“Why me?”
“Because you borrowed my car and crashed into my mother’s mailbox and I told my parents that it was my fault… I remember very clearly that you said ‘I owe you big-time, Katiekins!’”
Jackie lifted her face from the pillow and moved closer to the phone. “I don’t sound like that, do I?”
“Sometimes you do.”
“Fine. But I thought you cashed in on that favor last month…”
“I did. This is for the money you borrowed that I said you didn’t have to pay back—”
“I was going to pay you back—”
Katie laughed. “Let’s be real, honey, you weren’t going to pay me back.”
Jackie frowned at the phone. “Is this my punishment for being a bad friend?” she asked moodily.
“Yes and no.”
Jackie sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over her face. “Lemme guess, I’m your only hope?”
“Yup. No one else will do it.” Katie replied brightly.
“Are you surprised?”
“Nope!”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “I literally can’t think of a worse way to spend eight hours.”
Katie laughed. “That’s because you hate working. No one else will do it because—”
“Because it’s haunted and creepy and you work at a goddamned graveyard? Yeah, yeah.”
“Exactly. Good thing you don’t believe in any of that crap.”
“Good thing,” Jackie agreed tersely. “Am I getting paid?”
“No. You’re not getting paid. You’re covering for me out of the goodness of your salty little heart, remember?”
“It’s not that salty,” she muttered. “Fine. What time?”
“Seven.”
“Tonight?!?” Jackie sat up straight and checked the time on her phone. “But it’s already four!”
“And you’re still in bed,” Katie said dryly.
“And?”
Jackie grabbed her phone and held it against her ear as she scrambled out from under the tangle of blankets and sheets.
“Did you have plans?” Katie asked sweetly.
The question was rhetorical, but Jackie bristled anyway. “I mean. Not officially.”
“Great! You’re a lifesaver. I promise it won’t be awful. I’ll drop off the keys in half an hour.”
“Keys?” I winced as I pulled open the curtains.
“Yeah. Did you forget what to do? I can make you a list if you want…”
“No. No. It’s fine.”
Hilariously, I actually had forgotten exactly what Katie did at the Barren Field Memorial Gardens, but I figured it would come back to me eventually.
“Great. Seriously, I really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Jackie said flatly. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Katie replied unconvincingly. “So… do you have a job yet?”
She reached for a sock that was half hidden under her bed. A vague deja vu of the last phone call she’d had with her mother flashed into her mind. That conversation had taken a strikingly similar path. Reminders of things she’d messed up. Questions about things she would probably mess up in the future.
“I’m working on it,” she replied.
“That’s great news,” Katie said absently. “Hey, listen, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. You’ve got time for a shower.”
“Lucky me,” Jackie muttered as the phone cut out. She checked the battery. “Ten percent. Figures.” The offending device sailed through the air and landed on the bed with a dejected thump. She stretched and groaned as her hip cracked. The last few months had been rough, even by her standards. Hell, the whole year had been shit. Last year hadn’t been any better. The full length mirror confirmed her suspicion that she looked like microwaved death.
“You need to get your shit together.” she muttered at her reflection before she stomped to the bathroom.
It wasn’t exactly a daily mantra, but it was something she said a lot.
Especially lately. Rock bottom? Yeah. That was normal.
Katie stood in the driveway with her arms crossed over her chest. “Look. I made you a list anyway, just in case.”
Jackie looked down at the laminated paper in her hands skeptically. “You had it laminated?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what? Are you worried I’ll get peanut butter on it or something?”
Katie’s eyebrow rose slightly.
“It was just one time!” Jackie cried.
“Once was enough. I was on my boss’ shit list for a week for that.”
“Sorry,” Jackie mumbled.
Katie held up the keys on one finger. “Just promise me you won’t eat in the chapel again.”
“I promise.”
“Do you want me to put in a good word for you?” she asked. “We’re probably hiring again in the next month or so.”
Jackie shook her head. “No way,” she laughed. “Thanks, but I’ll find something a little more suited to my talents.”
“Staying up all night is one of your talents,” Katie snorted.
Jackie grabbed the keys out of her friend’s fingers. “Go and enjoy your weekend. Like you said, I owe you.”
“You definitely do,” Katie said grimly. “Just remember, if you screw up, it’s on my head.”
Another lecture.
“I remember.”
Katie shook her head. “Everything you need to know is on that list. A little cleaning. Set up for the funeral… Easy stuff.”
Jackie smiled, but she didn’t care if it was convincing or not. Katie might have been desperate for her help, but it was harder to feel like her friend actually appreciated her when she treated her like a child.
“You’d better go. I’m sure you have to meet someone somewhere or something.”
Katie checked her watch and then hurried back to her car. “Thanks again,” she said quickly. “You’ll be fine.”
Jackie lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave as Katie slammed her car door and pulled out of the driveway.
She looked at the keys in her hand and the laminated instructions and made a face. “Graveyard shift at a graveyard. What the hell was I thinking?”
Katie’s little yellow car disappeared down the street and Jackie sighed heavily. “I should have asked for gas money.”
Barren Field Memorial Gardens lay above the town, and Jackie had to scrounge through the house to find enough change to take the bus. She’d have to walk back, but she could worry about that in the morning.
She had done this kind of work for Katie before; it would be easy enough to do the cleaning and lay out the funeral decor. It was staying awake long enough to get through the shift that was the problem. She’d been lectured before about being caught on CCTV sleeping on the floor of the ‘reflection chapel’ housed in the funeral home’s basement.
It was dark and overcast that evening, and even the moon seemed reluctant to reveal itself. The wind bit through her wool coat and she pulled it tighter around herself as she walked. The bus hadn’t stopped anywhere close to where she needed to be, but at least there were streetlights on the road so she didn’t feel quite so alone.
Jackie patted a long metal thermos full of gas station coffee and smiled ruefully. “No sleeping this time,” she said as the gates of the Memorial Garden came into view. They were locked tight, bound with thick chains to keep out anyone who had any plans to deface some tombstones or go drinking amongst the graves… She didn’t blame them. When she’d been a teenager, these gates had never been locked, but there had been enough complaints from grieving families that the owners had finally done something about it.
The key Katie had given her allowed her access to a smaller wrought iron door that had been set into the stone wall that enclosed the property.
She fitted the key into the lock and stepped back as the door swung open on its greased hinges. The single streetlight above the gates flickered slightly and the orange light cast strange sh
adows over the uneven pavement.
“I hate this,” she muttered. A sharp crack from the thick woods behind her caused her to stiffen. “Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.” She resisted the urge to turn and look to where the trees came to the edge of the narrow single-lane road. If there was something there—she didn’t want to know about it.
She half-ran through the gate and slammed it closed behind herself. With one hand gripping the wrought iron she closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “Don’t look.”
Jackie pushed away from the gate and kept her eyes closed until the strange sensation of being watched faded away to a general feeling of unease.
“You’re fine. It’s just dark and creepy. Nothing else.”
Dim lanterns illuminated the path toward the funeral home and Jackie walked as quickly as she could. Being outside after dark wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time, especially when she was all alone.
Being in a crowded place after dark? Fine.
Being alone in an empty place after dark? Decidedly not fine.
“You’re not alone…” she whispered and gestured at the rows of gravestones. “You’ve got lots of company.”
She laughed at her own terrible joke but it sounded thin and choked and she swallowed hard as she fumbled with the keys.
Just get inside.
She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of unease that had settled over her shoulders as she had approached the Memorial Garden’s gates, and that feeling wasn’t fading as she tried desperately to get the key into the lock.
There were noises behind her, something moving through the trees and she tried to focus on the lock.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on!”
The key finally slid into the lock and Jackie pushed it open with a small cry of relief. She squeezed through the opening and slammed the door closed. She locked it quickly and stared into the darkness.
The lanterns flickered, their light seemed to shudder on the path and Jackie squinted at them, willing them to turn on again.
She pressed her hands against the glass and tried to focus on something, but the shadows blended together. Something moved in the dark. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it. A shape blacker than the shadows, running in the dark. Between the gravestones. Staying just out of the light.
Jackie’s breath caught in her throat and she bit down on her lip to keep from making any noise. She blinked hard and looked again.
There.
A shadow blacker than anything she had ever seen.
A long lashing tail.
Four powerful legs… or was it six?
“What the hell,” she whispered. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t believe in that bullshit. Myths. Legends. Old wive’s tales. It was all lies and stories told to scare children. And she wasn’t a child.
“Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. It’s just—” she paused and blinked again. “It’s a cat. Are you kidding me?”
Jackie laughed aloud at her own stupidity. “It’s a cat, you dumbass.”
A sinuous black tomcat stepped out of the shadows and into the pale light of the lanterns.
The cat meowed loudly, yawned, stretched, and then sat down and began to wash his dark paws.
Jackie couldn’t resist. Stray cats were her weakness. And something about a black cat in a graveyard appealed to the almost forgotten goth teenager she used to be. She set down her bag and opened the door.
The cat didn’t move, but she could feel his yellow eyes following her as she closed the door carefully and knelt down on the concrete. She held out her hand toward the cat who watched her with its head cocked to the side.
“Hey, gorgeous boy. Who let you wander around in a graveyard on a night like this?” The cat trotted over to her and rubbed his face against her outstretched hand without hesitation and Jackie smiled. “Shouldn’t you be curled up in front of a fire or something?” She rubbed the cat’s ears and laughed as he rubbed against her knee and then flopped down on the concrete so she could rub his belly. “No claws, okay?” she chuckled. The cat batted playfully at her fingers.
“Maybe if you stick around until morning I’ll take you home with me,” she said. There were no homes this high up the hill, so he would have had to walk a long way to get up to the Memorial Gardens. She sighed heavily and stood up and the cat rolled over and scrambled to his feet. His tail lashed the air and he meowed loudly. “What? I have work to do. I’ll be back to see you in a few hours. You can have some of my lunch. Do you like pizza? Everyone likes pizza.”
She turned for the door, but the cat rushed in front of her and she stumbled in an attempt not to step on him. “Hey! What's the big idea? I said you can’t come with me!”
The cat’s meow sounded accusatory and Jackie frowned at him. “Look, buster, you’re not coming inside. I don’t care how handsome you are. I have to get this shit done or Katie will skin me alive. She doesn’t love cats like I do, and I doubt Mr. Talbot would either.”
The grumpy groundskeeper showed up just before dawn every day to fire up the lawnmower to keep the expansive greenspace expertly trimmed. If anything was out of the ordinary, he’d notice first. She even had a foggy teenage memory of narrowly avoiding being caught after spending a night drinking among the gravestones with her misfit friends.
The good old days.
Those friends had all moved on from Barren Field… Jackie was the only loser left.
“Okay, time for you to scram,” she said to the cat.
The cat stared up at her indignantly and she chuckled fondly as she bent down to rub his head. But instead of allowing her to pet him, the cat darted away from her and jumped up onto a low stone wall that marked the entrance to the graveyard.
“I’m not chasing you,” Jackie said with a sigh. “Seriously. I’ll be back. We can chill later. Go hunt some mice or something...”
The cat blinked at her and sat down on the wall. Staring.
“Ok. See you later,” she said absently. She put her hand on the door and pulled, but it wouldn’t open. She rattled the handle and then swore loudly.
She pulled on the door again and then looked up at the overcast sky in frustration. “Locked. Of fucking COURSE it’s fucking locked!” She looked back at the cat plaintively and then shouted up at the sky. “Why can’t I catch a break? Just one. Just one goddamn break. Just once. All I want is a boyfriend who didn’t grow up in this shithole town, a job I don’t despise, and for this goddamn door to be open… Just… Ugh!”
“Choices,” the cat said.
Jackie spun around and stared at the cat. “You did not just talk.”
The cat yawned wide and then stared at her for a moment before jumping down off the wall.
“Hey! Hey, get back here!”
The cat darted into the shadows between the gravestones. Jackie hesitated at the edge of the lights that illuminated the path. The Gardens were dark, but her eyes would adjust…
Maybe.
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and frowned at the single bar of cell signal.
“Figures.” She looked back at the funeral home and at her bag sitting on the carpet just inside the locked door. Maybe she could get a signal out by the gate… But who would she call? Katie would be furious and no locksmith would be coming out there after 7pm… and she definitely didn’t have the cash to pay one anyway.
The black cat jumped up onto a polished marble headstone and meowed loudly at her.
“Say something else,” she demanded.
The cat’s tail flicked and she thought it winked at her. But maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her in the strange light. She was definitely hearing things.
“It’s your fault I’m locked out,” she muttered and flipped on her phone’s flashlight. “I have almost no battery. I’m locked out. And no one is coming up here until dawn. Now, what the hell is going on? Did you talk or not?”
The cat meowed again, but it almost sounded like he said ‘come on.’
“What the hell,” Jackie whispered.
She swallowed hard and then stepped onto the grass. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she muttered. “I definitely should not be doing this.” But she was always terrible at following her own advice, and she held up her phone and stepped onto the dark grass.
“Puss puss? Where did you go you little nightmare?”
“Hurry.”
Jackie froze. She had definitely heard that. “This is bullshit. Katie is going to murder you. Dead and buried. What the hell are you doing?”
But her feet didn’t stop moving.
The cat meowed again in the dark and she swung the light of her phone around, trying to find it. A flash of yellow eyes. A shine of black fur.
She moved faster, trying to keep up with the cat.
She knew it was stupid, she should have been trying to figure out how to get into the funeral home… But she couldn’t turn back.
“Wait for me,” she called out.
Another shape moved in the darkness and she flinched away from it. Something brushed against her legs and she cried out in surprise. She turned quickly, and her hip crashed against a gravestone. She shone her flashlight up onto the cold face of a stone angel. “Always judging,” she muttered.
She stepped backward, but the grass was wet and her boots slipped. Her arms pinwheeled as she tried to keep her balance. Her foot hit something metallic, and then the ground dropped out from under her.
Strange laughter echoed in her ears as she fell back. Her phone flew from her hand as she rolled down a small hill. A white flash burst behind her eyes as her head struck a marble gravestone, and everything went black.
Two
Jackie groaned. She was lying face down in a patch of wet grass and her head ached, the pain pulsed behind her eyes as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.
It was still dark. So dark. And she could barely see a few feet in front of her.
“Why the fuck did I follow that cat,” she muttered.
She pushed herself up to her knees and rubbed her hands over her face. Dried blood was crusted in her hair and she winced as her fingers touched a lump that was forming in her hairline. “Owww.”
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 125
