Gravediggers (24 page)

“This is he.”

Click
—the line disappears, and Kendra's face pops up. She pulls something up on her phone and looks at me through the screen.
“Revenant
.
”

“Sorry?”

“My friend Mia from Atlanta just emailed it to me. A
revenant
is a person or creature that has returned,
supposedly
, from the dead. The root is the French word
revenir,
meaning ‘to come back,' or ‘to return.' It is usually presented as a reanimated corpse that terrorizes the living, and can mean anything from a vampire, Frankenstein's monster, or even the legendary Haitian
zombi
, which is actually a hoax caused by people under the influence of mind-altering drugs.” She says it like a textbook word,
zum-BEH
. “Your
zombie
is a creation of modern-day cinema, a faceless stalker born primarily out of the rampant atomic fear of the 1950s—”

“I got it. Congratulations on finding the right word. I know that means a lot to you.”

“Thank you.” There's a pause, and then, “What have you told your parents?”

“Nothing. I just got off the phone with Ian, and we both think we ought to keep the truth to ourselves.”

“I concur.”

“Good. How are your folks treating you?”

“They're . . . confused. I haven't been punished since I assaulted Ian last year. They're unaccustomed to dealing with bad behavior on my part.”

“There's a first time for everything, I guess.”

“Yes.” Another pause. “Perhaps tomorrow, if it wouldn't bother you, I could show you some of the zombie research I've done since getting back home. Ian as well, if you think he wouldn't mind.”

Kendra Wright, reaching out to us? Hey, the dead walk, so who's to say what's what in this bonkers world? “Sure. Come find us at lunch.”

“That sounds nice,” she says. “Till then.” She clicks her mouse, and the screen returns to its normal wall-paper of a dog popping out of a Christmas present. Kendra Wright, Queen Brain. What a freak. I love it.

After another half hour in my room, someone knocks at my door. Kyra peeks around the corner, her face blank and pleading.

“Are you going to read me my story?” she whispers.

Ugh. It's time for me to ruin my sister's childhood, and I can't even tell her the truth, that her favorite bedtime story dissolved in a pool of corpse goo. “Kyra, your book . . . I lost it while I was in the woods.”

“Oh,” she says, then stares blankly at the floor and nods to herself. “That's okay. Burly Bunny is for babies, anyway. Are you in a lot of trouble?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “Mom and Dad were really scared about me being lost in the woods. No one knew where I was for a couple of days.”

She runs into my room and hops up on my bed, sitting cross-legged in her feety pajamas. “Did you see any animals?”

“Yeah, actually,” I tell her. “We saw a lynx, which is a big cat, and we saw a big buck. A deer.”

“Tell me,” she says.

Now,
that's
an idea.

So I came away from hell without any footage to show for myself—but my memory of what happened is terrifyingly clear. And okay, my parents, my teachers, none of them believe me, but my little sister, that's another thing.

“Listen,” I tell her, “I'll tell you about me and my friends getting lost in the woods. But this is our secret, okay? No telling Mom and Dad, no telling anyone. Promise?” She nods. “Okay. So, Ian, me, and this girl Kendra are picking flowers together out in the woods.”

She gives me a six-year-old's half-toothed grin. “You were picking flowers?”

“The teachers made us. It felt pretty dumb then, too. Anyway, Ian, you know Ian, well, he sees this deer, a big twelve-point buck, standing between the trees. And for some reason, he decides that we have to follow it. . . .”

 

It's after midnight when the noise shakes me awake. It takes a moment for me to rub the sleep out of my eyes; a whole day of getting yelled at by every adult you know can wear you out. At first, I figure I'm having another nightmare that somehow crept into my waking mind, but after I sit up in bed and sip some water, and listen, I can still hear it.

Somewhere downstairs, there's a click, and then creaking, ever so light, but getting closer, moving through the house, coming up the stairs, coming right to my room. In the crack under the door, I see a light, yellow and flickering, and suddenly it's streaming in through the cracks all around my door, illuminating four perfect lines. The thing in my throat is either my heart or my stomach, I'm not sure, but it's keeping me from screaming.

The door to my bedroom clicks, and then swings wide, revealing a figure holding something, some kind of torch, with a light so bright and yellow that it's both blinding and impossible to look away from, like a miniature sun. The muscles and tendons in my face stop working, the fear dies down in my throat. A warm feeling spreads through my whole body, like when I was in the tunnels and could see that glowing sigil. Even though my mind is telling me to run and scream and fight, all I can do is stare at the burning light in front of me.

There's a sharp breath, and the light goes out, and I'm back in control of myself. Before I can scream, the skinny figure pulls back its hood and gives me a kindhearted smile.

“Geez, O'Dea,” I exhale, “you scared me half to death.”

“Sorry, PJ,” says O'Dea. She closes the door behind her, then pulls my desk chair out and sits. “I had to get in here somehow. Figured it was this or break a window.”

A million questions race through my mind, but the first one out of my mouth is “How
did
you get in?”

She tosses me her torch. It's waxy and hard to the touch, and more a candelabra of sorts, with five small candles coming out of some kind of larger—

“Oh,
gross
,” I say, tossing the gray wax-coated thing to the floor with a thud. “That's a hand!”

“Hand of Glory,” she says. “A candle made of a condemned man's hand. The light opens any door in a house and paralyzes anyone who looks on it. Usually you need the hand of someone hanged at the crossroads, but looks like it works with zombies, too.” She jabs her chin out at the appendage on my floor. “That's from the girl you dropped that tree on. Found her last night. You can keep it.”

“Thanks . . . ” Note to self: find a really good hiding place. If Mom finds this, she'll have a heart attack. “What are you doing here? We saw your signs, and the video of you burning the diary.”

The Warden nods. “I had to do it, PJ. That thing was trouble.”

“But now no one knows about the zombies. They think we made it all up.”

“Perfect. This way, no one's sticking their nose where it doesn't belong.” She shoots me a stink-eye. “Last three kids who did that caused me a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“Sorry.”

She nods. “Point is, everything's taken care of on the mountain,” she says. “Put new bones in my cabin, put a new seal over the graveyard—a big seal, mind you, dream catcher the size of you. The bad juju up on that mountain's on serious lockdown now.”

“So we've got nothing to worry about.”

She hisses between her teeth. “Not exactly,” she says. “See, karma's a balance. You gotta have the bad with the good. Well, you kids tipped the balance by killing those zombies, not to mention burning my seal. You played a hand in this game, and karma ain't the kind of game you can just up and quit. The forces of darkness remember people.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means you and your friends're marked,” she says in a voice that feels like a concrete slab. “You're Gravediggers now—zombie slayers.”

“What? No!” I say. “We never decided on that!”

“Doesn't matter,” she says. “You tipped the balance in your favor, and you've been chosen. You should be honored—we haven't had Gravediggers for a long time now. Word'll probably get out fast about you three.” She smiles and shakes her head. “Look at that. They always come in threes, to this day.”

“But . . . but . . . what do we
do
?” I ask her. “We don't know the first thing about killing zombies! I just made up a plan with the tools at hand!”

“Exactly,” she says, smiling. “A good Gravedigger shows initiative.”

“We're
not
Gravediggers!” I say, mostly trying to convince myself.

She ignores me. “Don't you worry about what to do from here on out. If trouble comes your way—and I'll be honest, PJ, it's
gonna
—I'll be around to help you out.”

“Where will you be?” I ask.

“Around.” She pulls her hood back over her wild hair, and her face disappears into shadow. A flick of her hand, and my window pops open on its own. “Be careful, PJ. You three are good kids. Sorry you have to be a part of this, but there's no going back now.”

“That's all right,” I say. “I guess this isn't the end of the world.”

“Not yet,” she mumbles, and then she leaps out of my window and the black mouth of the night devours her whole.

 

Acknowledgments

T
hanks to Claudia Gabel for thinking of me, everyone at HarperCollins for their help, and my friends and family for their love and support. Special thanks to Sam Raimi and George Romero, whose undying menace has always driven me to survive.

About the Author

C
hristopher Krovatin was raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, birthplace of Frank Sinatra and the Oreo cookie. At thirteen, he moved with his family to New York City, where he sought out trouble and adventure in its many forms. At this age, he also discovered the music of Rob Zombie, which would color his interactions with society at large from then on. He has a BA in theater from Wesleyan University, which he finds indispensable in the outside world, and is the author of two YA novels,
Heavy Metal and You
and
Venomous
, as well as countless articles about horror culture and heavy metal music. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he enjoys lángos, long walks in the cemetery, and blaring death metal. Follow him on Twitter at @chriskrovatin. He's kind of a weird dude, so he might not respond to you, but if you want to talk about Slayer or Bela Lugosi, he's usually down.

 

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Credits

Cover art © 2012 by Cliff Nielsen

Cover design by Joel Tippie

Copyright

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones

Copyright © 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krovatin, Christopher.

  Mountain of bones / Christopher Krovatin. — 1st ed.

    p. cm. — (Gravediggers)

  Summary: During a class trip to the Montana woods, three sixth graders, athletic Ian, sensitive PJ, and brainy Kendra, are separated from their group and must rely on each other to survive as they encounter zombies and more.

  ISBN 978-0-06-207740-0 (trade bdg.)

  Epub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062077424

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Zombies—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Nature—Fiction. 5. Hiking—Fiction. 6. Montana—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.K936Mou 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2011044623

CIP

AC

 

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LP/RRDH
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FIRST EDITION