The central characters of Poltergeist: The Legacy do not belong to me –

they are the property of Trilogy and MGM – I’ve only borrowed them for a while.

All other characters are created by me. Hope you enjoy …

POLTERGEIST: THE LEGACY

TO CAST A LONG SHADOW

End

“And so we commit the body of the dear departed to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life … ”

Rachel swallowed, blinking rapidly. Alex quickly wiped away a tear. Nick just stood there. The day was dank, damp. Appropriate. Funerals should never be held on sunny, cheerful days. It ruined the effect.

He was somber, reflecting on death and how people reacted to what was, basically, a natural function. Lives were finite. No one knew at the start how many days they had but one thing was certain – one day, the time would run out and life would end. Being alive meant dying. There was no way around it. Existence went on because souls were immortal, but life itself came to a definite conclusion. Sometimes, it was abrupt. Often, it was drawn out and filled with pain. It still happened – be it gently, peacefully, or after a titanic struggle to escape the inevitable.

And, despite knowing all this .. people still got emotional. By the time they gathered to stand at the graveside, the soul had traveled on to whatever awaited it, and all they were doing was watching the disposal of a dead, fleshy husk. A shell. A container. Something corporeal which had once housed the eternal spirit, the driving force, the mind and the imagination, the hopes, dreams, doubts, beliefs, and emotions which had made a living being.

Funerals were words. Carefully chosen words. Designed to evoke the right response. You might dislike the body in the casket .. or at least the person it once had been .. and dislike it to the point of hatred, but, at its funeral, you’d get a little teary, a little choked. All because of the words. And, once one started, it was a chain reaction. Before long, people were sniffing and wiping their eyes, even weeping openly.

It wasn’t the dead person people felt truly sorry for at funerals. The dead were at rest. A world of griefs, of disappointments, of failed hopes and lost dreams, not to mention the triumphs and the successes .. all behind them. They didn’t want or need sorrow or pity. They didn’t want or need anything. People felt sorry for themselves. They’d think back over all their associations with the body in the casket, the good times and the bad, and the indifferent. They’d realize they’d never see that face again, never hear that voice, never .. sense that presence. Never .. seemed a very long time. And so they got teary and choked.

Occasionally, and not very often in Nick’s opinion, funerals celebrated someone’s life and achievements and made people feel uplifted because they’d shared in it. But, most of the time, funerals dragged people down and made them feel miserable. All thanks to the words and the voice delivering them. Yes, it gave a sense of closure, it drew a line under that part of your life, and it freed you to look forward to tomorrow. But it gave nothing else.

This time was no different. Nick cast a quick glance around and was surprised at how many had turned up. Well, he knew the guy had friends. Must have done. No one goes thru life completely friendless. He’d definitely had associates.

For his own part, now, Nick felt .. ambivalent, if anything. Not happy. He wasn’t pleased the guy was dead. Yet he wasn’t sad nor was he full of regret. How could he feel any of those things? If he felt any true emotion, it was disbelief. Still. Death wasn’t an end, period. It was just .. a change in circumstance. The container ceased functioning so stick it in the ground or burn it. And this guy had lived longer than most people who served the Legacy. To be honest, he’d been in more scrapes and suffered more catastrophic experiences – experiences which would have killed many a lesser man – than just about anyone Nick knew. He’d run the gauntlet and he’d survived against the odds .. and now he was dead. A natural product of living.

Nick felt .. empty. A vacuum had opened and he thought it strange he should feel that. But maybe that was just down to him. Nick didn’t get teary or choked at funerals, not now. He’d been to too many to let it affect him. He was simply a dispassionate observer who wanted to shove his hands in his pockets but didn’t because that would have been disrespectful. This – being here on this dank, damp day – was just duty. Something he had to do. Saying goodbye to a man he’d known a long time. Required because Nick was Legacy, and so was the guy in the casket.

It’s weird, he thought as the casket was carried into the mausoleum. Most memorable events start with the celebration of a birth and end with a funeral. Not this one. This is weird because, while it ends with a funeral, it also started with one .. or at least with a death.

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