by Sheri Leigh
"Dusty," Shane said softly beside her. She motioned for him to be quiet.
"Huh-he wuh-was m-my fuh-fuh-fuh-father," Sam said, tears glistening on his cheeks. He looked so young, staring behind them forlornly at the grotesque form speared on the fence.
"Father?" Dusty whispered. In the distance, she could hear sirens.
"Dusty," Shane said, much more urgent. She twisted around so she could look and she saw... really saw. Dusty stared at the body, the wild white hair, the vicious, fierce expression...
“Roy,” she whispered. The picture. The name above the mausoleum: LEWIS.
"DUSTY!" Shane shook her. "Damn it, Dusty, that's Nick's gun he's got and there's two—" He stopped.
Dusty met his eyes and then looked back at Sam. The gun was leveled at her.
"Sam," she breathed, but she couldn’t follow it up with anything. The breath had been sucked from her body and she could only stare at the gun. The sirens that, just a moment before, had been piercing the air, now seemed very far away.
"I luh-luh-loved him." Sam cocked the gun but she was frozen. "Huh-he was m-m-my fuh-FATHER."
"NO!" Sam glanced toward the sound of Shane's voice. "You crazy fucker!"
She couldn’t move. Nick's gun. She saw the lights, red and blue flashing, coming down the asphalt drive toward them, but she didn’t acknowledge them, she couldn't. Sound had receded.
Sam paused, looking at her, and then glanced back toward the lights. It was the only chance Shane needed. He leapt, knocking the gun from Sam's hand, wrestling him to the ground. Dusty sat frozen, her heart rising in her throat, cutting off air flow. They were a thick tangle and then a hand reached out blindly, searching. It fell over the gun.
"No!" She found her voice, her breath, her thoughts, and she jumped up. Sam had gotten the upper hand and leveled the gun at Shane.
"No, don't! Don’t!" She screamed, starting forward.
"Kuh-KILLED HIM!" Sam pulled the trigger.
Sheriff Thompson, stepping out of the squad car, pulled his gun, yelling, "What's going on here?"
Chris and Billy, following the Sheriff, stared unbelievingly. Dusty, sobbing, looked at Shane's inert form.
"Bastard!" Dusty looked up at Sam. A bullet whizzed past her ear. She didn’t stop coming toward him.
Thompson’s gun went off and caught Sam in the chest. Sam fell back, looking at her, dazed. She couldn’t say anything—something constricted in her chest.
"The ambulance is coming," Billy said urgently, grabbing her arm.
"What the hell is going on?" Chris looked between the two bodies lying on the ground.
Dusty collapsed beside Shane on the snow. The bullet had gone through the left pocket of his leather, a chest wound. He was bleeding heavily, and it spread, thick and dark.
"Shane?" She tried to keep the tremble from her voice. He didn’t answer her.
"Where's the ambulance?" she demanded, looking up at Billy and Chris. The tears streaked her face. "I told you to call a goddamned ambulance!"
"One's on the way from Shadow Hills." Chris knelt beside her. "Is he...?"
"I don't know." She covered her face with her hands. “I'm afraid to..."
"Hey." The low sound made them all look. Shane was looking at them, unfocused, but alive.
"You're going to be okay." Billy dropped beside them. "Ambulance is on the way."
"Get... him?" he asked. His eyes were slits, his voice thick and slurred. Dusty leaned over him touching his hair.
"They got him." Chris glanced back at Sam.
"Ambulance should be here in a few minutes!" The deputy called. Matt was on the radio in his car, and Buck knelt over Sam. No one made a reply.
"Ain't got—” Shane gasped and then coughed. He was panting. Fighting for air, Dusty thought, oh, god, he's fighting to breathe.
"Lie still, okay?" Dusty stroked his hair, his cheek, unable to stop the tears falling on the collar of his leather and trickling down his throat. "You're going to be okay. Like you said, all bullet wounds aren't fatal. Just...just lie still."
"You're getting my jacket wet," he said faintly. Dusty smiled through her tears. He managed to smile back.
"That's my girl," he whispered. The ambulance pulled up behind Matt's squad car. She looked back down at Shane. He coughed and coughed, something thickly congealed in his chest, his throat. The paramedics were getting out.
"Ambulance is here, babe. They'll fix you up. You'll be fine."
Shane coughed again, his mouth filling with blood. Dusty wiped it away, whispering, "Oh, my god, oh, my god," over and over, unaware of the hot tears pooling at her throat and running between her breasts.
"Dusty," he whispered. She looked across him, helplessly, to Billy and Chris.
"You're gonna be a hero, man," Billy said hoarsely, tears making tiny rivers down his face. "A real hero."
"Yeah?" His voice was growing weaker, but he sounded pleased.
"I love you," Dusty whispered through her tears, past whatever had lodged in her throat. Hot tears fell on him, wetting his shirt collar.
"I know," he said attempting a smile, looking at her through half-closed eyes that were already beginning to glaze over from shock. "I—"
"Shh, Shane, please," she whispered. "Please, god, don't talk anymore. You'll be okay. You will, you will," she said, trying to convince herself as much as reassure him. She didn’t want to hear him say anything close to ‘goodbye.’
"Dusty," he said again, weaker, blood from his mouth pooling at this throat, his voice hoarse with it. She wiped at it helplessly.
She had to lean in close, so close, to hear him, his voice choked with blood.
"I always loved you."
That was all.
Epilogue
—taken from the Shadow Hills Journal, November 7, 2006
By Mike Murphy
Larkspur Staff Writer
LARKSPUR--The perpetrator of the
Larkspur murders that have occurred in the past few months has been found—again. It was reported earlier the killer was a thirty pound bob-cat caught in the woods next to the Clinton Grove
Cemetery. Peter Friedman, county coroner, verified the teeth marks and hair samples matched, but apparently was mistaken. Friedman was unavailable for comment.
The killer has been identified as Roy Phillip Lewis, former Larkspur resident. Lewis was pronounced dead on August 22, his body was placed in a family mausoleum. Lewis was reportedly buried alive.
Roy's son, Sam Lewis, suffered a fatal gunshot wound in an incident that occurred Sunday night in the Clinton Grove Cemetery.
The teeth marks and hair samples found match those of Roy Lewis. Neither the county coroner nor Sheriff Thompson were available for comment.
—Hand written letter from Sam Lewis, written to Dusty Chandler, found in Lewis’ home tucked inside a photo album marked “Mother.”
Dusty,
I’m writing this in hopes you can understand what’s happened. You’re my friend, and I want you to know, to understand, as I hope only you can.
I told you my mother died when I was a baby. I never knew her, and I feel that loss deeply every day. She had a profound belief in real magic, and my father…he was heartbroken after she died. He couldn’t imagine life without her. He became obsessed with death—with life after death. He traveled all over the world, looking for ways to prolong life. Using everything he had learned from her, he spent his life looking for the secret to immortality.
And I think he found it.
The talisman I gave you came from Native land, and the one he was buried with did too. It’s a hungry magic, Dusty, and it feeds…it has to feed. For you, it just ate your dreams. It was a good sort of magic. My father’s talisman was like its dark twin, voracious, twisted.
My father wanted to live forever, and to do that, he had to die first. I thought he was gone, but he came back changed—a revenant—my father but not my father. I don’t know what he did, how he did what he did, but he came back terrible, h
orrible...
What else could I do?
He’s still my father. Dusty. In spite of what he did, he’s still the only person in the world who ever showed me any caring or kindness—until you came along. I don’t understand how he came back—but he has come back, and he’s hungry, Dusty. He won’t stop, and I don’t know how to stop him. If I don’t feed him, he finds ways to feed himself.
What choice do I have, now?
I am going to try to end this tonight. I think taking the talisman will be the only thing to stop him. I am hoping it will end his suffering…and ours. And I am so very sorry for yours, Dusty. So very sorry. Maybe this will be my redemption. It’s all I can hope for now.
If it turns out badly, if you find this letter…
I just wanted you to know that you were the only one who ever made me feel whole and wanted. I will be grateful for that, forever, no matter what.
I love you.
Sam
* * * *
“I know who he is.”
Dusty sat up suddenly from where her head rested on the mattress at the hoarse sound of his voice, her hungry eyes searching his face.
“Shane?” she whispered, squeezing the familiar hand she’d been holding for what felt like days.
His eyes were still closed, but he spoke again, his voice cracking. “He was the one…” He swallowed, his eyes fluttering. “Dusty...?”
“I’m here.” She moved so he could see her and a flicker of a smile crossed his face.
“He was the guy I took on that trip,” he croaked, his eyes closing again. “The one looking for artifacts…”
Dusty blinked, frowning, hearing words that would only make sense later, after Buck Thompson gave her the letter addressed to her from Sam. Poor Sam, who had set out that night to kill the man who had raised him and instead had found him already dead.
She heard Shane’s words but didn’t care, not paying attention at all to the content, caring only that Shane was here, alive, conscious and actually talking to her after days of silence and not knowing.
“Shhh,” she murmured, pressing her mouth against his ear, sobbing. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. I love you so much.”
“I’m not dead, then?” he murmured.
She laughed through her tears. “Not unless this is heaven.”
“Must be.” He smiled, whispering the words just before she kissed him and proved them both right.
About the Author
Sheri Leigh writes addictive fiction—her characters and stories are so compelling, you just won’t want to put them down, and when you’re done, you’ll find yourself jonesin’ for more. Don’t worry, she’ll keep writing…as long as you keep reading!
Sheri lives with her husband and children in the rural Midwest, and when she’s not clacking away at the keyboard, she cheers on the Red Wings and tends an organic garden. Her favorite things are sleeping in, thunderstorms, sun-dried tomatoes, popping bubblewrap and she’s still mourning the end of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
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Graveyard Games