Two of the three guys I was with lived in the opposite direction, so the cemetery was not part of their plan. But the third guy-who I’ll call Jack so as not to embarrass him a half century later or call into question the size of his developing cojones-lived down the block from me, so quite naturally I thought I’d have company on my quick trip through the land of the living dead. Jack, however, had other ideas and informed me that he’d rather be late for dinner than be dinner for a werewolf.
I should have followed his line of reasoning, but I was in the early stages of mastering the art of the bad decision-really nothing more than macho recklessness-that would later reach its crowning stupidity when I quit college, joined the Army, and volunteered for Vietnam.
At this point in my life, however, I really wanted company on my road toward discovering the limits of my courage and idiocy, so I said to Jack, “You’re a chicken!”
“Am not!”
“Chicken, chicken!” And I imitated a chicken.
Today, Jack would tell me to go f**k myself, but I think he replied, “Ah, you’re nuts!” and ran off toward the safety of home along lighted streets, slowing only long enough to turn and deliver a Parthian shot. “You’re gonna diiiie!”
Of course, I should have reconsidered my route home and sprinted after him, and when I caught up with him, I could have pushed him on his face, then challenged him to a race home. But the idea I held on to was to cut about half a mile or more off my route and beat him home, stopping only long enough to ring his bell and tell his parents that Jack had stopped at the candy store to gorge on Snickers before dinner.
My other motivation for the cemetery route was less spiteful; I needed to get home as soon after the streetlight curfew as possible. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I didn’t, and I didn’t want to find out.
I crossed Elmont Road and ran along the sidewalk that bordered the cemetery, which was enclosed by a wrought-iron fence about eight feet high, posted at intervals with signs that said KEEP OUT.
The streetlights always came on before it was really dark, so there was some light left in the sky, but it was fading fast. A half mile up ahead were the main gates and the guard booth of the cemetery, and I needed to scale the fence well before I reached the gates in order to benefit from the most direct route, which I’d used many times in the daylight. So, without giving it much thought, I scrambled up the wrought-iron fence and dropped into Beth David Cemetery.
I knelt, motionless, listening for any sign that I’d been seen or heard. I gave it ten seconds, then I was up and running.
It was fun at first. I stuck to the rows between the gravestones, avoiding the roads, which were patrolled by guard vehicles. I needed to cover about a mile and a half, and at the speed I was moving, I could do that in less than fifteen minutes. One time I did it in under twelve minutes. In the daylight.
The obvious problem was the sinking sun, and I found it was becoming more difficult to see. I spotted a few freshly dug open graves, covered only by green tarps, awaiting occupants, and I didn’t want to fall into one of those six-foot holes. So I slowed up, cursed Jack, and within a few minutes realized I was disoriented. In fact, I was f**king lost.
It was almost pitch-dark now, and I couldn’t recognize any landmarks. It was also cold, and I wished I’d taken my mother’s advice about wearing a hat.
To cut to the chase, I was becoming frightened. I mean, really, really scared. Everybody in that place, except for me and a few guards, was dead. Or undead.
Because it was such an open space, there was a wind that I hadn’t noticed back on the road, and the wind was making things move-tree limbs, dead leaves, litter, and the white shrouds that cover Jewish tombstones until the day of unveiling. And along with these movements came sounds and shadows that startled me every few seconds.
To make matters worse, if that were possible, I now heard something I’d never heard before in the cemetery-dogs.
The guards had one or two dogs, but these dogs that I heard were not those well-trained guard animals; these were wild dogs, and a lot of them, baying and barking into the black night. Or were they werewolves?
I mean, if you still believe in Santa Claus at age eleven, and you believe in good fairies, then it stands to reason that you will also believe in ghosts, witches, warlocks, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and flesh-eating ghouls, and if you’re particularly gullible, killer mummies.
I could stretch things here and say I had visions of the killer gorilla and the creepy Dr. Marais, but I really didn’t; those guys were wimps compared to the undead. I was, however, pre-spooked by the 3-D shock effects, and my spine had tingled about ten times already in the movie theater. So whatever it is in our psyches that causes us to become frightened by a horror flick, this feeling stays with us for a while, and when we go to bed, we pull the sheets over our heads and listen for vampires trying to get in the window or zombies banging on the door.
This, in retrospect, may have been why my imagination was running wild in the cemetery and why I froze with fear as I crouched in the dark, listening to the wind blowing between the tombstones and the dogs, or werewolves, barking in the distance.
So, quick segue to Edgar Allan Poe, master of the macabre, manipulator of our minds, and a very elegant writer. Long before the study of the mind became a quasi-scientific discipline, Poe was able to grasp what frightened us, and he transformed that understanding into spooky and entertaining tales that were far ahead of their time and which have endured through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the twenty-first-which is more than I can say about that 3-D schlocker shocker I saw fifty years ago.
You could analyze this guy to death, and people have-and maybe Poe had that coming-but in the final non-analysis, just read this extraordinary writer, enjoy his prose with a glass of sherry, and read aloud the poetry-especially “The Raven”-to some kid in a dimly lit room. Don’t forget the sound effects.
Cut to Beth David Cemetery, 1954, exterior, evening.
A calm, fatalistic sensation passed over me. I knew I was going to die, and I’d accepted that. I just wasn’t sure if I was going to get eaten by dogs or werewolves. I wasn’t thinking much about the killer gorilla, though somewhere in the back of my mind I could still see him jumping at me out of the movie screen.
I stood and began walking toward my Fate, wondering what I had missed for dinner.
Eventually, I came across a familiar road, and I allowed myself a small glimmer of hope. I pointed myself in the right direction and ran like hell. I could see house lights now, and I knew I was less than a minute from the chain-link fence that separated the living from the dead.
I honestly don’t even remember climbing the fence; I think I ran up it. Then I remember being in someone’s backyard and dashing down their driveway, then running on the sidewalk, then home.
My mother said, “Jack’s mother called and said you were cutting through the cemetery. We were worried.”
I replied, “It’s a shortcut, Mom.”
My father said, “Don’t cut through the cemetery again.” He explained, “The ghosts come out at night.”
Thanks, Pop. I’ll remember that.
Nelson DeMille was born in New York City but grew up next door to a cemetery on Long Island. He spent four undistinguished years at Hofstra University, where he was introduced to the works of Edgar Allan Poe (Cliff Notes) and was inspired by Poe to excessive drinking and growing a weird beard and mustache. DeMille is the author of fourteen best-selling novels, a member of the Authors Guild, and maybe a member of PEN and Poets & Writers, though he’s not sure. He was president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2007 and served without mishap.