Graveyard Games (24 page)

“
So…you’re not into incest
either?” Nick grinned.

Shane laughed. “I’m into women, I’m afraid.
And one in particular, even after all these years, sad as that
is.”

“
She’s in love with you,
too,” Nick said, his voice cracking. “Always has been. Still is,
Shane. That’s the truth.”

"She has a hell of a way of showing it,"
Shane scoffed.

"I won’t be in the way anymore." Nick leaned
his head back and looked up at the stars. “I promise you that."

Shane glanced at him, swallowing hard. “I’m
afraid it’s too late.”

“
Maybe not. You won’t know
if you don’t try.” Nick grabbed another beer.

“
Water under the bridge.”
Shane shrugged. “And she’s a little far away to be testing the
waters.”

Nick hung his beer between his knees for a
minute, staring at the ground. “I think I can get her to come home
for a while. Her circumstances…have changed.”

“
Quit playing matchmaker,
all right?” Shane laughed, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “I’m more
worried about you than I am about anything else. What’s all this
‘I’m dying’ crap about? You’re not gonna die. Not on my
watch.”

Nick smiled again, that sad, small smile,
and shrugged. “Maybe not. Who knows?”

Shane leaned back against a tree with a sigh
and closed his eyes. The beer was beginning to give him that warm,
sleepy feeling it always did when he’d gone past his usual limit.
Not that he set those too often or anything. Then he heard Nick's
deep, even breathing and knew, from years of sleepovers, the sound
of his friend asleep.

He began to think of Dusty, knowing Nick was
wrong about one thing—Dusty would never love him now. Nick had
definitely put a stop to that. He dozed off, listening to the
gentle rustle of autumn leaves. The next thing he knew, Nick was
trying to wake him up.

"Shane?" Nick shook him, hard. "Shane, are
you awake?"

"I am now." He opened his eyes and
stretched. He was stiff and cold. The wind had begun to blow
harder. He checked his watch. It was almost one in the morning.

Christ, whose idea had this been anyway? he
wondered groggily.

"Do you smell something?" Nick
whispered.

Shane focused on his friend, squatting in
front of him, shivering.

"Do I
what?"
Shane pulled his collar
up.

"Smell something," Nick repeated. "I smell
something...bad."

"No." Shane shook his head.

Then he did. The wind had shifted and now
there was…something…

"Yeah," Shane corrected himself. "What is
it?"

"I don't know, but it's coming from over
there." Nick pointed into the distance.

Shane squinted, trying to see into the
darkness. They were near the western fence, and all he could see
were headstones and the dark, hulking shape of a family mausoleum.
There was nothing moving but the wind in the trees.

"It's probably nothing." Nick hugged his
arms across his chest and stood.

The smell was stronger now, and Shane had
finally placed it. It was the decaying smell of something long
dead.

"Maybe a dead coon or something?" Shane
wondered out loud.

"Yeah, maybe.” Nick shivered. “You think
they'd know if we took off? I'm freezing!"

Shane stood, looking around. There was no
sign of life. Everyone had gone back to the Starlite, or more
likely, were out joy-riding in his Mustang. He was sobered up now
and cold.

"Probably not." Shane stomped his feet on
the ground, trying to get feeling back in them. "It was a stupid
idea anyway. We're not twelve anymore. Let's get out of here."

Nick leaned over to grab the rest of the
six-pack. Then they heard a low, scraping sound, and Shane turned
to look at Nick.

"What the hell?" Nick cocked his head.

Shane shrugged, looking toward the
mausoleum. The smell was worse now, riding the wind current in
their direction.

"Is it coming from in there?" Shane pointed
toward the mausoleum. Nick strained to see in the moonlight.

"Dare you, Shane." Nick grinned.

"Dare's go first," Shane said
automatically.

"All right." Nick dropped the beer,
motioning for Shane to follow him.

Shane came up behind Nick as he walked
toward the mausoleum. In the moonlight, they could see the cement
steps leading up to the door. The family name, carved in stone, was
in the shadows.

Shane's fists clenched and he realized his
heart was beating hard and fast. He thought of Joe Wilson, dead and
buried, killed by what the authorities could only surmise was a
bobcat, and decided he didn’t want to pursue this any further.

"Nick, let's—" Shane started, but Nick
nudged him, cutting off his words, pointing toward the door. It
stood slightly ajar.

"No wonder it smells." Nick glanced over his
shoulder at Shane. "These are supposed to stay shut. One of the
vaults is probably cracked."

Nick reached out to push open the door,
moving it only slightly—it was solid and extremely heavy.

And a hand closed over his wrist.

Nick yelped in surprise and fear and Shane
cried out, too, taking an instinctive step back. Then Nick began to
scream and Shane heard a crunching sound he only later understood
was the sound of the bones in Nick's wrist being pulverized.

"Jesus." Shane's voice was barely a whisper
as the moonlight slanted across the grass and into the doorway.

"Come on in." The clotted voice was full of
humor, and Shane's mind was unable to grasp what he was seeing. A
man, once, possibly, dressed comically in a three-piece suit. He
got brief, split-second impressions—razor-sharp, pointed teeth,
claws and wild whitish hair matted with blood. Nick struggled but
he—it—held his wrist tightly in one clawed fist.

"Come on in," it said, its voice a rotten,
chortling thing. "Join me for a bite." It patted its stomach,
grinning, its voice low and full of grit.

For a moment Shane was frozen, feeling
warmth spread through his crotch, although he wouldn’t realize for
hours that he’d wet himself—then he lunged at the thing. It was
surprised only for a moment, and that was Nick’s one chance. He
took it, wrenching free of the thing’s grasp while Shane wrestled
it to the ground.

The thing’s face opened up—a mouth gaping
wider than anything Shane had ever seen, pointed teeth dripping
with saliva as it bared them and prepared to take a bite out of
Shane’s flesh. He felt it coming, knew it was the end, but still he
didn’t let go, his hands closing around the thing’s throat.

“
No!” Nick’s foot
connected hard with Shane’s side and he felt pain radiate through
his ribs—cracked two, he found out later—and he groaned as he flew
off the thing and landed hard on the ground. Nick’s eyes were wide
and wild as he attacked the man—thing—throttling it to the
ground.

“
Mine!” That’s what it
said. Shane knew he’d heard that clotted voice say, “Mine!” as it
flipped Nick to the ground, just before its face opened up again
and it buried its teeth into Nick’s mid-section.

“
Go!” Nick screamed.
Impossibly, he was screaming at Shane, telling him, “Run, Shane,
run!”

It happened too fast. Shane stood, only a
few feet away, prepared to attack, to pull Nick to safely, but his
friend was pinned on the grass beneath it and his screams had
suddenly stopped. Long, sharp teeth sank into his flesh, and Shane
shrank back, watching, horrified.

The bright moonlight showed the starkness of
Nick's ribs as the thing stuffed innards into its mouth,
swallowing. With one long claw, Nick's eyeball was popped out and
tossed into its mouth. It chewed, eyes closed, savoring it as if it
were a delicacy.

Shane stood and watched with dawning horror,
jamming his fist into his mouth to stop a scream.

And then he ran.

He slipped once or twice,
glancing over his shoulder, appalled as the thought crossed his
mind—
what if it’s still hungry?

The thought spurred him on, and he flew over
the fence, unable to block the image out of his mind of that thing
taking his friend's insides out by the handfuls and shoving them
into its mouth.

* * * *

“
No.” Tears streamed down
Dusty's face when he finished. “No! No!”

Dusty rocked herself, shaking, her arms
wrapped around herself, and he reached for her in the darkness.

“
Why didn’t he tell me?”
she whispered against his chest, letting him rock with
her.

He buried his face in her hair. “He didn’t
want to hurt you.”

“
Too late.” She gave a
short, pained laugh.

“
And he was scared.” He
sighed, kissing the top of her head. “And so am I.”

Dusty tried to reconcile what he said with
what she knew. It wasn’t Shane’s fantastical explanation that had
caught in her mind. It was Nick’s revelation. Her brother—Nick, the
star quarterback—he was gay? Even as she wanted to deny it, she
knew it was true, that she had lived in denial about his feelings
for Shane, the way Nick kept them apart, for too long. She shook
her head, not wanting to admit it, that he had been afraid to tell
her, had even feared revealing his illness. My god, he’d been
dying. Her brother had been dying the night he was killed… The
irony made her shake with anger, and her thoughts finally turned
back to what Shane had told her about who… what… had killed
him.

“
Shane, are you sure…what
you saw…?”

“
I told you.” He laughed.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

"I... well…" Her mind groped for words that
made sense. "It’s kind of out there."

“
Tell me about it.” He
moved away from her and Dusty stood, arms folded, going to the
window and looking out onto the street where the snow blew in the
cold November wind.

"Maybe you just
thought
you saw this...
thing?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “It was dark. And you
were both drunk. "

"Not that drunk.” Shane snorted. “I saw what
I saw.”

"Why didn't you go to the police?"

"Only you would suggest that.” Shane
laughed. “I can see it now. Me, Shane Curtis, little brother of
Buddy Curtis, telling the Sheriff I'd seen my best friend eaten up
by a monster in the cemetery at midnight…"

Dusty frowned. "Well, if it was the
truth—"

Shane snorted again, smacking his forehead
with his palm. "They don't give a damn about truth in this stupid
little town. If they did, that thing would be dead by now. The law
in Larkspur ignores the truth. Everyone does. They’re rather
believe the illusion, the lie. It’s more comforting. Why do you
think your brother never told anyone he was gay?"

She turned back toward the window. “I can’t
believe...”

What? That her brother had been gay and
never told her? That he was sick, and hadn’t told her that either?
That he’d been killed by some…what? The thing she couldn’t believe
was that she was no closer to the truth about what had taken her
brother from her after confronting Shane than she had been before.
She had gotten the truth, all right. Plenty of it—but it hadn’t
been anything she’d expected.

“
This is a very small
town, Dusty. You know that as well as I do. They would have
arrested me in a heartbeat.”

“
You’re no saint, you
know—"

"No, I know I'm no saint," Shane agreed,
cutting her off and she could see the anger etched into his face
even in the dimness. "But do you really think Chicago is the only
place the law is corrupt?”

"Probably not," Dusty admitted, thinking of
how defensive Buck Thompson had been that day, standing in her
kitchen and telling her they were doing “everything they
could.”

Shane sighed. "Anyway, that's why I didn't
go to the cops.”

“
What did you
do?”

“
I threw up.” He
swallowed, his head down, eyes closed. “And then I went to the
Starlite and told the guys Nick got sick and went home. I don’t
think they believed me. And of course, they found Nick’s body the
next day…”

Dusty stared at him. “Do they think you did
it?”

“
I don’t know,” he said
bitterly. “They covered for me, anyway, even if they did. Lee
covered for me too. The Sheriff even questioned that spastic kid. I
think they were looking for him to slip up, but he didn't. I don’t
know why I'm not in the state pen
right
now
. There were beer cans out there with
our fingerprints all
over
them, Dusty. I don't know who picked them up.
Maybe the cops didn't even bother to check for prints. Maybe I just
got lucky. I don’t know."

"But my brother…he wasn’t so lucky."

He shook his head. "I knew you wouldn't
believe it, but Dusty, I swear to god I'm telling you the
truth."

Dusty didn't look at him. She stared out
into the empty road. Did she believe him?

looked like he was inside out the holes
where his eyes had been in pieces like he got himself caught up in
a meat grinder only thing that I know that can open doors is people
shredded pieces the holes pieces his eyes

"Are you
sure
it wasn't human?"
Dusty rubbed her hands over her arms, up and down.

"I don't know." He sounded tired and
defeated. "I've never seen a human being with claws or teeth like
that, but I've never seen an animal that wore three piece suits and
walked upright and talked…so you tell me?"

Dusty turned it over in
her mind. As incredulous as it was, she knew
he
believed it, and for some reason,
it rang true to her own ears.