An Interlude in Grandview Cemetery, Part I

(A multi-part fictionized account of the truth)

Jason cut hard on the wheel.

Even so, the car's headlights slipped off the curve and fell into the forest. Fiery circles cut across his vision in a blur while the yellow lines bent away into the darkness. He was forced to drive by memory. The steep mountain road surrendered nothing at night.

Jason glanced up to where the blackness met starry sky. There, the forest broke, and Grandview Cemetery stretched for an enormous expanse. Jason was alone, and his heart was pounding.

Below, in the valley, the lights of Johnstown, Pennsylvania glowed. It was a steel-making town, but the mills had sat rusting ever since the industries folded. Many of the tragedies of Johnstown were preserved in Grandview Cemetery, including the 750 unknown dead from the great flood of 1889. In fact, so many citizens were tucked into that mountaintop that the cemetery's population seemed to dwarf the city's.

On to Part II