CHAPTER 17 FATES WORSE THAN DEATH
FATES WORSE THAN DEATH
The book from my nightmare comes into existence right before my eyes in a hazy green light.
Mom puts her hand on my arm as she stares in disbelief.
Her gaze moves to my face and then back to the book.
She leans forward and tries to pull the book out.
The bones of Grandpa Redwood’s hand shift and several fingers fall off and roll into the interior of the coffin.
“Oh shit,” I whisper.
Mom clenches her teeth and grasps the book firmly.
“Sorry, Clarence.” She yanks the book up and what’s left of Grandpa Redwood’s arms collapse within the tattered sleeves of his suit.
Mom steps away from the casket with the book clutched to her chest. It blinks in and out of existence, still holding its shape but losing the details the farther away from me it gets.
“Can we close the coffin now?” Noah asks. “Please.”
I quickly push the lid down and latch it. Noah’s posture relaxes a little as he comes over and peers down at the book my mom is holding.
The strange feeling in my hands intensifies as I touch my mom’s shoulder. Her arm spasms and her hand clenches into a tight fist. I pull my own hand back.
“What the hell?” my mom asks as she stares at her arm.
Suddenly, there’s a loud pop in my ears followed by a low hum, like somebody had snapped on a breaker and sent electricity buzzing through the mausoleum. My head feels like it’s vibrating and then, strange symbols on the front of the book begin to take shape.
I touch the front cover and a bolt of energy shoots through my fingertips and up my arm. I snatch my hand back, clutching it to my chest.
“Meka?” Noah asks. He grabs my hand and examines it but there’s nothing there.
My mom looks down at the book and then to me. “What do you see, Meka?” she asks.
“You—you can’t see it?” I ask.
“I can see the book,” mom says. “Barely. It’s like it’s made of glass. And it’s glowing but that’s all. Are there pages? A cover?”
I look to my mom and then Noah. “It’s leatherbound. There are markings—looks like writing on the front.”
Mom shakes her head. “And when you touched it, you felt something.” It’s not a question really, more like a statement she knows is true.
“What is going on? What is this?” I look at my hands again as the feeling pushes through me. “What are you not telling me?”
My mom holds the book in front of her, squinting like she can’t make out its proportions. Her hands move across the cover. “I didn’t know if you were like them.”
“Who’s them ?” I ask.
“Your dad and Grandpa Redwood,” Mom says. “And your Great-Grandma Redwood, and her mother before her. Back and back and back. They all had the gift but I—I don’t know. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to bear it. I’ve seen what it’s done to your dad, to his father . . .”
The book glows so bright it hurts my eyes but Mom and Noah don’t seem to be as affected by it as I am.
“They were all reanimators,” Mom says. “And you are, too.”
She puts the book in my hands and before I can push it away, the jolt rockets through me again.
I grip the book as the feeling surges through me.
My heart races as my entire body vibrates.
The book’s front cover flies open. On the title page, a name written in smudged burgundy ink reads Johann Konrad Dippel.
The pages turn on their own. There are strange symbols and words I don’t recognize, diagrams of bodies flayed open, and other horrific images.
As the last pages cycle through, names appear in the same burgundy ink—the first ones, Marilyn Leighton, William Burke, Franklin Cabot, are barely legible.
Dozens of names follow and the dates scrawled next to them go back as far as two hundred years.
On the last page, two names I recognize appear.
Kassie Redwood and Noah Cliff.
Under their names is a small drawing, no bigger than a stamp, that looks like a raven.
A rumbling noise suddenly fills the confined space inside the mausoleum. I try to home in on where it’s coming from.
The sound is coming from the vaults.
The coffins inside them are rattling like their occupants are trying to get out.
The hum of electricity crashes through my body. A loud crack echoes through the mausoleum. Grandpa Redwood’s mortal remains clatter around in his coffin. There’s a terrible pounding in my head.
“Close the book!” Noah shouts. “Close it!
My mom steps toward me with her hands outstretched.
The green glow emanating from the book is so bright I want to cover my eyes.
I slam the book shut and try to focus but my vision is dancing with green spots as I try to readjust to the dark.
Suddenly, my mom disappears from in front of me.
The clanging from the vaults ceases but now there are other noises.
Noah grunts, like the air has been knocked out of him. I turn toward him and realize some strange man has him in a headlock.
“Noah!” I shout.
Something impacts the side of my face. Pain rockets through my jaw and down the side of my neck.
I stumble to the side, catching myself on the wall.
For a moment, I can’t see anything. Pain blooms over my eye and the sensation of warm liquid running down my face and into my eye and mouth makes me gasp.
I press my hand to my head, and it comes away bloody.
“Get it!” a man shouts.
“I can’t see it!” another voice responds.
As my senses slowly come back to me, I see that two men have entered the mausoleum.
Noah has managed to get free from the one taller guy with the black hair, but he’s now menacing Noah with a long, curved blade.
The shorter guy—the same blond guy from the movies and who broke into our house—is struggling with my mom over a handgun. Everything suddenly comes into focus.
I wipe the blood out of my eye and rush the shorter guy, slamming my full body weight against him.
He tumbles forward, head over feet, and lands in an awkward heap by Grandpa Redwood’s coffin.
The gun skitters across the floor and my mom lunges for it.
The guy scrambles after her on all fours and I deliver a kick to his ribs.
There’s a loud crack and for a second, I think my foot has gotten tangled in his coat but as I try to shake it free, I realize my sneaker is in this guy’s rib cage.
I scream and kick at him again, freeing myself. Mom grabs the gun and swings it around.
“Meka, move!” she shouts. I stand behind her as she aims the pistol at the taller guy. “Drop the knife! Now!”
The taller man quickly darts behind Noah and holds the knife to his neck.
“Don’t!” I scream.
“Get the book!” the taller man shouts.
I realize I’m not holding the strange book anymore and when I spot it again, it’s in the hands of the shorter man, who smiles when he sees me staring at it.
“It’s here!” he shouts. “She sees it!”
He rushes out of the mausoleum with the book. I step toward the entrance but the man holding Noah hostage presses his knife closer to Noah’s throat.
“Let him go!” I shout.
The man glances toward the entrance. I can hear the rev of an engine outside.
“Put the gun down and I’ll let him go,” says the man holding Noah hostage. “All we want is the book. We have it now. No need for this to go any further.”
“You can’t hurt him anyway,” my mom says. “Think about what you’re doing.”
I smile in spite of our terrible circumstances. The guy is holding Noah at knifepoint but Noah can’t be killed. He’s technically already dead. He doesn’t even feel pain. I wait for the man to realize what a stupid situation he’s put himself in but his expression doesn’t change.
“I can’t kill him but I can make existing impossible for him,” says the man. “You can patch up flesh wounds but what happens if I cut off his head?”
I’m not smiling anymore. A cold shiver rushes through me. My mom slowly bends and puts the gun on the ground.
“There,” she says. “Let him go.”
The man takes the blade away from Noah’s neck but as Noah steps toward me, reaching for me, the tall man brings the blade up and then back down in one quick motion. There’s a quiet thud as Noah’s dismembered hand falls to the floor.