Officially, the cause of death was “massive cerebral hemorrhage.” OK, maybe that could have happened to one of us, but three? At our age? No way! We were only sixteen, and it's not like we were even related. None of our families had a history of it.
It seemed really suspicious to me, but naturally, all the adults bought into whatever the official reports said. I don't know what it is about growing up, but it seems like once you hit a certain age, it's like a switch in your brain gets shut off, and your ability to see the world for something more than it is goes right out with it. Sometimes, it happens as soon as you graduate high school, like Donna's older brother, and sometimes it might take a few more years, maybe even a decade if you were lucky.
Back in the Sixties, the hippies had a saying: “Don't trust anyone over thirty.” That seemed about right to me, because no one wanted to use their imagination to understand what was really going on. For example, the cops didn't do anything except to ask if we were on drugs. That caused a bunch of problems with our parents. We got a whole lot of dirty looks, stupid questions, and random searches of our rooms until the autopsy reports kept coming back negative. Then, as the bodies piled up, there was talk of a suicide pact, a serial killer, or some kind of disease, but none of it was true.
It took me a long time to discover what was really killing us, and by the time I did, it was too late…
Chapter 2: AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
I woke Halloween morning, the day after Kim's funeral, and didn't want to get out of bed. My head was killing me. Mom made me get up, then forced me to sit at the kitchen table while Dad and her tried to tell me everything was going to be all right.
“How can you say that?” I demanded. “They're all dead! I've got no friends.”
“You'll make new ones,” Dad said.
Mom sipped her morning coffee. “Cara, honey, I know you're hurting, but your father's right. It may not seem like it, but you'll be fine.”
“That's easy for you to say! You're not the one everyone says is cursed. Who wants to be friends with me if they're gonna die?”
Mom put her hand on mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Is that what they're saying? But that's so stupid! How can you be cursed?”
“I don't know,” I said. “I just am.”
“It's not you.” Dad stood and kissed me on top of the head. “I don't want to hear anymore talk like that.”
“But Dad! The only other explanation is if it's not me who somehow killed them, then I'm next in line to die…” A chill swept over me as I said the words. Mom and Dad did their best to comfort me, but they didn't understand. Somehow, I was doomed, and if I didn't figure it out soon, something terrible was going to happen.
All the way to school, my head throbbed. Why were my friends being targeted? Would I be next, and when? What were Donna, April, and Kim doing in Duskhaven when they died? Their bodies hadn't been found 'til morning, but the coroner said they'd been dead for six to eight hours before they were found by the caretaker. That meant they'd gone to the cemetery in the middle of the night. But why?
We were good Mormon girls. We weren't mean, had never bullied anyone I could think of. We weren't eyewitnesses to a crime. That ruled out revenge. Could it be a serial killer? Maybe injecting some drug that made the deaths look natural? I didn't have the answer, but I didn't want to sit around a bunch of boring classes when I could be solving this mystery.
I'd go to Duskhaven and talk to the caretaker. Maybe he could tell me something he hadn't told the police. Something that hadn't seemed important to him at the time, but if I asked the right questions…
I was so lost in thought that Jake Rogers almost ran me over in the school parking lot. Jake was handsome, a junior like me, but unlike me, he had a car. He stopped and got out of his dark blue Corolla, his black hair gleaming in the late October sun.
“Cara! You all right?” He came to me and saw I was shaking. It wasn't just from Jake nearly hitting me, but from him knowing my name. I had no idea a guy like Jake even knew I was alive—well, for now, anyway.
“I-I'm fine,” I stammered. “I guess I wasn't watching where I was going.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “You could have gotten killed—” The look on his face told me he realized that was the wrong thing to say. “I'm sorry. I forgot…” He reached out a hand, resting it on my shoulder, and it was so warm and full of promise, all the gloom melted from me. “You seem pretty shaken. You wanna talk about it? We could ditch first period and grab breakfast. My treat.”
“Sure,” I said. “I'd like that.”
* * *
Jimmy's Diner was on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. It had good food and strong coffee. The smell of breakfast cooking made my stomach growl. I'd only picked at my poached eggs and toast this morning, not really tasting it. I was starving. I ordered a glass of OJ and short stack of blueberry pancakes. Jake had sausage and hash browns.
“Thanks,” I said. “I really needed this.”
“No problem,” Jake said. “I've been meaning to get you alone for a while.”
“Really?” I wasn't sure I needed a boyfriend—not that I'd object to Jake — but I did need a friend.
He smiled. “Even before … everything happened, I was thinking about asking you out. But then, well, you know, it never seemed like the right time. I'm not sure it is now, but if you'd like to…”
“Yes,” I said. “I can't promise I'll be great company, but I really don't want to be alone. In fact, I was thinking of ditching school completely. There's something I have to do today, and I could use your help.”
Jake raised an eyebrow.
“I want to go to the cemetery and talk to the caretaker, the guy who found my friends's bodies.” I studied Jake's reaction before continuing. “Pretty morbid, huh?”
“Nah,” he said. “Sounds like fun.”
“Fun?”
He chuckled. “OK, maybe ‘fun’ isn't the right word, but you know what I mean. I want to help.”
Our food arrived. As we ate, I wondered what Jake and I would do after we finished questioning the caretaker. I'd want to follow up on any useful information he gave us, but what if he didn't have any, and what if I had no more ideas of my own? What would we do the rest of the day?
Jake must have caught me blushing because the smile was back on his face. I liked seeing it there, liked it even better knowing it was just for me. Little by little, my headache went away…
Chapter 3: THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
Even a nice day couldn't make Duskhaven Cemetery any less creepy. I'd come here too many times, attended too many funerals. We parked and hiked through the rows of tombstones to the caretaker's shack. I knocked on the door, but no one answered.
“Maybe he's busy pulling weeds,” Jake suggested, “or digging graves.”
I shuddered and knocked again, then tried the knob. It was unlocked. Jake followed me in. The shack had a cot, table, two chairs, a beat-up chest, and a radio. A black iron wood stove sat in the corner, a small stack of kindling piled next to it. A calendar had the days crossed out and the dates of my friends's funerals circled in red ink. However, on closer inspection, there were other funerals circled too, so maybe it didn't mean anything.
I knelt by the chest.
“What are you doing?” Jake said.
“Investigating. Just make sure no one's coming.” I opened the chest, searching through a bunch of threadbare clothes and finding nothing of interest.
“Someone's coming,” Jake said. “Hurry!”
We were closing the shack door behind us when an old man in shabby, grass-stained overalls walked over. “Can I help you?” The way he said didn't sound friendly, but then again, he'd basically caught us snooping.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “I hope so. My friends are buried here, one of them just yesterday.”
“You mean the Phillips girl?” the caretaker asked.
“Kim,” I said, nodding. “She was my be
st friend. My other friends—Donna Moss and April Peters—they're buried here too.”
The caretaker grunted. “I remember. I dug their graves, all o' them. Shame it was, a terrible shame for pretty girls to die that young. I'm sorry for your loss, Miss…”
“Cara Jones.” I stepped forward to shake his hand.
“I'm Efrem White. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was hoping you could tell me something—anything, really—about my friends's deaths. Like if you heard or saw anything unusual the night before you discovered the bodies, or if there was anything strange about the way they looked, or the grave you found them on. That kind of stuff.”
“It would really help,“ Jake added. “Cara's trying to make sense of it.”
Efrem sighed and ran a hand over his gray-stubbled chin. “Can't say there's much to tell,” the old man said. “I already told the police everything, but I suppose it can't hurt to tell you. I don't hear so good, so I don't remember any strange sounds during the night, or I would've come to investigate.”
“But what about in the morning?” I asked. “Did you hear anything then? See anything, anyone?”
“No, only the bodies. Stumbled across 'em making my rounds. They were just lyin' there in the grass, all sprawled out, eyes wide open. They had their clothes on, no sign the bodies were…”—he coughed politely—“disturbed.”
“What did they look like?” I asked. “Their faces? Were they scared?”
Efrem scratched his head. “No, they seemed kind of happy-like.”
“What do you mean, ‘happy’?” Jake asked.
“Well, they had a smile on their lips. Their mouths were open, I remember that, and slightly parted, but the lips was blue. They looked half-froze to death.”
“The police never mentioned any of this,” I said.
“Why would they?” Efrem said. “It would only upset the families, make 'em wonder. No peace in that. They told me not to mention it to the press, and I ain't, but I suppose there's no harm telling you.”
A raven squawked, watching us with beady eyes from a nearby tree.
“Whose grave was it?” I asked. “Where you found the bodies? The news left that part out, only saying it was on the same one each time.”
“That was to avoid vandalism or any looky-loos come gawking. I can show you the grave, if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That'd be great.”
We followed Efrem down a gravel path to the old section of the cemetery. It was wild, unkempt, and all the trees were dead. A spike-tipped black iron fence surrounded the section.
“Spooky,” Jake said as we passed through the gate. “How old are these graves?“
“Most of 'em date back to the mid-eighteen hundreds when the Church was drawing a lot of settlers,” Efrem said. “So it's everyone from pioneers to right through World War One. Everyone after that's in the new section.”
“What would my friends be doing back here?” I asked.
“Don't know,” Efrem said. “Doubt they'd know anyone. Could be they was meetin' a boy?“ He looked from me to Jake and cocked his head disapprovingly.
“No,” I said. “I don't think so. Donna had just broken up with her boyfriend, April didn't have one, and Kim's boyfriend was out of town when it happened.”
“Maybe it wasn't their boyfriend they was meetin',” Efrem said. “Could be some other fella. Had some trouble with kids breakin' into the old section and… uh, partyin', I guess you'd call it.”
That didn't sound like my friends, and I didn't want to stand around and have the old man accuse them of being sluts, so all I said was, “Show me the grave.” Maybe if I saw it, I could put a name to it, and everything would make sense.
Efrem led us to a grave in the rear of the cemetery. I read the inscription on the crumbling tombstone:
Here Lies
JOSEPH YOUNG
Beloved Husband,
Brother in Christ
Born December 10, 1851
Died October 31, 1890
I shivered, and didn't know why. The sun slid behind the clouds as a cold Autumn wind whispered through the quivering branches.
“Name ring a bell?” Jake asked.
“No,” I said. “Never heard of him. I don't think he's related to any of us.”
“Could be he his, but you don't know it,” Efrem suggested. “Record keepin' was spotty in those days.”
“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.
“"I'm old,” Efrem admitted, “but not that old.” He smiled, revealing a mouth full of crooked teeth. “Wish I could've been more help.”
“You were great,” I said. “Thanks for showing us the grave. Come on, Jake.”
As we turned to leave, I was struck by the urge not to go. That there was something I was forgetting, something I needed to do. I stopped, and it took Jake a few steps to realize I wasn't walking with him anymore.
“Cara?” he said. “What's wrong?”
“I-I'm not sure. Just a feeling…” But the more I tried to know what it was, the more it slipped away. I stared back at the grave.
“Forget something?” Efrem called.
I walked over to him. There were four other graves next to Joseph Young: Adelaide, Amelia, Harriet, and Rachel Young, all devoted wives to Joseph. All dead the same day as him: Halloween, 1890. I noticed other graves too—smaller stones for their children.
Back in the early days of the Mormon Church, they'd practiced polygamy—taking multiple wives. It had caused a war with the government, and Utah couldn't become a state until the Church banned it. They finally did in 1890 and excommunicated the remaining members who practiced it. Some fundamentalists still did, but they were fringe groups, not part of the real Church. That was one of the biggest misconceptions outsiders had about my religion. It was all over TV, exploited on sinful shows like Big Love and Sister Wives. But that wasn't what concerned me.
“They all died on the same date,” I said. “The whole family.”
Efrem shrugged. “Might've been a fire. Plague wouldn't have got 'em all at once, and I can't think of no other reason for them to be wiped out like that, except…”
I leaned forward. “Except what?”
“Violence,” Efrem said. “Outlaws maybe, or an Indian raid. That'd explain it.”
Again, I shivered. The raven was back, circling overhead. It kept cawing and wouldn't shut up. The bird's shrill cries were almost like words, a voice I must listen to and obey…
I reached out and touched Joseph's grave, felt the cracked stone, the dust of years. An electric jolt shot up my arm, blasting my brain into darkness.
Chapter 4: SEALED BY FATE
When I woke, I was lying on the cot in Efrem's shack. Jake was holding a wet rag over my forehead while the old man peered nervously over his shoulder. I tried to rise, but Jake wouldn't let me.
“Take it easy,” he said. “You gave us quite a scare.”
It was difficult to speak, and I had to wet my lips with my tongue before I could get the words free. “W-what happened?”
“You passed out,” Jake said. “You OK?”
I sat up. “I think so. I don't know what happened. I got dizzy and then… It was like I was falling into some deep, dark pit, only there was a voice at the bottom, calling me.” I tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow. “Pretty weird, huh?”
Jake and Efrem exchanged a worried look.
“I'm fine, honest. It was only a dream.”
We said our goodbyes to the old caretaker and left the shack.
“Where to?” Jake asked as he climbed behind the wheel of his Corolla.
I buckled up and didn't answer. I had so many questions, but so little to go on. Was there a connection between Joseph Young and my friends? He had four wives, and there were four of us, but what did that mean? Maybe nothing, maybe everything.
“Cara?” Jake repeated. “Where to?”
I snapped back to reality. The raven was watching me from the tree overhead. “I'm not sure. Anywhere but here.”
We drove around for a while, going no place in particular, and it was nice being with Jake. I hadn't had many boyfriends, and none as handsome as him. It felt good to be with him, to have a man beside me. Maybe it was foolish, but I actually began daydreaming about what it would be like if Jake and I were married, our spirits sealed together for all eternity by the Church. Then we'd always be together in this life and in heaven. That was one of the things I liked best about being Mormon, the sealing ceremony to make sure husbands, wives, and children would stay together forever. It was a comfort.
As I thought about marriage and eternity, Jake shifted in my fantasy until he wasn't Jake anymore, but a middle-aged man wearing the simple, homespun clothes of centuries past. I smelled hay, could hear the sounds of farm animals, feel the heat of the sun warm on my skin…
“Rachel,” the man said, his voice harsh and strained. “Come back to me, to us…”
My friends were standing behind him, only their clothes and faces kept changing. One minute it was Donna, April, and Kim, the next it was three other young girls I didn't recognize, but who recognized me. They wore long, button-up gray cotton dresses and no makeup.
“Sister,” they said as one. “Have you forgotten your wifely duty? You belong with your husband, with us…”
I looked at myself and saw I was wearing a dress the same as them. My hands were mine, not yet mine, and I was filled with a terrible loneliness, a shame and a longing to be on that farm, with them. I had forgotten my past, my love, but all would be forgiven if I would just…
“Come to the cemetery,” the man urged, and I knew he was Joseph Young, knew he was my husband in a former life. “Come tonight!”
I must have screamed because I heard tires screech and then I was back in reality. Jake had pulled over to the side of the road. “Why'd you scream?” he asked.
Horror Girls Page 4
