Page 13 of Stalked By Shadows
“They maintain the graveyard, so access goes through them. I pay them a fee from my registration income and they maintain the area. Technically they don’t believe in ghosts, so the tours are graveyard history tours.” He pointed out the set of brochures that actually talked about the cemetery tours, none of which mentioned ghosts. “The daytime tour is all history. Though I try to mix a few scary stories in with the history. It’s easy since Marie Laveau’s grave is here, and so is her lover’s. He has a more negative history than she does. She’s villainized in most stories, most likely because she was a woman and you know the church and witches. But most of the creepy facts are simply basic science. Like how the summer heat cremates bodies, and each grave has dozens sometimes hundreds of bodies in it. Beneath the crypts are big holes which are filled with only ashes.”
“Gross and a little creepy.”
Micah nodded.
“Marie Laveau,” I said thinking back. “The Voodoo Queen, right?”
“Yes. Not all snakes and dead chickens. A lot of people have misconceptions about Voodoo. But it’s another religion like Islam or Christianity. You’ll find more white people practicing it nowadays than the African American folks it started with. Plenty of people in the Quarter claiming to be Voodoo Queens or what-not to try to drum up business.”
“Do you subscribe to any particular religion?” I wondered. Did he believe in ghosts?
“Not really.”
“What about the paranormal? Ghosts, tarot cards, and stuff like that?”
He glanced my way, his expression guarded. Had Lukas told him not to bring up certain topics? “I’ve seen things that have no scientific explanation.”
I wondered about his disappearance. Did he remember any of it as he’d stated publicly, or was he keeping things, that no one accepted, quiet?
“The idea of ghosts is sad, anyway,” Micah continued. “Who would want to stick around here after they died? And the concept of heaven and hell? You spend your short life struggling, trying to be the best you can be only to not get to heaven, if there is one, just because you hadn’t subscribed to a particular religion? Sounds pretty narrow-minded if you ask me. Organized religion really is about controlling the masses. That’s why philosophy has always been the bane of their existence. When people are highly intelligent, they often find holes in religion. The history of religion in general is one of control and fear. I think of myself as a spiritual person, believing more in self-awareness rather than any rules set by mistranslated texts.”
“You seem to know a lot of history.”
“I majored in history. Had plans to become a teacher. It’s the reason I always kept my face covered when I did videos.”
Had his disappearance changed that too? Was that why he was here running the shop now instead of teaching somewhere?
“That guy from the shop, Jared, is training to be a neuroscientist or something. Said our brains are still vastly uncovered territory.” Or at least that’s what I’d gotten out of his comments. “We don’t know much about how it works, mostly it’s speculation, and what little we do know evolves as they learn more.”
“Truth,” Micah agreed. “But if we spend all our time analyzing why we experience things in life, we have no time left to live it, right?”
Well fuck, that was a hard truth bomb too. “Right.”
A couple came our way. “Looks like some of our group is here.”
The group of twelve was actually fairly large. I understood why Micah limited it when we all gathered outside and he began checking people in. Everyone’s electronic ticket was scanned and they were given a badge to wear around their neck, which was to be returned when the tour finished. Everyone was instructed that they would be signing in at the gate with the guards, and that Micah was responsible if they damaged something. So the unspoken warning was: “Don’t break shit.”
At the gate we were greeted by two guards who sat under a pop-up tent just inside the doorway. “Hey Micah,” the older of the two said.
“Hey, Fred,” Micah said. “This is Alex, the guy I told you would be helping with my tours?”
Fred offered me his hand and I shook it. “Hello.” They let us through and we all funneled into the first open area which looked out into a mini city of crypts. The white wall surrounding the cemetery closed out the rest of the world, as I couldn’t even hear any of the traffic from the street nearby.
“Welcome to St. Louis Cemetery Number One,” Micah said with a bit of a creole accent. “The first New Orleans city of the dead.” Everyone laughed nervously and looked around. Though I didn’t feel anything unusual standing in the late evening sunshine under a blue sky. Everyone had their phones out, snapping pictures, some videotaping small areas.
I listened as Micah talked about the walls, which housed the dead, and the tombs, speaking of individual stone houses of families with shady or interesting histories. Marie’s grave was less intimidating than I’d expected it to be, but it was also maintained by the Voodoo Society or something, so it was clean, and white like most of the rest of them. Her lover’s grave was a sort of dirty gray, and marred with a handful of Xs, looking older and beaten down. The stories Micah told about the two made for creepy romance tales that had everyone snapping pictures and examining the differences in the tombs.
From the outside, the cemetery hadn’t looked that big. But inside, twisting and turning down small paths, listening to stories and examining plaques placed on the giant wall-like mausoleums, the place seemed huge.
Some graves were surrounded by fencing so people couldn’t get close, others were nothing but piles of bricks. There was one toward the front, but off a narrow path, that had a temporary barrier in front of it and was still covered by a red curtain.
“As you can all see, this particular mausoleum is still in use as a body was added yesterday. The tomb is closed, but they will keep it blocked off for a few more days.”
An eerie silence fell over the group as they stared at the red curtain. Almost as though they were realizing for the first time that we were standing in a real graveyard and not some made up petting zoo of ancient dead.
“The family that owns the crypt has been in New Orleans for a couple hundred years. There are rumors of witches in the line, though nothing confirmed. Those rumors of course started during the land wars in the 1800s. The city was a mess of cultures, poverty, starvation, and the rich trying to own everyone else. So not much has changed, right?”
The group laughed, and Micah moved the group along to the next big crypt and creepy story.