Grave Girl (17 page)

Part Four:

Angels of Stone

Chapter One

"Fuck!" the voice shouts. "This is so fucking creepy! We should dig one up!"

Sitting up in bed, with the remains of an already-forgotten dream still clouding her thoughts, Sam stares across the dark room and realizes that her worst nightmare has come true. She's still not fully awake, of course, and she can almost feel the bed pulling her back down into its warm, soft, inviting fabric. Still, she can't ignore the noise coming from outside, a noise that she feels has been nudging her while she's been sleeping, and which has finally woken her.

"Kids," she mutters, grabbing her clothes and starting to get dressed. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, she sees that it's just gone 2am; the cemetery should be calm and quiet, but instead it sounds like there's a party going on out there. Trying to keep her frustration from boiling over, Sam finishes getting dressed and hurries into the kitchen, where she grabs her torch from the counter, unlocks the front door and steps out of the cottage.

The first thing she sees is a light over in the far part of the cemetery. Something's burning, but the flames are moving, as if someone's carrying a torch. Sam's first instinct is to call the police and get them to come and help deal with the intruders, but after a moment she realizes that she doesn't have a phone. Besides, she reminds herself, this is probably just a couple of kids having fun in the cemetery late at night, and she doesn't want to be the kind of person who starts raining down fire and brimstone on a couple of excitable but undoubtedly harmless local teenagers. Grabbing her spade, Sam sets out across the grass, making a beeline straight for the light.

"Fucking hell!" the voice shouts in the darkness. It's clearly a female voice, and young. "Wake up!" she screams, accompanied by a pounding sound. "Are you awake down there?"

"You'll piss yourself if he replies," a male voice replies, laughing.

"Hello?" the female voice shouts. "Anyone listening?"

"Look at the dates," the male voice says, sounding slightly slurred. "This guy's been dead for, like, thirty years. I think it's safe to say he's not coming back up."

"But he must be so bored," the female voice whines. "What if they buried him by mistake? What if they buried
all
these people by mistake?"

"Come here," the male voice replies, and there's silence for a moment, followed by the sound of wet lips smacking together in a drunken kiss. It's a sloppy, messy sound, like two fish trying to suck one another to death.

"Hey!" Sam calls out as she reaches the two interlopers. With her spade slung over her shoulder, she makes for an arresting sight, particularly as she's framed against the large moon that hangs above the cemetery.

"Fuck!" the male voice calls out, scrambling to get away.

"Shit!" the female voice says, turning to run but tripping on the edge of a gravestone and landing hard against the ground.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Sam asks, stepping over and seeing that the female is none other than Anna, once of the local teenagers. She waits for a response, before realizing that Anna is barely moving. "Are you okay down there?" she adds eventually, starting to worry that she might have accidentally killed her. "Did you hit your head or something?"

"I'm fine," Anna replies, smiling as she rolls onto her back. She's clearly wasted, and there's a stench of beer rising from her sozzled form. She barely seems able to even focus properly as she lounges in the grass, and all her panic seems to have been replaced by amusement at the whole situation. "Are
you
okay?" she asks, grinning as she stares up at Sam. "I mean, are you
really
okay? You look troubled. Why don't you sit down on the grass next to me and tell me
all
about the troubles in your life? I'm a good listener!"

"Anna!" the male voice hisses from the darkness. "Come on!"

"It's thingy!" Anna says with a smile. "What's her name again? You know, the girl. The one who does all the stuff in here. We've met her before."

"Sam," Sam mutters darkly.

"Sam!" Anna shouts. "That's right! Dean, it's Sam! You remember Sam! She's cool! She's the coolest mother-fucker in the whole damn place. She's, like, a grave-robber or something!"

"Grave
digger
," Sam replies firmly, "and that's not all I do. Listen, it's two in the morning, you really shouldn't be here. You're clearly drunk, so why don't you go home before I call the police, okay?" She waits for a reply, but once again Anna seems to be lost in her own delirium. "I was asleep," Sam continues. "I had a long day, and I've got another long day coming up. I get that you wanna have fun, but can't you try to show a little respect for other people?" She pauses for a moment. "Holy fuck," she mutters, "I sound like my grandmother."

"Nah," Anna replies, leaning on her elbows. "You wouldn't call the police on us. We're just having a bit of fun!"

"I don't care what you're doing," Sam replies, "you can't do it here. I'm not having drunk kids rolling around in my cemetery, so get the hell out, okay? And take your crap with you. Beer bottles, whatever, I don't wanna be picking up your junk after you're gone."

"Or what?" the male voice asks from the darkness. "You gonna whack us with your shovel? You gonna chop our heads off and stick 'em on poles?"

"I just might," Sam replies with a sigh. "Why don't you do us all a favor and just get out of here, okay? Is this really the best entertainment you can find for yourselves? You don't seriously want to spend the night fucking about in a cemetery, do you?"

"There's nowhere else to go," Anna whines.

"You can't be
here
," Sam says.

"There's no pubs or bars that'll let us in," Anna continues. "There's no shops that'll sell us beer. We'd have to go miles to the next town. It's a cluster-fuck."

"You
can't
be
here
," Sam says again, more firmly this time.

"Why not?" the male voice asks. "I mean, we're not causing any damage, so what's it to you? We're not smashing gravestones up or anything like that. We're just socializing in a slightly unusual way, but we're being very respectful of the establishment. You're welcome to join us." He laughs again, and it's clear that although he's more able to talk than Anna, he's still pretty drunk. "I mean, have you got any beer or anything?" he continues. "We're kinda all out. We didn't have much to begin with."

"I don't have any beer," Sam replies, looking down at Anna and feeling a pang of sympathy. It wasn't so long ago that Sam was doing this kind of thing, getting drunk every night and ending up in dangerous situations. There's still a part of her that'd like to be partying, and she's very much aware that she has a bottle of wine stashed in the cottage. For a fraction of a second, she feels herself poised to give in to temptation, and she allows herself to imagine what it would be like to just forget about everything else and get wasted.

"Come on," Anna says quietly, "lighten up. Join the party. You must have some booze in that little cottage of yours. I mean, what else do you do all night? Sit around and read the Bible?"

"Go home," Sam says firmly. "Go home now, or I'll call the cops. It's that simple."

"Let's go," the male voice says. "Anna, seriously, let's just get the fuck out of here. I don't want the cops getting involved. My Dad'd kill me."

"Fine," Anna says, getting to her feet with all the grace of a drunk ostrich. "Fucking stuck-up bitch, coming over here with her fucking spade and acting like she's the boss of everything."

"I
am
the boss in here," Sam says, embracing her authoritarian side for once. She turns and holds the spade out, pointing at the cemetery gates. "When you walk across that threshold, I
am
the boss, and I'll tell you something else. I don't like being woken up at two in the morning to deal with a pair of drunk idiots who can't hold their alcohol. How many have you two had, anyway?"

"Fuck off," Anna says, trudging across the grass and following Dean into the shadows.

"No,
you
fuck off," Sam mutters, feeling as if she's not in the mood to start getting into an argument. Her entire body is aching from the previous day's hard work, and all she wants is to go back to bed.

"When did you become such a bitch?" Anna spits back at her.

"And don't come back!" Sam calls after them.

"Fuck you!" Anna shouts from the darkness.

Sam stands and watches them go, and after a moment she realizes she can't see them. "Hey!" she calls out. "You'd better not be -"

Suddenly there's a bright light over by one of the trees, accompanied by a loud, mechanical roar. Before Sam can really work out what's happening, she sees a motorbike come bouncing across the uneven grass, with two figures on the back. She stands and watches as the bike makes its way between the gravestones, finally reaching the path and accelerating toward the gate. By the time it's out and onto the main road, Sam still hasn't quite processed the fact that those two drunk kids managed to drive a bike right into the cemetery.

"Fucking assholes!" she mutters, hurrying over to the gate and finding that it seems to be unlocked. She swears she remembers locking it as usual last night, but she figures she must have forgotten. Sliding it shut, she makes doubly sure this time. In the distance, she can hear Dean and Anna's motorbike racing along the street, and it sounds like they're driving all the way around the perimeter of the cemetery. "Great," she says quietly, "two drunk idiots on a fucking bike. What could go wrong?"

She stands and listens as the roar of the bike makes its way through the town.

"Fuck it," she mutters finally, turning and heading back to the cottage. "They'll be fine."

As she gets to the cottage door, she happens to glance over at the mausoleum, and something immediately strikes her as being a little strange. At first, she can't quite make out the problem, but as she wanders over and looks up, she suddenly feels a heavy sensation in her heart. The statue of Death that has always been perched up on top of the mausoleum is gone. She hurries all the way around the mausoleum, making doubly sure that she hasn't made a mistake, but finally she comes back to the front and she has to accept that the statue has simply vanished.

"Kids," she mutters, even though she knows deep down that there's no way two kids could possibly have climbed up, removed a heavy stone statue and carted it off somewhere. There has to be another explanation, a simpler explanation, even though right now Sam doesn't have a clue what that might be. All she can do is stare up at the spot where the statue of Death used to be, and try to ignore the slow chill that's rising through her body.

She stands in awed silence for a moment.

"I'll find it in the morning," she says eventually, before turning and walking back toward the cottage door. "This whole thing's probably a dream anyway."

Seconds later, the distant sound of the motorbike cuts out and there's suddenly a horrendous crashing and grinding sound, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Finally, the town falls silent. Sam turns and looks across the dark cemetery, and then up at the space on the mausoleum where the statue of Death used to sit.

"They'll be fine," she says quietly, before going inside and making extra sure that this time she locks the door of the cottage.

Chapter Two

"Jesus!" Matthews says as he reaches the first of the bodies. "What the hell happened here?"

"Bike crash," says Dr. Wellington, kneeling by the corpse. It's a dark night, but the emergency services have been called out following a horrific, high-speed accident in the center of Rippon. A mangled motorbike has been left in the middle of the town square, and two bodies have been thrown across the cobbles. The first body, a male, has been covered with a white sheet, and Dr. Wellington has already finished with his preliminary examination. "Broken neck," he continues, getting to his feet, "broken spine, multiple other breaks on the arms and legs. The whole body has been wrecked. He didn't stand a chance. At least it would have been quick."

"No helmet?" Matthews asks.

Dr. Wellington shakes his head. "Also, a strong smell of alcohol. I won't know for certain until I've got the blood-work back, but I'd bet good money that these kids were drunk. You know what it gets like here during the night. These idiots are looking for a thrill, so they start making dumb decisions. You take drunk kids, a few bottles of alcohol, and a motorbike, and you're asking for trouble."

"Figures," Matthews replies. He's never had much respect for the children of Rippon, having often fantasized about locking them all up for the duration of their teenage years and only letting them back out once they reach maturity. "I'm gonna find out who's been selling booze to these kids, and I'm gonna shut the fuckers down."

"There's something else," Dr. Wellington continues. "I know we'll need a formal identification later, but I'm pretty sure this is Dean James." He pulls the sheet back to reveal a bruised and battered face. "Wasn't he voted prom king a while back? I doubt the local girls'd be very keen on him if they could see him now."

"Great," Matthews says with a sigh. "This is going to rip the town apart. His family are important people around here. They're gonna make a hell of a fuss." He looks over at the other body, which is sprawled over by the lamppost. "What about that one?"

"Anna Marsh," Dr. Wellington says, leading him across to the second body, which is still uncovered. Nearby, paramedics are getting ready to load the first corpse into the ambulance, while all around the town square there are nervous citizens staring out from their windows, keen to know what's happening but unwilling to get too close. "She was drunk too, I'd wager. Her injuries are more severe."

Looking down at the girl's body, Matthews sees that she looks perfectly fine. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was just sleeping. As Dr. Wellington turns the body, however, Matthews sees the true extent of the girl's injuries: one side of her face has been worn away, exposing part of her skull, and her dead eyes are staring fixedly up at the sky.

"She was sent flying across the square at high speed," Dr. Wellington explains. "The skin was worn away, most likely due to friction against the ground. I found pieces of her flesh in a strip all the way from the bike to this spot. Her back was broken in a very specific manner, which I believe indicates that she hit the lamppost at speed. She probably died very quickly. I'll be performing an autopsy, of course, but as far as I can tell, this is going to go down as a traffic accident caused by alcohol."

"Cover her up," Matthews says, not wanting to stare any longer at the body.

Pulling the sheet over Anna's face, Dr. Wellington reaches down and removes one of her shoes. "See this?" he asks, holding the sole of the shoe up for Matthews to see. "Gravel and dirt. If I didn't know better, I'd say maybe she's been in the cemetery this evening."

"Why would she go there?"

"Weren't you young once?" Dr. Wellington continues. "Didn't you enjoy elicit trips to forbidden places under cover of dark? I wouldn't be surprised if they've been up to a few things, if you know what I mean. I'll be checking for residue in certain places."

"What about the blood?" Matthews asks, carefully changing the subject.

"She's lost most of hers. The impact burst her open like a sack. The boy, however, is relatively intact, so we can get almost all his blood. I'll sort it all out during the autopsy, but you might want to see about getting the girl's blood gathered up. If it gets down into the drains, it'll be lost forever."

"It's already gone," Matthews says, looking down at the dark, wet cobbles. "He's not gonna be impressed with second-hand blood that's been mixed up with all the dirt from these streets."

"It's a hell of a waste," the doctor says, sounding tired.

"Save the organs," Matthews replies. "Squeeze them dry until every drop has been extracted."

Dr. Wellington nods. He knows what he has to do; after all, he's done it so many times already in the past.

"How much do we have in storage?" Matthews asks.

"Before these two, about thirty liters. It's not enough, but it's something. Still, he won't be impressed. If anything, he'll be offended." He pauses for a moment. "Don't worry, though. I'll squeeze every drop out of these kids' bodies."

"And there's no sign of any other involvement?" Matthews asks as the doctor gets up and they walk over to the ambulance.

"Such as what?"

"You
know
what."

Dr. Wellington pauses for a moment. "It's hard to say. The accident is certainly explicable in terms of a simple crash. It's late, they were drunk, so I guess the driver simply lost control as they entered the town square. It rained a little earlier, so the cobbles were still damp in places. God knows where they'd been during the night or what they'd been doing, but..." He pauses for a moment. "I suppose it's possible that our mutual friends could have had a hand in events, but I'd rather just put this down to a simple accident. It's a sad fact that this kind of thing happens almost every day somewhere in the world. There's not a stone hand working behind the scenes of every tragedy, you know."

Matthews looks back over at Anna Marsh's body, just as the paramedics start loading her onto a trolley.

"It's a damn waste," Dr. Wellington says with a sigh.

"It's more than that," Matthews replies bitterly. "We can't afford to lose the children. We have so few already, and we need them. If they all throw their lives away in such stupid, pointless ways, there's no chance for Rippon to survive. These deaths are going to bring the whole town down."

"Then we're going to have to do something, aren't we?" Dr. Wellington adds, closing his medical bag. "We can't risk missing another chance."

"I'll impose a curfew," Matthews says. "I'll arrange things with Winters in the morning. We're going to have to keep all the children at home during the evenings. It won't be a popular policy, but we've lost two prime specimens tonight. Any more, and the whole town's going to be at risk." He looks down at the stream of blood that's slowly trickling between the cobbles. "I'll get someone to collect as much of the blood as possible," he adds ruefully. "Every little helps."

"Fine," the doctor continues, "but this is getting out of hand. You must have felt the tremors."

"Let's not spook ourselves out right now," Matthews replies, determined to cut off the superstitious part of the conversation. Sighing, he looks across the town square. "This is a mess, but I don't think there's much more for me to do here. It was an accident. I should get off and inform the parents." Taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it, he pauses for a moment. "That's gonna be fun, isn't it? Telling two families that their kids are dead. We have enough trouble with kids already. Make sure to squeeze out as much blood as you can. It's better than nothing." With that, he turns and starts making his way across the town square, bound for two houses that are about to receive the worst possible news.