FATHER, ARE YOU SLEEPING?

FATHER, ARE YOU SLEEPING?
by Ray Daley

I couldn’t just go in there and perform the standard checks. I had to check from across the road first. I parked the car, taking my binoculars from the glove box.

Initial recce.

I performed a full sweep of the marble orchard. Signs of disturbance? Apparently, none.

Secondary pass. There it was. The first breaks in the ground. Had he worked it out then? God, I hoped not.

With the car safely parked, I hurried inside. I had all my gear in a bag, slung over my left shoulder. All the things I deemed necessary for a trip as todays was.

I picked my way through the stones. All the time, muttering in my mind, the mantra of the graveyard, ‘Don’t step there, it’s safe to step there. No, that’s someone’s bloody grave, you fool!‘

Until I reached it.

Here lies the old bastard, not dead, not sleeping either. In a block of concrete, until kingdom come.

People still come by and ask if that inscription is a joke or not. I should really have my twitter handle added to it, so they can tweet me that question until the heat death of the universe.

I stopped short of the grave, sweeping the area.

The ground was intact. The paths around each grave were well-trodden. All those stones around his were homes to people who their loved ones missed and wanted to visit.

Unlike mine. He was there because I put him there. He deserved no less.

I saw old lady Perkins visiting with her son. I nodded at her. She vaguely recognised me through her cataracts. “Hello, Billy.”

Oh. That wasn’t good. Either the old bird had gone fuzzy in the head, or himself had been talking in his sleep again. She’d always got my name right, before today.

“Hey, Mrs. Perkins! It’s me, Jonathan!”

I waited to see if the real world caught up with her or not. Thankfully for me, it did. “Sorry, dear. I could have sworn it was Billy. You look just like him, deary. Are you here visiting?”

I nodded. Weren’t we all? I looked around the cemetery. All the regulars, visiting on time, like the good folks they were. Grandpa Johanson, with his dear Effie. Mary McCree and her husband Don. Sergeant Bobby Boscott, here to see his kids. Sure, we were all just visiting.

Until that day where we were reunited as a family again.

I knew that wasn’t gonna happen for myself and Daddy dearest. Stepping alongside the plot, the marble plate was still firmly in place, no visible signs of stress or cracking. It was still holding then. Hopefully, that meant the steel plate beneath it was still in one piece too.

It looked like a perfectly ordinary grave.

Headstone, marble plate, ornamental flowerpots. The whole kit and caboodle.

Time to check in. “Father, are you sleeping?”

I knocked on the headstone. If he wasn’t, he’d feel the vibration through the marble plate, under fourteen feet of concrete, into his coffin, also filled to the brim with concrete.

When I put that fucker into the ground, I wanted to make sure that he damn well stayed there. I couldn’t allow someone like him to be outside, walking around amongst decent folks.

+++

Ten long, lonely hours. Everyone else had long since gone home by then. All off to their nice warm houses, and their loving families. Meanwhile, I was still here in the graveyard. Just me and Dad, like always.

I had done all the usual tests. Ground-penetrating radar. No unexpected holes, as yet. Just a solid signal, down to fourteen feet. Motion detector, negative reading. Thermal camera. Not capable of reading that deep. If he was still alive down there, he hadn’t worked out to try digging sideways yet.

When I’d put him in the coffin, I guess the sheer speed and weight of the liquid concrete had caught him by surprise, or at least that had been my intention. Hopefully, he’d gasped in shock, inhaled a few litres of that delightful liquid concoction too. The gentlemen at the building suppliers had reassured me it would set within twenty seconds, whether it met the air or not. As soon as it was poured, he’d promised.

I won’t describe the sheer look of horror on the man’s face when I asked him if he’d care to bet his life on that fact. Not just his life either, the life of every other man, woman and child walking the good Earth.

I doubt he’ll forget me in a hurry either. I paid him double, for a job not only well done without questions, but for being there exactly when I needed him.

Unlike the old man, who never had been. Ever.

The hole had been covered, but the coffin had been open, so Dad could get a good look to see if I’d given him a nice resting place. I had mounted it on a set of rails so a light push with the boot would heft it into the waiting hole beneath.

“I just thought you’d like to see the patch, Dad. It’s got a lovely view; I’ve met your neighbours. They visit all the time. The Reverend is fine with the legion flag bearer. You’ll be comfortable here, for eternity.”

As soon as he leaned over, I gave the cement truck driver the okay sign, he backed up, Dad needed the merest of nudges in the right direction, i.e.: – towards the coffin.

Once he was falling, I pulled the chute and slammed the first load of liquid cement into the coffin, filling it to the brim. A little more concrete into the empty grave, and I was ready. Once I’d shut the lid, I gave the thing a shove off the rails, and it plummeted like a stone. Well, it did weigh about half a ton now. Don’t worry though, it didn’t smash into a billion tiny shards of wood at the bottom of the hole.

By that point, there was already seven feet of liquid cement for it to hit, and gloop gently down into. The sheer weight of the coffin ensured that it sank right to the bottom. I filled the hole a little at a time, making sure each new layer was fully set before pouring the next, right until I almost reached the surface. Then it was a matter of waiting again. Driving three-inch-thick steel rods into the liquid as it went off, and securing the steel plate atop of those.

The marble plate went on top of all that, it weighed at least a quarter of a ton too. Like I said before, I wanted to make sure he stayed there.

I think Reverend Mason was surprised to still see me there, once he’d locked up the church.

Don’t worry, I had long since packed away all my detection gear by then.

“Still here, Jonathan?”

I nodded. “Yes, Rev. You know how it is. Have to be here on the anniversary, checking the old man is tucked up good and tight. I’ll shut and bolt the gate when I leave. You pop off home now. I’m sure Mrs Rev will be wondering where you are by now? Did choir practise run long again?”

Reverend Mason smiled. “Something like that. You know these church folks, always losing track of time. You’re too good, Jonathan. Always here on your dad’s passing, what is it, four years to the day?”

“Eight, now. Time flies, Rev.”

He left me to it, muttering to himself all the way to the Rectory.

In the end, I waited until gone midnight, running all my tests a fourth time, just to be sure the old man wasn’t coming back any time soon.

I placed the pot of water on the grave, right by the headstone, where the wind couldn’t blow it over.

“Sleep well, Dad. I’m going now, no, don’t get up on my account. I’ll see you same time next year.”

My father isn’t dead, nor is he sleeping.

He’s some sort of evil chimaera, not dead, or undead either. The holy water should hold him for the next year, I hope. If he manages to dig through all that concrete and steel plate, that is.

Ideally, I need to fit a webcam in the back of one of these nearby graves, so I can monitor him all year round. I wonder if Mrs Perkins would accept a thousand pounds in hard cash to let me fit one in the back of sonny boy’s headstone? It would give me a perfect view of dad’s plot then.

It’s a little late now, but I’m sure that I’ve got her number on my mobile. “Mrs. Perkins? Were you sleeping? I’m really sorry to wake you. How sorry? Does two thousand pounds cash sound sorry enough? It does? I’ve got a little proposition for you. No, not like that, you kinky old witch. Hear me out. Three thousand pounds? I’ll drop by for breakfast.”

Fiction © Copyright Ray Daley
Image by Malsawm Tunglut from Pixabay