I heard a crash, and looked up into the car. A giant pale hand had snagged Henry by the throat, trying to forcefully squeeze him through the window and into the car. Henry looked as if his head was going to explode, his face deep red and eyes widely opened.

I found myself scrambling to get up and go after him. I didn't have any weapons and the only thing I could think about doing was trying to pry the monsters hands off Henry.

Henry tried to pull himself away from the monster's hold. My body had flung itself against the car, due to my exhaustion. I punched the man repeatedly in the hand, and I could feel him let go of Henry and struggle to pull his hand back through the window.

Henry wrapped his arm around my stomach and yanked me away from the car. I turned to the direction he was facing and ran with him, but could feel both him and myself leaning forward, about to fall.

We were running too fast and tripped. I slammed hard against the ground, and my face smacked down on something very hard and smooth. I pulled my hands up to my face and saw a small black object I held between my fingers. A book.

I felt myself trying to whisper something, but I couldn't even understand my speech. Henry snatched me by the back of my shirt and lifted me high off the ground and back on my feet.

"The book...!" My voice was fading. Henry looked down at my hands and I opened the black book viewing it's worn foreign pages.

"Eh?" I couldn't remember ever explaining what happened to him.

"The book! The one that... that..." I shook my head and turned away, while opening it.

The car was shaking madly across from us, the dead corpse fighting it's way out of the broken vehicle. The book flipped open to the one hundred and twenty fourth page. I ran my cold hand smoothly down the worn paper, running it over the foreign words.

Henry held his fists clenched while the monster began to smash it's head into the car window. I stared at the words, wondering which ones I should try and pronounce.

"Hurry, Clara…" He whispered as the glass began to crack like a spider web. My eyes stayed locked on the murderous book.

A merciless voice screamed within my mind.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry…"

I caught myself as I took a sudden collapse to the ground. The voice of an older woman was raging through my mind.

I pulled the book back up to my face, her voice still raging at me.

"You're going to die, die, die, die…" I felt blood traveling from beneath my eyelids and down my cheeks. My lungs began to feel like they were collapsing, caving in and dying. I held my chest and felt Henry grab my shoulder. I looked down at the words nearing the end of the page, and let it run from my lips.

Instantly, the pain left me and a warm soothing feeling came over me. I fell but my hands caught me as I dropped to the ground.

My eyesight came in slightly clearer and I could hear easier. I was still exhausted, but most of my pain was gone. My wrists and ankles quit aching, and my eyes and ears weren't hurting or bleeding. The woman's voice was fading away.

"Selfish bitch!" My mind was then free from her, and I stood up with the book still in my hands. Henry stared at me.

"What happened? Are you… okay?" I turned to face him, but didn't answer and instead brought my concentration back on the book.

I was about to read more text from the page, but Henry yanked on my shoulder and threw me to the side.

A sword flung down where I had been standing and cut into the dirt. I hadn't fell and the book was still clenched between my fingers. Taylor drew his sword back up and turned his focus on Henry.

"Henry-!" He fell back and Taylor's swing barely missed him, slicing his shirt and the bare edge of his skin. I attempted to run to him, but Taylor quickly turned and sliced towards me, causing me to stop to avoid his blade.

He yanked the sword above me, but before he let it cut me I shoved the book in front of me. He stopped suddenly, and his dark eyes locked onto the object. I backed away, stronger he and I both noticed.

"Look! I have it. I can kill you." I wasn't entirely sure of that, but I didn't show it in my voice. He paused, and his eyes met mine. I stared back, trying to keep a defensive glare. I noticed his lips slowly forming a smirk.

"I see that. But I don't think you know how to use it, do you?" He approached me and let the sword dangle beneath him. I backed away, flipping through the books pages. He let me play around with it, but the words I said didn't do anything.

He laughed at me, and I felt my body smack into the chain linked fence. He was right in front of me when I hit it, and pressed the blade against my chest.

The book was behind my back and I shut my eyes, waiting for him to push the sword between lungs. He paused though, and I felt his dark eyes staring at my face.

It pierced my skin, and I felt myself jump and he tried to push it in farther, but slowly. My body grew incredibly tense, and my free hand swung from my side and snatched the sharp blade, throwing it aside. He growled at me, but was abruptly knocked to the ground by a large broken brick.

Henry came over to me and pulled me up, and away from him. I held my chest as the blood ran over my skin and down my stomach. Taylor staggered upward, his skin broken at the top of his head. The area looked like it had been there awhile; even though he had just been hit. Blood was stained on his skin around the area.

My wound stung incredibly and I dropped on my knees. I opened the book quickly, fearing that my life now was depending on it's words.

'Please, save me…' I pressed my hand on the books pages and looked at the first words I saw. I quickly spoke them, and felt Taylor charging towards me. I looked up.

He was running. Oddly, this was the first time I had seen him running or even moving so quickly like he was. Usually he took his precious time, knowing that he would eventually catch me, I assumed. He held his giant knife in the air, wanting to strike me and kill me the moment he reached me. He seemed almost desperate.

Out of fear I raced back to the book; and I spoke the words I saw first.

I raised my hands above my neck and squeezed my eyelids shut when he reached me; awaiting my death.

It never came.

My eyelids slowly opened to the area. Taylor towered above me, his machete raised but not moving in the air. I stared; my mind was still, I didn't know what to think.

His eyes slowly trailed to the left of us, and mine followed. The man in the car was standing there; biting his lips while blood continued to poor and poor from his mouth. He made little eerie moans, and Taylor seemed to be almost shaking.

"Y-you…" He still held the knife above him, and I could see it shaking. The man leaned backward and his head twisted in a half circle before shaking uncontrollably. He let out an angry growl as blood still continued to flow from his open wounds and mouth.

He began to approach, and Taylor dropped his sword to the ground. The bloody weapon fell motionlessly next to me.

Taylor backed away, and the man took slow steps towards him. I slid my hand towards the sword, and grasped it tight. I pushed myself away from him and the creature.

Taylor stopped when his foot caught the edge of a dug up grave. He turned to look, and written clear on it said, 'Taylor Coleman'.

The creature had then reached his rotting form. Taylor's body was covered in dried blood and open wounds that weren't bleeding. Taylor looked at him in horror, and the monster dropped his knife.

I couldn't understand why he let it fall to the ground. I watched him raise his right hand, and Taylor almost fell back, until it thrust it's black hand into the side of his chest, just beneath his shoulder. Blood sailed out of Taylor's mouth, and his eyes became completely gray. His eyes were no longer cold and thirsty. They were blank.

He pulled his hand back out forcefully, causing Taylor to fall to his knees. A black oval was in his hands, and I assumed it was Taylor's heart. My eyes widened as I stared. It wasn't beating, but I wondered if it ever had been.

Taylor held the spot and trembled before the creature on the ground. Was he still alive? The monster then walked away, satisfied it seemed. I watched Taylor, and something inside me somehow pushed me forward.

"Finish it… let him drown here… save your cousin" Save her? I wondered if I could…

I stood in front of him. Two blank gray eyes trailed at met mine, and I stared coldly at him. He spoke as dark blood continued to spill from his mouth, seeming like it was all trying to empty from his body.

"Not me… it was… it was… suppose…" He puked up a large pool of blood before him. I aimed the sword slowly to his current chest wound, and he stared down at the ground. I slid it in, and the blood stopped pouring. I left the sword inside him, and pushed him with my boot. His body fell backwards slowly and limply into his own grave.

"To be you…" Someone finished his sentence, but the last thought 'let him drown' echoed through my mind. Henry stood away from me, watching me and the past events disturbed. I looked at him, and down in front of him, next to his feet, was a shovel.

I walked over to him, and grasped the shovel in my hands. Henry stared.

"I have to avenge my cousin's death…" I whispered, and it made perfect sense to me. He stared and looked at the silent grave.

"Haven't you?" I felt a tear slid from my eye, and he didn't say anything else. I returned to Taylor's grave, and looked down at the body in it. Taylor's mouth was open, and his eyes were as wide as they could possibly get. All his limbs were sprawled from his body, and the sword stuck up straight from his wound. The only wound on his body that continued to bleed.

I slid the shovel into the dirt, and through the first chunk onto his body. I continued to bury and bury him, and the pile shrank smaller and smaller. After hours of shoveling, the dirt reached the top of the grave, and the pile next it was gone.

I turned around and looked at Henry, and he walked over to me.

The next thing I remember, everything went dark and I heard the sound of an ambulance. Lisa's voice was screaming through my mind, and she was crying my name. 'Why did you listen to her?'

"Clara?" Something shoved my arm, and my eyes popped open. I turned and looked at a face staring at me.

I stared at the face in disbelief. "Amy?" The doctor looked at me and laughed.

"Clara! I'm so glad your okay!" She got up, and was going to pull me up too, until she realized that wouldn't be a good idea considering my condition.

I pushed myself up though, and I only felt a little sore. Nothing was broken, but I was starving and parched. I stared at her, but my eyes fell on my surroundings. I was still in the graveyard, but at the edge of it next to my crashed vehicle.

"How… how did you get here?" An ambulance approached, and a few cops were already here. I stared at the people around, and even saw my aunt and Rick pulling up.

"There was a woman and her daughter out here, mourning a lost loved one I assume. They found you and that guy passed out by your sister's grave." Her thumb pointed to Henry who was being interrogated by a few policemen.

I stood up, and a man from the ambulance grabbed my arm. I looked at Amy and Henry, and let my eyes wander the cemetery. Even though I felt like I was back in reality, there weren't any animals or bugs chirping. There was something still very wrong with it. Well, I did know it was haunted. Maybe that scares animals off, I wondered.

"Let's just get out of here… please. I want to get home."

A few months later, I finally was back at my house and living normally again. Well, for the most part, normally. It wasn't going too good at first, considering that I hated living by myself.

And it was hard for me to think of Henry sleeping in his car every night, and he refused to get a room at one of Grey Town's apartment buildings. He wasn't kidding with me when he said he'd never get another 'room' in his entire life.

And, he also refused to leave me alone after I gave him my phone number. And I didn't want him to, either. After a few weeks of thinking about it, I finally let him move in with me. My house was clearly big enough, big enough for at least four other people. I had only bought it when I did because Lisa enjoyed living in a huge house. Better yet, I could afford it anyways.

I haven't gone back to the cemetery since the incident. I did feel bad for not visiting Lisa's grave, so I bought a new one and had it put in Grey Town's cemetery. There was nothing of her there but her name on the grave, but I would visit it often.

What I could never understand, though, is that every time I visited the grave I could never sense her there. I wondered if she couldn't leave the other graveyard because of her body being there, or if would have something to do with Taylor's weird ritual.

Even though I knew she never knew about me visiting it, I still went back to it at least once a week. It seemed pointless to visit someone when you knew they weren't there, but it helped me to get over her death gradually.

But what made me the saddest of all was that she never visited me. Not at my house, not at her mother's house, nowhere in Grey Town had she ever visited me. There wasn't ever even the tiniest feeling she was with me, never.

Henry helped me through it, and eventually I stopped thinking about her all the time. Visiting her grave went from once a week to once ever two months, but there was a different reason for that.

I guess that's what happens when you have children. They become the center and the most important thing in your life. They helped me clear my head and become as sane as I could possibly be.

The cure sank in and left me my everlasting effect. I still mourned my cousin, and I always prayed that she would somehow get out of that place, hoping she wasn't really stuck there for all eternity.

There still isn't something totally right about the cemetery, but from what I've read, there hasn't been anything right with that town either. Whether both are true or not, I had escaped and I was free from it. I got rid of Taylor instead of him getting rid of me, and he was gone for good. I knew he was. I never thought twice about it.

But what Lisa had said to me before I passed out that day makes me wonder if what I did was right, if Taylor was the true enemy and that I did what I could to free her. I still wonder if I have saved her or not, if her soul has moved on and if she is free.

When she first left me, I thought it was my fault she was dead. The faults of my incredibly stupid personality and mind that killed her.

I know that it wasn't my fault that night at Randy Lou's. But I still wonder, what about at the cemetery? If she was still there wandering aimlessly and completely stuck, who's fault was that? How many times was it possible to kill someone, especially in a place like that?

I'm still left wondering who killed my cousin.

It could have been Taylor. It could have been her aunt and Rick. It could have been her own grandmother.

And a thought that still haunts me when I think about…

Could it have been me?

-

My Faults Named Her Dead

11 - 12 - 06

So now that it's over… could I get some more reviews?

Whatever you thought, just say something. I love getting reviews, and I'll be heartbroken if I don't get any more. ;;

But anyways, I'd like to thank everyone that reviewed this fiction. I loved getting those, and even the tiny things you said motivated me to keep going. Thanks a bundle!

And also, I'd like to thank my best friend for giving me some really good ideas for this story, and more to come! ((P.S. she's the one that reviewed this story under the name of LostinThoughtsville))

Thanks so much, everyone!