Kelly reacted on instinct and went forward. Grace stood there with a blank stare forward, blood dripping from her left hand where she’d torn out her I.V. line. The side of her hospital gown sported a growing red stain where her other injuries were opening up.
“Grace, what the hell are you doing?” Kelly asked, holding his hands out before him.
She gave no response other than to open her mouth and begin producing the same rasping sound he’d heard coming from her the previous morning.
“She was supposed to be sedated!” the technician said. “But when we went to move her onto the table, she sat up and literally tossed Beth out of the room!”
Adrenaline poured into Kelly’s blood, and his hands shook before him. “Grace! You’re really hurt! You need to lie back down!”
Her head slowly pivoted in his direction, something small appearing at the corner of her mouth and writhing for a moment.
All of Kelly’s attention focused on the tendril. He wondered if he was hallucinating, or if what he’d seen the day before was being validated. Either way, he held his breath for several seconds, fighting his instinct to turn and run.
With her attention turned toward Kelly, the technician saw his opening and rushed forward, intending to get Grace restrained.
He didn’t make it.
Grace’s left arm snapped up as the man approached, her hand catching him in the throat and crushing his larynx. She swept her arm to the side after contact, sending the technician to the floor. He collapsed with his hands to his throat, struggling to breathe.
Kelly’s eyes widened. The man Grace had just taken down was by far his physical superior. He knew he didn’t stand a chance.
Grace lowered her arm and reached for her side where the largest bloodstain was spreading. She yanked up her gown and began to drive her fingertips into the wound, her hand slowly vanishing inside.
He could hear the nurse frantically screaming out the door, and he knew Deputy Bryant couldn’t have gotten more than a few blocks away. Still, Grace was clearly doing something horrible to herself, and he needed to stop her.
Kelly forced his terror-paralyzed legs to move, slowly going closer. The other man’s blind rush hadn’t ended well, so he took a much more cautious approach.
“Grace, come on! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but...” Kelly furrowed his brow, his trembling hands within mere inches of her.
Grace had shoved her hand into her side up to the wrist, the wet sound of it moving within audible over her continued harsh breaths.
Kelly tried to keep his gaze up toward her face, a cold creeping sensation moving across his skin. There was a rush of white noise in his ears, and he realized he was on the verge of passing out.
The small gray tendril at the corner of her mouth withdrew and her breaths became quieter.
Not wanting to hesitate further, and not knowing what sort of damage she was doing to herself, Kelly made his move. He swept behind her and wrapped his arms around her torso, trying to pin both of her arms in place.
Grace didn’t immediately react to his embrace. Several seconds elapsed, and Kelly began to wonder if he’d succeeded in stopping her.
His optimism was short-lived, however.
With his embrace holding her arms to her sides above the elbows, Grace managed to pull her left hand away from her side. It emerged dripping with her own blood.
Kelly heard something impact the vinyl-tiled floor with a sloppy splat. Grace went limp in his grip, and he kept her upright, looking over her shoulder at the bloody mass lying on the floor.
Knowing nothing much of anatomy, Kelly couldn’t identify which of her internal organs he was pretty sure she’d just ripped out and dropped. His speculation was short-lived, though, when it started to move.
It crept along, out of the glassed-in portion of the MRI trailer and toward the exit.
“Shit! What the fuck is that?” the nurse yelped from the doorway, pressing her back against the wall as the mass moved in her direction.
As it pulled itself forward, it left a red trail in its wake, streaking the floor like a blood-soaked mop.
Kelly shook his head, his knees going weak and the rushing sound in his ears increasing. His vision tunneled, but he refused to give up his hold around Grace.
He struggled to remain conscious, but it was a losing battle. There were voices from what sounded like a long distance off. The last thing he saw was the bloody, creeping mass disappearing through the doorway. He keeled over to the side, his head striking the unrelenting MRI table before hitting the floor.
Chapter
29
“Are you waking up, Kel?”
Kelly forced his eyes open, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. There was a crushing pain in his head, and he lifted his sluggish right hand to try to cover his eyes. When it came into his view and he saw the I.V. line taped to it, he startled and moved to sit up.
“Whoa, whoa, I don’t think you should be doing that,” Ryan said, placing his hands against Kelly’s chest and pushing him back down. “Doc says you have one hell of a concussion. You stay your ass put!”
Kelly’s mind swam, and he focused on Ryan, frowning. His throat felt dry, and it took him several seconds to force out any words. “What’s going on?”
“You hit your head when you fell in the MRI trailer,” Ryan said, offering a sad smile. “Earned yourself a concussion and a good dozen staples in your scalp to close up the gash you got along the way.”
The confusion started to abate, and Kelly’s heart rate skyrocketed. “Grace! What happened to Grace?”
Ryan sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, beginning to fidget with his hands. “She died, Kelly. The nurse said you did everything you could but...”
Kelly closed his eyes and felt the immediate burn of tears. With his loss of consciousness, he couldn’t really discern how real his memories of the event were. He knew she’d done something horrific to herself, and there was a vague vision in his mind of her ripping something from within her body.
Ryan looked over, seeing Kelly’s chest heave with his crying, the tears starting to fall back from his eyes. He reached out and placed his hand in the middle of Kelly’s chest, not really sure what to do.
“I’m sorry, Kel. This has all been shit for you and poor Tim...He isn’t taking it too well, either,” Ryan said quietly. “He was here for a while, but he had to start toward Denver to get his hand fixed. Turned out his injury is pretty urgent to repair right away.”
Kelly’s eyes opened slightly, and he looked at Ryan, doing his best to stop the hitches in his breaths. “He came back and left already? How long have I been out?”
“Couple hours,” Ryan said. “They sedated you a little to keep you from waking up while they put the top of your head back on.”
“Christ on a cracker...” He reached up and gingerly touched the top of his head, feeling the line of staples they’d closed his scalp laceration with. To his relief, he could feel they hadn’t shaved his head to get it done.
Dani appeared in the doorway of the room. She hurried over to the opposite side of the bed from Ryan upon seeing Kelly awake. Seeing the tears in his eyes, she leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I guess he already told you. I’m really sorry, Kelly.”
He offered her a weak smile, appreciating the gesture. “Yeah, I can’t really believe all this. My head is swimming. I’m not sure what is or isn’t real right now. I swear to God, you guys, she literally pulled something out of the wound on her side before I passed out.”
Ryan looked over at Dani before turning his attention back to Kelly. “The nurse that was there said there was something, but she’s not exactly sure what it was.”
Kelly shook his head, not wanting to relive the hazy memory, but the pain it caused made him regret it. “It’s too fucked up. I can’t deal with it right now.”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I don’t blame you.”
Dani sighed and pulled out her phone. “Damn it, it’s grandma a
gain. She wants me home.”
“My car’s still here,” Ryan replied. “I wanna stay with Kel. They said they might let him out tonight, and he’ll need me to drive him.”
Dani nodded and reached down to squeeze Kelly’s shoulder before going around the bed and giving Ryan a goodbye kiss.
Once she was gone, Ryan leaned in closer. “Okay, so what the hell exactly did happen? I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but they said Mrs. Suhr laid out a dude before you got a hold of her.”
Kelly stared up at the ceiling. “Ryan, it was the most unbelievable thing. I guess she attacked the nurse first, then when I went in, the MRI guy tried to get a hold of her. Grace throat punched the poor bastard. Tim said Grace had been freakishly strong when he’d tried to wrestle the knife from her, but seeing something like that...”
Ryan nodded and glanced toward the door for a second. “The nurse swore up and down that whatever Mrs. Suhr pulled out of herself ran away.”
The vision of the bloody mass creeping along the floor and the nurse’s screams reared up in his memory, concussion or not. “It’s not possible but, yeah, whatever it was, I remember seeing it go around the corner. Maybe it rolled or something? I dunno...I could have been hallucinating at that point for all I know. The lights were out and it wasn’t particularly bright.”
“What did it look like?” Ryan asked.
Kelly frowned and met his gaze. “It looked pretty gross, Ryan. What do you think?”
He sat back and fidgeted with his hands, shaking his head. “You’ll laugh at me, but I’m worried it looked like what I saw come out of that coffin.”
Kelly quirked a brow.
“I know it’s stupid, but with all the crazy stuff happening...” he let his words trail off and shrugged.
“You can’t laugh at me, because it’s just as bat-shit insane as what you saw in the cemetery,” Kelly replied. “Remember when you said it looked like someone had dragged a wet mop through the dirt?”
Ryan nodded.
“Well, that’s exactly what it looked like. It was blood-soaked, though, not covered in liquefied corpse.” Kelly sighed and closed his eyes. “I saw it move. I swear to God I did.”
“I believe you,” Ryan replied. “That’s exactly what the thing in the cemetery looked like. What if whatever it was like...like it got into Mrs. Suhr somehow? What if it’s what made her act all weird for the past two days?”
“You think she went out to vandalize the equipment and it somehow got into her?” Kelly asked. While it did sound crazy, things hadn’t exactly been sane lately.
“It makes as much sense as anything else has,” Ryan said. “Old Madgie knows damn good and well if they hoofed it out there during the storm or not. I’ll have to ask her to come clean about it.”
“This is nuts,” Kelly replied, eyes opening again. “What in the hell could it be if it is real?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ryan said.
Chapter
30
A few hours later, Kelly was in the passenger seat of Ryan’s car. Before leaving for Denver, Tim had asked Ryan if he’d check to see if a package would show up at his house that was due. Kelly had agreed to them going to check after leaving the hospital, in no particular hurry to go home.
The plow had cleared the road well enough, the flat terrain no particular challenge to Ryan’s small car. With the snow blanketing the ground, the scenery was fairly desolate. The only things down that road were Tim’s house and the goat dairy across the road Kelly frequented for his deliveries.
They pulled into the long driveway of Tim’s house, coming to a stop before the nicely remodeled farm house. Kelly got out of the car carefully, looking toward the porch.
Ryan emerged as well, slamming his car door. “Looks like something’s sitting in front of the door. He told me to just go put it in the barn.”
Though Kelly’s head throbbed with each beat of his heart, he closed his car door and moved to follow Ryan, though he didn’t go up the stairs.
Once Ryan had the package, they moved around the back of the house toward the old barn.
When they reached the side door, Kelly came to a stop. “Did he mean to leave this open?”
Ryan shrugged, reaching forward to push the door open the rest of the way. “Probably blew open. It’s not like he’s got any livestock or nothing.”
Kelly started to nod, but the pain in his head and neck immediately made him stop. “Fair enou-”
There was a loud crash from within the barn, Ryan jumping back from the door and nearly tripping in the snow. “What the fuck was that?”
Kelly froze in place. He’d had enough of mysteriously open doors. “Let’s get out of here. We can keep his stupid package and give it to him when they get back from Denver.”
Ryan wanted to agree and retreat, but if there was someone in the barn...
Kelly started to protest, but Ryan moved forward and nudged the door open the rest of the way with his foot.
“Hello?” Ryan said, squinting to see into the darkness.
Something shuffled around, before a goat’s bleat broke the silence.
Kelly laughed and put a hand over his heart. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. I bet that’s Beverly out again.”
Hearing her name, Beverly appeared in the doorway. She was a large, mottled-brown Nubian, not unlike most of the goats across the road. Though there were hundreds of goats at the dairy, Beverly was the dairy owner’s pet.
Kelly snickered again and went over, hooking a finger through the collar she wore. “You scared the shit out of us.”
Beverly didn’t seem particularly bothered with it.
“You go get the package set down, I’ll get her home,” Kelly said, starting to walk, Beverly going along at his side.
Ryan laughed and shook his head. “Okay. I’ll fix whatever she knocked over in there then I’ll bring the car over to rescue you from Dracula.”
“Jesus Christ, he’s not Dracula,” Kelly said, stopping. “His accent sounds nothing like that.”
“Sorry,” Ryan replied. “I know you like the creepy bastard.”
Kelly rolled his eyes and laughed. “This whole damned town and its rumors. You’re not any better than the rest of them, you know that?”
Ryan laughed with a snort, but it trailed off quickly. “I guess we have had enough trouble with superstitions and all that. Shit, I’m sorry.”
Kelly shrugged and looked down into Beverly’s big brown eyes. “Can you believe this guy? Let’s get you home, troublemaker.”
Despite the pain in his head, Kelly didn’t mind the short walk. It was hardly the first time he’d had to deal with this particular goat.
He crossed the road and started up the driveway toward the other farmhouse. While Tim had renovated his house across the street, the one at the dairy had been kept exactly as it had always been.
The front door opened up, a middle-aged man with long hair appearing on the porch. “Aye, Beverly, get you home!”
Kelly let go of her collar, the goat giving another bleat before trotting up the driveway toward the milking barns behind the house.
The man came down the stairs toward Kelly. “Now, what are you doing out here?”
Kelly smiled, enjoying the dairy owner’s thick brogue. “Tim had to go to Denver. He asked for Ryan and me to come get a package he was expecting. Found Beverly in the barn, so I brought her home.”
“Sorry about that. She’s got a mind of her own, doesn’t she?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You look like hell, Kelly.”
“It’s been a rough few days. Tim’s mom died, he got hurt and is going to get surgery on his hand, and I took a cut to the head,” Kelly replied.
“Grace is dead?” he asked, his expression falling.
“Yeah, she is. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Keiran.” Kelly reached over and patted the taller man’s shoulder, his innate social awkwardness digging deep.
Keiran looked down at the ground and le
t out a long breath. “I’ve known her forever, you know? Her family’s been supplying this dairy from the outset. How’s William taking it?”
Kelly grit his teeth and reluctantly met Keiran’s expectant stare. “Uh...he’s dead, too. He wrecked his truck during the storm.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” he replied, eyes narrowing.
“I wish I was,” Kelly admitted. “Your family’s been here a long time, right?”
“They’ve owned this dairy long before I ever came over here,” he said.
“Did you hear about the cemetery at Saint Francis being moved?” Kelly asked.
Keiran gave a slow nod. “Aye. Some of the other farmers have mentioned it.”
Kelly looked, seeing that Ryan wasn’t yet on his way. “Uhm, well, I’m working for Henry McKessel, and we just started the work out there before all these bad things started happening. All the old timers seemed upset we were working out there, and someone went so far as to vandalize most of the equipment at the site. Grace acted like this town would be cursed if we broke that ground, and with all that’s happened since we started...”
“Kelly, nothing happening is your fault. If that ground is cursed, you know damned well it would have come up sooner or later, whether or not you were there,” Keiran replied.
Kelly frowned. That hadn’t been the exact answer he’d been hoping for. “Do you believe in that sort of thing?”
“Where I’m from, Kelly, tales and belief in the supernatural run deep,” he replied. “While a lot of it is nonsense, sometimes the old folks aren’t unjustified in their fears.”
“This isn’t making me feel a whole lot better,” Kelly said, offering up a weak smile.
Keiran smiled in return, though it didn’t quite travel to his eyes. “Sorry, but as the rumors around town about me go, I’m spooky.”
Kelly laughed. He knew Keiran was well-aware of the weird rumors circulating about him. “Well, I suppose it goes along with you being a vampire and pretending to be a different member of your family every fifty years or so.”
Unhallowed Ground Page 12
