by Cory Barclay
He’d asked Annabel one last time if she wanted to go back to her world, while she still could.
“We might not get another chance, Bel,” he’d said.
But she was ardently against the plan. She considered herself at fault just as much as Steve for putting Dale in danger.
They had no idea what they were walking into, if it was a trap . . . or a negotiation . . . or a massacre.
It irked Steve, how powerless he felt. If only he’d known his own powers . . . how to utilize his Myth Seeking abilities better, none of this would have happened. He still had no idea if he had untapped potential, or if this was all he got: a cool mythical title without any real substance.
Annabel and Tumbleweed had been the only Mythics he’d met and Seared, to his knowledge. All the others—January, Scarlet, Aiden, Michelangelo—they’d already been part of this world. And none of them seemed too determined to leave.
And could he turn to any of them?
January was dead, and she’d been the most knowledgeable and helpful of the bunch. Scarlet was gone, luckily telling them a bit more about the plan involving Shannon Barton, but that’s where her helpfulness ran dry. Michelangelo . . . Steve had sort of burned that bridge after accusing him of hypnotism and pushing him around at his own art showing. And Aiden . . . where was he?
Shit, Steve thought. If they have Dale, that means they probably have Aiden, too. Dale’s plan had been to meet with the leprechaun at the house earlier, to go over the band-funding agreement.
Steve had a sinking feeling. After all Aiden had done for them: letting them stay at his place indefinitely, offering to throw them money while they got Annabel’s music career in order . . . and now he was involved in this fuckery. He didn’t deserve it.
They drove out of San Diego County and into Orange County about an hour and a half after Steve had received the phone call at the Northern Division precinct.
It was nearly 6:30 p.m. when they came to the cemetery. The place had a big parking lot but it was empty.
I guess no one buries their loved ones after the sun goes down.
Still, Steve expected there to at least be some visitors parked in the lot. But nope. Empty.
There was a small white building that acted as the base of operations for the cemetery. That’s where the clerks and undertakers and files of all the bodies on the property would be.
But the front door was locked, and Steve cursed when he tried to open it. He cupped his hands and put his head to the glass door, trying to peer inside.
It was empty. Whoever wanted to meet Steve and Annabel, they weren’t inside the building.
Which meant they must have been on the cemetery grounds . . .
If Steve even had the right place at all. He panicked as he thought about that—he’d been given a two-hour time limit, and now he was in bumfuck nowhere, Orange County. If he’d shown up at the wrong place . . .
Poor Fats.
They walked past the building, onto a green hill that overlooked the entire cemetery property. Headstones and crosses stood like silent gargoyles, in perfect rows and symmetry, all up and down the green that, had it not been for the bodies under them, could have easily been a golf course.
It was quite spooky looking out over the hill at the quiet graveyard, a chill nighttime breeze blowing toward them.
At first it seemed like they’d come in vain. No one was on the property. But then Steve squinted and looked far, toward the end of the cemetery where a big oak tree stood. It was the same tree Steve’s cousin had thought Annabel had appeared from, when he’d first sighted the girl in the white dress.
That means the tree was next to his father’s gravesite.
And there, leaning against the wide, old tree trunk, stood a lone figure.
Squinting through the darkness, Steve couldn’t tell if he recognized the person.
He started walking down the hill with Annabel at his side. They held hands. His legs started quivering, not from the chill, but from the fear in his bones.
As he reached the bottom of the hill, Steve stopped dead in his tracks. He sighed, reached into his jacket pocket, and produced a cigarette. Much to Annabel’s dissatisfaction, he lit the cigarette.
Fuck it. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
He let the cigarette smoke waft in front of him as he started walking again, into the cloud of smoke. The cigarette’s cherry was the only light that led their way as they walked away from the hill and the white building’s dim lights.
At about fifty yards, Steve choked on his cigarette.
He recognized the person leaning against the tree, who was staring back at them, unmoving, leisurely in his stance.
It was Aiden O’Shaunessy.
No, Steve thought, hoping. Then, Where the hell is Dale?
He looked around the grounds of the cemetery. Dale was quite a round, recognizable figure, but he couldn’t see his oafish form anywhere.
Aiden had his legs crossed at his feet. When Steve and Annabel got within twenty yards of the tree, he pushed off from the trunk and stepped toward them.
Steve and Annabel stopped when they were just ten yards from the leprechaun. Three white tombstones separated the duo from Aiden.
“What the hell, Aiden,” Steve said in a low voice. His voice was carried by the wind.
From afar, Steve could tell Aiden was sneering. He had a cynical, dark expression on his face, one Steve had never seen before.
Could he have been so good at hiding his treachery? Steve thought. Then he remembered what January and Scarlet had said: He’s a con man. He’s a gambler. He’s a drunk.
Yes, Steve thought. I shouldn’t be so surprised.
After all the nice things Aiden had done for them . . . it all must have been to get close to him and Annabel. And it had worked like a charm. Like a four-leaf clover.
“Sorry, mate,” Aiden said. He had his hands in his pockets. He wore a green corduroy jacket and brown pants. His bright orange hair ruffled in the wind. His face was pale and freckle-less from this distance.
Soulless, like only a ginger could be.
“Why?” Steve asked. “What did I ever do to you? No—what did Dale ever do to you?”
Aiden shrugged. “Orders, lad. And your fat friend is just a means to an end. That’s all. Collateral damage.”
Steve was still frightened, but for some reason he was less agitated now he knew who he was up against. This entire time he’d been living in a state of constant paranoia—not knowing enough, not knowing who was after him, if anyone!
And now the culprit stood less than thirty feet from him and he felt a sense of calm rush over him.
Memories flooded back. Memories of Steve first running into Aiden, outside the AA meeting, smoking a cigarette . . .
Again at The Shack, when Steve was with Dale and Annabel celebrating their victory of signing a record deal with Imminent Records.
It all made sense now. Aiden had popped up so randomly each time, but Steve just tossed it aside as coincidence. But he couldn’t do that now.
It must have all been calculated. Every run-in with this mischievous leprechaun was probably planned, well in advance.
“I know what you’re probably thinking, mate,” Aiden said. “I can see the wheels turning in your little hamster head—”
“Where is he?” Steve spat.
“You mean Dale?”
Steve frowned.
Aiden looked around his feet, his hands coming out of his pockets and up into the air in a big shrug. Steve realized the leprechaun was looking at the gravestones around him.
Aiden smiled darkly. “Oh, I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”
Steve’s eyes bulged as the realization came to him. “Is he alive?”
“As long as he keeps holding his breath, then yes, I imagine so.”
“You fucking bastard,” Steve said.
Aiden’s smile only widened. “That’s not the worst thing I’ve been called, my friend. Hell, that’s not the worst
thing I’ve been called today. You should have heard your friend screaming and cussing when I put him under the ground. The man has the mouth of a homeless sailor.”
Aiden was enjoying this.
It infuriated Steve. He balled his fists at his sides and took a step forward.
Then Aiden’s hand was back in his pocket and out again in a flash. He was holding a gun. “Ah, ah,” he tsk’d, waving the gun at Steve and Annabel. “I wouldn’t move too fast.”
Steve froze. He said, “Are you going to at least tell us why you’re doing this? What have I ever done to you—or what did Annabel do? Or Dale?”
Aiden shrugged. “Like I said, mate, it’s just business.” He took a step forward and started pacing slowly in a line, not getting any closer to Steve and Annabel. “You see, as long as I bring you to my Seeker, the person I’m Bound to, I can finally go back home. I’ve never been one for Terrus. This place is mightily fucked—your wars and politics and religions and everything in between. I want to get out of here.”
“And who is your Myth Seeker?” Steve asked.
Aiden smiled. “Well it wouldn’t be much fun if I told you, now would it?”
“What does this mystery man want with me?”
“Let’s just say your father royally pissed him off, a long time ago.”
“And he’s taking it out on me?”
Aiden shrugged. “He wants to rid this world of all Mythics. And that starts with getting rid of the Seekers that bring them here.”
“Why?”
“Because, in his mind, Mythics and humans do not mix well.”
“So, he’s like those people that want to kill all the X-Men? Sounds like a big old pussy to me.”
“I’ll tell him you said so,” Aiden said with a grin. “Actually, you can tell him yourself, since you’re coming with me.”
“Not until I get Dale.”
“Then you’d better start digging. I’ve got a shovel next to the tree over here . . .” he trailed off, stopped cold. He was looking over Steve’s shoulder.
Behind Steve, Annabel’s voice carried over the wind. It was a beautiful sound, low and calm and light.
She was singing.
Steve raised his eyebrows and glanced behind him, unsure of what Annabel was doing. “And what are you going to do with her?”
Aiden’s smile vanished, turned upside-down. “You know what I have to do with her, mate . . .”
Annabel’s voice rose an octave. Her melodic, soothing words were getting louder.
Aiden scrunched his face. “What the hell is she doing?”
Steve said, “I won’t let you do it, Aiden. You’ll have to kill me first . . . and then your Seeker will be very pissed, I imagine.”
Aiden sighed, trying to ignore Annabel. Her arms were up in the air now, like she was calling to the gods and goddesses from wherever she came from.
“He’ll be pissed, yeah, but I think he’ll get over it,” Aiden said. He poked the gun to his temple and started scratching his head with it. “Seriously, what in God’s name is she—”
Steve took a step forward.
The ground started to shake.
Annabel’s voice was getting higher and higher. It was like nothing Steve had ever heard. He knew she’d had a great voice, but this . . .
This was something biblical. It was an eerie sound coming from her, something nonhuman, with nonhuman words, and when she looked back down to eye-level, toward Steve and Aiden, her eyes were shining white.
The trembling ground intensified, like an earthquake was on the verge of erupting.
Or a volcano.
Steve took another step forward toward Aiden.
Now the leprechaun was getting worried.
Steve heard scratching sounds . . .
“Dale?” he called out loud, his eyes going to the ground, to the mounds of the gravesites all around him.
“What . . . the . . . FUCK!” Aiden screamed. He pointed the gun at Annabel.
The scratching sound turned into a heavy grating like rain splattering on the pavement. It picked up in volume and in speed.
Steve was almost thrown to his hands and knees, so hard was the ground shaking.
“Tell her to shut up!” Aiden cried out. His hand was quivering, like the rest of his body. He tried to line up his gun on Annabel. “I said shut up!” he repeated, pointing the gun over and over at her.
Steve stumbled but caught himself.
Aiden cocked the hammer of his gun back.
Steve saw it happening in slow motion, like in a dream.
He lunged to the left at the last second, his eyes going wide.
Aiden fired. A loud pop split the night as the gun went off, sending crows cawing into the air from the oak tree.
Steve cried out and clutched at his side.
Annabel was still lost in her trance. Her melodic voice turned into a shriek, a shrill cacophony that threatened to penetrate everyone else’s eardrums.
Aiden cupped his hands over his ears and wailed in agony.
Steve wobbled for a moment then fell to the ground.
The scratching stopped. Everything was silent except for the sound of the banshee’s howling.
The silence lasted for a split second, then—
CRAAACK!
Eruptions from all over the mounds on the grass.
Skeletal and grotesque hands exploded from the ground, pushing past the dirt.
Steve’s heart raced; Aiden fell to his knees to stop Annabel’s voice from penetrating his brain.
Steve felt himself losing consciousness. He pulled his hand from his side and looked. Dark red blood dripped from his palm, the color of the blackest water reflecting from the moon.
Annabel’s voice was dying. Her ancient song was coming to a close.
But it wasn’t a song at all.
It was a summoning.
Aiden gazed up from his painful existence, daring to remove his hands from his ears. His mouth opened at seeing the terror in front of him.
Dead bodies were rising from the graves, pushing and crawling and clawing their way onto the grass. Some of them still had flesh on their bones: stinking, rotting, and worm-infested flesh. Some of the bodies were mere skeletons, missing certain bones but still able to jumble and jangle toward the sound of Annabel’s voice.
Aiden bellowed, either in fear or anger or both.
Steve would have too if he wasn’t in such agony.
The leprechaun jumped to his feet, wobbling, even though the ground wasn’t shaking anymore. All around him the dead were rising, many of them almost completely out of their tombs.
Aiden felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around. A bony finger caressed his arm and he screamed and shot his gun wildly at the thing. The bullet whizzed by the skeleton’s ribcage and pinged off another dead body.
The leprechaun jumped away from where he was standing, away from the piss stain he’d left on the dark grass. He ran in circles and cried out, shooting his gun at the skeletons as they neared him and tried to catch him and touch him . . .
Steve pushed himself onto his elbows.
Annabel was by his side, crouched, her hands on his shoulders. “Come on!” she cried out amidst the chaos. She helped Steve to his feet, even as he clenched his jaw together and fought through the pain.
Everywhere around them, the undead were walking like brainless masses of bones and death, whirling by Steve and Annabel.
But none of them tried to approach Annabel, and as long as Annabel was around Steve, he seemed safe, too.
Now Aiden was at least fifty yards away, out of bullets, still running like a madman and shrieking, away from the cemetery as fast as his feet could take him.
He made it to the bottom of the hill before the white building up front, then disappeared over the crest, his voice echoing as he hightailed it out of there.
“We have to find Dale! He’ll be in the grave that hasn’t been disturbed!” Annabel cried, leading Steve through the mass of wandering dead.
“W-W-What the hell is going on, Bel?!” Adrenaline kept Steve on his feet.
“I told you bad things happen when I sing, Mister Steve! This is what I meant!” she yelled back. All around them were the sounds of crunching and scraping and grating bones.
They found a gravesite nearby that hadn’t been disrupted or destroyed. Whereas most of the other burial sites were now piles of strewn dirt and mud and wood chips from broken coffins, this one had a neat pile of grass covering the mound.
Steve yelled, “Dale!”
But he heard no response. He yelled again and put his ear to the ground.
Then he looked up at the headstone, on instinct:
Here lies
Richard Remington
March 12, 1960 – July 31, 2018
Steve’s eyes went wide. It was his father’s tombstone.
And the gravesite was undisturbed.
Does that mean he’s . . .
“Come on, there’s no time!” Annabel yelled in Steve’s ear, snapping him back to reality.
They came to another untouched gravesite about five yards from the oak tree. Steve saw a shiny thing out the corner of his eye and grabbed the silver handle of the shovel Aiden had left sitting against the tree.
In the distance, some of the skeletons and dead bodies were starting to roam toward the hill and freedom, away from the cemetery.
“Hurry!” Annabel cried. “I’ve lost control of them!”
Steve struck the mound with the shovel. It had looked newer than the others around it, but soon it was just as destroyed as the other open gravesites around them.
“Dale!” he screamed.
A muffled voice answered back, unintelligible but definitely alive.
Steve gripped the shovel at the base and dug as furiously as he could, throwing dirt over his shoulder and all around him.
Five minutes later, the voice on the other end of the ground was becoming clearer.
“Get . . . me . . . the . . . hell . . . out of here!”
Steve glanced up for a second. Where there had been hundreds of undead creatures walking around aimlessly before, now there were half that many. The others were starting to scatter out of sight, as far as their weak legs would take them. Many of them crawled, not being able to support themselves on their bony structures.