2. Mercy
Mercy
Every college across the country has its traditions.
For some, it means passing under an archway only once you’ve graduated.
For others, it might be petting the “Good Boy” statue of a golden retriever on your way to class each morning.
But Harlin Heights Community College, although steeped in surface-level traditions centered around passing classes or earning your diploma, has a layer of tradition hidden underneath the rest that the locals keep alive.
One such tradition involves the Harlots’ up-and-coming hopefuls, pledges trying to earn their letters through promiscuous acts scattered across campus during the entire twenty-four-hour stretch on Halloween.
Professors cancel their classes.
The library remains closed.
RAs turn a blind eye to the comings-and-goings of their dorm residents so long as no one burns down the building or breaks the toilets.
The boldest individuals have sex in common areas, seeking their pleasure in shadowed lecture halls or on the sofas in the Student Union.
But the bravest of all wait until nightfall to seek out the one revered as a sex god among men—a man who paints his entire body in sharp blacks and crisp whites to embody a skeletal appearance and fuck those he deems worthy of his massive bone .
It’s a tradition I have zero interest in pursuing.
I have my own to fulfill.
Dragging a duffel bag to the cemetery in the middle of the night isn’t new for me.
In fact, when I’m through with my studies for the week, I often find myself sketching beneath a willow’s flowing branches, out of sight from the wandering souls seeking their departed loved ones.
It’s quieter in the cemetery than elsewhere on campus, and I use the silence to my advantage.
Tonight, however, laughter spills among the tombstones as students try to spook each other or take gothic selfies to share on their dating profiles.
Most people stay towards the gate nearest campus, but there are a half dozen of them scattered around the property.
They aren’t locked half the time, so anyone can wander past the wrought-iron hinges to step onto hallowed ground.
I make my way down a familiar stone path and avoid confrontation with couples discreetly fucking on someone’s grave.
They probably don’t even know a single soul buried here—probably don’t care—and won’t bother to learn their names.
But I know these families. I’ve seen their names in the records of the town’s deceased, dating back centuries to a time when Harlin Heights was an oceanside town whose homes were built from tabby and washed away by summer storms. Although this cemetery is inland, you can still find traces of the ocean etched into the stone or splayed out across the paths as either sand or palm fronds gust by, carried here by the wind.
Most prominent families’ graves are housed inside mausoleums two or three bodies deep, their structures expanded with each new generation of the deceased.
The Morningstar mausoleum is a smaller building set off from the center of the cemetery.
My great-grandmother petitioned to have it moved onto our family land on account of how many dead we house beneath our soil, but the city never granted permission, and the petition was dropped.
So while my family keeps the hundred or so graves buried behind the Morningstar Mortuary company, I visit the ones resting beside my college campus.
On Samhain, the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. I like to think that the dead appreciate drinking wine and eating cakes and crackers as much as they did while alive, so I come here when they have the greatest chance to enjoy having company.
That’s the only time I allow myself to sing—when only the dead can hear me.
I don’t notice a living soul approaching until it’s too late.
Preoccupied with slicing cheeses and pouring a glass of wine, I sing a breathy lullaby my mother taught me, unaware that the infamous sex god Reaper is passing by that very moment.
It’s only when I hear a voice mutter the word Siren —a pleading tremor in the shape of a single word—that I peer out the window.
Moonlight illuminates the bones painted on his skin, each one shaded with technical precision. As he spins around, I catch the shifting muscles across his back and gasp at the sheer magnitude of him.
I’ve heard that Reaper is a god, but I never expected him to actually look like one.
Dressed in black cargo pants and matching combat boots, he hovers on the cobbled path and scans his surroundings in search of something. “Are you alone? I’m alone, too.”
Who is he talking to? I look out across the yard to try and find another person, a new victim for his late-night boning, but I don’t see anyone. My heart gives an unsteady beat. There’s no way that he’s talking to?—
“You have a beautiful singing voice.”
Me.
Shit.
I quickly pinch the wick of my taper candle, extinguishing its flame, and hold my breath.
But it’s too late—somehow, he’s pinpointed my location, because he’s looking directly at me.
The last thing I want is a confrontation with a sexed-up fiend prowling the night.
A security guard telling me not to bring food into the cemetery, sure, I can handle that.
But this ?
A slow grin curves on his lips as he slinks closer, the sheen of sweat clinging to his neck shining in the moonlight.
Handprints and smudges on his neck and shoulders transform him from skeleton back into man, or at least into a hybrid creature that’s at once both dead and alive.
The spark of fire in his eyes as he moves closer sends shivers down my spine.
I crawl across the cool tile floor to make my escape out the broken window in the back corner of the mausoleum.
Shards of glass crunch under my feet, making me even more nervous, but if I turn around and run through the front door, Reaper will catch me.
He might think playing hide and seek is a fun type of foreplay, but I’m not interested in playing games.
I need to get out of here before he sees me.
I hoist myself through the window as carefully as I can, but my caution isn’t enough.
A shard of glass slices my forearm and drips blood onto my leggings.
I land on the ground hard, but I don’t have a second to catch my breath.
Scurrying behind the next row of graves, I make myself as small as possible as I check my injury.
It’s deep, but hopefully it won’t need stitches. I should have a hand towel in my bag. I can wrap up— shit. My bag. Peering around the tombstone, I catch a glimpse of Reaper staring at the broken windowsill before turning back around. I left my bag behind. He’s going to find it any second now.
I stew in silence and consider my options.
Depending on the kind of man he is, he’ll either be disinterested in my ritual and walk out or he’ll be curious enough to poke around.
My hands shake as I picture him rummaging through my bag and finding my mother’s ashes tucked inside her scarf.
I know that I shouldn’t take them out of the house, but I hate seeing her stuck on a shelf all day.
Dad will dust around her and sing songs with every sunrise, but I know that she wouldn’t be happy seeing him mourn like this.
At least when I take her out to the cemetery, she can spend time with the rest of our family.
I’m not sure why Dad decided to cremate her instead of bury her with our ancestors.
I haven’t asked. Grandma Star says that he’s lonely without her near—but if we believe what Mom told us before she got sick, she isn’t really locked inside that box.
She’s in the air. The breeze blowing through the trees.
The morning dew wetting every blade of grass or soft flower petal in spring. Each ray of sunlight kissing our faces.
I guess that means I shouldn’t bother taking her ashes out of the house, either, but… it makes her feel closer.
Sighing, I clutch my forearm to stop the bleeding and watch for Reaper to leave the mausoleum.
Minutes pass. Ten. Twenty. Another man appears, this one’s lips pinched in a tight scowl, and enters the same way Reaper had, without an ounce of hesitation.
I’d recognize him if he worked here, so he must be another college student.
An upperclassman? Graduate student? If the rumors are true, Reaper didn’t bother graduating with his class, but he hangs around all the same.
Picking up girls with pretty smiles, flirting with jocks on their way back from practice, keeping an eye on the study body like it’s his job to keep a head count.
Another rumor puts him as a staff member, but no one on staff should fuck with students for the hell of it. I don’t know what his game is, and frankly, I don’t care.
I just need to get my mother’s ashes back.
A few more minutes pass before the stranger leaves, then Reaper follows, slipping his hands into his pockets as he quickly scans his surroundings. If he’s looking for me, he won’t find me. I have zero interest in an introduction.
Once they’re far enough away, I quickly rush back into the mausoleum to grab my belongings.
My mother’s urn is resting on top of the scarf I wrapped her inside, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I run my hands over the box’s smooth surface, its lock still in place.
Everything looks untouched, more or less.
Did he leave my things alone, or will I open my bag to find a dead rat stuffed inside?
My anxiety finally relaxes, and I wrap up the food and return everything to my bag. All I need is my student ID to drop off my things inside my locker?—