By the time Professor Elkins took the turnoff for Tucker, he hadn't seen another car for twenty miles.

He drove west down Elm Street, heading for town center, past a string of vacant lots, an abandoned theater, a darkened grocery store.

Elm Street dead-ended at the First Methodist parking lot. Elkins pulled his Volvo into the lot and shut off the engine.

The churchyard fronted a thick wood. The sun had sunk half-way below the tree line. Elkins looked at his watch. 7:48 p.m. Just over four hours until midnight.

He left the car and began walking north, down First Street. He stopped briefly and peered inside the senior citizens' center. By the light of a single, dangling bulb, he made out card tables covered with partially-completed jigsaw puzzles, large coffee urns stacked above a sink. An American flag thumb-tacked to a peeling wall.

Behind him, a street light flickered noisily to life. Elkins kept walking.

He had almost reached the Alibi Bar at the corner when he heard a noise. He turned and saw an ancient pickup pull into a diagonal parking space across the street. The driver cranked his window down.

"Hello!" Elkins said, crossing the street, approaching the truck, "I'm here for Easter Midnight!"

The old, nearly toothless driver stared at him for a moment.

"Git in, then," he mumbled.

The driver opened the door, and Elkins climbed in.

Doc Greene's ornate Victorian house towered over the tar paper shacks and shotgun-style houses surrounding it.

Doc was balding, with a goatee. He greeted Elkins by extending his left hand. His right forearm, Elkins noticed, was missing.

They took a seat in Doc's parlor.

"Where did you hear about Easter Midnight?" Doc asked.

Elkins pulled a folded newspaper clipping from his pocket.

The article was dated April 16, 1958. Doc perched his glasses on the end of his nose and read.

"Residents of Tucker are busy preparing again this year for Easter Midnight, a custom unique to the area. Tradition says that on the day of Jesus' resurrection, tombs broke open and resurrected saints wandered through the streets of Jerusalem. The Tuckerites (followers of Amos Tucker) believe that each midnight on Easter Sunday, their dead rise and commune with them until daybreak."

Doc handed the clipping back.

"Rubbish."

"Sorry?"

"The article is utter hogwash. Nobody here believes in people getting up out of their tombs or any such nonsense. Whoever wrote this was totally misinformed."

"Are there still Tuckerites here, then?"

"There are."

"Do you still celebrate Easter Midnight?"

"We do. At the Methodist Church. But your article is wrong in nearly every other particular."

"Well," Elkins said, "I'd really like to join you tonight, however you celebrate it. I'm an anthropologist, you see, and--"

Doc shook his head. "Impossible."

"Why?"

"Because you haven't been initiated."

Elkins was unfazed. Exclusivity was to be expected with this type of cult. Anyway, he knew now where the ceremony was, and when. He made a bit more polite conversation, then left.

Walking back through the deserted streets gave Elkins the creeps. He found the church unlocked and empty. Elkins hid his mini-cam under a covered table in the nave, pointing straight at the altar. He set the timer on the camera for midnight. With the remote hook-up, he could listen to the ceremony in his car, back in the woods.

Five minutes to midnight. Through a speaker mounted on his car window, Elkins listened to the shuffling of feet, people coughing.

After a moment, a voice came over the speaker.

"Dear ones," Doc said, "On this night, we rise from our dying flesh to become what we truly are."

"WE HAVE ARISEN. SO ALL THINGS SHALL ARISE."

"Let us meditate before the unveiling."

There was silence in the church.

Suddenly, Elkins heard a loud thrashing noise in the woods around him. He fumbled for a flashlight, reached over and shone it out the passenger side window.

There was no one. But the trees-- The trees had become filled with wild energy. They gyrated, danced in the wind...

"Let all things be raised!" Doc's voice cried over the speaker.

A bass thrumming issued from deep in the woods. A magnificent storm filled the sky. The wind whipped madly. Flashes of lightning illuminated the forest.

"We arise to new life!"

A shower of leaves and branches began landing on the Volvo. A large branch fell and smashed its windshield.

Elkins searched frantically for his keys. He fumbled and dropped them on the floor.

He panicked, threw open the door to his car, and sprinted through the wet grass, heading for the church.

The church building had changed. It now appeared to be an enormous cathedral, impossibly tall, bathed in an unearthly light. Its stained glass windows glowed surreally. Elkins reached the front entrance, panting, threw open the door.

Doc saw him first, at the back of the sanctuary, coming down its light-drenched aisle.

"NO, FOOL!" he thundered, in a voice more than human, "YOU HAVE NOT BEEN--"

It was too late. Elkins began to scream. The parishioners turned to look at him, their faces full of a fiery white glow.

"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

Doc intoned the words somberly. Ike Gruny dropped a shovelful of dirt onto the Volvo in the six-foot hole.

There had been nothing left of the stranger to bury. He'd gone up in a blaze of glory. Literally. Only his goods remained to be commended to the earth.

Doc preached an excellent sermon, reminding those assembled that these things they buried today were unreal and transitory and would rot and rust in the earth.

These are the things that seem real to most people, he said. The faithful, however, know better. They see things as they really are.

They transcend their carnal bodies and the things of earth, becoming pure firelight for a time, when the veils are lifted on the midnight of resurrection.