Gravediggers (8 page)

The storm changes the forest like
that—
there are no colors other than gray, black, and too-harsh lightning white. The trees all blend together into a rush of obstacles whizzing past us, getting in our way, slapping our faces with wet branches. The ground beneath us becomes this muddy mess, filling my sneakers with icy water and brown mud. Brambles grab at my socks, rocks bite my ankles, and the whole thing is like a nightmare, man, with the elements around us throwing picks and tackles in our path everywhere they can, closing in for the kill.

Suddenly, I'm thinking of the Pine City Dancers, how if there was ever a time for us to find a secret stash of rotting corpses, it would be now. On the third bolt of lightning, I can swear I see a corpse's face somewhere off between the trees, eyes bright, mouth screaming at me, and I can't help but cry out.

“What?” calls Kendra through the sound of the rain.

There's another flash of lightning, and it's gone. “Nothing,” I say.

Gotta get with the program. Just a little rain. Gotta be a wolf.

We move faster, running, looking for some magical shelter that we don't know is there. Kendra desperately tries to cover her head with her hands, and PJ huddles into his arms, limping and whimpering. Our woodland adventure is officially becoming a total disaster. The trees get thicker, but their branches do nothing to cover us from the rain. PJ slips and falls facedown in the dirt, and Kendra and I have to haul him to his feet.

And for the first time, it hits me, with my face freezing and wet and my chest on fire, that we might
die
out here, and that it's my fault. The Wrights and the Wilsons will say they wish their kids had never met Ian Buckley, and Dennis Wilson will say that my parents raised an irresponsible son, and they'll find us out in the woods all huddled and pale, or worse, they won't, they'll never find us, and next year the sixth graders will tell the fifth graders about their first time at Homeroom Earth, how three kids vanished, and were never heard from ag—

Wait a second.

There. Between those trees.

Let this be real. Please, oh man, let this be real.

 

 

 

Chapter Eight
Kendra

T
he forest is a pitch-black labyrinth, and the icy, persistent rain is destroying both our peace of mind and whatever morale is left among us, and so in our panic we almost don't see our very salvation. It's Ian who freezes, runs backward, squints, and points. His finger guides us to a flat, shadowy shape that seems to come out of nowhere between the statuesque trees, but in that boxy silhouette, I make out a smaller square, crosshatched and shiny—a window. Before anything can be said, Ian darts over to the cabin, and we follow close behind. We rush around the side to find a small wooden porch and an unlocked door.

Inside, he flicks a switch on the wall, and a rumbling motor sounds out back, the air suddenly tinged with exhaust. As the generator shudders to life, light—beautiful electric light—streams through the cabin. There's one big room, wooden floor, wooden walls, and, thank the powers that be, a stone fireplace with a stack of logs next to it! Off to one side through a small door are a small kitchen and a bathroom. There is a sweet smell hanging in the air, like dirt and old fruit, but it's probably just stuffiness—the place is more dust and cobwebs than home. A few spiders and a centipede crawl around our feet and away from the light, sending PJ jumping, but I'm far too grateful to care. For the moment, this shelter has quelled my unexplainable unease. Normally, this place would be a hovel, but tonight, it's a palace.

You've done it. You're safe. Everything's all right, Kendra.

“I'll make a fire,” says Ian.

“
I'll
make a fire,” I counter. “You search for food and something to dry us off.”

Ian runs into the kitchen and comes back with his arms full of useful things—blankets, towels, toilet paper, matches—but no food, no water. “The kitchen's got a lot of stuff in it, but nothing we can eat.”

“We have those granola bars,” rasps PJ. “Those should last us for now.”

Through the haze of panic and relief, I remember some of the camping tips I found online regarding fire preparation. I begin making small balls of toilet paper and placing them two inches apart under the logs in the fireplace. The sounds of the rain rumbling on the roof and the generator coughing out back calm me, help me focus. With a snap of a match, the whole thing goes up in a bright flare of flame.
Catch
, I think at the log, and fortunately, the brittle, dry wood ignites almost instantly. Soon, we're huddled in front of a warm fire, each of us dried off and wrapped in a quilt. Even through Ian's hardheadedness and PJ's panic, I see in their eyes what I feel: gratitude for being safe.

“How's the bathroom?” I ask.

“Don't ask,” replies Ian with a shudder.

“Gross is better than nothing, I guess,” says PJ.

“There's no sign of a phone, either,” sighs Ian. “I don't like it here.”

“It's shelter,” I say. “There's heat and electricity. With the lights on, eventually someone will notice us out here.”

“I just don't like it,” says Ian. “A place like this in the middle of these mountains, that's not normal. And I don't like the smell. PJ, back me up here.”

“I'm with Kendra,” says PJ, rubbing at his eyes. “Anywhere I can sleep without having to worry about lynxes works for me.”

Something about his voice sets off an alarm in my chest.
Step it up, Kendra. Ian's all muscle and PJ's all nerves. You're the brain here. You have to think them through this.

I take the remaining quilts and fold them into people-sized rectangles, then lay them out in front of the fire. Without having to be told, PJ crawls over to one of the blankets and wraps himself up in his own quilt. When Ian doesn't move, I spell it out: “Let's get some sleep, Ian. We'll think better in the morning.”

Ian, of course, refuses to lie down but instead stands up, tosses off his quilt, and paces around the room, scratching his blond hair and glaring at everything.

“I don't like it,” he reminds me. “There's, like,
no
furniture. And what kind of cabin doesn't have a phone? I don't like it. PJ, what were you saying about the woods—”

“God, Ian,
shut up and go to sleep,
” moans PJ from his blanket-bed. I want to hug him for it.

Ian keeps pacing and grumbling, so I lie down, hoping he'll follow suit. Immediately, fatigue drags my eyes shut and pulls me into near-instant sleep.

 

The noise—a loud clank—yanks me off my quilt and into a sitting position. There's no telling how long I've been unconscious; it's still night outside, but the fire has died down to a glowing mass of embers, and the rain has stopped. Outside, the generator still purrs. Next to me, PJ turns over, mumbles something indistinguishable, and returns to his dream.

What really wakes me is Ian's hand on my shoulder, shaking me.
Great. He hasn't slept at all. He'll be fun tomorrow.

“Where'd those matches go?” he whispers.

Stop. Take a deep breath. Now, think, Kendra
. “Why?”

“I found something,” he says.

Across the room, a trapdoor in the floor reveals a gaping black square. The offensive smell of the place has increased tenfold. Something about the open mouth in the floor unsettles me, just as the woods and the wall did earlier.

“Ian, you're crazy,” I say in my most authoritative whisper. “Close that cellar and go to sleep.”

“Just let me see those matches,” he hisses back.

“It smells awful! There might be a dead animal down there.”

“Or there might be a phone.”

Ugh. It's a sad day when I have to admit that Ian Buckley has a point. I find the box of matches at my feet, and in a split second, Ian snatches it out of my hand and trundles down the basement stairs. There's the snap and smoke of a lit match, and then silence, flickering orange light coming from the edges of the hole in the floor.

“Well? What's down there?”

Ian's head pops out of the hole in the floor like a prairie dog, a blank look in his eyes. “You need to see this.”

An aversion to the disgusting—girly, I know—shudders through me. “Is it a dead animal?”

“No.” He gulps, then exhales a slow, shaky breath. “I don't even know what this is. Maybe you can tell me.”

My first reaction is to tell Ian to get out of the basement and go to bed, but now curiosity is gnawing at the back of my brain. I can't let him be the only person who looks at the fascinating find in the basement of the random cabin we've discovered in the mountains of Montana. True scholars and researchers don't ignore these kinds of opportunities; often, they lead to artifacts or treasure.

Slowly, as quietly as I can, I crawl from my blanket, take the box of matches from Ian, and carefully walk down the wooden steps leading into the cool, stuffy air of the basement. I strike a match, bathing the room in orange light.

At first glance, everything is typical—dirt floor, cobwebs, a couple of shelves, some wiring. “What's so cool about this?” I ask Ian over my shoulder. “It's a basement.”

“The floor,” he says. “Look at the floor.”

My eyes travel downward, and I finally see the lines—lines of white paint or clay dragged across the dirt, meeting in the middle to form a . . .
sigil
. That's the word I'm looking for, a sigil, a religious symbol or inscription, just like the one that was drawn on the wall earlier. This one's made of weird jagged lines, like lightning bolts or tree branches with concentric circles spread out between them. My eyes follow the circles, one inside another, getting smaller and smaller, until I reach the center of the symbol, where a small pile of white sticks with a weird rock on top sits—

Oh no.

Not sticks. Bones. A pile of bones. And the rock on top is a skull, looking exactly like it would on a pirate flag or a punk rock T-shirt, grinning back at me like it's saying
You came to the wrong cabin, Kendra.

Before I can stop myself, I cry out loudly and jump out of the basement, shuffling across the room on my backside and backing up against the wall of the cabin.

Okay, Kendra, deep breaths, don't hyperventilate, just calm down. You're fine. Everything's fine. There's just something awful going on here, that's all. Think around it.

“What's going on?” mumbles PJ, sitting up from his blanket and rubbing his eyes.

“There's a skull in the basement,” says Ian.

“Oh,” says PJ, and then, after waking up a bit more, says, “
WHAT?
”

Ian turns to me. His whole body is shaking. “Isn't that insane? Who do you think did that? Do you . . . do you think it's one of the Pine City Dancers?”

Think, Kendra, think. It's all you're good for
.

“Crow Indian,” I finally manage. “Looks very old. Probably hasn't been touched in . . . years. Decades. Maybe a century. So . . . probably not.”
My word, Kendra, you're sounding incredibly intelligent. If only Mensa could hear you now.

“There's still a
skull
in the
basement
, though,” says PJ. “That's bad, I'd say. Bad enough that we ought to leave, right?”

My gut reaction is to agree with him, but my curiosity keeps me from fleeing. I light a second match and carefully ease down the stairs to the basement. Yes, without question, it's a skull, but as I stare at the winding lines of the symbol beneath it, something else on the dirt floor catches my eye, something small and square shaped and familiar. Against the tension flooding every nerve in my body, I dart down the stairs, snatch it up, and leap back into the safety of the illuminated cabin.

“What's that?” asks PJ, crawling over to where Ian and I sit.

It's a book, with
READ ME TO LIVE
screaming back at me from its cover. There's dirt, sap, and some sort of black paste I'd rather not think about smeared across the spine; the warning itself looks written in some kind of clay or red pencil which, I don't fail to notice, could be blood. I'm almost scared to open it, but I cast the fear out of my mind. Hopefully, this diary will inform us of where we are, why my directions have proved useless, and, just maybe, a way home.

The book opens with a sticky sound, and on the inside of the cover is a small note reading
The Diary of Deborah Palmer
. The first few pages are entirely normal diary entries:

 

March 16th—

Leonard was easier today, but kept calling Barry and Grace “hippos” because they'd gained a few pounds. “Plié, you hippos! Watch the feet, hippos!” Grace started crying and ran out. Not cool. Leonard keeps talking up this camping trip. We'll see if I even want to go.

 

March 23rd—

Chelsea wants us to go out and meet her new boyfriend after practice. If he's anything like the last guy, I could do without it. Bill's continuing plans for this outdoor trip. I know we argue sometimes, but haven't we bonded enough?

 

April 2nd—

Finally out in the Bitterroots. The scenery is beautiful, but I think Ralph and Charlie got us lost. They keep saying the map is wrong. Next time, we hire a guide.

 

April 3rd—

Something got into our supplies last night, taking most of the food and some of our fire-starter logs. Everyone is blaming everyone else. Tempers are flaring. What is it about these woods that has us so on edge?

 

The stillness of the night around us sends shivers through my bones. Ian and PJ are huddled next to me, each one peering wide-eyed over one of my shoulders. My hands shake and my breath catches as I flip to the next page, both terrified of what is to come and unable to stop myself.

 

If you are reading this, then it's too late. Even while I write, I can feel hungry eyes staring at me from the shadows. My only hope is that when you find my diary, you're able to use my story to find a way off this mountain.

My name is Deborah Palmer, from Pine City, Montana. In April, I began a hiking trip in these mountains with my eleven friends as a group bonding exercise for our modern dance class.

 

A wave of biting cold hits me square in the chest. I look back at the boys, and their faces are openmouthed and ashen.

The Pine City Dancers.

“Oh my God,” whispers PJ. “It's all true!”

“Those seventh graders weren't kidding,” I whisper.

“Can we just take a moment,” says Ian, looking from PJ to me, “and admit that I was right about this the whole time?”

“Shut up,” I respond, and keep reading.

 

Almost immediately after setting out on our hike, we realized that something was wrong. Our compasses and electronic devices all stopped working. We could find none of the trails or landmarks that our guidebooks assured us would be there. We weren't that worried at first—we had enough food, equipment, and time that we could get lost for a day or two and eventually find our way back to the road.

It wasn't until we passed the stone wall that we noticed we weren't alone. Someone—no, something—was following us. Eventually, we all admitted that we felt a presence in the woods, something spying on us from up in the trees and behind the rocks. Leonard kept claiming he heard voices on the wind, and Ellie would scream and point at eyes she said she saw off in the underbrush, glittering out at her. On top of that, the weather turned on us almost overnight. One minute, it was pouring; the next, it was sweltering. That night, we slept poorly, and in the morning we found our tents torn and our supplies ransacked. We began fighting. We didn't trust one another anymore.