“Something weird's going on. I had the strangest dream. I think the ghost of Joseph Young is after me.”
Jake's jaw dropped. “What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I think I was married to him in a former life and now he wants me back.” I told him about my dream. When I was done, Jake ran his fingers through his black hair and whistled.
“That's… impossible,” he said. “Come on, Cara. Think about it. You've been under a lot of pressure lately, and—”
“That explains why I'm going crazy?”
“Well, no,” he said. “I didn't mean it like that. It just sounds so hard to believe.”
“What makes it anymore bizarre than three of my friends dying in the same place of the same thing just days apart?”
Jake didn't have an answer for that. “So you think this ghost is trying to kill you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it didn't feel like hate, it felt like love…”
Jake shot me a funny look.
“You wouldn't understand,” I said. “I don't think the ghost is evil, I think he's just lost and misses his wives. I guess we must have reincarnated or something, but we were sealed together by marriage, so now we're being drawn back to him. Don't you get it? My friends are trapped with him. They need my help. This isn't part of God's plan.”
“OK,” Jake said. “So what do we know about Joseph Young?”
“That he was a polygamist and his whole family died on Halloween, 1890.”
Jake said, “Today's Halloween.”
A coldness crept up my spine, but I ignored it. “We also know that he wants me to come to the cemetery tonight, to his grave, so I can die and be reunited with him and my sister-wives.”
“That's not going to happen,” Jake said. His voice was firm and caring. “Listen, why don't we do some digging online or in the Church records? Try to research Joseph Young, how he and his family died. That might shed some light on how to solve this mess.”
My heart swelled, knowing he believed me—or at least liked me enough to humor me. “Thanks, that'd be awesome, but there's one thing I should do first, and that's talk to Lee, Donnas ex-boyfriend.”
Jake frowned. “What do you want to talk to him for?”
“He might know how the whole thing started. I mean, my friends and I have been alive for years without ever hearing from this ghost. There has to be some reason why it's happening now.”
“Well, you're all the same age as when you died. Girls got married really young back in those days. That'd explain it.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But what if it's something else? Donna died first. Maybe she did something that got the ghost's attention.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I don't know, but there's only one way to find out.”
Jake started the engine. “I'll come with you.”
“No,” I said. “Lee's kind of a jerk. He might not talk to me if you're around.”
“What does that mean?”
I shrugged. “Just do the research, and let me handle Lee. We'll meet later and compare notes.”
Jake dropped me off at school.
I tracked Lee down in the cafeteria and got him to follow me behind the bleachers so we could talk in private. He was tall, blonde, good-looking, but there was something about the way he looked at me that told me he wasn't as nice on the inside as he was on the out.
“What's up?” Lee said. “It must be important for you to drag me all the way out here.”
“It is. It's about Donna.”
“Oh,” Lee said, and his voice lost interest. “I thought maybe you wanted to ask me out, see what you were missing.”
“Are you serious?” I said. “My friends just died!”
He grinned. “I can be pretty comforting. You should give me a try.”
“Don't push it. I need to know why you and Donna broke up.”
His grin faded. “She didn't tell you?”
“No,” I said. “She just told me it was over and wouldn't talk about it to any of us. A few days later, she was dead.”
“You don't think I killed her, do you? Look, I already told the cops—”
“No, I don't think you did it. You may be a lot of things, but you're not a murderer. But I think I know who killed Donna, who killed April and Kim too. He's after me now.”
“Whoa,” Lee said. “What are you talking about? The cops said your friends died of natural causes.”
More like supernatural causes, I thought to myself. “Tell me what happened. The truth, Lee. I swear I won't tell anyone.”
He looked away, and I saw the hurt on his face. He blinked back tears. “I—we—aw, hell. We did it, Cara. We'd been going out a long time, and I finally convinced her to have sex. Only we didn't want anyone to know, so we found a spot no one would ever catch us—”
“The cemetery?” I said. “Duskhaven?”
“Yeah,” Lee admitted. “That's the one. How'd you know?”
“I was just there talking to the caretaker.”
Lee gulped. “You mean he saw us?”
“No,” I said. “At least, I don't think so. He didn't mention it.”
Lee seemed relieved. “OK. So I told her anyplace would be fine, but she insisted on going deeper and deeper into the cemetery. I thought she was stalling, you know, putting me off, but—”
“She took you to the old, fenced-off section?”
“Yeah,” Lee said. “You sure the caretaker didn't say anything?”
“Finish your story,” I said. “I don't have a lot of time.”
The sky was full of storm clouds, the afternoon dim and gray. Only a few hours 'til dark, and I sensed the ghost would be more powerful then, more difficult to resist…
“It was great,” Lee said. “At least for me. When it was over, Donna cried a lot, and I held her and told her it was gonna be OK, that it got better with practice. Only that made her cry even more, so I told her I'd marry her, but then she got this weird, far-away look in her eyes and said she was already married.”
“She did?” I asked. “She said that?”
Lee scratched his head. “I know! Crazy, right? I thought Donna was joking, but you should have seen her face! I dunno, she was like a zombie or something. Kept saying she'd sinned against God and her husband and that she had to go to him. Nothing I said did any good, so I slapped her.” Again, he looked away. “I didn't mean to, I just didn't know what else to do.”
I nodded, pretending what he did was OK so he'd keep talking. “What happened after that?”
“Donna snapped out of it, but then she got super-pissed at me, accused me of leading her astray, and how I better not tell anyone what we'd done. And I didn't, Cara! I didn't tell a soul, I swear to God. I loved Donna. I would have married her.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Is that why you came on to me?”
Lee shrugged. “She's dead. I can't stay broken-hearted forever. You were always nice to me, so I figured maybe—”
“You'd get me in that cemetery too?”
“No!” Lee said. “I wouldn't. I don't ever want to go back to that place. I'd get us a motel or something.”
I rolled my eyes. I was angry at Lee, at Donna, but I was also sad for them both. They were so lost! Had their sin awakened the ghost and brought it after the rest of us? “Tell me one more thing, Lee. Was Donna a virgin?”
He seemed shocked by my question. “Yeah, of course! She bled and everything. Some got all over the grave.”
“I have to go,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.” I turned and walked away.
From behind me, Lee yelled, “So does this mean we're not going out?”
Chapter 5: CONFRONTING THE PAST
I'd seen an old Dracula movie once where some guy spilled blood on the grave where the vampire was buried, and that brought him back to life. Maybe what happened to Donna was the same thing. Maybe some past life memory had drawn her not just to the cemete
ry, but to the actual grave. Some desperate desire to be reunited with her former husband.
I knew how Donna and the others must have felt. I felt the same thing too. Even now, I had to stop myself from returning to the cemetery, to wait on that cold and lonely grave for the ghost to kiss me, to kill me so we could be together again.
I needed to talk to Jake, to ground myself back in reality, not some crazy, distant past. My phone was off. I turned it on and saw I had several messages from Mom and Dad. The school had called wondering why I was absent, and I was in trouble. I couldn't go home, but I could go to the cemetery…
Stop it. Get hold of yourself.
My phone rang, startling me. It was Jake. I told him what Lee said about Donna and the blood on the grave.
“Wow,” Jake said. “That's bad, but you'll never believe what I found out. There wasn't much online, but a friend of my Mom's works over in Church records. She told me that Joseph Young, his wives, and their children were excommunicated for refusing to abandon polygamy. Joseph refused to accept that. He cursed the Church, killed his wives and children, then himself.”
My headache was coming back. “How did he kill them?” I asked.
Jake paused, and I could sense I wasn't going to like what the answer was. “With a hammer,” he said. “Crushed their skulls, then hung himself in the barn with the bodies spread in a bloody circle around him.”
“A circle?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “The guy was a first-class freak.”
A circle was kind of like a seal, wasn't it? Only not one bound by God, but by blood. Love and madness can make a person do terrible things.
The throbbing in my head became relentless. Now that I thought about it, my friends had complained of headaches the day they'd died…
“Cara?” Jake said. “You still there?”
“I-I have to go.” I wanted to say something more, wanted to tell Jake to help me, save me, love me, but no words would come. My arm dropped, the phone sliding from nerveless fingers. It clattered to the pavement and broke like my heart, like my soul. This life wasn't for me. Jake and I had no future. I had only the past, only my husband, my sister-wives and our children…
I began walking. I had to return to them. It was God's will.
No, I argued, not God's will. Joseph's will. His rage, his grief, his twisted, insane love! I was wrong when I said he wasn't evil. No good man takes a hammer to his wives and children. No good man commits suicide. If he was excommunicated, the Church said he was damned to enter a spirit prison, a place he must remain until he repents. But did that mean I was damned too?
What about Donna, April, and Kim? Had we repented and God given us another chance? That didn't sound like anything I'd been taught, but surely God could do whatever he wanted. Maybe he was testing us, seeing if we truly wanted to be free?
An even wilder thought came into my mind. What if this wasn't reality? What if I was still in the spirit prison? What if none of us had ever left, but only thought we had? Maybe time kept passing in the outside world, and we kept being given chances to repent? Had we failed before? Was this our last chance, or would there be more? And why was Joseph still dead in his grave? Perhaps he had never repented, never been given another chance!
Could he be saved, and was it up to me to save him? Or could I only save myself?
Time passed. I kept walking, sometimes toward the cemetery, sometimes away from it. All I knew was I couldn't stop moving, couldn't stop wondering, and as the sky grew dark and the streets filled with kids trick-or-treating, my mind became even more confused, even more doubting. Was I was even in the right reality? Those could be my children or those of my sister-wives… Names came into my mind, names of my babies, memories of conceiving them, bearing them, suckling them.
Life on the farm was hard, but everything would be fine so long as we followed God's plan and obeyed our husband. He could be so kind, yet so cruel. It was hard to know where his love ended and his rage began.
I shouldn't be here alone. I shouldn't have run away from the farm. It's so late! I have to get back to Joseph and the children. They need me so much…
I could hear Joseph's voice, his words clear and commanding. “Rachel… Come to the cemetery. Come to me now!”
Rachel—yes, that was my name. Rachel Young, fourth wife to Joseph Young. We'd been married when I was fourteen. I hadn't had much of a family before. Ma and Pa had been mean to me, and I was glad to be rid of them. Joseph had been sweet at first, even though he was so much older. And what choice did I have? I could do a lot worse, and should be grateful God had seen fit to send me a good man, a good place I could call my own.
Joseph was waiting at the grave, my sister-wives behind him. They were so happy to see me. I wanted to be with them, with all of them, but especially him.
My husband held out his arms in welcome. “Kiss me,” Joseph whispered. “Kiss me and come home, my love!”
His arms embraced me, his touch so cold it burned. The freezing lips, the frosty breath came close, so close I knew only one thought, one desire—to lose myself in them forever. And as I did, I felt a sharp, shattering pain in my skull.
When I came to, I was myself again. Jake was standing over me holding a bloody flashlight. “Sorry,” he said. “I had to knock you out. You were about to kiss that ghost!”
I shuddered. “You saw him?”
Jake nodded. “I saw something. It was all dark and shadowy, shaped like a man, but wasn't solid. Whatever it was, it was cold as hell and let out an awful wail. You sure you're all right?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my head and winced. “Unless you gave me brain damage.”
“It was the only thing I could think of. As soon as I knocked you out, the ghost vanished.” He came over and helped me to my feet, swinging a protective arm around my shoulders. “We should leave.”
I let him lead me from the cemetery to his car. “Jake, is it over? Please tell me his ghost's not coming back!”
“I wish I knew,” he said. “I really do.”
Chapter 6: ANNIVERSARY OF EVIL
It's been five years since that night. Jake and I got married right out of high school, and have three children of our own. Life's been pretty great, but I get sad every October thinking about my friends, about the lives they could have had. I pray for them. I pray that God will give them another chance and they'll find a way out like I did, even if it's only temporary.
Every Halloween, I still hear Joseph's voice telling me to come to the cemetery, to let him kiss me and take me into the earth. Jake locks me in the basement so I can't.
But oh, how I try…
BLACK GLOVES, SHARP KNIFE
Black gloves, sharp knife!
Creeping down the hallway,
creaking up the stairs…
No lock can save you,
no scream, no prayer.
My first kiss cuts deep,
the last brings sweet release.
IMPULSE
At its heart, this is a bittersweet tale about young love, a secret crush, and exploring the boundaries between love and friend-ship. Does crossing that line strengthen the bond or tear us apart? Doesn't sound very horrifying, does it? That's why I threw in a crazed serial killer. Now we're talking…
Chapter 1: A BAD IDEA
I was ten years old when the killings began. Every year, a different girl got her head chopped off: first Carrie Lewis, then Alice White. Last year, it was Jenny Williams. The cops never found the heads. They died at different playgrounds up and down the I-5 corridor from Seattle to Olympia. The news called the maniac the “Playground Killer.” No one knew why he did it, and none of the victims had anything in common except they were teens like me.
The only reason I even knew this much about the case was because the last victim, Jenny Williams, was from my town. She was fourteen when she died and a grade ahead of me. One of the popular girls.
That was something I'd never be
en. I've always been a tomboy, but the past year it was getting obvious I wasn't one of the guys anymore. My boobs were getting big—huge, in fact—and no matter how I tried to hide them, kids still found ways to notice and humiliate me. The worst was when they called me a slut, as if a girl with boobs like mine couldn't be anything else. The truth was, I'd never even kissed a boy before, never wanted to.
Until now. Until Nick.
Nick was my best friend since third grade. He wasn't blind. He'd noticed the changes, but hadn't treated me any different. Which used to be the main reason I liked him, but lately, it was the reason I was mad at him. I loved Nick, knew it in my heart. It scared me that I didn't want him as a friend anymore. I wanted Nick to be my boyfriend. We were perfect for each other, if only one of us would make the first move. But neither of us did.
Like today, we were tossing rocks into Old Man Farley's Pond to watch the frogs scatter.
“I'm bored,” Nick said. “This sucks.”
“So? I'm bored too. You got any ideas?” I stared at him defiantly, daring him to come up with something better than throwing rocks.
Like kiss me.
Nick shrugged and looked away.
A violent urge came over me. I picked up a rock and threw it. Bullseye! One of the frogs sank beneath the water. All my years of softball had paid off. I felt bad, but I also felt good, like I'd gotten out some of my anger.
I wanted to do it again.
“Hey,” Nick said, “we should do something exciting, dangerous…”
“Oh yeah?” The anger died in me as swiftly as it had come. “Like what?”
“Let's go over to the old playground and look for the killer.”
“What? No way! Vanessa Lewis got herself bit by something there and the doctor almost sawed her leg off. Anyway, I like my legs the way they are. I don't want to take any chances with them.” I paused to angle my bare legs for him in a way I hoped was sexy, but Nick didn't seem to notice.
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