A Grave Situation

by Zoey Kane

  Lacey huffed and said with steely eyes, “Okay, everyone, I admit it. Okay. I was impersonating Isobel.”

  “So there is no ghost.” A smile spread across his face in satisfaction as his cell phone continued videoing.

  “I never said that.”

  “Come on…” he said with frustration. “There’s no Isobel ghost that walks the cemetery. Say it.”

  Lacey set down a platter of stuffed mushrooms and retorted, “No, I’ve seen her.”

  “What?!” Frank stopped filming. “I thought you were coming clean. I thought you wanted to have a fresh start with the community. Now’s your chance. I’ll be uploading the video to my TV show, and everyone can then know that there is no such thing as Isobel’s ghost.”

  Claire went over to the refreshments just then and placed a couple stuffed mushrooms on a saucer. Jim busied himself with drinks. Noticing Frank and Lacey’s arguing, she paused to listen in.

  “I told you I saw Isobel on my prom night,” Lacey said through clenched teeth, “and I’ll never deny that.”

  “Suit yourself,” Frank said, clenching his teeth right back at her.

  Kellen was charming the entire night, truly seeming to enjoy himself. He instructed Zo here and there on different dances, and Zo responded with as much grace and warmth as she could without seeming like she was coming on to him. She didn’t want to be viewed as just another woman like Cocoa, pushing unwanted attentions upon him.

  When it was eleven-thirty, Kellen told Zo he was going to have to leave for home.

  “Are you going to turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight?” she teased.

  “I just have a big day tomorrow,” he assured.

  Things had begun winding down anyway.

  “I have greatly enjoyed our evening,” he said. “I hope you can excuse me.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, then left.

  Goodness! Two hand kisses in one night. But somehow Zo felt a pit in her stomach.

  Zo watched Cocoa and her husband dance a couple songs, and decided that no matter what tempo the music was, Phil only had one gear, with a lot of hand pumping and walking in a circle.

  Pretty soon Zo walked over to the punch bowl, poured half a sparkling drink and popped an olive. The music ended and the spotlight went on at the mini stage.

  Dracula took the mike. “I hope you had a very good time. See you in the morning.” He didn’t come over to say anything to Zo. Instead, he busily went on his way, closing down lights and the sound system. Lacey could be heard clinking bottles and chunking ice, packing everything on a rolling cart. Frank was helping her.

  Claire called across the room to her mother, “Just walking Jim down to the door. He’s gotta get his stuff first, then I’m going on to bed.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.” She finished her drink.

  When Zo got back to the room, Claire hadn’t yet returned, so she busied herself by getting into her purple Forget-Me-Not PJ’s. She twisted her hair up off the back of her neck, discovering she hadn’t taken her earrings off. Zo set them into her purse. She went ahead and got into bed, leaving a small lamp on. She lay there twenty minutes or so when she heard a little knock at her door.

  “Coming!” She opened the door. “Claire…?”

  Claire wasn’t there, but a folded piece of paper lay on the hall floor.

  She picked it up. It read, I have Claire. You’re next!

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was instant panic! Zo ran to look out her dusty window. Sure enough, there was a figure running down the road. She grabbed the car keys and threw on a coat as she shoved her bare feet into Claire’s zip-up flat boots.

  Dracula was getting ready to draw down the gate when Zo came running down the stairs. “Wait!” she called.

  He looked up at her in concern.

  “Let me out! Somebody’s got Claire!” She slapped the note into his hand as she ran by. “Call the police!”

  Handling keys takes so much time when every second counts, but pretty soon Zo was flooring the gas on the VW. She left the lights off so as not to draw immediate attention. Sure enough, the perpetrator had seen the VW speeding, and dashed into the woods around the cemetery.

  Zo caught sight of them running. She slammed the brakes, sliding to a stop, to follow after the fiend.

  Dracula was punching in the number for the police when Claire walked into the foyer with Jim, arm-in-arm from the parlor. “Claire!” Dracula looked at her with wide eyes. “What are you doing here?!”

  “Well, I know it’s late, but Jim is going home now.”

  “Your mom got a note claiming someone had you and she would be next! Here!” He handed her the paper. Jim looked on, alarmed.

  “Oh! Poor Mom! Someone has laid a trap for her! I gotta go!”

  “She took your car!” Dracula said. “You can’t run in that dress and high heels. Quick, go change and then Jim can take you. I’ll make sure the police are on their way.”

  “Okay!” Jim said. Claire was already halfway up the stairway.

  Zo was chasing the lunatic through the dark shadows of the trees, brightened only by the moonlight sifting through them.

  “STOP! I’m over here,” the raspy voice announced.

  Zo looked around and didn’t see anything. “Give me my daughter!”

  A murderous laugh froze fear through the heart of the trembling mother. “Listen, have you killed Claire? If she is still okay, just name your price. I will pay ransom.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Zo darted her eyes from tree to tree, trying to find the source of the laughter, her chest tightening more.

  “So you would give me a million dollars to get her back? As if you had it,” croaked the vile voice, ending in another raspy laugh.

  “I do have it. I am very wealthy.” Zo could now tell the direction the voice was coming from and turned to face it. There was some crunching of leaves. Footsteps. Then the voice was suddenly behind her.

  Zo whipped around but saw nothing but charcoal shadows against a navy sky.

  “Oh sure, that’s why you came on vacation to the dingy old phony vampire castle—because you are so rich.”

  More footsteps.

  Zo turned to the right. “I am. I’ll pay. Please.”

  “I don’t care if you had five million dollars! I don’t want any of it. I got what I want. YOU! I want to kill YOU!”

  Zo’s jaw hardened. “Oh, cut the crap, COCOA. Why?!”

  It was quiet. There was no response.

  Zo tried another strategy. “Isn’t it because you are enraged because I have Kellen Knight’s attention and you don’t? It’s too bad your husband isn’t a psychiatrist, because you are a study in maniac obsession. Give me Claire and I will leave within the hour.”

  The fanged ghoul walked out of the shadows and removed her white mask. “So you figured me out. What difference does it make now if I take this mask off?!”

  Zo took a wider stance so she could take off in either direction if needed.

  “It’s just you and me and you already know my intentions,” Cocoa said in a softer, normal voice, although she still looked ghoulish, having black makeup smeared around her eyes. The white scraggly hair had come off with the mask, revealing her short black hair. Zo actually thought she appeared way more scary as her crazy self.

  “Give me Claire!” Zo demanded, her heart beating in her throat, every cell of her body on alert.

  “Oh, she’s probably smooching on her boyfriend, Jim, back at the castle.” A mean smile spread across her mouth. “Feel stupid yet?”

  This time it was Zo who had nothing to say for a moment. A gust of wind picked up some of her strawberry-blond hair, blowing strands across her face. She wiped them out of her eyes in a hurry. “So,” she said, “that note was just a ploy to get me down here so you could murder me.”

  “Well, now aren’t you so smart, all of a sudden? You feeling so much better now?” Cocoa tilted her head.

  “Yes! … and no. It�
��s complicated.”

  “I can truly see how it would be.” Cocoa reached in to her trench coat between the buttons and brought out a fine-pointed stake. She raised it up.

  Zo yelled, “Wait!”

  Cocoa lowered her weapon. “What now? You are such a nuisance.”

  “I know what you’ve been up to. If you killed me, I wouldn’t be your first murder, would I?”

  Her face screwed up with impatient rage. “Out with it! Out with it!”

  “Okay! You are the one who killed Cheryl.”

  “Duh.” She raised her stake again and wagged it. “Same modus operandi.”

  “You mistook her for Lacey, who’s known for playing around in the graveyard, impersonating Isobel.” Zo’s back muscles were now feeling tight, adrenaline coursing through her.

  “Actually, the little idiot, Lacey, was a help to me by keeping a lot of people from having picnics on this cemetery grass. I even backed her up by writing a piece for the paper. Cats-n-bats—that was me. So, no, I didn’t think Cheryl was Lacey.”

  “Then why kill her?”

  “She was too nosey, just like you. She caught me digging a shallow grave for a few cats. Then she was stupid enough to come back and find me here again on another night, dumping several more. But this time I didn’t have my mask, and she was prepared with a camera, taking photos. She was so stupid. Did she think I wouldn’t notice the camera’s flash?”

  Cocoa’s eyes then went big. “She knew too much. Just. Like. You. That’s why I chased her down and killed her.” Her features hardened. “But that didn’t keep you out, did it?!”

  “So, Cheryl found you out. You are the cat vampire.”

  Cocoa laughed. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “You had a cat brought into your husband’s animal hospital. A Persian—Piggy. I was told he needed a transfusion.”

  “I liked Piggy.”

  “I had a cat. Tom. Yellow mixed short hair. Got hit by a car. I took him to the vet and he died in a cage because the doctor didn’t give him a blood transfusion. I blamed him, thinking he was a bad doctor…”

  “Maybe he was.”

  “When I was fifteen, a friend’s father was a veterinarian. I remember now, she told me her dad had two donor cats in his clinic for transfusions. And let me take a wild stab at it…”

  “I like your phraseology.”

  “When your office assistant got a request for ‘ten units,’ she was talking about cat blood. Your husband is in the business of selling and providing a bank of murdered cats’ blood to unknowing, pet doctors. So, what were you going to do when the town didn’t have any more cats left? Go global?”

  “Or start a cat farm,” Cocoa quipped nonchalantly.

  “You’ll get caught. Even for tonight, you’re going to get caught.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll be back in time for breakfast, no one the wiser.”

  “You have underestimated my daughter. She will go looking for me, and you will be discovered.”

  “Oh! What’s that?” Cocoa touched her chest as if surprised. “Guess what I just found out? I don’t care! Crazzzzy! Remember? ENOUGH TALK!” She took two fast steps forward, stake raised to impale, when she stopped suddenly, her eyes locking behind Zo.

  This was confusing behavior. Zo looked over her shoulder.

  There were glowing purple eyes in the darkness of the trees, headed in their direction.

  Cocoa put an arm around Zo’s neck, dragging her backward, to an open clearing in the moonlight.

  The eyes stayed glowing in the shadows. “Let the woman go,” the stranger said.

  “Never! You can threaten me all you want; I don’t care.” Her arm squeezed tighter around Zo. “Everything has gone too far. You’re another witness. There’s no save. Still, I’ll get the satisfaction of taking Zoey here down with me.”

  Cocoa loosened her arm’s grip, and came down with the stake.

  Zo put up an arm in defense, deflecting the blow. “You aren’t very good at murder when it comes to me, are you?!”

  Cocoa bashed the blunt-end of the stake across Zo’s head, the pain jolting like a lightning strike. Zo thought it would be a good idea to take hold of the crazy’s arm, collapse to the ground, and try to somersault her over her head. It worked in movies. Cocoa resisted, however, in their wrestling, and Zo instead found herself lying flat on her back—not Cocoa.

  Zo wanted to jump up in defense but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She was left bandy-legged, no strength left in her abs, arms or much anywhere else. She pulled herself off the damp earth to a crawling position, breathing hard, knowing she was dead any second. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it would be a quick death.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Someone pulled Zo up to her feet and held her against their chest. Her muscles tightened.

  “Take it easy, take it easy,” he said. “Wait till you get your balance and a little core strength comes back to you.” He held her in a long comforting hug, rocking her slightly.

  “Where’s Cocoa?”

  He motioned with an arm. “There.”

  Cocoa lay flat on her back in the dirt, her black-circled eyes closed.

  “She’s alive,” he said. “Just knocked out. Had to do it.” The stake was broken into pieces, laying amidst dry leaves. He said, “She’ll have to stab you with a toothpick now.”

  Zo finally looked up into the face of her rescuer. It was Kellen, his hair fallen loosely across one side of his forehead. The clouds moved across the moon and Zo could see his eyes changing from deep blue to shimmering purple, matching the dark spots of the lustrous orb in the sky.

  His hand went up to her head wound. “You took quite a hit.”

  Zo nodded. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Kellen pulled Zo back into a hug, and then kissed her unexpectedly—deeply, passionately. She was washed over with emotions, saved by the man she’d fantasized about as being a super Victorian lover. His kiss was genuine. It was sublime having her desires reciprocated, in the arms of such a classically handsome man, perfect in so many ways.

  A few flashlight beams could be seen appearing and disappearing within the trees. “We’re over here!” Kellen called. “It must be the cops.”

  Zo hugged him, looking up into his eyes. She said, “You know, it would have been too late if you hadn’t come.”

  “I will see you again. Agreed?” His eyes seemed to look deep into her soul, inviting her into his.

  “Agreed.”

  Officers approached, and Kellen pointed. “Right there,” he said.

  The police picked Cocoa off the ground and cuffed her. She was coming to. The police helped her stay on her feet, having firm grips on her upper arms.

  “Mom!” Claire came running out into the clearing. “Cocoa tricked you!”

  They hugged.

  Flashing blue lights colored everyone’s face in the night. Police were taking pictures of everybody and everything, including Zo’s bump on her head. Two officers were told to go pick up Dr. Fulton, arrest him and bring him in. One stayed with Kellen and Zo, taking their reports.

  When her mom was finished with her report, Claire said, “She was behind the cat killings too? Makes total sense now.”

  “We’ll talk about it more over chocolate donuts and milk at the castle.” Zo rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

  Cocoa was now cuffed, still standing between two officers. Zo walked close enough to her to say something over the noise of dispatch calls on the radio. “You know what your problem was, Cocoa?”

  “What?” she answered. “I wasn’t brought up right?”

  “You criminal types don’t get away with things because you always go too far.”

  Cocoa rolled her eyes and said to the officers restraining her, “What’s holding you guys up? Get busy putting me in that back seat so I don’t have to listen to the know-it-all.” She tried dragging the two men to their car.

  *

  Back at the castle, the door clacker soon
thundered. Lenora and Beth eagerly answered it, letting in a very tired mother and daughter.

  “You two are okay!” they said, taking turns hugging them.

  Federbal came into the foyer from the parlor, followed by Lacey and Frank.

  “Now that we see you are okay, I’ll say this has been so frightening,” said Lenora, her voice trembling.

  “And exciting!” added Beth.

  “Sister! Your manners! We were all in the parlor with our dates when we heard all the commotion.”

  “Your poor head,” Lacey said, stepping closer with eyes narrowed in concern.

  Zo touched her forehead, then saw blood on her fingertips. “I’m feeling okay. I’m so glad to see everyone. I wasn’t so sure I’d be coming back. Where’s our darling Dracula?” She looked all about.

  Lacey said, “The kitchen.”

  “His room,” said Beth.

  Lenora: “The parlor.”

  The Kanes eyed them questioningly.

  Lacey recovered. “Well … he was on his way down from his bedroom. He said he’d stop by the, um, kitchen to bring some snacks to the, the, parlor.”

  The Binger sisters smiled brightly to that. “Yes, yes,” they said.

  Federbal said, wearing striped pajamas over his round belly, “Sounds like an after party. If you ladies are up to it, of course.” He looked at them with sympathy.

  “Mom was just saying she’s in the mood for donuts and milk.”

  Zo smiled weakly. “Yes, I’m always in the mood for a good snack. But first I think I’ll change into something more comfortable … and clean.”

  Claire held her mother’s elbow as they ascended the stairs, Zo still wearing her daughter’s zip-up boots that were a bit big.

  Back in the parlor, all cleaned up and changed, the Kanes took their seats on the leather couch, as the others took their usual places either on the loveseat or armchairs. Lenora bent her thin frame over to tend to the fire in the cozy fireplace, poking some of the crackling wood pieces into place.