Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Dead and Buried Part 5


                Paley wasn’t sure where the scream had come from, but she was certain it wasn’t Brighton. She looked at Brody, searching his shadowy face for any hint that this was part of his prank. As usual, his face was unreadable.
                “Guys, I think we should find Brighton and get out of here… fast,” Hannah said, sounding on the verge of tears. She wrapped her thin arms around her chest, a useless attempt to ward off a chill.
                Paley felt it too, in the marrow of her bones, and it wasn’t the cold October wind that brought the goose bumps prickling along her skin. Something was wrong here. “Yeah,” she said, keeping her eyes on Brody, “I think Hannah’s right.”
                Brody shrugged, casual, unconcerned. “Alright,” he said and started down the corridor. Paley walked alongside Hannah, who kept her head down, eyes on her shoes. She looked scared and possibly a little sick. Paley couldn’t figure her in on the prank. She was probably another unfortunate victim of Brody and Brighton’s sick joke. Then again…?
                “Look, up there.” Brody swung his flashlight in the direction of what appeared to be a narrow window about ten feet down the corridor. “That must have been where the fresh air was coming from.”
                And possibly where Brighton went, Paley thought.
   Hannah must have thought the same thing. “Do you think he could have crawled out of that opening?”
                “There’s nowhere else he could have gone.”
                “Except further down the corridor,” Paley said, staring down the darkened length of the passage.
                “We would have heard him if he took off that way. His footsteps would have echoed off the stone.”
                “What about that door?” Hannah asked. For the first time, Paley noticed a heavy wooden door recessed into the stone wall.
                Brody walked over to the door and shook it. It didn’t budge. “I think it’s barred from the other side. There’s no way he got out this way.”
                “Good point,” Paley agreed. “So,” she said, turning to Brody, “Out the window?”
                He shrugged with a sigh. “Looks like.”
                “If I ruin these shoes, Vance Brody, I’ll never forgive you for this,” Hannah said, with a disapproving frown.
                “Yes you will. You always do.” He ushered her toward the window. “Come on. Let’s find Brighton so we can get the hell out of here.”
                “What about Quinn?”
                Brody gave Paley a long, flat look, his electric blue eyes revealing nothing. “Haven’t heard from him,” he said, face impassive. “I assume he’s not coming.”
                The alarm that had been swelling in Paley’s chest eased. Now she was more than certain this was a setup. An elaborate, well plotted setup, but a setup nonetheless. Fine. She’d play along, make them think she was clueless. But she would not give them the satisfaction of being hoodwinked… again.
                “Oh,” she said, trying to sound oblivious and sucking at it, “I guess we’d better find Brighton then so we can leave.” She brushed past Brody and, without another word, hoisted herself through the window-like opening to land in a high patch of weeds on the other side.
 Brody gave Hannah a boost and Paley took her hands to help pull her over. She landed gently beside her. She gave Paley a thin smile. “Should’a worn flats. Looks like we’re in for a long night.”
                “Maybe,” Paley said with a mirthless smile of her own. She took Hannah by the arm gingerly and pulled her out of the way just as Brody emerged from the window and dropped to the ground beside them.
                Hannah didn’t wait for Brody to get on his feet before asking, “Now which way?” She looked exhausted and more than a little pissed off. Again, Paley wondered if she was in on Brody’s prank or if, like her, she was going to be made the butt of his joke. Either way, she was still Brody’s girlfriend and Paley couldn’t confide in her.
                “That way,” Brody said, pointing down the hill. The ground sloped away from the building and a wispy fog had set in, clinging to the ground. They inched along carefully, fighting their way through thick briars and tall weeds. It wasn’t long before they found a rough, dirt path and followed it deeper into the darkness. Even without the light of a moon, Paley could see the tall spires of the high school and knew they were circling around to the other side of the campus. Good. They weren’t as far away from the parking lot as she thought. Maybe they could find Brighton quickly and leave.
As they moved further along the path, the ground fog thickened. “We’re moving closer to the river,” Brody said, trying to explain away the eerie vapor. Hannah didn’t look convinced and Paley wasn’t buying it either. She looked up at the blue-black sky, fear sinking in the pit of her stomach like a cold stone. What if something really had happened to Brighton?
                Hannah, using her cell phone for light, shone it along the path. Something dark and glossy caught the light and shone from the corner of a broken headstone. “Is that… blood?” she asked. Her face paled to a sickly gray as she stared at the red stain smeared across the crooked headstone.
                “It looks like a hand print.”
                Hannah looked sick. “Oh, God. Brighton! Something terrible has happened to him.”
                “Calm down. Brighton gets nose bleeds,” Brody said matter-of-factly, though he didn’t sound convinced. “Paley’s right, Han. He’s probably hiding somewhere, waiting to scare us.”
                Paley resisted the urge to roll her eyes, though she doubted he could see the gesture in the darkness. This was a total set up. Obviously fake blood, Paley thought. God, these guys had it all figured out. And, of course, Brody was leading them right into the cemetery- a part of the church that had been long forgotten.
                “This way,” Brody said, keeping his flashlight beam close to the ground. “There’s a blood trial.”
                “That must have been one hell of a nose bleed,” Paley said dryly. There was too much blood for it to come from a nose bleed, she thought, as she followed Brody deeper into the cemetery. That was, of course, if it was even real blood. Paley doubted very seriously that it was.
                “There’s too much blood,” Brody whispered, and for the first time since Paley had met him he sounded scared.
                How very convincing, she thought sarcastically. Man, he was good, but she wasn’t about to buy it.
                “Did y’all here that?” Hannah asked. “There it is again. Listen.”
                Paley couldn’t hear anything besides the naked tree branches rattling in the wind and the pounding of her own heart. “I don’t hear it, Hannah.”
                “I do,” she said firmly. “This way!” She took off in a dead sprint and Brody tried to follow.
“Hannah, slow down. You can’t see where you’re going,” he called, but she didn’t listen, pushing deeper into the overgrown cemetery.
“Please, wait!” Paley called.
               Hannah turned to look back at them over her shoulder. “I’m telling you, I think I heard something. For all we know it could be Brighton.” She turned around a second too late. Her foot caught one something and she lurched forward. She lost her balance and fell, disappearing into the cold, gray fog.
                “Oh no!” Paley said, her heart sinking. “Hannah, where are you?” Paley picked her way through the cemetery carefully, not wanting to suffer the same fate as Hannah.
                “Down here,” she groaned. Paley and Brody rushed toward the sound of Hannah’s voice and found her at the bottom of a deep hole. No, not a hole, a grave. Hannah was in a grave!
                “Are you alright?” Brody asked, his voice belying the horrified expression on his face.
                Hannah tried to push herself up. “Yeah, I think so,” she said as she dusted the dirt from her clothes. She felt around for her phone, found it, and flipped the light back on. “Oh, God!” Hannah made a strangled gagging sound then, “Guys, I think I found Brighton.”