Cemetery Tours (25 page)

Climbing into bed, she let her thoughts drift back to Michael, and she realized just how drastically her life had changed over the course of a few short days, mostly because of him.
  So far, the changes were all good.  But the sound of wandering footsteps just outside her door reminded her that it wasn’t over.  Another change was coming.    

And this time, it was going to affect everyone.
 

Gavin was still asleep on the couch when Kate dragged herself out of bed just a few hours later.  She showered and changed into a skirt and blouse before meandering into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee.  She was so tired, she was sure it would take at least five cups before she was suitable for any sort of social interaction.  

Around the same time she downed her second cup, Gavin came shuffling into the kitchen with disheveled hair and dark circles under his eyes.

“Are you just getting home?” he mumbled gruffly.  Kate didn’t answer him.  Part of her wasn’t awake enough to talk.  The other part was still mad at him.  He knew it too.  “Look Kate, I’m sorry about yesterday.  But I told you not to tell them about your invisible friend.”

“You make me sound like a mental patient,” Kate snapped, her voice rough from her lack of a full night’s sleep.
 

“Well, for the record, I don’t want you to move out.
  But if Mom and Dad think it’s for the best - ”  Kate didn’t want to listen to his excuses.  Breezing past him, she sought sanctuary in the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and applied a light layer of makeup.  When she emerged, Gavin had disappeared.  She guessed he’d given up trying to be nice and had gone back to bed in his own room.  Good.  She wasn’t in the mood to deal with him.

Without leaving a note or poking her head into his room to tell him where she was going, she grabbed her purse and walked out the door and across the landing to Michael’s apartment.
  He answered the door and greeted her with a sleepy, “Hi.”  

“Hi, yourself,” she replied.
  She had been worried that her confrontation with Gavin would leave her surly and unpleasant for the rest of the morning, but just being around Michael, she felt her spirits begin to lift.  Of course, that may have had something to do with how handsome he looked in a pair of sand-colored slacks and a button-down shirt the color of clouds.  He also smelled good; like Old Spice.  “So are you ready to get this show on the road?”

“No,” he remarked.
  Kate laughed.

“Everything is going to be fine.
  You’ll see.”  

He didn’t look like he believed her, but he didn’t contradict her.
  Instead, he took her hands and pulled her closer to him.  “You look beautiful.”

Even though they were kind-of-sort-of-dating (or so she thought; they hadn’t really talked about it), Kate still felt her heart skip a beat.
  It was amazing, the effect that the simplest sentiment from the right guy could have on a girl’s entire day.      

“Thank you,” she smiled, rising up onto her toes to kiss him.
  Lost in his touch, she felt airy and light-headed and she found herself wondering why she’d ever worried about a thing in her life.  She’d just wrapped her arms around his neck when suddenly, he pulled away, almost like her touch had burned him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Um... Brink just appeared,” he replied, blushing furiously.  Kate felt the blood rushing in her cheeks as well.  “And he’s um.. he’s not very mature...”  

Oh God...
Kate could only imagine.

“Do I want to know?” she asked.
   

“Probably not.”
       

Luke arrived a few minutes later, as energetic and ready to go as ever.
 

“Good morning, friends,” he greeted them with a chipper smile.
  He looked good too.  In dark jeans, a button-down shirt the same color as Michael’s, and a vest the color of a thunderstorm, he easily could have stepped out of a copy of
GQ
.    

“You’re very awake,” Michael observed.
 

“I’m a morning person.
  Always have been.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kate said.

“Oh yeah.  During the first season of the show, I needed a
lot
of carbs and sugar to be able to stay awake to film at night.  Now I’ve sort of trained myself, but I still enjoy mornings.”

“Good.
  That means you get to drive,” Michael told him. 

“Fine by me,” Luke agreed.
 

Once they were on the road, Kate felt herself perking up a little more.
  She’d volunteered to sit in the back seat thinking she would want to take a nap, but as they sped along the highway toward downtown, the combined effects of the coffee, the lure of adventure, and the classic rock blaring through Luke’s car’s stereo had been enough to keep her awake and alert and able to enjoy the ride.  Michael, on the other hand, was either still half-asleep or deep in thought.  Kate guessed it was probably the latter.      

The ride seemed to be going smoothly until they hit a massive traffic jam halfway through downtown.
  With traffic at a standstill and no real escape, Luke whipped out his iPhone and checked the conditions.

“There’s a lot of road work about two miles ahead of us,” he announced.
 

“Are we going to be late?” Kate asked.

“Probably,” Luke muttered.  “But as long as we get there by the time the service lets out, we should be okay.”

“Isn’t it kind of rude to walk in in the middle of a service?” Michael asked.

“Depends on what kind of church it is.  I grew up Episcopalian and we were always late to church,” Luke responded.  

“I’m Presbyterian and we have people walk in late all the time,” Kate said.
  “Do we know what Calvary Hill is?” 

“As far as I can tell, they’re non-denominational.
  Why?”

“Just curious,” Kate replied as she glanced out the window at the stationary cars lining the highway.
  The driver in the car next to them seemed to have abandoned all hope of getting anywhere any time soon.  He’d pulled out what was either a Kindle or an iPad and was flipping absentmindedly through the screens.  The woman behind them looked frantic and angry and depressed all at once as she yelled into her cell phone.  The driver in the car catty-corner kept glancing around, like he was looking for some sort of escape route.  Luke seemed to be of a similar mindset.    

“God, does this just never end?” he griped.
  “This is ridiculous.  If they’re gonna do this, they need to give people a heads up.  Or a way out.”  

“Welcome to
Dallas,” Kate muttered.   

~*~

They pulled into the parking lot of Calvary Hill at
9:18
, almost twenty minutes after the service began.  It had taken them thirty-seven minutes just to get past the road work that had shut down two of the three interstate lanes, and although Luke had sped like a madman to reach the church on time, the highway patrolman who’d pulled him over just as he was getting ready to exit wasn’t as understanding (or as big a
Cemetery Tours
fan) as Luke had apparently hoped he’d be. 

The small parking lot was full of cars, several of them rather new.
  The church itself was a modest white building with blue doors and a steeple.  It sat atop a slight hill, overlooking an open field.  Climbing out of the car, Michael noticed the young man, looking discouraged and forlorn, sitting on the steps leading up to the chapel’s porch.  

“Daniel?” Michael called.
  The ghost looked up at him.  

“You came!”
  His astonishment was apparent in both his eyes and his voice.

“Sorry we’re late.
  We hit some pretty nasty traffic on 75,” Luke apologized.  Daniel looked surprised.

“Can he see me?” he asked Michael.
  Michael shook his head.  

“So what’s the plan?” Kate asked.
  “Should we just go in?” 

“I’ll go see where they are in the service,” Daniel offered before disappearing into the closed doors.

“Daniel’s going to check where they are,” Michael relayed, stuffing his hands into his pockets and taking a deep breath.  He’d never known exactly how he felt about church, or the idea of God for that matter.  He knew that something had to exist beyond the physical realm, but church had always taught him that the spirits of those who’d died either went to Heaven or Hell.  There was no in-between.  Yet the countless number of souls left wandering the Earth indicated otherwise.  

“You gonna be okay?” Kate asked, linking her arm through his.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her.  

“Just let me do the talking,” Luke told him.
  “Remember, you’re only here so you can tell me who I need to talk to.  And to back me up when these people don’t believe that I host the greatest paranormal investigation show on television.”  

Daniel returned before Michael could think of a snide remark that may or may not have been altogether appropriate for church grounds.
  He informed them that the congregants were singing and that they should be able to sneak in before the sermon began.

Inside, the church was a lot more open than the outside would have led Michael to believe.
  The twenty or so rows of pews were full of people, from small children to young adults to elderly couples.  The white, sunlit walls were decorated with an assortment of blue and gold crosses and the simple wooden altar at the front of the chapel bore a large book, the cover of which looked to be cast in gold and silver.  

“Do you see them?” Michael muttered to Daniel as he, Kate, and Luke slipped casually into the back pew.

“My mom’s the one in the teal dress.  Second row.  My dad’s sitting next to her.  He just got through with chemo,” he replied.  Michael spotted them instantly.  Although he could not see their faces, he knew the last two painful years of their lives would be reflected there.  Mr. Ford looked shaky and feeble as he bent over and coughed into his hand.  Mrs. Ford, in turn, rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder as she leaned in and whispered something in his ear.

Meanwhile, a distinguished man with a head full of silver hair and dressed in a simple white robe made his way to the front of the alter and held his hands out.
   

“Welcome friends, family,” he announced, “and a special welcome to those of you just joining us.”
 

Michael didn’t realize he was addressing them until he noticed several pairs of eyes glancing around to look at them.
  A few of them chuckled, one person sneered, but overall, the general consensus seemed to be that the newcomers were not all that interesting.  That is, until one of the three teenage girls sitting in front of them took a second look at Luke.  Her eyes widened, a lot like the way Kate’s had the first afternoon he’d shown up at their door.  With a sharp gasp, the girl turned to her friends and whispered, “That’s Luke Rainer!” 

“Who?” one of her friends whispered back.

“You know, that hot ghost hunter guy from the
Discovery Channel?”  

The third girl looked around very indiscreetly.
  “Nuh-uh, that’s not him,” she whispered.

“It is!”
 

“What would Luke Rainer be doing all the way out here?”
 

“I’m on a top secret mission,” Luke leaned forward and answered her.
  That was a mistake.  The girls dissolved into a disruptive frenzy of giggles and excited whispers.  A few adults, one of whom looked to be the first girl’s mother shushed them.  They quieted down, but they kept stealing glances at Luke over their shoulders.

“It seems there’s something quite exhilarating happening in the last few pews,” the pastor observed.
  Michael glared at Luke.

“Sorry, Father.
  Continue,” Luke announced.  A few members of the congregation chuckled.  Most, however, muttered their disapproval before turning their attention back to the priest.

“Are you insane?
  You’re going to get us kicked out!” Michael hissed at Luke.

“Relax.
  No one is going to kick us out of
church
.”  But the woman who turned and shushed him certainly looked like she wanted to.   

“Michael’s right, Luke.
  This is a place of worship for these people,” Kate whispered. 

“What, God doesn’t have a sense of humor?” Luke asked, but he seemed to understand what they were trying to tell him, because he didn’t say another word for the rest of the sermon, which turned out to be a passionate, if not slightly unnerving speech about faith, words, and actions that set true Christians apart from the rest of the world.
 

“Now, it is easy,” the pastor said, “for a person to say that he believes in God, that he believes in the power of Jesus Christ.
  Talkin‘ is the easiest thing in the world, because we all know how much we love to hear ourselves talk.  But being a Christian, a true follower of Christ, isn’t about sayin‘ stuff.  It’s about doin‘ stuff.  Reachin’ out to our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Helpin‘ them.  Not bein‘ afraid to do the right thing, no matter the consequence.  Those who do so,
they
are truly the ones who walk with our Lord and
they
shall be the ones who inherit His Kingdom.  There are folks out there who will try to tell you that everyone goes to Heaven.  There are folks out there who will tell you that believin’ that God died for your sins is enough to get you into Heaven.  They are all
wrong
.  Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew states that many will call out to Him, ‘Lord!  Lord!‘ but that is not enough.  Those who speak His name, but do not
live
out His words will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.  Christ will cast them out Himself.”