't. But handle your business."

Driving back to his home in Marietta, he swung into the parking lot of Tom's Beverage Depot. He bought five bottles of Merlot--the same French label he and Alexandria had shared.

He also purchased a carton of Newport cigarettes. For her.

At midnight, they found each other at their special meeting place: the empty grave he had fallen into the first night they met.

"I missed you," Alexandria said, and pulled him into her embrace. He seined his fingers through her silky hair. He could hold her forever. He never wanted to leave her. She inspired him. She excited him. She understood him. She loved him.

Before meeting Alexandria, if anyone had asked him whether it was possible to fall in love within minutes of meeting someone, he would've called that person a hopelessly romantic fool.

Now, he'd learned better.

Wrapped in each other's arms, they went to their spot, the big granite tomb.

Later, when he returned home, his creative batteries more powerfully charged than ever, he scribbled in the notebook for twelve hours straight.

For five days, he floated in a haze of stunning creativity and love. The book was his world, and Alexandria was his sun.

They met each night at midnight, always in the cemetery, always at the same location. Once they embraced, time spun out like spools of thread, became meaningless. They drank wine, talked, made love, drank wine, talked, made love ... a whirling carousel of romance that swept Andrew into a frenzy of creativity.

Within five days, he had filled the notebook: five hundred pages teeming with words. The novel was done.

He could not wait to tell Alexandria.

A few minutes before midnight, he dashed out of his condo and into the woods. He followed the path of tamped-down gra.s.s that he had created during his previous jaunts. He jumped over the barbed-wire fence and into the cemetery.

It was midnight when he reached the grave, their meeting spot. But Alexandria was not there. Odd. She was always on time.

He noted, too, that the grave was no longer empty. It had been filled, a footstone embedded therein, and a wreath of bright flowers placed atop the plot. Well, it was about time someone was buried there. He could've broken his neck when he'd fallen into it the first time he visited.

Out of curiosity, he flicked on his flashlight. He focused the beam on the footstone.

And was seized by such shock that he promptly dropped the flashlight. It rolled across the gra.s.s.

"No," he said, in a choked voice. He bent to retrieve the flashlight--and crashed to his knees.

"No, no, no, no, no." Like a blind man, he crawled across the gra.s.s, fumbled for the light. He grabbed it, shone it directly on the footstone inscription.

Alexandria Graham Beloved Daughter. Gifted Writer.

January 18, 1976 -- March 5, 2001 Hot tears scalded his skin. Had to think. This would've been the sixth night he had spent with Alexandria. They had first met around midnight of March 7th. . . two days after she had died . . .

"I won't believe it," he said. He fought to stand. Staggering, he went to the black granite monument on which they had spent so many hours. He peered over the top of it.

The surface was bare. There was no blanket, no wine, no cigarette ash.

He had touched her, kissed her, loved her. Here. Right. Here.

"I won't believe it!" he shouted.

He raced out of the cemetery. * * *

Danita was knocking at the door of his condo when he ran out of the forest. Distress twisted her face.

"Where are you coming from?" she said. "Jesus, Drew, I know I'm visiting late but I've been worried sick about you. You haven't been returning my calls, you sound distant when I get you on the phone, I haven't seen you in days. What's going on?"

He said nothing. He unlocked the door and brushed past her.

Danita slammed the door. "Dammit, Drew, talk to--what have you been doing in here?" She gaped at the living room.

Blinking, he scratched his head--and saw what had been invisible to him for days. Bottles of Merlot littering the coffee table. Empty packs of Newport cigarettes scattered here and there. Saucers and bowls and cups br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ashes and cigarette b.u.t.ts.

"I don't . . . know." He felt groggy and disoriented, as if he had awakened only minutes ago from a deep slumber. "I've been writing a novel. Done with it now." He grabbed the spiral notebook off the dinette table and handed it to her.

Looking confused and anxious, she opened the notebook.

"What is this?" she said. She flipped through pages scrawled with black ink. "What the h.e.l.l is this?" She turned back to the first page, smacked it, and shoved it toward him.

He looked at it.

A Midnight Haunting A Novel by Alexandria Graham "Oh, Jesus," he said, and fell onto the sofa.

Alexandria's words, spoken during their fateful first meeting, came to him: I think of hiring a ghost writer to complete the writing for me ... A ghost writer would have to be utterly filled with my spirit to do any justice to the story ... My only wish is to complete the novel before I die--and if I die before I'm done, then I'd want to have my ghost writer finish the tale . . .

"Drew?" Danita said. She stepped toward him hesitantly.

He stared at the t.i.tle page. Then he lowered his face to the pages and wept, his tears mingling with the ink . . . running in black streams down the paper.

PRESUMED DEAD.

Everyone thought Michael Benson was dead.

On a chilly October night eight years ago, he'd reportedly plunged his Mustang into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. When the police discovered the vehicle a week later, they found clothes, a collection of hip- hop CDs, a fifth of Jack Daniel's, and a suicide note preserved in a Ziploc bag. My life is h.e.l.l, and I can't take it anymore.

Although the cops never found a corpse, Michael Benson was presumed dead. A small cl.u.s.ter of friends and relatives attended the funeral, mourning over a blown-up photo of him, in lieu of a body.

But while they grieved, Michael was alive and enjoying his freedom.

He'd always been fascinated by the thought of his own death, had wondered who would attend his funeral, and what would happen there. Who would cry? Who would eulogize him? What would they say?

But when it actually went down, he'd already left town. He couldn't take any chances of being seen anywhere in Spring Harbor.

Not while Big Daddy Jay was still around.

If Big Daddy Jay knew Michael was alive, he would arrange another death for him,and that one would be real.

After pulling off his own death, Michael moved to Atlanta.

Atlanta was the place to be for a young, single, upwardly mobile black man like himself. A man like him could accomplish big things in A- Town.

He changed his name to Ricky; Richard was his middle name, and his mother, who'd pa.s.sed when he was a teenager, had used to call him Ricky. He changed his last name to Jordan, because he'd been a longtime fan of the great basketball player. He used an underground connection to get a new Social Security Number, too.

Carrying twenty-five thousand dollars, his life savings, in a briefcase, he moved to a one-bedroom apartment in College Park, a city on the Southside, and got a job barbering at a local barbershop. He'd learned to cut hair during a two-year stint in prison (he'd landed there due to a trumped up burglary beef). His skills with clippers came in handy as he set up his new life.

In no time, he'd built up a list of reliable clients, and was earning good money. He met a woman, named Kisha, a thick Georgia peach sister, and she moved in with him. She was a fabulous cook and even better in bed. Life was good.

But his old life called to him, like a sweet, forbidden lover.

Cards.

The cards had gotten him into trouble back home. The cards had made him decide to plan his death. He owed big debts to Big Daddy Jay because of those cards. Debts he couldn't repay if he lived to be two hundred.

It took all of his self-discipline to avoid the cards' powerful pull. But he did. He knew that if he gave in to the urge to play, he would eventually find himself in the same bind there in Atlanta. And then he might blow his cover. He couldn't risk blowing his cover, not ever.

Big Daddy Jay's reach extended far outside of Illinois, after all.

So he stayed away from the cards. But he satisfied his thirst to stay abreast of happenings in his hometown by studying the local newspaper, The News Sun, on the Internet. He missed home terribly. But he could never return for a visit, not while Big Daddy Jay was alive.

Therefore, he paid special attention to the obituaries.

Eight years later, when he was up late one night cruising the newspaper online, he read the obituary that he'd dreamt so long of finding.

Big Daddy Jay had died, of natural causes, at the age of eighty- seven. Owner of Jay's Meats & Foods, a mom-and-pop business (which was no more than a legit front for his illegal activities), the paper included a recent photo of the great man. He wore a Kangol c.o.c.ked on his bald head, his snow-white mustache trimmed to perfection. His face lean and grave, he bore a strong resemblance to the actor, Lou Gossett, Jr. He used to joke that people would approach the actor and ask him if he were Big Daddy Jaya"not the other way around.

Big Daddy Jay was that kind of man.

When Michael read the obituary, he let out a whoop of joy so loud that Kisha awoke and came to ask him what was going on.

"It's nothing," Michael said. "I thought my Powerball numbers had hit. I was wrong."

Frowning, she returned to bed.

But Michael stayed up for a while longer. This was almost as good as winning the lottery.

Finally, he thought. Finally, I can go home.

Two weeks later, he did.

"This looks like a nice little town, Ricky," Kisha said, as he steered the Jeep along Davis Street, the town's primary drag. "Has it changed much since the last time you was here?"

"It's changed a lot," he said. "That Applebee's we just pa.s.seda"that wasn't here when I moved away. And they didn't have that Comfort Inn or a Wal-Mart, either."

"No Wal-Mart?" Kisha's eyes widened, as if the thought of a town without Wal-Mart was as unthinkable as a house without plumbing. "Dang, where did y'all go then?"

We went to Big Daddy Jay's, Michael wanted to tell her, but kept his mouth shut. There, you could get everything you neededa"and then some.

They were nearing the old, two-story brick building that Big Daddy Jay had owned for as long as Michael could remember. A big, faded red- and-white sign announcing, "Jay's Meats & Foods" hung out front. Just like Michael remembered.

Pa.s.sing by the store, he slowed.

"That was y'all grocery store?" Kisha clucked her tongue. "Ain't they got a Publix or something here?"

Michael shook his head absently. He was staring at the building.

It was a few minutes past ten o'clock in the evening, and the grocery store closed at nine. The "Closed" sign hung on the front door.

But he wasn't looking at the store. He was looking at the second- floor, which housed Big Daddy Jay's office.

The blinds were closed, but could not hide the light burning inside.

The infamous poker games would take place up there. In that same room, after a long night of horrifyingly bad luck, Michael had decided that the only way to stay alive was for him to convince Big Daddy Jay that he was deada"and escape town.

What was going on in there? Were the games still in progress, even after the great man's death?

Chilled, and not quite sure why, he kept driving.