Chapter 1: Awakening
Cindy lay on the grass gasping as she looked over to her sister. There was no body to reunite, it had all been for nothing. Alice was dead, Tommy was possessed, and now Ziggy and I are being hacked to death in the shittiest summer camp in Ohio-it really is becoming a habit. She could feel every swing of the axe ripping into her, the heat of the summer air on her skin mingling with the blade that seemed to be far too cold as it again thudded sickeningly into her chest. She knew this was the end, she'd taken the mandatory counselor first aid class and she knew that there was no way she could survive this much blood loss, let alone the damage to my insides. She tried to reach out to Ziggy, God, please let her get out of this… A moment later she felt a darkness approach, then, nothing.
***FS***
It was surprising, to say the least, when she awoke on a tile floor. Is this heaven? Cindy thought as she sat up, checking herself over for a moment. Her head was throbbing, but when she looked down her clothes were completely fine, even the part of her polo that she'd torn off to help Alice's ankle had been restored. I guess when you end up dead whatever clothes you die in are what you're stuck with. She paused a moment, I guess it really sucks if you're naked when you die. After a moment appraising herself she carefully stood up and took a look at her surroundings.
From the looks of it heaven was a shopping mall. Cindy had only been to one mall in her life-which had been nearly a half-hour drive from Shadyside to get a specific book she needed for her senior year sociology class-but the building she was in looked close enough to the Westacre Galleria that she was fairly certain that heaven was a shopping mall. Weird, I always figured it'd be a bunch of clouds and golden decorations. She recognized a handful of the store names, but many of them were ones that she'd never heard of. She left the center court, walking past a tree that looked suspiciously similar to the hanging tree, and started meandering through the empty center.
"Help!"
Cindy turned toward the cry, it sounded like a child.
"Help! We're stuck in here and we can't get the gate open!" The voice continued, as Cindy heard a gate rattling down the corridor. She started heading toward it. After all, kids shouldn't be in danger in heaven.
"Hold on! I'm coming!" Cindy shouted as she arrived at the storefront, the large neon letters above proclaiming it was named "Gadzooks". Behind the gate were four campers. "Stacey? Sean? Jesse? Rod?" She paused, I knew Tommy was possessed, but killing kids? I hate that fucking witch…"It's okay, I'm going to get you out of there." She looked at the metal safety gate and saw that there was a latch on the outside that she could pull, amazingly it was unlocked, and she yanked the gate up.
"What happened?"
"Where are we?"
"Are we dead?"
"I wanna go home!"
Cindy winced internally at the last one, I wanna go home too, but I don't think that's possible. "Hey, hey, calm down everyone. We're okay now. Let's see if there's anyone else here, then we'll figure out what to do."
"Where is here?" Rod asked.
"The Shadyside Mall, duh." Cindy turned to face the voice, huddling the kids close to her. A girl about her age was walking toward them, the soft thud of her footfalls muffled in the large empty space.
"Shadyside doesn't have a mall." Stacey commented.
"Yeah it does, you're in it."
"So we're not in heaven?" Sean asked.
Heather scoffed, "Not unless I nearly bled out in heaven's food court."
"Wait, bled out?" Cindy tilted her head, "Did someone attack you?"
"Yeah, but I guess Ryan didn't hit anything vital, given that I woke up a few minutes ago. Figures Sheriff Goode wouldn't do anything; guy's always been a total dick."
Cindy frowned, "Sheriff Goode's dead, right now they're looking for a replacement." Cindy replied, recalling the news of the funeral ceremony in the paper only a few weeks before. "His heart valve replacement failed and he died in the hospital."
Heather blinked, "No, goody-goody Nick Goode's alive as ever, he was the one who shot Ryan right after he attacked me. Guess he's around here somewhere waiting for paramedics and couldn't bother to be with me if I regained consciousness."
Cindy looked down at the campers, who similarly held a look of confusion. She looked back at the woman, "No, Nick Good's a camp counselor. He's 18. He isn't a sheriff."
Heather's mouth opened slightly as she looked down at the kids wearing matching blue shirts. Color War '78, holy shit… "Wait a minute, what year do you think it is?"
"1978." Stacey replied.
Heather inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "You wouldn't happen to be from Camp Nightwing, would you?"
"Yeah." Jesse replied nervously.
"You guys are supposed to be dead."
***FS***
Forty-six minutes later the four campers, counselor, and bookstore employee had been joined by a few others. In addition to the seven who were supposed to have been killed by Ryan in 1994, some Camp Nightwing residents had emerged. They reunited with Jeremy and two other campers-Todd and Marty-when they ran into a girl that Heather had identified as Christina, a former employee of the mall's Zales. Then, after joining their group Gary had appeared with Arnie and Joan, the three meeting up after the boys climbed out of a tunnel into the store where Joan had been dressing to try and preserve some sense of modesty. It wasn't until later that Alice had arrived along with a man dressed in janitor coveralls named Dale that all the Nightwings had been reunited.
"I just wanna say that what they say about your head staying alive for a few seconds is totally true." Gary said tenderly rubbing his neck. "It's messed up, I remember hitting the floor."
"At least your head was still in one piece when he was done with you." Arnie replied. "I ended up looking like a fucked up cherry cobbler when he finished with me."
"Enough!" Cindy hushed, gesturing to the campers who were talking with some of the people from 1994, "We have kids here, they don't need to remember what happened to them all over."
"So what now? There's 19 of us here, and 12 of us-who apparently have been either dead or something for over a decade?" Alice whispered. "That's some seriously fucked up shit!"
Before Cindy could reply the overhead lights flickered on.
"It's seven, the Martin's going to come in and start cleaning. He'll freak if he sees us!" A blonde girl named Jessica hissed. "We need to hide!"
"No! We need to figure out what's going on. I've known Martin for 15 years; we've worked together since this place opened-when he comes in we ask him if he knows what's going on. Maybe he has some idea why we're all here all of a sudden."
"While that sounds great Dale, I doubt meeting a bunch of people either presumed dead or missing is going to cause him to have a positive reaction." A teen named Brandon snarked as his pushed his glasses up, "Considering all of us remember getting seriously fucked up and we woke up in the places where we should've been dead, it's clear something's not right." He crossed his arms, "I mean, like, shit, I remember getting a knife shoved between my vertebrae. There's no way in hell I should be able to stand, let alone have no injuries."
Before they could continue their conversation and decide what to do Martin appeared around the corner, pushing a mop and bucket. He stopped and lowered the headphones from his Walkman as he looked at the crowd in the center of the mall.
"Uh, hey Martin." Dale waved at his fellow janitor.
Martin blinked, glancing at the congregation in front of him. He shut his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "It is too fucking early for me to deal with this supernatural devil shit right now." He sighed, taking a deep breath. You dealt with this shit before, you got rid of those psychos who tried to kill you, you can deal with this. "Okay, okay… Imma guess that you all are from the camp back in '78?" He gestured at Cindy and the Nightwing campers who had collected toward the left of the group.
"Um, yes." Cindy replied, surprised at how well he was taking their appearance.
"Okay, and the rest of you already know me and everything, so I don't have to do as much with you." He pointed at Dale and the other mall employees. He shook his head as he muttered, "All the goddamn shit I have to deal with at this fucking mall only making $5.50 an hour…" He waved at the group, "Follow me, we have some calls to make."
***FS***
Two hours and many seemingly impossible phone calls later the vast majority of the formerly deceased had been connected with some living relatives. It wasn't just in the mall, but all over town people who had been victims of Shadyside killers had reappeared unharmed exactly as they were right before their murders. For some, particularly those whose deaths had been more recent, it was simple enough to find living relatives, but for others, it wasn't so easy. It seemed as if Sarah Fier had managed to undo some of the Goode's deal with the devil, but only to a limited extent. Only the deceased from the recent past seemed to return-with the victims of Harry Rooker being the longest to return. Probably their spirits had already moved on somewhere else-heaven or hell, or wherever, and Sarah couldn't hold onto them to try and return them.