The Nightmare Girl Read online

  He couldn’t think about it.

  Joe parked at the far eastern edge, just a few feet from the encroaching forest, in a dale low enough to prevent anyone at the ceremony from spotting him. Hell, even if someone did wander from the tent, Joe was a good hundred yards away. It’d take some very bad luck to be discovered down here in the oldest part of the cemetery.

  A cynical voice in his head muttered, Kinda like the bad luck you had pulling into the gas station that day?

  Ignore it, Joe, another voice spoke up. It was the voice of his dad, his poor, ineffectual dad who killed himself when Joe was away at college. Left by a cheating wife, plagued by bad luck in his business dealings, his father had shot himself in the temple with a Colt Mustang.

  Joe’s mom had decided to drop this particular bomb on him when he was away at college, during a time when Joe didn’t have a girlfriend or any friends he particularly trusted. So he ended up dealing with it on his own, which was to say he cried about it a great deal and had endless nightmares about it. Until he learned to suppress it, which was what he’d done with traumatic events ever since.

  The news of his mother’s terminal breast cancer when he was twenty-three.

  His mother’s slow, awful death.

  The morning Michelle suffered a miscarriage, only six weeks away from her due date. And now their little boy’s remains were storied in the columbarium he’d just passed. He knew he should visit it more often, knew he should honor the memory of his son…but the pain was so deep, the images of Michelle on the bathroom floor, bleeding and wailing, were so soul shattering, that he’d buried the memory of it, entombed it in his mind.

  But now he’d dredged it up, the sorrow and the rage and the hopelessness. The memory took him unawares, made him instantly short of breath and panic-stricken with claustrophobia. Scrabbling for the door handle, Joe gasped for breath until he stumbled clumsily out of the pickup and damn near blacked out from lack of oxygen.

  Joe bent, hands on knees, as a maniacal carousel of images twirled through his mind: Angie Waltz grinning at him from her van, her face charred and lipless; his mother’s yellowing face buried under a mound of morphine and strapped inside a fogged breathing mask; his father’s closed casket, Joe’s younger self staring at the cheap wooden exterior, imagining his dad’s obliterated head within; Sharon Waltz’s bared teeth in the gas station; blood gushing from Michelle’s vagina as she sobbed on the bathroom floor; Angie that day in the Hawkinses’ back yard, oozing malice and sexuality in equal measure; and finally, inexplicably, his own house on fire with Lily dozing innocently in her crib.

  His breath came in great, sucking heaves, but soon the gray fog in his mind dissipated. Standing erect again, he inhaled another robust breath and surveyed the area around him. Downhill from where his truck sat in the weedy lane, there was perhaps an acre of grass and dandelions before the forest began. Though it was only April, many of the trees were beginning to bud, a trio of scattered magnolias starting to bloom. Another day or two and their pink blossoms would interrupt the brownness of the forest. Another couple weeks and the whole thing would be a riot of colors, green and pink and violet and yellow. Joe might return here then, he thought, not to visit Angie’s grave—in fact, he was still unsure why he was here at all—but to read a book maybe. During one of Lily’s naps. Michelle often lay with their daughter to coax her into sleep. And though Michelle spoke of their slumbering afternoons as a nuisance, Joe suspected his wife liked to nap with Lily as much as Lily enjoyed nestling under the comforter with Michelle.

  Joe was thinking this when he became aware of mufflers rumbling, several cars apparently entering the graveyard at its western edge.

  He pushed to his feet, rounded the truck, and pelted up the hill. The blue tent and its array of folding black chairs came into view. There were already a few older people seated there, their swirling white, gray, and bald heads reminding him of gooseberry marbles some child had arranged in an uneven line.

  Joe frowned, thinking of the jar of marbles Michelle had insisted on placing on the shelf in the dining room. Twice they’d quarreled about the safety of letting Lily play with them. Michelle’s argument was always about how much Lily loved the marbles, both the rolling of them along the wood floors and the smooth texture of them in her pink little hands. Joe had never disputed this, but he still cringed every time Michelle got them out because they were choking hazards. Yeah, they were pretty. Yeah, they were pleasing to the touch. But he couldn’t wrest the image from his mind of little Lily swallowing one and getting it lodged in her throat, the soft pink flesh there closing over it like a giant pearl. The girl’s face turning a gloomy plum color. Her airway closing off…

  Joe shook his head, realizing he’d lost his breath again. He forced air into his lungs, though it cost him an effort. It felt as though some giant weight had been placed atop his chest. He felt like getting the hell out of this boneyard, but escape was now out of the question. All lanes led to a central paved thoroughfare, which meant Joe would pass within fifty yards or so of the gravesite. And anyway, the lane was now clogged with cars, each of them sporting a little orange flag indicating their inclusion in the funeral procession. Joe was stuck.

  Joe glanced back at the forest, considered exploring for a while, the way he used to when he was a kid. They’d lived adjacent to a woods similar to this. Back then, Joe’s dad used to take him exploring all the time. They’d slather themselves in insect repellent, take a bottle of water along, and spend hours on the paths. They’d both been prone to poison ivy rashes, and Joe’s mother had often berated them for venturing into infested areas. But the itching and the discomfort and the endless applications of calamine lotion had been worth it just to have his dad to himself. Had Joe known his father would take his own life so soon after Joe went away to college, he would’ve gone walking in the woods with him every damned day.

  The tears caught him off guard. He wiped his cheeks jerkily, amazed at his emotional volatility.

  Joe clamped down on his emotions, turned and headed resolutely up the rise. He didn’t need to brood about something that happened more than two decades ago; he needed to get a better view. Sure, it was probably a meaningless gesture coming here today. But at least he’d know he’d come.

  On the opposite side of the lane the graves began. Most of the markers were very old and very small. Crosses made from some white stone grown mossy and crooked from half a century or more of neglect. Low rectangular blocks so eroded by time and the elements that the inscriptions were scarcely legible. Joe took his time, scanning the dates and names as well as he could, and taking care to walk between the stones rather than treading on ground that had once been turned and reseeded after ceremonies just like the one occurring now.

  Joe looked up and was surprised to note how swiftly he’d halved the distance between the truck and the blue tent. What was more, Joe realized he could now make out the faint murmur of a man he assumed to be the attending pastor. There’d come a couple lines in the man’s deep bass voice—passages of scripture, Joe assumed—then there’d be an answering line from the crowd. Their backs were to Joe, so he remained fairly confident he could venture closer without being spotted, but it wouldn’t hurt to exercise caution. He seriously doubted they’d form the lynch mob his imagination had conjured, but if he could avoid a scene of any kind, he would. The preacher wore a sable frock that was curiously open at the throat, but aside from this, the man looked like Joe supposed a preacher should—short, thinning brown hair combed over to one side, spectacles. Joe pegged him for about fifty-five.

  Perhaps fifty yards away now, Joe stooped lower and moved with as much stealth as he could. He supposed he’d look ridiculous if someone noticed him tiptoeing through a cemetery in the middle of the day, but he didn’t plan on being discovered. Thirty yards away now, Joe took refuge behind a marble angel mounted atop a four-foot tall marble base. Since the epitaph was chiseled into the oppo
site side of the monument, he had no idea behind whose gravestone he’d hunkered, but Joe was grateful the unknown deceased’s family had gone to such opulent lengths to bury their loved one. Aside from this monument, there wasn’t a single stone big enough to conceal Joe’s broad frame.

  As he bent lower, both his knees went off like pistol shots. Joe winced and shook his head ruefully. He considered himself physically fit for being on the wrong side of forty, but it was as though his body liked to periodically remind him that he was indeed aging. Ignoring the damp grass beneath him, Joe rested on his knees and leaned against the marble base so he could better hear the ceremony.

  He frowned. The preacher’s resonant voice reached him easily despite the space between them, yet the words sounded like nonsense. Joe craned his head forward to better hear and realized after a moment the man was speaking Latin. Or at least it sounded like Latin. Joe had never studied the language in school, but he’d come across enough of it in his many years of reading to pick out a few words.

  The preacher’s voice rose.

  “Invidia,” Joe heard him say. “Ulciscor…spiritus…”

  Joe’s frown deepened.

  The preacher plowed on, his voice strengthening, the words taking on a sinister timbre.

  This didn’t sound like any kind of sermon Joe had ever heard before. He and his little family attended the Lutheran church a couple miles from where they lived, and though he didn’t agree with everything said there, Joe reckoned he and Jesus understood each other pretty well. His only really negative experience had begun at a potluck lunch at which he and Pastor Walker had disagreed about Jesus and the Savior’s views of homosexuals. Walker had claimed that Jesus would’ve condemned the gays to hell and proceeded to rail on about Sodom and Gomorrah and anal sex. Joe had pointed out that Jesus’s anger was often directed at hypocrites—folks who made money off of worshippers, for example—but that had gone over like a lead balloon. The next week, Pastor Walker had recapitulated the same talking points in a sermon Joe was sure had been directed at him and his pagan views.

  But even though the experience had soured Joe on Pastor Walker, he’d kept attending the Lutheran church. With Michelle’s constant urging, Joe even managed to stay awake during Walker’s sermons.

  Yet in all the times he’d heard the man speak, Joe had never heard Pastor Walker reciting Latin.

  “Instruo…” the man’s deep voice said. “Filia…”

  So the preacher’s a priest, Joe’s mind argued. Why can’t the Waltzes be Catholic?

  If this is a Catholic ceremony, Joe shot back, where’s the man’s white collar? Why isn’t there a cross anywhere?

  You’re a goodly distance away, Joe. Maybe you just haven’t spotted it yet.

  Not the slightest bit reassured, Joe edged out from behind the marble block to better hear.

  “Mortuus…veritas…ignis…”

  Not only was the man’s voice booming now, he was gesticulating wildly and pacing from one side of the casket to the other. The onlookers were nodding and muttering their approval. Joe made out the words “That’s right,” “Amen,” and what he thought was a “Hell, yeah.”

  His disquiet grew.

  The preacher, priest, whatever the hell he was, abruptly broke into English. “And those who would destroy the Chosen are everywhere, Brothers and Sisters. They conspired to bring down dear Angela, and they succeeded.” He paused, stopping and surveying them slyly. “Or at least they believe they did.”

  Blaring shouts of approbation at this. Joe had a strong urge to hide himself again, but the preacher’s voice held him spellbound.

  “So we say goodbye to Angela today, but in doing so, we herald the coming of a glorious new age. A time of renewal. Brothers and Sisters, the heretics will not defeat us!” At which the preacher swept his arms over the group, the small man seeming to swell in stature, his voice reaching Klaxonlike power.

  His eyes fastened on Joe. “They’re out there, Brothers and Sisters! The reprobates, the conspirators! They are the ones who’ve taken dear Angela from us!”

  Joe sucked in breath and lurched behind the monument. The preacher had seen him, of that he was certain. And in the moment before Joe reached cover, he was sure he’d seen other faces swivel around to discover him there, as well. Joe closed his eyes, but he could still make out their faces. A tall, cadaverous man with a brown crew cut and numerous facial scars. His opposite, a plump, pasty-faced man with sallow-hued skin and sagging jowls. A younger couple dressed far more affluently than the others. A biker with ropy muscles and greenish blue tattoos festooning his arms. A deeply tanned bald man whose arms looked far bigger than the biker’s, the bald guy’s black jacket bulging so much it appeared ready to split.

  And Sharon Waltz.

  At least Joe thought it had been Sharon. She looked so different in the long black dress, black hat, and veil that he couldn’t be completely sure. But the facial structure had been the same, as had been the peroxide blond hair peeking out from beneath the little hat. Yet instead of the snarling, unreasoning hatred he associated with Sharon Waltz, her expression today held none of the emotion it had at the gas station. This woman—what he’d glimpsed of her—had looked glazed, lifeless. A worn-out husk of a woman. Not someone rearing for a fight.

  Joe listened, acutely aware of the silence pervading the cemetery. Were the onlookers, even now, stealing toward him, preparing to snatch him up and exact some sort of humiliating punishment on him? Or worse? Would they stuff him into the open grave and lower Angie’s coffin down on top of him?

  And why, he wondered, did Angie even need a coffin? How much of her could conceivably be left after burning herself alive?

  Joe fought off the image. Even more, he fought off the urge to run.

  Just stay hidden. This is a funeral, not some kind of satanic rally. They’re no more going to come for you than Angie Waltz is going to climb out of her casket and do a pole dance on one of the tent supports.

  Joe fought off an insane urge to laugh. There was still no sound from the tent. Not a Latin incantation, not a single “Hell yeah.”

  Joe held his breath, listened.

  Finally, the bass voice murmured, “Let us bow our heads.”

  Joe waited until the prayer began before setting off for his truck. He only looked back a couple times, and each time he did he only saw the backs of heads, both the old and the young paying tribute to Angie, and presumably, praying for her soul.

  Good luck with that, he thought.

  When he reached the Tundra and climbed in, he remembered why he’d come in the first place.

  Joe bowed his head and said, “God, please help Little Stevie to have a good life. Please forgive Angie and Sharon for anything they’ve done.” He pulled out his phone, thinking to check his email, but before he powered it on, he paused.

  “And God,” he added, “please forgive me for any mistakes I’ve made too.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Joe heard the engines on the western side of the cemetery fire up, the mourners gradually driving away.

  While Joe waited, he ran through some of the words he remembered.

  Veritas. That meant truth.

  Mortuus. Something to do with death.

  Spiritus. Spirit maybe? Or did than mean to breathe?

  There was another one he recollected but couldn’t immediately place.

  Ignis. What was that one? Ignorance? Indignant, maybe? Anger?

  Joe typed it into his phone, and moments later the translation came up.

  Fire.

  “Well, that’s certainly fitting,” he muttered.

  It was after one o’clock. Michelle would be wondering about him. He missed Lily.

  Without further delay, Joe started the Tundra and drove slowly up the weedy cemetery path.

  Chapter Seven

  “You did what?” Darrell Copelan
d demanded.

  Joe sipped his beer. “I went to Angie’s funeral.”

  “Now why the hell would you go and do something like that? And don’t tell me it’s because your conscience was bothering you.”

  Joe glowered at him across the table at Easter’s Tavern. “Doesn’t yours? The girl committed suicide, for God’s sakes.”

  Copeland motioned to the waitress to bring him another beer. “It ain’t my fault she decided to barbecue herself.”

  Joe almost choked on his beer. “Can we maybe find a nicer way to say it?”

  “You’re too sensitive,” Copeland said. “How the hell’d you get to be a contractor? I thought those guys’d sell their own mothers to make money.”

  Joe sat back, draped an arm over the seat. “Michelle says that too. I’m not aggressive enough. That I lack a killer instinct.”

  Copeland took a swig of beer, wiped foam from his upper lip. “You sure were aggressive that day at the Marathon station.”

  Joe winced. “I wish things could’ve gone a different way.”

  Copeland tilted his head. “Meaning what?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just feel bad.”

  Copeland pushed his glass aside, leaned forward. “You listen, Joe. There wasn’t any other way things could’ve gone. You either let that little boy get the shit beaten out of him like everybody else did, or you intervene. By my estimation, you did the only sensible thing you could.”

  Joe looked at Copeland and felt a lump in the base of his throat. “Thanks,” he said.

  Copeland scowled at him. “Now don’t get all mushy on me. We ain’t gonna hug each other and share a heartwarming moment or anything, so don’t you dare come over here to cuddle with me.”

  “That’s just wishful thinking on your part.”

  Copeland chuckled softly, accepted the new mug of beer. “So no one saw you at the funeral. That’s good, I guess. If they had, I’d have had to come down there for crowd control, make sure you didn’t get drawn and quartered.”