by S. L. Naeole
“Since his sister arrived. We didn’t want to believe that anything would happen so soon—it is why we were not as diligent with watching over your family as we should have been—but now that she’s made herself known, it won’t be long before the rest of the dark ones start arriving as well.”
“D-did you just say dark ones?” My knees began to wobble, and I grabbed onto the roof of Graham’s car to support myself as I grew lightheaded.
“I’m sorry, Grace. I thought we’d be able to postpone this for a few more months or so,” Robert said in as consoling a manner as he could manage. “They’re coming to see me.”
“You? But why?”
“You know why.”
I did. I knew why, but there was a part of me that still didn’t want to believe it. I still refused to believe it.
“Grace…”
“Well, I don’t,” Graham spoke up then. “Why are these dark…whatever the hell you call them coming to see you?”
“They’re the dark ones. They’re Sam…only worse,” Lark answered ominously.
“Worse? How the hell can anything be worse than that jerk-off?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Dammit, Lark, why do you keep doing this? I’m supposed to be—no, scratch that—I am your husband. God, you know what I lived with, you know what kind of marriage my parents had, and now you’re forcing us to have the same goddamned thing by not talking to me.”
“You think I don’t want to tell you the truth? You think I want to hurt you and drive you away?” Lark cried. “I’d tell you everything if I could, but there are rules, there are laws that I cannot break for anyone—not even you.”
“Graham,” Robert interjected; the tension far too thick for him to take any longer. “Lark cannot tell you because I’ve told her not to. While Grace’s safety is paramount to me, so is yours, and anything that you learn from Lark could be used against both you and Grace and I thought it best that you be kept in the dark about everything.”
Graham’s nostrils flared as Robert’s words sunk in. “You’re screwing around with my marriage, Robert. A husband and wife aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other. That’s what ruined my parents’ marriage—it’s what got Grace’s mom killed.”
“I’m sorry, Graham. I thought—foolishly, obviously—that keeping you ignorant to what was going on would be the best thing for everyone. I see that I was wrong. I love my sister—seeing her hurt has hurt me far more than I could have imagined. Knowing that I am the cause of that pain only adds to the guilt I feel and I take full responsibility for this, and any additional hurt and confusion that you will no doubt feel the further we go on with this.
“The dark ones are angels whose only purpose is to hurt and kill, Graham. They have no divine purpose—their ultimate goal is not to see the resurrection of faith in a person, but to see their fear and their terror, to hear their cries of pain and their pleas for mercy. And…they all answer to me.”
Lark groaned and I felt the words I had wanted to say lose themselves in my throat as Graham tried to digest what Robert had just revealed to him.
“Why would they do that? You’re not like Sam—dude, you killed him. What the hell are you to them?” Graham asked.
“There’s no easy way to tell you. I don’t know how else to say it other than to just…say it. I’m-”
“Death. He’s Death.”
Four heads whipped around to look at the person who stood behind the rusted and dented green car, her face pinched with anger, her chest rising and falling with puffed up fury.
“S-Stacy?”
Graham blinked, his jaw hanging open in disbelief. “Is that…holy hell, is that really you?”
“Close your mouth, Princess—you’re gonna catch flies.”
“Damn! It is you!” Before any of us could stop him, Graham had Stacy in his arms, swinging her around once before quickly dropping her. “What the hell—you’re like a slushie!”
“And you’re still slower than two old folks doing the grody grope—thanks for shouting my name out loud in the middle of a parking lot, you idiot.”
“B-b-but you’re here…alive. What else am I supposed to do?”
“How about keep your mouth quiet?” she seethed before calming, a quirky smile pulling at the corners of her mouth before she threw a quick jab, her fist landing squarely on his arm. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Holy crap, ow!” Graham cried before grabbing his bicep and staring at her with a mixture of fear and amazement. “You’re stronger!”
“And you’re still a sissy.”
“Okay!” Lark stood between the two and held her hands out to each of them, the gesture not meant to separate them but to quiet them as the gym began to empty behind us. “We can either continue this…joyful reunion here and expose Stacy to everyone or, we can leave and save everyone from being slaughtered because I’d rather they all die than have Stacy be found out. So, what’s it going to be?”
“Whoa—harsh,” Graham commented before returning to the car and opening the driver-side door.
“I’ll just meet you there,” Stacy said before disappearing.
“Meet us where?” I called out, already too late.
“It won’t matter where if we don’t get going,” Robert said as he ushered me into the backseat of Graham’s car.
“And we’re all going in Graham’s clunker?”
“It’s only until we get to the house,” Graham announced.
“Then what?”
“Then we fly.”
REALITY BITES
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere over Toledo most likely.”
The night air was chilly, although that probably had less to do with the actual temperature and more to do with how high we were and how fast we were sailing through the sky. We’d been in constant motion for several hours, and I knew that I had fallen asleep at least once during the trek although for how long Robert wouldn’t say. My hair whipped my face as I clung to his neck, afraid to look down, afraid to look anywhere.
“Where are we going? Are we almost there?”
“Yes we are almost there, and as to where we are going, that is a surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“Yes, a surprise. I had planned this all in advance a while ago to celebrate our graduation together, but I wasn’t sure if you’d still feel like celebrating after learning about biology, and then after what happened with Janice, I thought it was best to postpone everything indefinitely. Lark heard my thoughts; she told me that to cancel everything would be a mistake. She said that if ever there was a time you would need cheering up, it would be on the night you should have walked down that aisle with the rest of your classmates. She was right.”
“So…you’re okay then, you and Lark?”
“We’re working on it. I told her that I would make things right between her and Graham…and that I would try to make things right between her and Stacy.”
He said Stacy’s name in an almost venomous tone that forced my head away from the safe hollow of his neck so that I could look at him and see the displeasure he obviously felt at the idea. “You’re never going to accept Stacy as an erlking, are you?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I can tolerate Ambrose and others like him—they have learned to cope with their problem and maintain the balance that my kind have set up—for all of us. But Stacy…she’s acting like the first ones, that bloodthirsty generation that couldn’t control themselves. She’s killed again—did you know that?”
An icy tremor ran down my spine and he knew that I did not. “W-who?”
“A man who lived near the cemetery where her coffin’s buried. She ate him, left only his head and his bones.”
I swallowed in disgust before I asked the question that I was hated to ask, but knew that I had no choice; the question needed an answer; I needed an answer. “Are you going to kill her now?”
A long gap of silence followed as his jaw stuck out, stiff and uner
ring. I waited for it to relax, even if only slightly, to give me any kind of reassurance that he would, but he kept the straight line of his disapproval set, the rigidity of it simply unmovable.
But…his voice was soft when he replied, “No.”
The oxygen that had begun to turn toxic inside of me as I held by breath rushed out in an exaggerated sigh as that lone word did wonders to assuage my concern, my body suddenly remembering how to inhale and exhale again. “Can you tell me why?”
“Why I won’t do it? Because the person that she killed had already been chosen to die. It was his time. Stacy…she preempted me by mere hours.”
“How do you know it was her and not some other…thing?”
His head ticked to the side, a nonchalant motion that spoke volumes of how easily it had been done. “I recognized her scent.”
“You knew it was her because of her smell?”
“Yes. She’s dead, Grace. Because of that she has a particular scent that distinguishes her from every other dead thing that still manages to live. The living dead recognize each other by this scent—it’s their calling card.”
“Is that how she knew what you were? Because you’re…not alive either and smell different to her?”
His mouth curved up in a sadly bemused smile. “No. I may not be alive in the conventional sense, but I am not dead either.”
“Well, neither is Stacy,” I informed him.
“That’s something we can discuss later…right now, I want you to look down.”
Slowly, gradually, my gaze lowered until I was staring at the darkness below us. I could see the faint glow of lights that told me we were descending, and as the glow increased in intensity, the lights widening their arc, so too did the scent of something unfamiliar. As we came closer to the ground, I could make out a few buildings and a spattering of street lights that did little to reveal their surroundings.
We passed the outline of trees and homes that were far different from the ones in Heath, and as Robert slowed, I was able to take in the bright, yellow glow that sat in the middle of what looked like an emerald lake. Instead, as our feet touched the ground, I realized it wasn’t a lake, but an expanse of jade green grass that, beneath the glow of a dozen antique gas lanterns swinging lazily above us, appeared to shimmer like any stone would under a lit flame.
A table set for five sat in the center of a canopy of wood so light, I would have sworn it had been whitewashed. The lamplight did nothing to mute the vivid colors that had been used to decorate the table, which displayed hues of blue and green in everything from the plates to the napkins.
A large column vase that sat in the center of the table held white, lily-shaped candles that floated in turquoise colored liquid. The table cloth was a shocking white, and the chairs that sat open and inviting around the circular table were covered in the same material, the skirt of each one flaring out, the white darkening into a gradient of blue that ended in a bright, cobalt trim at the bottom.
“Are we having dinner here?”
Robert looked at me and nodded in reply to my question. “Graham and Lark will be here shortly, as will Stacy.”
“Where exactly is ‘here’?”
“Don’t worry about that now. Just enjoy the fact that we’re here, with friends.”
A low whistle to the left of me brought my attention to Graham, who stood in a loose shirt and pair of baggy pants, his hand holding onto Lark’s tightly. I felt reassured by that, and a pleased and relaxed smile crept across my face.
“This set up looks sweet,” Graham exclaimed. “All that traveling made me starved. Can we eat now?”
“We’re still waiting for one more person,” Lark informed him, as she took a seat, her eyes scanning the darkness even as her brow pulled together in frustration.
Robert pulled out a chair for me, and I took my cue to sit, my hand waiting in open invitation for his when he took his place beside me.
“Stacy?” Graham asked as he clumsily tried to scoot his chair closer to the table.
“Yes. She’s nearly here, although she will need a change of clothes after that swim,” Lark answered him, her colorless eyes unmoving.
“Swim?” I questioned, receiving only a shrug in response.
“It’s the only way to get here other than flying,” Robert whispered into my ear.
“Oh.”
“At last, she gets it,” Lark murmured playfully before getting up, only to freeze and turn to face me. “On second thought, it might actually be better if you went and got her things.”
I knew why she suggested this, but there was never anything to gain from running from your problems; Robert and I both learned that the hard way. Stacy couldn’t be forced to forgive Lark for what she saw as a complete betrayal. The fact that Lark knew the truth about my mother, and what that meant to Robert and I had destroyed Stacy’s faith and trust in her, and nothing as simple as speaking to her could fix what had been so irrevocably damaged.
“No problem,” I said to her weakly, even as my conscience pricked at me to stay out of it, but her relieved smile gave me hope that perhaps, even if her relationship with Stacy could not be repaired tonight, our relationship could. At least, I hoped it could.
“There’s no need to get me anything, I’m already dry.”
I muted my surprise when Lark stood up, her steps taking her slowly towards the stark figure that stood in the semi-darkness. Stacy’s dark hair disappeared in the slant of a shadow, but her pale skin could not be swallowed up, and the grim line that sliced her face in half told all of us that her time here would not be a pleasant one—especially if any of us tried to force a reconciliation.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Lark said to her, her voice faltering at the end when she saw the cold, almost frozen look that Stacy threw her.
Graham approached, obviously eager to learn for himself what exactly had happened to Stacy. “Everyone thinks you’re dead, you know. I was there, at your funeral—we all were—and man, it was heavy stuff. Like, global heavy. Your parents are going to flip when they see you. And Sean! He’s going to give birth to his own holy cow when he learns that you’re alright.”
“So none of you guys told him, huh?” Stacy remarked icily. “I suppose I understand why, especially from some people-” she looked at Lark then with hooded eyes “-but it’s time to stop lying. There’s no room for it with all the crap we’ve gone through. Graham, you’re not going to tell my parents or my brothers anything; they think I’m dead and that’s exactly what I am."
“Dead people tell better jokes,” Graham jested before letting out a rather undignified snort and taking a jab at Stacy's arm. As quickly as he had done it, he was pulling his fist back with a piercing cry of pain. "What the hell?" His hand was mangled, his fingers bent at odd angles while his knuckles were split, the bony protrusions jutting out like teeth.
"Even turned, I still have an advantage over you," Stacy snickered.
"Yeah, but how? Jeez, it's like you're some kind of rock or something! Look at my hand!"
"Sorry, but you should know better than to just throw punches around this crowd, Graham."
"What do you mean by that, Stacy? You’re the only normal one here—what's going on?"
Stacy's eyes flitted over to Lark's before a disappointed toss of her head told us all just how wronged she thought Graham had been. "You really didn't tell him anything, did you?"
"No. It wasn't the right time,” Lark answered softly, almost ashamedly.
The answer was the truth—as far as truths went—but it didn't stop any of us from feeling the immense guilt at keeping Graham ignorant of what had truly happened to Stacy the day she died.
"Well, let me fill you in, Graham. See, I’m dead.”
“What do you mean, dead? Dead-dead, or just pretending to be dead, like witness protection dead?” he interrupted.
“Dead, Graham; as in my heart’s not beating, there’s no blood pumping through my veins, and my skin is as cold as ice dead.”
I could see Robert’s head shaking, and hear Lark’s groan of embarrassment, but I understood where Graham’s line of reasoning stemmed from—I’d had the same reaction. It wasn’t his fault that he did not understand or know that what we pictured in our minds wasn’t always what we’d see with our eyes.
“Graham,” I spoke up then, knowing that out of everyone, I’d be the one most capable of delivering this news to him without acting like it freaked me the hell out. “Stacy’s not a zombie. She’s like a vampire, but she’s not. She’s what’s called an erlking. She doesn’t suck people’s blood. She…she eats them.”
Graham’s head bobbed down a few times in acknowledgement of my words, and then his hand flew to his neck, his voice coming out somewhat squeaky and high-pitched. “You’re not going to eat me, are you? Because I probably taste bad; really, really bad—I had a hot dog with extra mustard and sauerkraut for lunch—I’m totally pickled and full of preservatives.”
Stacy’s chuckle, followed by Robert’s amused snort, seemed to ease the sudden tension that had appeared in Graham’s face, though his hand did not lower any.
“I’m not going to eat you, Graham,” Stacy reassured him. “As cute as you are, you aren’t appetizing to me in the slightest, which is actually quite ironic, considering how badly I wanted my last meal and how physically unattractive he was-”
A deep rumbling sound brought about her immediate silence, and I gasped when a bristling Robert wedged himself between Stacy and me, his hands held out protectively, keeping me behind him. “You are mocking my generosity and patience, Stacy,” he growled, his voice sounding unnaturally deep and foreboding.
“Oh get off of your moral high horse, Robert—you’re no saint, not with what you do. You take lives every single day, whether you’re there to do it or not. All of those people are inconsequential to you, their lives and what they mean to other people mean nothing; they’re just part of your job. The only lives I’ve taken, I’ve done so out of necessity, and neither of them was worth a damn and you know it.”