PART 8

He was about ten metres away, leaning against a faded gravestone. His elbow rested on his shovel’s handle, and the work clothes he was wearing had probably never met a bar of soap.

He raised a scrawny arm and gestured for me to come closer, his gigantic hand flapping in the air like a bird of prey.

– Don’t be scared, son. I just want to talk to you.

I walked closer, dragging my feet and keeping the wide open exit gate well within my sight – you never know. This guy really looked odd: the skin of his face was cracked like old parchment, sweat and dust glued the few hairs he had left to his forehead, and with rotten teeth he was chewing a yellowish substance that must have once been a cigarette. 

When I got close enough, he looked at me intensely, and I saw in his dilated pupils – pupils surrounded by an iris of unidentifiable colour – something that looked like relief.

Weird, really weird.

– You want to see the dead, son? he asked abruptly.

The guy was asking me if I wanted to see the dead. What was I supposed to answer to that? I didn’t find anything better than spluttering:

– Pardon?

He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and tried to revive his long dead cigarette, without success.

– I’m asking if you want to see the dead. The dead who walk and talk.

This guy had to be completely off his rocker, in the exact same league as the inoffensive nutcase who insists on directing traffic every morning dressed as a sheriff, at the intersection near my house. Totally insane, hallucinating, mad as a hatter. It was the only possible explanation. I looked at the exit gate and thought of making a run for it before it was too late.

– You seem to be having the time of your life, with your aunt and your mum, he continued.

So this guy knew my family? That reassured me somewhat, and I finally decided to spend a bit of time with him before giving him the slip. I stuck both my thumbs in my pockets, trying hard to conjure up my best Clint Eastwood impersonation, and asked in my most confident voice:

– What do you want?

The guy laughed, though it sounded more like a coughing fit.

– The question is: what do you want…

I didn’t understand anything of what he was telling me, but that didn’t seem to be of any importance to him. He gave me his name and told me he was the grave-digger.

– I know who you are, he continued. Your name is Charlie and you like everything that has to do with the extraordinary, the supernatural. You never miss an October 31st celebration. That’s very good.

I flinched – how did this guy know all that information? – before remembering that Aunt Maud chats up a storm, and that she must keep the whole village up to date on her only great-nephew’s private life – however short it still may be.

Then, in a foul breath, he gave me this invitation, the most incredible I had ever received:

– Come back to see me tonight at eleven o’clock sharp, at the front gate, and I guarantee you a Halloween you will never forget.

I didn’t know how to react, but my mum acted for me. She was standing in front of the gate and barked:

– What are you doing this time? Are you coming or not?

I dug my gunslinger thumbs out of my pockets, muttered a vague bye, mister and retreated to the car, feeling stupefied and fighting a nervous giggle. The door slammed, and I looked back: the guy was still there, standing in the gates, still as a statue, and continued to stare at me with the gravity of an emperor.

Childeric Zac, he said his name was. An unlikely name that sounded like a handful of dirt thrown onto the wood of a coffin. I thought it fit the grave digger like a glove and, I don’t know why, but I shuddered.

(Go to PART 9)