by Alice Bello
She pulled on a pair of Sketchers and took a look at herself in the mirror she’d installed in her room. Her face was still freshly scrubbed looking, but her hair was a bit bushy from lying in bed. She ran a quick brush through it and then tied it back with a hair scrunchy.
It might be the middle of the night, but she wasn’t about to go out looking like the monster from the black lagoon.
Lucy suddenly wondered if the monster from the black lagoon was real. After all, so far two movie monsters had turned out to be not only real, but alive and kicking… well, the living dead in the case of vampires.
Or undead… Lucy remembered hearing someone saying Undead Americans once. Had it been a book or a movie… or on TV? Buffy the Vampire Slayer maybe?
Lucy shook the thought off. No use thinking of dark, slimy monsters when you were about to venture out into the dark, shadowy night.
Abbey waited for Lucy outside her back door, sitting on the porch steps, her arms clasped about her like she was cold.
“Do you want a sweater or something? You look kinda cold.”
Abbey stood and shook her head, making her ponytails shake. “I’m fine. We’ve gotta go if this is going to work.” And Abbey turned and started walking briskly towards the woods behind Lucy’s house.
Lucy jogged to catch up, and then caught the fiercely serious look on her friend’s face.
“Why the dire face?” Lucy said, falling into step with Abbey. “And what kind of spell are you going to do?”
“We… we’re going to try a spell.” Abbey led Lucy into the trees. She tripped on a tree root but caught herself on a tree trunk and kept going. A moment later they were free of the trees and in a small clearing. There in front of them was a high iron gate, the kind you see in scary movies—every iron bar of the gate was capped with a sharp looking Fleur de lys. Abbey ducked down and slid through a gap in the rails of the gate. Lucy looked around nervously, but then ducked down too, squeezing through the bars.
Once on the other side of the gate Lucy lost Abbey for an instant in the misty fog. But with a few hasty steps she found herself not only caught up with Abbey, but surrounded by long rows of head stones. They were in a cemetery.
This is so turning into a B horror movie. Lucy stopped, shaking her head. “No offense, Abbey, but I’m not up for this whole spooky trip you’re taking me on. I’ve had a really hard week.”
Abbey turned around but kept walking backwards. She had her arms held out imploringly. “I swear, this is so important. I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t.” There were tears in her eyes, making them glisten in the moonlight.
Against the insistent feeling she kept getting that she should turn and walk away—or was that turn and run away?—Lucy took a deep breath and said, “Okay,” then started to jog through the strange cemetery to catch up with her friend again. She just couldn’t stand that look in Abbey’s eyes—desperation. She knew the feeling, unfortunately, and since Abbey was truly her only real friend, she just couldn’t let her down.
It was probably just some chanting thing, maybe an embarrassing little dance under the moon and stars.
It occurred to Lucy that she had actually never physically been in a graveyard. She was eighteen years old and yet she had never been anywhere near one of these places. Sure, relatives had died—Daddy’s father, one of his brothers, and an ancient aunt from her mother’s side of the family. But both her mother and father had always insisted that neither she nor Seth had to go.
Weird, she thought, now walking in the moonlit night, surrounded by a crush of headstones.
Something… a tingle, or a chill, rippled through her body as if it were coming right out of the ground. Almost like a weak electrical charge coming through her feet.
She stopped, momentarily dazed, and looked around her. She could swear something palpable, something almost visible, was rippling outward from her. Tentatively she reached out her hands, and even though she wasn’t touching the ground, she could feel a cold, dank energy flowing through her fingers with little electric shocks.
Wow, Lucy thought as she turned around on the spot, looking at the ground and then feeling a pull, something literally tugging at her, pulling at her gut like a cramp… no, not a cramp. More like that feeling you get when you’re on a roller coaster, and your belly flips over.
“Lucy… what’s the matter?” Abbey was walking back toward her, eyes worried. Or was it fear?
“I-I don’t know.” Lucy touched the spot on her stomach were that feeling of being pulled at was coming from. It was getting stronger. And, to Lucy’s dismay, she was starting to feel hungry. As if whatever was pulling at her was something she was yearning for—and had always been hungry for.
Abbey reached out and took her gently by the arm. Lucy could swear Abbey jerked, as if she were feeling what Lucy was feeling. She let go of her, looking at her own hand like there was something clinging to her flesh.
Why does everyone do that? Lucy tried to say something, but just then she realized what was pulling at her: the dead.
She closed her eyes and tried to force out that sickening thought, but that just made the sensation worse. It was like no matter where she was trying to drag her mind, there was something cold and dead—and inviting—calling to her. And they were reaching back, trying to pull her to them.
Abbey grabbed her again, this time hard, as she pulled her along with her. “It’s not far… and time’s almost up.”
“I can’t,” Lucy rasped as she tripped along after Abbey. “I think something’s wrong!”
“Nothing’s wrong!” Abbey practically sobbed. “Everything will be fine. We’ve just got to get there… before it’s too late.”
Moving faster seemed to help, as if the dead couldn’t quite get a grip on her if she was moving fast enough. “Where are we going?” Lucy said, but suddenly she knew. Right in front of them a head stone had long, thick white candles atop it, and in the middle was what looked like a picture frame.
Abbey stopped right before the headstone, pulled a lighter from her pocket and lit the two candles. Between the moonlight and the dim candlelight, Lucy could make out a handsome couple, not much younger than her own parents, peering out from the frame, looking adoringly into the camera.
Lucy looked down and read the names on the stone.
James and Julie Adams. Beloved and Missed.
They had died two years ago.
“I took this picture,” Abbey said, her hand shaking as her finger caressed the shiny black of the frame. “We were so happy.”
“I’m sorry.” Lucy couldn’t believe it. She’d just assumed Abbey was living with her grandmother because her parents were getting a divorce. She had never even thought they were dead; hadn’t thought to even ask.
“Don’t be sorry.” Abbey swiped at the tears that were streaking her mascara. “Your grandma and mine both couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help me.”
“What?”
Abbey smiled bitterly, turning to face Lucy. “My Gram’s a witch, yours is a necromancer.”
“I-I don’t know where…” Lucy began to deny it, but the look on Abbey’s face said it all. The jig was up. “You know?” Then another thought crossed Lucy’s mind. “Did you know before I met you? Like, is that why you became my friend?”
“God, no,” Abbey sobbed. “I’m your friend. I just guessed that you had your grandma’s power, though hers is pretty much just a glimmer of what it used to be… nothing much at all compared to yours.”
“I can’t really do anything.”
Abbey rolled her eyes.
“Okay, I have done a couple things, but they were creepy, and I had no control over it. I don’t think I can actually do anything on purpose.”
Abbey’s head drooped, her chin bending into her chest as a tear formed on her chin and dropped onto her black T-shirt. Abbey sniffled and then looked back up, shaking her head. “All you have to do—” she reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand, something sharp biting into her palm, “is forg
ive me.”
Suddenly the pain in her hand was nothing. What she felt was like the weight of the world tugging her by the guts down to the ground. She fell to her knees, one hand still clutched in Abbey’s grasp, the other tried to hold herself up from being crushed to the ground. Even with the pain, she could feel things. Somehow she knew, could feel, that her blood and Abbey’s were mingling together, their two powers mixing—and that Abbey was directing Lucy’s horrible power, focusing its flow straight down into the graves of her mother and father.
Lucy felt Abbey’s parents jerk as their bodies filled with her power… was it life? Was it their spirits? Lucy couldn’t tell, and before she could look deeper she felt herself being pulled in a hundred different directions. It was excruciating, and confusing, and made her stomach lurch.
One moment she realized she was screaming like someone was killing her, the next moment the contents of her stomach were being disgorged through her mouth and splattering on the dried out grass of the graveyard.
“Come back to me,” Abbey cried out, her voice shaking with grief and terror. “Mom… Dad… I need you to come back to me… I can’t do this, I can’t live any longer without you!”
And like a tidal wave, Lucy and Abbey’s power burst from them and into the ground, and then it blasted back up at them both, knocking them back five or more feet. Lucy smacked her head on the cold ground, which was better than on a grave stone, but it still hurt, and the dizzy, blacking-out feeling didn’t mix well with all the other nauseating, gut wrenching pain, and electrical shocks that were still surging though her body and mind.
Lucy just lay there for a moment, feeling the power wash out of her body and seep into the ground around her. The earth was cold beneath her, yet she was covered in sweat. Her mind was still electrified, and she could feel things all around her moving, encroaching toward her. She leaned up and pulled herself onto her knees, looking around her, expecting to see things running at her. But nothing stirred, not even Abbey.
She lay there on her back, not moving, her eyes closed. Lucy crawled over to her and shook her, calling out her name, though her voice was hoarse. No response. She felt for a pulse and thankfully found one, then leaned down until she could hear her breathing.
Thank god. Lucy looked around, felt in her pockets for her phone—it wasn’t there! She’d forgotten it. Damn it! She felt the pockets of Abbey’s black cargo pants; lots of pockets, but no bulges big enough to be a phone.
I’ve got to get her out of here, Lucy told herself. She just had to choose: go and get help, or try and drag Abbey’s unconscious body to safety. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck, but she so didn’t want to leave Abbey there alone. Not with what had just happened. Who knew what was coming? And truthfully, she didn’t want to come back to this place for anything.
So Lucy stood up, feeling her head pounding and pitching on top of her shoulders. She held her head for a moment until the world stopped spinning. A few deep breaths and she opened her eyes. The night fog had cleared a little, but she still couldn’t see the perimeter of the graveyard. Which way had they come in?
Crap!
She leaned down to grab Abbey under the arms when she heard a crack, the kind like a limb getting split off a tree by lightning. Lucy gulped and looked up. There directly in front of her was a hand covered in dirt and clumps of grass, sticking out of the grave of James and Julie Adams.
~*~
Lucy felt a cold stabbing fear in her gut. It wasn’t that horrible pulling feeling anymore. No, this was pure, undiluted fear. If she weren’t so tired she might’ve screamed, she might’ve turned and ran, right then, forgetting about Abbey lying unconscious and defenseless at her feet. But she was both exhausted and acutely aware of what was going on around her.
It was a chaotic mess. It wasn’t just Abbey’s parents digging themselves out of their graves, the cemetery was vibrating with activity—not life… just two hundred corpses rising, clawing their way out of their coffins.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
And if the rather nasty state of James and Julie Adams freshly animated corpses was any indication of what was to come crawling out of the rest of the graves, Lucy was glad she’d already thrown up the contents of her stomach.
Covered in dirt, stitches clearly holding her flesh together, Mrs. Adam’s head had obviously separated from her shoulders, the stitches bulging since her entire head lolled to the side. They hadn’t bothered trying to stabilize or reinforce the neck. Lucy hoped, for Abbey’s sake, that the funeral had been closed casket.
Mr. Adams had had the top of his skull chopped off, and they had simply stapled it back on top of his head. And as he stepped out of his grave, his suit wrinkled and caked with soil, Lucy saw that his left leg was crooked—probably broken during the accident.
Lucy couldn’t keep her eyes on Mr. and Mrs. Adams. It wasn’t their disturbing appearance… it was that corpses were breaking through the ground all around her. Some faster than others, some almost completely skeletal, some almost looked like they were in good enough shape they could’ve passed for living. Must have been gentle deaths, and the embalming procedure had frozen them that way.
But most were stooped, rotting bags of mottled flesh, oozing fluids and eyes bulging or drooping out of their sockets.
Lucy fell to her knees beside Abbey, trying to shake her awake. If they ran they might have a chance.
Are they zombies? If they are, will they eat us? Lucy cried out Abbey’s name. Or just our brains?
Suddenly Abbey’s eyes snapped open, she gasped and brought her arm up over her face, moaning. And then she was screaming. She’d caught sight of a zombie crawling out of his grave—there was only half of him left. She scrambled to her feet, spinning around, gasping between screams, looking to Lucy, her terrified eyes barely registering her. But then she just stopped screaming, stopped moving, wasn’t even breathing for a moment.
“Momma… Daddy?” She gasped and gulped breath as she started to stagger toward her parents’ animated corpses.
Oh god. Lucy reached out and tried to grab Abbey, caught her elbow and dragged her back to her. Abbey tried to push Lucy away, but Lucy wouldn’t let go. Abbey turned on her and pushed again. “Let go of me!”
“Abbey, we’ve got to get out of here!” Lucy tried to pull her toward the only clear path she could see. The only way that didn’t have a corpse dragging itself toward them. But Abbey couldn’t take her eyes away from her parents, and she just kept calling to them, and pushing at Lucy, trying to get free of her.
“They’re not you parents anymore!” Lucy said. She shook her friend and turned her to face her.
Abbey’s eyes flashed, the whites of her eyes huge, her mouth now open in a snarl. She reared back and slapped Lucy across the cheek, hard enough Lucy lost her hold on one of Abbey’s shoulders, but she kept hold of the other for dear life. She couldn’t let her get any closer to her parents.
She couldn’t feel much anymore, there were just too many dead people walking around, fighting with each other. But she could tell two things: there were no spirits in any of the zombies, just energy filling them, making them move; and she could feel hunger rolling off every single one of them.
Guess that answers the “will they eat us?” question.
Lucy gasped when she saw a skeletal hand clasp down on Abbey’s shoulder, a rotting face appearing out of the darkness, its teeth flashing as it went for her throat. Lucy swung her fist and punched the gruesome creature in the face, knocking out one of its slimy teeth. But just then something grabbed Lucy by the ankle, making her fall to one knee and scream.
A light flared around Lucy and Abbey, scorching the air and illuminating the entire graveyard. Something whipped through the air, crackling with blurry speed, sending the two corpses attacking Lucy and Abbey flying through the misty air.
Lucy looked up and saw an unbelievable sight. There stood her grandmother in her nightgown and robe, her hair braided in a long white rope. In her ha
nd she held an old wooden baseball bat—the one from the hall closet. But now it was glowing, shimmering with light.
“Gram?”
Her grandmother moved forward and swung the bat, catching a zombie in the back of the head, then smacking another in the teeth, flattening both. Another blurry movement and she took out another zombie’s legs, sending it clattering to the ground. In no time her grandmother had run to them, and was pulling Lucy to her feet with unnatural strength.
Lucy gulped when she caught the look on her grandmother’s face. She was majorly pissed off.
“As impressive as this is…” she waved a hand at the throng of corpses. “That you can raise an entire cemetery, if you can’t control them and send them back to their graves you’re going to get everyone killed!”
She grabbed Lucy’s injured hand and Lucy could feel her gram’s power flicker and sizzle against her flesh. It wasn’t very strong, but it was concentrated, and most importantly, it knew what it was doing. “Now let’s send all these poor people back to their rest.”
Lucy could feel her own power rise up again, this time it hurt and burned far more than before. But it wasn’t as frightening. She knew her grandmother was going to put everything right.
Gram raised her other hand up to the heavens. “Hear me, denizens of this cemetery. I am Lillian Haveraux, and I command you to return to your graves… now!”
Lucy felt the power flash up through her, rippling over her flesh and pulsing through her hand into her grandmother, then out to the zombies. Every zombie stopped in its tracks, slowly turned to face Gram, and then just like that, they all started moving in straight lines until they started falling back into their graves. And amazingly enough, all the ripped up earth and grass just seemed to open up and swallow them, and then settled and smoothed out until even the grass looked exactly as it had before.
Gram let go of Lucy’s hand and she felt the instant shock of their powers disconnecting. Her grandmother shot her with the angriest glower. “You stupid girl!”
