Free Decoration Day by Vic Kerry Page A

the clerk said, but it doesn’t make sense. Why can’t you finish it?”
    “Not enough time before Decoration Day,” Thomas said.
    David rubbed his temples. The circular thinking of these people gave him a headache. “But why does that matter?”
    “We can’t eat it after Decoration Day,” Thomas said as if this were completely logical and he’d never thought it a strange thing.
    “You can’t eat fresh food after Decoration Day?”
    Thomas reached behind him and closed the window between the front and rear seats. David tapped on the glass, but the driver ignored him. The preacher leaned back and decided to enjoy the ride to the church. Once Thomas decided to clam up, he wouldn’t be able to pry a word out of him with a crowbar. Never had he encountered such stubborn people. At least none of the town officials need worry about loose lips sinking ships in Innsboro.
    The ride was short, sweet, and silent. Thomas remained in the car, forcing David to get out and close the car door without dropping the heavy sack of groceries. The walk down the small steps to his apartment proved a challenge as well, mostly because David kept looking over his shoulder for the purple glow. The rain started again as he put his canned goods away.
    The idea of no one eating fresh food after Sunday worried him. Nothing logical could explain this behavior. The only thing close was the idea that perhaps the town was abandoned after Decoration Day and reinhabited shortly before. It would explain why the previous preacher only gave one sermon and supposedly stole the refrigerator. David hoped that wasn’t the case. He hated the idea of having a new preaching job for only one day. God had told him to come to that place and revived his faith just for that purpose. The feeling of revival filled him to the brim. Inspiration whispered in his ear. He knew how to continue his sermon but could not work in that cell. God told him to go to the cemetery and write. The air would do wonders for his abilities. If it still rained, God said the better to wash away the bad ideas.
    David grabbed the legal pad from the bed and a pen from the table. He didn’t need his Bible because God was going to tell him what to write. The air outside felt cooler, and the rain had stopped. The grass in the cemetery remained wet. He sat in an open spot despite this. The water began to soak his backside. David wrote.
    It took only a few minutes for his divine inspiration to finish the first page of the legal pad and move him to the second. The words flowed like nothing he had ever experienced in his time as a minister. Everything came to a crashing halt when a burst of purple light in his side vision grabbed his attention.
    David looked in the direction of the light. Instead of the nightmare glow, a woman stood over a headstone. He had no idea how she had slipped past him into the cemetery. The patch of ground he sat on was near the gate.
    The woman wore black with a veil over her face. A white handkerchief clasped in her hand trembled as if in a breeze, but the air was still. The woman cried. David stood, brushed off the back of his pants, and let the legal pad fall to the wet grass along with his pen.
    “Are you okay, miss?” he asked.
    The woman looked toward him, then back down at the headstone. David took a step toward her. As he watched, she evaporated into violet mist. He rubbed his eyes and blinked as hard as he could. Nothing of the woman remained.
    David began to think that he was hallucinating. The stress of everything had to be getting to him. To indulge his curiosity, he walked to the headstone. It looked as old as many of the others, but the letters etched into the rock had held up better than most. He recognized the name, but the date bothered him. It read Louisa Marsh, 1832–1864, Beloved wife and mother . David glanced at the smaller stone beside Louisa’s grave marker. The fading words said Henry Marsh, 1856–1864 .
    He looked up at the church. Once