Unhallowed Ground

by Kristen Gupton

Dani scrambled back into his line of sight. As she ran for him, she yelled out something unintelligible before falling forward into the snow.

  Kelly got to her as quickly as he could manage, Dani struggling to her feet. He stared, seeing the dark staining in the snow where she’d landed. The front of her pale blue sweatshirt was marred with a good swath of it, too.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kelly asked, reaching out and putting his hands on her shoulders.

  She looked back over her shoulder, her entire body shaking. “Ryan! He’s got a knife! He cut himself open just like the others did!”

  Kelly instinctively moved around her, putting his arms out at his sides to keep her behind him. “Ryan?”

  There was a rasping breath from the other side of the front loader. Sweat tingled across Kelly’s skin at once. It was the same sound he’d heard coming from Mrs. Suhr when he’d found her upstairs. The same sound he’d heard from her in the MRI trailer.

  “Dani, go get in the van!” he ordered back over his shoulder.

  She didn’t immediately move.

  He glanced back to see her not doing as he’d ordered. “Go, Goddamnit! Call Dennis!”

  She offered a weak nod and started to back away.

  Convinced she was going to comply, Kelly fought the weakness in his legs and edged closer to the loader, pressing his back against it. He looked around to see if there was anything he could pick up for defense. There was a lump on top of the loader’s tire beside him, and he reached for it, finding a socket wrench they’d forgotten to put away earlier.

  He watched as Dani managed to get to the van and tug the passenger door open, vanishing inside. Seeing that she’d made it, he started to build the courage to make a run for it as well.

  “Kel?”

  He slowly turned his head to the left, his chest seizing and refusing to draw breath.

  Ryan stood near the back edge of the loader, one hand clamped down over his stomach, the other bracing him against the machine. “Kelly?”

  Kelly could see the dark streaks of blood trailing down Ryan’s legs, a bloody handprint smeared across the loader’s yellow paint.

  “Shit, Ryan...not you...” Kelly whimpered, his throat choking down against his words. “That wasn’t just a scratch, was it?”

  “It isn’t me, Kel,” Ryan croaked, trying to take a step forward before he collapsed into the snow.

  Kelly didn’t know what to do. If the thing he’d seen was in Ryan, he didn’t want to be its next victim. “Dude, just stay there!”

  Ryan tried to crawl closer, his breaths becoming more audible.

  Kelly edged away, fighting his instinct to go to Ryan’s side to help him.

  “Kelly, come on! Hurry!”

  He looked over, seeing Dani sitting in the van with the window rolled down, waving her arms.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Ryan,” Kelly whispered before turning to run.

  The depth of the snow made the run back to the van far harder than it should have been. The entire time he ran, Kelly couldn’t bring himself to look back. If he did so and saw Ryan coming toward him, he was sure he’d lose his mind.

  He made it to the driver’s side door and jerked it open before climbing into the seat and slamming it again. He placed the socket wrench in his lap, his right hand cramped from how hard he’d been holding it.

  Dani looked back at him as the dome light of the van slowly faded out, her hand going to the lock button and pressing it repeatedly.

  Kelly was frozen for a moment, but he took a breath to get his wits about him, and he pulled out his phone. “Did you call Dennis yet?”

  She gave a slight shake of her head. “I was more worried about you getting to the damned van!”

  He nodded and flicked past his lock screen, bringing up the dial pad. Before he got the first number in, however, his phone’s screen flashed bright white before it went dead.

  At the same time, the van’s headlights went out, the engine dying.

  “Oh hell, not now!” Kelly immediately tossed his phone onto the dashboard and tried the ignition, but there wasn’t even a cursory click.

  “Dani, use your phone! Get Dennis!” Kelly begged, turning toward her.

  She smiled and shook her head. “It won’t work.”

  “Give it to me, then! Jesus Christ, Dani, Ryan’s dying out there!” Kelly shot back.

  “He’s useless, anyway.”

  Kelly growled and started to lean closer toward her, intent on yanking her phone out of whatever pocket she’d stashed it in. When she pulled a kitchen knife from the front pocket of her sweatshirt, he froze in place. Even in the dim white illumination from the snow outside, the fact the blade was bloody was impossible to miss.

  “Oh, fuck!” He turned and tried to open the van’s door, but the electric lock wouldn’t disengage.

  Remembering the socket wrench, he picked it up and bashed the window, the tempered glass crumbling. He did his best to haul his body up through the window, but he felt Dani wrap her arms around one of his legs. That caused him to twist and fall, hanging from the window by his knees, the back of his head whacking against the side of the van’s door.

  His mind swam, the pressure in his head from being stuck upside down compounding the pain. It felt as though all the staples in his scalp were going to give way.

  Dani only had to keep some downward force against his legs to stop him from getting free. She moved around enough to get her head out the window.

  Once he saw her appear, Kelly snapped out of his daze. He tried to swing up toward her with the socket wrench, but his effort was laughable. Adrenaline or not, he wouldn’t be doing any curl sufficient to reach her.

  Panic set in, and Kelly began to thrash and kick. His efforts were rewarded when he got her knocked away long enough for his legs to come the rest of the way out the window. His body hit the icy ground hard, but he shoved the pain aside and scrambled to his feet, holding the wrench at his side.

  Dani emerged from the window, her lithe frame able to handle it with far more grace. She dropped to the ground, knife still in hand.

  There was nowhere to go. With the snowfall worsening, Kelly knew sprinting off and getting out of eyesight of the van would be a death sentence. Still, the socket wrench in his hand was far from an idea weapon. He needed to get inside something she couldn’t. He spun and ran across the road.

  Dani didn’t make any sound, simply following along behind him.

  Kelly spotted the backhoe exactly as he’d last seen it near the stone church. He would have gone for the building itself, but there was no way into the thing. The historical society had sealed up all the doors and windows long before to keep vandals out.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to see how close Dani was. She’d fallen behind, but not by much. He climbed the three steps and jerked open the cab door.

  Ice covered the steps, and he fell forward, bashing his chin on the steering wheel and nearly sliding back down to the ground.

  Dani closed the remaining distance as he started to scramble back up the steps. She grabbed his leg with her left hand, refusing to put the knife down.

  Kelly managed to get back up to the cab and sat on the floor beside the seat. Though Dani weighed less than half of what he did, the strength she was able to put into trying to drag him back out was remarkable.

  He braced his hands against the door opening and brought up his free leg before kicking her hand away.

  Losing her grip, she tumbled backward into the snow with a grunt.

  Kelly didn’t wait to see if she was going to get up. He got up into the seat proper and closed the cab door, locking it immediately.

  Snow swirled around the cab, and he was unable to make out anything in the darkness.

  He reached into his coat’s breast pocket, fishing out the solitary key from within. He shoved it into the ignition.

  “Please don’t be gelled,” he prayed before turning the key.

  The cold diesel engine turned over slowly,
the entire machine chugging and shaking around him. She was old, but she was reliable, and the engine began to churn roughly on its own after a few moments.

  He turned on the lights surrounding the backhoe, but couldn’t see much. Dani was no longer anywhere near the stairs.

  Kelly reached up and grabbed the handle to the rotating spotlight and scanned the darkness, doing his best to see through the snow.

  Dani was visible, but she’d given up coming after him. She was on her way back toward the road.

  “Shit, Ryan...” Kelly hoped the machine wouldn’t simply stall out from being shifted with the engine still cold. Its massive tires turned without issue, making quick work of getting through the ever-deepening snow. A massive coil of snow began to build up in the loader bucket on the front of the backhoe as he headed for Dani.

  She turned toward him, her expressionless face visible in the lights on the front of the machine.

  Kelly grit his teeth and screamed in his throat, doing nothing to alter his path. He was going to hit her.

  Dani raised her arms right before vanishing from his line of sight, swallowed into the mass of snow riding in the blade.

  Kelly kept right on going forward. He didn’t know what would happen to her, but the crush of the snow should have been enough to neutralize her. With the bucket down, he hoped she’d be kept from going under the wheels outright. All he needed was her to be stopped long enough for him to go find Ryan.

  The backhoe jerked hard when he hit the roadway, the loader bucket scraping into the asphalt. He’d not put on his belt, and the violent bucking as he crossed the roadway bounced him from the pedals, causing the backhoe to surge wildly forward until he was back on the relatively flat ground of the cemetery again.

  He saw the glint of the reflective tape on the loader and headed for it. Ryan was crumpled into a heap beside it, not having gotten far from earlier.

  Kelly swept around with the spotlight again, looking to see if he could spot Dani, but she wasn’t visible.

  He unlocked the door and jumped to the ground, getting to Ryan’s side.

  Ryan weakly lifted his head from the snow.

  “Come on! I’m sorry,” Kelly said, reaching down to drag Ryan up to his feet.

  Ryan was little more than dead weight against him. He brought up his right hand momentarily, making a gesture for his inhaler.

  Kelly shook his head, dragging him toward the backhoe. “Dude, I know, but we need to get locked inside this, first.”

  The wind blew harder, and Kelly did everything he could to shove Ryan up the steps into the cab. He didn’t know the extent of his companion’s injuries, but he hoped he could make the short climb. Kelly knew there was no way he could actually carry Ryan up.

  Ryan’s head swam, his chest to tight to draw in anything. His hands were numb from the time he’d been on the ground, unable to get his inhaler without help. Then, there was the pain across his stomach from the slash Dani had inflicted.

  Despite it all, however, he managed to get up inside. The cab wasn’t meant for more than one person, so he struggled to get behind the driver’s seat, to stand where the controls for the hoe were located.

  Kelly didn’t take too much time to appreciate the effort, and he climbed up inside, locking the door behind him.

  “Where’s your inhaler?” Kelly asked, turning to look back at Ryan.

  He swatted at one of his coat pockets, his hand curled into a non-functioning, loose fist.

  Kelly fished it out and tipped it up to Ryan’s lips, giving a few pumps of it as Ryan struggled to pull in enough air to get the medicine into his lungs.

  Ryan slid down, his body wedged into the space between the control sticks to the hoe, unable to stand anymore.

  Kelly turned forward and made sure the heater was turned all the way up, though it would take longer for the engine to warm up and make it meaningful.

  “Can you give me your phone?” Kelly asked.

  Ryan tipped his head back against the Plexiglas window behind him, his eyes dim. He spoke, his words dry and weak. “It’s dead.”

  “Shit!” Kelly glanced at the fuel gauge. “Okay, Ryan, you gotta hold on. You know it’s gonna be a long, rough ride back to town in this bitch.”

  “Where is she?” Ryan asked. The albuterol was slowly working to unwind the tension in his chest, but this attack was bad enough he knew he needed to get to the hospital. This was more than his rescue inhaler was designed to combat.

  “I don’t know right now. How badly did she cut you?” Kelly asked, able to pick up the rusty scent in the air from Ryan’s continued bleeding.

  “Breathing’s more important right now,” he replied. “Guts aren’t dragging, so...”

  “Fair enough.” Kelly turned forward and shifted to get them going again. As he turned them back toward the highway, Dani appeared in the lights, standing on the other side of the road.

  Kelly let the backhoe roll to a stop as he stared at her. The knife was still in her damned hand. He knew he couldn’t help her. If whatever had been in all the others was inside of her, she was already dead. The only thing he could try to do was stop it from getting inside anyone else.

  He glanced back, seeing Ryan had his eyes closed as he struggled to keep his breathing controlled. Kelly didn’t know how Ryan would act if he knew Dani was out there.

  ...so he didn’t tell him.

  Kelly came off the clutch and hit the accelerator. He lifted the bucket enough to clear the road this time, before plowing into Dani without hesitation.

  He kept right on going, hoping to trap her in enough snow to keep her down.

  Kelly only hit the brakes when he was in honest danger of running over the area he’d left a few empty graves prior. He put the machine in to reverse and eased back. All of the snow and dirt collected by the loader bucket rested there before him, Dani’s body not visible within.

  Kelly let out the breath he’d been holding, suddenly aware of the nausea seizing his stomach. There was a hint of movement from the snow pile in the backhoe’s spotlights. A section of compacted snow broke away, one of Dani’s arms appearing, and it moved.

  “Shit,” Kelly whispered, not knowing what to do. There was another shift in the snow, but this time, it wasn’t from Dani, it was the whole mound.

  Kelly had left the mound of snow on top of a sheet of plywood covering one of the open graves. The added influx of snow weight was more than the quarter-inch sheet could hold, and it was slowly bowing down into the hole beneath.

  He took one more look back at Ryan before reaching forward and lifting the front bucket, allowing the machine to roll forward just enough to get the bucket over the mound of snow.

  “Sorry, but fuck you,” he grumbled, before pushing the loader bucket’s control stick, allowing it to sink and smash down into the snow pile.

  The plywood beneath gave way, the whole mess dropping into the grave with a resounding thump.

  Over the sound of the engine, he was sure he heard a muffled scream.

  After reversing a short distance, he saw the mixture of snow and dirt had been nearly enough to fill the grave to the top.

  It wasn’t enough to appease him, though.

  He maneuvered around to line up with the pile of dirt resting next to the grave before shoving it forward to cap off the hole. While he had the inclination to run his tires over the lot of it, he didn’t want to risk getting stuck if the snow compacted beneath the dirt too much.

  It was the best he could do under the circumstances. He turned the machine away from the grave and headed back to the road. The drive back to town wouldn’t be a quick one. Luckily, Ryan was still too preoccupied with the simple act of breathing to give any attention to it.

  Chapter

  59

  Deputy Bryant pulled out of Madgie’s driveway, easing back onto the street. His relief had arrived to watch over the scene until the coroner could arrive. Exhausted, he slowly rolled down the icy street, before coming to Brayton’s single traff
ic signal.

  He eased to a stop for the red, his eyes drawn toward the slowly approaching lights to his right.

  “What the hell?” He watched as the rusted backhoe bounced through the intersection before him. As it passed, he recognized Kelly in the driver’s seat easily enough.

  A spike of adrenaline hit him. He knew they wouldn’t have brought the damned thing into town unless something had gone seriously wrong at the worksite. He turned on his lights and disregarded the red, going to follow.

  Kelly saw the flashing lights behind him, but he wasn’t going to stop until he got to the hospital. Fortunately, given the hour and the resumed snow, there wasn’t any traffic. The insanely bright street lights slowly crept by, the drive through town seeming far longer than normal. Finally, he reached the hospital and turned the massive beast into the driveway, rolling it up just short of hitting the awning over the emergency entrance.

  Dennis hopped out of his Expedition and ran to the side of the backhoe as Kelly opened the door.

  “What in the actual hell are you doing?” Dennis asked.

  Kelly raised his blood-stained hands before him. “Ryan’s in here, he’s hurt bad.”

  Dennis hesitated for only a moment before running into the emergency entrance and getting help.

  Kelly turned around and worked to help Ryan up from the space he’d been wedged into.

  With his breathing slightly easier as the warm air in the cab had helped, he’d come to appreciate the amount of pain to his stomach. Getting up felt like his intestines would spill out, and he refused to unclasp his arms from around his middle as Kelly worked to get him out of the cab.

  Some ER staff appeared at the bottom of the steps, and they helped ease Ryan down before getting him situated onto a gurney.

  Kelly got out as well, helpless to do anything as Ryan was quickly rolled away.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Dennis asked, standing beside him.

  Kelly bit the inside of his cheek. “You’re about to arrest me and put me away for the rest of my life is what.”

  “You care to explain?” Dennis asked, turning to face him.

  “We went out to find my phone. Dani started to wander off into the cemetery, and Ryan went after her. Next thing I know, she’s running back toward me and Ryan’s bleeding. I figured he’d cut himself open like all the others have done,” Kelly said, his eyes burning. “I went to the van with Dani, and that’s when she attacked me with a fucking knife.”