Feeding Frenzy: Curse of the Necromancer (Loon Lake Magic Book 1)

by Maaja Wentz

  “Hey, you’re kinda cute,” she told the mirror, and blew herself a kiss. “But tonight, you have to be kickass.”

  Her stomach growled like an angry raccoon. Why were her cravings back? Was it because people around her were pigging out? Or was this hunger and Rudolph’s voice in her head symptoms of infection?

  She steadied herself on the bathroom counter and stared down at the tiles, remembering Marta. She was doomed. Rudolph’s voice in her head was just the final stage. She’d been craving food non-stop since September. What if she had given it to Lynette, and Lynette had given it to Roberto, plus all the love-struck boys who hovered around her?

  That couldn’t be. It was the cemetery, the trees, the terrible roots growing into Rudolph’s head through his ears. As the sun set, Tonya unpacked the hospital box to get dressed. By the time she was through, she would be completely unrecognizable. Good thing too. Getting caught doing what she had planned would make her a social outcast, forever.

  WORLD PREMIERE

  Priya felt like a director on opening night. The lights dimmed with the setting sun and the audience filed in by twos and fours. After weeks of planning, costume, and rehearsal, it was show time for her creations. She sat on a folding chair in the control tent, observing events from her laptop via six cameras Drake had rigged amongst the cemetery’s mature trees.

  There was plenty of action: the animatronic arm that came out of a gap in a tree trunk as you entered the east gates near campus; the giant constrictors that lurked amongst tangled tree roots along Loon Lake’s southern shoreline and, continuing west all the way to the fence; the Volkswagen-sized tarantula poised to pounce from above. She loved to hear the whoops and screams of teens as they stumbled upon her “actors.” How could Tonya have tried to deny her this? With its meandering paths and ancient, indecipherably weathered tombstones, this place was perfect. She avoided the chapel of course, although Zain was dying to record in it. Her installation steered clear of modern gravestones and concentrated on the parklike areas of the cemetery where she could use trees to trigger people’s eternal fear of the Wild.

  She left the tent to find Shin. She had to see his reaction when he saw her werewolf sculpture, an Adonis caught halfway through the change, his powerful shoulders modeled on Shin’s own. She thought she was finished sculpting her last creature before she met him, and she had tried to resist using Marta’s boyfriend as a muse, but his athlete’s anatomy was too perfect to overlook.

  She took the path leading out of the western gates and turned south toward the bonfire, through the wooded strip between the cemetery gates and Kenny Road to the west. This patch of ground was even more wooded than the cemetery.

  As she walked, Priya was disappointed by this year’s female costumes. She passed one scary Bride of Frankenstein, but the rest of the co-eds defaulted to the standard hot chick combo: heels, cleavage, and short skirts. By the time she reached fireside, Priya had passed sexy witches, sexy devils, sexy cats, and sexy pirates who all looked the same. Not that she had a problem with sexy, but couldn’t they show more imagination?

  The bonfire was built in a clearing just outside the cemetery, almost opposite the Herbal Healing Shop. Around the fire, Priya recognized a cluster of guys from Shin’s party wearing capes, swords, and cowboy hats. It made her wish she had a costume. Too busy primping her monsters these past few weeks, she hadn’t thought about her own appearance.

  “Hey.” Shin was coming toward her, silhouetted against the flames.

  Priya dusted bark and twigs off her jeans and heavy lumberjack shirt. Her hair was clean at least. For convenience, she had braided it and pinned it to her head in a pair of tight coils.

  The light caught the side of Shin’s face and she could see him staring, first at her plaid jacket, then up at her face and hair.

  “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Uh . . . Princess Leia, disguised as a Canadian.”

  He smiled and pointed up into the trees where she had installed a hundred glowing eyes.

  “So, all these crazy monsters are yours?”

  “I confess. I am the mad artist.”

  “Well, don’t cut your ear off, Van Gogh. Can I get you a drink?” He thumbed over his shoulder at a keg on the far side of the fire.

  With a flourish, Marta strutted out of the shadows wearing a floor-length gown with an embroidered bodice worthy of Queen Elizabeth I.

  “Your costume is fabulous!” Priya tried not to stare.

  Marta’s cleavage welled up from the beaded neckline of her dress and even the corset underneath couldn’t hide the fact she looked fifteen pounds heavier than in her diving team picture on the university website.

  “Shin likes it.” Marta spun, sending multiple layers of skirts floating.

  Priya saw Shin frown, as Marta wobbled to a stop. Was there something not right between them?

  “So, about that drink.” He shot Priya a gaze so steely she felt like it could nail her to a tree. What was wrong with this guy?

  “No thanks. I’ll get my own.” She strode around the fire to where a couple of guys were selling cups of beer for a buck. Priya wasn’t thirsty but she found a place to stand in the shadows. She was intrigued by the firelight effect, flickering over the circle of faces. Paintable. Definitely paintable.

  She was so lost in this living chiaroscuro that it took her by surprise when somebody sidled up to her.

  “Here’s to the Mistress of Darkness and Special Effects.” Shin toasted her with his plastic cup.

  “It’s supposed to be Art.”

  “It’s incredible.” He closed the gap between them and spoke softly. “Me and Marta are just about finished.”

  “So?”

  “I thought you might care,” he looked back at the fire.

  “Has she stopped training? She’s gained some weight.”

  “D’ya think? Lately she eats like nothing else matters. We go on a date and she ignores me. Won’t look at anything but her plate. It’s like she’s trying to push me away.”

  “You’re not supposed to love someone when they’re rail thin, then dump them the minute they don’t fit your idea of perfect.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Yeah it is, but how you feel about your girlfriend is not my business.”

  “That could change.” He took her hands in his and Priya didn’t know what to do. He was so forward, and she was more comfortable pursuing rather than being pursued.

  “You sure are friendly.” She gave his hands a little squeeze and broke away. “Want to see something cool?”

  “And leave the bonfire? This is where the party is.”

  “C’mon, you have to see this!”

  She led Shin through her carefully constructed monster experience. As the path wound deeper into the wooded section, glowing eyes gave way to hints of things that swished and howled in the bushes. Shin tried to take her hand again, but she evaded his grasp. His nearby presence felt magnetic, but she couldn’t decide whether to encourage or reject him. He belonged to Marta.

  Priya led Shin off the path.

  “Where are we going?”

  They were approaching the tent. He looked at her, then back at the tent. He grinned. “Looks like your lucky night!”

  “Calm down, Diver Boy.” She unzipped the tent flap revealing the laptop and chair.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You brought me all the way here, to show me a computer?”

  “Patience.” She pointed to the laptop screen which was divided quilt-wise, showing images from six different cameras.

  “Watch camera four.” She indicated a couple strolling through the cemetery.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Getting close to Tonya’s famous Ash Tree. Watch what happens.”

  The camera was mounted high in the branches, yielding a foreshortened, bird’s-eye view. At their leisurely pace, it was taking them a while to get to the tree and, while Shin watched the screen, he snaked his arm around Priya’s w
aist.

  It sent a shiver up her spine.

  She stepped out of his reach. “Look.”

  Camera three showed the same scene from the opposite direction. In it, they could see what the couple was seeing: the tallest tree in the cemetery.

  There was a flash, then a trembling in the branches and out leapt Priya’s pièce de résistance, Artemis, goddess of the Hunt. After a whole forest of creepy, fierce-looking creatures, Priya wanted to end the show with something magical.

  “Is that Marta?” Shin stooped closer to the screen.

  “Not exactly. Months ago, I used a volunteer in a wig for the hologram, then spent a day last week manipulating the face. It’s her portrait.”

  Projected in holographic light, Artemis glowed like a goddess. The couple in the forest stood still, watching from behind as the huntress drew her bow and shot at something unseen beyond the cemetery fence.

  “What’s she aiming at?” asked Shin.

  “Exactly! That’s the effect I wanted to create.”

  “She’s so perfect.”

  “Do you want to see her live?”

  The way Shin’s eyes looked her up and down told her he’d rather get lively in the tent, but an object on the screen caught her attention. A bulky dude passed right through the hologram, dispersing Artemis into haze.

  Priya was annoyed. Some lunkhead student had ruined the recording, except his suit and hair weren’t student-like. Was he wearing a costume?

  He turned to face the camera.

  “It’s Professor Rudolph!”

  “Didn’t you say he was dead?” asked Shin.

  She watched the professor lumber after the couple, hands outstretched like a sleepwalker. There were no microphones, but Priya saw the girl’s mouth open wide and her hands go up to protect her face. As the couple sprinted away, Rudolph blundered after them, passing out of camera range.

  “We should check that out,” said Shin.

  They jogged along the path by the bobbing light of Priya’s phone, but when they reached the Ash Tree Professor Rudolph was gone.

  HERO COSTUME

  Tonya rode her bike along the path between campus and the cemetery. It was getting dark and she didn’t have time to walk or even run. She must have looked unhinged, wobbling along the path with the yellow Hazmat suit tangling and impeding her legs as she pedaled. With the hood limiting her vision to one small plastic window in the front, it was hard not to drift off the path.

  She crossed the road, walked her bike through the Eastern Gate and rode west. This was it, the moment which would define her career at the university and her life in Loon Lake.

  There are those who give their lives in battle. Others sacrifice themselves at sea like the captain who goes down with the ship. Tonight was Tonya’s weigh-in on the scales of Fate, and henceforth she would know her worth. Heck, the whole town would know. And so, for the good of the many, she had come equipped for self-sacrifice on the altar of social suicide.

  The yellow Hazmat hood made her stumble by limiting her vision, but it protected her from inhaling infected air. She walked her bike into some bushes and left it hidden, beside the abandoned chapel. With gloved hands, she pulled a penlight out of her plastic pocket.

  Inside, the chapel ceiling was too high to illuminate with her little flashlight, but she could see a set of dusty wooden steps which took her up to the choir loft. At the top of the stairs, gauze blurred the mask of her hood. Ugh! She had walked through a cobweb. She wiped her mask and walked toward a patch of moonlight.

  Peering through a gap in the broken stained-glass window, she spotted a bonfire just outside the cemetery. To get there, the students would have passed the great Ash Tree. She shivered. They could already be infected.

  Tonya left the chapel and took the southward path. She was familiar with every cemetery trail. The Old Families treasured their graveyard and revered the ancestors buried there. They were the first Europeans to settle the area who, legend had it, survived their first winter by using old country magic.

  Tonya could hear the shouts of students coming through the Eastern Gate. Through the trees, she heard laughing and screaming as they encountered Priya’s monsters. Tonya hesitated. Every moment they spent in the cemetery put them at risk. Should she break up the bonfire first or turn back the arriving crowds? She decided to detour east.

  Students strolled in through the gates and cut south on the path which led around the hill into the old section and the Three-Century Ash. Tonya rushed to intercept them. When she got close enough, she yelled through the plastic window of her Hazmat suit:

  “Leave the cemetery immediately!”

  A couple stopped and stared.

  “This area is quarantined!” Tonya shouted.

  “Funny!” said the guy.

  “Who are you supposed to be?” asked the girl.

  “I mean it. It’s not safe.”

  “Don’t worry,” said the guy. “We’ll use precautions.”

  The girl giggled and punched him in the arm. They brushed past her as if compelled to visit the Ash Tree.

  Tonya watched couples, singles, and groups take the path leading to the ash, drawn by some unseen force. To anybody else, they might appear to be wandering randomly but Tonya was convinced the gravedigger plant was manipulating them, drawing in victims for a sinister purpose. Professor Rudolph’s behavior had proven it. Yet how could the beloved tree of her childhood have been corrupted to cause harm? There was dark magic at work here, but who was behind it?

  Another handful of students approached Tonya who was blocking the path.

  “Go back or die!”

  “Very scary,” some said. Others mocked her plastic suit but not one listened. For a moment she stood, too frustrated to move. Their refusal to listen brought back high school memories of rejection, like being chosen last in Phys. Ed., except there were no captains to pick or leave her anymore. She had volunteered for this job herself.

  Tonya walked to the pinch point in the pathway between the small hill and the cemetery gate. They would have to get past her to reach the Ash Tree and the bonfire beyond. Squaring her shoulders, she pressed the button on the loud hailer with her bulky gloves and shouted:

  “Attention! Attention!”

  No sound came out. All she could hear was her voice, muffled by the thick Hazmat hood. She held the handle up to her face and angled it this way and that in the moonlight, trying to see what was wrong, but it was too dark. She pulled a flashlight out of the suit pocket and looked again. The buttons were clearly labeled. She tried again. Nothing. Even the power light didn’t come on.

  Fumbling with her gloves, she pressed a release and snapped open the back. No batteries. Donna said the equipment was tested. What now? With the suit and hood on she could never shout loud enough to warn people. If she took it off, she would be infected. There had to be another way.

  Tonya replaced the flashlight and took out her phone. She removed the plastic glove, so she could work the touch screen. Video cameras fed online images. She would be able to see whatever was happening by the tree as soon as the page loaded.

  The first thing she noticed were the flowers, garlands, and photos attached to one side of the massive trunk in memoriam for Professor Rudolph. Priya had removed the evil-looking mouth and teeth as promised.

  A woman carrying a bow came around the side of the tree. She was dressed in white. Tonya had another look. The woman wasn’t visible because of light reflecting off her white toga as Tonya first thought. She glowed from within. It must be Artemis, Priya’s showpiece.

  Tonya watched as Artemis knocked an arrow to her bow, stepped around the tree, and fired a shot into the darkness beyond. She blinked out of sight much too soon.

  Why did Priya’s creations have to be so breathtaking? It made what Tonya had to do that much harder.

  With a few taps on her phone, it was done. Priya would never forgive her.

  HOLOGRAM

  By the time Priya and Shin arrived at the As
h Tree, not only had the Professor left but a new group of students were marveling at Priya’s hologram. Too bad there was no time for Priya to bask in their appreciation. “Professor Rudolph could be anywhere by now.”

  “Not our problem.” said Shin.

  “How can you say that? You saw him chasing people on the monitor.”

  “I saw him stumbling around and one couple running away, but this is Halloween. How do you know he wasn’t just fooling around?”

  “We made a memorial for him. Tonya says he passed away, right here in the cemetery.”

  “Weird.”

  “Tonya wanted to cancel tonight. She said something here was making people sick, but I wouldn’t listen.”

  “And you believe her now?”

  “We saw the Professor stumbling around blindly on the campus lawn. Three of us couldn’t wake him or stop him. We were afraid he would walk into the road and get hit by a car.”

  “Tonya’s mistaken. If he’s here tonight, he must feel better.”

  Priya’s stomach did a fish flip. “Or he’s dangerous.” She took out her phone and tried first Tonya and then Drake, but there was no answer. “What if Tonya’s right and he’s contagious?” Priya searched Shin’s face for a sign he believed her.

  He frowned. “We should get Marta.”

  “If Tonya’s right, Marta’s binge eating was caused by the same disease. Stay away from her or she could give it to you.”

  “Let’s find her.” Shin grabbed Priya’s hand and started running toward the bonfire. His long legs made him impossible to keep up with. She stumbled until he slowed down a little.

  She was panting as they jogged into sight of the bonfire. She scanned the crowd ringing the flames, but couldn’t see Marta’s face.

  “Do you think she wandered off?” she asked.

  Shin didn’t answer. He searched the bushes and clearings nearby until they found her, sitting at the base of a tree, with her head tilted against the trunk.