Unhallowed Ground

by Kristen Gupton

  That done, he started to trudge back toward his room, hoping that extinguishing the fire in his stomach would help him get a little more rest.

  On his way through the living room, he stopped, though. Dani and Ryan hadn’t bothered to close the curtains, and he saw movement outside.

  Madgie waddled along the sidewalk out front. Kelly nearly dismissed it, assuming the old woman was simply walking to work because her car was wrecked. He hesitated, however.

  As he watched her pass before the house, something didn’t seem right. Groggy, he struggled to focus, and he realized she wasn’t wearing a coat. While Madgie undoubtedly had enough fat on her frame to keep her warm under most circumstances, Kelly knew how long the walk was, and it was most certainly below freezing.

  A cold shock ran across the back of his neck, hackles rising.

  As Madgie neared the streetlight in front of his house, the already painful glare of the thing momentarily brightened before it flickered and died, cutting off his view of the scene.

  With his night vision compromised from staring toward the light before it had gone out, he was rendered blind. Kelly remained where he was, dropping his unseeing gaze down toward the floor. Adrenaline rushed into his blood, his heart pounding in his ears.

  The alarm on Dani’s phone started to go off. Kelly yelped and jumped back. He caught the edge of the coffee table and went down, hitting the floor and ending up on his back, staring up into the darkness.

  Dani and Ryan both bolted up from the bed.

  “What in the hell was that?” Ryan asked, moving toward the wall and scrambling to find the light switch.

  Kelly raised an arm and covered his eyes as the light overhead came on, and he groaned.

  “What are you doing?” Dani asked, coming around the end of the foldout bed and staring down at Kelly. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t look out the window,” was all Kelly could manage, his chest tight, the wind knocked out of him.

  Ryan came over and crouched beside him. “Kelly?”

  “Don’t look out the fucking window!” he repeated, lowering his arm and struggling to sit up.

  Ryan and Dani exchanged looks, but something dug at both of them, and they froze in place.

  “Madgie’s out there,” Kelly choked out, trying to stand.

  “What?” Dani waved at Ryan, urging him to help Kelly up.

  He did as requested and rose, offering Kelly his hand.

  Kelly took it and got up, his head spinning. He moved and sat with his back to the window at the end of the bed.

  Though Dani wanted to ask him if he was all right, the comment he’d made about her grandma being outside caught her attention. She turned and looked toward the window. Though the streetlight was out and it was dark, the old woman was close enough to the glass that the living room light illuminated her.

  Ryan glanced at Dani and turned to follow her gaze. He, too, froze up, an electric bolt of fear rolling down his spine. “...Kel?”

  Kelly sat with his head hung, his eyes burning in his fear. “She’s out there, isn’t she? Right up close to the glass?”

  “Yeah...” Dani replied. Though it was her grandmother, something wasn’t right.

  “Don’t go out there,” Kelly begged, his skin crawling, literally sensing Madgie’s hollow stare against his back.

  Madgie remained out there for several moments before turning away and moving out of the shaft of light coming from the window.

  Dani shook herself out of it. “Goddamn it. She’s just walking to work because the car’s wrecked.”

  Ryan slowly pulled his gaze from the window. “Dani...”

  The girl waved her hands at her boyfriend and moved around the couch heading toward the front door. “I gotta tell her to wait a minute, so I can just give her a ride to work with me.”

  “Don’t you open that door,” Kelly begged, lifting his head and looking at her as she stepped in front of him.

  “What?” Dani asked, pausing.

  There were tears in his eyes, his complexion washed out. “Dani, don’t you open that fucking door!”

  She scoffed and looked over at Ryan, wanting some backup. “Ryan?”

  However, Ryan made no move, nor did he come to her defense as she’d hoped. “Yeah, I’m...I’m with Kelly on this. If she’s walking to work, just let her do it. It’s only another block from here.”

  “Ryan! It’s cold as hell out there, and she’s not exactly a power walker!” Dani snapped back, turning away to go to the door.

  Kelly’s arm shot out and grabbed her wrist. “I said don’t open that door!”

  Dani’s rage flared, and she immediately spun around, giving Kelly a good whack in the head with her free hand. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

  She’d struck where the staples were in his scalp, and a white flash of pain bolted through his head. His grip on her faltered, and he curled forward, placing both hands over the injury.

  “Dani!” Ryan yelped, quickly getting to Kelly’s side. “What the hell?!”

  She froze in her tracks, seeing the blood already running between Kelly’s fingers, his wound having partially reopened from her blow. “Oh, shit, Kel...I’m sorry!”

  He didn’t give her a verbal reply. His head hurt, an immediate sensation of his skull being scraped out with a spoon grinding between his ears.

  Ryan saw the blood and scowled over at her. “Great, now we need to take him back to the goddamned hospital. Nice job.”

  “I didn’t mean to, but he shouldn’t have grabbed me!” she shot back, crossing her arms over her chest. Nausea writhed in her gut from what she’d done. Though she’d felt it had been justified, guilt washed in on her.

  Ryan sat at Kelly’s side, placing a hand against his back. “Kel? Are you okay?”

  He pulled his hands away from the top of his head and stared down at them, seeing the blood. “Damn it... Is she gone, at least?”

  Ryan glanced back at the window for a moment. The streetlight was back on, but Madgie was nowhere to be seen. “Yeah, she moved along. You want me to look at your head?”

  Kelly sighed and tipped his head toward him.

  Ryan pushed back Kelly’s hair, seeing the centermost staple sticking up, only one end of it still hooked into his scalp. “It’s just one of them got knocked loose. Bleeding like a son of a bitch, though.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dani whispered, though she didn’t get any closer. “You shouldn’t have grabbed me, though. What’s wrong with the both of you? I just wanted to give her a ride to work! She didn’t even have her coat on, and it’s gotta be ten below out there!”

  Kelly slowly brought his gaze up to meet hers. “Don’t you think it’s a little weird she wasn’t wearing a coat?”

  “That’s kinda the point, and it’s way too cold for her to be out like that,” she replied, turning away and grabbing her change of clothes for work.

  “Dani, why would she leave the house without a coat to walk all the way to work?” Kelly asked.

  She spun around, her cheeks burning in her anger and frustration. “I don’t know! Why the hell does it matter? You guys are really being assholes about whatever it is you think is going on lately!”

  Kelly looked at Ryan beside him and gave a small shrug. “Grace was out there the night William died in the cold. Robert walked out of the hospital last night in just his gown, and there were shoeless footprints in the snow this morning. Either everyone in town is growing immune to the cold one by one and mysteriously all interested in my house, or something is up.”

  Ryan didn’t like it, but he was torn between siding with Dani or Kelly. “She’s too fat to probably really be hurt by the cold. Like a whale.”

  Dani growled between her clenched teeth and stormed down the hall to get changed in the bathroom. “You’re both assholes. I want you to know that.”

  Kelly dropped his gaze to the floor, reaching up and touching his aching head, his hair wet with blood. “I’m gonna go shower. Ryan, if she absolutely i
nsists on going out there to head to work, I’d sure feel a whole lot better about it if you went with her. You know, to make sure Madgie’s really okay and all.”

  He patted Kelly’s back and stood up. “I don’t think that’s a bad idea. Sorry she clocked you like that. She’s small, but she’s strong.”

  “No kidding.” Kelly stood up, dizzy for a few seconds. “If you want to take her car, I can come over with the truck after I get cleaned up, then we can get the parts to your dad.”

  “Sounds good,” Ryan eyed him for a moment, seeing him waver unsteadily. “Are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t get another concussion hitting the floor, did you?”

  “No, I’m okay.” Kelly shook his arms at his sides, trying to scrape up some bravado, though he hardly felt any. “You better get dressed. She’s not in the mood to screw around. I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

  Ryan offered him a smile, but Kelly didn’t see it. He dropped his gaze to the floor and slogged back to his room.

  Kelly went into the master bath and turned the shower on before he looked in the mirror. A trail of blood ran down his face, and his complexion remained pale. He stared at himself for several minutes, until the steam built up enough to obscure his view.

  His hands curled around the edge of the countertop and hung his head. Exhausted, hurt, and emotionally spent, he didn’t bother to hold back the tears.

  He was absolutely losing his mind, and it scared him more than anything else he’d yet been through.

  Chapter

  44

  “I think you need to take his ass back to the hospital,” Dani said, arms across her chest, eyes fixed out the windshield.

  Ryan eased the car around the corner, the road icy again. “Well, since you hit him, I might just have to.”

  “Ryan! He grabbed me!” She turned her head, glaring at him.

  “I know, and he wasn’t right to do so, but you know how freaked out he’s been, and can you really blame him?” Ryan asked.

  She rolled her eyes before looking forward again. “I guess not. I’ll give him some free donuts or something when he brings the truck over. That usually cools him off. Hell, maybe we can take him for ice cream tonight. That’s kinda his thing.”

  “You’re a trooper.” Ryan pulled into the parking lot, the bakery dark. “We didn’t somehow get here before her, did we?”

  Dani leaned forward and placed her hands against the dashboard. “I wasn’t really looking. Oh man, I hope she didn’t slip on the ice somewhere. Let me run in and check. She might just be in the back.”

  Ryan nodded and pulled the keys from the ignition. “I’m going with you.”

  The interior of the bakery was silent except the hum from the assorted refrigerators. Dani flipped on the lights, but there was no sign Madgie had shown up.

  “Please, God, don’t tell me she went down and broke her hip!” she groaned as they headed back out to the car.

  “Hey, maybe after getting to Kelly’s house, she realized she’d left her coat at home.” He glanced over and forced up a smile before tugging open the driver’s side door. “She probably just went back to get it.”

  “Maybe.” After getting in, Dani turned and nearly put her face against the window, scanning the darkness for any sign of the old woman.

  Ryan went slowly to avoid losing traction on the ice and give Dani the best look she could get. They retraced the path Madgie should have logically taken if she’d been going from home to the bakery.

  When they got to Madgie’s house, the place was dark. Dani’s heart sank. While she’d not seen any evidence of her grandmother on the drive, she still worried they’d missed her somehow.

  She got out of the car and started up toward the front door. While Madgie hadn’t been particularly kind to Ryan in recent days, he was compelled to go with her. Kelly’s fear over Dani being left alone only compounded his own worry.

  Dani tried the front door, but it was locked. She shoved her key into it and pushed the heavy door open.

  “Grandma?” she called inside, but there was no answer.

  She looked back over her shoulder at Ryan. “Maybe she just did come back for her coat and we missed her somehow. Maybe she went a different way?”

  Ryan shoved his hands down into his pockets and shrugged. He had no idea where the old woman was.

  “Well, you want to run in and check the house out just to make sure?” he asked.

  Dani gave him a nod and she went inside, groping for the light switch. Though she flicked it up, the living room remained dark.

  “Damn it, the power’s out,” she grumbled.

  Ryan turned around, noticing there were lights on in a few of the other houses around them. “Naw, neighbors are lit up. Probably just the old breakers tripping again. I’ll go around back and reset them.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, pulling her cell phone out and using it to light up the entryway.

  “Wait here, it’ll only take a second.” He left the porch and walked around the old structure. Though he anticipated reaching over the fence to flip open the latch, when he got to the side of the house, the gate was partially open already.

  He paused for a moment but realized Madgie had probably tried to reset the breakers herself. However, the box was fairly high off the ground, and she wasn’t exactly capable of the acrobatics needed to reach the upper breakers.

  The cover to the fuse box was closed, and he had to fuss with it for a moment to get it to open up. It finally gave way with a metallic squeal.

  Ryan looked the breakers over, spotting all of them in the off position. While that was unusual, he brushed it off and reached up, pushing the ones within his reach back on. He’d need to drag a ladder out of the garage to get the others, but he could see the light in the kitchen was on, and he supposed that was good enough for the time being.

  He walked toward the back door of the house to try entering through the kitchen. Someone was lying in the snow. It simply wasn’t big enough to be Madgie, and as he got closer, he realized it was a naked man.

  Ryan went a little closer, the back of his neck tingling. Through the light coming out of the kitchen windows, he could see the dark splatters in the snow.

  While he wanted to go closer to the body, his legs simply locked up on him before he reached it. Tightness grew in his chest, and he fumbled for his rescue inhaler, immediately taking a few hits from it. He sidestepped around the body, recognizing who it was.

  Ryan backed his way up the stairway to the kitchen door, groping behind him for the knob. It was unlocked, and he opened it, quickly slamming it closed behind him again. The glass on the floor crunched beneath his shoes, and he looked down, seeing blood smeared and splattered all over the linoleum around him.

  Dani stepped into the kitchen from the doorway to the living room. She locked gazes with Ryan, noting the lack of color in his face.

  “Ryan? Are you okay?” she asked.

  He shook his head and moved to lean back against the counter. “Call your cousin. I just found Robert Pennick.”

  “Shit, where?” she asked. Dani started to walk toward Ryan, but her eyes widened as she took notice of the blood on the floor.

  “He’s dead. At the bottom of the stairs in the backyard,” he managed before bringing up his inhaler and taking another hit from it.

  Chapter

  45

  Kelly sat in the truck before the bakery, but there wasn’t anyone there other than a few farmers wanting their morning donuts. It had been over an hour since Ryan and Dani had left his house, and he couldn’t imagine why they weren’t there.

  He was just about to call Ryan when he spotted Madgie walking around the corner. It was nine-below-zero according to the truck’s display, and yet the old woman was still missing her coat.

  She went to the front door and unlocked it before disappearing inside, ignoring the men standing around waiting. Perplexed, Kelly looked at his phone sitting on the dash before picking it up and calling.

  It wa
s answered on the first ring. “Kel? Where are you?”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, hearing the waver in Ryan’s voice. “I’m sitting here in front of the bakery wondering where the hell everyone is. Madgie just showed up.”

  “Oh, thank God! Dani! Madgie’s at the bakery!” Ryan called out. “Kel, we’re at Dani’s house. We couldn’t find Madgie after we left your place so we came back here. Uh...”

  “Ryan, you sound really freaked out.” Kelly watched as the lights inside the bakery were turned on.

  The herd of old men out front filed in through the doors, one of them turning the closed sign to open of his own volition as they entered.

  “I am,” he admitted. “Dude, Robert Pennick is lying dead in the back yard.”

  “No shit?” Kelly’s hands immediately went cold, an unwelcomed jolt crawling down his spine.

  “Yeah. When we got here the power was out. I went around back to reset the breakers, and I found him.” The telltale wheeze of Ryan’s asthma was evident in his voice. “Glass was broken out of the kitchen door, there’s blood all over. We didn’t know where Madgie was...”

  “Well, like I said, she just showed up at the bakery,” Kelly popped open the truck’s door and got out. “I’m going to go in and tell Madgie what’s going on. I’d imagine she’ll close the shop, and I can bring her there.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good,” he said. “Dennis is already here, and I doubt he wants us leaving right now.”

  “Good, okay. Let me get her and we’ll be there quick.” Kelly went up to the bakery door.

  “Okay.” Ryan didn’t say anything else, the call ending.

  Chapter

  46

  Kelly entered the bakery to the expectant looks of the men hovering near the counter. The donut case was empty, and Madgie had vanished off into the back.