There he sat, patiently, in front of the tombstone on the only hill in the cemetery.
Blood dripped down his face onto his jacket. His forehead was bleeding where the knife had nicked him just a few moments ago.
It was early morning. Fog had just rolled in. But he sat there, skin still flush with blood and breathing heavily, but patiently.
"Here lies Jensen Dannon, 1934 - 1974", the tombstone read. He dropped his head and looked down at his drops of blood and looked back up at the name and shuddered.
A cold breeze rustled the leaves in a nearby tree.
He turned his head towards the base of the tree. A body lay there, motionless.
He take's a deep breath and exhales slowly, closing his eyes and leaning forward to rest his head on the tombstone.
"I'm sure they warmed it up for ya, Jensen.", He called out to the body.
"...Whoever it is".
The silence was deafening. He looked up again expecting the body to move, but nothing. That eerie feeling crept up his spine, it felt like someone was watching him, like someone was right behind him.
He felt the warm intense tingling though his head. His heart beat was racing. He stood up and paused. Small tremors going though his body as the terror grew. Almost paralyzed, but not enough to keep him from turning around to see.
Nothing.
Nothing but the fog. The cold breeze. The sound of the leaves rustling. And Jensen's body underneath the tree.
He dropped to his knees, sat back down and leaned his forehead against the tombstone again.
"Everyone loved you." he spoke softly, still shaking off the nerves. He could see his breath as he spoke.
"You were brilliant. You were everyone's lighthouse. You liberated everyone you were around."
The leaves rustled. The cold breeze swept across his face, drying the tears under his eyes.
"People would always say, 'He walks with God!', or that you were some sort of guru or Buddha in a past life." He continued.
"You had this air about you that could make even the worst person feel better about themselves.."
Another breeze kicked up, creaking the old oak tree as it blew past.
"Then there was me. By comparison I was nothing short of a plague to people. You liberated, I afflicted. I hated having to walk in your footsteps because I knew I could never be like you. So I accepted it. I accepted that I was what everyone made me out to be. A problem. A black sheep."
"Then you died. Back on that fishing trip a few years back. Everyone changed. Everyone was depressed. Everyone mourned your loss more than I want to admit."
He lifted his hands up to the tombstone, closing his eyes as he felt the indents of the letters with his cold fingers.
"You'd think without you, people would stop comparing me to you all the time, but no. It got much worse."
"They wished it was me on that boat and not you. It wasn't long before I left, because I knew I was causing too much grief."
He gripped the edges of the tombstone tightly.
"Then mom died. And dad shortly after. Sisters too, about a month later. They all went missing shortly before their bodies were found mangled and disfigured, hanging in the willow tree in our yard."
He looked up toward the tree again, the body still lay there. The sun was rising and the fog was thinning out.
"I was the first suspect, no doubt. But I had an alibi that checked out. No one believed it though."
Sirens started blaring in the distance.
He slowly stood up, and began walking toward Jensen's body.
The sirens were getting louder.
He knelt down beside him, and looked down at his lifeless body. Jensen's lips were purple and his skin was pale, except for the recent bruises around his neck. His eyes were wide open, but soulless.
He leaned over and gently closed Jensen's eyelids, and stood back up.
More sirens begin to come through the thinning fog.
"I knew you did it. I knew it was you when I heard dad died the same way mom did. I knew it was you when you began haunting my dreams."
"It didn't take long to find out where you were hiding after that."
The sirens were close. He could make out the lights coming from the police cars through the fog.
He briefly looked at Jensen, nodded, and headed the other direction towards the rear entrance of the cemetery. There he slipped through the fence and continued walking down the foggy slope toward the forest.
He looked back to see if anyone was following him. He paused for a moment as he looked toward the rear gate. He saw a sign above the gate that he had never noticed before.
He smirked, and continued down hill into the forest.
"Clintston Park Cemetery"
"Enlightenment has a dark side if you don't half-measure it."