Dearest Clementine: Dark and Romantic Monstrous Tales (Letters Book 1)

by Candace Robinson

  Softly, she slid her hand away from his cheek and found Shea’s hand, interlacing their fingers.

  “When you get older, you’ll understand.”

  “When we get older.”

  “No, Shea, when you get older.”

  After night bled its inky color over the day sky, Ednah grabbed her keys. “Ready?” she asked, the anxiousness showing in her twitchy hands.

  “Yes.” Talia’s heart had been beating quicker than usual the rest of the day while she’d waited to leave. She grabbed the handle of the cooler because she didn’t want something to happen to Shea. Just in case.

  Once they got in the car, Ednah sped the entire drive until she arrived at the nearby hospital. It was small compared to the one farther in town with lamps framing the front of the building and two flags flying from their posts.

  Ednah looped around the building and took the way that brought them to an open area where the entrance to the basement would be. Outside, a lanky man, a few years younger than Ednah, stood. Talia’s breathing increased as Ednah slowed to a stop. The man walked over and shined a flashlight on their faces.

  Ednah cranked down the window, its glassy squeak making too much noise. “We’re here from the funeral home to pick up a body.”

  “A body, huh?” The man scratched the side of his balding head. “You know this is illegal.”

  “Trust me.” Ednah reached out and patted the man’s forearm. “I’ll explain it all to you later.”

  “This is the guy?” Talia asked.

  “So, you’ve heard about me?” Talia didn’t know how to answer his question because she didn’t really know anything about this man, but she nodded.

  “Julio, I know you’re not going to believe me if I explain this to you, but trust me, I’ll tell you everything later, like I said. And it will be the real-life miracles you hear about.”

  The man, Julio, shifted side to side with nervousness. “It’s for the funeral home, you say?”

  Ednah ticked her head side to side. “The family will thank you for this, I promise.”

  Talia didn’t know what kind of plan Ednah was concocting on her own, but Julio waved them on.

  “I suppose I’ll go shop now, as you suggested.” Talia opened the car door and leaned back in. “Are you coming?”

  “Nope. Can’t be an accomplice.” Ednah kept her gaze focused ahead, pretending she couldn’t see a thing.

  Rolling her eyes, Talia shook her head. “Will you watch over Shea?”

  “With my life,” Ednah promised.

  Talia gently closed the car door and followed behind Julio. He held the door open for her and led her down a long hallway. Her heart pounded as the room grew colder. The fluorescent lights were bright and perfectly lit above. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Possibly flickering lights or a dimmer area like in the movies, but the place wasn’t any of those things. Only bare white walls and white tile, guiding Talia to her destination.

  Julio stopped in front of a door and unlocked it, letting her inside. Before he closed the door, he looked side to side, and said, “Just hurry.”

  Talia gave a quick nod and slipped farther inside, the quiet enveloping her. Taking in a deep breath and inhaling disinfectant, Talia peered around the room at rows and rows of silver metal drawers. She padded across the linoleum to the first one she saw and drew it open.

  In her imagination, Talia assumed all the bodies would look perfect and restful, as if in a sleeping state. However, she knew better, and they weren’t. One was a young girl around seven who looked too bloated and too blue. She closed that drawer with a soft click and held her eyes shut for a moment to keep tears from escaping. Another was possibly a man, but Talia couldn’t tell because the face was mangled with skin missing in places.

  She had thought she could take anyone, but with each person she pictured being Shea, it just … wasn’t. She couldn’t imagine any of these hollow bodies opening their eyes or their blue and cracked lips laughing his perfect laugh.

  At the end of the row, hands shaking, Talia drew open the next one. Inside rested a man close to her age or at least how old she appeared. Dark hair, brown skin, a wound in the center of his chest from a bullet. She was growing tired and worried and didn’t want to keep opening drawers. His body would serve its purpose.

  Walking to the door, she cracked it open and said in a professional manner, “I found the one for the funeral home.”

  Julio didn’t look impressed, but he nodded and handed her a clipboard with papers attached. “Just sign this.” She grabbed the form and filled it out with lies, all lies.

  As she pressed the pen to the form, she nodded to the open drawer. Julio grabbed a rolling table from the corner. Talia set down the clipboard and helped him load the body onto the metal. Anticipation sang in her veins as she followed Julio out the door to her car.

  Ednah stayed inside, but the trunk was already popped open. Together, she and Julio loaded the body inside the trunk.

  “Why would you risk this?” she asked, closing the trunk.

  “I’m old, and there’s just something about that woman in the front seat of that car that I can’t say no to. I want to live life while I still can.”

  “Ednah really is something special.” Talia smiled. “Thank you.”

  Julio gave a nod to Ednah and walked away.

  As soon as Talia got adjusted back in the car with the cooler in her lap, Ednah asked, “Did it feel as if it was Shea?”

  She stared at the cooler as Ednah drove back to the house. “I don’t know... It just felt like a body. I thought there would be a connection when I found the one, but I didn’t feel anything.”

  “Better for there not to be one if it doesn’t work,” Ednah mumbled.

  “It will work.” Talia imagined the body from the morgue wrapping his muscular arms around her, and she brushed the terrifying thoughts away. She instead pictured Shea’s warmth coming from within the body, alive and whole, making herself feel better.

  When Ednah pulled into the driveway of her house, she looked at Talia. “Can you open the garage?”

  Talia hopped out and quickly clasped the handle of the garage, then pushed it up, allowing the rickety sounds to echo. She thought the old garage would collapse, but it stayed up as Ednah backed the car inside.

  Setting the cooler aside and closing the garage, Talia and Ednah hauled the heavy body out of the car as best they could, propping him on the ground. Then Talia grabbed the cooler, placed it beside the man, and gathered the tools from the bag she’d left on the small table.

  “I can help you stitch,” Ednah said.

  With a brief nod, Talia began working. She flipped on the tool she’d taken from the funeral home and let the buzzing block any noise as she concentrated on cutting the skull. Talia placed her fingers in between the skull and removed the old brain. Ednah already had the cooler open and Talia placed the old one on the lid and picked up Shea’s.

  Blowing her hair out of her face, she inserted Shea’s brain. If everything went well it should align and attach of its own accord.

  Ednah had been a nurse during the war and afterward had become a seamstress, so Talia watched as she sewed up the nameless man with precision right by the hairline.

  “What are you going to use for the electricity?” Ednah asked. Talia expected her friend’s tone to be condescending, but it wasn’t. She appeared more curious than anything.

  “My heart,” Talia murmured as she gazed into the closed eyes of the man she hoped would be Shea.

  “What?” Ednah screeched and covered her mouth.

  “My heart.” Talia locked her gaze on Ednah’s. “It’s immortal, right? I want you to split it into two.”

  “That…” Ednah shook her head. “That’s not going to work. You’ll both be dead!”

  “Then it might be better that way.” Talia shrugged and looked away. She’d already lived such a long life. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it wondrous. If it had to end tonight, then
that’s how it would be. She truly believed in soulmates and Shea was hers. An eternity without her other half wouldn’t be one worth living at all. Her heart was useless without his anyway.

  Despite the horrified look on Ednah’s face, Talia grabbed a scalpel from the bag and made an incision on the chest of the nameless body. After pulling back the skin, it took her a bit to find the organ, but she wrapped her hands around the heart and took it out. She set the dead organ in the cooler.

  “I’ll have to figure out how to dispose of those,” Ednah said.

  But Talia ignored her and removed her shirt, tossing the fabric to the ground.

  “You’re not really going to do this, are you?” Ednah pressed, stepping closer.

  “I am.” Her bra came next, and she placed a shaky hand at her chest, clenching the scalpel. “Okay, I may need a little help here.”

  “Whiskey?”

  Talia shook as she nodded. “That would be nice.” She didn’t move a single inch as Ednah went inside and rushed back out with a glass bottle in one hand and a bottle of pain meds in the other.

  Talia grabbed the bottle of liquid and downed the whole thing before pressing the blade to her chest. Its coolness caused her nerves to quake.

  “I’m going to have to finish this, I assume?”

  “Yes,” Talia started, “but you’ll only have to cut my heart into two and place a piece in mine. I’ll finish the rest, if it works.”

  “What if I don’t cut it perfectly in half?” Ednah gritted her teeth, her eyebrows furrowed, thick beads of sweat coating her wrinkled face. “What if I do too much or too little?”

  “Do your best.”

  Nervously, Talia slid the scalpel down her chest. Warm blood bubbled up but it was as if she didn’t feel the pain, or maybe she chose to ignore it because she knew something better and extraordinary might happen. Clenching her jaw, she pushed her hand inside until she cradled her palm around her own heart, feeling the beats pump against her closed fist.

  “For Shea.” Then she ripped it out and the world fell to a rainbow of colorful pieces.

  Talia’s eyes flicked open to a creamy white ceiling with black smudges in various places. Her breathing came out in rapid waves and her chest ached. She let her head fall to the side to see Ednah staring down at her.

  “Don’t make me do anything like that again,” the old woman said, attempting to look angry, but Talia heard the worry. “My old heart can’t handle it.”

  Talia peered down at her newly stitched-up chest. Ednah quickly tied off the string and stepped back. Sitting up, Talia placed her hand to her naked chest and her heart beat with a healthy thump. It felt the same.

  Ednah handed Talia her shirt, and she slid it on. “Where’s the other half?”

  “I set it inside the cooler.”

  Licking her dry lips, Talia leaned over the cooler and fished out the other half of her own bloody heart. She gave an inner prayer to whoever her maker was and wished more than anything to hear Shea’s voice.

  The body lay as it had before, and she moved skin and muscle back, sliding the heart inside Shea’s new chest.

  “I don’t care what you are as long as we’re together.” His words played over and over in her head.

  And before she let go, there was a teeny pulse against her hand. With a wide smile, her head turned to Ednah. “I told you it would work!”

  The old woman pursed her lips. “Remember, Frankenstein?”

  Talia knew she was thinking about Dr. Frankenstein bringing back a monster who wasn’t like he should have been, but in the book it was different. “Hollywood always exaggerates things.”

  “Sometimes.” Ednah walked forward and bent low to stitch up the chest. The eyes burst open, the body jolting upward.

  A small yelp came from Ednah but Talia yelled, “Don’t move!” She didn’t want something to go wrong now.

  The stranger’s dark brown eyes shifted to Talia, focusing on her. His shapely lips parted, the deadness of his skin was already turning a healthy glow. “T—Talia?”

  Talia clasped her hands together with hope, fighting back the tears that were coming. “Shea?”

  “Yes?”

  “Just lie down and let Ednah finish with your chest. It will sting a bit.” Or more than a bit, she thought.

  No one spoke as Ednah worked with hurried motions. Shea appeared confused but didn’t take his dark eyes away from her.

  “I’ll give you two a minute,” Ednah said when she tied off the string before heading inside.

  Shea still hadn’t said anything else, but he had spoken her name earlier. What if he slipped into the monster from the movies as Ednah had said?

  Finally, Shea brought a hand to his jaw and rubbed the way he always did when he was nervous. “Talia, what’s going on? I don’t… I don’t feel like me.”

  Worry washed over her because what if he didn’t like the body he was in? “You died, and I brought you back in another body by putting your brain inside.”

  He stared at her, his eyes ticking side to side, still rubbing his jaw.

  “I gave you a piece of my immortal heart, so if all goes as I think it will, you’re going to be immortal, too.” The next part was hard to say, but she would do anything he wanted, whatever would make him happy. Just as he’d always put her first. “But, if you don’t want it, I can take it out.” She removed her gaze from his and stared at the cement.

  “Hold on a minute, you cut out a piece of your heart … And put it in here”—he tapped at his chest and then at his skull—“along with my brain?”

  “Mmm hmm…” She still couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “Okay, you’re going to have to give me a moment here… or several.” He propped his back against the car. “I feel like I can do things again if I want to. As if I can jump off the roof and not break a leg.”

  “Oh, you would still break a leg, Shea.” Talia smiled. She’d been worried for no reason because even with the new body, it was absolutely Shea. He was here with her. “Are you mad at me?”

  He shook his head as tears filled his eyes. “No, of course not. But how could you risk your life like that for me? I—I’m nothing compared to you. You’ve always been everything to me. Please promise me you won’t ever do anything like that again.”

  “Could you promise me the same?” She already knew what his answer would be.

  Shea bit his lip and stared down at his new hands. “Never.”

  “Then we’re even.” Talia’s half-heart thumped hard against her ribcage because she couldn’t believe that he was really here. All she wanted to do was touch him, and never stop.

  His gaze caught hers and an old and familiar feeling seemed to swell between the two of them. “I suppose all that matters is that I’m here alive and with you. There’s nothing better than that.”

  “Is there anything you want to do in your new body?” she asked, arching a brow. “Go ride a bike?”

  “Well, it’s been a while since we…” He leaned forward, the left side of his lips tilting up.

  “Shea, you dirty rascal.” Talia gave a false huff and placed her hands on her hips.

  Before Talia could gather her thoughts, Shea scooped her up from the ground. Laughter bubbled up from her, and she wrapped her arms around his warm neck. “Ednah’s inside.”

  “Trust me, she’ll understand.”

  She looked at the crimson by his hairline and the red on her hands and arms. “We have blood all over us.”

  “Eh, a little dried blood never hurt anyone.”

  “Seriously, shower first.”

  “Fine.” He pulled her closer and she relaxed in his arms as he murmured in her ear, “I love you.”

  “You have my heart forever, so I suppose I feel the same…” Talia grinned.

  His chest pressed against hers and it was as if she could feel his heart, her old heart, beating for the two of them.

  Dearest Clementine,

  My beautiful, beautiful love. I was so incredibly close.
I found the secluded house where Bogdi was keeping you. I’m here now, but you’re already gone. Your cinnamon scent mixed with lilies still lingers—an aroma that could entice me to no end. However, there is also the odor of rot coming from Bogdi that radiates from the floorboards. You and I are equals—a team—and I will stalk the countryside to get you back. I know he’s trying to find a way to drag you to the depths of the Underworld, but we have to stop him. I promise with everything in me, that the demon will be sorry. I have a tale for you now, one I know you would love.

  Always Yours,

  Dorin

  Lured in for Death

  2012

  March Martinez sat cross-legged while thinking in front of the lake, surrounded by miles and miles of trees. If only this place held the answers to his questions about life. As the water’s ripples swished back and forth, he thought about the mysterious vanishings. This particular lake had been searched thoroughly over the years when claims surfaced about people disappearing. Some said that people had gone in but never came out. But the thing was, when police investigated the lake, no victims were ever found.

  He stood from the pebbled dirt and peered down into the clear water—no sign of life, not even a single small fish or minnow wiggled about.

  March felt alone, so alone it was hard for him to breathe anymore. His breath came out ragged, his heart accelerated, his thoughts progressed with intense fury and wouldn’t stop. Each morning he told himself over and over how much he wanted to live, but finding that drive was becoming more difficult day after day, after long day.

  Closing his eyes for a moment before reopening them, March tore off his t-shirt and unbuttoned his pants to slide them down, until the only clothing covering him was his boxers.

  With a leap of faith and a wish for something that wasn’t suffocating, he jumped into the water, letting his body sink to the bottom. Disappointment filled him when he opened his eyes—there was nothing magical or a chance at escape, only a pebbled bottom surface and the late afternoon sky glowing above.