by Flynn, Donna
“Just do it for me,” she pleaded, seeing his hesitance.
Hunter closed his eyes, reminding himself that he trusted her completely. Unfortunately, that trust didn’t prevent him from imagining a herd of horrible zombies clawing their way from their graves to attack them.
With Hunter’s eyes firmly closed, Hope waved to the soft wispy form of a child dressed in Victorian clothing that hovered between the nearby tombstones watching them. Her name was Annabelle. Hope had met her that morning after the funeral, while she had waited for her parents to give their condolences to Hunter’s family. Hope tried to explain that her spirit needed to move on to the next realm, but Annabelle had been adamant that her mother was coming for her. She refused to leave, so until Hope could convince her that her mother was not coming for her she knew the spirit would continue to linger there. Child spirits were notoriously stubborn. Often they stayed earth-bound out fear of the unexpected, refusing to pass on to a place they knew nothing about. She made a mental note to talk to her grandmother about it, but in the meantime, she needed the spirit’s help.
She waved again, and the spirit moved toward the gate stopping directly in front of her, its transparent, elegantly dressed figure floating a few inches above the grass smiling at her. She pointed to the lock, and the ghost nodded, placing a transparent hand on the metal, allowing a mist-like finger to work its way into the keyhole. A soft click signaled the gate unlocking, and the ghost pulled its finger free with a triumphant smile.
“Thank you,” she mouthed silently fearing Hunter would freak out if he heard her talking to non-existent people.
Annabelle bobbed her head then floated away, disappearing into the night and leaving them alone once again.
A loud creaking noise sounded, sending chills down Hunter’s spine, but he kept his eyes firmly sealed as Hope had requested, even though he wanted nothing more than to run back home and forget the entire evening. When she had come to his house, climbed the tree outside, and knocked on his window he had thought they were going on an adventure. Now, though, he wasn’t sure what she was up to and that worried him.
“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” Hope told Hunter, grabbing his hand once more and pulling him through the gate before he could protest.
Hunter opened his eyes and bit his lip to keep from crying out at the ghastly sight before him. The bright bluish glow of the moon as it moved from behind the clouds cast eerie shadows on the headstones and monuments Hope led him past. Each one seemed taller and more imposing to Hunter than they had been earlier in the day when they had buried his grandmother, and there was a stillness about the place that only added to his growing sense of unease. “I don’t like this!” he whined as she pulled him further into the cemetery. He was not by nature easily spooked, but being there in the middle of the night, where hundreds of dead bodies lay buried just under his feet, he was downright terrified.
He looked to Hope, expecting to see the same fear mirrored in her eyes, but was surprised to find her oddly at ease, almost smiling as she walked confidently amongst the rows of ancient tombstones bearing the names of those who been buried there since the town was founded in the early 1700s.
“We are almost there,” she told him, unconcerned by the many spirits that watched their movements curiously. It was unusual for humans to roam their territory so late at night, so she did not begrudge them their fascination.
“Where are we going?” Hunter asked nervously, nearly jumping out if his skin when a large black cat jumped from a nearby tombstone to land at his feet, its pitiful cries for attention shrill amongst the silence of the cemetery.
“Samson, knock that off!” Hope scolded, trying not laugh at Hunter, whose eyes were popping from their sockets in an almost comical fashion.
The cat meowed, rubbed against Hunter’s leg, and then sat on its haunches at Hope’s feet, its yellow eyes glowing in the dark as he stared up at them boldly.
“Forgive him, he is not used to seeing those of us who are alive this time of the night, he just got a little excited.” She patted the cat’s head and smiled warmly when he rubbed against her palm and began to purr.
Hunter watched the exchange with goose bumps rising on his flesh, wondering how she knew the cat’s name, and why she had said, “those of us who are alive?” Before he could analyze it any further, though, she began tugging him forward again.
He followed dutifully, watching her closely. She seemed happy, almost at peace as she led him through the maze of new and old gravesites, not seeming the least bit scared. Not that it mattered: he was plenty afraid for them both, and his trembling hands proved it. “What are we doing here?” he asked anxiously, scanning the area to be sure nothing else was going to jump out at him unexpectedly.
The cry of a lone owl flying overhead made his heart beat faster, and suddenly every terrifying horror movie he had ever secretly watched on his laptop while his parents slept came to mind. He knew it was foolish, knew the dead could not come to life, but it didn’t stop his imagination from working over-time. “It’s late, we should go home,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow, when it’s light out?”
“Nope, we’re already here,” she told him, coming to a stop at a freshly covered grave.
“Why are we here?” he asked woodenly, staring at his grandmother’s final resting place warily.
“I have a surprise, but first you have to promise not to tell anyone what you see here tonight.” She let go of his hand and walked around the grave, lighting a small battery-operated lantern that she had placed there earlier in the evening to illuminate the area.
“I don’t know what you are up to, but I think we should go home right now!” he cried out angrily. The pain of his grandmother’s passing was fresh, and he did not appreciate her dragging him to her grave in the middle of the night to play some sort of sick game.
“Just promise and this can all be over,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement despite his clearly agitated state.
Wanting only to leave, he gave in so they could get it over with and get out of there. “Fine, I promise. Now what is so important you drug me out here?”
“Look!” she said, turning the lantern she held to light the area just off to the side of the freshly covered grave.
There in the shadows of a tall evergreen stood his grandmother. Her white hair pulled into a bun, wearing the brightly flowered dress they had buried her in, holding out her arms to him a with an awkward, lopsided smile. Immediately he looked to Hope for an explanation, for any idea how such a thing could happen, but she just smiled, seemingly unconcerned that his deceased grandmother was alive and standing before them.
“Well, go on, she’s been waiting for you,” Hope said giving him a little push toward the woman.
Hunter’s feet were leaden as he edged towards his grandmother, unable to believe she was standing before him after he had spent the last week mourning her loss. He wanted to believe it was true that somehow she had come back to them, but the closer he got to the waiting figure, the more he noted things that were terribly wrong.
Her once-vibrant eyes were now hollow and lifeless. Her skin, which was always porcelain, was sallow and sickly in appearance, and her jaw hung slack as if she had no control over it. He paused as the moonlight illuminated her clearly for the first time, noting the red Southern dirt that streaked her clothing, stained her hands, and matted her once-pristine white hair. Quickly, he realized that whatever it was that stood before him was not the fun-loving, outgoing grandmother he had known, but a real-life zombie raised from her grave. As if sensing his hesitation, she moaned his name, clumsily reaching for him.
Immediately, he took a step back and looked at Hope with fearful eyes. “What have you done!” he screamed, horrified by the situation before him.
“I brought her back, so you don’t have to miss her anymore,” she murmured, realizing for the first time that bringing his grandmother back might not have been such a br
illiant idea.
“Brought her back?” he bellowed, staring at Hope in disbelief as she wrung her hands, noting for the first time the large bandage that covered one of her palms. He stared at the bandage, recalling a time when had she told him that she could raise dead animals with just a drop of her blood. He had thought she was joking with him, but now as he looked between her and his dead grandmother, he realized she had been telling the truth.
“Did you raise my grandmother from her grave?” he asked despite the evidence before him. She nodded and he fell to his knees, his body shaking as tears filled his eyes. “How could you do this? Why would you even try?”
Hope ran to his side, placing her arms around him, pleading with him to forgive her, but he refused to look at her. What she had done was cruel and the pain he felt seeing his grandmother in such a sad state was agonizing. Shoving her away, he stood on shaky legs and turned to go.
“Hunter, please, I just wanted to make you happy!” she cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks as she sat on the dew-dampened grass, regretting what she had done.
He stopped walking and turned to look at her, hatred taking the place of the love he had always felt for her. Then he looked over her shoulder to his grandmother, who shuffled toward them. Her motions were awkward and slow as she moaned his name repeatedly in a barely audible tone that freaked him out. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to hurt Hope the way he was hurting, and before he could stop himself, he let loose the rage inside of him. “You are a freak, Hope Lancaster. I will never forgive you for this, NEVER!” he screamed, before turning and running off through the cemetery. His earlier fears about being amongst the gravestones were gone now that he had seen true horror.
Hope watched helplessly as her best friend ran away, hating both herself and the curse that made her different from everyone else. With a rueful look to Hunter’s grandmother, she vowed then and there to never again use her necromancy. No matter what the reason.
Chapter One
As Hunter’s girlfriend, Kara, pulled into his driveway, to drop him off after school, he was quick to note Hope’s jerk boyfriend kissing her goodbye in the adjacent drive. The football king had his hands all over her, slobbering over like a dog over a new bone, and it was all he could do not to get out and punch him in the face but he held himself back. He had no right, Hope was not his to protect, not since that horrible night almost seven years ago that had ended their friendship.
The fact was, he had pretty much ignored her at school, always making fun of her and her popular friends just to be mean so she wouldn’t speak to him. At home, things were a little more difficult because their parents had been friends since long before the two of them had been born. He knew their parents always secretly hoped they would become more than friends, and if he was being honest he did have feelings for her, but he couldn’t allow himself to even consider it. Not after seeing firsthand what she could do. Not knowing she possessed such a disturbing power.
“Earth to Hunter,” Kara said, noting his hands clenched at his sides as he stared at the couple in the connecting driveway.
Hunter turned to look at his girlfriend, comparing her to Hope, as he did with every girl he had ever dated. She was pretty in a dark, gothic kind of way: medium height, pale white skin, with short black hair dyed pink at the tips, and a body that was curvy in the places all teenage boys could appreciate. As pretty as she was, though, it was her dark edginess, so much the opposite of Hope’s bubbly personality, that had drawn him to her. For a short time he had thought maybe she could make him forget Hope, and the stupid childhood crush he still carried for her, but that hadn’t happened and he knew it was time to break things off with her before she got hurt.
“There’s a party at the lake tonight, do you want to go?” Kara asked hopefully. As usual, though, he ignored her and turned to stare again at the perky princess who lived next door to him. He denied he had any feelings for Hope, but Kara was no fool. She saw the way he looked at her with such longing, and it made her want to puke. She didn’t blame him though; Hope was the problem, she was the one Kara blamed for keeping Hunter from loving her as she deserved. Ms. Perfect had some hold on him that she couldn’t seem to break, but she wasn’t giving up. Hunter was hers, and she wasn’t letting him go.
“I don’t really feel like partying tonight,” he said absently.
“Come on, it will be fun.”
“Yeah, alright,” he said, getting out of her car. He had no intention of going to the party and would beg off by phone later to avoid a face-to-face confrontation, which he knew could get ugly. The last thing he needed was for Hope to hear Kara screaming about his obsession with her, especially while her stupid jock boyfriend was present. It would only make an already tense situation worse.
“You know, other guys want to be with me, Hunter!” she yelled after him angrily.
“So why do you stay with me then?” he threw over his shoulder as he walked away.
“You’re such a jerk!” she screamed, backing out of the driveway and revving her engine loudly, before taking off down the usually quiet road with her tires squealing.
Hunter watched with a frown until he could no longer see her car, and then turned to go into his house, almost knocking Hope down in the process. He reached out, his arms encircling her, pulling her against him to keep her from falling. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes and his breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful, and he had no doubt that if it had not been for their past he would have acted on the feelings he had for her. So many times he had dreamed of kissing her, and now that he held her in his arms, he found himself in a quandary. To kiss her would be foolhardy. He could never be with her, the things she could do terrified him but despite knowing that, a part of him still harbored feelings for her.
Hope stared up at Hunter, uncertain what the outcome would be. She wanted him to kiss her, had wanted it from the time she realized that boys were more appealing than her Barbie dolls, but she knew if he did, he would later regret it and find a way to blame her for it. He had been rude, distant, and angry since she had raised his grandmother from the dead. He had refused her apologies and distanced himself from her, despite the fact she had never used her necromancy again after that night.
In fact, since that night she had done everything she could to forget about her affinity with the dead, so she could be normal and fit in with the other kids her age. His rejection back then was the very reason she was a straight-A student, head cheerleader, and girlfriend of the captain of the football team. Never again did she want to feel like she was pariah, an outcast, or a freak, as he had called her that night. She worked hard to maintain her image so no one would ever suspect she harbored such a dreadful secret, but still it had not been enough for Hunter. Somehow, he always managed to make her feel as if she were less than everyone else with hurtful words and a surely attitude toward her.
With a heavy heart, she took a step back and let his hands fall to his sides, confident she was doing the right thing. At first he looked startled by her retreat, but relief quickly washed over his face, which only gave credence to her earlier thoughts. “I, ahh….” She bit her lip nervously; deciding the best thing to do was ignore the tension between them. “I just wanted to see if your mom was going to order anything from the catalog I left with her.” It was a lame excuse, she knew it, he knew it, but it was all she could think of.
Hunter looked down on her five-foot-four frame with a frown, despising himself for wanting to kiss her, angry at her for making him want her. “She isn’t home. You’ll have to call her later.”
“Okay…ah… tell her I will stop by later tonight if I have the chance,” she murmured, hurt by the coolness of his tone despite having heard it often in the past.
“Whatever,” he said agitatedly, wanting nothing more than to get away from her and the feelings of longing, she evoked inside of him. Her large eyes met his once again, innocent and trusting, making it easy to believe she was the same young gir
l he had grown up with and worshiped as a child, but his moment of insanity had passed. He reminded himself that she was not that girl, not anymore. He knew that beneath her perky, adorable appearance was a person capable of things no one should be able to do, things that were unnatural and too horrifying to believe.
“So, are you going out with Kara tonight?” she asked, trying to make small talk.
“Now you’re asking about my personal life?” he sneered, hoping his rudeness would make her leave.
“No, of course not, it’s just…she’s really…um,” she mumbled, trying to find something nice to say about the girl he currently dated, but finding it difficult to come up with anything. Kara was not exactly likable, and she had gone out of her way to be rude to Hope on many occasions.
“Don’t bother. I know you hate her, and for the record she really hates you too,” he growled.
“I don’t hate her, I….”
He raised his hand to stop her, tired of the game they were playing, knowing he had to find a way to end it so he could get away from her before common sense fled him completely. “I guess you’re going out with Jock-strap tonight after the game?” Her face fell, and he knew he had succeeded in angering her. She hated his pet name for her boyfriend, it was always a sure- fire way to get her dander up, and at times like this he used it to maintain distance from her.
“You know his name is Jake, and for your information I am coming home to work on a Spanish project that’s due Monday,” she replied, her cheeks flushed with rage.
“Wow, you really have become a goody-two-shoes, I bet Jock-strap finds that appealing,” he sneered.
