Diggin up crones, p.32
Diggin' Up Crones, page 32
“I guess I don’t know that it’s aimed at me,” I conceded. “It feels that way. I mean, I am the pixie apex.”
“That’s some ego you’ve got, kid.” Graham shook his head. “I can see why you might believe that. Why did you pick the sixth Friday the 13th?”
I was confused. “What?”
“You said you didn’t think they picked the Jason from the sixth movie to throw at us. Why did you pick that movie?”
“It’s my favorite.” I shrugged. “It’s the only time there are actually kids at the camp. It’s funny. It has a great soundtrack. The kills are amazing.”
“You’re a weird, weird woman.” Graham clucked his tongue. “I knew you were into horror movies, but this borders on obsession.”
“It’s not.” I didn’t miss Gunner bobbing his head at his father to signify that it was indeed an obsession. “And no matter what you think, I’m not losing my head, Gunner.”
“Just wait.” Gunner muttered something else I couldn’t make out. “Let’s get moving.” He led the way into the woods.
About fifty feet in, we found something I wasn’t expecting.
“What’s this?” Graham pulled up short at the pathway before us.
“Looks like a trail,” Gunner replied.
“Yeah, but it’s well marked with stones all the way down,” Graham said. “This shouldn’t be here.”
I was confused, and maybe a little excited. “Is it possible that Colin and Betsy built it? What is out here?”
“Nothing,” Graham replied. “The woods are too thick for snowmobile paths. There’s no lake. The river is miles in that direction.” He jabbed toward the north. “There’s nothing out here.”
“A path to nowhere.” I grinned.
Gunner gave me a withering look. “I don’t know what you think this is, but I can already tell that I’m not going to like it.”
“You have a bad attitude this morning,” I complained. “Do you have PMS or something?”
“Why is it that you can say sexist things but I can’t?” he shot back.
“That’s simply the way it works.”
“You guys are too much sometimes,” Graham groused as he stepped onto the trail. “Let’s see where this thing leads.”
I already knew where it led. “Let’s go,” I said, my voice far too chipper.
“Oh, man.” Gunner threw his hands into the air.
“She knows where we’re going,” Graham said. “Have you not figured that out yet?”
Gunner slowed his pace and gave me a long once-over. “Do you?”
I lifted one shoulder and tried to appear nonchalant. “I have a strong suspicion. “Gunner’s boots were heavy as he stomped in his father’s wake. “Just tell us where this leads.”
“It will lose something in the telling.”
“Scout!”
“Fine.” Gunner was high strung when he wanted to be. The more I messed with him, the more likely he was to melt down. He claimed I was the one who often lost my head in certain situations, but he was just as bad, only in a different way. “We’re going to a cemetery.”
Graham stopped walking and turned back to me. “There’s no cemetery out here.”
“There will be.”
Graham’s eyebrows moved toward one another. “How do you know?”
“I know things.”
“Scout!” Graham’s tone matched Gunner’s, and I had to swallow a laugh.
“Keep going. It shouldn’t take long until we find the cemetery.”
Graham swallowed hard. “Will Chloe be there?”
The question threw me. “She shouldn’t be,” I replied. “She should be in another dimension. I don’t know if this being can create another dimension, so I’m betting she’s locked away somewhere.”
“None of this makes sense,” Graham barked. “This area isn’t zoned for burials. There are rules and regulations if you want to bury a human being.”
A laugh bubbled up at his serious expression. “It’s not that sort of cemetery.”
Graham blinked. “What type is it?
Gunner was the one who answered. He’d finally caught up. “Oh, it’s a pet cemetery.”
I grinned but didn’t respond.
“A pet cemetery?” Graham slid his gaze to his son.
“A movie,” Gunner explained. “Pet Sematary, based on a book by Stephen King.”
“The book is better than all of the movies,” I volunteered.
“There’s more than one movie about a pet cemetery?” Graham’s jaw moved back and forth.
“There are four,” I confirmed. “I only like one.”
“I don’t really care what you like.” Graham was stern. “I want to know what happens in the pet cemetery.”
“Very bad things.” Because I was sick of waiting—I wanted to see the payoff—I pushed past Gunner and Graham. “If you keep up, I’ll explain the movie so you understand what we’re up against.”
“No, I’ll explain,” Gunner insisted. “You run off at the mouth talking about movies. We don’t have a half hour to talk about a killer cat.”
“Wait!” Graham barked out the single word. “Are we about to be attacked by zombie animals?”
“I find it interesting you jumped to that conclusion,” I said. “Gunner just mentioned a cat.”
“And we’re walking toward a pet cemetery,” he said, as if I were an idiot.
I bobbed my head. “You are the investigator. It makes sense that you would put two and two together.”
“Scout!”
Apparently, I was irritating them both this morning. That felt like a win.
“So, Pet Sematary—the first movie and the book—opens with the Creed family moving to a house on a highway that truckers fly down at unsafe speeds,” I started.
“I said I’ve got it,” Gunner growled. “You’ll take too long.”
“Somebody needs to tell me,” Graham ordered.
“It’s not a hard movie to sum up,” Gunner offered. “A family moves to a house with a creepy neighbor who lives across the road. He takes them on a hike to a pet cemetery. Then, when the mother and kid are out of town, the family cat gets hit by one of the trucks. Instead of putting it in the pet cemetery, the creepy neighbor talks the father into putting the cat into the ground in a very weird space beyond the pet cemetery.”
Graham complained, “This is the short version of the story?”
“The cat comes back but it’s different,” Gunner continued. “It smells, and it’s mean. Then the toddler gets hit by a truck and dies. I’m sure you can guess what happens.”
“The dad buries the toddler in the burial ground,” Graham surmised.
“Yes, even though the creepy neighbor is suddenly all ‘Don’t do that because it’s wrong.’ If he didn’t want the situation to get out of hand, he should’ve buried the cat normally. I digress, though.”
“You do a lot of annoying things,” Graham agreed.
“The toddler comes back, kills the creepy old neighbor, and his mother. The father takes out the toddler, but instead of doing the right thing he takes the mother out there and buries her because he’s convinced she will come back okay.”
Silence descended over our small group.
“And then what?” Graham demanded.
“The mother comes back and kills him,” Gunner replied.
“Geez!” Graham threw up his hands as we reached our destination. “We are not stuck in a movie.” He pulled up short when he saw the creepy little cemetery with small markers. “Oh, crap!”
I was caught between laughing and marveling at the setting. It wasn’t an exact replica, but it was close enough to tickle my fancy. I started scanning for what I knew was still out there. When I found it—a large, ominous wall of bramble—I pointed. “There.”
“What?” Graham asked.
“The ancient burial ground,” I replied.
“We’re not going there.” Graham adamantly shook his head.
“We might have to.” I hunkered down to study a grave. It had a huge rock on it painted with the name Fido in what appeared to be nail polish.
“Don’t dig that up looking for a dog,” Gunner ordered. “I don’t want to see a dead dog.”
“Yes, because that’s clearly our biggest worry right now,” I said, shaking my head. Tentatively, I reached out and touched the rock. It was real, and solid. Then I traced the dog’s name.
“What are you doing?” Graham asked
“I’m trying to figure out how authentic this setting is,” I said. “The rock feels real. The nail polish feels exactly how it should.”
I was excited for all the movie touchstones, but this shouldn’t have been possible. Not even in a magical world. “All the things we’ve seen—no one has that much magic.”
“You do,” Graham argued.
“I couldn’t create this.”
“Only because you don’t know how. If it came down to it, I bet you’d have the power.”
I considered it. “Maybe, but it’s weird.” I stood and looked around. “Chloe isn’t here.”
“What if she’s up there?” Graham pointed to the bramble wall. “That’s the most important part of the movie, right? What happens beyond that barrier. Doesn’t it make sense that we need to cross over?”
“Maybe I should go alone.”
“Absolutely not,” Gunner insisted. “I am not letting you fight potential zombies without me.”
“I’m going too,” Graham added. “Mostly because I’m uncomfortable staying here alone. I’ll keep imagining things digging out of those graves and coming to kill me.”
“That’s not really how it works in the movie,” I said.
“Is everything working exactly as it does in the movies?” Graham argued. “You took out those mutant things. Did they attack like they did in the movie, or did they just resemble the creatures and have some of their mannerisms?”
That’s when things snapped into place. “It wasn’t exactly the same.”
“That must mean there isn’t a script to follow. We still have to look up there.”
Gunner was the most agile, so he went first. The climb was treacherous, and I had to grab the bramble to keep from falling more than once, injuring my hand each time. I swore so often Graham stopped admonishing me to watch my mouth. By the time we finished the climb, we were sweating, scratched-up messes.
“This is it?” Graham leaned over at the waist to catch his breath, hands on his knees. He glared at the flat area, which was marked the same way the burial grounds were in the movie. Lines of rocks marked off sections, creating what likely resembled a dreamcatcher when viewed from above.
“This is what it looks like in the movie,” I said. I was relieved not to see any freshly disturbed earth. “I don’t think anything has been buried up here.”
“Oh, no?” Gunner challenged, his voice more high-pitched than normal.
He was focused on the trees outlining the burial ground. I took a step toward him, and that’s when I heard the distinctive yowl. My heart skipped three beats. A black cat watched us from the shadows. It was ragged, with tufts of fur standing out in all directions. It had a wound on its side, but it was on its paws. And it didn’t look happy.
“That thing smells foul.” Graham covered his nose. “It smells as if it died.”
I nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s the point. That’s Church.”
“Church?” Graham looked around.
“The cat in Pet Sematary. This cat looks just like that cat.”
“What did the cat do in the movie?”
“He was mostly mean. Then he hung around with the demented toddler when he came back.”
Graham jerked his head left and right, as if looking for the toddler from the movie. “You don’t think that’s what happened to Chloe?”
My heart skipped yet another beat, then I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “She doesn’t fit the narrative.”
“She does in the remake,” Gunner gritted back, catching me off guard. “In that terrible remake you made me watch—a movie you said you wished you had never seen because you felt you needed to pour bleach into your eyes after—the older sister was killed, not the toddler. She’s the one who came back.”
I scrubbed my cheek and looked at Graham. “I don’t think remake rules are in effect. I mean, remakes as a rule are terrible. There are only a few exceptions.”
“Does that matter right now?” Graham challenged. “Is Chloe out here?”
I scanned the area with my magic. “I don’t feel her. That doesn’t mean she’s not here,” I added hastily. “I can’t sense her, and that does not follow the movie script.”
“I don’t like the way that cat is looking at me,” Gunner announced.
“Leave it alone, and it will leave you alone,” I said.
Gunner shook his head. “It’s going to come for me.”
Gunner started moving. “It’s coming now!”
I watched the cat take off after him like a shot. It yowled as if it wee about to take on a warring army as it tore off after Gunner.
“Well, that was weird,” Graham said.
I gave him a sidelong look. “This could be a bigger problem than we originally thought. What if I have to consider remake rules? That could change everything. We could end up with Rob Zombie’s horrific Michael Myers and that could be the worst thing that ever happens to me.”
Graham murdered me with a glare. “You’re too much. I hope you know that.”
I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
“Way, way too much.”
8
EIGHT
Gunner was in his truck in front of the Michaels house when we made our way back from the cemetery.
“What’s up?” I asked through the window.
He made a point of pretending he was looking at something on his phone. “Just doing some research.” He smiled as if it was a normal day and he hadn’t run from a cat. “What are you doing?”
“Well, after you left us in the cemetery—”
“That didn’t happen.”
“You mean when you ran from the cat?”
“That was a zombie cat. And I didn’t run from it, I remembered that I had research to conduct and couldn’t get a signal out there.”
“Uh-uh.” He knew I wasn’t going to fall for that, so why did he even try? “Do you want to come out now?”
He craned his neck to look down at the ground, then shook his head. “I’m good. I’m going to keep researching.”
“Of course you are.” I turned back to Graham. “Your son is an idiot sometimes.”
“You’re telling me?” Despite how poorly the morning had gone, Graham grinned. “I like how you’re not torturing him about the cat. That’s sweet of you.”
“Oh, it’s still coming. I’ve learned to pick my moments with Gunner.”
“I can hear you.” Gunner said through the glass.
I pretended I couldn’t hear him. “I need to catch up the others at the Cauldron. If this is spreading—and I have no reason to believe it’s not—we could find ourselves in a Freddy Vs. Jason situation before the end of the day.”
Graham’s eyebrows moved toward one another. “Do I even want to know what that means?”
“About twenty years ago someone in Hollywood thought it would be a great idea to have Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees fight one another,” I started.
“I wasn’t asking you to explain it.”
I kept going. “It was fairly entertaining, and there was this great scene in a cornfield where Jason slaughtered half the high school and managed to start a fire at the same time.”
“Should I be checking cornfields?”
“Probably, but if you see kids hanging around cornfields don’t check on them. Run in the opposite direction.”
“Why?”
“We don’t need a Children of the Corn situation.”
“That’s different than a Freddy Vs. Jason situation?”
“Yes, and don’t even ask which is better, because that’s like asking which hemorrhoid is best.”
“Sometimes talking to you makes me so tired.” Graham pinched the bridge of his nose. “You were making a point? This conversation is actually going somewhere?”
I smirked. He reminded me of Gunner in some ways. I was genuinely fond of the man. “I’m worried these scenarios will start to overlap. I don’t believe Chloe is in the Pet Sematary storyline, but that doesn’t mean the storylines won’t start blending.”
“This isn’t a movie, Scout,” Graham said pointedly. “This is real life.”
“Yes, but something tells me movie rules are going to apply.”
“You just want that to be true.” Graham held up his hands. “What are you going to do at the Cauldron?”
“Start figuring things out.” I wished for more to offer him, but I had nothing. “I see a pattern, but that doesn’t lead us to whoever is behind this.”
“I’m more interested in the why than the who,” Graham admitted. “Obviously, this is someone trying to get to you.”
I turned a triumphant look to Gunner, who was still pouting. “See! I told you it was about me.”
He made an exaggerated face but didn’t respond.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Graham conceded. “Whoever is doing this wants your attention.”
“I’m ready and willing to give it to them,” I said. “Knowing they have my attention at this point, why not show themselves?”
“Because this is a game,” Graham replied. “Whoever it is wants to beat you with the thing you love. Or they think that you’ll get distracted enough to overlook the real goal.”
“If you’re right, that means something big is about to happen, because there is a lot of magic being expended.”
“How do we figure out what it is?” Graham asked. “And what do I tell Chloe’s parents about where she is?”
“The good news: I don’t believe she’s dead. The bad news: until we know more, I don’t know how to find her.”
“Should my men keep looking?”
“Yes, but tell them to avoid cornfields.” I thought about it a moment. “And any house that appears out of nowhere and looks creepy. If they see the Bates Motel, they shouldn’t enter. Don’t go into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house either, or cabins at a camp that might pop up. But if you see a summer camp pop up out of nowhere call me. I want to visit it.”
