Graveyard Games (5 page)

"That was a very un-Christian thing to say.”
Julia’s face paled and she took a step back, her hand going to her
throat. “You…you’re obviously not yourself today. Maybe you should
get some rest."

"Can't let the cover drop for a minute, can
you?" Dusty sighed. "Forget it. You're right, as always. I'm just
tired. Go back to your party. I hope it makes you feel better."

Dusty left her there standing outside of
Nick's room, and when she shut the door to her own room, Julia had
gone.

Chapter Three

The sun, streaming through
wispy, white curtains, crept across the rose-colored carpet. It
touched a faded brown bureau carved with initials and
more—
Dusty "hearts" Tommy.
She had no recollection of how they all got
there, but by the time Julia had discovered the carvings, it was
too late to save the dresser.

The sun slid across her old stereo and a
collection of her high school and college CDs. It edged across her
desk, still covered in the college booklets that buried a Princess
telephone, and inched past her closed closet door, falling on a
mauve bedspread. It stole up that wall, resting on a poster of
Orlando Bloom.

The light, hot and uncomfortable, was what
forced her to open her eyes. She stretched, pulling the covers back
over her and rolling on her side, away from the sun. She yawned and
then smiled, enjoying the warmth of her bed in the quiet time
before she was really awake.

She had been dreaming, a dream about Nick
and swimming in the pond. The sun had been shining, and it was
ninety in the shade. Everyone had been there: Suzanne, Sarah,
Annie, Josh Walker, who lived on East Cass and had to walk a mile,
Shane—everybody.

They were playing Marco Polo and Nick was
IT. The way he splashed around in the water, eyes closed, made it
hard not to laugh, but she knew she couldn’t laugh or he would
catch her and then she would have to be IT. When he yelled "Marco,"
she was supposed to say "Polo," but sometimes, if he was too close,
she wouldn’t, and sometimes she would turn and yell it in the other
direction to confuse him. But sometimes he would get her
anyway.

In her dream, he had grabbed her from behind
and she had to be IT. She remembered closing her eyes, how warm the
sun felt on her skin, the sound of splashing water as they all
tried to glide past her. She started yelling "Marco!" but the
"Polo's" sounded very far away, like echoes.

She had heard Nick say
"Polo," though—he was close, as if he had whispered it into her
ear. She had turned in a circle, groping for him. She remembered
her fingertips brushing his hair, his sun-warmed back beaded with
water, and she opened her eyes, ready to yell that he was IT, she
had touched him, but when she opened her eyes
—Nick, where are you?—
she was
staring at her ceiling and the dream
—Nick’s gone, he’s gone—
was
gone.

Dusty got up and found a pair of jeans and a
sweater at the bottom of her suitcase. She pulled her clothes on,
plaited her hair into one long braid, and went downstairs. The deep
roughness of her father's voice was as unmistakable as the familiar
smell of bacon. Dusty walked into the kitchen and sat at her usual
spot at the table, as if she’d never left home.

"Morning." Her father looked over the sports
section of the West Lake Journal at her. Steve Thomas, James’
younger brother, delivered it now. Nick used to do it until he had
moved on to a job working at the Farmer Jack’s over in West Lake,
she remembered. God, that was all a million years ago.

"Morning, Dad." She picked up the comics,
more out of habit than interest.

"What would you like for breakfast?" Julia
got up from the table. She was wearing the pink silk robe Nick had
given her last Christmas. Her hair was pulled up into a loose
bun.

"Nothing, thanks," Dusty said. "I don't have
much of an appetite."

"Are you sure? It's no problem." Julia sat
back down and Dusty watched her go back to writing thank you notes.
Then she looked at her father, who was reading the business
section.

Just any other morning.

"I'm sure." Dusty felt tears pricking her
eyes. She blinked them back.

"Okay. Do you want anything else, Jay?"
Julia asked, not looking up from what she was writing.

Her father folded the business section and
set it on the table. "No, thanks, hon. If I don't leave for the
office I'll be late." He slipped the sports section into the
briefcase waiting next to his chair.

"God forbid," Dusty said under her breath,
incredulous he was going to work the day after his own son’s
funeral.

"Will you be late getting
home tonight?" Julia stuffed a card into an envelope. The cards
were plain white with the words
Thank You
For Your Kindness
on the front.

"Shouldn't be.” He shrugged his coat on.
“This mall project is a pain in my ass, but it should bring more
revenue into this little town than we’ve seen in years. Did you say
something, Dusty?"

"No," she said softly, head down.
"Just...have a good day, Dad."

"I'll try, sweetheart," he said, sounding
surprised. He touched her hair.

Any other morning, Dusty thought. It’s like
a commercial. Mother cooks breakfast, father reads the paper,
daughter says have a nice day.

There's an empty
chair!
Her mind screamed.
Nick's chair is
empty
, can't you
see
that?

"Don't work too hard." Julia walked him to
the door.

"I'll see you tonight." He kissed her cheek
and the door shut behind him.

Dusty heard his truck start as Julia sat
back down. It was quiet now. Behind her, Dusty heard the dripping
from the automatic coffee maker. The light blue of the kitchen
seemed too bright, surreal, in the early morning light. Far away, a
dog barked. Cody, Dusty thought. Mr. Cooper's dog, Cody, was the
only dog they could ever hear barking out this far.

"Do you need any help?" Dusty couldn’t even
believe she said it. Maybe Nick was right, she thought,
incredulous. Maybe she was just like Julia.

"No," her stepmother said, glancing up. "I
can handle this."

Dusty picked up the paper.
The West Lake Journal served as Larkspur's paper as well as the
surrounding towns of Adison and Romeo. Her father also mail-ordered
the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, because The West Lake Journal
was just local fare for the most part.
Your Community Information Center
,
it read below the title.
September 9,
2006. 75 cents
.

Another Victim Claimed By Clinton Grove
Cat.

You made the headlines, Nick, she
thought.

"Is it supposed to get any warmer?" Julia
asked. Dusty glanced at the small box in the bottom left-hand
corner that contained the weather outlook.

"Seventies," Dusty told her. The article
drew her eyes back to it, but it wasn’t about Nick, after all.

By Mike Murphy

Larkspur Staff
Writer

LARKSPUR--Another victim
was claimed yesterday evening by what Larkspur residents are
beginning to call the Clinton Grove Cat. Scott Summers, 12, from
the neighboring town of West Lake, was attacked last night while
out with friends. Joseph Turner, 13, a friend of Summers', said,
"We were coming home from a friend’s and we took the shortcut
through the woods by the (Clinton Grove) cemetery. Scott was
bringing up the rear and something got him. Nobody saw it. It was
too dark."

The shortcut to which
Turner referred has been causing similar problems in the Larkspur
area. Sheriff Buck Thompson said, "We're trying to keep the kids
from using it, but it's a problem. It is a lot shorter."

The Sheriff also said that
until the perpetrator of the killings is caught, an eight o'clock
curfew will be in effect. There have been two other victims in the
past month. Joe Wilson, 41, a life-long Larkspur resident, was
attacked and killed on August 28 in an abandoned train station
across from the cemetery. Dominick Chandler was killed just four
days ago (see obituary, page 17) and was found in one of the
cemetery's mausoleums.

Sheriff Thompson believes
that the killings are the work of an animal. "It's no human, I can
tell you that much," Sheriff Thompson said. "We're just about going
crazy down here trying to catch the thing." Although additional
help has been called in, the only other Larkspur officer is Deputy
Matthew Walker.

Peter Friedman, county
coroner, said "I've never seen anything like this, except for the
time I was working in Australia and I was handling a lot of shark
attack victims. It's definitely an animal. I'd say it's a pretty
large bob-cat. We get those every so often up here. It has
tremendously powerful jaws."

There have been no reports
of missing animals from any of the neighboring towns or zoos,
leading officials to believe that the animal must be wild.
According to the Larkspur police department, traps have been set in
the areas surrounding the cemetery, and extra men have been called
in from West Lake to patrol the streets at night.

Sheriff Thompson said,
"I'd advise everyone to be wary, at least until we catch this
thing. Stay away from the cemetery at night. There's no need to
panic. Just take a few precautions and we'll be able to keep
Larkspur safe."

From what?
Dusty set the paper face down on the
table.
You don’t even know what it
is!

"Dusty, I'm going to go through Nick's room
later,” Julia murmured, not looking up from her writing. “I have to
pack up his things.”

Dusty looked up, something heavy rolling
over in her stomach. "What?"

"Do you want to help me go through Nick's
things?" Julia licked an envelope, sealed it and set it on top of
the growing stack.

"What are you going to do with them?" Dusty
watched her address another envelope.

"I'm not sure yet,” she replied. “Some of
it—his clothes—will have to go to the Salvation Army, I suppose.
Whatever you want, you can have, of course.”

The thought of Nick’s room being ransacked
was making her dizzy.

Julia glanced over at her. "Do you remember
what Suzanne brought? I don't have anything listed here."

"I don't remember," Dusty said, her voice
faint. She was thinking of Nick's baseball mitt; his one surviving
stuffed animal, Dirtball the Dragon; his Louisville hockey stick
propped in a corner. Julia had left everything in their rooms the
way they were when they left home, and now she wanted to…

"Do you want to help or not, Dusty?"

They were all still there, memories of their
childhood—his models of sports cars, the poster of Angelina Jolie
still taped to the wall, his football, his Doors CDs…

"Maybe later," Dusty whispered, standing up
and clearing her throat. "Maybe later, okay?"

"Well, I suppose it can wait.” Julia had
begun to lick stamps and put them on the envelopes. “I would like
to get it done as soon as possible, though,"

"Why?" Dusty frowned. "Do you want him
erased from our lives as fast as possible?"

Her stepmother’s sharp intake of breath made
Dusty wince. She hadn’t meant to say it—it had just slipped out.
Julia's cheeks flushed and she stared at Dusty, her hand fluttering
at her throat. Dusty opened her mouth to say something, anything,
but she couldn’t.

"I just don't want to think about it," Julia
whispered finally. "If I don't have... things... around... to
remind me…I won't think about it."

Dusty raised her hands to her cheeks,
cooling them. "I guess I want him to live a little longer." She
looked at Julia, feeling more than a little pity for her. Her
stepmother had dropped the front for once, but the tears trembling
in Julia's eyes wouldn't fall. The only time she’d cried had been
where it was proper to cry—the funeral.

"He's dead, honey." Julia’s voice was soft.
"There's nothing you can do to bring him back."

"I know." Dusty picked her jacket up off the
back of the chair. "I just don't feel the need to bury him so
soon."

* * * *

The tires of Nick's red Jeep kicked up a
cloud that Dusty glimpsed in the rearview mirror. Jarvis, the
street they’d lived on as long as she could remember, wasn’t paved.
None of the roads she navigated up to North Rose were. The only
paved roads in existence in the town of Larkspur were Cass, Essex,
North Rose and Hubbard. Hubbard ran all the way through Larkspur
and up through Shadow Hills. Cass, if you followed it far enough
south, ended up in West Lake, which was more of a city, at least in
the rural sense, than a town. Larkspur intersected at Hubbard and
North Rose—the epitome of "town." Everything else was woods, farms
or fields.

Dusty steered the Jeep around the corner of
Plainview and onto North Rose. The red, white and blue Amoco sign
stood out against the backdrop of the sky. Les Cavanaugh was
pumping gas into someone's black SUV. She didn’t recognize the car,
but she beeped the horn and waved at Les. He raised his hand as she
passed by.

She couldn’t say North
Rose was ever busy. Lakeshore Skating Rink, where you could find
most of the junior high kids on the weekends, was across from the
Amoco station. Its competition was next to Nellie's Diner, in the
form of the Lawrence Movie Theater, currently showing
The Passion of the Christ
(still) and a Michigan-based horror flick called
Evil Dead.
They would
get something new—in a year, when it wasn’t new anymore. If you
wanted to see the new releases, the ones advertised between
American Idol
and
House,
you had to go to
the AMC in West Lake, or the Star Theater in Shadow Hills, near her
father's office.