He swung around and punched Tyler in the face. I heard a sickening noise as something cracked under his fist.
He’d broken Tyler’s nose.
The metal pipe clattered out of Tyler’s hand and rolled away. Tyler brought his hand up to his face and pulled back blood.
“You should go,” Gwydion said, staring at him.
Tyler swore again under his breath, then stalked out of the room. Gwydion watched him go with an utterly blank expression on his face. I felt a thread of anxiety wind its way through me. I’d seen that look only once before.
Gwydion turned back to me and the remote expression was gone. He looked angry.
“You followed me here? What the hell, Ken?”
“You didn’t leave me much of a choice,” I said dully. “Gwydion, this isn’t you. This can’t be you.”
“Well, it is me,” Gwydion snapped, “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Gwydion, stop it! You’re scaring me. This isn’t how mom and dad raised us to be!”
“Our parents are dead, Ken. They left us with him. They didn’t raise us at all.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Gwydion interrupted me.
“Don’t ever follow me again, Ken. You couldn’t help me then, and you can’t help me now.”
It was the first time he’d ever said that to me. It was the first time he’d ever acknowledged that I had watched our uncle abuse him for a year and had done absolutely nothing to stop it. He might as well have slapped me across the face.
I couldn’t say anything at all, because he was right and we both knew it. I felt a hot lump rise in my throat.
Gwydion’s expression softened as he watched my face and for a split second, it seemed like he might apologize. Then he shook his head once and, swallowing hard, he stalked off in the same direction Tyler had gone without another word.
You couldn’t help me then, and you can’t help me now.
The words rose up like so many ghosts between us.
Had he been right? Was he still right?
Rory was gone and with him, all of my hope was gone too. I was alone. How was I going to save my brother now? I hadn't realized how much I'd been banking on Rory guiding me through the underworld. Without him, I felt helpless and utterly exposed.
I pushed myself back into a sitting position. Using my jeans, I brushed off bits of gravel and dirt that clung to my palms. I wiped my eyes fiercely.
No more tears, I promised myself.
I stood. I'd wasted too much time already. And yet I hesitated for a moment longer, hoping against hope that Rory would suddenly reappear.
Had he gone through the door as well? I wondered. Had it led somewhere else? Another memory?
Or maybe the door had vanished altogether when I'd stepped through, and he'd been left in the same situation I was now in. Perhaps he'd continued along the road.
The more I considered it, the likelier it seemed. Even without me, Rory might have decided that saving Gwydion was still possible. Or maybe he thought that I'd be able to break free of the memory and somehow find him, the way that I had in the clearing. I refused to consider any other possibilities as to what might have happened.
I refused to think about the dark shape I had seen standing behind Rory, just after I stepped through the door.
But deep down, I knew exactly what it had been.
It had been a demon.
Rory wasn’t coming back. I would have to do this alone.
Left with no other options, I began to walk forward, paying attention to the magnetic pull towards my brother's life force. It led me into the town.
Every step I took was torture. I expected something nightmarish to jump out of the shadows at any moment. But the fog banks gradually gave way to the town and I found myself surrounded by buildings I recognized. At first, they were spread out: the Baptist church with the middle school across the street. Both were dark and deserted. Once or twice, I thought I saw something moving in the school athletic field, but I walked quickly past it and managed to convince myself that it was only my imagination. Every thirty seconds or so, I checked the road behind me, making sure that I was still alone.
Then, once I had passed the church and the middle school, the town started, almost abruptly. Every store front I passed was dark and deserted. Ahead of me, I could still see dark figures on the road, but as I neared them, they seemed to fade into the shadows. Though I couldn't see them, I could feel them watching me as I passed.
Rory had told me that they couldn't or wouldn't hurt me, that it was the demons I needed to watch out for. I clung to the cross in my right hand like a lifeline. It was the only weapon I had here. I tried not to think about the fact that it had been pressed against my mother's body.
It wasn't real, I reminded myself. It was just a memory. A small and dark part of my mind pointed out that, if it hadn't been real, then how was I still holding the cross in my hand? I tried to push the thoughts away, but they lingered in my mind.
As I entered the main stretch of town, rows of two and three story buildings loomed over me like shadowy monsters. Many of the windows were illuminated in a strange white light, which gave me the distinct impression of monstrous eyes watching as I passed. I stayed to the center of the road, but I continued to check behind me. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being followed.
It was after turning back around from checking the vacant road behind me that I saw movement from the shadows beside me. It was a streak of something pale moving through the darkness faster than my eye could follow.
Something was here, keeping pace with me.
Heart hammering in my chest, I froze in place. I briefly considered my options. I couldn't confront it; it had moved so fast that I hadn't even seen it properly. I didn't have a way to fight it, unless the cross worked on it. Since I doubted it was a demon, that seemed unlikely.
I decided to simply continue forward. It hadn't harmed me so far. Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it was just curious.
To prevent myself from panicking, I mentally listed the buildings as I passed them: Ye Olde Towne Indoor Market and Baazar, Olde Towne Saloon, The Creamery, the Hollow Hill Library, Riverside Diner, the Hollow Hill Ghost Tour. On the other side of the road, Aladdin Bail Bonds, Becker and Humbert Law Offices, Hidden Treasures Antique Gallery, Twice-Read Tales Used Books.
My eyes landed on Crystal Voyage Gifts, a metaphysical bookstore that was so cheesy it had always made my eyes roll every time I'd walked past it in the real world. There was a giant geode in the window, perhaps four feet tall and studded with bright purple Amethyst crystals, surrounded by other large stones and crystals in various colors and shapes. In the center of the window was a display of books and tarot cards on an old wooden bookcase. Next to the book display, a mannequin was standing beside it, dressed in blue silk robes with stars on them and pointy blue hat, like an old-fashioned fairy tale wizard. Now, its lifeless eyes seemed to be looking directly at me. With a start, I realized that its hands were arranged differently than I remembered. The last time I had seen the display, the hands were arranged around the book display, as though showcasing what was on offer. Now a single arm was raised, the finger outstretched. It was pointing down the street, in the direction I was walking.
I took an instinctive step back. My hands shook, both with cold and with fear. The cross felt small and insignificant against my palm. I turned away from the window.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, I followed the magnetic pull of my brother's life force through the town, and onto a narrow winding road that descended into darkness. The buildings began to get further apart again as I walked, until they finally faded away to endless darkness and fog.
I caught a flash of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned again: that same streak of something pale moving faster than my eye could follow. I checked behind me again, but I saw nothing but the black outlines of buildings in the distance. Whatever it had been, it was gone now.
When I turned back, the road had changed.
Before me, perhaps only fifty feet ahead, there was now a large and quite familiar iron gate looming over the road. The gate was covered in ivy on both sides and the doors were standing open like waiting jaws. Above the doors, there was a rusted archway with a large metal sign stamped into it. The sign read: Hollow Hill Cemetery. On the other side of the archway, I could see dark and twisted trees with dark barren branches like skeletal fingers reaching into the sky. The ground before me was littered with bone-colored weather-worn tombstones, like cracked and crooked teeth.
Staring at the graveyard beyond the wrought iron gates, the knot of dread in my stomach crystallized and my heart hammered in my chest. In order to continue forward, I would need to pass through the gate.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Though every instinct I possessed told me to turn around and run the other direction, I forced myself to stay calm. I needed to get through the cemetery in order to continue forward. I could feel the sharp edges of the tiny cross digging into the flesh of my palm as I gripped it.
It had been years since I’d been to the Hollow Hill cemetery to visit the graves of my parents. It was different than I remembered it, more sinister. From the looming and twisted trees lining both sides of the path like black skeletal sentinels to the broken and jagged white marbled tombstones that twisted up from the ground, the entire scene felt nightmarish and dangerous. I tried my best to ignore the surprising number of freshly dug graves on both sides of the path, and the even more ominous number of open graves, but they drew my eye like a magnet. The one blessing was that the moon was nearly full overhead. It lit the entire graveyard with a spectral silver-white glow.
I held my hand straight out in front of my body as though I were groping around in the darkness. In a sense, I guess I was. I could still feel Gwydion's life force in the palm of my hand, but it was fainter now.
I tried not to think about what that meant.
I continued without incident for several minutes, until I neared the heart of the graveyard. The path dipped toward a large circular fountain in the distance and split off into four directions. A massive and weathered marble statue of an angel was perched on top of a pedestal, looking off into the distance. The water in the fountain had turned to ice in mid-stream around it. There were dark marble benches positioned around the fountain, partially shrouded by matching tall black marble flower boxes.
Then, somewhere in the distance on the left side of the path, I heard something crack. It sounded like a tree branch snapping under the weight of a foot.
I scanned the graveyard. It was still and silent.
My eyes fell for a moment on an open grave twenty feet from me. Did I see something moving in the darkness?
I froze, squinting at the grave. Dirt was definitely moving near the edge of the grave. I was hardly even surprised.
“Damn.”
I heard another sharp crack somewhere behind me. It was closer now, but on my right. It was maybe sixty feet away.
Gritting my teeth against what I might find, I whirled in the direction of the sound. Again, my eyes scanned the darkness: trees, gravestones, open graves, freshly turned soil on the final resting places of the newer residents of the cemetery, a couple of large bushes with white flowers — maybe roses — but nothing moving. Then my eyes fell on one of the newer graves, ten feet ahead of me on my right. The soft earth was moving. As though something was attempting to dig itself free.
A weapon, I told myself. You need a weapon. Somehow, I didn't think the cross was going to cut it.
My eyes raked the cemetery, looking for something, anything I could use to defend myself. Suddenly, all around me arose the sounds of wooden coffins splintering and fingers scrabbling at the earth. Then, a hundred yards in front of me and just off the beaten path, I spotted something that made me breathe a sigh of relief: a shovel planted straight up in the ground over a fresh grave.
In the same instant, I heard the noise I'd been afraid of since I stepped through the gates: soft shuffling footsteps behind me, much closer than any other noise.
I froze for an instant, and started to turn.
I felt fingers grip my shoulder. The flesh shifted as it gripped me, as though it were rotting of the bone.
A noise of horror left my lips, somewhere between a scream and a moan. I shook the hand off and started running. Around me, I could see the ground moving around every freshly dug grave I passed.
I raced along the path, sprinting towards the shovel. Please be slow zombies, I thought wildly. The Night of the Living Dead kind, not the George A Romero kind. Though, some part of me knew that I wouldn't be able to outrun an entire graveyard full of zombies for long, even if they were the slow kind.
In my peripheral vision I could see that all around me, graves were splitting open and dirt-crusted hands were reaching up from the ground. I wrapped the chain of the cross around my right hand as I neared the burial plot I was bee-lining for. If the shovel didn't work, I would try the cross as a last resort. I didn't want to be digging in my pockets like an idiot while being mauled by a horde of zombies.
I reached the shovel and pulled it from the freshly dug grave it had been planted in. A second later, rotted fingers closed on my shoulder once more.
I whirled to face my attacker, holding the shovel. Dead eyes glared at me in an otherwise motionless face. It raised its other arm to grab me.
Reacting on instincts I didn't know I possessed, I shoved the blade of the shovel into its face. Dark fluid sprouted around the edges of the shovel blade and a wave of horror and nausea passed over me.
The body slumped to the ground, nearly pulling the shovel from my grasp.
Using my foot, I eased the body off the shovel blade.
The encounter had taken only moments, but when I looked, I realized that my predicament had gone from bad to worse. From every direction, dark shapes were shambling towards me. There were dozens of them.
I started for the path again. My only hope was to outrun them. There was no way I'd be able to fight these things off. I might be able to fight off one or two, if I got lucky, but not dozens — or hundreds — of them.
Behind me, I heard more shuffling footsteps.
A grave erupted on my left as I passed it. Something black, sinewy, and glistening crawled its way from the ground. I turned for an instant to look at it. An animated corpse, covered in dirt and fluids, was struggling from the soft dirt of the grave. It was flat against the ground, only the torso freed, its hands clutching at clumps of grass in front of it, trying to find purchase. It let out a long, bone-chilling moan as it ripped itself the rest of the way free.
As I neared the fountain in the center of the graveyard, something hard slammed into my lower back, knocking the breath out of my lungs. The ground rose up to meet me and the shovel slid away from my grasp. It bounced twice before coming to a stop under a marble bench. I hit the ground painfully and my teeth snapped together. I tasted copper. Blood. The chain I'd wound around my hand broke with the impact and the cross sailed out of my hand. I didn't see where it landed.
I tried to climb to my feet, but hands that were more skeleton than flesh gripped my legs, leaking viscous fluids through the backs of my jeans. Rotting fingers grasped my hair, pulling my head back. The grip was surprisingly strong.
I brought an elbow back, but I couldn't make contact. I expected to feel cold teeth on my exposed flesh, but none came.
Breathing hard, my eyes landed on Gwydion. He was standing beside the fountain, on the path in front of me. He was the same age as he'd appeared in the funeral home. His arms were folded and there was cruel smile on his face. His eyes were black in the silvered moonlight.
The demon was here.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I glared at the demon, expecting to die at any moment.
The sickly sweet stench of decay filled the air. Instinctively, I breathed through my mouth. I could f
eel rotting hands gripping me in a dozen places. The grip on the back of my head remained firm and motionless. At any moment, I expected to feel the hands tighten painfully, to feel my flesh tearing. But they weren't moving.
He's controlling them, I realized.
“The zombies,” I bit out, still glaring at him. “They're your doing?”
“You like them?” He smiled, smug.
“Zombies in a graveyard,” I bit out, striving to sound scathing. “How original.”
“You must admit, they're effective.”
“So what's the game plan here? You're just going to sit there and watch as they tear me apart?”
“I could do that,” He agreed, losing his smile. His face seemed to darken. Though he looked just like Gwydion had looked, his voice was neither my brother's, nor that of a child. The effect was disconcerting, though perhaps that was the point. He added, “Or you could choose to leave.”
“You’d let me leave?”
“Of course,” He said, “I mean you no harm if it can be avoided. Truly.”
The way he spoke was strange. His pronunciation was crisp and formal. It sounded as though he’d learned to speak English in another era.
“You have a strange way of showing it,” I said, wincing as the fingers entwined in my hair tightened fractionally, putting more pressure on my scalp.
He made a casual gesture with one hand. The zombies immediately dropped me. As one, they retreated back several paces, just outside of arm's reach.
Still breathing hard, I warily climbed to my feet. Caught between the zombies and the demon, I hesitated for an instant, before deciding that the demon was marginally safer for the time being. I took a couple of steps toward him. My eyes flicked to the path behind him.
He held a single finger up. “Run and you'll never make it out of this graveyard,” He warned.
Hesitating again, I finally nodded.
I could still feel the heat on my skin from where the zombies had gripped my legs and I knew that I would have bruises in the morning. Assuming, of course, that the zombie horde behind me didn't rip me apart first. I could feel their hungry eyes boring into me.
The Claiming Page 10
