by Janet Bolin
I shrugged. “Brianna likes her music.” For once, my phone light wasn’t on. Maybe Brianna had heard enough of the weather forecast for Sydney, Australia.
Mrs. Battersby glared at Brianna’s door. “Well, if I were you, I’d tell her to turn it off.”
My mouth twisted.
Mrs. Battersby conceded, “I suppose that would just make her turn it up louder.”
I pointed to my comfy couch. “Turn on the lamp, and you can sit down and knit.”
“I’m not as ancient as you two girls seem to think I am.” She put her knitting on the couch and then helped with the cleanup.
When the kitchen sparkled again, Ben and Clay headed for the patio door. “Are you folks coming later?” Ben asked us.
“Where?” Mrs. Battersby asked.
Clay answered with a nicely straight face. “The Haunted Graveyard.”
Mrs. Battersby demanded, “Why would you want to go to a haunted graveyard? Halloween’s over three weeks away. Not that it makes any difference. A graveyard sounds like a perfect way to ruin an otherwise decent evening.”
Clay and Ben laughed, and Ben explained, “Tonight’s the last big event of the zombie retreat at the Elderberry Bay Lodge, and the public’s invited. Clay rigged up a graveyard. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Clay rigged up a graveyard at your lodge, Ben?” Mrs. Battersby asked.
“Yep.”
“And you both seemed like such nice young men!”
They smiled down at her.
“Seemed?” Clay asked.
“There was that foolish wedding skirt rig, too. But Ben almost passes muster.” Mrs. Battersby turned to Haylee. “And that’s where my daughter is having her wedding? In a haunted graveyard?”
“Not exactly,” Haylee began.
“The graveyard’s behind the lodge, in the woods,” Clay said.
“The wedding will be in front of the lodge, near the beach,” Ben added. “Edna chose a beautiful spot.”
“Outside?” Mrs. Battersby was very good at subtle or not-so-subtle objections. “What if it rains?”
“It’s not supposed to,” Ben answered. “But just in case, we’ve set up a huge white tent on the front lawn. The reception will be in our banquet hall.”
“Which is also lovely,” I commented, “with a wall of glass doors overlooking the lawns, the beach, and the lake.”
Mrs. Battersby grumbled, “Weddings in graveyards, or almost. I always said that daughter of mine lived in a fantasy world. Take me back to your place, Haylee. We’ll need to dress more warmly if we’re going to spend half the night outside.”
“I’ll be along in a minute,” I said. “As soon as I settle my pets for the evening.”
Mrs. Battersby grabbed her knitting bag. “Put on a sweater, Willow.” She latched onto Ben’s elbow. “You can help me up Willow’s steep hill.”
Clay sent me a lopsided grin. “I don’t know if I’ll see you at the Haunted Graveyard, Willow. Ben and I will be working behind the scenes, but maybe we’ll run into you.”
Trying not to show my disappointment, I nodded.
Clay and Haylee followed Mrs. Battersby and her conquest out the door.
I changed into warmer clothes, grabbed a jacket, shut my pets into my suite, and left.
Running up through the side yard, I grinned to myself. I was dressed all in black, the way Haylee and I often dressed when we didn’t want to be noticed checking on things at night. Subconsciously, I must have felt I’d be safer in a haunted graveyard at a zombie retreat if I could fade into the darkness.
Haylee must have thought the same thing. She had also changed into black slacks and sweater. Mrs. Battersby was beside her, in black jeans and a bulky red and gray Nordic sweater with bright white zigzags around the neck and shoulder.
“Did you make that gorgeous sweater?” I asked her.
“This old thing? A long time ago.”
She must have made it before the days of glow-in-the-dark yarn, or the zigzags could have been even more visible at night.
We walked toward my car. I cautioned the other two that we should stay together all evening.
Mrs. Battersby stated, “I’m not walking around any haunted graveyard by myself. But if your two hunks finish whatever they have to do, they can protect us.”
Haylee helped Mrs. Battersby into the passenger seat. “Don’t go off without one of us or one of them along.”
Mrs. Battersby responded, “Tell that to each other!”
Haylee and I clambered into the car.
I’d barely pulled out onto Lake Street when Mrs. Battersby informed Haylee, “If you want that mountain to look at you, you’re going to have to stop being so bashful.”
Haylee, bashful? I turned my face toward the mirror on my side to hide a smile.
Haylee answered gently from the backseat. “Ben was widowed a couple of years ago. I don’t think he’ll be interested in another woman for a very long time.”
“Horse feathers,” Mrs. Battersby said. “He can mourn her and still fall for another woman.”
Haylee reached over the seat and patted the older woman’s shoulder. “You’re right. He’s already fallen for you.”
Mrs. Battersby sniffed. “Horse feathers with apples on top.” I could tell by the light of the dash that her smile was quite smug.
I sped the car along Shore Road’s dips and curves, and turned down a narrower road sloping toward the lake.
Mrs. Battersby leaned forward and read the sign for the Elderberry Bay Lodge. “So we’re really going to wander around in a graveyard with a bunch of zombies, one of whom may have already killed a woman this week?”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Zombies don’t need to push someone into a river. They can simply chow down.”
Haylee laughed and admitted, “Those zombies can be pretty scary, even though I know they’re only people in costumes and makeup.”
I teased, “Luckily, we’re here to be scared.”
“And not to do any sleuthing,” Haylee said.
I agreed, “We would never do such a thing.”
“Why not?” Mrs. Battersby asked. “Doesn’t either of you have a backbone?”
Uh-oh. We were going to have to keep a close eye on Edna’s mother.
I conceded, “We’ll tell Vicki if we see or hear anything that would help her solve the case—”
“Vicki?” Mrs. Battersby asked.
“Chief Smallwood,” Haylee explained. “But she’s not the lead investigator. Detective Neffting is.”
“I’d rather help Vicki,” I said.
Haylee agreed, “I would, too.”
“Is she a state trooper?” Mrs. Battersby asked.
I explained, “She used to be, but now she’s the police chief of Elderberry Bay.”
“Also known as Threadville.” Did I detect pride in Mrs. Battersby’s voice? “Then I’d rather help her, too, unless she’s the one who sent those two goofs to Haylee’s apartment last night.”
I assured her that Vicki hadn’t even known they were going there.
The lodge parking lot was nearly full. I pulled into one of the last spaces, next to the tour bus that Rosemary usually drove. She must have brought a load of people from Erie to attend both the craft fair and the Haunted Graveyard.
A sign painted in what looked like dripping blood said Haunted Graveyard and pointed toward a fog-shrouded cobblestone pathway. I glanced down beyond the lodge and the big white wedding tent to the lodge’s beach. Not even a wisp of mist. The zombies had to be running a fog machine near the path.
Mrs. Battersby unfastened her seat belt. “This will be fun.”
I opened the driver’s door. “If someone chases us, we’ll go hide in the lodge. Together.”
From the back seat, Haylee spoke in a voice of doom
. “The lodge could be full of ravenous zombies.”
Outside the car, we had to run to keep up with Mrs. Battersby.
The rising moon peeked between trees on the hill, but except for creeping fingers of fog, the pathway in front of us was dark. Farther ahead, small lights like red fireflies darted between trees. Unmoving shapes on the wooded hill could have been gravestones or zombies crouching on the ground.
Last I knew, that hillside had been a smooth lawn with trees on it.
A female zombie jumped menacingly out from behind drooping branches.
33
The zombie could have been a 1950s housewife in a prim dress and frilly apron if she hadn’t had gobs of fake—I hoped—blood dripping from somewhere beneath her lace-trimmed collar.
She pointed to a table tucked in under the bush’s branches. “Take a light,” she urged in a raspy voice. “If a zombie aims his teeth at you, shine a red light in his face.”
We reached for the small flashlights.
Growling, the zombie lunged toward us. Her open mouth and her dead eyes looked starved.
Mrs. Battersby took a threatening step toward the zombie. Haylee and I picked up the lights, flicked them on, and shined them at the zombie’s face, though we avoided her eyes. Baring her teeth and blinking, the zombie backed away.
Still shining my dim red light toward her lower face, I asked “What do you want?”
“How did you know we have to answer honestly when you shine a red light on our teeth? That’s supposed to be a secret known only by the brotherhood of zombies. Did someone betray us?”
I played along. “Nope, I just guessed.”
She came closer. “You’re a zombie.”
“No.”
“Then in answer to your question, what I want, what we all want, is meat.” She gnashed her teeth together. “Fresh, human meat. Why not turn off those lights?” she encouraged in 1950s housewifely tones. “You can be zombies, too.” She cocked her ear. “Aha. Go away. You three are too wily for me. I hear another possible meal coming.”
Footsteps hit the paved parking lot. The 1950s housewife zombie melted into the bushes.
Laughing, we hurried along the pathway toward the festivities.
Mrs. Battersby reassured us, “It’s all harmless.”
Staring up the hill, Haylee stopped as if transfixed. “Look at what Clay built! That wasn’t there before.”
The building was a small, neat rectangle with a peaked roof, double front doors underneath an arched window, and tall windows flanking the doors. The original design could have been based on an ancient Roman or Greek temple. The doors were closed, the windows shuttered.
Mrs. Battersby raised both arms as if to embrace the faraway building. “It’s the Evans City Cemetery chapel!” She lowered her arms. “Not really. It must be only a quarter the size of the real one.”
“What’s the Evans City Cemetery chapel?” Haylee asked.
Mrs. Battersby turned to us and demanded, “Haven’t you ever been there? Evans City isn’t far from here. It’s south of Butler and north of Pittsburgh. The opening scene of Night of the Living Dead was filmed in the Evans City Cemetery, near the chapel.”
We both merely stared at her.
“You’re not horror fans?” she asked.
What other surprising interests did Edna’s mother have? I told her, “I know the movie is about zombies, the living dead. I didn’t know there was a local connection.”
Haylee added, “We’ll have to make a trek down there sometime.”
I lowered my voice and muttered, “If we survive tonight.”
But everything looked innocent. People in street clothes laughed and called to each other as they wandered through the graveyard shining red flashlights on Clay’s replica chapel and on wood and cardboard painted to resemble gravestones. We stopped to read inscriptions. Even Mrs. Battersby chortled over silly puns the zombies must have created in their spare time.
Suddenly, Haylee grabbed my arm. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “Dare Drayton is here. I would have thought this evening’s entertainment would have been beneath him.”
Tall and dark in his black slacks, turtleneck, jacket, and loafers, Dare had emerged from a break in a rhododendron hedge near the lodge’s porte cochere.
“Who’s Dare Drayton?” Mrs. Battersby asked.
“Clay’s cousin,” I answered.
“Can’t be,” Mrs. Battersby said. “Clay’s a nice young man. That man is . . . not.”
I slanted a glance down at her. “You can tell from here? In the dark?”
“You bet.”
“Who’s with him?” I murmured.
Haylee brushed her hair away from her face, as if that would help her see between ribbons of fog drifting through the inky night. “Brianna? I thought she was sulking in your guest suite.”
Dare and Brianna angled away from us, up the hill and out of the fog. Dare casually draped one arm across Brianna’s shoulders. I snuffled back a laugh. “I feel like I need to protect one of them from the other, but which one?”
“Neither,” Mrs. Battersby decided. “They make a good couple. That way, they can’t spoil two couples. But isn’t he a little old for her?”
Haylee explained, “Her daddy’s wealthy.”
I added, “But my mother said that Brianna’s daddy doesn’t support her, so a bestselling thriller author could be just what she needs.”
“Awwww,” Mrs. Battersby breathed. “True love.”
A form jumped out from behind one of the larger tombstones. “Boo!”
Mrs. Battersby lashed out with one hand and shined her flashlight with the other.
Wearing a flowing red gown trimmed in gold braid and a pair of gold sandals I’d seen on the floor of Naomi’s closet, Juliette backed out of Mrs. Battersby’s reach. “Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Patricia stepped out from behind the next gravestone and laughed. “Couldn’t you foretell the future, Juliette, and know you were going to startle them?” Patricia was wearing a dark blue shirt, jeans, matching jacket, and sneakers. Her skulking and murdering outfit?
Juliette scowled. “My crystal ball is too heavy to carry around all night.”
Although she sounded annoyed, she wasn’t looking at Patricia or at the other three of us. She was watching Dare stroll farther up the hill with Brianna.
Patricia followed her glance. “He likes them young, doesn’t he?” Was she disappointed? Disapproving? She was only about ten years older than Brianna, but so was Dare.
And so was Juliette. She looked longingly up the hill and said softly, “Dare Drayton must leave broken hearts wherever he goes.”
I was going to say something about Brianna being able to look after herself, but the ground suddenly shook with a low roar.
An earthquake?
Mrs. Battersby jumped and shrieked. I reached for her. A rapt expression on her face, she shook me off and concentrated on the chapel.
Its doors exploded open. Expecting flames at the very least, I jumped, but the chapel was dark inside.
Red beams from a hundred flashlights converged on the open doors.
Floyd stooped to pass underneath the lintel, and started down the hill in his odd stiff-legged gait. Zombies paraded out behind him. I recognized Lenny and other zombies I’d seen around Threadville during the past few days. They snaked down the hill in a line, and then fanned out, heading toward people who, until then, had been cheerfully traipsing through the cemetery and illuminating gravestones with small red lights.
34
Okay, I got it. The zombies came out of the chapel because they couldn’t arise from fake graves. We’d all be richly entertained.
None of us would be eaten. None of us would become zombies.
When their retreat was over, the zombies would wash off t
heir makeup, pack up their costumes, and go home to their families.
Mrs. Battersby smiled up toward the advancing zombies. She was obviously loving every moment of the haunted graveyard.
I mumbled to her and Haylee, “Stay together.”
I didn’t mean for Juliette and Patricia to hear me, but they sidled closer to us.
Floyd and Lenny switched direction and lumbered toward us. Those two hadn’t scared me before, and they were not going to scare me now. I was more afraid of Patricia and her long-standing grudge against Isis than I was of men playing dress-up. Perhaps Floyd and Lenny would protect me from her. Floyd shambled too close to me. He stretched his lips in a gruesome grimace. “Did you sic the police on me after that woman was murdered? They interrogated me about where I’d been.”
Remembering the 1950s housewife zombie’s words, I shined my light toward his mouth. “I hear you have to tell the truth when I shine a red light at your teeth.” I wished I could control the shaking of my voice. “Where had you been?” Nothing like asking blunt questions.
He answered, though. “At a party, here at the lodge. I went for a walk on the beach. Your police buddies discovered that a lot of zombies saw me at the party, and surfer boy here followed me along the beach.”
“I can’t help searching for my surfboard whenever I’m near a beach.” Lenny crooned like a wistful teen. “I wasn’t following anyone.”
With a broad smile, Mrs. Battersby turned her head back and forth to follow the exchange. I could have enjoyed her pleasure more if I didn’t sense undercurrents of anger between the two zombies.
Floyd growled, “You saw me on the beach, though.”
“I didn’t really see anyone.” Lenny spoke with care, as if he were making up a story as he went. Or, as Floyd might have put it, as if he were staying in character. “I was scanning the waves.”
Floyd pointed one finger at Patricia, “You saw me, though, right? Didn’t I walk with you for a while? We talked about treadle sewing machines. I said my mother had used one.”
Patricia licked her lips. “Yes,” she muttered.
Why did I get the impression she wasn’t telling the truth?