THE BOY BY THE HEADSTONE

I entered the graveyard as I always do through the iron gate at night. It soothes me to take the air of an evening after the fuss and clamour of the working day. As the village mortician I don't mind the dead and feel at home.

And so it was that I crossed the main pathway where the gaslight of the gravediggers' office still cast its pale clarity over the headstones. Sweep Teelins. Little Rath. Corporal Unbekant. They were all there. Once my work. Now my nocturnal acquaintances, dreaming in beds of earth and flowers.

My pipesmoke curled in the chill as I turned down the farthest path heading for the new field where the recent dead were buried. Some had yet to get headstones. Their serried ranks in perfect lines suggested orderly demises, but I knew only too well, having met them on the slab, that it was by accident, chance and grim tragedy that snatched most souls from this bustling world. And yet, despite this glum lottery and the sad inscriptions, the departed achieved a sort of stillness beyond the shrill whir of the living.

It was with such comforting philosophy that I rounded the field to the row's end. I hesitated. The night seemed suddenly colder here and I plumped my scarf as I felt the pinch of tomorrow's frost in the air. I reached the final grave and froze.

Crouched beside the headstone was a young boy staring at me in the darkness. Only the red embers of my tobacco afforded me any light and it was through this weak crimson glow that I saw the child or so I thought.

He was thin and naked and clutching the stone as if not wishing to let go. His drawn face seemed anguished and turned from side to side as if he were hiding from something I couldn't see.

I called out.

"Hey you there. Young boy. Don't be afraid. Are you hurt? What are you doing out here at night in the freezing cold?"

The boy stopped moving, stared in my direction with wide eyes, gasped and proceeded to do such a thing as I hope never to witness again in all my life. He stood bolt upright, sprang into air and jumped onto the grave, whereupon the child vanished into the earth entirely and was gone.

I stood still for a long while. My pipe burned out. I was gripped with abject fear from the craven scene I had just observed. My mind reeled. Had I really seen the boy enter the ground like some human mole? How was such a thing possible? And then there was a much less substantial explanation, one which I was unwilling to countenance until I was once more warming in front of my fire. Shivering, I decided that I would inspect the grave for any ingress but to do this the following day in the full light of the sun.

I took one more look at the startling plot and headed for home with a pace much brisker than when I came.

The next morning I revisited the grave. All was in order and I could see no entrance, hole or fissure through which the mysterious boy could have left. What I could see, however, was his name now I was in daylight. The inscription, albeit very short, read:

ALBERT MILK. 1880-1889. ROOKERY HOME FOR WAYWARD BOYS.

So this was the grave of Albert Milk, who at the tender age of 9 died far too young this very year. When he should have been climbing trees with his chums he was instead in the care of the Almighty Father. I felt so sad for Albert, plucked from this life so soon and felt guilty for my own rude health and longevity. I had certainly not worked on him in the mortuary.

But who was the poor boy by the graveside? His grieving brother? A fellow guest of the Rookery Home? I didn't know but my curiosity was deeply stirred. I took off my hat and paid my respects to the young Milk resting before me and pledged to afford him a few flowers at least, as nobody else had clearly not left any on this new burial.

Under the broadcast of a full moon I returned to the graveyard that night in the hope of seeing the strange child from the evening before. I had come bearing gifts, both for the living and the departed; a handful of fresh narcissi in a bottle of water out of respect for Albert and another corked bottle filled with milk from my own pitcher, a simple gesture toward the dead boy but also an offering of nourishment for his visitor. Next to this I lay a loaf of fresh bread.

Sitting at the bench at the pathside I pulled down my hat and bracing against the nocturnal chill I waited longer than the previous day. I may have fallen asleep a while but it was the sound of the milk bottle clinking against the headstone that woke me. I stared intently ar the grave in the hope of seeing who or what had knocked it over. And it was then that I saw him again.

The young mourner had returned. He was, as the night before, crouched and shivering at the edge of the sandstone slab, his eyes darting from side to side. The milk bottle lay flat now and its contents, I suspected, had seeped into the freshly turned soil as one small patch appeared to glisten. The boy paid no heed to me nor the bottle nor the bread. His dishevelled head flitted this way and that and suddenly he leapt up and hid against the stone facing me, cowering as if some malevolent force was at work. He was clutching a roughly-made wooden doll.

I stood and again called to him, beckoning with my gloved hand:

"Come here child, I mean you no harm. Let us leave here together for hot food and warmth nearby."

I stepped forward.

The village clock sounded eleven down the way and in that very instant the wooden doll was ripped from his hands and torn apart in mid-air. The boy screamed.

He himself was then pitched violently into the night and then jerked back, his spine arching as he flew against the gravestone. He fell upon it with a terrible and audible snap.

Clearly injured he sobbed and shielded his head but his arms were viciously twisted away and his face was flung from side to side, as if being struck by an unseen hand and I could hear the appalling slaps against his young cheeks vividly. His small figure slumped down upon the soil and lay still.

I was aghast with frozen fear as I witnessed this heinous assault played out before me. I knew in my soul it was not of this world, that it was a phantasm of the dead. I had watched the ghost of the boy in its final moments. And it was those agonised moments that filled me with both pity for this poor wretch's sorrowful plight but also anger towards his grievous assailant.

I closed my eyes and wept as the full act swept over me. I clutched my hat and shakily made the sign of the cross.

But it was not over.

The crumpled child now stood up and with no visible signs of injury walked slowly out of the graveyard in his bare feet, the wooden doll dangling from his hand.

Still in a state of shock and badly shaken I was unable to move. I watched the spirit walk away and my chance to follow the boy was missed. I avowed to return the following night at the same time. It was half past the hour of eleven.

The next night I pursued the figure as I had predicted at the same hour. I walked behind him as he slowly strode into the heart of the village. I realised that late-night revellers could not see him ad I did as they staggered straight through him.

The boy entered an iron gate and into the large grounds of an estate. The winter trees were black and ominous in the pitch night and I could hear the caws of sleepless rooks in the dark crowns. 

The boy stopped some way in and stared up at the twisted sign on a vast dilapidated building, the old manor house long renamed as The Rookery Home for Wayward Boys. He trembled and walked straight through the door and out of sight. I quickly gathered my senses and gently opened the large oak door and I too stepped in.

The hall was without any light, cavernous and utterly deserted and I recalled that I had read in the local Herald that the home had closed suddenly some weeks ago under suspicious circumstances, the koffers emptied of their charitable stipend left by the long dead Lord of the Manor. It felt hollow like the receding edge of all that was good.

The boy climbed the colossal staircase in the centre of the hall and looked tiny on the massive steps, his wooden doll hitting each riser. He turned on the landing and I followed him round the corner onto a long, straight and pictureless corridor bereft of all life. He halted and gazed at a cracked door upon which was pinned a ragged chit of paper. On it was the word Milk crossed through and the word Spilt scrawled below it roughly in crayon with an exclamation mark. He looked at me blankly and walked through the door.

I realised as he looked at me and as I stood in front of that crossed-out name that the ghost I had accompanied from the graveyard was without doubt that of Albert Milk and that some dreadful ill had befallen him in the room before me.

I shuddered and was afraid of what I would see if I opened the door and entered the boy's room. I was sure he had met his shocking end inside.

Bolstering what little courage I had I made my way in. My candle spluttered violently and I struggled to see in the flickering gloom. I heard the voice clearly though, the voice of an angry man:

"You little bastard Milk, you're a fuckin' wastrel, a tearaway and a runt. I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget!"

"Please Mister Clay , don't hurt me again! I didn't mean to ..."

Albert Milk didn't get to finish his plea as I heard the man grab the child and wrench his doll from his hand. I raised my candle and saw clearly how its wooden limbs clattered to the floor, pulled apart just as I had witnessed at the boys's grave and I was filled with fear for what cruelty was to come.

The man was muscular and broad, hardened by years of savagery towards his innocent wards hidden behind the respectable pillars of the Rookery. he picked up tiny Albert as if he were an empty sack and, as I knew he would, flung him outwards and then inwards against the wall. Albert groaned in abject torment as the brute proceeded to beat him about the head with his powerful fists, spraying blood across the room. The beast of a man was breathing heavily as his rage peaked with one final bone-crunching blow and Albert made no further sounds as he collapsed to the ground. The man crouched over his body panting, his chest heaving having expended all his limitless fury on a young boy. Gradually he rose and clearly realised he had brutally murdered Albert Milk and like a fading mist the scene dissipated once more into nothing.

I saw all of this. Felt all of this and I was utterly shaken to the core of my being. I was violently sick and staggered out of the room clasping my spitting candle and into the corridor. My outrage turned to apoplexy as I saw that each door along the corridor had a note pinned to it. On each was a name crossed out. The enormity of what I had seen and what I was facing dawned on me and I was overwhelmed. The brute had murdered them all.

It was at that moment that I became aware of the corridor filling with a presence or more precisely presences. I peered into the gloom and through the yellow glow of my candle I saw a hundred or so small figures hobbling out of the rooms and shuffling towards me, broken toys hanging from their swollen hands. They were the ghosts of all the children slaughtered in the home, all hideously battered and misshapen.

I fell back and sat as this entourage of misery slowly shambled over me. I could feel the children's collective pain as they vanished as they passed. The last child to arrive was Albert Milk. He faced me intently and whispered a single word before he too faded to nothing.

"Clay".

I left the Rookery with the name ringing in my ears, growing louder and louder all the time. The crowing of the rooks in the dreadful trees pecked at my mind as each seemed to cough up this name.

"Clay".

Shattered I reached my house. I slept a whole two days, a slumber from which I awoke and knew clearly what I had to do. There was only one way justice could be served correctly for those murdered boys.

Being the town's mortician I made enquiries with my police contacts as to the address of one Mister Clay of the Rookery. As no evidence of fraud at the Home could be proven he had dropped from their sights and was of no longer of interest.

This confirmed my worst fears that Clay would never face any charges for any crime, so I lied and told the Sergeant that he was someone I had to find urgently in order to inform them of a relative's untimely death. His address was given freely to me.

"1 Rag Street".

I planned my excursion for the day after. I knew this to be an unsavoury quarter as I had had mortuary business there. I would have to be on my guard. I arrived in Rag Street early the next morning by carriage and knocked on the door of number 1. I expected trouble from the brute Clay so I readied my revolver under my cape. My hearse carriage was instructed to return in 10 minutes.

"Yeah, What do you want!" he grunted.

"Hello Mr. Clay. I am the village mortician. I have some news about the estate of a dead acquaintance of yours. It seems you are due a substantial windfall. May I come in?"

"Money you say? Hmmm. I suppose you'd best do"

We stood facing each other in the squalid hallway and before he could say another word I shot him twice, once in each leg. He fell to the floor screaming. I placed a mortician's sack over his head and opened the door to the waiting hearse. With the aid of my driver Clay was bundled into the rear and we drove swiftly. To the Rookery Home for Wayward Boys.

The coach rattled along the roads and swept through the open gates into the rook's domain. They jostled and joked in the far-off tops as we sped towards the huge doors of the old mansion.

Clay moaned under his sack and blood had slicked in the footwell. The driver and I nearly slipped dragging his bulk into the house and up the stairs. We wrestled him into one of the rooms, removed the sack and left him there crippled. It was the room marked on the door as Milk. I sensed the teeming throng of dead boys waiting for us to leave.

As the driver and I ran from the house we heard Clay's terrible screams peeling through the night. They grew and grew in intensity and I could not imagine the fearful wrath he suffered at the hands of the children from the home.

When at last his awful howling stopped the rooks ascended from the trees and I suspect they left that craven place forever.

Several days later, after resting my tired form, I revisited the graveyard and sat at the bench where I had been that fateful night. I had once again brought gifts but this time only for the peaceful dead.

I knelt and removed any debris and gently placed four items by the headstone: a fresh bouquet of narcissi, a simple wooden doll, a loaf of bread and a small bottle of milk.

I sat down and waited. I waited for an hour in the cold but thankfully there was no sign of the ghostly apparition from a few nights ago. I rose to go and in the corner of my eye I imagined I saw a healthy little boy heartily guzzling the cream from the glass bottle but when I looked again nothing had been touched.

I smiled and left.

As I walked away I whispered:

"Goodnight and God bless Albert Milk, you can rest in peace now".