“I may be a vampire, but that doesn’t mean I particularly appreciate these places.” Cress grumbled, stepping carefully over burial grounds. “Nikolai’s going to be pissed when he finds out that we’re not at the hotel.”
“Don’t worry. We locked up tight.” I replied cheerfully, grasping a gravestone so that I didn’t fall over a tree root.
“It has nothing to do with that…” He sighed. “You still didn’t tell me what the note said. I’m not that dumb to not know that the note has something to do with sneaking out and bringing me along to a gravesite.” He glared at me and shivered. “Would have been nice if we got coats.”
“Stop complaining, you big baby.” I said sharply at him, looking at the graves. None of the people seemed remotely familiar to me.
“I’ll kill you here. Bury you with the dead.”
“No.” I looked over at him, wondering if he was serious. Did he know that was what I was thinking my killer was going to do to me when finding me here? “Really? Please tell me you won’t.”
He was confused by my sudden mood change. “I won’t…I’d rather have others clean up my mess anyway.”
“Lazy-bone.”
“Call me whatever, I’m still ten times stronger and faster than you.” Cress snapped, jumping over a gravestone.
“You don’t have any respect for the dead, do you?”
“I do. Just not for ones that die because of drunk driving.” He rolled his eyes at the grave he just leapt over.
“You can tell how they died?” I stared at him dumbly.
“Oh yeah, and I can also make pixie dust out of thin air and pick teeth of from little kiddie’s pillows.” He snorted. “No, you idiot, there’s engravings on the bottom of the graves that say how they die. At least, these idiotic burial people put them there.” He pointed down at the bottom of the gravestone, and I leaned down and read the writing. It was a bit small, but it did say what happened to the guy: SEPTEMBER 21, 2007- CRASH ON ROUTE 59, INTOXICATED AND RECENTLY CAME FROM AN ILLEGAL PARTY GOVERNED BY MINORS.
“You still shouldn’t do that. It’s just not right.” I said bitterly, clapping my hands as I stood up, brushing my dirty clothes off. Again, Nikolai gave me an outfit of his. He said if something were to happen to me, he could smell his own scent and mine together. So he could find me.
“Nothing is ever right in the world anymore, didn’t you know?”
I shook my head. “You’re horrible.”
“Yep. Thought you would have got used to that by now.” Cress leapt over another gave, but I didn’t have the courage to check out what the cause of this person’s death was. To be honest, I didn’t want to know. I heard a light jingle from Cress’s side, and he pulled out a cellphone and didn’t take the time to check the caller ID, just answering instantly. “What’s going on?” A pause. “She’s okay.” Cress looked over at me, then his eyes expanded a bit. “Oh…all right.” Another pause. “No, no…it’s just she was sleeping. I didn’t think you’d want to disturb her.” More silence. “Yeah…I get it. See you in a bit.” Cress closed the phone, then turned to me, his face alert. “Nikolai’s coming back. He heard what Faela handed over and wants to see the poem. But…” He peered at me curiously. “You still want to stay here…don’t you? There’s a reason you’re here?”
I nodded. “I have business here.”
Cress waited for me to explain further, but then gave up and sighed. “Alright. Here’s the deal: I’ll cover up your disappearance while he’s there, but you have to take this.” Cress handed a dagger over to me, his face grim. “When you’re in trouble, put some of your blood on here.” He hesitated. “It’s…something to go with you being the heir of the hotel. When you get your blood on here, something will happen when you do that. I don’t know the details of it all, but I know it will help you if something goes wrong. It’s to protect you when you’re in danger.”
“Oh…” I took the dagger and stuck it into my sneaker. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. If you weren’t the heir, you’d be dead.” He pursed his lips. “Careful, whatever you’re doing. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.” I said, a confident smile on my face.
He nodded, then ran off back the way we came, his body weaving in and out of the graves and rushing through the forest path, his body a black blur along the dark green expanse. The instant he was gone, I shivered.
I rarely was ever left alone.
I carefully kept walking further past the graves, looking over the names. Some of them were foreign on my tongue, but some I sensed a nostalgic feel about, since I saw some of the names in the newspaper about their tragic deaths. The feel of the rock, too, was new. It was a mixture of the past deaths and new awakenings here, and the conversion between the two was startling. Everything I touched, though…felt alive. It was as if the dead was still talking to me, trying to get their message across. But what could I say for them? What was there to say?
I spotted a grave in particular that stood out from the others; the description was a dent into my memories. A father’s death…
IN MEMORY OF JOSHUA CARUTHERS JACKSON
HUSBAND, FATHER, AND BELOVED MAN
1897-1979
I stared at it for a moment, my heart hammering against my chest. There was ivy sprouting around the stone, and fresh roses were placed at the foot of the grave. There was a poem there too, the ink fresh. I saw the date at the top and realized the poem was placed here yesterday, by according to my calendar date in my head. The poem read:
September 8, 2011
Red roses stand tall, black roses weep…
So we placed white roses instead, to bring you steady blessings from the moon…
For she shall watch over you, in your state of sleep…
In time, I’ll see you soon…
- Your granddaughter, Diana
It made me sad to think that Diana, the granddaughter, couldn’t see her relatives. Then again, I thought about all my ancestors that I will never see, and how others have suffered worse than us. A sinking pit formed into my stomach, and I leaned down and let my fingers graze over the white roses that were placed next to the poem. I wondered if the same blessing would be appropriate to put on Dad’s grave.
A cold draft came over my neck, and my heart beat louder. I stood up and stood paralyzed as a small sheet of paper fell down onto the top of the gravestone, the blood seeping through. I slowly took a step forward, my senses high on alert. Something was wrong…I picked up the note and read it. Another poem, but not for a death…
Now slowly think this down a notch;
Think, ‘shall this person weep or rot?’
For clues will no longer help charming thee;
Swiftly turn around and see…
I crumbled the paper and turned around fast, then fell to the ground. My breathing slowed, and I watched cold, white eyes stare at me with malice. The skin was leathery and old; not too old, but easily matched to what pictures of zombies were made out. The hair was white in the moonlight, showing faint traces of blonde that would have been red in early days. But it was the eyes…that seemed most familiar…
“Hey.” The man smiled, and it hit me. “God, do you know how long I’ve waited to see you? Electric chairs in the memory don’t suit well, you know.”
~~~~
I stared at the wall. I stood up and banged on the wall. I sat back down, staring at the wall. Then I got back up, looked out the window, then sat back down. I tore open a nearby pillow. The process repeated, until I ran out of pillows. And when my hand hurt so much that I thought I broke it.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Mom called up to me after I finished my cycle, laying on the bed and staring up at the while ceiling.
I didn’t answer. My voice was gone.
After some time, when the orange light of the sun pierced through my window, Mom gently knocked on my door. “Can I come in?”
I kept staring at the ceiling when she opened the door and set a plate of food on my desk. My stomach hurled, but my brain wasn’t registering. I managed to curl my intestines away from the thought of puking, and my body got clammy and sweaty from the denial. Mom saw the mess I was making of myself and touched my forehead, worried. “Are you okay? You look really sick. I should call a doctor, or---”
“No.” I said thickly, thinking of all the publicity that I got yesterday after coming out of the courthouse. “Leave me alone.”
Mom was surprised at my tone, which was emotionless. I didn’t understand why she didn’t understand. Did it not occur to her that I killed Dad? That I was the culprit? That he was never coming back?
“I’ll come back in later to see if you’ve eaten, so I would start now, so that we don’t have to go to the doctor.” Mom hesitated at the door. “I’m giving you a week to get your act together. Your counselor is worried for you, and so am I. I know you don’t want to get involved with crap from school, so buck up, okay?”
I wanted to scream my heart out to her. Tell her that I’m not alive anymore, and that Dad isn’t either. But I didn’t say anything as she left and went back downstairs, working on the dishes.
I moved my head so that I was staring at the food on the plate. My stomach made a move again, but I carefully stood up and looked down at the plate. Food and silverware. Fork and knife. Knife.
I picked up the knife, holding it inches from my heart. One plunge, that all it took…
I stabbed.
And started carving the wall, Dad’s name. I started a chain of words, words that expressed my feelings. All over, up, down, around, sideways, up-side down, criss-cross, and whichever way that filled space. By ten o’clock, Mom still hadn’t got my plate, which was remained untouched, as my whole right wall was filled with words about him. I stared after a while, then looked back down at my food. My goal was complete.
I coughed, then ran to the bathroom…
“Don’t worry. We locked up tight.” I replied cheerfully, grasping a gravestone so that I didn’t fall over a tree root.
“It has nothing to do with that…” He sighed. “You still didn’t tell me what the note said. I’m not that dumb to not know that the note has something to do with sneaking out and bringing me along to a gravesite.” He glared at me and shivered. “Would have been nice if we got coats.”
“Stop complaining, you big baby.” I said sharply at him, looking at the graves. None of the people seemed remotely familiar to me.
“I’ll kill you here. Bury you with the dead.”
“No.” I looked over at him, wondering if he was serious. Did he know that was what I was thinking my killer was going to do to me when finding me here? “Really? Please tell me you won’t.”
He was confused by my sudden mood change. “I won’t…I’d rather have others clean up my mess anyway.”
“Lazy-bone.”
“Call me whatever, I’m still ten times stronger and faster than you.” Cress snapped, jumping over a gravestone.
“You don’t have any respect for the dead, do you?”
“I do. Just not for ones that die because of drunk driving.” He rolled his eyes at the grave he just leapt over.
“You can tell how they died?” I stared at him dumbly.
“Oh yeah, and I can also make pixie dust out of thin air and pick teeth of from little kiddie’s pillows.” He snorted. “No, you idiot, there’s engravings on the bottom of the graves that say how they die. At least, these idiotic burial people put them there.” He pointed down at the bottom of the gravestone, and I leaned down and read the writing. It was a bit small, but it did say what happened to the guy: SEPTEMBER 21, 2007- CRASH ON ROUTE 59, INTOXICATED AND RECENTLY CAME FROM AN ILLEGAL PARTY GOVERNED BY MINORS.
“You still shouldn’t do that. It’s just not right.” I said bitterly, clapping my hands as I stood up, brushing my dirty clothes off. Again, Nikolai gave me an outfit of his. He said if something were to happen to me, he could smell his own scent and mine together. So he could find me.
“Nothing is ever right in the world anymore, didn’t you know?”
I shook my head. “You’re horrible.”
“Yep. Thought you would have got used to that by now.” Cress leapt over another gave, but I didn’t have the courage to check out what the cause of this person’s death was. To be honest, I didn’t want to know. I heard a light jingle from Cress’s side, and he pulled out a cellphone and didn’t take the time to check the caller ID, just answering instantly. “What’s going on?” A pause. “She’s okay.” Cress looked over at me, then his eyes expanded a bit. “Oh…all right.” Another pause. “No, no…it’s just she was sleeping. I didn’t think you’d want to disturb her.” More silence. “Yeah…I get it. See you in a bit.” Cress closed the phone, then turned to me, his face alert. “Nikolai’s coming back. He heard what Faela handed over and wants to see the poem. But…” He peered at me curiously. “You still want to stay here…don’t you? There’s a reason you’re here?”
I nodded. “I have business here.”
Cress waited for me to explain further, but then gave up and sighed. “Alright. Here’s the deal: I’ll cover up your disappearance while he’s there, but you have to take this.” Cress handed a dagger over to me, his face grim. “When you’re in trouble, put some of your blood on here.” He hesitated. “It’s…something to go with you being the heir of the hotel. When you get your blood on here, something will happen when you do that. I don’t know the details of it all, but I know it will help you if something goes wrong. It’s to protect you when you’re in danger.”
“Oh…” I took the dagger and stuck it into my sneaker. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. If you weren’t the heir, you’d be dead.” He pursed his lips. “Careful, whatever you’re doing. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.” I said, a confident smile on my face.
He nodded, then ran off back the way we came, his body weaving in and out of the graves and rushing through the forest path, his body a black blur along the dark green expanse. The instant he was gone, I shivered.
I rarely was ever left alone.
I carefully kept walking further past the graves, looking over the names. Some of them were foreign on my tongue, but some I sensed a nostalgic feel about, since I saw some of the names in the newspaper about their tragic deaths. The feel of the rock, too, was new. It was a mixture of the past deaths and new awakenings here, and the conversion between the two was startling. Everything I touched, though…felt alive. It was as if the dead was still talking to me, trying to get their message across. But what could I say for them? What was there to say?
I spotted a grave in particular that stood out from the others; the description was a dent into my memories. A father’s death…
IN MEMORY OF JOSHUA CARUTHERS JACKSON
HUSBAND, FATHER, AND BELOVED MAN
1897-1979
I stared at it for a moment, my heart hammering against my chest. There was ivy sprouting around the stone, and fresh roses were placed at the foot of the grave. There was a poem there too, the ink fresh. I saw the date at the top and realized the poem was placed here yesterday, by according to my calendar date in my head. The poem read:
September 8, 2011
Red roses stand tall, black roses weep…
So we placed white roses instead, to bring you steady blessings from the moon…
For she shall watch over you, in your state of sleep…
In time, I’ll see you soon…
- Your granddaughter, Diana
It made me sad to think that Diana, the granddaughter, couldn’t see her relatives. Then again, I thought about all my ancestors that I will never see, and how others have suffered worse than us. A sinking pit formed into my stomach, and I leaned down and let my fingers graze over the white roses that were placed next to the poem. I wondered if the same blessing would be appropriate to put on Dad’s grave.
A cold draft came over my neck, and my heart beat louder. I stood up and stood paralyzed as a small sheet of paper fell down onto the top of the gravestone, the blood seeping through. I slowly took a step forward, my senses high on alert. Something was wrong…I picked up the note and read it. Another poem, but not for a death…
Now slowly think this down a notch;
Think, ‘shall this person weep or rot?’
For clues will no longer help charming thee;
Swiftly turn around and see…
I crumbled the paper and turned around fast, then fell to the ground. My breathing slowed, and I watched cold, white eyes stare at me with malice. The skin was leathery and old; not too old, but easily matched to what pictures of zombies were made out. The hair was white in the moonlight, showing faint traces of blonde that would have been red in early days. But it was the eyes…that seemed most familiar…
“Hey.” The man smiled, and it hit me. “God, do you know how long I’ve waited to see you? Electric chairs in the memory don’t suit well, you know.”
~~~~
I stared at the wall. I stood up and banged on the wall. I sat back down, staring at the wall. Then I got back up, looked out the window, then sat back down. I tore open a nearby pillow. The process repeated, until I ran out of pillows. And when my hand hurt so much that I thought I broke it.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Mom called up to me after I finished my cycle, laying on the bed and staring up at the while ceiling.
I didn’t answer. My voice was gone.
After some time, when the orange light of the sun pierced through my window, Mom gently knocked on my door. “Can I come in?”
I kept staring at the ceiling when she opened the door and set a plate of food on my desk. My stomach hurled, but my brain wasn’t registering. I managed to curl my intestines away from the thought of puking, and my body got clammy and sweaty from the denial. Mom saw the mess I was making of myself and touched my forehead, worried. “Are you okay? You look really sick. I should call a doctor, or---”
“No.” I said thickly, thinking of all the publicity that I got yesterday after coming out of the courthouse. “Leave me alone.”
Mom was surprised at my tone, which was emotionless. I didn’t understand why she didn’t understand. Did it not occur to her that I killed Dad? That I was the culprit? That he was never coming back?
“I’ll come back in later to see if you’ve eaten, so I would start now, so that we don’t have to go to the doctor.” Mom hesitated at the door. “I’m giving you a week to get your act together. Your counselor is worried for you, and so am I. I know you don’t want to get involved with crap from school, so buck up, okay?”
I wanted to scream my heart out to her. Tell her that I’m not alive anymore, and that Dad isn’t either. But I didn’t say anything as she left and went back downstairs, working on the dishes.
I moved my head so that I was staring at the food on the plate. My stomach made a move again, but I carefully stood up and looked down at the plate. Food and silverware. Fork and knife. Knife.
I picked up the knife, holding it inches from my heart. One plunge, that all it took…
I stabbed.
And started carving the wall, Dad’s name. I started a chain of words, words that expressed my feelings. All over, up, down, around, sideways, up-side down, criss-cross, and whichever way that filled space. By ten o’clock, Mom still hadn’t got my plate, which was remained untouched, as my whole right wall was filled with words about him. I stared after a while, then looked back down at my food. My goal was complete.
I coughed, then ran to the bathroom…