Graveyard Games (26 page)

"What happens if guns
don't work?" she asked. "What if it
can’t
be killed?"

"Well," he said, opening the bedroom door.
"Either one or all of us will die." She looked at him in the pale
moonlight and her heart seemed to forget to beat.

"I love you," she said. "Whatever happens."
It was the first time she’d ever actually spoken those words to him
out loud.

He held his hand out to her and she took it,
letting him lead her.

"I know," he said, and shut the door behind
them.

* * * *

"How did you know all of this was here?"
Shane whispered, looking at the assorted boxes of ammunition on the
shelves in the back of Cougar's General Store.

"How did you know how to disconnect the
alarm?" Dusty whispered back and Shane laughed. "Fair enough. Here,
put these in your pockets."

He began to hand her boxes of ammunition.
She couldn’t read them in the dark, but when Shane held the
flashlight up to the shelves, she made out some of the print. He
was handing her ammunition for a forty-five, a thirty-eight,
ammunition for shotguns, handguns...

"Look," he said, shining his flashlight on a
box. "That's honest-to-god for a machine gun. You know anyone with
a machine gun?"

She shook her head and shrugged.

“
Seems to me like Cougar's
running a little illegal business on the side. Check those out." He
shined the flashlight farther down the shelf.

"Fireworks,” she whispered. “M-80's, cherry
bombs—there's some highly illegal stuff here.”

“
I’ll say.” He handed her
another box.

"Shane my pockets are getting full," she
said, taking yet another box from him.

Shane began to fill his own pockets. Then he
opened his jacket part way and began stuffing boxes inside.

"Do we really need so much?" Dusty looked
around in the darkness.

"Better safe than sorry."

"Here." He grabbed the box of fireworks and
began putting those inside her jacket. She squealed. "Shh! Zip it
up."

She zipped the jacket up, wide-eyed.

"I look pregnant," she whispered. He shined
the flashlight on her and then laughed.

"About twelve months."

That made her giggle, and she put her hands
to her mouth but she couldn’t stop.

"Shh!" Shane said, shining the flashlight
back on the shelf. "Will you be quiet?" He arranged the boxes
carefully with gloved hands, trying to make it look as if the
supply hadn’t been depleted.

"Shane," Dusty gasped, still laughing. "I
have to pee."

The look on his face when he turned toward
her cracked her up.

"Dusty, be quiet, okay?" he asked, almost
pleading.

"Your face." Dusty laughed behind her hands.
"Your face! Oh, god, I'm going to pee my pants!"

That broke Shane up. Dusty leaned weakly
against him in the darkness, still laughing.

After a few moments had lapsed she said, "I
still have to go."

"Okay." Shane grinned. "Let's get out of
here. We'll find some bushes you can go in."

Dusty stared at him, horrified. "That's
gross!" she hissed.

"God, I love you," he laughed, pulling her
toward the back door.

They went out into the still, cold night,
holding hands and laughing.

Dusty managed to hold it until they made it
back to Shane’s, where they dumped all of their stolen ammunition
and spent that last night together before the end, sleeping belly
to belly in his bed.

Chapter
Thirteen

They stood outside of the cemetery, the six
of them together for the very last time. Trees loomed beyond the
iron fence, which rose spear-like from the ground. Graves, arranged
in rows, seemed haphazard from this angle among winding paths of
asphalt. Headstones rose darkly, stretching up toward the
sullenness of the moon and the wide expanse of black sky above
them, casting slanting shadows in the snow.

"I feel like Butch Cassidy or something,"
Jake said in a low voice, hefting the gun in his hand. He had a
.38. Dusty's own gun, Nick's .45, felt heavy in her hands.

"
I
feel like going home and watching
T.V." Evan eyed the fence. "Letterman should be on."

"I feel like a Big Mac," Billy said, a
sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun propped against his shoulder.

"Funny, you don't look like one," Chris
remarked.

No one laughed.

"Once we get over the fence, we'll split up
in twos," Shane told them. "Leave the guns on the outside of the
fence and when you get over, reach through to get them. We don't
need anyone shooting themselves."

They began to climb. The fence was wet from
the melting snow. Dusty's Nikes slipped on the cross bar. Being
shorter than they were, it took her longer to find a way to get
over without killing herself. When her feet were on the ground she
let out her pent-up breath. Those spikes were no joke.

"I hate this damned fence." Chris reached
through it to pick up his gun. It was a .45, like Dusty's. Evan,
like Billy, had a sawed-off twelve gauge. “If I spear my nuts on
this thing, my wife is gonna kill me.”

Dusty stood close to Shane. He was looking
across the cemetery, holding a flashlight, the heavy-duty kind, in
one hand, his gun in the other.

"Billy, you’ve got the other flashlight,
right?" Shane asked. Billy flashed it as an answer.

"And you have the other one, Jake?"

"Yeah," Jake agreed.

"Okay. We'll do it this
way. Evan, you go with Jake. Billy, take Chris with you. I'll take
Dusty. We've got to check the mausoleums first. But
be careful
," he
warned.

Shane met Dusty's eyes and then looked
around at them, shaking his head. "Just don't mess around,
okay?"

"And yell if you see anything," Dusty
reminded them, as if anyone needed reminding.

They all paused to look
around, and Dusty looked back toward the car with a sinking feeling
in her stomach. It was parked in its usual spot by the eastern
fence.
What if there are only five of us
left to get into it?
she thought.
Or none of us?
She
shivered.

"Let's get moving," she said. "I'm
cold."

"Who wants to cover the back?" Shane looked
around the circle they made. No one answered. There were no
streetlights back there like the ones that buzzed out here on
Hubbard.

"We will." Jake looked at Evan. "Is that
okay with you?"

"Good deal." Evan nodded, pushing his
glasses up on his nose.

They started across the graveyard, hopping
over the smaller headstones, winding around the larger ones. Dusty
watched them go and the ache in her stomach got worse.

"We'll cover the middle," Chris told Shane.
"You stay up here and get these up front. And keep an eye on the
road."

Shane nodded.

Chris tipped him a salute. "See ya in a
while, boss."

"Not if I see you first," Shane said as he
watched him walk in the direction that Jake and Evan had gone.
Dusty could barely make out their shapes as they got farther
away.

"Do you think it's here?" Dusty asked
him.

"Yeah.” Shane looked over at her. "I just
wish I could remember where."

He started to walk, and Dusty followed him
closely. The snow crunched under their shoes. Shane had abandoned
his boots for the occasion and his feet were clad in a beat-up pair
of Keds.

Dusty followed the tracks
he left in the snow, walking between the rows of headstones. They
were drawing near the first mausoleum and it looked pale gray in
the moonlight. Icicles hung precariously from the roof, dripping
onto the melting snow below. The family name engraved read
Jackson.

"Stay behind me," Shane told her, slowing
his pace. She didn’t argue with him. He flicked the flashlight on
and Dusty gripped her gun firmly in both hands, looking around him.
He shined the light around the door, running the beam over its
edges. It was shut.

"Are you—?"

"Shh." He motioned for her to be quiet,
mounting the two cement steps. She followed and waited, her
breathing shallow, taking the flashlight from him. Then he
shouldered the door open, stepping inside, the gun pointed in front
of him. Dusty quickly flashed the light inside. Nothing.

At least, nothing unusual. Just six
cemented-in coffins.

"Next." Shane turned to face her.

Her heart was hammering in her chest. "Don't
point that at me," she said, backing out of the mausoleum.

"Sorry." He shut the door behind him.

She looked off into the distance and made
out the shapes of two people. Chris and Billy, most likely. "Sounds
like they haven't found anything."

"Yeah. But I think splitting up may have
been a bad idea." Shane started to walk again. "If they find it,
it's going to be all over before I can get there."

"They've got the same guns and bullets we
do," Dusty said, walking next to him. "And like Chris said, we get
it done faster this way."

"Yeah, I thought so at
first, too, but I forgot—that thing has an advantage over them that
it doesn't have over me.
I’ve
seen it," he told her, dodging a tree. It split
them up for a moment. "They just may flip out long enough for it to
get them."

"I doubt it," Dusty said, but the thought
itched at her. There was safety in numbers. Bare tree branches
swayed above them, casting shadows in the moonlight.

"Here we are," Shane said
and Dusty looked up at it. It was larger than the last. The
inscription read:
Thompson.
They were still one of the more "important"
families in Larkspur.

Again, the beam traced the edges of the
door. Shut. She held the light steady, gun pointed in the same
direction in her other hand. Shane stood there, looking back at
her, and she had an awful image of the door pulling open and Shane
falling inward, long claws reaching out—

"Ready?" Shane asked. She nodded.

He shouldered the door, but it stuck. He
tried again and there was a loud scraping sound when the door flew
open and Shane stumbled inward, sprawling across the cement
floor.

Dusty gasped, hurrying up the steps,
flashing the light around, and finding nothing but Shane lying on
his back, looking up at her.

"You okay?" She knelt beside him. "Are you
hurt?"

"I didn't know you cared." He leaned up on
his elbows, grinning.

"Come on." She shoved him, standing up. "I
don't like it in these mausoleums."

Shane groaned, getting up, rubbing his hip.
He leaned over and picked up his gun.

"Lucky thing it didn't go off," he said,
looking at it.

"Come
on
." Dusty hugged herself,
flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. Even in here it was cold,
although the wind was less.

"Well, that's two down." Shane walked toward
her, reaching to close the door. "And we haven't heard anyone
yelling. Maybe I was right when I said it moved on."

Dusty screamed, backing quickly out. She
forgot about the steps and fell, landing in the snow, dropping both
her gun and her flashlight.

"Something ran over my foot!" she cried,
pointing.

Shane came to retrieve the flashlight and
then she heard him laugh from inside.

"It was a mouse," he called. He came out,
shutting the door. It made the same awful scraping noise as it
shut.

"Are you okay?" He offered her a hand and
Dusty took it, letting him pull her up.

"Scared the daylights out of me," she told
him and she wasn't kidding. She was trembling in his arms.

"You scared him, too," he said. She closed
her eyes for a moment, leaning against him, into the familiar Old
Spice and leather combination.

"You okay?" he repeated.

She smiled. "My ass is wet, and I'm going to
catch pneumonia, but other than that, I'm just peachy.”

"Awww, poor baby," he said, caressing her
wet behind.

She slapped his hand away. “Quit!”

He grabbed her bottom, squeezing. "We'll
have to take you home and get you out of those wet clothes."

"Get away from me, you fiend!" she cried,
laughing. She leaned over to retrieve her gun.

"Sounds good, though, doesn't it?" he asked,
reached over and squeezing her hand.

"The best," she said, returning his smile.
"After all of this is over, we—"

The screams cut her off.

"They found it." Shane’s voice was flat and
he started to run.

It took her a moment to move, as if the
messages to her brain were being delayed somehow. Then she followed
him, instinct kicking in. His strides were longer and he was
faster, jumping over headstones she went around. She followed him
as fast as she was able, but her feet were slipping in the snow,
slowing her down.

And the screams...

They were closing the distance, but the wind
carried the words away, and she could only hear sounds. She
couldn't tell exactly where they were coming from. And then, there
was a sound like firecrackers, but she knew the sound of gunshots
well enough not to mistake them. Shane seemed to know exactly where
he was going and his pace never slowed.

Then, the screams stopped, and there was
just the sound of the wind and their feet on the snow. Shane paused
then, and Dusty caught up to stand beside him. Her breathing was
short and harsh and she had a stitch in her side. Shane glanced at
her. It was too quiet and her eyes widened. The silence was worse,
so much worse.

"No," Shane breathed. "No,
damnit,
no
!"

He began to run again and she followed him.
The spaces between headstones were larger back here and they ran
between the rows. Dusty concentrated on keeping up with him and
maintaining a tight grip on her gun. She held the flashlight in her
other hand.