It Begins

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  “Help!” she screamed. “Somebody help us!”

  Was the girl dead? Lucy couldn’t tell, but the body was limp and heavy and motionless now, the eyes and lips closed. She could hardly see anything in this darkness—only brief flashes of the livid face as lightning flickered over the girl’s delicate features. Ghostly white cheeks. Dark swollen bruises. A scarf wound tight around her neck—

  “Somebody! Somebody help us!”

  Yet even as she shouted, Lucy knew no one would hear her. Not through this wind and rain, not in this place of the dead. With numb fingers, she worked feverishly at the scarf, but the wet material was knotted and wouldn’t budge. In desperation, she smoothed the girl’s matted hair and leaned closer to comfort her.

  “Hang on, okay? I’m going to get you out of here, but I have to leave—just for a little while—and get help. I’ll be back as quick as I—”

  Something clamped onto her wrist.

  As Lucy’s words choked off, she could see the thin, pale hand clinging to her own … the muddy fingers lacing slowly between her own fingertips …

  They began to squeeze.

  “Oh, God,” Lucy whimpered, “stop …”

  Pain shot through the palm of her hand.

  Pain like she’d never felt before.

  Waves like fire, burning, scalding through every nerve and muscle, throbbing the length of her fingers, pulsing upward through her hand, her wrist, along her arm, piercing her heart and her head. Pain so intense she couldn’t even scream. Her body began to shake uncontrollably. Her strength drained in a dizzying rush. Through a blur of strange blue light she saw the girl’s head turn toward her … saw the scarf slip easily from the fragile neck. She saw the jagged gash across the girl’s throat … the raw, stringy flesh … the glimmer of bone …

  Lucy pitched forward. The girl’s body was soft beneath her, cushioning her fall, and from some great distance she heard her own voice crying out at last, though she understood somehow that this was only in her mind.

  “Who did this to you? What’s happening?”

  Listen, the girl whispered. Had her lips moved? Had she spoken aloud? Lucy didn’t think so, yet she could hear this girl, could hear her just as clearly as two best friends sharing secrets.

  Dazed and weak, she managed to lift herself onto one elbow. The girl was staring at her now, wide eyes boring into hers with an intensity both chilling and compelling. Lucy was helpless to look away.

  Tell no one, the girl said, and her lips did not move, and Lucy could only gaze into those huge dark eyes and listen to the silence. Do you understand? Promise me you understand …

  Lucy felt herself nod. Tears ran down her cheeks and streamed with the rain over the girl’s cold skin. The hand holding hers slid away; the dark eyes shifted from her face, to something far beyond her, something Lucy couldn’t see.

  If you want to live, the girl murmured, you mustn’t tell anyone … not anyone … what you’ve seen here tonight.

  “Don’t die,” Lucy begged. “Please don’t die—”

  Promise me.

  “Yes … yes … I promise.”

  The girl’s eyelids slowly closed.

  But for one split second, Lucy could have sworn that she smiled.

  3

  She didn’t remember climbing out of the grave.

  She didn’t remember running or even finding her way out of the cemetery—but suddenly there were lights in the distance and muffled voices and the wild pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears.

  Lucy stopped, gasping for breath.

  She realized she was standing on a low rise, with a sidewalk about thirty yards below her. She could see streetlights glowing fuzzy through the rain, and beyond that, the watery reflections of headlights from passing cars.

  Oh God, what should I do?

  She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t get warm, couldn’t think. Her knees felt like rubber, and it was all she could do to force herself the rest of the way down the hill.

  Maybe it didn’t really happen. Maybe I Jell into a hole back there and knocked myself out and started hallucinating.

  She wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe that with every fiber of her being, because to accept what she’d just seen in the cemetery was too horrifying to deal with. Nothing seemed real anymore, not the rain beating down on her or even the nice solid feel of the pavement as she finally reached the curb and peered to the opposite side of the street. There was a gas station on the corner, lights on but pumps deserted, and the voices she’d heard were actually coming from loudspeakers playing country music.

  Again Lucy stopped. She glanced behind her into the darkness, into the hidden secrets of the graveyard, and her mind whirled in an agony of indecision.

  I promised. I promised her.

  And yes, it had been real, and there was a girl, a girl maybe her own age lying dead, and no matter how sacred a promise, Lucy knew she couldn’t just leave her there all alone in the rain …

  “If you want to live … you won’t tell anyone.”

  The girl’s words echoed back to her, chilling her to the bone. Maybe it wasn’t really a warning, she argued to herself, maybe it didn’t mean anything at all. She knew people often said strange things when they were dying, when they were out of their heads from pain and confusion and that final slipping-away from the world. Like Mom was at the end. Like Mom was—

  “No,” Lucy whispered to herself. “Not now.”

  She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out the image of those other eyes, those pleading, desperate eyes gazing up at her from the girl’s bloodless face. Without even realizing it, she flexed her hand inside her jacket pocket. There was a vague sensation of pain, but she was too preoccupied to give it attention. As she stared over at the gas station, she suddenly noticed a drive-by telephone at one end of the parking area, and she knew what she had to do.

  Keeping her head down, Lucy hurried across the street. Someone was working under the hood of a car inside the garage, but the lot was still deserted and the phone was far enough away that she didn’t think she’d be noticed. She grabbed up the receiver and punched in 911, telling herself she wasn’t really breaking her promise. It was only a compromise.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  Lucy froze.

  “You won’t tell anyone …”

  “911. What is your emergency, please?”

  “Promise me …”

  “Hello? Please state your emergency.”

  “Yes,” Lucy whispered. “Yes … I—”

  Without warning a horn blared behind her. Lucy slammed down the receiver and whirled around as a red Corvette screeched to a stop about three feet away. Then one of the windows slid down.

  “You picked a hell of a night to run away,” Angela greeted her blandly.

  Lucy shook her head. Despite the fact that it was Angela, she felt an immense sense of relief. “I’m not running away.”

  “Oh.”

  She was sure her cousin sounded disappointed. The thought actually occurred to her to just turn and leave, but then she saw Angela nod toward the passenger door.

  “So get in, already. Don’t you know enough to come in out of the rain?”

  With a last glance at the phone, Lucy hurried around the car and climbed into the front seat. What am I going to do now? Anxiously she wiped one sleeve over her wet face, then held out both hands to the heater.

  “Look at this mess.” Angela rolled her eyes. “You’re dripping all over everything.”

  “Sorry.” Scooting back, Lucy angled herself into the corner. She clamped her arms tightly around her chest, but the shivering wouldn’t stop. “Do you have a towel or something?”

  “No, I haven’t got a towel. God, look at my floor.”

  “I got lost,” was all Lucy could think of to say.

  Angela grumbled something under her breath. She plucked a lighted cigarette from the ashtray, took a long drag, then blew a thin stream of smoke
out through her nose.

  “Irene’s freaking out,” she said at last.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to take a walk, but then I got all turned around in the storm. I didn’t mean to worry anybody—”

  “Oh, she’s not worried about you,” Angela seemed mildly amused. “She’s freaking out ‘cause you’ve made her late for a meeting.”

  Lucy bit hard on her bottom lip. She could feel a lump burning in her throat, anger and tears mixed bitterly together, but she was determined not to cry.

  “Well,” she managed to whisper. “Of course she would be.”

  “You should’ve known better.”

  “What?”

  Angela rolled her eyes. “If you think wandering off like this is gonna get you any attention or sympathy from Irene, then forget it. You don’t know her.”

  But I want to, Lucy thought miserably, and I want her to know me, too …

  Right after she’d moved here, Lucy had made a habit of studying her aunt’s face whenever Irene wasn’t watching, longing for just a glimpse of the mother she’d lost. As if somehow her mother’s spirit would be reflected in Irene’s eyes or in her clothes or in the way she did things—living proof to Lucy that her mom was still with her.

  But there’d been no similarities—no similarities whatsoever between the two women—and as the days passed, Lucy only felt more and more abandoned. No matter that Aunt Irene was her only living relative; Irene and Mom were as different as night and day.

  Mom had been so … well … so alive. Fun and free-spirited, spontaneous and creative, with the wildest imagination and the most contagious laugh and the most stubborn determination when her mind was made up about something. Lucy had always admired her mother’s disregard for rules and routines; there’d always been new things to try and new adventures to share on the spur of the moment. And she’d always loved hearing how much alike the two of them looked—the same blue-gray eyes and long, thick lashes, the same silky blond hair.

  Mom had been a source of pride to her. A role model, an ideal she’d always aspired to. She’d never known her father, but Mom had been the best of both parents, not to mention her very best friend. Her whole world, really.

  But now there was Aunt Irene.

  Just Irene, who didn’t seem anything like the sister she’d completely shut out of her life. Irene, who barely spoke to Lucy—barely even looked at her if she could help it. Who always acted tense and watchful and guarded, as though she expected something bad or dangerous to sneak up on her at any second. Irene and her high-profile job at the university … Irene and her endless very important meetings.

  “She’s self-absorbed,” Mom had always told Lucy in those rare moments she ever mentioned Irene’s name. “She’s always been self-absorbed; she’s never thought about anyone but herself. The only thing that makes her happy is getting her own way.”

  Lucy had never understood the estrangement between her mother and her aunt; Mom had always refused to talk about it. All she knew was that the women hadn’t spoken for years, but when Mom was dying, trapped in the last throes of cancer, she’d requested—finally—that Irene be told.

  And Irene had come.

  To Lucy’s shock, Irene had come and stayed—she’d doled out medications, stocked the refrigerator with takeout food, obsessively cleaned and tidied, and remained aloof while Lucy kept constant vigil in Mom’s bedroom. And then something had happened one night. Something behind the closed door of Mom’s room, something between Mom and Irene alone, something never discussed with Lucy. All Lucy knew was that Mom had suddenly seemed calm and strangely resolved, and the next morning, while Lucy sat beside her holding both her hands, Mom had slipped peacefully away.

  Lucy didn’t remember much after that.

  Over the next few days the funeral had been arranged; over the next few weeks the apartment had been cleared out and rerented, her things had been systematically discarded, packed, or put into storage—all by Aunt Irene, she supposed, for she’d been too numb with grief even to function. And then Irene had brought her here.

  “We’re your family now, Lucy,” Irene had announced in her cool, businesslike way. “This is your home.”

  And some home, Lucy had thought in awe, laying eyes on the house for the very first time. Compared to the size and comfortable shabbiness of her old apartment, this new place seemed like a mansion, with its white brick walls and tall front columns, its circular driveway, its swimming pool in back. Yet surrounded as it was by thick woods, and only a short walk to the lake, Lucy would have sworn they were in the middle of a vast, lonely wilderness if Irene hadn’t assured her that town was only a few blocks away.

  Lucy had decided immediately that her life—and her happiness—were over …

  “Looking for you is not how I planned to spend my evening.”

  With a jolt, Lucy came back to herself. She had no idea how long she’d been buried in her thoughts or how long Angela had been talking. She glanced at her cousin, but those dark-ringed eyes were focused on the rhythmic movement of the windshield wipers.

  “I talked her out of calling the police, you know,” Angela added.

  “The police?” Lucy’s tone was grim. “I thought nothing unpleasant ever happened in Pine Ridge.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Your mother,” Lucy mumbled, wishing they could just leave. She didn’t want to sit here any more, here where she could see the cemetery right across the street. She didn’t want to sit here knowing what she knew, and she didn’t want to remember anything that had happened tonight because she was cold and hungry and exhausted, and if her 911 call had been traced, then she especially didn’t want to be here when the police showed up.

  But Angela took another long puff and glanced at Lucy with a tight smile. “How funny.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing unpleasant ever happening here. And Irene—of all people—saying so.”

  Lucy frowned. “What do you—” she began, but Angela cut her off, gesturing vaguely toward the parking lot.

  “So what were you doing just now? Trying to call somebody?”

  Lucy stole a quick look at the phone box outside the car. How long did someone have to stay on the line for a call to be traced? How long did it take the police to find someone in Pine Ridge?

  “Yes.” Her mind was racing; the smoke was making her feel claustrophobic. “I was trying to call your house, but … but I couldn’t remember the number.”

  “Well, I don’t know where you were walking,” Angela said matter-of-factly, “but you look like a zombie.”

  Lucy cringed. She thought of the girl in the grave. A sick taste of guilt welled up inside her, and she swallowed hard, forcing it down. “Can we please go?”

  “Oh, great. You’re not gonna get sick in my car, are you?”

  “I hope not.”

  To Lucy’s relief, Angela instantly buzzed down the driver’s window and flicked her half-smoked cigarette out into the rain. Then she rolled the window up again, sat back, and turned up the heater full blast.

  “Thanks,” Lucy said. “I appreciate it.”

  “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for my car.”

  Of course you did. What was I thinking? Lucy tensed, listening. Was that a siren she’d just heard in the distance? Or only a muted sound from the radio? Please … please … let’s just leave …

  “Look, let’s get this straight. If you came here expecting money, Irene’s not gonna change her will. You’re not gonna get one bit of the inheritance.” Angela’s voice was stony. “Just so you know.”

  Lucy faced her in surprise. “I didn’t come here for your money. I didn’t come here for anything, Angela. I didn’t even want to come here—it wasn’t my idea. Your mother made me come here.” She hesitated, then said, “Just so you know.”

  “She’s not my mother,” Angela muttered.

  “What?”

  “I said, she’s not my mother. She’s my stepmother.” Reaching over, Angela rea
djusted the heater again, then leaned back with an exasperated sigh. “My father married her when I was ten. And then he died two years later, and I was stuck with her. We’ve never gotten along, Irene and me—we’ve always hated each other. And I’m leaving here just as soon as—”

  Abruptly Angela broke off. She reached for a fresh cigarette, and Lucy could see how she trembled with anger.

  “As soon as I turn eighteen,” Angela finished defiantly. She held a lighter to the tip of her cigarette, the tiny spark glowing orange in the dark. “As soon as I’m eighteen, I’m taking off for New Orleans,” she murmured again. “That’s when I inherit my money, and I can do what I want. Till then I’m a goddamn hostage.”

  Lucy gave a distracted nod. No …no … it’s not a siren. It’s going away now, in another direction …

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to focus once more on the girl beside her.

  “I didn’t know anything about you,” Lucy admitted, unsure what else to say. “Not about you or Irene. My mom barely mentioned Irene the whole time I was growing up. I’m really sorry.”

  Angela’s eyes widened, almost mockingly. “Sorry? Don’t be sorry for me. Don’t ever be sorry for me—I can take care of myself just fine.”

  “Angela, I didn’t mean—”

  “Just forget it. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  I don’t know anymore, Lucy thought miserably. I used to know, but everything’s different now … I’m different now …

  She was beginning to feel sick again. She wanted to leave, wanted Angela to stop talking and start driving. She could feel the girl’s eyes upon her, and she could still see the eyes of that dead girl, and there was too much death, death in her past, and death tonight, she was drowning in it, drowning in all this death, and if we don’t leave right this minute I’m going to totally lose it and start screaming—

  “God, what’d you touch?” Angela asked suddenly.

  “Touch?” A chill crawled up Lucy’s spine, though she managed to keep her voice steady. “What do you mean?”

  And Angela was leaning closer now, staring harder, her eyes like big black hollows in the shadows of the car.