Grave Danger

by K. E. Rodgers

  The LeMoynes sat at the dining room table in silence with only the soft music from the stereo speakers intruding. No one felt like having light conversation anymore. And despite Maude’s request that they forget about the others on the mainland, none of them could. The others were always a constant reminder of what they were not and no matter how normal they tried to make themselves, they all knew that their lifestyle was not seen as natural by the others. The LeMoynes were freaks of nature; abnormal creatures who many believed shouldn’t exist in this world. It didn’t matter that they had loved ones, a home to call their own, or even a profitable business selling commercial real-estate. It all boiled down to what they chose to eat; as if that was all they were.

  Chapter 13-

  “What do you want me to do, Clarissa?” Leah walked beside Clarissa as they made their way down the quiet streets of St. Augustine.

  They had waited until Madeline had gone to sleep before venturing out into the night. Maddy had been given the thinly veiled lie that Leah had gone home hours before. And neither woman could be sure that the intuitive older lady bought any of their lie. Either way, she went to her bedroom on the second floor across from Clarissa’s room and several minutes later Clarissa could hear her sleeping soundly in her bed.

  What they were doing was dangerous. Not only was Clarissa putting her soul in jeopardy, she was also putting another living life in parole. Leah was a delicious morsel for one of their kind. But Leah would not be denied her chance to retaliate against the things that took her friends life.

  “You don’t need to do anything.” Clarissa was on edge. It was much more difficult to have Leah with her. If she was going to do this tonight then she really didn’t need to have Leah’s safety keeping her mind from the task ahead. Leah was not only bait for the flesh-eaters, she was a liability. If anything happened to her living friend, Clarissa wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive herself. Even if it was Leah’s choice to come out with her tonight, ultimately it was Clarissa’s responsibility as a death bokor to keep her from harm.

  “Can we stop and rest for a bit?” Leah was a living, and had the misfortune of tiring out easily. Unlike Clarissa, who could remain moving for hours without tiring or needing to sit and rest, her body wasn’t as resilient to the forces of nature.

  “Sure,” Clarissa conceded. She had noticed that Leah had yawned several times in the past hour. Realizing it was many hours past midnight, a time when most of the living were in their beds dreaming. They had been wandering the streets of downtown St. Augustine almost half the night. Leah had to open the bookstore in the morning and she was going to be exhausted as it was. Clarissa knew she needed to get her friend home before she passed out.

  Instead they found their way to one of the old cemeteries across from the visitor’s information center. There were no ghosts milling about inside, as most ghosts found cemeteries unflattering reminders of their own deaths. Not to mention, what was there to do in a cemetery? Many of the living believed that they could visit the sites where their loved ones lay resting, thinking that in some way they could speak to the person. They couldn’t. What remained behind was not a person, but an illusion. It couldn’t answer you back. All that was human and good went to places beyond, back to the cosmos and the world above.

  Leah sat on a steel bench, resting her head on the back of it as she curled herself into a tight ball. She was tiny enough she could manage it. “They’re not coming are they?” she asked sleepily, covering her mouth as she yawned yet again. “Or else we missed them.”

  “I don’t know,” Clarissa answered honestly. She plopped down on the cement sidewalk, her legs and feet bent over the curb of the street. From here she could see the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum, not that anyone was inside, ghost or otherwise. “I should have been able to sense them, unless they’re being more cautious because they know I can listen in on them.”

  “Somehow I thought this would be more exciting,” Leah grumbled as she closed her eyes. “Maybe they don’t go out on Sundays because it’s a holy day.”

  “I highly doubt that flesh-eaters have anything to do with the church. Their sins can’t be blessed away so easy.”

  Leah sighed. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute.” She turned her body into the metal bench, turning herself away from Clarissa. “Wake me if anything interesting happens.” Not that she believed anything other than the occasional residual haunting would walk the streets at night. And everyone left them alone.

  Clarissa sat quietly on the curb. She had brought a back-pack from the house; an old one that Jackson had left behind some months back. In it she stored a few items she thought might come in handy.

  In a room down the hall from her bedroom, Clarissa had found a case of old tools and ancient artifacts. Lying on a bed of soft black velvet, there had been a small dagger with a silver handle adorned with raised vine details, the end carved into a skull. Something unseen compelled Clarissa to take it along. Finding a silk scarf from a drawer in the room, she wrapped up the weapon, stuffing it into the bottom of the back-pack.

  Setting the bag on the curb next to her, Clarissa unzipped it and reached inside. She pulled out a thin plastic object about the breadth of a large book. A gift from Henry, he had explained that it was a device for reading and storing multiple books and magazines. Clarissa had remembered hearing about the machine. She thanked Henry profusely for the expensive gift, but he reassured her that the purchase wouldn’t put a dent in his savings.

  Clarissa turned the device on as she plugged in the tiny accessory reading light. Going through her most recent book purchases, she found her place in a book where she had earlier left off.

  It did seem that Leah was correct. Either they had missed them, which was unlikely or they had chosen not to come across the bridge tonight. In a few hours their hunt for the flesh-eaters would be over. Once the sun began to rise in the sky the creatures would be forced back onto the island until the curtain of darkness fell once again onto the old city.

  Clarissa concentrated on reading as she heard Leah’s soft breathing in the background. She didn’t seem to have any trouble falling asleep on a park bench in front of a cemetery. But then Leah was quite immune to the strangeness of the paranormal; hanging out with dead people and all that. She turned her head to look back at the living woman to confirm that she was indeed under the spell of Morpheus. Her dreams were like little visual vignettes that Clarissa could watch for hours, but she chose not to out of respect for Leah’s privacy.

  Facing forward once again, Clarissa blew a long stream of cool air from her mouth. The night was not overly muggy, but still the air in Florida was always saturated even during the fall. Clarissa’s cool breath caused the particles of water in the air to drop in temperature, turning it into a flow of fog that twirled and danced in front of her. She moved her hands, directing the fog to swirl around her like a blanket then out and away from her. She watched as it floated down the street toward the bridge.

  She wondered what Corrigan was doing right now. In the quiet streets of St. Augustine, Clarissa let her mind wander far away from her as she reached out across the river. If Corrigan was there on Anastasia Island, could she find him in his mind? Would he let her touch that part of him he kept hidden even from himself?

  Clarissa knew she was a fool, but in her daydreams she could push aside that rational part of herself and just let her fantasies take root. As fantasies went, hers defied all logic and sense. In them she wanted Corrigan LeMoyne to accept her as she was and when he looked her in the eyes she only wanted to see heat and love, not cold bitterness and contempt.

  You don’t even know him.

  That rational voice inside was always a downer to her fantasies. But it was true. She barely knew him and what she did know about him where all the things she hated about his kind; vicious animals. The rest he kept locked away inside his heart; if he even had a heart worth beating.

  It was all that kisses fault. If only he had kept his h
ands and lips to himself she could have gone on to continue hating him. But now, it was all she could do to keep her resolve that he and his kind needed to be exterminated. She had to think of the safety of the livings in her city, her people and the S.S. who served them. He was the other and their kind should be hated.

  It was really hard to hate the very being that felt like the other half of you. Clarissa blew another cool breath into the night air. With it she whispered a single word.

  Corrigan.

  ***∞***

  Corrigan had walked the beach many times over the years. It was here on this very beach where his puny little wooden boat had made landfall after weeks on the Atlantic Ocean. He had spent most of his life on the high seas. As a sailor he had traveled to exotic places of lore; found himself in the dark mysterious worlds where the natives would sooner slice your head off than welcome you onto their land. And it was in the wild islands of the Caribbean were Corrigan had lost his soul; where they had made him a monster.

  He had been out here for hours, pacing up and down the sandy shores until his feet and back ached and he was forced to sit down, his breath coming out in great huffs. Not because he was short of breathe, but because he was losing control.

  Then he laid himself down on the beach, flat on his back in the cool white sand, the water’s edge lapping only a few inches away from his bare feet. As he lay there in the stillness, he imagined what it would be like to have Clarissa lying next to him to enjoy the view. Would she like the beach as much as he did? Would she play in the surf like an alluring sea nymph? With her dark air and pale skin, she had the look of a beguiling angel; a benevolent creature who reminded him of the beast he was.

  In his fantasies, she didn’t look at him with mistrust or suspicion. She looked at him as if he were only a man, not a monster, a man like he had once been; complete. It had been decades since he had ever dreamed of being the normal human man he had been in life. But even in his fantasies he never dreamed of finding his other half. Such dreams were beyond even Corrigan’s own imaginings. And as the fates twisted aged hands would dictate, his other half looked to be the very death of him. If Clarissa had her way, it would be she who would lay the final blow, ending his miserable existence.

  Corrigan held a fist full of cold sand, letting it spill through the cracks between his fingers. Clarissa was like the sand, cool and bright under the moon filled sky. And she wasn’t something a creature like he could hold on to. And if he let her she would bury him, and not just up to his neck.

  He cursed himself as a masochistic fool for ever thinking about a woman who wanted to see him permanently dead. But even as he told himself this, he knew that she was more than a deadly adversary. Clarissa was a woman of strong convictions and loyalty; he could see that after only one encounter with her. But even still, he knew next to nothing about her. She was as elusive as the flowing sand between his fingers.

  He stared up at the full moon in the sky, its quiet radiance a nightlight to a sleeping world. In all his life or animated death he never wanted more than at this moment to share the night with someone. Someone who would chase away the demons and ghouls of his past, and for a moment in this existence make him feel whole and alive. More than anything he wanted Clarissa to be that someone.

  A cloud slipped past the moon, drawing darkness on the earth below; darkness like death. And as Corrigan closed his eyes he painted the face of a woman with long flowing hair and eyes like the changing sea. If he could, she would be his muse and he would paint her into his world because only in his art would he ever have the privilege of seeing her standing next to him and not at his back ready to strike.

  He breathed out her name like a prayer to the heavens above, though none of the divine would ever hear the prayers of the damned and soulless. For how could someone as flawed as he was be given peace in this world? Not bloody likely. He had more chances of being struck by a burst of lightning and then as he lay in shock in the street, be swiftly run over by a car driven by a crazed Hollywood celebrity. That sounded more plausible than a fanciful dream of finding peace or anything remotely like happiness.

  Corrigan found himself once again on the peak of the bridge overlooking the old city below. His family didn’t roam the city on Sundays. A day of rest, a time when many of the living set aside the toil of their lives to remember their faith; whatever that might be. In truth it didn’t really matter what day they choose as long as the intentions were the same. Corrigan had a difficult time understanding the faith system of the livings. But for them, perhaps there was still hope.

  The night breeze blew across the bridge bringing with it a smell he was all too familiar with. It was the smell of life ebbing away, sucked up by the lure of death. It was like smelling a food that’s scent was imbedded into ones memories, the scent of it bringing forward the time when it first crossed the senses. This smell brought forward the ever present memory of Corrigan’s first kill. Everyone remembers their first. For him, it both disgusted and excited him, to smell the sweet fragrance of living essence. It was priceless.

  I want it.

  ***∞***

  A scream rent the quiet night air, slicing through the atmosphere and disturbing the solitude of a sleeping world. At once Clarissa became aware of it. Rising quickly to her feet she turned to find Leah awake and staring at her, the look of living fear on her face. The living had much to fear in this world.

  “Did you hear that?” Clarissa asked Leah, though she needn’t have bothered. Of course she had heard that blood curdling scream. Even in a deep dreamless sleep such a sound could pierce through the subconscious, setting off the alarm bells.

  “Yes,” Leah nodded, turning to stare down the street toward the bridge. “It came from that way. I’m sure of it.” Leah was quickly on her feet, not to run but to go after that horrible sound.

  Clarissa picked up her back-pack, hefting it over her shoulder. In the next instant she was off, Leah a few steps behind her. Clarissa was moving so quickly, her mind focused on getting to that sound, that she wasn’t aware that her feet barely touched the ground as she moved. Her only objective was to confront the creature that was stalking that living person and take it down.

  ***∞***

  Corrigan bent over the frightened woman, her neck a blood stained mess of torn flesh. Her eyes held that vacant stare of coming death, when the world became small and tight. It was taking her farther down that cold tunnel with each drop of free flowing blood, the life essence of the living escaping with it.

  He touched his hands to her throat as more of it bubbled and dripped with her last breaths. It would be so easy to let it have her and to take what he could from her last threads of life. But this was not his kill, nor would he have ever targeted an innocent woman. But staring into the face of a banquet it was difficult to remain in control.

  Corrigan could stray outside the lines just this once and be unaffected. He had no soul to seek penance for. So what did it matter if he simply finished her off.

  Corrigan sensed her presence moments before he was flung back, finding himself airborne for several seconds before landing into the side of a cement piling. He had a thick skull, but even still the force of the blow shook every brain cell in his head as it made contact with the piling.

  Clarissa had seen only a dark shadow over the figure of a woman. But in an instant she recognized the beautiful demon hovering over the living woman. Corrigan. In an instant she reacted to the scene, expelling a force that knocked him away from the woman, landing him several feet and into a rather large cement piling near the bridge.

  Rushing to the side of the still woman, she gazed down into a most horrific scene. Her throat was battered and as she breathed more of her life’s essence slipped out with the blood. It saturated the ground around her turning the sun bleached asphalt street black.

  “What should I do?” Leah exclaimed, coming to kneel beside the woman. As Leah looked down into the ashen face of the dying woman, she at once recognized her. It was
Candice Snow, an S.S. member and sister to Mary-Ann Gills who had been attached and killed merely a week ago. Candice was sure to follow her beloved sister’s fate if something wasn’t done soon to save her.

  “Clarissa,” Leah said her friends name as she watched her hover intently over the living woman. After a few agonizing long seconds she answered.

  Clarissa had almost completely forgotten about Leah. She recognized Ms. Snow from the town meeting when she and another S.S. member, Michael Burn, had sat quietly grieving in front of her. It had stayed with her these last few days helping to keep her resolve to destroy the monsters that had hurt these innocent people, burning hot and bright inside her. Clarissa was willing to do practically anything to keep this woman from joining her sister in the here-after. Anything.

  “Put your fingers to her neck and try to hold the loose flesh closed. The best thing we can do right now is keep what little blood she has left inside her body.” She looked into the face of her living friend, finding the young woman relatively calm in the face of such horror.

  Clarissa watched as Leah tentatively touched the open wounds on Candice’s torn throat. If her fingers trembled a little and her face lost some of her life giving blood it wasn’t enough to make her draw away. She kept a gentle but firm hold over the wound. It wasn’t enough to save this poor woman, perhaps only giving them a few seconds. But in life, every second counted.

  “Ms. Snow,” Clarissa called in a low hypnotic voice. “Can you hear me?”

  Candice didn’t respond as was expected of someone whose very life was slipping away far too quickly. Clarissa tried again. “I’m Clarissa Schofield. We met at the town meeting. Do you remember me? Leah, lean forward so she can see your face.” Leah did as she was instructed.

  “Ms. Snow,” Leah forced a smile on her face, but in her eyes there was evidence of tears. “It’s me, Leah. You’re going to be okay. We’re here now and Clarissa and I are going to make sure no one else hurts you. You need to stay with us for a little while longer. Can you hear me?”