Dead End: Midnight Hollow

by Penn Cassidy

  Oh, this was going to be good. We’d refrained from telling the aunties about Damon until he wanted to be known, but it seemed he was done hiding and Jason had finally decided to embrace him.

  “His name is Damon,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Maddie snorted, and Pip outright laughed, placing her hand on her chest. “A demon named Damon… Now I’ve heard everything.” Cupping her mouth with her ring clad fingers, she winked at me and said, “And I’ve been around for centuries.”

  “W-What?!” I sputtered, but she was already talking again.

  “Well, Damon,” she said with her hands on her hips, “you’re just going to have to learn how to share that body. Don’t test me.” She wagged a finger at him as if he were a child. “I will spell you if I have to. Now give the poor guy his body back and stop terrorizing my niece.”

  “I’m going for a walk,” I said, setting my empty mug down in the sink. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  Norman stood up, his chair scraping against the floor as everyone looked at him. “You want me to come with?” I saw Michael frown up at Norman, but Freddy and Jason were smirking.

  I looked at Norman finally, our eyes connecting across the dining room. The tension between us was thick, and I suddenly felt like my tongue was swollen. It was hard trying to figure out this new dynamic we seemed to have all of a sudden. Just the other day, he’d hated me, and now he was staring at me like I meant something more to him.

  Shaking my head, I backed towards the door. “I’m good. I’ve got Jessica to keep me company.” I stuck out my open palm and watched as Jessica came skittering over, leaping up into my hand with a shot of her web out of her butt and making her way towards my shoulder.

  “We’re going on an adventure!” she squealed in my ear. I grinned at my spider.

  “Well all right then,” said Auntie Fe. She turned from her tea kettle and gave me a thin smile. “Whatever you do, please try and avoid the Hangry Forest.”

  “Believe me, Auntie, nothing about either word you just said sounds even remotely inviting.” I stood there awkwardly for a second. “Can I actually talk to you two in private for a second? Something’s been on my mind.” I avoided Norman's hot glare on me as my aunties glanced at each other and followed me to the front door.

  “What’s on your mind, dear?” Auntie Pip asked curiously, her gaze worried as she grabbed my hand with a small pat on my wrist, a comfortable touch.

  “I’ve been hearing voices,” I whispered so low that both of them leaned in closer with their brows wrinkled.

  “Oh, child, don’t we all. There, there. Nothing to worry about, they’ll go away in time.” Auntie Fe clicked her tongue and taped her temple.

  “Not like…” I sighed dramatically and didn’t miss their eyes connecting with worry. “I mean ever since we got here, I’ve been hearing the guys’ thoughts,” I said in a rush, knowing how crazy I sounded.

  “Ohhhh!” they both said with a relieved breath at the same time with a small giggle. “That is perfectly normal, my sweet girl. It’s just a necromancer’s curse, but it can be a gift if you let it.” Auntie Fe clapped her hands in excitement.

  “See, on the night of the accident, you using your gift to bring everyone back…well it connected you to those young men's souls because you, well, uh, were already connected on a deeper level from before.” Auntie Pip swiped a white piece of my hair behind my ear, her gaze far away until she looked back at me with a proud smile. “The heart always knows,” she muttered under her breath, but I was hardly paying attention.

  “So you’re telling me I’m actually not making this shit up and can really hear their thoughts?” They both nodded fast and waited for my reaction of panic and tears.

  “This is so cool! Although, it’s very jumbled half the time, but still. I’m a freaking mind reader!” I grinned, plotting evil, mad genius revenge with my new super powers.

  “Now that’s what I'm talking about! Let the plotting begin!” My aunties gave me a kiss on both of my cheeks and laughed with a shooing motion.

  “Get out of here, silly girl, and maybe keep it a secret for now. You never know when you’ll need to get inside a man’s mind without him knowing.” They giggled and went back to the kitchen, muttering excitedly like proud parents when their kid came home with straight A’s.

  Finally, I fled the room, making my way through the house and out the front door before anyone else could try and stop me. I needed to be alone for a little while and some time to think. Besides, there was a place I really needed to visit. The moons were bright as I walked down the street. Lucky for me, the layout of this town was still the same as it’d always been.

  The aunties’ manor was only down the street from town, so I decided to head straight through Main Street. I could have gone the shorter way and skirted the busy shopping area packed with people, but I decided to poke around a little on my way to the cemetery.

  I needed to see for myself where my parents were buried. The aunties had told me they’d been buried in a consecrated grave, therefore they’d be present in both the mortal world and this world. I remembered the day we got here, when I passed the cemetery on that long stretch of country road. It had looked so different, and immediately, dread had settled in my stomach. I needed to have access to their burial site, to be close to them, even if it was just me sitting on their plot for hours on end, talking to them about nothing and everything.

  Nobody paid any attention to me as I passed them, not like they had the first time I’d come through here like a fresh tourist. I wondered how many mortals these people saw on a regular basis, or if we’d been the only ones. Well, I supposed that wasn’t true, technically. We weren’t mortals any more, not really. All of the people I cared about died on that bus, including Maddie. If she’d been thrown from the bus, she probably wouldn’t even be here right now. She’d be back in the mortal world, her parents laying her to rest with all of the other passengers who hadn’t made it.

  My dark purple cloak made it easy to blend in. People brushed shoulders with me, not batting an eye. I saw all kinds of creatures that I never really had a chance to get a good look at. Just like at school, there were people with oddly colored skin—blues, greens, purples, and sallow greys. I saw a little girl back by the candy shop that had ram’s horns sticking out of her head and cloven feet peeking from beneath her pink dress.

  I smiled at two women standing outside Toil and Trouble Tea, wearing long flowing dresses and witch hats. Apparently, it was the fashion here in Midnight Hollow. One of the women was stirring a huge cauldron that smelled like vanilla as I passed them. No wart hairs in sight. They both gave me sweet smiles, and the one with long grey hair winked. I promised myself I’d hit up that tea shop later at some point.

  The more I walked, the more I saw banners for that festival. Turning to Jessica, who perched on my shoulder, I asked, “So what’s with the festival?”

  She moved my hair out of the way, and I felt her settle. “Only the biggest celebration in the whole world. We celebrate the solstice of the new year with pies, cakes, brewing competitions, costumes, and dancing. It’s the night of the blood moon eclipse.”

  “That’s what I don’t get…” I looked up at the moons overhead. “You don’t even have a sun, so how do you keep track of the new year?” It was something that’d been bothering me since we settled here. I was fairly savvy in the ways of science and understanding nature, but this had befuddled me from the start.

  Jessica giggled. “You keep thinking like a mortal, Tobs, but that’s not how things work here. A year just means the end of one harvest cycle and the beginning of another. All of the crops here grow by moonlight.”

  “But moonlight is just sunlight reflected off of the moon’s surface,” I said, still not getting it. My brain didn’t want to wrap itself around any of this.

  “We have a sun, Toby, but it’s not the sun mortals have. Our sun is black, kind of like Michael’s dark fire. It’s right overhead, you just can’t
see it. We don’t need much of it, because our moons give us enough lunar light to feed our night blooming crops.”

  “You’re awfully smart for a spi—” I cleared my throat, “arachnid.”

  “And you’re awfully curious for a mortal,” she quipped with a giggle.

  She had me there. Mortals, apparently, were notorious for taking things at face value rather than working to find answers. I laughed, reaching up and patting Jessica on her little spider head. “I’m glad you’re here, you know.”

  “Duh, who wouldn’t be!”

  “I’m serious!” I shook my head. Sometimes, she really was full of herself. “I’m glad I have you. You’re like a little conscience and encyclopedia in my ear.”

  “You forgot to say intelligent, witty, and easy on the eyes.”

  “Let’s not get too carried away.” I rolled my eyes.

  We headed out of town, and I made sure to keep to the other side of the road when we passed the Killer Clown Motel. I shivered, remembering the way they’d chased us down the street. The fear in Jason’s eyes… I watched the motel, though, as I passed. The lights were on, but it only highlighted the wacky colors and the big light bulbs blinking around the sign. I vaguely remembered this place in the mortal world. It was an old Motel 6 converted into a church. There used to be a huge parking lot there, and a chapel a little farther back. But I supposed a church had no place in a world like this, so it made sense.

  Still, I wanted nothing to do with that place. I wondered if Payton lived there. Picturing the clowny cheerleader living in a creepy, dingy place like this didn’t feel right. She seemed too high-maintenance for a motel. I still didn’t understand what I ever did to piss her off, or why she seemed to have some vendetta against mortals, but I’d gladly steer clear of her. Plus, I was getting sick of her muttering to me in riddles when we passed in the hall about how I was out to ruin her life. Like, dude, I just got here. If I was going to ruin her life, at least give me a couple of months to get my own life together.

  We left town and headed farther down the street, passing the old gas station. There were a few cars parked under the pumps now and a couple people milling around, so it felt less like a horror movie than it had that first night. I thought a part of it was due to the shock of the bus accident and disorientation. Looking at this town through a new lens, it was actually quite charming. Well, to me it was. I still didn't really know how the others felt about being stuck here. I knew I needed to have that talk with Maddie. She’d been so quiet about all this, and after finding out she was a real witch with actual magical powers, she probably had a lot of adjusting to do.

  I thought we all had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn’t even begun to delve into what it meant to be a necromancer. I got the shivers just thinking about it. I’d always had a sort of fascination with morbid things, but I never thought there was a legitimate reason for it. Thinking about raising the dead seemed like a taboo thing. In all the movies I’d ever watched, bringing the dead back to life was supposed to be a no no. They say what you’ll end up bringing back won't be the person you thought it was going to be.

  But those were mortal rules. I wasn’t about to traipse around bringing zombies to life or anything, but I definitely needed to do some research and figure out just how far my powers could go and what my limits were.

  We’d only been walking for about twenty minutes when I saw the graveyard up ahead. On the other side was that wooded area we’d hauled ass through on that first day. The darkness of the trees loomed in the distance, and I was suddenly thankful I didn’t have to cross that forest to get to the cemetery. I now had a name for it—The Hangry Forest.

  I reached the tall, wrought iron black gates and took a deep breath. The cemetery was huge, but it looked old and unkempt. The entire thing seemed to be built on a narrow hillside, which didn’t make any logical sense because normally, graves needed to be level in order to prevent mudslides and tragic unearthings when earthquakes happened. But I supposed Jessica was right, I was thinking like a mortal yet again. I refused to try and make logical sense out of everything in this crazy town.

  The gates squealed open and let me right in. I crossed under the archway that read Midnight Hollow Cemetery in twisting wrought iron. On either side of the entrance were two stone gargoyles, perched there to ward off anyone who came in with ill intent. For some reason, it made me feel just a little safer knowing those things were guarding this place.

  It smelled like wet moss and tilled earth. My shoulders relaxed as I began to weave through the graves. Some of them were very well kept up and had flowers placed on top, while others were covered in spiderwebs, with the stone chipped and the inscriptions faded away with time. I headed in farther, catching on quickly to the fact that the newer graves were towards the back end of the graveyard. Keeping track of the years as they passed seemed to work relatively the same as the mortal world, numbers wise, but the months were off.

  “This place always gives me the heebie jeebies,” Jessica whispered in my ear with a forced shiver.

  I scoffed. “You’re a talking tarantula who lives in a Halloween town, and this place freaks you out?” I shook my head. “You’re so weird.”

  “What? Dead things creep me out…”

  “Why don’t you go wait for me at the entrance then,” I suggested, coming to a stop and surveying the graves. “I’ll try not to take too long.”

  Jessica mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out, but she crawled down the length of my arm and hopped onto the ground. “Scream if you need me,” she said before scuttling away.

  I continued to scan the headstones. A chill washed over my skin, and I pulled my cloak in tighter. There wasn't any sort of breeze tonight and the branches of the trees weren’t swaying, so there wasn't really a reason I should be shivering. I looked around, feeling the hairs on my arm stand up. For a second, I got the sense that someone was watching me. I couldn’t shake it, and I didn’t think it was Jessica, either. I wondered if there might be a groundskeeper nearby or something.

  Before I could think too much into it, a name caught my attention. Two names, actually. David Grimm and Mari Hallowell. Grimm? I didn’t understand as I hurried over to my parents’ headstones. Why was my dad listed as David Grimm? We were Hallowells… Well, I supposed, so were my aunties. Which…now that I thought about it, didn’t make much sense. Why would my dad have the same last name as my aunties?

  Wait a second, I remembered my aunties mentioning something about the Grimm necromancers, but I hadn’t put two and two together. Honestly, I’d never given it any thought. Was my dad’s last name really Grimm? I filed it away for later and made a mental note to ask the aunties about it.

  The stones looked fairly new compared to the rest of the graves around it. Not yet cracked or faded. Their names were etched into it and filled in with a metallic golden paint. October 31st 2019 was listed below their names—the day they died. The day I watched them die. I hadn’t even had the luxury of passing out while it happened, and the memory of it haunted me every night and day. Every time I closed my eyes, I could picture my mother’s terrified tears and the shocked look on my dad’s face in the rearview mirror. I heard their screams daily.

  Tears sprung to my eyes as I dropped to my knees in front of the stone. I laid a hand on their names, tracing the scrawl with my fingertip. “I’m so sorry, Mom.” I sniffled. “I’m sorry I made you go out that night… I was so stupid.” The tears were falling harder.

  It was my fault, what happened to them. All of it. They’d only been in that car because of my stubbornness. “I should have listened to you, trusted you. I’m so sorry…” I choked on another sob, tasting my tears as they ran down my cheeks and over my lip. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, in this place. I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m so lost, Dad.”

  I heard a crack of thunder somewhere in the distance, and instinctively, I shivered, though it was still relatively warm with just a cool breeze wafting through. Looking up, eve
n the twin moons were slightly obscured with dark clouds, while bats flew overhead, probably preparing to dodge the oncoming storm. If I was smart, I’d have waited to come here another day. I never claimed to be a genius, but it did feel amazing to be near my parents again. I laid down on my side, curling up against the headstone, and closed my eyes with my hands pressed beneath my cheek.

  I blinked away more tears, wishing so hard that I could talk to them just one more time. During this last year, I’d lain awake at night going over all of the things I’d say to them if I’d been given just one more day, one more minute or second. I’d have told them how much I loved them, and thanked them for keeping me safe and giving me a good life. I’d have told them I couldn’t wait to go back home and watch a movie with them and drink Mom’s spiced cider. I’d curl up in my dad’s strong arms and breathe in the scent of tobacco and peppermint that I swear sometimes I could still smell.

  So many things I never had the chance to say. So I found myself murmuring the words to a tilled patch of earth in the middle of this graveyard. It was growing colder by the second, but for just these short moments, a warmth surrounded me, and I imagined it was their embrace. I allowed myself to imagine, to yearn and mourn. I allowed my body to purge the grief, because it was the only way I would have the strength to keep on going without them.

  I must have dozed off, because I snapped awake sometime later, and the clouds had rolled in. My hair was plastered to my skin as raindrops pelted me in the face. Time was so disorienting here, especially with no sun in the sky to guide me.

  It made me wonder if I’d ever see another sunrise again. Standing up, I wiped off the graveyard dirt that was quickly turning to mud and said my goodbyes to my parents. I’d come see them again soon, any chance I got. Scanning the area, I tried to find Jessica, but she wasn't there. I called out for her a few times and expected her to scuttle over, but there was only silence. She’d probably bailed, feeling too creeped out to stay the whole time. I didn’t blame her.