Taylors Cemetery

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I awoke late and hung-over, my body stiff, my head fuzzy and full of confused snapshots of the previous evening. From the grass that hung over my head and the earth by my face, I was lying in a ditch. I tried to remember the night before. I could remember gambling with a shearing gang... euchre, we'd played euchre. I remembered that much. A great game we had too. Laughter echoed through the cobwebs in my head and I remembered the beer, vast quantities had flowed, mostly into me.

I very slowly stood up then and looked around me. I was, as I'd expected, in a ditch not far from the edge of the small town, Taylors Creek, where I had got so horribly drunk the night before.

Looking toward town I was startled when a voice behind me wheezed "Gidday mate". I turned as quickly as I could in my condition, to see an ugly scrawny little bloke pushing a small wheelbarrow. My head was spinning badly and when I tried to speak all I got was a croak. I worked my throat a couple of times and managed a passable "How ya goin?"
"Hell!" he replied, "You look like death warmed up".
"Shit! I feel a lot worse than that".
"You better come through and have a cuppa".

'Through' turned out to be over a plank, across the ditch and through the hedge into a scruffy sun baked old cemetery. "What the hell is this place, I mean what are we doing in a blasted Graveyard?" I asked, confused.
"It's me place of employment mate, I'm the sexton".
"Grave digger!"
"Sexton is nicer, but it doesn't really matter. Come across, and I'll put the billy on at the hut."

'Across' turned out to be between uneven rows of weedy, unkempt graves. The stones tipped at untidy angles and a slight smell of decay pervaded the air. It was hot and glare from the white gravestones seemed to batter my already ailing brain. Was I really smelling decay or was it a feeling?

There was no sign of life in the graveyard, no buzz of insects; the only sound was a distant warbling of magpies. It felt like the sort of place where you might, behind a gravestone see something like a dead cat, sun dried and shrunken, teeth snarling through a leathery, patch furred horror of what remained. The first dead animal I saw was a mummified rat. The heat haze and reflected glare made it hard to see anything, but as the old sextons' ragged leather boots passed the grave he seemed to toe the dried rat remains. Instead of nudging it aside it appeared to my fuddled brain to merge with his boot and flow into him, becoming part of his leg and increasing his whole substance. I shook my head at such a grotesque fantasy and swore never again to get so drunk.

"What's that?" asked the old chap turning stiffly. "Just moaning about the hangover" I replied. The more I looked at him the uglier he seemed. His skin was lumpy and ingrained with dirt. He had gristly protruding ears and his mouth had too many teeth in it, small sharp crooked teeth. He smelt bad too and somehow I dreaded what his hut would be like inside.

We continued walking down the rows of dusty graves. A site surrounded by a once white cement border contained a dead magpie that disappeared and the once small seeming sexton was nearly my size when he absorbed a dead possum. I still couldn't believe what I seemed to be seeing and for some reason I couldn't walk away, so I stayed just behind the gravedigger, walking toward a small building that was almost covered by a greyish leafed vine. As we reached the corner of the building I watched in horror as he soaked up the remains of a dead fox terrier with his boot among the vine stems. Suddenly his hand was on my shoulder and I knew without doubt where the smell of decay originated. In his flesh I could see a pattern of rotten fur and decomposing magpie feathers, the twig like bones of a thousand small animals, and their teeth. So many teeth all savagely sharp and bound all together with strings of tough dried skin and sinew. "Come inside", the now very large sexton insisted.

'Inside' turned out to be more than I could face. There had to be some logical explanation, but I was terrified. I somehow knocked away his arm and ran. I ran as if the devil was behind me and coming on fast. I ran like a scared rabbit and I could hear him behind me. He faded fast while fear gave me speed and stamina, so when I knew he was well behind me I turned my head to look. He was stopped and a long way back. I was not stopping... not yet... not until I was well out of the cemetery. Turning back I could not quite stop my head from slamming against a branch at the edge of the graveyard. I flipped over the fence and rolled toward the roadside.

From the grass that hung over my head and the earth by my face, I was lying in a ditch. Hung-over and confused, I stood up, then looked down the road toward the little town of Taylors Creek and started walking, walking toward the buildings. While walking I swore off drink forever. As well as a hang-over, the damn stuff gave me nightmares. I had a nasty lump on my forehead too and I couldn't recall how I'd got it unless... but no, that was just too weird. Determined not to look into the cemetery on my right I walked on. There were people ahead, real people who ate normally, grew slowly and stayed out of bloody graveyards.