Page 6

Putting my phone in my pocket, I race out the door and head across to the shop where I can take any car on the lot and drive it to Manny and Rhea’s, then to White Pines.

I’d better pick something big, like an SUV or a double cab pickup.

How big are the dishes if you have to have enough food to feed sixty? I hope Rhea left the dishes out. I won’t know what to use.

As I run, something stops me. Slows me down even though I’m distracted.

Soft noises. Painful sounds.

You know that feeling in your gut that you understand before your brain does?

That’s the feeling I get when I come across the open grave and see the white-and-black huddle at the bottom. Black clothes. Skin that’s whitish-blue with cold. Long dark hair. Soaking wet. Shivering and moaning in a fitful sleep.

I did hear a woman’s scream. She fell into an open grave in the dark. They usually leave open graves covered with tarps and groundsheets, well-marked. Unless it’s dark, and you’re not looking at every inch of ground you cover.

“Shit!” I drop to the ground, ruining my white shirt. My thudding wakes her up with a weak shudder. Her wide, dark eyes stare up at me in horror.

Oh, shitty shit shit. She sees what I am. She scrambles around, flailing for something, but I don’t have time for her to panic and burrow deeper into the icy, soaking mud. The second she makes it to her knees, I grab her by the back of the neck and haul her out, almost toppling myself in with her as I stretch to the very end of my range.

“Let go!” she grunts, voice weak.

“You’re like a block of ice. I’m getting you someplace warm, and we’ll call an ambulance. You probably have hypothermia.”

“No, I don’t!” she argues at once, struggling as best she can.

Don’t care, don’t have time. “Look, I’ve got to get some kind of roasted squash casserole ready for my parents in two hours. It’s Thanksgiving, and I have no idea how to make this stuff, and I’m gonna have to borrow one of my dad’s shirts. You need medical help and a hot toddy. That’s what they’d give you in the fifties.”

Struggling girl goes limp as I hustle through the town. The streets are empty at the moment. Everyone is probably cooking inside their cheery little houses with their perfect little families.

Or screaming at each other over the fact that the turkey isn’t thawed out. Whatever, the point is that they’re not here to watch me carry the woman over my shoulder like a sack of wet (sexy) potatoes.

Hey, I’m a dead man, but I’m still a man. This woman is gorgeous and exactly my type—unfortunately. I know if she were any stronger, she’d be screaming and kicking for all she’s worth.

“Where are you taking me?” she demands, her color a little less bone-white once I sit her inside one of Manny’s older work vans that he uses when he has to go out and change tires for people stranded on the side of the road. She’s covered in mud, but it’ll be okay with the grease and oil already gracing the upholstery.

“To my parents’ house.” It’s a nice, comfortable lie, and I’m secretly enjoying it.

“Parents? You—you have parents?”

“Adopted. Yeah, I know you can see me for what I am. Not all monsters are bad, okay? Like my parents, Manny and Rhea. They own this place. They’re cooking for the town potluck. Now, my turn. Who are you, and why were you walking through a cemetery in the dark?”

“Victoria. I—I was getting away from a bad situation, and I thought maybe I’d take a little walk to clear my head.”

“A walk through a graveyard at night to clear your head?” I blast the heat, blast the radio, and keep moving. I need to check my texts. What if Rhea and Manny have called me a dozen times and I slept through it? What if they’re staying in Ohio until the baby is born, about to be “real” parents to a kid they can really love?

And they don’t want me anymore...

What if they’re dejected and miserable because the social worker and the birth mother could see what they really are? Most people can’t, but then there are people like Vicky here, who can see exactly what we are.

“I’m not afraid of dying.”

“Well, that’s good, but can you please not die on my watch? Why didn’t you call for help?”

“My cell phone is down in that pit. I mean, grave. I couldn’t find it in the dark, and by the time daylight happened... Well, I guess I fell asleep.”

“You probably went into some kind of shock. You can use my phone. You want to call someone? Boyfriend, husband?”

I love torture—just like my creators wanted. The problem? I never do it to anyone but myself.