A/N: Hi everyone :) I hope you're all well! Quick update: I go back to university tomorrow, so I won't have as much time to write anymore and unfortunately I didn't get anywhere close to my writing goals for the holidays. However, I do have almost enough chapters stocked up to keep uploading every two weeks, if all goes well. There may be occassional delays, but I think writing will go a lot faster now because I did also manage to plan out the rest of the book until the soon-approaching end. So, yeah. This was a chapter that I really had fun writing so please comment and tell me what you think! Read, enjoy, vote, comment and share! Also, Eid Mubarak for next week to my Muslim readers who will be celebrating. Wish me luck for my second semester! :)
~Hikari
Chapter Fifteen – Ghosts and Zombies
A gust of wind sent dust and flower-petals drifting as we hurried through the neat rows of graves. I shuddered as I stepped into the cold shadow of a towering headstone. The graveyard-keeper’s house stood in a corner, near the busy road. Aside from the hum of a lawnmower and our muffled footsteps, the graveyard was empty.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked Kairo, staying close to him. Sunlight banished fears of ghosts, but I didn’t want to get left behind. It would be easy to get lost amongst the labyrinth of the dead.
“Yes, I know more-or-less which way,” he answered.
He turned to the right at a path then stopped.
“Wrong way,” he muttered.
I stared down the path. The dates on the gravestones were newer.
“What’s down that way?” I asked.
“Graves. What else?”
I frowned and folded my arms, raising my eyebrows. I wasn’t convinced that was all. He sighed, catching my expression.
“Nothing, alright?”
I stopped following him and walked down the other path. I heard his footsteps catch up to me as he grabbed my shoulder.
“Don’t go that way, please?”
“I won’t, if you give me a good reason not to.”
“We’ve got to find the Lifemark. We can’t waste time.”
“The stop wasting time and tell me the real reason.”
I tapped my foot impatiently.
“My parents are buried there...and so is Isaac – Jared’s brother.”
He stared at the floor, concentrating on the gravel intensely while running a hand through his hair. I took a step closer, tempted to hug him.
“I don’t mind if you want to see their graves,” I said gently.
“I don’t want to see them,” he answered, stepping back. “Too many bad memories.”
I watched as he turned and walked away. I regretted bringing it up as I followed him deeper into the graveyard. I kept an eye on the headstones, watching as the dates grew further and further back into history. It was quieter; the bustle of the road fading to a faint buzz. Leaves rustled as a breeze disturbed them.
We reached the end of the graves; the remaining space disappeared into the trees.
“Where to now?” I asked, looking around.
“Through here. There used to be a sign...the really old graves are behind that gate.”
He pointed to somewhere between the trees. I peered to where he pointed, but saw nothing but shadows and branches.
“Are you sure? It looks deserted and I don’t see a gate.”
“I’m sure. The gate’s there.”
Without hesitating, he strode towards the trees and disappeared amongst them. I hurried to catch up to him. A shiver travelled through my body as I stepped into the cool shade. I wasn’t scared of ghosts, but the change in temperature did affect me.
“Hurry up, Maya,” he called, far ahead of me. He stood in front of a low, stone wall next to an iron gate. By the time I reached him, he sat on the edge of the fence ready to climb over.
The gate screeched as I tried to ease it open. I dusted the coating of rust off my hands and frowned at it. Kairo shook his head at my effort and stepped over the wall.
“You won’t get it open. There are chains on it.”
He held out his hand to help me over the wall. I took it and used my other hand to balance as I climbed over. My shoes crunched against dead leaves on the other side. A shudder travelled through me.
“Did you feel that?” I whispered.
“Feel what? Not scared of ghosts, are you Maya?”
I shook my head, but didn’t let go of his hand and stayed close behind him.
“Why was the gate chained if the wall was so easy to climb over?” I asked. It didn’t make sense to me.
“I don’t know. Symbolic, maybe? Maybe the wall used to be higher? It’s really old; it could have crumbled.”
We walked between the trees. I had to keep my eyes on the ground to stop stumbling over roots and rocks. The high grass tickled my legs through my jeans and left me listening for the hiss of snakes. I jumped and gasped as something touched the back of my neck. I brushed the small spider away and shuddered.
“What?” Kairo frowned at me.
“Nothing. It was just a bug,” I said, gathering my nerves. I was overreacting. There was nothing to be scared of. Just nature. I took a deep breath and shook the shadow-stranded thoughts from my head.
“Would you prefer to come out here at night, maybe? I hear it’s a full moon soon. We can come back then, if early morning with the sun up is too scary,” he taunted.
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m not scared.”
“Uh-huh...You aren’t.”
I thought he’d tease me further, but instead he gave my hand a squeeze and smiled at me.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he said.
We walked further in silence. The trees grew closer and closer together, with the odd rock sticking up between them. Some of the rocks were too...shaped to be natural boulders. I walked over a worn, rectangular block and crouched next to it. It was about three metres long and half a metre wide, but not very high. I brushed away some sand and felt a faint inscription. It was a grave. A child’s grave and I’d walked over it. I bowed my head and pulled my jacket tighter around me, suddenly cold.
Something grabbed me around my waist and I screamed on instinct. Kairo laughed.
“You have a scream that can wake the dead, Maya,” he said as I stood up and glared at him.
“Not. Funny,” I muttered.
“Sorry,” he said unconvincingly. “You’re right. It’s not funny. We’re not too far from the Lifemark, actually.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah...We’re getting closer to the more ancient graves. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
I nodded and scowled at him. I wasn’t happy about what he did. I kept a hand on my knife and scanned the ground more carefully. I didn’t want to step on any more graves. It was getting difficult to walk around, the canopy of leaves letting in only a few stray sunrays.
“Do you have a torch?” I kept my voice soft.
“Not with me. I didn’t expect it to get so dark,” he answered in a whisper. I dug through my handbag and pulled out my cellphone. It took a few seconds to get the torch app on, but the small circle of light it created was only enough to stop me from tripping over the frequent stones that populated the ground. “So much for not stepping on more graves,” I thought.
To my surprise, Kairo put his arm around my shoulders. I felt him shiver and smiled to myself. The darkness hid my blush, and it was satisfying to know that he was getting freaked out too.
“Still want to come here during the full moon?” I whispered to him.
“Maybe,” he muttered.
The light filtering through the trees increased suddenly as we stepped into a clearing. I turned off the light on my cellphone and squinted as my eyes adjusted to the brightness.
Gravestones spiralled out from a stone pillar at the centre of the clearing. I stepped into the sunlight, feeling gravel crunch under my shoes instead of grass.
“This is freaky,” I muttered, walking to the pillar. “Did you know all this was here?”
Kairo shook his head and stared at the pillar.
“I had no idea. I thought the graveyard ended at the trees.”
I pulled the book out of my bag, sat on one of the more stable headstones after murmuring an apology to the ground, and settled it on my lap. I turned to the page where we’d stopped. A faded drawing showed the same, spiral arrangement. At first, I’d thought it was just a symbol I hadn’t understood, but it made sense now.
“We’re in the right place,” I said.
He touched the pillar, tracing something with his finger.
“There are symbols on here...I’ve never seen these before. They must be ancient...Usually, they look a little familiar but these are strange.”
I got up and looked at the symbols.
“Do you think the Lifemark’s one of them?”
“Probably not. This is protection, I think. What else does that book say?”
The ground rumbled and shook. I grabbed onto the pillar, but it tilted away from me and my hand slipped. I fell over, wincing as I landed on my side and the book knocked against my shins. The shaking stopped as suddenly as it began. I scooped up the book and dumped it back into my bag.
“What was that? Some kind of earthquake?”
Kairo helped me up, frowning. He suddenly looked pale.
“I don’t think so...”
There was a strange, scraping noise behind me, like something sharp scratching against metal. I turned my head to see the gravel jumping up and a skeletal hand reach out of the ground. I screamed, the sound rising and spreading, and leapt onto one of the gravestones. More hands and arms stretched out of the gravel like grotesque flowers. Gunshots exploded as Kairo aimed at the bodies that climbed out of their graves, but it had little effect.
“Oh sh*t,” I swore, fumbling for my knife. The stench, cloying and putrid, hit me like a hammer. Something slimy landed in my hair, sliding down my neck and making my shudder. I didn’t want to know what it was or where it came from. A hand grabbed by ankle, the grip tighter than I’d expected, and yanked. I let out another scream and battered the thin fingers with the handle of my knife until I heard a crack and they released. Flesh still clung to some of the creatures, dripping off stark, white skulls and ribcages. I felt my stomach turn, pushing its contents out, but I swallowed. I couldn’t become distracted by throwing up.
“We’re definitely close to the Lifemark...” Kairo muttered, snapping a vertebral column in half with a well-placed kick. The top half of the creature fell over, but remained connected by a spinal cord. The sight swirled in my stomach.
I climbed off the gravestone, picked up a heavy rock from the ground and used it to smash the creatures. While strong, they were slow and fragile. I slammed the rock into the neck of the first creature that grabbed at me, cringing as its head dropped off and rolled at my feet. I ran to the pillar, noting that Kairo knelt next to its base while shooting away creatures.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, throwing the rock at a skeleton that got too close and replacing it with a log I found on the floor. They seemed to back away, grouping together near the trees. I didn’t like the dark emptiness in their eye-sockets and the animation that they shuffled together with. It was almost as if they were planning something.
“There’s something down here,” Kairo muttered. He took off his jacket, tossed it to me and stuck his arm into a hole that opened when the pillar tilted. He yelled and yanked his arm out. The skin was criss-crossed with livid, bleeding scratches.
“Here,” I passed the log to him and he carefully lowered it into the ground. I watched the creatures, keeping an eye on them and the other on Kairo. They stopped moving. All the remaining heads turned to face Kairo at once. I shuddered and stepped in front of him. What did they want?
“Sh*t,” I heard Kairo say. The sudden silence was almost tangible.
“Did you get it?” I asked. “Whatever it is...”
“I have it,” I heard him say, almost inaudible.
All at once, the creatures scurried towards us. I didn’t have time to pick up another weapon; I yelped as I punched through a papery layer of skin and my fist snapped a rib-bone like a twig.
“Eww!” I screamed, pulling back and wiping my hand on my clothes. Something sharp and pointed tangled in my hair and yanked. White bones crumbled beneath my fingers as I brushed them away. More and more of the creatures circled, their stench overwhelming. Another attempted to grab at me, but I dodged it and ran straight into a thick wall of decomposing flesh, hair and skeletons. I heard gunshots. The creatures had me trapped between them. I tripped over and the sunlight disappeared behind their sheer numbers. I covered my head with my hands, crying out as the creatures scraped my skin open. I shuddered and tried not to breathe in their stench.
Suddenly, they dropped like dominoes. Slimy body-parts fell onto me. I cringed, covered my mouth and nose with my shirt and brushed it off, rising slowly. I circled, looking for the reason they stopped. Kairo stared at me. He clutched something and shoved it into his pocket when he realised I noticed it.
“Did you find it?” I asked, stepping over the bodies to get to him. He shrugged and kept his hands in his pockets.
“It’s not safe to speak here. Those...things might start moving again. Let’s go,” he muttered, walking back towards the trees.
I shuddered one last time as I waded through the sharp bones and stench. I needed a long, hot shower and somewhere to burn my clothes. Fortunately, I had no real injuries aside from a few scrapes.
I turned on my cell-phone’s light as we re-entered the gloom of the forest. Kairo didn’t wait for me to catch up to him, keeping a fast pace. I followed him as quickly as I could without tripping over the uneven ground. Soon, we emerged into the main part of the graveyard and he slowed down.
“Are we going back to the office or to the library?” I asked, finally walking next to him. I’d picked up the book and returned it to my bag.
“Neither. We’re going to see Anna,” he answered.