Midnight Grinding Read Online Free PDF Page A

heard—the dry sound of the plastic rattle echo from the casket behind her.
    Deanna thought of that as she lay in her bed that spring night and listened to the storm’s fury rage outside her bedroom window. She drifted into a fitful sleep, then awoke to a violent clap of thunder and a flash of lightning that illuminated her entire room, if only for a second. She clutched her Raggedy Ann, cowering beneath her bedsheets at the awful thrashing of wind and rain. She tried to fall back to sleep several times, but her thoughts were too full of Butch Spence’s nasty prank and the baby blue casket at the Milburne funeral home.
    Then, when the disturbing images finally did begin to fade, something else sent her into a fit of near panic. It was a small sound, a sound nearly swallowed by the bass roar and the cymbal crash of the thunderstorm in progress.
    It was the sound of a baby crying. Outside. In the woods.
    Deanna pulled the covers up over her head and tried to wait it out, but that dreaded creature curiosity once again prodded her. Go and look out the window , it told her. You will never know what it is until you do. Maybe it is just a lost kitten or the howling of the wind.
    Despite her better judgment, she climbed out of bed and did exactly what the little voice suggested. She padded in bare feet across her toy-cluttered room to the big window and peeped through the lacy curtains. And she saw exactly what she was afraid that she would see…but, no, it was much worse than that.
    At first there was only darkness beyond the rain-speckled panes. Then a bright flash of lightning erupted, dousing the wooded thicket with pale light. There in the weeds down below, things moved. Initially, she couldn’t quite make out what they were. Then a double dose of electrical brilliance revealed the startling tableau and she clutched at the curtains in horror.
    Small, hairless heads bobbed through the tall grass and honeysuckle like dolphins cresting the waves of a stormy sea. The pale, hairless heads of a dozen lifeless babies.
    She began to scream shrilly. Soon, the bedroom light was on and her mother was there to comfort her. Through her tearful hysteria, she tried to explain the awful spectacle she had witnessed. Her father, his hair tousled and his eyes myopic with sleep, peered through the darkness at the yard below. “There’s nothing down there, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her on the forehead before creeping back to bed. “Nothing at all.”
    Her mother tucked her back into bed, wiping her tears away. “You just had a nightmare, honey. A bad dream,” Mom said. “Now, you just relax and this time you’ll have a nice one.” The girl followed her mother’s advice and, before long, she was fast asleep.
    She was awakened a few hours later, again by a baby’s cry, but this time it was only her brother in the nursery, wailing for his three o’clock feeding.
     
    ***
     
    In some Southern communities, Memorial Day is also known as “graveyard day.” That had always been the case in Milburne.
    It was a day of remembrance, a day reserved for respect of the dearly-departed; the recently deceased, as well as those long since past. At the Baptist church it began as a day of work and ended as a day of fellowship. The men would mow the grass and trim around the graves with weed-eaters. The women would tackle the stones, scrubbing away grime and bird droppings with Ajax and warm water. The children also contributed in their own special way. Armed with baskets of plastic flowers, they removed the old arrangements and replaced them with the new. On the graves of veterans, they placed American flags.
    After the congregation had finished sprucing up the cemetery for that year, they would spread blankets and patchwork quilts upon the grass and sit down to eat dinner on the ground. The Hudson family found a spot near the wrought iron gate of the children’s cemetery and, despite Deanna’s protest, they laid out their picnic lunch. After