The Funeral Coach

In the black night there came not even a glow from the sea beyond the city, nor was there the sound of waves crashing upon the rocky cliffs.

Braxton ambled on, groping and stumbling along the rough, invisible terrain. Then he saw it. Out of the grove of trees came a set of lights that seemed alien to him; belonging neither to insects nor to man. For, they floated too high. They also trailed like the smoke of a locomotive but seemed to dissipate not far from their source. Braxton stared in disbelief as the lights seemed to change from pale white, much like that which covered the town, to a deep, almost blood red. Inevitably, as they came closer, the lights provided a visual of their host.

A stagecoach, much like the one Braxton had arrived in, came upon him and stopped but fifteen feet away. The lights glowed still. Not by flame but by some frightful, nebulous source. But unlike the coach he had arrived in, this one was draped in a black, much like the night itself, yet he could see every detail, every etching and line and ring of wood. However, the passenger’s quarters were much longer and more open than he had remembered before and inside it lay something also made of wood. Upon further investigation Braxton determined that what lay inside this strange compartment was a casket. And the stagecoach was actually a funeral coach!

Then he saw the driver. Clad in black, much like the coach, there was only one recognizable quality about him; his face. The driver wore the face of Madison. And when Braxton realized this, he fainted.

Braxton woke up back in his quarters. Had it been a bad dream? It had felt so real. Still, there he was in his bed as if it was the morning that he departed. He searched around for his pocket watch but could not find it. It was an heirloom and he always kept it close but it was nowhere to be found. He stirred from the confines of his room to consult the maid, but she was also nowhere to be found. He searched for his business attire he was sure to have had on yesterday and soon found it hanging in the closet where he usually kept it. He searched their pockets for his watch but it wasn’t there. The clothing did, however, possess something else of disturbing quality. Upon it was the salty scent of the sea. In fact, it was the very same odor he had come to know the previous day. The very events that, until that moment, he thought for sure he had dreamt.

Maybe it was coincidence? After all, he frequently conducted business in seaside towns and it was not unusual for him to carry a hint of odor from the sea upon his departure. But this was different. It wasn’t the same odor and it was much stronger. Braxton then checked his hands and the very attire itself; for the color that had latched onto him and wouldn’t come off. But he found no signs of it anywhere. When his search was completed, he could not locate the belongings he thought he left with the previous day. As he returned to his study to regain some bearing of what was actually going on, he noticed, upon his desk, the envelope containing the letter from Madison that had brought him to that hillside town just beyond the plain. Braxton frantically opened it and pulled the paper from its enclosure. However, as he read it he realized that it wasn’t the same letter that had sent him off on his journey. The contents informed him not of the means and whereabouts of a business meeting, but of Madison’s strange and mysterious death, which, to Braxton’s surprise, had occurred at the exact time he was supposed to meet him. What’s more, there was a new time and location at where to meet him. The letter was an invitation to Madison’s funeral.

Braxton didn’t know what to do. He stammered back as if he were to faint again and fell into a chair, letter still in hand. This was the second mysterious correspondence in two days and the first physical one that he could account for. He still wasn’t sure if yesterday had been anything but a dream. Before long, he regained his balance and read the letter again. With the conclusion that his attendance at the funeral was mandatory, he set off to the location stated in the letter.

Along the way Braxton grew uneasy. The funeral coach he saw last night still vividly stained his mind. Even occupying a common passenger coach now made him anxious and disturbingly uncomfortable. Eventually, the stagecoach came to a stop and he suffered the ride no more. The funeral was held at Madison’s estate and a great number of people were in attendance. Braxton did the only thing he could think of with a room as great in number as this; he inquired to those around him where he could locate the member’s of Madison’s family to conclude the origin of the letter. Eventually, he came upon his widow who thought it strange that anyone would send a letter out in this manner. However unorthodox as it was, she sympathized with his having taken the trouble to come out that she offered for Braxton to pay his respects to Madison in person. She led him to where his casket was held. As it came into view, Braxton bit his tongue and swallowed hard. To discourage any reaction of concern from the widow at his side, he kept the expressions of horror that now rose inside of him at bay. Instead, he nodded in acknowledgement of the widow dismissing herself and waited until she left his presence to show true form. With mouth agape and eyes wide open, he began to tremble. It couldn’t be. There before him rested the coffin he had seen lying in the funeral coach the night before. But that wasn’t all. Streaks of white that resembled the forms of fingers, seemingly dragged from the sanctuary of life into the very depths of void and oblivion, trailed from the side of the coffin and disappeared under the closed lid.

Braxton looked around to see if his petrified state had caused any alarm amongst the attendees who occupied the surrounding area. But there were but a few others who could have not even known of Braxton’s presence due to the fact that they were all involved in a variety of deep discussion. This only provided the support and means for him to do what he was about to do next. He grabbed the lid of the coffin and carefully opened it. What he saw resting inside that coffin caused not only his heart to momentarily stop but to also conceal the scream that almost escaped him.

Inside the coffin lay a corpse that boasted not the face of Madison, but of his own.

Braxton turned away in terror. He turned around, frantic, only to find the corpse now wore the face of its original making. And there was something else that Braxton saw before he raced out of the funerary chamber and the building altogether. His pocket watch lay inside the coffin, next to its occupant. And as he bent down to pick it up, there rose from Madison’s remains the salty smell of the sea.

Upon arriving home, Braxton had assumed a frantic, maddening state that he feared he’d never recover from. His pocket watch in Madison’s coffin, the vision of his face upon Madison’s corpse, the salty smell of the sea that saturated both the coffin and Madison, and it seemed that his hands, as well, had retained the white stains that were upon the coffin’s frame and lid. Even more horrifying was the discovery of the state of his business attire upon changing. The clothes he thought he had worn, that he swore he had worn the other day host white stains as well. But before they hadn’t.

“What is happening to me?!?” Braxton cried to himself as he felt all sense and logic escape him.

Had Madison been there? He must have! How else could one explain the white marks upon the coffin and even upon his corpse? There was only that white that could be found there upon the walls and buildings of the town. Like alabaster. Only it wasn’t. It was something else. Then he remembered. The girl and the man he had encountered that day. They both had no such stains about them. Why then was it only he and Madison who wore this color? And why did it leave its hosts at irregular times only to reappear as if it had a will of its own? Only, Braxton was sure it didn’t and that it was more than coincidence. And he was now convinced that these events all tied in together somehow.

He retrieved his pocket watch and checked the time. It read ten o’ clock. But it wasn’t ten, it was only three and the second hand wasn’t moving. The watch seemed broken. Braxton toiled on in his mind to piece together what was happening to him. Madison’s letter, that strange journey to a mysterious, faraway town, that odd white color, the funeral coach, the anonymous letter, and his hallucinations and recovery of his pocket watch from Madison’s coffin, also stained white with an odor like the sea.

Time wore on and dusk approached, then night. This night, however, was not as black as it had been before. The moon was out and the stars shined brightly. In fact, the moon was full. Surely that could have been seen from the region where that strange town was. His thoughts were broken by the loud and penetrating chime of his grandfather clock. It read ten. He took out his pocket watch and it too read ten though it was still broken. And as he tried to regain his mind’s stance, the moon became eclipsed by a front which produced a black not unlike the black that had consumed the town of Alabaster. Suddenly it all made sense and Braxton leaped towards the window. He looked down the pathway that led to his front doorsteps and was relieved at what he saw outside.

Nothing.

But soon his eyes focused on something that broke through that black of night; something that confirmed the rash of thoughts conjured up but minutes ago and shattered his ill-fated assurance of safety.

He saw lights.

The same lights he had seen the night before were streaking up the path to his doorstep.

In desperation Braxton ran in hectic, unorganized directions. It was during this act of insanity that Braxton knocked over a rifle that sat by the mantle. He quickly grabbed it and sought out ammunition. He formulated a plan that some would later claim to be reason and others would contest to be madness. Having little trouble loading it, despite trembling fingers, he took refuge against the very window where he had first spotted the lights. And still they were there. Only this time they had stopped. The eclipse of night maintained and seemed longer than was usual for its nature. He squeezed the rifle against his chest, rung his fingers around it and waited. Periodically he would check to see if those lights were there. And they would never disappoint when he sought the confirmation of their presence. They seemed to be waiting, too. They just sat there, hanging in the air and glowing the same red as when he had seen them the first time. As he maintained his post, so did they. And while they hung there the night remained black. Time went by, so much so that it felt as if he would never see day again.

Braxton checked the time, as he hadn’t heard to chiming of the clock in quite a while. It read ten o’ clock, though he knew more than an hour had passed since its last announcement. This was not all that concerned him. He often saw passersby’s on the street just beyond his home, even at this time of night. Yet, there was no concern by them of the condition of the sky, nor of the eerie, otherworldly glow of lights. Surely Braxton was again losing his mind. Wasn’t he? Had he entered another world where sky went black and time stood still? These indeed were the ramblings of a madman. If these experiences were indeed real and not the imagination of the unraveling threads of sound logic or reasoning, then this was hell and what awaited him outside was some damning commute to the Devil himself.

Such was the case in dispute of what had ensnared Braxton Yeates’ mind and proceeded to pry and tear at it, seeking impulsive and reckless resolve. And in that moment of perceived clairvoyance he sought it as he approached that coach, whose lights glowed red and flowed and ebbed into the ethers.