Page 157 of 1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Forty-Two

He stood still for a minute with his eyes closed.

“A depth of history,” he said quietly. “Strange, somethingsad, something beautiful, peaceful, and something... I don’t know. It’s almostas if the air remembers all the things that have happened during the pasttwo-hundred-plus years.”

Angela nodded. “But more,” she said softly and then noticedsomething. “Hey!”

“What?”

“I probably saw it but didn’t really note it. There’s alittle American flag stuck into the ground there.”

“There’s everything everywhere here,” he reminded her andbegan pointing in different directions. “Toy witches on brooms over there... agreat big grinning Casper the friendly ghost over there. Oh,wow... slasher-movie killer over there. And, nice, someone put out a bowl ofcandy on that grave. But...”

He walked over to where the flag was stuck into the ground.“Probably a soldier buried here.”

The grave had a rounded headstone. The marker denoted thefinal resting place of a Tammy Brighton, born January 20, 1920, deceased May21, 2000. There was no indication that she’d served in the military.

“Some people are patriotic,” Patrick murmured.

“But it’s odd, right?”

“Yes, and no. Everything here is odd.”

Angela smiled. “I don’t know. It just seems... strange. Imean if there really was a creepy ghost on the tomb, I’d just think itnormal—for here. Why does the flag seem out of place? It’s about ten feet fromthe entrance to the Robertson tomb, and another ten feet to the north. Thereare markers here for other people in what I assume to be Tammy Brighton’sfamily, and they are decorated for Halloween. I wonder if the flag is a...directional? Or...”

“You want to dig up the ground here,” Patrick asked.

She huffed out a breath. “No. Yes. Maybe. Hey, look there.”She pointed to a spot about three feet from Tammy. “It looks like a recentburial. I see a temporary marker. Harold Brighton, born November 3, 1939,deceased October 23 of this year.”

“Okay, naturally, the ground remains...”

Patrick paused, looking around.

“Patrick?”

“I’m feeling something different. Something almostmalevolent.”

Angela started to walk over to him. He swung around to lookat her.

“Get down!” he cried.

She didn’t need to be told twice.

Falling flat, Angela reached the ground in time to hear thewhistle of a bullet flying past.

A bullet that would have struck her dead-center in the chestif she’d still been standing.

Chapter 6

As Jackson parked on the outskirts of the cemetery,he was surprised to see a patrol car pull up and the ghost of Colonel GeorgeClayborn slide through the door of the rear right passenger side, unnoticed bythe officer who had been driving the car.

Clayborn saw Jackson and nodded, aware he needed to wait forthe officer to approach Jackson before he spoke to him.

“Special Agent Crow,” the officer said in greeting.“Anything more on finding Officer Whittaker?”

“I believe our experts will have something they can give uson video shortly of whoever took off with Officer Whittaker. We have a fewgreat dogs in the Krewe, and one of our best scent dogs found a trail that letus know he was put into a car and driven away. If we can trace some of thevideo, we’ll have an idea where to focus a search.”

“Thank you. That’s the hardest thing. Not knowing where tobegin,” the officer said. “Anyway, sorry to interrupt your work here, but...well, yeah. Everyone loves Whittaker. We’re all praying he’s still alive. Wealmost don’t understand why we’re still... I mean, what was discovered here washorrible, but those victims are dead. We can only pray that Whittaker is stillalive. He needs to be found before he ends up like the others.”

“We are well aware of that,” Jackson assured him. “But if wecan figure out what happened here, we can narrow down who took Whittaker.”