Tyler never moved or let go of her hand, and finally fell asleep just before dawn with his head on the side of her hip. Danny fell asleep sitting up on the sofa an hour or so after our parents left. Lily eventually cried herself to sleep in Jake’s arms, but Jake was still awake and so was I. I got up and went into the bathroom. I closed the door and slid down it, my head in my hands, and broke down. I’d never felt pain like I was feeling now. My heart ached – it felt as though it had been ripped out and stuffed back into me. I just wished I had told her how I really felt about her, how every time she looked at me my stomach would do a somersault, how quickly I was falling in love with her. Now I would never get the chance.
I must have fallen asleep in the end, still slouched against the bathroom door. When I opened my eyes it was broad daylight and I could hear movement downstairs. I threw some cold water on my face and made my way down. I looked at the clock in the hallway. It was 1pm. The noises I’d heard were Corey and Jason carrying a coffin into the living room. I ran in quickly. I needed to see her one more time before I had to say goodbye.
“Why didn’t you shout for me?” I asked, walking in the room.
“We were just about to, but we thought you might need some time to yourself,” Jake told me.
I walked over to the sofa. Tyler was still next to her.
“Can I have a minute with her” I asked him.
“Yes, sorry,” he whispered, before kissing her hand and walking over to Lily.
I knelt down next to her and held her hand.
“You know, we never got to do half of the things we said we were going to,” I said to her “But I loved every minute I did spend with you, even when you grounded us to our seats, and threw us across a parking lot. But part of me wishes you had never come here – that way you would still be alive. But then I would never have met you, and I’m so glad I did. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, and I don’t think I ever will again. I’ll miss you forever…”
I kissed her forehead then had to move away. Danny and Jake both said their goodbyes, both reminiscing with her as though she could hear them. Tyler was next – he told her one day they would meet again, and that when they did, she was in big trouble. Then it was Lily’s turn. She was the hardest to watch. She could hardly talk, her voice croaked and shook.
“You…you were the best friend in all the world,” she cried. “I never thought I would meet someone…someone like you. You saved my life so many times…and I don’t think you even realized…I don’t know what I’m going to do without you…”
Eventually Jake had to take her to the other side of the room. It was time to put her in the coffin.
“I can’t do it,” I told them. “I can’t put her in a box.”
None of the guys could either. How could we put someone so beautiful in a coffin?
“I’ll do it boys,” my dad said as he walked in the room with my mom and Tyler’s parents.
He took a deep breath and lifted her from the sofa. He carried her to the mahogany coffin and laid her on the red silk lining.
“Rest in peace, darling,” he said before stepping back.
Sofia and David walked over to her.
“You saved my son’s life and paid the ultimate price. I want to thank you for letting him live, but none of us wanted to lose you in return,” Sofia sobbed.
“We will never forget what you did for us,” David said, kissing her forehead. “Never...”
We all turned away as Jason and Corey sealed the coffin. None of us could stand to watch her being shut away. We only knew it was time to bury her when they asked who wanted to carry her. My dad and David had been outside earlier and dug the grave in the middle of one of the rose gardens – Lily had chosen the spot. The guys and I carried her outside. My dad had all the ropes and equipment we needed to lower her set up already. We all stood around and each said our final goodbyes, all of us remembering the times we had spent with her as our dads lowered her into the ground.
Chapter 25
Lucian’s Story – Heartache
It had been eight days now since we lost Keira. We hadn’t spent too much time together, and when we had been around each other, the room was filled with tension. Lily hadn’t been out of the house. She spent most of her time in the garden, staring at the grave.
Tyler was still blaming himself; he said he told Keira once that the only way something would happen to her was if he were dead. We all told him over and over it wasn’t his fault, but he wouldn’t believe it. Jake was getting really worried about Lily. She hardly ate or slept, and when she did finally nod off she always woke up screaming. She couldn’t stop having nightmares. Danny started at a gym in town. He used it for the punch bags mainly; it was his way of releasing his anger. He spent hours there every day.
I went to the cliff overlooking the harbor where I had taken Keira. I sat in the same place I’d sat with her and looked at the part of the grass where she had sat talking to me. Back then I never thought anything like this could possibly happen; it never crossed my mind that one day she wouldn’t be here. I sat there for over an hour, remembering all the good times and the great times. Like the night we went out to Rusty’s – just me, her, Lily and Jake. How she wasn’t interested in any of the guys that were looking at her. I remember how happy I was when I heard her say that. I couldn’t stop myself smiling. I recalled, how, when we got up to dance, how close I got to her, arms wrapped around her while she looked me straight in my eyes, smiling. How I felt like my world was crashing down around me when she told me she was leaving the next day. And how amazing I felt when she made us follow her to the house so she could tell us she had decided to stay.
I remembered waking up in the motel and seeing her lying, with her head on my chest and her arms around me. I never wanted to let go of her. I lay there running my fingers through her hair until she woke up. I’d closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep so I could see how she reacted, and was the happiest man on earth when she said she wanted to stay like that with me.
I sat there looking out at the sea smiling to myself when I thought back to the first time I properly kissed her. But the smile soon faded when it hit me I would never get to do that again. We had been getting so close then I turned into an asshole. I’d convinced myself she was keeping things from us, and I don’t know why. All she had ever been was truthful with us; I should have respected her more. I should have let her have her own thoughts without having to share them – everyone deserves that. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a jerk, she would have become my girlfriend. Instead, I pushed her away and gave Tyler an opportunity to get closer to her. If she had been my girlfriend, would she have still been here? Would she have still given her life for Tyler? Would we have even thrown a dinner party? All these questions and more went around and around in my head, but I knew I would never have the answers to them. I went home and locked myself in my room for the rest of the afternoon.
I hadn’t seen much of Tyler in the last few days. Nobody had. I’d see his mom and she said he’d been going out every afternoon at 1 p.m. and not returning until 4 p.m. she said sometimes he looked like he was in physical pain, but when she’d asked him what was wrong he had ignored her and went either to his room or out in his car again. She said he was completely heartbroken. She had walked past his bedroom door a few times and saw him sitting on his bed, staring at photographs of Keira he’d taken on his phone.
None of us had spoken about the incident, but we all knew we had too. We hadn’t been attacked since, which did raise the question, was it Keira they were after? But then we hadn’t been attacked for three weeks before her death either. So that couldn’t be it. Whatever was coming must be hidden somewhere, plotting its next move. We knew we had to talk about things and that we couldn’t put it off any longer. So, finally, we decided to meet at Keira’s house.
We were sitting in the living room together when Lily walked in we all noticed how much weight she had lost. She was starting to look poorly.
/> “Right, this isn’t easy for any of us, but we need to talk about things. We need to stick together. If this thing attacks and we get killed, just because we hadn’t communicated, then what Keira did would have been for nothing,” I said.
“I agree,” Jake nodded.
“Tyler, Lily we need to tell you something,” Danny said. “About Keira the night it all happened.”
“I thought you told me what she did,” Tyler frowned.
“We did, but we didn’t tell you how she looked,” Jake answered. “When I was in the car with her, she looked different. Her eyes were darker, more like a dark grey than the normal white. Her fingernails turned black, as though she had just that second painted them. She tapped into a side of her that I personally don’t think she knew existed.”
“So what?” Tyler said. “She was pissed off.”
“Tyler, that’s not all,” I told him. “It’s like she was a different person. She showed no mercy when she killed those guys; she knew what she was going to do to them before she even left the house. That’s why she pulled the bullet out of you.”
“Then…once she’d killed them she turned around to walk back to the car. She had to walk past us and that’s when we saw…” Danny broke off, not knowing how to explain it them.
“What?” Lily asked.
“It was as though she had tattoos all over her. Like every vein in her body had turned black and come to the surface of her skin,” Jake explained
“They didn’t cover her completely. You could still see a lot of her skin. But you definitely couldn’t miss them,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Lily asked, looking at us all in turn.
“I don’t know,” Jake shook his head
“Maybe it was the demon in her?” she suggested. “She was furious, upset – maybe that’s what the trigger was to unlocking that side of her.”
“That’s a good theory,” Danny nodded.
“Do you think this is why our grandfathers told us to find her? So she could die for one of us?” Tyler asked coldly.
“No,” Lily shot. “Her grandfather gave her a message too. He loved her more than anything, so he wouldn’t have sent her to her death.”
“Tyler, the only person we can blame for what happened is the thing that’s coming for us.”
“It should be me in that box, not her!” he almost shouted.
“Neither of you should be in a box,” Lily shouted back.
“Ok, ok, calm down. How do you know she isn’t watching us? Do you really think she would want us to be like this with each other?” I snapped.
“Do you think she is?” Lily asked.
“I’d like to think she’s watching over us.”
“I still walk around talking to her, you know. I can’t help it.”
“I know, so do I.”
“Me too,” Danny smiled slightly.
“See what you’ve done,” Jake said, looking up. “You’ve got us all going around talking to ourselves. If people outside saw us doing that, they’d call for the men in white coats.”
All of us laughed a little. We all knew that if she was watching she would be laughing, too. It was nice to see a bit of happiness come back into all of our faces.
“So what else do we know?” Danny asked. “What do we do now?”
“We wait,” Jake said. “We stick together and, when it comes, we kill it.”
“No more dinner parties, no going into clubs – we need to be on our guard twenty-four hours a day,” Tyler said.
“It will know the most powerful one of us is gone. I don’t think it will be long before it attacks us, and this time I think it will do more than send a few people with guns,” I said seriously.
“Lucian, do you think it knew what it was doing. I mean, would it have known that if it killed one of you, Keira would have swapped places?” Lily asked me.
“I’ve been thinking that for while myself.”
“So have I,” Danny admitted. “It would make sense.”
Just as Danny finished his sentence the TV switched itself on. All of us shot up out of our seats. It had put the news channel on.
“What the…?” Danny went to say.
“Shush, listen,” Tyler said, turning up the volume.
The anchorman said:
“…police are stumped for an answer. Our correspondent Juliet Miles is on location:”
“Police in the small town of Perryville, Kentucky have, this morning, found another desecrated grave. This is now the 426th grave to be opened over six states in the last four weeks. Police at this time have no witnesses or suspects, but are thinking the bodies may be being sold on the black market. Detective Louis Matthews is here with me. Detective, why do you think these bodies are being sold?”
“At the moment we have no idea. We can only assume there are some sick people about.”
“Have you found any patterns to connect these crimes?”
“Up to now there has been no preference on gender or age, although none of the victims has been over the age of forty, and the youngest up to now was just seventeen. Males and females have been taken, all races and backgrounds.”
“Have you found any evidence to suggest who might be responsible?”
“So far I’m sad to say we have nothing solid. There have been no footprints found around any of the graves, no tools have been found, and there are no witnesses. The only thing found at each of the scenes is traces of sulfur…”
“Sulfur!” I said.
“Demons – is that what you’re thinking?” Danny asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“I’m not,” Lily said. “I want to know how the TV turned itself on.”
“So do I,” Jake said.
“Keira?” Lily said, looking around the room. “Are you there?”
Danny’s phone started to ring so he excused himself for a moment.
“Do you think she’s trying to tell us something,” she asked me. “Maybe she’s trying to warn us.”
All of us looked around the room for a few minutes in silence.
“Sorry, Lily,” Danny said, walking back into the room. “That was my dad. He made the TV come on as soon as he saw the story. He thought it might have something to do with what’s going on.”
“Oh,” she said sadly.
“What are they doing with the bodies?” Tyler asked.
Then it dawned on me.
“How does making an army sound?” I said.
“Zombies?” Tyler asked, frowning.
“No, all the bodies are fresh according to that detective. What if they can possess the bodies?”
“You’re right. What about that guy that came here. He had an army with him – it might be him,” Jake suggested.
“Yeah, but they weren’t all human, were they? And there were thousands of them, not just a few hundred. And besides he was here to protect Keira, not to attack her.”
“Yeah, good point.”
“I think everyone should stay here until this is over. That way everyone’s together no matter when they decide to attack,” Lily added.
“I agree,” I told her.
So did everyone else.
That afternoon we all packed a few clothes and necessities and took them to the house. Luckily for us some of the guest rooms were set up. Jake had finished them a couple of days ago just in case we all needed to stay. In any case, it had kept his mind and body busy. Our parents agreed with our plans and just asked that when the time came we should call our fathers. They wanted to fight with us. We were all glad to have their support – I mean four guys against an army! The odds of us winning were slim at best. At least if we had four more on our side, we might be able to take a few more of them out before we died.
Late one night I was sitting in the kitchen having coffee, when Lily walked in.
“Hey,” she said, “Can’t you sleep?”
“I don’t sleep very well these days,” I told her.
“Ne
ither do I.” She made herself a drink and came and sat down next to me. “Have you spoken to Tyler?”
“Not really. I don’t know what to say to him.”
“I think he’s hurt – I mean physically.”
“Why?”
“I was watching him before. He keeps reaching over his shoulder rubbing something.”
“I’ll ask him tomorrow,” I told her.
“Ask who what?” Tyler asked, walking into the room.
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” I asked him.
“None of your business!” He replied coldly.
“Tyler, we only want to know you’re ok,” Lily said softly.
“I’m fine!”
“So why do you look like you’re in pain?”
“Just leave it, Lily,” he told her.
“Don’t be like that with her. She’s only asking because she cares,” I told him sternly.
He looked at her for a moment and his expression softened. He took his shirt off and turned his back on us.
“Wow!” Lily and I walked over to get a better look.
“So that’s what you’ve been going to do in the afternoon?” I exclaimed.
He had a large tattoo on his back, completely covering his left shoulder blade. It was of a gothic angel, with long black hair, green eyes, and purple-and-crimson wings. It was absolutely beautiful and, although he had had her name tattooed underneath the picture, we already knew it was Keira. It was amazing how much it looked like her.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily said tearfully, as she ran her fingers over it. “She’d love it.”
“It looks so much like her,” I told him.
“I know. The guy I went to is a fantastic artist.”
“Tyler, are you coping ok?” Lily asked him.
“I think it might get easier now that I have this. I know that might sound stupid, but I feel like she’s with me.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I assured him.
Chapter 26
Lucian’s Story – Gathering