Read Gravestone for Free Online

buildings lined together. Across the street in the darkness lie the train tracks. Maybe I’ll walk down past the rusty railroad signal, head into the woods, and find the barn that Jocelyn showed me, the one where she kept Midnight.
    Maybe Jocelyn’s ghost haunts the old farmhouse. Maybe I’ll just set up camp there for a while, just me and Midnight, until warmer weather comes and I can finally make sense of everything.
    There’s nothing to make sense of, Chris.
    Am I going to live in this cold darkness for the next six months? The next year and a half? Enough’s enough. I start walking toward the sheriff’s office.
    Night is coming. Night is coming for us all.
    This is exactly like my father telling me not to do something. Every single time he did, I managed to go right ahead and do it. The same with my guidance counselor. The same with my friends.
    I hear the warnings in the wind as I reach the door, expecting to find it locked.
    It’s open.
    I hear the siren sound as I enter the building. I expect to find Deputy Ross chewing his gum and getting ready to backhand me before sending me back outside. Instead, I see the sheriff.
    “Chris,” he says.
    He’s standing with a cup of coffee in his hand. Busy day at work, obviously.
    “I need your help,” I blurt out before I can persuade myself not to.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Everything. Everything’s wrong. Everything, starting with Jocelyn.”
    “It’s okay, just relax. You okay? Your mother okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. She’s more than fine. We’re fine.”
    “And Jocelyn?” He looks at me with a grim face.
    Whatever I say next could have major consequences.
    Don’t do it, man. Feel him out. See if he acts like he knows more than he does. Just wait before you—
    “Jocelyn’s dead. She’s dead, and I saw it with my own eyes. I swear. I know that sounds crazy, but I saw it. I saw everything. I know it, and I don’t care who I have to tell. I’m going to tell it if it’s the last thing I do.”
    I take a deep breath and feel like passing out.
    Way to think about things, buddy.
    Sheriff Wells remains composed and cool as he puts down his mug and tells me to have a seat. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that he’s gotta be careful. He doesn’t know if I’m high as a kite and did it myself.
    “Look, I know how this sounds,” I say.
    “Do you?” he asks.
    And I search to see if there is any sort of hint, any sort of tone, any kind of giveaway. Does he know? Could he know? Am I making a mistake?
    “Go on, have a seat,” he says in his thick accent.
    The sheriff is wearing a short-sleeved uniform shirt even though it’s winter and quite chilly even inside his office. He doesn’t seem to mind. As I sit at a desk, I keep wondering if Kevin or someone else is around.
    “This better not be some kind of joke, Chris.”
    He says it in a manner that seems to mean especially not after the kind of day I’ve had. He looks tired, at least from what I can tell. His thick goatee is unruly, the stubble on his face a few days old.
    I think of the first time I saw him, the night when my mother was drugged and knocked out in her car after work. All so that they could prove a point and send us—and me—a message.
    “Ross told me you were in shortly after Christmas looking for her.”
    “That’s right.” I can feel my heart beating against my tongue and gums. Maybe I should tell him about Ross threatening me.
    I almost do.
    “Why do you think something happened to her?”
    “ Know . I know what happened to her.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I was there. It was New Year’s Eve.”
    His gaze dims. “That was four nights ago.”
    I nod.
    “What did you do, son?”
    “I didn’t do anything. I found her. It was a group of men. Or people, I don’t know. Like some Ku Klux Klan meeting. Men in robes. They killed her. I found her not far from where she lived. On a mountain ridge. A place with a bunch of rocks. Her throat was cut and so were her wrists.