Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

I blinked at her for a few moments before realizing she was talking about Chief Cavanaugh’s daughter. I remembered the things Cavanaugh had said about Peach last night.

  Something deep in my soul ached.

  Why, God, I wondered, did sweet little people like Peach have to feel such terrible things? Why did such a good-hearted, loving girl get treated like dirt?

  I swallowed the thickness in my throat. “You’re better than Annabelle is, Peach. You’re better than anyone. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  She wetted another corner of the white washcloth, which was already stained red in several places. “You’re just saying that because you’re my brother.”

  “It’s true.” I hesitated. “You’re a great kid. Most sisters wouldn’t help their brothers like this. You’ve got a really caring heart.”

  She pulled away and frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

  I shook my head, held her gaze for a long moment.

  The storm clouds left her face, and she began cleaning my cuts again. “Thanks.”

  I felt better than I had for hours. Peach always had a calming effect on me.

  “Why is there dirt on your face too?” she asked.

  “I doubt they bothered to wash their fists before using them on me.”

  She reached into the basket, came out with Neosporin. “This will stop you from getting…” She frowned, searching for the word.

  “Infected?” I asked.

  “Uh huh,” she said. “Infected.”

  She began to daub the first aid cream on my cuts, but my thoughts had veered in another direction. Something about that simple word—dirt—had revived the tickle in the back of my mind. Now why did I keep getting stuck on that word? Why did it keep reminding me of last night? Not of Kylie Ann Lubeck or Chris or Mia or even Cavanaugh and his deputies. No, something about the black Mustang…about being chased by Eric Blades and the others…something about the graveyard…

  I sucked in breath, my whole body tensing.

  “Did I hurt you?” Peach asked, jerking the tube of Neosporin away.

  I swallowed, shook my head distractedly. “Peach…when was the last time there was a funeral in the cemetery?”

  “What’s a furenal?”

  “Fu-ne-ral,” I corrected. “Where they bury the body.”

  A look of recognition shone on her face. “A few weeks ago? You were at baseball practice.”

  I felt like I’d been slugged in the gut.

  Her brown eyes searched my face. “Will? What’s wrong?”

  “I have to call Flynn and Wood.”

  “Are those people?” she asked.

  I pushed past her, exited the bathroom, hurried into the hall on legs I couldn’t feel, and dialed the number Wood had given me.

  “What’s happening?” Peach called, hurrying after me.

  I waved her quiet, concentrated on the phone.

  “Hello?” Wood’s voice answered.

  “This is Will,” I said. “Burgess.”

  A pause. “You sound like something’s wrong, Will.”

  “It is.”

  Peach buzzed about me like a gnat.

  “Do you need us to come over there?” Wood asked.

  I nodded, then remembered Wood couldn’t see me through the phone. “Yes. As soon as you can. Bring shovels.”

  “Shovels?”

  “Uh-huh. I think I know where to find the rest of Kylie Ann.”

  ¨

  “What’s going on?” Mom asked, coming in from the kitchen.

  “I think I know—”

  I cut off, remembering my little sister. I’d been about to share my suspicion with Mom, but I realized I’d already said too much in front of Peach.

  “Can you go to the bedroom for a minute?” I asked her.

  “Is Kylie Ann the one they can’t find?” Peach asked.

  Mom looked at me, thin-lipped. “Will.”

  I cleared my throat. “Peach, can I talk to Mom alone for—”

  “She’s staying over at the Wallaces tonight,” Mom said.

  “We’re having a sleepover!” Peach said, hopping up and down.

  I frowned. On one hand, this was good news. If my hunch was correct, the last thing I needed was having Peach wandering into the cemetery and seeing something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. But the idea of her spending the night somewhere else?

  I didn’t like it.

  “Isn’t six a little young for a sleepover?” I asked.

  “She’s done it before,” Mom said, a trifle frostily. “I think I know what’s appropriate for my daughter.”

  I glanced at Peach. “When are you leaving?”

  “We were going to leave ten minutes ago,” Mom said. “Then you came home looking like you’d been mugged.”

  I bent down and gazed at Peach. “Will you promise to be safe?”

  She nodded.

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “And not to go anywhere with anybody, no matter what they say to you?”

  Peach nodded.

  Mom said, “You’re scaring her, Will.”

  Good, I thought. A little fear wasn’t such a bad thing.

  “Come on, Honey,” Mom said, and after favoring me with a long, appraising look, she led Peach out to the car.

  Flynn and Wood showed up soon after. They had another guy with them, this one a little younger.

  They all three carried shovels. They also grilled me for several minutes about who had rearranged my face, but after it became apparent I wasn’t going to tell them, they laid off and followed me through my yard.

  Detective Wood nodded at the younger guy, who looked like a college football player. “This is Dane Hubbard. He’s new to the force.”

  Hubbard nodded at me. He had a neck like an oak tree and shoulder muscles that looked like balloons someone had inflated under his shirt.

  Flynn stopped a few feet from where I stood in the yard. “You said you have an idea of where Kylie Ann might be?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but—”

  “Show us.”

  I nodded and led them into the cemetery. I didn’t want my hunch to be right. I didn’t want to find anything in the graveyard. In fact, a goodly chunk of my brain was telling me I’d imagined the freshly turned dirt, that the emotional turmoil had played tricks with my perceptions and that what I’d tripped over hadn’t been a pile of graveyard soil at all, but rather my own feet.

  Then I spotted it. A raggedly dug plot of dirt.

  It wasn’t rectangular, the way graves were supposed to be. It was more like a misshapen oval, with clumps of soil tossed haphazardly about. From the woods the buzz of cicadas rang out like a warning.

  “This the place?” Flynn asked. His voice was low and tight.

  I glanced at him and saw him eyeing the pile warily. Detective Wood and Officer Hubbard wore similar expressions. It made me like them more, trust them more. These were real human beings, despite the barrier of authority that existed between us. I was terrified of what we’d find under all that dirt, but I was glad these men were with me.

  Wood hunkered down before the mound. He scooped up a handful of the soil and let it sift through his long dark fingers. “Will’s right. It’s freshly turned.”

  That seemed pretty obvious to me, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “That the Mustang that chased you last night?” Wood asked without taking his eyes off the mound.

  “Huh?” I asked.

  He nodded to his right. I turned in that direction and saw, at the far end of the cemetery lane, almost entirely concealed by a copse of trees, Eric Blades’s black Mustang.

  Wood watched me, waiting.

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one. You think Eric’s around somewhere?”

  Flynn hefted a black-handled shovel. “Unless Blades has a car that steers itself, I’d wager he’s in the woods looking for the Lubeck girl.”

  Hubbard eyed the mound of dirt. “He should’ve looked over here.”

  “We don’t kn
ow that yet,” Flynn said. He raised the blade of the shovel and stabbed the earth. A black spider scuttled over the shovel blade, but Flynn didn’t seem to notice. “Could just be the Shadeland Cemetery staff isn’t as good at bookkeeping as it should be.”

  “That possible, David?” Hubbard asked.

  Wood slammed his own shovel into the dirt opposite Flynn’s. “Don’t know. Seems like a pretty big oversight to me. How many people this place bury per year?”

  “Not enough to forget about one of them,” I said.

  Wood nodded. “Will, you’ve been very helpful, but I think it might be better if you headed back to your house for the time being. If we do find something…” He trailed off, letting that hang in the air.

  “I’d rather stay,” I said.

  Wood gave Flynn a dubious look. Flynn kept digging, but he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to pull rank on you here. Something like this could stick with you the rest of your life. And not in a good way.”

  “He’s right, kid,” Hubbard agreed, the muscular guy taking a spot beside Wood and shoveling a big spadeful of dirt. “You don’t wanna be around for this. I remember some of the stuff I saw during training. It messed with my head in a serious way, and I was prepared for it. You…you’re a lot younger.”

  “And you knew Kylie Ann,” Flynn added.

  Wood paused and leaned on his shovel. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, fellas. We don’t know there’s anything buried under here but a perfectly normal casket. That guy we talked to from the cemetery…he sounded a little out of touch.”

  Flynn chuckled. “Acted like he belonged in a group home.”

  “Be nice, Jim,” Wood said, though he was smiling too.

  The three of them continued to shovel. Hubbard lifted his shirt to mop sweat off his forehead, and I caught a glimpse of abdominal muscles so protuberant that I was reminded of Barley’s comic books. This guy was built like Superman or Wolverine, which was yet another reason for me to stick around here. If Kurt or Eric decided to get violent again, I had the feeling they’d back down pretty quickly once they caught sight of Hubbard.

  The young cop studied me. “You don’t plan on going back to the house, do you.”

  I stood my ground.

  He grinned. “You’re as stubborn as I used to be.”

  Flynn snorted. “‘Used to be?’ You’re one of the most pig-headed guys I know.”

  Hubbard muttered a curse, but he was grinning.

  “Flynn’s right,” Wood said, shoveling the dirt aside steadily. “You make Will here seem downright sensible.”

  Hubbard straightened. “Now hold up. When have I ever—”

  But something made us all freeze. It had been the sound of Flynn’s shovel hitting something other than soil. Flynn and Wood exchanged a solemn glance, then Wood was moving around to where Flynn stood, the shovel held loosely in his grip.

  “Keep it where it is,” Wood murmured to Flynn, who didn’t move the shovel at all.

  Wood knelt and began the job of brushing dirt away from the shovel tip, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Something in my belly tightened. I kept my eyes on Wood’s face and studiously avoided looking at his fingers. Because if they did reveal something…

  I shivered.

  “Anything?” Hubbard whispered.

  I didn’t know why the muscular cop had lowered his voice, but it somehow seemed appropriate. Wood’s hands moved briskly for a time, then with more finesse and care. His expression went from quizzical to grim.

  “You got something?” Hubbard asked.

  But I already knew the answer. Flynn did too, apparently. Perhaps from his vantage point he could glimpse what Wood had found, but I doubted it. He probably knew his partner well enough to read his face. Or his cop’s sixth sense was so finely tuned that he’d known what they’d find even before his shovel bumped against it.

  I took a step backward, the reality of the situation beginning to take hold of me.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Hubbard asked.

  “You want me to call it in?” Flynn asked in a low, respectful voice.

  “In a minute,” Wood said. He turned and gazed up at me, and his face looked about twenty years older. “I want you to turn around now, Will. I won’t make you go back to the house, but I don’t want you to see this. Okay?”

  I nodded and did as he asked, not only because I agreed with his advice but because I didn’t want him or the other policemen to see the horror in my expression. A couple days ago this had been a living girl. More than that, it had been a girl I knew, a girl with whom I’d gone swimming, a girl who’d hung out with Mia and Rebecca.

  And now…

  “Let me help with that,” I heard Flynn say. I could hear him and Wood pushing away dirt and occasionally grunting with the effort of uncovering the body, but other than that the graveyard was eerily quiet. I focused on the side of my house, which was about sixty yards away. I tried to breathe through my mouth, though on some level I knew that was sort of silly. Kylie Ann hadn’t been buried for long and she likely hadn’t begun to rot yet.

  Ugh. I trembled, aghast at the run of my own thoughts. I’d made a mistake staying with the cops, I realized that now. I should have gone back, should have heeded their—

  “That what I think it is?” Hubbard said, his voice thick with dread.

  “It’s her arm,” Wood confirmed. “It’s where her hand used to be.”

  God. I felt myself teetering a little. I wished I were home in bed. Or under the bed. Anything to escape this macabre scene.

  Wood’s voice was strained. “Jim, could you…”

  “Hold on,” Flynn said. I heard scraping sounds, as if Flynn were whisking away dirt.

  I made the mistake of turning then. What I saw nearly made me faint.

  Kylie Ann’s curly head was poking out of the ground. Her eyes were open. They weren’t staring at me, but they didn’t need to be. Just seeing that dead gaze was enough to make me shudder uncontrollably.

  Then I saw her forearm. The pale stub of bone jutting from the meaty wrist.

  Oh my God, I thought. Oh my holy God.

  I was about to puke.

  “Guys,” I started to say, but I never finished my sentence. Because at that moment a warbling scream erupted from the woods.

  As impossible as this sounds, we all forgot about Kylie Ann’s staring corpse for a moment. Flynn and Wood were gaping toward the Hollow. Hubbard looked like he wanted his mommy. I did my best not to pee myself.

  Wood was the first to react. He stood, dusted himself off, and moved away from the grave. Flynn strode up beside him, both men honing in on the source of the scream. It sounded like someone was being flayed alive.

  Flynn started across the graveyard.

  “Wait a minute,” I said to Flynn’s receding back. “Don’t you guys have to like, call for backup or something?”

  “No time,” Wood answered. I noticed he’d already drawn his weapon, what looked to me like a sleek silver handgun. I had no idea what kind it was. Barley might, but that’s only because he spent so much time playing games where you shoot anything that moves. I trailed after Wood and Flynn, but a moment later a huge object shot past me—Officer Hubbard, I realized. The guy was enormous, but once he got up a head of steam he moved like a freight train.

  All three cops were sprinting toward the forest.

  Toward the screaming.

  I knew if I delayed any longer, I’d lose them completely. I could wait here, but that seemed foolhardy and maybe even dangerous. No one had mentioned Carl Padgett’s name, but if he had been the one to murder Kylie Ann, he might still be prowling nearby. Didn’t they say serial killers always returned to the scene of the crime? They wanted to hear people whispering about them, wanted to revel in the cops’ inability to catch them.

  It suddenly seemed very unlikely that Padgett was heading south after all. What if he was right here in this graveyard, lurking behind a headstone?

  The polic
emen had nearly disappeared into the forest.

  I bolted after them.

  ¨

  The cops slackened considerably when they reached the trail leading from the graveyard to the woods. The same trail, I realized, Eric Blades would have taken if he really had decided to search for Kylie Ann in the forest.

  Was it Eric’s scream we’d heard?

  I had no idea. But I kept as close as I could to the trio of cops without getting in their way. I had no desire to get shot on accident. We’d only been in the forest for a minute or so when we first became aware of it.

  The smell.

  At first I figured it was a dead animal stinking up the Hollow, a bloated raccoon carcass or a flyblown possum. But as we ventured deeper and deeper into the trees, I realized the stench was more complex than a mere decomposing animal. Oh, there was rot in the smell, but there was age in it too…and vitality. I know how weird that sounds, but it’s as close as I can come to capturing the quality of the stench. The stink of raw meat, of dripping pink juice…that was the vitality I was scenting. The undercurrent of wormy soil…that was the age. And the whole odor was shot through with rot. My mind conjured squirming maggots and hot sewage. For the second time in the last five minutes I found myself on the verge of puking.

  Then we heard it again.

  The screaming.

  It came from our immediate left. My skin prickling with goose bumps, I followed the three cops toward the sound. I realized as we drew closer that it was Eric Blades we heard. I’d never heard a human being make a noise like that, but he had a pretty recognizable voice, and I was almost certain it was Eric.

  Whatever was happening to him wasn’t good.

  Flynn had both hands on his gun, which was shiny and silver like Wood’s, and he had it pointed toward the forest floor. “You stay here with the kid,” he said to Hubbard, who nodded quickly, perhaps eager to let Flynn and Wood handle the situation. Hubbard pulled me closer, but not before drawing his own handgun, this one the antithesis of the kind Flynn and Wood carried. It looked like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie, and though I suppose the sheer size of it should have reassured me, the twitchy way the big cop was acting was scaring the shit out of me. The gun looked like it could blow a hole through cinderblock.

  “Should we go back?” I asked Hubbard and immediately regretted it. It sounded even more cowardly than it had in my head. Hubbard hardly seemed to notice. He was peering into the woods, toward a place that was much darker than what surrounded it.