In theory, the encroaching darkness should frighten some primal part of my mind and spur me to want to catch up to Lexie. But I didn't want to. While I'd never been the gloomy sort to lurk in graveyards, there was something almost comforting in the air.
Beneath my feet, the ground seemed to be vibrating. The sensation crept through my entire body and made me feel so alive. With every step, that feeling became stronger until it almost consumed me.
My eyes wandered from the path to the tombstones. I read every name I could make out as I passed. Each one represented somebody's entire life. Each one was loved. Each one was mine.
“Hey!” Lexie called, flicking me on the forehead.
Jolted, I stared at her.
“Are dust bunnies supposed to be so creepy?” She was looking at me like I'd grown second head.
“Huh?”
“You were walking like you were drunk, caressing all of the headstones.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Did you take something?” She seized my head and pulled up my eyelids like she was trying to examine my pupils, even though it was dark. “Did that little punk slip you some kind of mickey?”
I shook my head, my eyes still drawn to the graves.
“Come on. You're going to get lost in here.” Taking my hand, she led me down the path at a brisk pace until a large, white, marble mausoleum stood like a fortress.
Its ornate Corinthian columns supported a heavy stone roof. In the triangular space, a scene of angels carved into the stone adorned what would normally be a bare surface. The name “Rochester” was written in big block letters above the open, thick ebony doors. Light, music, and people spilled out of the doorway.
Lexie was squinting, searching through the crowd for her boyfriend, but stayed by my side.
“I'm good,” I insisted, nudging her off with a hand. “You go find Luke.”
“You sure?” she asked, obviously conflicted.
“Yeah, I'm okay. I just had a little dizzy spell, that's all.”
“Alright.” Her blond brows furrowed and she put her hand on my shoulder to reinforce her point. “Let me know when you head home, okay?”
“Will do.”
At that, she jogged off into the crowd, finding Luke who was dressed as a Twister board with a big red spot right over his crotch. Of course he had to proudly display that he was the douchiest guy on the planet.
Alone now, I was lost on what to do. I didn't know anybody here except for Lexie and probably wouldn't get along with any of the other party goers. I always felt so out of place at things like this.
I knew that Lexie brought me here hoping I'd have fun, but this kind of party had never been my thing. The music was so loud you couldn't hold a conversation, the people were annoying and anonymous, and the booze was gross.
Socially, I would be expected to go into the mausoleum and join the fun. But that idea repelled me more strongly than two north-facing magnets.
As much as the party was repelling me, something in the darkness was drawing me in. Even though it was freezing cold and barren of any human life, it seemed so much more welcoming.
I couldn't help myself from wandering into it. Again, that vibrating energy radiated from the earth and flowed up my legs. With each step I took farther from the light of the mausoleum, that feeling grew stronger until I could almost feel every body lying inside their coffins, restless like the flickering flame of a candle reaching for the house to become a bonfire.
Before I knew it, I was deep inside the graveyard with no light other than the moon. I had no clue where I was, but I didn't feel like I was lost.
In the periphery of my awareness, I felt someone was following me. I couldn't hear anything other than birds, the sounds of distant traffic, and the bass from the party thumping through the night air. Doing a three hundred sixty degree sweep of my surroundings, there was nothing but trees and headstones gleaming in the moonlight.
But something was there.
Fear simmered through my mind and I backed away, though I didn't know where it was. For all I knew, I could be walking straight into the mouth of a monster.
The sensation of another's presence became heavier. Whoever it was was coming closer.
The fear boiled over into full-blown panic and froze my feet in place.
Something hit me in the back with enough force that I fell forward. As I was propelled into the ground, my temple caught the edge of a tombstone. It wasn't until I hit the frigid earth that the pain caught up to me, throbbing through my mind like a gong hit with a battering ram.
I cracked one eye open to see two small white blurs standing near me. Two blue spots that might have been eyes on each seemed to glow in the night.
A child-like giggle clawed through my ears and everything went dark.
Sometime later, I woke alone to a pounding headache. Groaning, I touched my hand to the side of my head and instantly regretted it. My hand came away with something sticky and dark on it. The salty copper smell told me it was blood.
There was a thick mat of it in my hair. That was probably the most I'd bled in my whole life.
Focusing on the headstone in front of me, I could read the letters without any double-vision or blurring, so I didn't think I had a concussion. Remembering from my favorite medical drama, I knew head wounds often bled a lot, even if they were superficial. Still, I needed to get home, wash the blood off, and take a good look.
If it was too bad, I would have to wake Mom to look at it. As an RN, she would know what to do. But I really did not want to have to wake her.
Not only because she needed the rest, but because she would ask questions that I didn't want to have to answer.
Bracing myself on the tombstone I hit my head on, I pulled myself up. I hope nobody got freaked out by the bit of blood on it.
My legs were sound, which was another good sign.
No sooner did I get back upright did footsteps start to reverberate across the ground from a distance away. Even without their flashlights, these were blindingly bright against the dulled lights in the ground. They were trying to sneak through the tombstones, but they were as subtle as a hammer, especially compared to whoever knocked me down earlier.
“Freeze,” one of the men yelled. My eyes burned when he turned his flashlight on me. Police.
There was no way that this party was legal.
Without thinking, I turned and fled. I had to go warn Lexie and get out of here.
I was far off the beaten path and a long way off from the mausoleum. I couldn't see where I was going, but I could feel where every headstone was as I ran across the grassy grounds.
The officer was gaining ground on me. Even if I couldn't hear his repeated calls for me to stop, I could sense his presence growing closer. If he caught me and I got arrested, my parents would kill me. They'd be so disappointed. It was one thing for Lexie to make mischief since— as the town firebrand— that was practically expected of her, but for me to do it was a whole different ballgame.
I had no doubt that Lexie and her family's high-powered attorney would bail me out of trouble, but there would be no escaping the saddened look on my mother's face or my father's cold shoulder.
This guy could not catch me.
A scream sounded from behind me, followed by a deep thud. I risked a glance back and saw that the officer had tripped over seemingly nothing.
Ahead, the light from the mausoleum was just barely visible. My feet quickly ate up the distance, but at a price. By the time I made it, I couldn't speak through my huffing breaths.
I grabbed some guy in a Dracula costume and pointed at the approaching flashlights.
It took him a second to realize what I was trying to convey before he raised the alarm. “Cops!”
Immediate panic exploded through the crowd, setting off a crush of bodies trying to flee the cramped space. The Dracula nearly bowled me over as he ran.
In the packed throng of people, Lexie's bright blond hair stuck out like a beacon. She was
just standing there against the tide of rushing people, looking around.
“Over here!” I grabbed the bunny ears from my head and waved them above my head.
She rushed over to me, weaving through the fleeing people.
“Where's Luke?” she asked, still looking around.
“Already gone. We have to go now.” I took her hand and led her into the darkness, away from the rest of the crowd. It was safer this way. I could sense a large group of police officers at the front gate, lying in wait for the catch of party goers the advance group was flushing out.
“Why are we going this way? I can't see anything.”
“The others are heading straight into a trap. We need to go this way.”
“Wait a second!” She stopped in her tracks and tugged her hand from mine. “How do you know?”
“I've been wandering out here the whole time. This way is clear for now, but we have to get moving!”
“What about Luke?”
“It's too late for him. He's probably been caught by now.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and her lower lip trembled. “He left me behind, didn't he?”
I nodded. “They're getting closer every second. Unless you want to join him in a jail cell, we have got to go.”
She grabbed my hand. “Lead the way.”
I led us deeper into the cemetery at a brisk walk. We couldn't afford to go too quickly or Lexie would trip over a grave marker. Just over the hill ahead, there was a chain-link fence that marked the border of the graveyard. After that line, I couldn't feel a thing.
There was no way to know if another trap was waiting for us beyond the cemetery, but we didn't have any other choice. After their initial roundup, the cops would probably sweep the grounds for any strays.
Reaching the fence, I placed Lexie's hands on the edge. But in her hooker boots, she couldn't get a good enough foothold to vault over the top. I gave her a leg up and over before climbing over myself. Hooray for flats!
“Let's go back to my car,” Lexie said.
“Won't they be waiting?”
“Nah, there'd be no proof that we were here. They can't arrest us.” At that, she took off down the sidewalk.
I followed after her all the way back to her car.
Panting, she laughed without mirth. “That was close.”
“Too close,” I snapped through my huffing breaths. “What was he thinking having a party there?” Not only was it trespassing to have the party there, underage kids were drinking and smoking weed, and the music was blaring loud enough for the neighbors to hear. It was like Luke wanted to be caught. Or he was stupid enough to think he was above the law.
She shrugged, smiling. “Get in. I'll give you a ride home.” Her eyes widened as she saw me fully in the streetlight. “Or to the hospital! What happened to your head?”
I shrugged, even though it hurt to do so. I didn't want to alarm Lexie. “Nothing. I tripped and hit a thorny branch. I'm fine.”
She spun me around to examine the drying, gooey mat. “Does it hurt?”
“Not much,” I lied. “It's just a scratch. Head wounds bleed a lot, even if they're tiny.”
“Your mom will look it over later, right?”
I nodded, feeling a bit guilty over the lie.
Lexie bit her bottom lip.
“I'm okay, I promise. Let's just go home.”
She sighed and opened her car door. “Fine.”
“You haven't had anything to drink tonight, have you?” I asked, wary. She would only attempt to drive if she was either really sober or really drunk and beyond reasoning. She could walk in a straight line, so I was pretty sure she was sober, but I still had to ask.
“Nope. I didn't get the chance.”
With that assurance, I climbed in.
While her— but mostly his— behavior tonight was irresponsible, I wasn't going to bicker with her or lecture her when I knew she had to be in a lot of pain. Being abandoned by someone she loved was her biggest button and Luke had hit it hard by running away without her.
Going by the extra sharpness in her accelerations and turns as she drove, she was barely keeping herself together. If I nagged at her now, she would fall apart.
So I let her keep her game face on.
Despite the seatbelt, I nearly hit the dashboard when we arrived at my house.
After I'd closed the car door, Lexie rolled the passenger window down. “Call me tomorrow and let me know what your mom says about that scratch.”
“Only if you text me as soon as you get home. You know I'm not going to be able to sleep until I know you've made it back.”
“Will do,” she promised and drove off, her tires screeching just a little through the quiet night air as she turned just up the block.
As quickly as I could, I crept back upstairs and into my bedroom. I caught a glance at the clock on my way up and was surprised at how early it still was. I mustn't have been unconscious for long.
I changed into a nightgown and gingerly washed the blood from my hair in the sink. With tentative fingertips, I explored my scalp and while there was a knot there from the impact, there were no lacerations on my entire scalp. Could something have happened to whoever hit me and it was their blood? It isn't as though somebody could have been crazy enough to have thrown me into a headstone and then have poured blood on my head.
There wasn't anyone around me when I woke up, so I didn't think something had happened to them.
Letting out a breath, I scooted the dog off my bed and crawled into the welcoming, pre-warmed flannel sheets. I was so tired, but my head was spinning from the night's events and I had to wait for my phone to ring before I could finally fall asleep.
What had happened tonight in the cemetery? It was like I could feel the energy of every soul entombed there coursing through my body and my mind. I could almost reach out and touch them or they could almost reach out and touch me.
That had never happened to me before. I used to play in the graveyard behind my family's church when I was a little kid all the time and while it had always felt like a safe, hospitable place, I'd never felt that. I'd never felt anything like it in my entire life, no matter where.
Maybe Lexie was right and I'd somehow been slipped something, even though I didn't eat or drink anything while I was there.
Or it could have been that the blow I took to the head was more serious than I thought. But all of that weirdness had started before I was knocked over, most likely by two drunken party goers who had wandered into the cemetery for some privacy.
A chime sounded from my nightstand. Lexie was home.
Even though I could go to sleep now and I was so tired, my mind was too busy reliving the night's events for me to relax.
3
Something stank.
Awareness slowly dawned in my foggy morning-brain like the sun just barely creeping above the horizon outside the window. And something smelled extraordinarily foul. Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head in a vain attempt to try to escape the stench and go back to my bunny dream until my alarm went off.
Moments later, becoming more cognizant, I realized that I'd have to find the source of the smell and clean it up. Goliath had probably brought me a “gift” of a dead squirrel or another unfortunate small animal from the garden again. I tossed the edge of my quilt from my face and came face-to-face with something small and black on the pillow next to me.
I abruptly lurched upwards, away from the strange thing. It took me a second for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing. The small, black animal on the pillow next to me was covered in dirt and writhing earthworms. It was a bloated and disfigured form, split open in places and spilling out an unmentionable mess of organs and a thick dark slime onto the white pillow. Strips of green and blackened flesh were drooping and sloughing off in places. A tiny, white skull had a little white eyeball dangling out of its socket.
It was Thumper.
My back hit the wall, the thud breaking up the shrill sound of my screa
m. Frantically, I pushed myself against the wall with rubbery legs, even though it would get me no farther from that pile of nightmares.
Dad burst through the door brandishing the baseball bat he'd always kept at his bedside with Mom following closely in his shadow.
Finding no intruder, he paused and looked at me where I was huddled and shivering against the wall, an unspoken question in his gaze. I pointed him to the small mound on the bed as my mother knelt down next to me and drew me into her arms. He raised his bat and walked warily towards the bed. He drew the covers down from where they'd flown up and recoiled from the sight.
The bat clattered to the floor and he looked to me. “What on earth?”
“I just woke up and he was there.” I couldn't manage to speak any louder than a whisper and still couldn't keep the quiver out of my voice.
At that moment, Goliath decided to come investigate the commotion. All eyes turned to the giant lab, sitting obliviously in the middle of the room. “And you don't even have the decency to act guilty,” Dad said, as he seized Goliath by his collar and shoved him into the hall, accepting the most likely explanation: that Goliath had dug up my poor bunny and brought him to me as a present. Looking a little shell-shocked, he tried to set this disastrous situation to rights, “Winnie, go get started on breakfast. I'll go re-bury Thumper. Constance, go put the dog in his crate and start getting ready for church.”
Orders given, they both began to move, but I couldn't force my leaden body to budge. My precious Thumper….
My mother murmured encouragements and put her hand on my back to herd me out of the room so I wouldn't have to see anything more. Snagging Goliath by the collar on the way out, I led him to his doggy cave in the living room and shut him inside. He whined at me and turned his head to the side as though he didn't know why we were mad at him.
As I was about to turn away, he put his paw against the metal mesh door. His paw caught my eye as there was no dirt on it. I unlatched the door and gently grabbed his head to look him over. From head to toe, he was clean.
Unus (Stone Mage Saga Book 1) Page 3