I leaned over to catch my breath, unsure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Several yards behind me, Dad and Darby stood and waited. I waved them on to the gates and went to retrieve my boot. There seemed to be no one around except the trees and me. The leaves murmured to each other while the wind swayed the branches. Heartland Cemetery had more trees than the rest of Krapper, Kansas, and they all whispered and danced for the amusement of the dead.
A sudden breeze brushed over my arms and sent a faint smell of rotten hamburger past my nose. My stomach rolled. What was that? That didn’t smell like the usual slaughtered cow stink that came from the other side of town. I shoved my foot into my boot and hobbled away.
The breeze and stink faded to nothing as quickly as they had come. I bent to tie my boot, but a crackling behind me made me pause. A cloud cast long, dark shadows over the headstones and chilled my skin. The hairs along my arms prickled.
The crackling came closer. I turned my head slightly. In the corner of my eye, inky black darkness crawled up the bark of a nearby tree.
I gasped and shot to my feet. The black ink crept to the tips of the branches and ripped away its leaves, leaving it empty and naked. More darkness pooled at the bottom of the trunk and inched along the grass towards me. Every green blade curled in on itself with that awful crackling sound, dying. The darkness reached straight for me.
A shudder raced across my shoulders. I stumbled backwards. My gaze caught on blackened footprints that led to the tree. Someone was doing this? But how? This wasn’t possible.
I glanced back at Dad and Darby, but they’d gone on without me. This couldn’t be real. None of it. I shook my head hard, trying to wake myself. Nothing changed.
Something dark fluttered from behind the dead tree. Whoever was doing this stood behind the trunk.
I dug my nails into my palms, pressed my lips together, and took a step back. A branch snapped under my boot, louder than the crackling. I froze. My heart jumped.
Scraps of muddy fabric flapped around the trunk, followed by a girl.
My flesh crept up and down my bones. Sweat trickled down the back of my dress. That rotten meat stink kicked my stomach, forcing me to clap a hand over my nose and mouth.
The torn fabric that hung from the girl’s scrawny frame looked like a prom dress. Mud and grime covered her entire body. Her mouth sagged open in a silent scream.
I couldn’t move. The darkness pooled underneath the dangling hem of the girl’s dress and spread dangerously close to the toes of my boots, but I couldn’t move.
The girl raised her tucked chin and looked at me. The whites of her eyes blazed behind the mud caking her face. Her open mouth held the same black gloom that dripped at her feet. A grimy tiara perched on the side of her head.
My muscles stiffened. I gasped as recognition hit me.
I knew the girl. Or knew of her. Her social circle was my social nightmare. Her name was Sarah, a popular cheerleader who committed suicide a week ago.
But how could she be here when she should be in the ground? I had to be hallucinating. My grief, the stress from the day, it was all making me see things.
Jumbled whispers swirled through the air. Was Sarah trying to tell me something? Because I didn’t want to hear it. My feet finally got the message to move just before the killing darkness touched my boots. I ran.
“Mom,” I called without thinking. Mom.
The old man cranked a lever that lowered her into the ground. A dull pain stitched my side. A sob welled in my throat. I couldn’t watch.
“Dad!” I raced for the cemetery gates. He and Darby stood just outside. When I neared them, I breathed, “Something’s wrong.” Because what else could I say in front of Darby? If she’d seen what I saw, it would be too much to handle in one day. I stood so I blocked her view of anything behind me and resisted the urge to flip the glasses off her face.
Jo, my best friend, put her hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed she was there. “What is it, Leigh?”
I took giant gulps of air and risked a glance behind me. The trees looked normal. Black death hadn’t dripped everywhere. Everyone was in their graves.
That fact made me wince. “Nothing.”
* * * *
Remember the no shoes rule. Mom’s playful voice echoed in the silent house.
We stood on the tiled squares inside our back door. All of us had our muddy shoes off. I gripped my boots so tight, my fingers hurt. My heart’s quick knocks hadn’t slowed because every time I blinked, dead Sarah jumped behind my eyelids.
I didn’t know what to do next. Tell Dad what I thought I saw or pretend everything was normal? But how could I do that when nothing was?
The house wasn’t even normal because everything reminded me of Mom. The kitchen sink where she danced and did dishes at the same time, the curled seedpods she kept in a glass on top of the piano in the living room, the recliner she always sat in when she peeled off her hose after a day at work. All these objects seemed dead, too. The heart of the house had stopped beating, and we were expected to live inside an empty shell.
Dad and Darby shuffled their socked feet. All of us huddled by the door, brushing up against each other. Then Dad cleared his throat and braved the first step towards the living room.
“Dad?” Darby called.
He turned in slow motion. “Yes?”
Darby’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Dad attempted a smile, but his chin quivered like he was fighting more tears. “I have to change clothes.” His voice wavered. He tugged at his tie and disappeared around the corner.
Darby looked up at me, blue eyes huge behind her glasses. Neither of us moved.
“Leigh?” she whispered.
I planted a kiss on the top of her blonde head. “Go change your clothes.” Somehow the words squeezed through the knot clutching my throat.
She nodded, took a breath, and stepped towards her bedroom. A second later, I followed down the hall.
The silence in the house was too much. I needed noise, something to drown out the deafening hush. Even my chaotic bedroom, which Mom rarely entered since she’d given up cleaning it, felt empty. Her old Gibson guitar leaned against a wall in the corner. Punk rock band stickers from the seventies and eighties covered the blue finish. She was teaching me to play. Had been.Had been teaching me to play.
I dropped my muddy boots on the floor and dug my mp3 player out from under a pile of clothes and Stephen King books. The Lunachicks soon drilled into my head through my earbuds. Still wearing my black funeral dress, I collapsed onto my bed. The weight in my chest anchored me there.
I let my eyes close while the rebellious melody drifted into another rowdy song.
Bad idea. There was dead Sarah. Her mouth hung open, revealing the same gloomy black shadows that followed her. Her hands reached out to me.
I snapped my eyes open, but hands still reached for me.
“Oh, God!” I bolted upright. “Dad,” I said, all breathy, as I tore out my earbuds and looked up at him. “You scared me.”
“Sorry. I was calling for you but you didn’t answer.” He sank next to me, now wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
I held up my mp3 player. “I’m progressing my inevitable hearing loss.”
“Hm.”Another attempted smile. “Are you hungry? There’s lots of food.”
“I know, Dad. All of Krapper brought food over.”
He actually did manage a small smile at my nickname for our boring town. “We won’t ever have to go grocery shopping again.” He flinched at his own words as if they had ricocheted off the air and back into his mouth to choke him. Grocery shopping with Mom had been the highlight of every Saturday. She could make even the monotonous thrilling. He swallowed. “Who could eat anyway?”
That was quite a thing for him to say. He was always hungry since he had the metabolism of a hummingbird. He looked like the real life, grown up version of Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, and his name really was Ken. But right then, he didn’t look normal s
ince his eyes were bloodshot and his face was locked in a frown.
Half of Darby appeared in the doorway. This was her way of asking me if she could come into my room. Maybe that was so only half of her would get rejected. I waved her inside.
“Can Merlin read to you guys?” she asked.
I could only nod at her request. Merlin had always been a Darby-Mom thing, though I would listen in while I did my homework. I scooted over to make room for her and her fat Before Merlin’s Beard book.
Dad tossed aside the pile of clothes on my armchair. “Do you remember where you left off?”
She hadn’t read any since Mom died. But then again, they’d read the entire series together three times. Darby should have the whole thing memorized by now.
“Mm-hm.” She plopped down next to me. “The spiders told Merlin the fountain of youth was inside the wardrobe.” She opened the book to her purple mermaid bookmark and tossed her hair over her shoulder as if to prepare for a role in a Before Merlin’s Beard movie. Her shoulders rose and fell with shaky breaths while she studied the place where she and Mom had left off. After a long moment, she began reading, and Darby wasn’t Darby anymore. She gave each character a distinct voice and knew when to slow down or speed up at the suspenseful parts. The movies had nothing on her. She didn’t quite have the British accent down, but hey, she was only nine.
Dad and I sat back and listened, him in my armchair, me in my bed. We were immersed in the story for who knows how long, but Dad’s eyes couldn’t fight gravity. His soft snores interrupted a dragon fight.
Darby stopped reading, marked her place with her bookmark, and rested her head on my shoulder like her inner light bulb had gone out. She was Darby again. Her warmth made me drowsy, but I wouldn’t close my eyes. Instead, I rested my cheek on her head and listened to Dad’s snores.
Another storm rattled my window. Typical Krapper. The weather here was just as random as cards falling in fifty-two card pick-up. One minute was sunny and almost tranquil. The next, a tornado could rip through the front door. The nonstop wind made me want to punch someone in the face, just like I punched that kid in third grade when he introduced me to the stupid card game.
The wind mingled with Dad’s snores to create a strange song while the light outside my window dipped into twilight. Between the broken harmonies of the coming storm and the snoring, there was another sound. Whispering.
I righted my head to hear better. Maybe it wasn’t whispering. It sounded garbled, yet urgent. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t the wind. The wind here didn’t whisper before a storm. It shrieked.
Tap-tap-tap.
The sound came from the window above my head. My heart jack-hammered.
Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.
I refused to look up so I buried my face in Darby’s hair. How could she still be sleeping with the tapping and the whispering and my crazy heartbeat?
Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.And more whispering.
My body was as rigid as the giant tree in my front lawn. The tree that was far enough away from my window that it couldn’t possibly be its branches reaching for me.
Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.
Could it be dead Sarah, her muddy face pressed against the glass, looking down at me, Darby, and Dad? Why hadn’t I closed the stupid blinds?
Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.
I pressed my lips together so they’d catch my scream.
PRAISE FOR THE GRAVE WINNER
“This is such an imaginative story, and Leigh has so much voice, it’s like you’re there, living her nightmare with her… Miss Loucks knows her craft.” – Pam Godwin, author of Dead of Eve.
"Witty and fast paced, The Grave Winner by Lindsey R. Loucks is a snarky blend of zombie horror and urban fantasy... I loved it." - KaytiNikaRaet for Readers' Favorite
“The Grave Winner… is more of a fantasy-zombie hybrid, with both enchanting magic and romance you might expect from a fantasy novel, kick-butt action and creeps you might expect from a zombie novel, and strong characters and storyline a reader would want from any story!” - Moosubi Reviews.
If you’d like to read more of The Grave Winner, you can purchase both print and e-copies at Amazon. You can also watch the book trailer on YouTube.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsey R. Loucks works as a school librarian in rural Kansas. When she's not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she's dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she'll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to reenergize.
She's been with her significant other for almost two decades.
Check out Lindsey’s website, or you can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or Pinterest. She would love to hear from you!
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Table of Contents
RETRO-JOGGER MEETS ZOMBIE QUEEN
ALPHA FEMALE OFFICE WOLF
PRIORITIES
WILLOW ROAD
RECOIL
IN THE LONG HALLWAY
MAKE A WISH
ONE TIMES ONE IS ONE
A SHAVER IN MY HOUSE
TOGETHER FOREVER
CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT OF THE GRAVE WINNER
PRAISE FOR THE GRAVE WINNER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mad Flashes Page 4