Echoes in the Graveyard

By SJ Calhoun

Echoes in the graveyard is a suspenseful tale of death and rebirth in a small New England college town during homecoming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479731886

SJ Calhoun

Echoes in the graveyard weaves a tale of family conflict, death, rebirth and native American lore. Evil and goodness fight it out in a small New England college town during homecoming. S.J. Calhoun lives in Central Maine with his wife, daughter and Labrador.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Echoes in the Graveyard

Along the ridgeline, seven wolves trotted, as if the ground were hot; their paws skipping in unison as if on military drill, as if on parade; their lupine heads bouncing to the same rhythm, returning home a happy clan. And upon reaching their den, they paused, sensing something odd lurking in the pre-dusk storm.

Gray clouds closed in from the northwest like the grim reaper late for a death appointment. Wicked, Arctic winds blew for two days, ultimately clashing with a warm southeast front. The cold air, hot air battle thundered down the valley plain, to the big river and out to sea. The morning’s warmth was gone like a first love, sweet its remembrance but bitter its loss, the once proud life-giving sun obstructed by a jealous vapor.

Ethan Allen O’Brien was about to get doused with a cold driving rain. Wind currents of divergent temperature whisked about him as he walked downtown to the Old Mill Stream Tavern. He thought about something he had read—women are attracted to a neat appearance and good clothes. His uncle Harrison drove by in a hybrid, splashing a noontime shower’s mud puddle onto Ethan’s neat beige-colored trousers. Harrison was lost in his ego as he sped along to Sinatra’s My Way. A hybrid, where was the black Hummer he usually drove?

Outside, people scurried about their yards, calling in wayward pets and children, as if the apocalypse were approaching. The four horsemen had already stormed Ethan’s castle, as his mother had been missing for two days. She was terminal, sick with cancer; went off somewhere to die, he thought, like his dog. Most of the townspeople, including Ethan, had spent the last two days looking for her. They had searched College Woods, the nature preserve, and the river, and now after 48 hours the search was called off, and everyone was exhausted.

Mrs. O’Brien’s house, 13 Maple Street, was located off of Main Street in the small college town of West Berlin, Maine, with a population of twenty thousand. The town was set on the edge of the Kedugkeg River and was adjacent to a large wildlife preserve. The town was quintessential New England as classical Victorians, Greek revivals, Colonials, and Federals lined Main Street, reminding those present of the past masters of construction. His mom’s house was a creaky old New Englander, two-by-four construction. Its odd noises fed Ethan’s imagination. A mind full of ghosts and midnight burglars troubled his sleep. Last night, he had heard something, arose, and inspected each room with a flashlight, concluding it was the wind. Reason seemed to contradict his fears, but ghosts remained to haunt his soul.

He hoped a warm fire and a cool lager at the local tavern would wash away the day’s doldrums. It had been a bad day at Black Rock, one might say. He taught math at the junior high level, and the teachers sarcastically referred to their school as Black Rock, because a while back a legislator had labeled the school district a diamond in the rough. This was a hopeful phrase, as the dropout and pregnancy rate were high and test results low, an embarrassment for the school given the mini-Ivy League college located on East Main Street.

Life became especially tough several years back when the textile mill closed and the unemployment rate skyrocketed, leaving promise only for the young who planned to leave. Meanwhile, at the school, massive changes were taking place, and any lack of efficacy on the part of the teachers was not tolerated, but perhaps they had it backwards, for if the patient is sick, you don’t cure the doctor.

After school, Ethan met with the vice principal, Ogilvy. He was a middle aged, grizzly-bearded, big-bellied bitter man with no sense of humor and had the personality of an unpolished doorknob. He wore tight white shirts and skinny dark-blue ties every day, chewed gum, had a penchant for flirting with senior girls, and always chaperoned the high school dances. Ogilvy had a look of perpetual disappointment in his eyes, and when he talked to you, it was as if you had some infinite human defect, like you had failed to get your mother out of a burning building. Ethan speculated that Ogilvy wasn’t disappointed with others at all.

The vice principal said, I realize you are going through a lot and Ruther did flip the birds,—Ogilvy did not get slang right—but we represent the entire community, so next time, please send him to me before you lose it.

Sorry, Bill, I lost my temper. I’ve had no sleep. It’s been tough, the last few days, Ethan said.

Yes, I can’t believe you didn’t take today off, given everything, but I must admit I got some enjoyment out of your diatribe, he said, thumping the table with a closed fist as his face flushed. Little bastards. And then he calmly sighed, looked down, took in a breath, and in a light manner said, We must keep our tempers under control. You know his dad left town last summer and hasn’t been back since. Anyways, I’ve got one more year to put in, Ethan, one more year and then I’m outta here. Going to travel the US in my custom van, something I’ve put off since the summer of my graduation from UMO when I had the time, but didn’t have the cabbage or the transport. Now I’ve got all three working, God help the young single ladies out there.

Young, Ethan thought.

The long Columbus Day weekend was coming up, and hopefully the bully of Black Rock would straighten out, drop out, or join the circus. Ruther, who lived on the outskirts of town where the land became swampy, where the houses had as much junk outside as in, would become a good runner, and it would be Ethan who would mentor him, convincing him to temporarily give up smoking and run track.

Ethan was an intrepid, slightly built fellow with intense eyes, a scowl his natural countenance, and an olive complexion. A talented runner, his resting heart rate was so low the nurses would often joke, Are you alive? and take his vitals again. His running heyday had passed, as after four successful years at Emerill College, running track and cross-country, he had become injured training for the Olympics. He had recently started running again and, at age twenty-seven, was content running in local road races.

Walking along Ethan passed the civil war monument and approached the town’s cemetery. The two large grandfatherly oak trees stood guard over the gloomy grounds of the graveyard like sullen wooden sentries. In the swaying, shadowy branches, a trio of crows furtively watched the figure below. They took off and circled him from above. They seemingly cawed nevermore and then disappeared in a tangent line behind a dark cloud. A dry windblown leaf echoed across the sidewalk, skidding until it crunched under his boot. A swinging chain fence squeaked, swayed by the wind. As he passed the smoky grounds, a cold breeze cooled the sweat on the back of his neck. It was as if the low-lying fog was raising the dead from their ancient posts. A whiff of humid air permeated his lungs, stifling his breathing.

To his left, something caught his vision. He turned; there was nothing there. A dog barked, and the crows returned, flying swiftly above him, cawing loudly. There was a dead pigeon decaying on the ground.

He pondered the deep darkness of space where perhaps the dead go. Where do we go? His mother Eve was disconnected from this hyper wired society of sound, and no longer would he hear the voice that called him in for supper, no more summer evening conversations on the porch, no more stories of unusual relatives from the old country—Ethan, did I ever tell you about cousin Siobhan, who had so many kids she called them all Sammy?—no more religious rants about how he should marry a nice Catholic girl (he had known a lot of Catholic girls, and some weren’t all that nice), and no more homemade apple pie. The void could not be filled, the vacant space, a permanent ache in the heart. The past two days were a lifetime.

Eve was not afraid of

Reviews for Echoes in the Graveyard

[violetthedwarf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

other reviews available from from my blog.

Just so you know, this is short. 98 pages on my ereader. Which is fine, if you just want a quickish read.

Secondly that description isn't really... descriptive. The description on Calhoun's own webpage is better, in that it gives me more details, but also spoils most of the events of the book whilst not giving me any idea of what its about (I am not an expert on book descriptions, but I would still advise a rewrite of the one on the website). I am going into this book... refreshingly unprepared. Is it an urban fantasy with werewolves? A horror novel? Literary fiction? I just don't know! Shall we find out?

I'm not quite sure what I just read, but I know that I liked it. However, it did have a few problems.

Despite the beautiful, often poetic writing and the great sense of place, this is a confusing book. It is this way intentionally perhaps, as it jumps between characters and times to tell the story. The problem is that a lot of seemingly unnecessary detail is kept in. The tenses jump around in the paragraphs, and we are often treated to flashbacks within flashbacks, leading to a sense of some kind of temporal gumbo.

The other major problem is the dialogue. It is too realistic. Writing dialogue is hard, but making it sound like real people are talking isn't the best idea. Have you heard real people talk? They're dull. I often felt as if the characters were discussing things that didn't matter, that didn't move the plot on or reveal the theme or any character depth.

I love the supernatural turn the book took towards to end, though I found the end itself unsatisfying.

This is a hard one to give a star marking to. The good stuff (the language, the atmosphere, the twists) were very very good but the poor stuff was equally poor. In the end I average it out at 3 stars.

Worth a look if you think you can get past the confusing timing.