I turned and poked my head around a large gray stone emerging out of the ground. I wasn't all quite too sure it was a grave, so I just assumed it was just broken cement waiting to be chipped off and made into a grave. I took a few steps back and I tried to see what was beyond the rock and what the chopping.
What I saw did not surprise and amaze me. Of course, it did scare the shit out of me, because that prick took my gun and I was left weaponless with nothing but a phone and a little black flashlight.
I saw the bald man me and Henry encountered near the second entrance to the cemetary. A giant pile of flesh and blood was caked onto a large black and chipped table in front of him. He hacked his giant machete quickly into the pile of decaying body, at points forcefully having to yank his knife out. I squinted to see him better, my eyesight was still failing me horribly. My nose started to sting from the pressuring stench of the body. I held my hand over my nose and watched him still.
My phone started ringing again. I yanked it out of my pocket and wiped off the screen. It was Lisa again.
The hacking stopped and I heard the monster grunt. I clutched the phone and tossed it right over his head and past him. He jerked when he heard it and his eyes followed the electronic device. I jumped down to the dirt and hid behind the cement rock. A tiny crack was carved threw the rock, giving me a slice of a view of the scene.
The mindless idiot stared at the phone scratching his head. It kept playing it's ring tone, oddly after so many rings it didn't stop, until it started to make the brute a bit annoyed. I watched him growled and pick up the phone. He placed it on a gravestone close by. It kept ringing and he held his bloody knife high above his head, clutching it tightly in his fingers. He sliced it quickly threw the air and the phone fell into two seperate pieces silenced.
He smiled and started to laugh. His voice sounded thick like he had something caught in his throat. He started moving again but I couldn't tell what he was doing. I squinted harder, but I could really only manage out a foggy blurred image of him and the broken table. I saw and heard his knife hacking again, so I figured he just went back to business.
I wrapped my fingers around a hard stone in front of me. I bite my lip and tried to keep quiet so he wouldn't figure out I was there. Although, it was a wonder he didn't think about where the cell phone came from.
I heard quiet footsteps behind me. They were coming towards my back. I tightened my grip on the rock. The steps stopped and I felt a strange and yet familiar presence behind me.
I swung my arm around and tossed the rock threw the air. It hit a tall man in a faded blue shirt in the eye, sending him sailing to the dirt.
"Gaahhh!" Henry clutched his eye and I stared wide eyed at him. I pushed myself back into the rock and held my hand over my mouth. He sat up rubbing his eye and I crawled over to him. I punched him in the arm.
"Stop sneaking up on me!" I growled, but after the me escaped from my lips Henry clasped his hands across my mouth. He took his right finger up to his lips.
"Shhh!" Both of our eyeballs trailed towards the direction where the hacking was occuring. He took his hand away from my lips and we heard the brute grunt and snort. Henry let out a sigh. "Wow, that's a relief. He didn't hear us." The hacking stopped and I heard the monster grunt and sniff the air. My heart started to pound and I wanted to smack Henry across the face. I would have if I wasn't so afraid.
The gate behind us opened and the other giant came threw. We both jerked our heads behind us and towards the blood thirsty killer. He yelled and ran towards us. Henry jumped up and took off in the opposite direction I had. The monster chose him as prey this time, but I had forgotten about his partner.
The bald man saw me, but a rock smacked him in the side of his head. He growled and slowly turned towards the running Henry. He pointed, obviously remembering him and angry about losing him. He raised his machete in the air and yelled, taking off straight towards him.
Henry kept running until I lost track of all three of them in the distance. I stood up, but I stumbled and fell onto the dirt again. I felt something cold in my hand when I tripped. I grabbed it and held it close to my eyes.
A silver cross strapped within a silver bracelet was there. I waved it in my hand and it shimmered slightly from the light above me. I squeezed it in my hand and tightly shut my eyes.
"Please.. be.. safe.." I said each word strongly, trying to keep them feeling more alive than me myself. "Please.. keep.. him.. safe..." I squeezed it harder and my hand started shaking. The chain it was woven into clanged gently against my hand. I opened my eyes and took a breath. My chest started to hurt again. I opened my shaking hand and looked at the cross. I stared at my palm, but there was no blood, no cuts or anything. I was not hurt at all from squeezing it, and it did not even have a trace of sweat spread across it. I wrapped it securely around my wrist and stood up. I did not hear Henry or the beasts, and I looked back at the open gate.
I tried to walk with my back straight and my shoulders held high, so I did not look like such an easy kill or that I was half dead. I took hurtful steps and made it through the barred fence and into the smoggy area where I had met the man.
I got back to the graves and he was there again. He was doing the same thing he was doing last time I met him. He was working on the same grave, except he was shoveling dirt into it and the body it held. I walked towards him and he heard me. He looked at me from the corner of his eye and stopped shoveling. I stopped a ways from him, not sure if it was safe enough to approach him, since he had a weapon and I did not. He stabbed the shovels end into the dirt and looked at me.
"Who are you?" I asked him. He stared hard at me.
"Something is different about you..." He looked at me and around me. "Like someone is with you..." It came out as a silent whisper and I found his eyes trail down to my wrist. He narrowed his eyes and I groaned.
"Answer my question!" I demanded. He stared at me and looked around.
"Alright.." He smiled, "My name is Taylor Coleman. I am the gravekeeper here..." He held out his arms, which were faded and pale. "...Was the gravekeeper." He laughed and looked at me. I stared at him, blindly literally.
"What does that mean? Who's the gravekeeper now?" I was confused and I don't think I was catching the hint. He laughed and kicked the dirt beneath him.
"Well, Clara. Right now two people are alive." He held up one finger and pointed at me. "YOU... and Henry." Standing their made me feel even stupider. I realized most things were dead hear, but I didn't think he was. The only thing that hinted to that was that he was pale.
Another thing I had caught on to while being here. The creatures here... their forms seemed to show how they died. I saw many scars across the head of Lisa's killer, and the other brute had a small head, at which I figured was what killed him. And Lisa... I dreamed about her, and she had the stab wounds in her stomach. The dogs.. they were skinned and toungeless, and they had wires poking out of their bodies. Milo had died that way.
I looked back up at him. "The pictures..? Why do you have those pictures..?" He stared at me and I noticed his eyes continued to dart from my face and my wrist. He sucked in his breath.
"They are victims..." He told me. He brushed off his shirt. I blinked. "To fill up my graveyard. To keep it alive." His head leaned to it's side and he stared disturbingly at the ground.
"You killed my cousin to fill a space in your graveyard!" I tightened my fists. He didn't move from his stare.
"No.." He mumbled quietly. "I killed Lisa because she wanted to die. She wanted to clear her soul. She believed she needed to be punished for what she did." He smiled and his eyes wandered to the side. "And gave me power to do it to her."
I narrowed my hurting eyes and watched him in the silence. "Lisa didn't want to die..." I was denying that. His eyes slowly fell upon me.
"Sweet Lisa talked bad about her family at school. Sweet Lisa backstabbed her cousin and lived with her for drug money. Sweet Lisa killed dear Milo." He narrowed his eyes back at me. If I had had my gun with me I would have blown those orbs out of his head.
"You killed Milo." My nails dug into my palm. He smiled.
"No. I never touched her young puppy. She brought Milo here, and I let her bury him. She demanded she dug the grave and buried the body. She said she killed him, and that she must pay the price for it." He swung his head around and leaned it behind his shoulders. "Your sweet cousin helped fill my graves. How nice of her."
I took off towards him and swung my fist towards his face. My movements, however, were too weak and too slow to do anything to him. He grabbed me by the left wrist.
"And I'm so sure dear Henry is feeling the guilt as well." He grinned at me and I struggled. "I thank you kindly for bringing him here. I have quite the many holes to fill." I used my free hand and beat him in the stomach. It was stone hard and cold and I didn't make him inch a bit. His grip around my sensitive wrist was hurting. I still had scars from the needle. He looked at them and his eyes met with mine.
"You see, Clara?" My eyes slowly edged towards the wounded area I had. "You killed your darling cousin. How do you repay her what she deserves? Why, you die, Clara!" He grabbed my other wrist with his other hand, but immediatly let me go when he touched the bracelet. He screamed and stared and a deep cut sliced across his finger. He turned back at me and his eyes seemed to flame.
I got up and stepped back away from him. He stared at me.
"I didn't kill Lisa." My body felt like it was pounding. Now I wasn't sure if I believed myself. He watched me and grabbed his shovel. He grinned again.
"Let's give Lisa back what she needs.." He clutched the shovel in his hands and started walking towards me. I turned around and ran. I could hear screams in the distance. But they were not Henry's, they were that of a female.
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Thank you Rodarian, schreiberjoe, KarryAnne, Zanther, ADarkenedSilence, and The Cry of Death for being so kind to review. :)
Also, thank you EVERYONE for being so patient while I was gone.
Stay tuned for the next chapter:)
