Just Returns

                                                                                         Word count 1114



                                       Just Returns





“It’s going to cost us more to move the graves than what the state is willing to pay for the land.”  Thomas Fredricks’ voice was calm in spite of the gravity of the news he shared.

This announcement was met with a palatable silence.  The members of the board running Evening Star Cemetery looked at each other in concern.  The chairman began to rub his temples in a motion that the other men recognized as a clue to his stress.  Fredricks stood quietly as he waited for the chairman’s response.

The older man finally spoke.  “There is no way that we can do that.  We’re already operating at a loss for the year.  The state will just have to find somewhere else to put their highway.”

Fredricks shook his head.  “Not an option. They can force us to sell, and if they have to do that, they will drop the offered price by twenty-five percent.  Not only that, the only way to fight them would be through the court system, which would end up costing us even more.”

“So what are we going to do?”  The question came from the most conservative member of the board.  Fredricks knew that he would be the hardest one to convince.  He stayed silent while the board argued.  He was sure they wouldn’t find an answer; he had spent hours looking for the answer, himself.  Now he waited patiently for them to come to the conclusion that they had no options.  At that point, he would bring forth his proposal.

It took longer than he expected.  In fact, it almost came to blows before the chairman put a stop to it.  “If no one has anything productive to add,” he said testily, “we’re going to end this for tonight.”  And maybe someone will come up with a bright idea by tomorrow.

Fredricks stood up.  “I do have an idea on how to do this without losing money.”

The chairman looked at him, annoyed.  “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

“Because,” Fredricks answered, “it is pushing the bounds of legality.  It will work, but just in case, you on the board will need to trust me to handle it.  That way, you men will have plausible deniability.”

The room was silent for about five seconds.  “I move that we leave this matter completely to Thomas Fredricks,” one member said.

“Second.”

“All in favor,” asked the Chairman.  “The ayes have it.  I now move we close this meeting.”

Later, Fredricks got into his small blue car with a sigh.  It had been a hard evening, but the next few weeks were sure to be harder.  He hoped he would survive this.



To the normal viewers driving by, it appeared that the Evening Star Cemetery was moving graves from the area where the on ramp would be for the new stretch of I-15.  The truth was different.  The headstones, all dating prior to the 1930’s were being moved.  The graves themselves were simply covered over with a thick layer of dirt.  No one noticed; no one cared.

By fall, the road crew reached the land in question.  Within a week, a workman fell to his death from his earthmover.  It was an odd accident, but was dismissed as being just one of those things.

So the work continued. In spite of two more seemingly unrelated deaths, the ramp, highway and bridges were completed on time, if not on budget.  The supervisor was suspended because of the high number of injuries.  Eventually the investigation cleared him of all charges, and he even got a promotion out of it, because of extraordinary leadership under difficult circumstances.

The new section of highway opened in April.  There was an unusual amount of rain that summer.  The grounds of Evening Star Cemetery were supersaturated.

Fredricks was working late one night in late April, getting his paperwork all caught up.  He was surprised to notice the thick fog that had settled on the area, and called his wife.  “I’m getting ready to leave, but it may take me a little longer.  There’s a heavy fog out there.”

“Thanks for letting me know.  I’ll have your supper warmed up by the time you get here,” she said.  “Do you mind stopping on your way and getting some milk?  There’s not enough left for the kids’ breakfast.”

So Fredricks went under the overpass to get the milk.  Within fifteen minutes, he was back, ready to get onto the highway and go home.



Aaron Calhoun downshifted his rig because of the fog.  He’d driven this route for fourteen years, and the new stretch saved him almost thirty minutes each way.  The fog threatened to add the time back on his run.

The cheerful country song on the radio contrasted with the dense haze.  Normally, his lights would cut straight through fog, but this time he couldn’t even see a mile ahead.  He slowed the rig even more.  He flipped on his hazard lights, and leaned forward to shut off the radio.

When he glanced back up, there was a woman standing in the middle of the highway.  He jerked the wheel hard to the left to miss her.  He didn’t get a good look at her, but she seemed to be wearing some sort of flapper costume.  He was too busy trying to avoid hitting her.  She had appeared so suddenly that he panicked and was fighting to keep the rig upright.

He found himself going down a ramp.  To his horror, a small car was coming up the ramp.  Calhoun slammed on his breaks, but it was too late.  He had nowhere to go.  His last thought before the crash was sorrow ~ there was no way anyone in that little blue car would survive.

In the end, Calhoun was lucky.  He was able to prove that he wasn’t overly tired or abusing a substance.

His company fixed his rig and didn’t fire him.  The whole thing was classified as an unavoidable accident on account of unfavorable weather.  All he had to do was to never speak of the woman he “thought” he saw.  They especially did not want to hear she was in a flapper costume.

“Fog can confuse the eye and mind,” the psychiatrist said.  “It was merely a trick of your lights on the fog.

As for the Fredricks family, the company gave Mrs. Fredricks a large enough settlement that she would be able to support her family.  They decided to move to another state to be closer to her parents, and to get away from the cemetery Mr. Fredricks had worked for.  Some reminders are just too painful.



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