The Zombie Playground Page 8

  “Brin.” He grabbed her arm with his sweaty hands. “I watched the door like a hawk. Mr. Barker never left this room.”

  She shook her head, dumbfounded. “What?”

  They just stared at each other for a moment.

  Brin pressed her lips together and suppressed an urge to scream. She kept her eyes on Ash.

  “If Mr. Barker never left this room,” she said, turning toward the back of the messy office, “then where is he?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Brin was used to quiet dinners with her mom, but nothing compared to the silence of death at the roundtable of spaghetti and garlic bread on Friday night. Paul kept his distance from Brin, who had spent most of the day distraught, and confused about what her next move should be. Tessa had her eyes on her cell phone, as if she was concerned Paul might make a grab for it and take off running.

  “So, Mrs. Skar,” Paul said, “do you like to golf, too, or—”

  Her phone rang before Paul could finish his sentence. She picked it up and took a few quiet steps across the hall.

  “Who’s she talking to, again?” Paul said.

  Brin was playing with her food even more than the vampire. While her friend nibbled away at the greasy garlic bread, Brin could only muster up the energy to wrap a noodle around her fork and let it fall back onto her plate.

  “One of her friends is best friends with Chace’s mom. She’s been waiting for the details, for the confirmation.”

  “Oh.” He put the bread down and crossed his arms. “I’m really sorry, Brin. I wish I could’ve done something. I wish—”

  Brin put her hand on top of his. “It’s all right. I know.”

  They heard footsteps returning to the kitchen much slower than they had exited the room. Tessa turned off her phone and sat back down in her chair.

  “Well?” Brin said.

  Tessa nodded. “It was them.”

  Brin could feel her throat drying up. She took a sip of water, and as she set the glass down, she had to keep her hands from shaking.

  “What else did your friend say?” Brin said.

  “She said that Jeanie is torn up, a complete mess. But there have already been talks of funeral services. There’s going to be a small gathering of close family on Sunday, and that a public funeral will be held in a week or so, probably next Saturday.”

  “OK,” Brin said. Then she asked a more awkward question, since she already knew the official answer. “Do they know what happened?”

  “Not yet,” Tessa said. “There’s an ongoing investigation.”

  Brin sighed and looked at Paul. He nodded to her, like he knew it was his turn to speak. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

  “It’s not your fault, Paul,” Tessa said. “You weren’t there.”

  He opened his mouth, like he wanted to tell her, “actually, I was,” but he shut his mouth and turned his attention back to his food.

  “But my daughter was,” she said, after an ultra-long pause. Without warning, Tessa grabbed Brin’s hand and pulled her towards her.

  “Mom? What are you doing—”

  “Brin, I know you’ve told your side of the story a gazillion times, but please, level with me. Is there anything that you are keeping from me, your school, the police? Is there anything unusual that happened that day that you’re not telling anyone?”

  “Mom, of course not—”

  “Because if you know something, and you’re keeping it a secret, and someone finds out about it, you’ll be in serious trouble, Brin. I don’t want them to take you away from me.”

  “Mom,” Brin said, scooting her chair back. “As if I don’t have enough on my plate. Now you’re saying I might go to prison?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You think I’m lying? You think I’m not telling the truth about what happened?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just worried, that’s all. Two of your classmates died under very mysterious circumstances, and you, and four others, were there that day. It’s just… it’s gonna kill me if you had something to do with their deaths, and you didn’t come forward.”

  I didn’t have anything to do with their deaths, Mom. I tried to be a hero. I tried to save them.

  “I’ve said everything that happened,” Brin said. “We left early. They stayed behind. End of story.”

  “You and the others are going to be questioned over and over again to make sure all your stories line up straight. Do they?”

  “Do they what?”

  “Line up straight?”

  Brin crossed her arms and slouched down in her chair. “Yes!”

  “Because if just one of you says something contradictory, this is only going to get worse. There could be lawsuits. My God, Jeanie might try to sue me—”

  Now Brin’s mom was thinking out loud, and Brin didn’t want to have any part of it.

  “I can’t listen to this anymore,” Brin said, jumping up from her chair.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Tessa shouted. “You are not excused from the table!”

  Brin scoffed and started exiting the room, anyway. “I’m not five years old anymore, Mom. You can’t make me stay.”

  “But you didn’t eat any of your food!”

  “You eat it!”

  Brin raced down the hall, toward the main staircase. Tessa followed.

  “Hey!” her mom shouted. “Don’t you talk to me like that!”

  “How about you try to support me right now, Mom? The way Dad would be supporting me if he were here!”

  Tessa brought her hands to her sides and shook her head. “Don’t bring Kristopher into this conversation, missy. Your father has nothing to do with this.”

  “Mom, I’m terrified right now! I’m terrified out of my mind! And you’re just filling my head with these horrible possibilities, of lawsuits, of prison—”

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Brin.”

  “I’m already hurt! I’m already scarred for life! I’m—”

  The doorbell rang. Brin let out a half-scream. Then she opened the door.

  Ash took a step forward, a pile of DVDs in his hands. He had an obnoxious and ill-timed smile on his face. “Did I hear someone say, Skar residence?” He stepped inside, not even bothering to look at Brin or Tessa, or notice the awkward tension in the room. He just kept on babbling. “So, I know this has been a rough week for all of us, so I brought some old comedies to watch. I have Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Adam’s Rib, and an underrated Hitchcock classic that was his only diversion into all-out screwball comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, starring Robert Montgomery, and the late, great Carole Lombard. I figured if I can’t get you to watch one of the scary Hitchcock classics, Brin, I could at least introduce you to his work with a forgotten gem like Mr. and Mrs.—” He finally stopped talking. He glanced at Tessa, then back at Brin. “Did I interrupt something?”

  Brin rolled her eyes and headed up the staircase. “What are you doing here, Ash?”

  “What do you mean?” he said. “It’s Friday movie night.”

  Brin didn’t give him a response; she just leapt to the top of the staircase and disappeared from sight.

  Ash turned to Brin’s mom. “Was it something I said?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, we don’t have to watch a Hitchcock movie.”

  She shook her head. “We just got the confirmation that the remains found earlier today were that of Sawyer and Chace. Brin’s not taking it very well.”

  Ash didn’t appear to be taking the news well, either; he looked like he was going to faint. He managed not to fall by grabbing the staircase bannister.

  “So that’s it then,” he said after a few seconds of contemplation. “They’re really dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will there be a funeral?”

  Tessa nodded. “Next Saturday.”

  “OK.” He looked to the top of the staircase. “I should go check on Brin, make sure she’s all right.”

  Ash turned
toward the staircase, just as Paul entered the room. The vampire had his hair slicked back, and a vibrant gloss on his face that didn’t make him appear so pale.

  “Oh,” Ash said. “It’s you.”

  Paul stood shoulder to shoulder with Tessa. “Where’s Brin? Is she OK?”

  “What are you doing here?” Ash said viciously, taking a step toward Paul. “Everything was fine until you showed up.”

  “Hey,” Paul said. “None of this was my fault.”

  “It was all your fault! You’d think with all the years you’ve spent on this planet you wouldn’t be such a moron!”

  Ash had accidentally broken up the potential fight between Brin and her mom, but now Tessa had to stop one between the two boys.

  “Hey, hey,” Tessa said, smashing her hands against their chests. She turned to Ash. “What the hell are you talking about? What would Paul have to do with any of this? He’s a foreign exchange student who’s staying with us. He has nothing to do with what happened to Sawyer and Chace.”

  Ash sported a condescending smile. “Oh, yes, that’s right. From Germany, right?”

  “Yes,” Paul said, narrowing his eyes to make his face appear more demon-like. “Do you have a problem with me… Ashley?”

  Ash looked ready to pounce on the taller and stronger Paul. But he remained in place, fuming but still composed. “Why she let you get in my car, instead of falling into that great open abyss, I will never understand. Brin and I share something special, all right? And your ignorant pretty self is not going to get between us.”

  Tessa looked like she had more than a few questions. She turned to Ash. “Wait, what?”

  Ash didn’t answer her. He was done.

  He raced up the staircase to Brin’s bedroom and didn’t bother knocking. He just kicked the door open to see Brin at the corner of her bed tying the laces on her tennis shoes. She was bundled up in a sweater and a coat, along with a pair of tight jeans.

  “What are you doing?” he said. He waited for a response but didn’t get one. “You’re not running away, are you?”

  Brin returned to her feet. “No, Ash, I’m not running away. But there’s something I need to do.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “No. This is something I have to do alone.”

  She tried to exit the room, but Ash wouldn’t let her. He blocked the exit with his arm, like for a second he actually thought he could block Brin from leaving the room.

  “Ash. Get out of the way.”

  “First tell me where you’re going.”

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “You’re my best friend! Of course it’s my business!”

  “Look,” she said, “you and Paul go have a little date and watch your stupid Hitchcock movie. I’ve got matters of life and death to attend to.”

  She pushed Ash out of the way, and she could tell as she stepped into the hallway that what she had said deeply hurt the boy.

  “That was low, Brin,” he said. “Mocking our movie watching? Are you on your freaking period or something?”

  “Go home, Ash,” she said, and left him standing in the doorway.

  He let her go. He knew she was dealing with something super upsetting for her to be this nasty to him. In all their years of friendship, he had never seen this ugly of a side in her. It was like she was a whole different person.

  He jumped when he heard the front door slam.

  Then he jumped a second time when Tessa appeared to the side of him.

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  Ash stared at Tessa before glancing down at his DVDs. “Things are starting to unravel,” he said.

  “What?”

  “And it’s only going to get worse.”

  “Ash!” She kicked her foot against Brin’s door. “Answer me! Where’d she go?”

  “I have no idea. But don’t worry. I’ll try to find out.”

  Ash ran past Tessa and jumped down to the first floor five steps at a time. He saw Paul standing in the entrance hallway, his arms crossed, looking like he needed someone to tell him what to do or say.

  “He’s like a goddamn puppet,” Ash whispered as he pulled the front door open and stepped outside.

  “Do you need me to come with you?” Paul said.

  “No.” It took a lot for the typically calm Ash to get heated, but with the recent tragic events and Brin making fun of their movie geekdom, he was at his breaking point. He turned around, walked up to the vampire, and spit in his face. “You stay here, you monkey! You’ve done enough!”

  And with that, Ash stepped outside, into the night, into the cold, and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Shit.

  The rain was pelting down against Brin’s windshield so hard that she had to turn her windshield wipers on full blast. Even though it was the middle of winter in the typically freezing Grisly, an unusual warm front had taken hold of northern Nevada for the unforeseeable future. It was like the red devil himself was showing his morbid face in town. And he was.

  “Droz is here,” Brin said. “I know he’s here. I know I’m not crazy.”

  She made a sharp turn on Sharp Knife Way and sped into the empty parking lot of Grisly Cemetery.

  Brin turned off the ignition and started rummaging through the trash in the back of her car, in search for her umbrella.

  “Come on, I know I have one,” she said, her voice soft and muddled as the rain smashed against the car.

  She searched for a minute or more but couldn’t find it. She found old binders, toilet paper, and a receipt from Jack in the Box, but no umbrella. She decided it was time to make a date with the rain.

  “I don’t have a choice,” she said.

  Her left hand nestled on the door handle. The rain was pouring so hard she thought it might literally beat her to the ground until she either passed out or passed away.

  But she didn’t care; she started to open the door, ready to make a run for it.

  An unusual light in the distance stopped her. She couldn’t believe it; it was another car headed straight toward her.

  “Ash, if that’s you, I swear…”

  The car pulled into the parking lot. Brin made sure her lights were off, and she slunk down in her seat. She knew it was Ash, or Paul, or her mom, or all three of them, but she didn’t need to be rescued right now. She just needed to be alone.

  Brin squinted her eyes. While it was difficult to see outside her windshield, she could tell the car pulling toward her wasn’t one she was just familiar with: it was a slick, purple Porsche.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  The Porsche entered one of the parking spaces on the other side of the lot, far enough away that Brin felt confident she and her car couldn’t be seen. She leaned forward and tried to see who was inside, but when she smashed her face against her windshield to get a better look, the figure in the Porsche turned the lights off.

  Brin held her breath. She could sense a person, or a vampire, or something even worse, appearing out of the darkness and plunging a fist through her window to grab hold of her throat. But as thirty seconds became three minutes, Brin realized that nobody was coming for her. She finally saw a figure exit the car. It looked like a girl but Brin couldn’t be sure.

  It could be anyone at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me, she thought. It could be one of those homeless women always begging for money on the side of 7-11. Maybe one of them stole a car and now wants a warm, cozy grave to spend the night in.

  She glanced down at her phone to see that she had three missed calls from Ash, and one from her mother. She turned the phone off and tossed it on the passenger seat.

  “Three… two… one…”

  Brin kicked her door open and stepped out into the pouring rain. It only took five seconds for her to be completely drenched.

  She opened the trunk of her car, grabbed the shovel, and started sprinting into the large, eerie cemetery.

  Brin jumped over to
mbstones, nicking her leg on three of them in the process, and landed in puddle after puddle, some of which were big enough to resemble mini swimming pools. She tried to think of herself as a warrior, as an immortal being who could withstand all the beatings this cold rainy night was throwing at her, all so that she could conquer her daring mission successfully.

  The rain continued to pummel against her. Her drenched black hair kept swinging in front of her face. She tried to use the shovel as an umbrella, but all the action did was make her look like an idiot. She turned to her left, passed two trees, and stopped at the proper place.

  “All right,” Brin said. “I’m here.”

  She gripped the shovel hard and peered down at the grave, waiting with anticipation for another hand to pop out of the ground.

  “Dad, I’m here!”

  She waited a full minute. There was no unusual activity, nobody from underground trying to speak to her. She peered around the area to make sure nobody was watching her. She looked for that girl from the Porsche but she couldn’t see anyone. As far as she could tell, she was the only one spending her Friday night in the spooky Grisly Cemetery.

  Brin took a step forward and brushed the wet hair out of her eyes. “All right, Dad. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

  She struck the shovel against the muddy ground and started to dig.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The ground was so wet that Brin was able to shovel the dirt away faster than she ever thought she could. The rain had tempered down a bit, but now the wind had picked up, doing its best to try to blow her and her shovel over. She didn’t have experience digging coffins out of the ground, but she was doing well under the circumstances. She was already a couple feet below the surface.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come on, Dad. Show yourself.”

  Her arms were already tired but she kept on digging, knowing she couldn’t stop before she had her hands pressed against her father’s coffin. She figured he could try to reach out for her at any second. She figured her father’s living, breathing corpse, with black eyes, rotting flesh, and a sinister smile, could jump up out of the ground and strike her at any second.