Catacomb (7 page)

“A
re you sure it’s okay?”

“Honestly, Abby, it’s fine. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to seeing this cemetery. I’m not going to ruin it for you.”

And anyway, they were already parked on a narrow street nearby. Dan could hardly remember the drive. He was functioning in the strictest sense of the word, but even simple things like fastening his seat belt had taken extraordinary effort. When they’d made a quick stop for gas, Jordan had insisted on paying the bill, since Dan couldn’t find his wallet.

Abby opened his car door, and he tumbled out onto the sidewalk, blinking up at the overcast sky as if he had just woken from a long, restless sleep. The enormous cemetery was protected by a spindly wrought-iron gate. He and Jordan followed Abby down the sidewalk to the entrance, passing below a sloped sign with
Magnolia Cemetery
worked into the metal.

Jordan shuddered. “I hate cemeteries. I never feel like I should be in one, you know? Like unless you are literally a dead person or there to bring flowers, you should stay far away.”

“Yeah, Abby might owe us a round of milk shakes later.”

She’d been right about the architecture, though—gorgeous, sprawling monuments that could house a person or a small
family of pets popped up every few feet along the path. The three of them wandered from the main walkway and onto the short-cropped lawn. Dan was careful not to tread even close to any of the flat gravestones sinking into the ground.

“Are you sure we’re just browsing? You seem like a woman on a mission,” Jordan called to Abby, who strode ahead confidently.

“Randy gave me some directions.”

“Who?” Jordan cried.

“Randy. Randy, our waitress? Right, you weren’t paying attention. She told me about some monuments to check out. I jotted down the directions. Just follow me.”

Neither of them protested.

“So this project of yours,” Dan said, making conversation to fill the heavy, empty air of the cemetery. “Is this something you’re going to show to your new professors or what?”

She shrugged, chewing on her lower lip as they picked their way around the gravestones. “Actually, it’s . . . I’ve just been thinking. A lot. Maybe too much.” With a sigh, she paused to snap a few pictures of trees towering above them. “There’s been so much pressure to pick a school and do the right thing, the
expected
thing, and I’m not sure that’s what I want anymore.”

“I guess your dad was pretty tough on you about applications,” Dan said.

“Feral, I think, is the better word.” She laughed, bitterly. “This is what I like,” she said, gesturing to the camera and then the open air. “I’m just not sure spending a whole crapload of money to get an art degree is the smartest choice. Plenty of artists do fine without it. And I’m guaranteed to be poor right after graduating anyway, so why make myself even poorer? It’s
not like I want to get a degree to teach art, I want to be
living
it.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I at least want to take a year off.” She might have started hesitantly, but now she spoke with conviction. “At first, my parents said they wouldn’t support me if I didn’t go to college, but then finally they said if I could show them how I would use the year, they’d consider it. And who knows, maybe if this project is good enough, I can get it in a gallery back home or something.”

Dan nodded dumbly. After everything, she still hadn’t felt comfortable telling him something as big as this?

“Anyway, so what if my parents don’t support me? Jordan’s parents aren’t supporting him and he’s surviving.”

“And thriving,” Jordan said, but it sounded sarcastic to Dan’s ears.

Dan just tried to keep up, watching the names of the dead roll past him. A high-pitched wind whined through the open field, cutting through the warmth of the day like a knife. It sounded like a shriek. Jordan had been right before; they didn’t belong there. It didn’t matter how many colorful bouquets were heaped on the tombs and the steps of the grand mausoleums—it took only one rotting lump of flowers by his feet to remind Dan of the thousands of dead under and around them.

“Jesus, nobody does spirits like the South,” Jordan whispered. “You go to a cemetery back home and it’s like, eh, whatever—creepy, I guess, but not like this. It just feels like the dead are
angrier
here.”

Dan nodded. “I’m just crossing my fingers that I don’t have any visions in this place.”

“Yikes.” Jordan blanched. “I didn’t even think of that.”

Abby led them to a far corner of the cemetery, where the graves were less impressive. Most were simply rough-hewn rocks wedged into the dirt and scratched with initials and years. But beyond that smattering of markers rose a single monument, a stepped limestone monstrosity that seemed to lord over the lesser stones. A snarling face had been chiseled into the monument, grotesque and exaggerated, as if a demon were caught inside and had pressed and pressed against the stone until it stretched tight over its face like ivory fabric.

A single tree, half-withered and racing the monument toward the overcast sky, grew from the very corner of the fenced property. It hung over them, oddly still in the wind.

“This is it!” Abby said excitedly, getting out her camera and snapping photos.

JAMES CONLEN ORSINI 1894–1935

‘Ambition’s debt is paid.’

Je ne te quitterai point que je ne t’aie vu pendu

“I will not leave until I have seen you hanged,” Jordan read. Abby and Dan turned in unison to glance at him. “What? I took three years of French, might as well use it.”

“This guy sounds like a real riot,” Dan muttered.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Abby teased from behind her camera. He listened to the soft rush of the shutter as it clicked in between her words. “He was a criminal, a gangster, not exactly the kind of
guy to go quietly in his sleep. He died in a shootout after a bunch of his buddies sprang him out of lockup to avoid execution.”

“And you’re sure you want to photograph his grave? You’re not afraid of catching his spirit or something?” Jordan asked, poking nervously at the stud in his lip with his tongue.

“Stop fiddling with that thing, it’s going to get infected.”

“You’re going to get infected.”

“Very original, Jordan.”

Dan couldn’t look at that hideous face on the monument anymore. He wandered around to the back of the statue, kicking at the overgrown grass. The groundskeepers apparently didn’t care so much about this corner of the cemetery, letting clumps of weeds and dry leaves gather. Nobody had come to leave flowers recently. Dan kept circling the statue, coming to a halt just before he fell face-first into a hole.

One of the gravestones had been overturned and pushed aside, and a messy hole had been dug in front of it. There didn’t seem to be anything inside except for a few worms and chunks of fallen sod.

“Hey, guys,” Dan called, peering over the edge and down into the hole. He was going to invite them over to see the weird, open grave, but then he stopped, noticing a smudge of white in the dirt. Kneeling down, he carefully brushed aside the loose dirt and pebbles, revealing what he first thought might be the jaw of a dog or small animal. His fingers hovered over its faded surface, a sudden desire to
pick it up, hold it, never let it go
taking hold of him and squeezing. He swayed a little, then caught himself and backed away. Dan stared at the odd little curved bone. It wasn’t from a dog, he realized with a lurch in his stomach, but from a human child.

Abby appeared around the statue, snapping photos as she went.

“Ew, gross,” Jordan said, catching sight of the open grave. “Don’t tell me there’s a body in there.”

“Nope, just a single bone,” Dan said. “From a
kid
. It looks like someone carved things into it.”

“Oh, God,” Abby murmured, but she raised her camera and took a photo of it, then stopped, a strange, distant light coming into her eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, holding her camera near her waist. “I don’t know why I did that, but I shouldn’t have. I’m going to delete it.”

“Does anyone else get a weird feeling from it?” Dan asked.

“It’s a kid’s jawbone, of course I get a weird feeling from it!” Jordan refused to look at the hole. He started to walk back in the direction of the car. The wan light shifted over the tree and Orsini’s monument, leaving Abby and Dan in a cooler swath of shadow.

“We should cover it up,” Abby whispered. They shared a long look, neither of them moving nearer to the thing. Finally, Dan relented, shuffling closer and using his shoe to nudge dirt back over the bone. He glanced at it one last time, noticing that a string had been tied around one end. He didn’t want to know what that was for.

Dan heard the quiet snap of a camera shutter and frowned.

“I thought you weren’t going to photograph it,” he said, covering the bone completely.

“I’m not,” Abby replied. And she wasn’t.

Dan spun, tracking the soft noise to a clump of flowering bushes back the way they had come. He didn’t hesitate, tearing off toward the figure kneeling next to the bush. He was dressed
head to toe in black again, slender and athletically built. Actually, up close, Dan couldn’t even tell if he was chasing a man or a woman.

It didn’t matter. This time he would catch the bastard. He sprinted, narrowly dodging headstones, his lungs burning as he tried to keep up. The path back to the gate was vaguely familiar, but this stranger was fast. . . . Too fast. Dan persisted, hoping to at least catch a license plate or a better look at the motorcycle. It was the same person from the school—that much he knew for sure.

He couldn’t keep up. Still he pounded across the cemetery, hearing Abby call after him as his target grew farther and farther away until he or she disappeared around the trees and hedgerows that flanked the cemetery gates.

“Damn it,” he seethed, skidding onto the pebbly path that emptied out onto the street. He gulped down breaths, glancing left and right. The motorcycle was parked not far from Abby’s car, and Dan mustered a few more jogging steps, but the guy was already gunning the engine and swerving out into the street.

Dan ran the last of the way leaning over, hands on his knees, catching his breath and staring down at a thick tire tread.

“Did you see them?” Abby had caught up and Jordan wasn’t far behind. He heard their footsteps as they ran up to meet him.

“No,” he muttered. “They were wearing that damn helmet the whole time.” He lifted his head and swallowed a lump. “I think it’s pretty clear, though. We’re being followed.”