by Sheri Leigh
"Fireworks,” she whispered. “M-80's, cherry bombs—there's some highly illegal stuff here.”
“I’ll say.” He handed her another box.
"Shane my pockets are getting full," she said, taking yet another box from him.
Shane began to fill his own pockets. Then he opened his jacket part way and began stuffing boxes inside.
"Do we really need so much?" Dusty looked around in the darkness.
"Better safe than sorry."
"Here." He grabbed the box of fireworks and began putting those inside her jacket. She squealed. "Shh! Zip it up."
She zipped the jacket up, wide-eyed.
"I look pregnant," she whispered. He shined the flashlight on her and then laughed.
"About twelve months."
That made her giggle, and she put her hands to her mouth but she couldn’t stop.
"Shh!" Shane said, shining the flashlight back on the shelf. "Will you be quiet?" He arranged the boxes carefully with gloved hands, trying to make it look as if the supply hadn’t been depleted.
"Shane," Dusty gasped, still laughing. "I have to pee."
The look on his face when he turned toward her cracked her up.
"Dusty, be quiet, okay?" he asked, almost pleading.
"Your face." Dusty laughed behind her hands. "Your face! Oh, god, I'm going to pee my pants!"
That broke Shane up. Dusty leaned weakly against him in the darkness, still laughing.
After a few moments had lapsed she said, "I still have to go."
"Okay." Shane grinned. "Let's get out of here. We'll find some bushes you can go in."
Dusty stared at him, horrified. "That's gross!" she hissed.
"God, I love you," he laughed, pulling her toward the back door.
They went out into the still, cold night, holding hands and laughing.
Dusty managed to hold it until they made it back to Shane’s, where they dumped all of their stolen ammunition and spent that last night together before the end, sleeping belly to belly in his bed.
Chapter Thirteen
They stood outside of the cemetery, the six of them together for the very last time. Trees loomed beyond the iron fence, which rose spear-like from the ground. Graves, arranged in rows, seemed haphazard from this angle among winding paths of asphalt. Headstones rose darkly, stretching up toward the sullenness of the moon and the wide expanse of black sky above them, casting slanting shadows in the snow.
"I feel like Butch Cassidy or something," Jake said in a low voice, hefting the gun in his hand. He had a .38. Dusty's own gun, Nick's .45, felt heavy in her hands.
"I feel like going home and watching T.V." Evan eyed the fence. "Letterman should be on."
"I feel like a Big Mac," Billy said, a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun propped against his shoulder.
"Funny, you don't look like one," Chris remarked.
No one laughed.
"Once we get over the fence, we'll split up in twos," Shane told them. "Leave the guns on the outside of the fence and when you get over, reach through to get them. We don't need anyone shooting themselves."
They began to climb. The fence was wet from the melting snow. Dusty's Nikes slipped on the cross bar. Being shorter than they were, it took her longer to find a way to get over without killing herself. When her feet were on the ground she let out her pent-up breath. Those spikes were no joke.
"I hate this damned fence." Chris reached through it to pick up his gun. It was a .45, like Dusty's. Evan, like Billy, had a sawed-off twelve gauge. “If I spear my nuts on this thing, my wife is gonna kill me.”
Dusty stood close to Shane. He was looking across the cemetery, holding a flashlight, the heavy-duty kind, in one hand, his gun in the other.
"Billy, you’ve got the other flashlight, right?" Shane asked. Billy flashed it as an answer.
"And you have the other one, Jake?"
"Yeah," Jake agreed.
"Okay. We'll do it this way. Evan, you go with Jake. Billy, take Chris with you. I'll take Dusty. We've got to check the mausoleums first. But be careful," he warned.
Shane met Dusty's eyes and then looked around at them, shaking his head. "Just don't mess around, okay?"
"And yell if you see anything," Dusty reminded them, as if anyone needed reminding.
They all paused to look around, and Dusty looked back toward the car with a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was parked in its usual spot by the eastern fence. What if there are only five of us left to get into it? she thought. Or none of us? She shivered.
"Let's get moving," she said. "I'm cold."
"Who wants to cover the back?" Shane looked around the circle they made. No one answered. There were no streetlights back there like the ones that buzzed out here on Hubbard.
"We will." Jake looked at Evan. "Is that okay with you?"
"Good deal." Evan nodded, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
They started across the graveyard, hopping over the smaller headstones, winding around the larger ones. Dusty watched them go and the ache in her stomach got worse.
"We'll cover the middle," Chris told Shane. "You stay up here and get these up front. And keep an eye on the road."
Shane nodded.
Chris tipped him a salute. "See ya in a while, boss."
"Not if I see you first," Shane said as he watched him walk in the direction that Jake and Evan had gone. Dusty could barely make out their shapes as they got farther away.
"Do you think it's here?" Dusty asked him.
"Yeah.” Shane looked over at her. "I just wish I could remember where."
He started to walk, and Dusty followed him closely. The snow crunched under their shoes. Shane had abandoned his boots for the occasion and his feet were clad in a beat-up pair of Keds.
Dusty followed the tracks he left in the snow, walking between the rows of headstones. They were drawing near the first mausoleum and it looked pale gray in the moonlight. Icicles hung precariously from the roof, dripping onto the melting snow below. The family name engraved read Jackson.
"Stay behind me," Shane told her, slowing his pace. She didn’t argue with him. He flicked the flashlight on and Dusty gripped her gun firmly in both hands, looking around him. He shined the light around the door, running the beam over its edges. It was shut.
"Are you—?"
"Shh." He motioned for her to be quiet, mounting the two cement steps. She followed and waited, her breathing shallow, taking the flashlight from him. Then he shouldered the door open, stepping inside, the gun pointed in front of him. Dusty quickly flashed the light inside. Nothing.
At least, nothing unusual. Just six cemented-in coffins.
"Next." Shane turned to face her.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. "Don't point that at me," she said, backing out of the mausoleum.
"Sorry." He shut the door behind him.
She looked off into the distance and made out the shapes of two people. Chris and Billy, most likely. "Sounds like they haven't found anything."
"Yeah. But I think splitting up may have been a bad idea." Shane started to walk again. "If they find it, it's going to be all over before I can get there."
"They've got the same guns and bullets we do," Dusty said, walking next to him. "And like Chris said, we get it done faster this way."
"Yeah, I thought so at first, too, but I forgot—that thing has an advantage over them that it doesn't have over me. I’ve seen it," he told her, dodging a tree. It split them up for a moment. "They just may flip out long enough for it to get them."
"I doubt it," Dusty said, but the thought itched at her. There was safety in numbers. Bare tree branches swayed above them, casting shadows in the moonlight.
"Here we are," Shane said and Dusty looked up at it. It was larger than the last. The inscription read: Thompson. They were still one of the more "important" families in Larkspur.
Again, the beam traced the edges of the door. Shut. She held the light steady, gun pointed in the same direction
in her other hand. Shane stood there, looking back at her, and she had an awful image of the door pulling open and Shane falling inward, long claws reaching out—
"Ready?" Shane asked. She nodded.
He shouldered the door, but it stuck. He tried again and there was a loud scraping sound when the door flew open and Shane stumbled inward, sprawling across the cement floor.
Dusty gasped, hurrying up the steps, flashing the light around, and finding nothing but Shane lying on his back, looking up at her.
"You okay?" She knelt beside him. "Are you hurt?"
"I didn't know you cared." He leaned up on his elbows, grinning.
"Come on." She shoved him, standing up. "I don't like it in these mausoleums."
Shane groaned, getting up, rubbing his hip. He leaned over and picked up his gun.
"Lucky thing it didn't go off," he said, looking at it.
"Come on." Dusty hugged herself, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. Even in here it was cold, although the wind was less.
"Well, that's two down." Shane walked toward her, reaching to close the door. "And we haven't heard anyone yelling. Maybe I was right when I said it moved on."
Dusty screamed, backing quickly out. She forgot about the steps and fell, landing in the snow, dropping both her gun and her flashlight.
"Something ran over my foot!" she cried, pointing.
Shane came to retrieve the flashlight and then she heard him laugh from inside.
"It was a mouse," he called. He came out, shutting the door. It made the same awful scraping noise as it shut.
"Are you okay?" He offered her a hand and Dusty took it, letting him pull her up.
"Scared the daylights out of me," she told him and she wasn't kidding. She was trembling in his arms.
"You scared him, too," he said. She closed her eyes for a moment, leaning against him, into the familiar Old Spice and leather combination.
"You okay?" he repeated.
She smiled. "My ass is wet, and I'm going to catch pneumonia, but other than that, I'm just peachy.”
"Awww, poor baby," he said, caressing her wet behind.
She slapped his hand away. “Quit!”
He grabbed her bottom, squeezing. "We'll have to take you home and get you out of those wet clothes."
"Get away from me, you fiend!" she cried, laughing. She leaned over to retrieve her gun.
"Sounds good, though, doesn't it?" he asked, reached over and squeezing her hand.
"The best," she said, returning his smile. "After all of this is over, we—"
The screams cut her off.
"They found it." Shane’s voice was flat and he started to run.
It took her a moment to move, as if the messages to her brain were being delayed somehow. Then she followed him, instinct kicking in. His strides were longer and he was faster, jumping over headstones she went around. She followed him as fast as she was able, but her feet were slipping in the snow, slowing her down.
And the screams...
They were closing the distance, but the wind carried the words away, and she could only hear sounds. She couldn't tell exactly where they were coming from. And then, there was a sound like firecrackers, but she knew the sound of gunshots well enough not to mistake them. Shane seemed to know exactly where he was going and his pace never slowed.
Then, the screams stopped, and there was just the sound of the wind and their feet on the snow. Shane paused then, and Dusty caught up to stand beside him. Her breathing was short and harsh and she had a stitch in her side. Shane glanced at her. It was too quiet and her eyes widened. The silence was worse, so much worse.
"No," Shane breathed. "No, damnit, no!"
He began to run again and she followed him. The spaces between headstones were larger back here and they ran between the rows. Dusty concentrated on keeping up with him and maintaining a tight grip on her gun. She held the flashlight in her other hand.
Then she ran into Shane, who stopped abruptly, and she steadied herself by grabbing onto the back of his jacket. She peeked around him and saw the mausoleum looked similar to the others, rectangular and ugly, with two cement steps leading up to the door. Except this door stood slightly ajar. Dusty strained to see inside, but it was impossible. There was no sound, just the swaying of the branches of the big oak above them and the wind in her ears.
"That's it," Shane said, in awe. "That's it."
He advanced, but she hesitated. Now that she was here, the moment at hand, she didn’t want to go in there. Not now, not ever. For Nick, she thought, looking at the gun in her hand. But she started forward for Shane—she couldn’t let him go in there alone.
He stood on the steps, looking at the gap between the door and the frame. Then he looked at Dusty, who came to stand beside him. Her hands trembled as she flicked the flashlight on.
Why the silence? she thought. Where were the guys? If this was the place, they should be jumping around and clapping each other on the back for a job well done. Her mind simply wouldn’t allow any other conclusion.
The silence was deafening, a roar in her ears, and her breath turned to glass in her throat. She looked away, up to where the icicles hung, and down, where they dripped onto the snow. Something glinted there—glass, maybe a bottle. Dusty leaned to get a closer look, shining the light on it.
It was glass all right—shining out of wire-rimmed frames. Glasses—Evan's glasses—separated at the bridge.
That's when whatever was left of the real world began to ebb away as the slow horror dawned upon her, and paradoxically, things began to happen at an alarmingly fast rate.
There was that awful grating as he shouldered the door open, and moonlight flooded inside, slanting toward the back wall. The life drained out of her body in one fell swoop, and all memory was lost—she forgot how to breathe, move, she remained only eyes that watched, immense saucers.
Shane grabbed the flashlight from her hands, shining it across the floor. Dusty stepped in beside him and grimaced, looking down. The floor was darker, and as Dusty took another step, she almost slipped and had to grab onto Shane to keep from falling.
In the circle of the flashlight's beam she saw the reddish tinge to the floor and realized with a slow, dawning horror that she had slipped in blood. The floor was thick with it, slick with it.
Shane brought the light upward and across the floor and Dusty closed her eyes, a small gagging sound escaping her throat. Blood pooled around Evan and Jake, sprawled across one another, lifeless. The beam of light ran across their faces, and there were gaping holes where their eyes had been. Their blue jeans were stained black with blood, intestines spilling across their laps, strung across the floor, ribs starkly white and protruding.
Likes eyes best, Dusty thought, opening her own eyes with a shudder. Guns—the .38 and a sawed-off shotgun—lay uselessly on the cement. The light flashed over them to the far wall, trembling.
"Join me for a snack?" it croaked.
Dusty tried to scream, but air just escaped her throat with a small hissing sound.
Sitting Indian-style on the cement, it grinned up at them with teeth that looked as if they had been filed to razor-sharp points. She didn’t know how long she stared at it, unable to discern what it was, unable to digest what she was seeing—the familiar comprehension patterns just wouldn’t form in her mind. It couldn’t have been more than seconds, brief impressions that would haunt her dreams in later years.
The beam of light wavered on its face. Red gore dripped down its chin, staining the front of the suit it wore. In its hands—claws sharp and thick—it held another hand. Dusty saw the third hand, severed at the wrist, as the thing bit down, still looking up at them as two of the fingers disappeared into its mouth. A sickening crunching sound reached her ears.
bones, it eats the bones—
It spit something out and there was a chink on the cement. Whatever it was bounced past her and onto the first step. Dusty glanced down, scrutinizing it in the moonlight. A ring, the color of
the stone looking black in the light. It was Jake's class ring.
That’s when the surface calm broke. Finally finding her voice, she began to scream. Looking back inside, she saw it was beginning to get up. Shane stood immobile.
The scream wouldn’t stop and she covered her mouth with her hands, her gun dropping into the snow, all her training evaporating in the face of the monster in front of them. Shane glanced back at her from inside, looking dazed. She began to back away, down the steps. The monster was moving toward Shane, but he was looking back at her.
"Kill it!" she screamed, pointing. Shane whirled back around and she watched in the moonlight. It moved toward them, grinning. Shane raised the gun, and he was a split second too late. It tackled him and they slid across the slick cement toward the door. Both the gun and flashlight flew through the opening when Shane hit the floor and
CRACK
the gun went off as it hit the ground about three feet from Dusty, taking a chip of stone from one of the headstones nearby. The flashlight bounced on the steps and the light flickered and died.
She reacted then, finally, her breath coming back, her body responding, and she grabbed the gun at her feet and bounded up the steps. The thing was making an ugly, chortling sound, and it took her a moment to realize it was laughing.
"Shut up!" Dusty cocked the gun and aimed. The thing looked up, startled, from where it had been about to sink its teeth into the vulnerable flesh on the side of Shane's throat. Her hands were shaking and she fired and missed. The bullet hit the far wall, whizzing past its head. She cocked it again, and this time it hit, the bullet sinking into its shoulder, jerking it back. It wailed loud, clutching the wound.
Then it stood, snarling at her. She pulled the trigger again, frantic, and the bullet made contact, tearing a hole in the side of its throat. It stumbled backward, falling, and then it was still.
Still.
She lowered the gun, her heart thrumming in her throat. There was no movement at all, not a sound.
"Shane," she breathed, and looked down at him. Eyes closed, covered darkly in blood, he lay motionless, but she couldn’t tell if any of the blood was his. The flashlight was useless.