Sheri Leigh - Graveyard Games

FIDO publishing

Graveyard Games 2010 by Sheri Leigh

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Cover art 2010 MichaelMantas

Edited by Michael Mantas

First published by ExcessicaPublishing

Second Edition February,2010

A Smashwords Edition

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Part One:

Suspicion

Chapter One

Dusty stood, hands clenched, nails makinglittle red crescents in her palms as she listened to the Reverend'sperfect monotone. He read Psalm 23Julia's favorite and Julia'schoice. Chewing her lower lip, Dusty looked down the sloping hill,past slanting headstones, and saw the procession of cars lined upon the asphalt drive. Shane's black Mustang was among them.

Bastard.

She tasted blood, coppery and bitter.

Her father's hand found hers, coaxing herfingers open, squeezing. Dusty didnt look at him. Her palm stungwhere the small half-moons absorbed the sweat from his hand. Julia,her stepmother, wept at his right into a monogrammedhandkerchief.

From this angle, Dusty could see beyond thefake green of the astro-turf and into the open darkness beneath herbrother's casket. She had skipped sad and had gone straight toanger in the infamous Kubler-Ross stage of grief, but the sight ofthe infinite darkness beneath her twins coffin made her knees feelweak. For the first time, a wave of real sorrow hit and stopped heras if shed run full-tilt into a brick wall.

Oh Nick, this cant behappening, she thought, staring into thedarkness beneath the satin-lined box where his body now rested. Hewas going to be lowered into that yawning hole when everyone wasgone. John Evans, who only worked at the cemetery part time fromthe spring to the fall, and drove the twenty-five minutes to theWal-Mart in West Lake in the off-season to greet shoppers, wouldget a local kid to help him, one on each side, and theyd use thestraps to lower the box into the ground. Then Evans would rev upthe backhoe and fill up the empty space with dirt.

Who fills the empty spaceup here? She wondered, fighting a wave ofnausea and tears. The empty space in mylife? In my heart?

Dusty leaned against herfather, his big shoulder a safe place to rest her dizzy head, andshe ignored his concerned look when he glanced down and slipped anarm around her waist for support. She fixed her gaze on thedarkness, forcing herself to look there, knowing it only existedfor the sole purpose of swallowing what was left of her brothersbody. Hes not in there, she reminded herself, trying on a reassuringsmile as her fathers hand squeezed her hip and pulled hercloser.

Yes he is, a deeper voice whispered in her head. Whats left of him.

She shivered then, in spite of the warmth ofthe sun, her gaze moving up the casket again, back toward thelight, where an enormous blanket of red roses cascaded over thesides. Those had been Julias idea, too. Dusty had suggestedyellowNicks favorite colorbut the idea had been shot down inhorror. Too cheerful for the occasion, dear. Definitely notproper.

Proper?

That was Julia for you.

She gave up after that on suggestinganything for the service. She let Julia make her little plans, gether way, as usual. It didnt matter. Nothing mattered anymore.Dusty unpacked her suitcase in the room where shed spent herchildhood, feeling her life moving back in time as she did. Therewas nothing to remind her of the world shed just left behind inChicago. Even her gun and badge, the two things she hadnt beenwithout since shed started as a rookie on the force, had beenstripped from her two days before she got on a plane to fly back toDetroit for her brothers funeral.

She had expected her father at the gate, butit was Julia whod picked her up from the airport to make the longdrive up north to their little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.She was glad, because if it had been her father, she probably wouldhave tearfully blurted out the circumstances surrounding hersuspension like she had, as a little girl, told him about the meanboys at school. She would have told him everything, even as ashamedas she was about her own part in it.

But with Julia, she was safe. Her stepmothertalked while Dusty watched the strip malls give way to fields andfarm land. She watched her past returning, as if on an infiniteconveyer, and remembered how much both she and Nick had talkedabout getting away from small town life. They had both made it out,and yet here they were again, like nothing had ever changed.

Except Nick is dead.

Stop it, she told herself, biting the insideof her cheek, concentrating on the pain.

Who says you cant go home again? Even if itis in pieces

Stop it, stop, just stop! The taste of bloodfilled her mouth.

Even when shed been away, living adecidedly urban life in a land of concrete and steel, this littletown had been home. She and Nick had talked about it occasionally,how growing up rural had made them different somehow in the midstof born city-folk, as her father always called them.

This place had always been home, and sheremembered it with a vengeance as she stood in the middle of herlittle upstairs room, her dead brothers door open just down thehall. She stood and felt Nick profoundly as shed known him then,the twin brother who teased and taunted but loved her, she knew,above all others.

Wellalmost allothers. That dark voice came again, andthis time she didnt stop it as her gaze darkened and scanned thegroup gathered around the casket. Relatives and family friendsformed a circle, like druids dressed in black.

Nicks friends, the people theyd graduatedhigh school with eight years ago (god, had it really been solong?); his once high-school and sometimes-college girlfriend,Suzanne; his still-best-friend, Shanethey all huddled together,slightly separated from the family, almost breaking the circle.

Dusty tried to hang onto her anger. Withoutit, an unbearable emptiness moved in, numbingly cold. Without theheat of her rage, she felt husked out, a fat Halloween pumpkin witha twisted visage, sitting helpless while the world finished the jobbit by bit, scraping out all the extras.

Do I look likethat? Dusty stared at Suzanne, eyesdowncast, blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Like an enormous hand plunged into me and pulledout my insides?

Her gaze moved down theline to Shane, flanked on either side by the same gang of guys hedhung around with since high schoolJake, Billy, Evan and Chris.Theyd been Nick's closest friends at one time, too, next toShane. What about you? That dark voice again. She tried to push it away.

Shed known them allsincewell, it seemed like forever. Sinceyou were eleven and Nick met Shane and youbecame just his sister again .