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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us

White
by David J. Richards

The absence of colour never looked as good as it did underneath a full moon. Tombstones shimmered as a raging wind, wrought with bitterness, surged across the land.

Zachariah waited behind a silver birch tree rooted inside the cemetery and just off the main road leading in. He clung to its frozen trunk while its branches above shivered with ice. He breathed slowly, sometimes distracted by the plumes of his own breath exploding in front of his face. The cold seeped into his eyes but he refused to close them for longer than a second.

A night creature hooted. Yet another squawked. The wind was cruel tonight, and it did everything to tear through his thick black ski jacket to get to the vulnerable skin beneath. Despite three pairs of socks he couldn't feel the tips of this toes. Not even the thermal underwear and pair of Levi jeans held back the wind chill.

Zachariah shifted on his feet. From where he stood he could see the entrance of the cemetery. Its galvanized steel gates were slightly ajar as if a temptation to the living. It seemed to capture the essence of what lay beyond with its heavy fleur-de-lis pattern and large steel rosette that had now split in two. The wall surrounding the graveyard was low and grey from age. Summer ivy had been reduced to a thin network of brown vines meandering through cracks and gaps. A few meters away on a circular island, a fine bronze statue stood on its marble base. It greeted mourners with a few simple words that warned all of their own immortality: "Eternal life awaits us all." Its wings were unfolded and its sightless eyes were cast heavenwards.

How many times had he read those few words and wondered if they were true. What did he care anyway? They only paid him to tend the grounds and not to think.

He'd been doing the job for ten years. His house was provided for, which became a frequent target on Halloween night. The salary was modest. It was the perfect job for a man who'd abandoned the living to spend the rest of his days treading upon the dead, until he saw her.

Throughout the decade he'd witnessed thousands of funerals. Maybe it was a project for later; count the funerals using local church records and get an exact figure. Who would he tell anyway once he got the answer?

But the funeral request he'd received three days ago was surely amongst the strangest. The email arrived early in the morning. Its instructions were clear; the grave was to be dug so that the head of the corpse faced north, no other funerals were to take place at the same time, no cemetery staff were to be present, and perhaps the weirdest request of them all, the funeral was to take place at night. The pastor of the local church added a footnote:

"P.S. I tried to explain the cemetery hours but the relatives were quite adamant. It would be a great favour to me if you could comply. The family are overcome with grief and couldn't explain their unusual requests. Unless they are vampires! LOL!"

With his curiosity spiked, he had watched the funeral from behind the tombstone of Martha Mary Jones. Her photograph, moulded in clear Perspex and then set into the centre of the headstone, watched him with a sense of weariness.

Only a small group of mourners had arrived. He counted seven moving shadows. Each figure was dressed in black and they seemed to be part of the night itself: shadows that had dislodged themselves from the fabric of night to wander the grounds of the dead. Too far away to hear any specific words, he heard faint mumblings and on occasion he thought he heard soft singing. The seven mourners picked up the dark coffin and using no winch or ropes of any kind, dumped the coffin in the pit he'd dug out earlier. He heard the unmistakable fracture and snap of wood. Two men, he presumed they were men, picked up shovels and covered the coffin until a small mound of dirt formed. They obviously had no respect for the dead. For a fleeting moment, he thought they would break out into song or lash at each other's throat for blood, or turn into bats and flitter away. At the end of it all, the mourners simply left. They left no trace except for the clearly identifiable smell of perspiration and sweet perfume.

The next day two strange things happened. In the morning the headstone arrived. It was carved from rose granite and placed at the head of the grave with no help from him.

And in the evening she arrived. Zachariah had just finished trimming the roses in the memorial garden. An evening chill had already drained the day of its heat. His hands ached from gripping branches with vicious thorns. He was making his way to the compost heap, which happened to pass by the new grave, when he heard crying. No, sobbing.

Pausing, Zachariah watched a young woman bury her face in her hands. She fell to her knees in front of the marble headstone. Her shoulders heaved in sadness. After several minutes of heavy crying, she gripped the headstone with her bare hands and began to violently shake it. It seemed she wanted to dislodge it, deface the monument. Zachariah dropped his garbage and was about to tell her off when she stood up, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and ran towards the gate.

She continued the ritual for three days.

Except now she was late, or simply not coming. Maybe he'd missed her already. Maybe she'd finished grieving and no longer felt the need to come. He'd seen it many times. Graves aren't a place to be taken care of by the living. They are soon forgotten along with the bones at their feet.

Zachariah resigned to the fact she wasn't coming. It was stupid of him to get excited in the first place. How would a woman like her even notice a guy like him?

Using the light of the moon, he pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and angled his watch to see the time. One o'clock. And he was standing outside in the freezing cold, like an idiot.

"You do some stupid things," he muttered to himself. He pulled the beanie down over his burning ears and turned to head back to his cottage.

The steel gate screeched in agony, as it swung open. Zachariah stopped. Dare he hope, or pray, that she'd come tonight. Dare he think that tonight would be the night...?

Slowly, he turned around. His heart picked up pace. Opening his eyes against the racing wind, he saw ... an angel running towards him.

Night had a strange way of slowing down time. It forced him to sustain his gaze upon the advancing figure. Moonlight bathed her in an aura of silver. It seemed from beneath her skin, light bled into the darkness. Her hands clawed at the night as if pushing it aside, as if desperate to find the light hidden between the dead and the stars. Her dress breathed in and out like a living organism, protecting her, feeding off her. It appeared to be a separate entity with its own desires.

As she advanced towards him, past the statue with the upturned bronze eyes, the dress gained more momentum. Its fluidic movements brushed aside dead leaves and collected dirt on the hem. It offered flashes of her bare feet: dark and stained with cold mud.

Suddenly fearful of where she might've come from, Zachariah noticed that the dress she wore was not an ordinary garment. The woman whom he'd watched for three days mourning her lost love came
running towards him in a wedding dress.

Then she ran past him.

He held his breath.

Her dress crackled as if alive with static electricity.

He glimpsed the tears on her face. Silver jewels that sparkled, followed by dark streaks.

He reached out and tried to grab her arm. He had to make sure she was real. He was too late and she was gone.

Ethereal events happened often in cemeteries. He'd be a coward if denied what he'd seen in the ten years while scraping up
leaves and scrubbing algae off headstones. Angels. Demons. Strange lights. Willo wisps. Poltergeists. Imps. Trolls. he'd seen them all.

But this angel didn't fade. The dark simply absorbed her.

Zachariah felt dizzy. A subtle confusion wrapped his brain in warm fuzziness, which he kind of enjoyed. It became difficult for him to move, to think, to speak.

She'd come back. Why in her wedding dress? He gripped the silver birch for support and controlled his rapid breathing. Feeling slowly returned to his limbs. This wasn't the time to stand still. He had to pursue. He had to find out what had made her mad enough to enter a cemetery at night barefoot.

Regaining the full use of his legs, he moved off into the darkness. A faint smell of something sweet replaced the usual rotting mulch that sailed in the night air. He inhaled it as he crept between the tombstones, keeping off the main road, and found his way to the fresh grave.

And there she was.

He knelt down behind a heavy marble headstone, and watched.

Her back was towards him. Both of her hands, unprotected from the cold like her feet, were placed on the headstone. She was crying; heavy and long sobs that pronounced her sorrow.

He had to fight the urge to go up to her and comfort her. It wasn't his job to comfort those who couldn't handle death. But he could make an exception in this case ...

Slowly and trying not to alert her, he stood up. Suddenly he became aware of how she might react if she suddenly turned around to find a stranger behind her. He didn't want to become a member of his cemetery. No thank-you. It was cremation for him.

But what would he say? A simple greeting would do. Maybe. Yes. No. Cough to get her attention. That's stupid. She'd think he was an imbecile. How about just saying his name. Yes. Perfect.

He took a tentative step towards her. He spoke in a voice just louder than the blustering wind but gentle enough not to frighten her. But what he said was not what he'd agreed with himself moments before.

"It's not a good night for a bride to be out." He regretted saying it and suddenly wanted to blurt out his name to correct himself, but she turned and all words froze on his tongue.

For whatever reason, natural or supernatural, light found its way to her face. It was a narrow face with a small perfect nose and cheeks bitten red from the cold. Her bottom lip quivered slightly. Even in the dim light, he saw the crimson colour of her lips. Her black hair seemed part of night's veil and occasionally did it allow the light to reflect off of it. But it was her eyes where the light accumulated most. Tears diluted a fine concentration of green in her eyes, but they glimmered with a hidden passion. Her tears masked her sorrow.

"A bride can go anywhere she pleases," she said, as she straightened out the creases of her dress. Despite the cold her bare hands worked nimbly.

"Even cemeteries," he said.

"Even cemeteries," a sly grin came over her face.

Zachariah watched her as she sat down on the headstone and folded her arms. He felt afraid, no, concerned for her. He wanted to help. But he had the feeling she didn't want any help, and if she did then it would be on her terms.

"What's your name?" she asked. Wind pasted dead leaves to her dress. She ignored it.

"Zachariah."

"A Hebrew name. It means 'remembered by the Lord.'"

He shrugged, indifferent. "What's yours?"

"Rebecca."

"I don't know the meaning of your name, sorry."

"Don't be. It means 'servant of God.'"

"Is that what you are?"

The grin became a wide smile. "Not exactly."

In the ten years of being caretaker he'd never felt wary. So what if the wind sounded different when a storm blew in. So what if the night seemed that just little bit darker. So what if the ravens pecked at the grass as if trying to get to the bones beneath. None of it bothered him. But it bothered him now. More to the truth, why did she bother him so much?

Remembering the pastor's email, he said, "Are you a vampire then? Or think you are one?"

"Would a vampire, real or otherwise, be wearing a wedding dress?"

"Who knows? Anything's possible considering where we are. So why don't you tell me why you've been coming here for three days and now show up tonight in your wedding dress?"

A slight change came over her. She became stiffer and folded her arms tighter across her chest. The wind lifted up the hem of the dress and exposed her bare feet.

"I lost him," she said, looking down at the patch of ground upon which she pressed her toes into the frozen ground. "You've probably heard the same story a thousand times. We were," she looked up at the sky, "star-crossed lovers."

"Like Romeo & Juliet," Zachariah said. "They ended up ... oh." He didn't finish the sentence. He got the meaning.

"No! We weren't meant to end up like this. He wasn't supposed to die." It wasn't remorse that he heard in her voice, but anger. Raw anger. "Two days before we were supposed to get married he drove into a tree. Drunk from a bachelor party I asked him not to have. Stupid idiot." Rebecca stood up and kicked the headstone. It remained unmoved.

"It's not good to desecrate the dead."

She looked at him with indignity. "Why do you do it? Why do you look after the dead? It's the living that need you most."

"Not always," he replied.

"You take care of the graves as if each person, each skeleton, deserves the same respect. Would you tend the grave of a murderer the same as that of his victim?"

"Death makes us equal."

"Bullshit!"

Quick to change the subject, he asked, "Why did you insist on the funeral at night?"

"I didn't want him to see daylight again. He broke my heart. Ruined what was supposed to be the perfect day of my life. He doesn't deserve to rest in peace."

"It's over. Let me take care of him."

She laughed. "You can have him."

"Then why come here at night in your wedding dress?"

 "I came to get married."

Zachariah almost laughed. "Married? Your fiance is dead."

"That's not going to stop me."

She moved quickly. Before he had time to think of anything rational, Rebecca held a knife in her hand. Its blade looked hungry.

"Come over here," she flicked the knife towards the headstone. He had no choice but to obey. A cemetery offers very little in terms of potential weapons, and people willing to help out. He walked slowly past her.

"Kneel down and put your left arm on the tombstone."

"This is crazy," he said, trying not to let the fear creep into his voice. This had to be a joke, a sick joke. Maybe someone he knew was behind it all. Yes. They were hiding behind the trees waiting for him to start pleading before they came out yelling surprise! Or it was a bad dream. A very bad dream...

Nothing but cold fear reminded him of the reality he was drowning in.

She gripped his wrist and pressed it into the cold marble. Almost immediately he felt pins and needles at the edges of his fingers.

"What you are doing?"

"Getting married." Rebecca hoisted up her right leg and threw it over his arm so his arm was positioned neatly between her legs. She brought down her full weight and clamped his arm tight between her thighs.

The knife sliced through the sleeve of the jacket and bit into his skin. Zachariah jerked backwards but found himself immobile. The white wedding dress flew up in his face. Mud bled onto his face.

And then the pain took over. He screamed as metal hacked its way through skin, thick muscle and chewed into strong bone. Tears streamed down his cheeks.  Stars burst into burning supernovas. The three-day fantasy that he'd clung to came crashing down. Imagination and hope made for a lethal combination when it came romance and a lonely heart. No matter how beautiful she was, draped in white, it didn't disguise the ugliness in her voice. It didn't hide the cruelty in her heart.

Rebecca grunted with determination, ignoring his screams and the discomfort it caused to her ears. A liquid glove of warm blood bathed her hands. It made work slippery. Several times she tried to break the wrist by pulling back on the hand. In conjunction with her tireless slashing, she made short work of the bone and soon the blade hit frozen marble.

"Got it!" she said. She released his arm, holding the severed hand to the sky.

Zachariah fell backwards, his body entering a state of shock. The stump at the end of his arm leaked blood onto the frozen ground. He twitched and tried to speak, but his tongue was unable to form the words his mind thought of.

Rebecca took the hand and held it up to her cheek. Its blue toned fingers left streaks of darkness behind. She closed her eyes and kissed each fingertip. Blood had dyed her dress a vicious scarlet.

The warmth left the cut hand in seconds. It didn't matter. If she couldn't have her fiance's hand in marriage then any hand would have to do. She knelt beside Zachariah, his loose hand still pressed to her cheek. Was it the guilt or just sheer happiness that made her cry?

Zachariah's vision faded. He no longer saw the stars. The surrounding darkness encroached upon his body. And in all of it he saw nothing but fragments of white floating, twirling, and speaking to him.

"I now pronounce you man and wife." From a small pocket in her wedding dress, Rebecca removed a sliver of a gold ring and placed it on the finger of the dead hand.

She laughed. "You may now kiss ... the groom."

Before the darkness became permanent, Zachariah felt warmth on his lips and heard his last words. "We're married."

He would've smiled if he could have but death had an ironic sense of humour.

***

Two hours after midnight, a white figure left the cemetery. She walked, as if drunk, laughing and holding hands. She walked past the statue with the sightless eyes turned heavenwards. She paid no heed to the steel gate when it moaned as she pushed it open.

A married woman only had to think of her future now. What was it that her mother had told her? Oh yes, "Married women are the pillars of society."

She liked that. She liked being a pillar.

Outside the gate, white changed into black and soon faded.

As all colours eventually do.