Chapter 6

Heather stood just a few feet from the Sovert family car, staring back towards the church. As usual, her mother lingered with the Reverend at the top of the steps. She could see the undulating tendrils of Darkness around the both of them, but took little notice. Her eyes were unfocused, as if looking off into some great distance.

"Hey, bubblehead."

Heather blinked, surprised not so much by the address as the softer tone of voice. "Huh?"

Melinda's lips twitched into a small smile. "Thanks for not messing with me for once in church."

"Oh. Um, yeah, that's fine, runt," Heather replied. Her attempt to inject some expected sarcasm into her voice failed. "I don't want you today anyway."

Melinda smirked. "Yeah, I know, you want to go boink Diane."

A ghost of a smile brushed Heather's lips. Thoughts of Diane made her pussy warm and damp through the Mass, and helped her avoid the temptation of toying with Melinda's libido.

"Something wrong?" Melinda prompted when Heather did not speak. She turned her head towards the church and wrinkled her nose. "Did you see something with them that I didn't?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm not even thinking about them."

"I don't want to either. Shit, even the freaking minister. You can bet Mom had something to do with that."

"I'd rather not speculate on that."

"And even when Dad comes with us to church, he doesn't complain anymore about how long Mom yammers with the Reverend," Melinda said. "Mom probably did that, too. She's trying to control everyone in the family!"

"Stop exaggerating, runt."

"I'm not! Look what she did to me when all you guys were off trying to stop Melissa!"

Heather shivered. "Believe me, you didn't want to be there."

"And when were you appointed my babysitter?"

Heather sighed and gave her a meaningful look. "Remember what I told you?"

"That we're on the same side," she said in a softer tone. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to take it out on you, okay? I'm just frustrated with everything."

Heather lay her hand on her sister's shoulder. The temptation welled up inside her anew. Play with Melinda's lust. Make her pussy wet. Have her come along and join in the fun.

Heather clenched her teeth and pushed these thoughts aside, though now her pussy ached. Her voice was strained but steady. "I know. All right, if you really want to know what's bothering me, I started having a vision again."

Melinda's eyes widened. "About you? About Halloween?"

Heather shook her head. "No, nothing like that. It was about the Book."

"What about it?"

"I don't have enough of it yet to tell you. It got a little more clear after yesterday, when we all fucked. I could see someone carrying the Book into someplace I didn't recognize. It was kind of hard to see."

"Which one of us was carrying it?"

"That's the problem, Melinda. I don't think it was any of us."

"What? You mean, someone stole the Book?!"

Heather frowned. "Keep your voice down. Don't panic, okay? It's not like it's happened already."

"You better tell Jason about this!"

"I will at the meeting later. I don't think there's any immediate danger. But this is the strongest vision I've ever had. It almost seemed real, like I was actually there."

"Oh no!" Melinda piped. "Maybe you were there! Or will be, I mean. Someone controls you into taking the Book from Jason and..."

Heather rolled her eyes. "Stop reading more into it than I've told you. Anyway, you know as well as I do that Jason is not letting anyone else near that Book. He's refused all my requests to let me see it again."

Melinda snorted. "Yeah, until you use your seduction or whatever on him and get it that way."

"Look, runt, whatever I'm doing with this thing, it's only for sex and nothing else. I never had any desire to ask anything else of anyone."

"Asking for the sex is bad enough." Melinda frowned when Heather gave her a look again. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Same side. I'm trying, Heather. I'm not really mad at you, just the situation. I never wanted to deal with this shit. I just want things to go back to normal."

Melinda knew that neither one of them really wanted that. Normal meant they would never have encountered the House at the end of the street; Melinda would never have found Jason as a boyfriend; Diane would never have come out of the closet; Heather would never have stopped being so mean to Melinda; Ned would never have found Cassie.

And the Darkness would have still lurked, plotting its takeover of the town. Then normal would mean slavery when it succeeded.

Their mother started towards them. "Let's get in the car, runt," Heather muttered. She jogged around the other side of the car before Melinda could respond.

"So very kind of you, Sandra, to come pay your respects with me as well."

Sandra grunted in reply as she drove the car down Green Avenue. In the back seat, Richie frowned at the shrill voice of his Aunt Marilyn and leaned his head against his hand, elbow propped at the bottom edge of the window.

"It is so hard to do this alone," Marilyn said. She lifted a gloved hand to her thin face and uttered a sigh in obvious dramatic fashion. "He was such a good man, my Martin. So terrible that he was cut down in his prime."

Richie rolled his eyes. He hoped he did not have to endure her prattle the whole trip, screeched in a voice like an unoiled hinge. Bad enough that they had to visit this woman's house once a year -- or as Richie called it, the Lair -- just to prove they could be sociable. This time she had insisted Sandra take her to her yearly visit to her husband's grave.

Marilyn turned to Sandra, no more substantial than a silhouette in her black clothing and veil. Her beaked nose and thin, crooked neck gave her the appearance of a large bird of prey. Richie wrinkled his nose as some of her cheap perfume poisoned the air. "Looks like a vulture and smells almost as bad as one" was how Richie had always described her.

She lay a hand against Sandra's shoulder. "At least you've never had to go through this, Sandra, dear. At least you know your Mike is still alive somewhere."

Sandra's hands squeezed the steering wheel. "Marilyn, I really wish you'd..." she began to retort.

"Wish I would what, dear?" asked Marilyn.

Sandra heaved a sigh, and her shoulders slumped. "Never mind."

Richie folded his arms, if for no other reason than to prevent himself from strangling his aunt. He wanted to demand where she got off making comments like that about his Dad. That his mother sounded at least half as annoyed with his aunt as he did allow him some solace.

Not that he would be enamored of this trip anyway without his aunt. Cemeteries gave him the creeps. He would not come within several blocks of one at night. Even now he kept glancing out the window, wishing the last of the clouds would disperse and let the sun out. He thought he could tolerate it if it were in bright sunlight.

"Really, Sandra, you should be a little more appreciative of your husband," sniffed Marilyn.

"For the thousandth damn time, Marilyn, he is not my husband anymore."

Don't fucking remind me, Richie thought.

"The Lord does not recognize such follies of man," said Marilyn. "In His eyes, the both of you are husband and wife. You would do well to remember that."

"And you'd do well to remember that I left the Catholic Church about ten fucking years ago."

Marilyn gasped in an appropriately dramatic fashion and sniffed. She turned her head away in disdain.

Richie smirked. Seeing his mother get angry with her sister was worth it if it shut her up. If they were lucky, Aunt Marilyn would no longer expect their yearly visit anymore.

The car remained quiet until Sandra pulled past the gate of the Mesa View Cemetery. Low hills sprawled over the grounds, the grass prim and neat even in brown winter dormancy. Interspersed among the hills were flat plots where graves lay in regimented rows of equally spaced rectangles.

Richie's arms tensed until they trembled. As they followed a gentle curve in the road, the sun slipped out from behind a cloud and cast a stark brilliance. Richie sighed through his nose, his arms loosening a bit.

The car pulled to the curb outside one of the plots and stopped. Richie got out of the car first and raced to the curb side. Marilyn got out next, her thin body standing erect like a black pole, a wrapped bundle of flowers clutched in her long fingers. She turned towards the graves and drew in her breath, letting it go as a proper emotional sigh.

Richie muttered "drama queen" under his breath. Sandra slapped his arm and raised a silent, admonishing finger. As soon as Sandra turned towards her sister, Richie stuck his tongue out at her.

"Come along, Marilyn, before you get too worked up," Sandra said in a bored voice as she took her sister's arm.

Yeah, don't want you crying and running all that makeup off your ugly face, Richie thought.

Richie trudged along behind them, keeping his eyes down, and tried to think of something else. The dead grass was a reminder that it was at least six months until he could play baseball again. It seemed he lived for baseball now, the only thing he cared about or was any good at.

Dad would be really proud of me if could've seen me...

Richie stopped his thought. He wanted to kick his aunt in her scrawny ass for bringing up his father.

Marilyn and Sandra stopped before a grave, and Richie nearly ran into them. He backed off and shuffled to the side, standing near a headstone inscribed with the name "Martin Gardner," and beneath it, "1963 - 1998."

Marilyn approached the grave, uttered a windy sigh, and fell to her bony knees. She stretched out her gloved hand and spread her fingers on the ground over the grave. Her voice cracked as she spoke. "Oh, Martin, you were such a good husband. I'm so lost without you."

Richie restrained himself from rolling his eyes, yet even Sandra uttered a very small cynical sigh.

"Y-you had your faults. You had your personal demons ... but ... but I was always there for you. Always. If only ... i-if only..."

Her words broke up into soft sobs, her head bowed. Sandra tightened her jaw against another exasperated sigh and dropped to one knee beside her sister. She fished out a tissue from her purse and passed it to Marilyn. "Come on, Marilyn, lay your flowers on his grave and be done with it before you really get unglued."

Marilyn waved the tissue at Sandra and shook her head. "I-I'm okay, just give me a minute..."

Marilyn put down her flowers and blew her nose. Richie smirked. She sounded like a goose honking. He leaned to the side and rested his hand on the top of the gravestone.

Reality shifted.

Richie jumped backwards when confronted by more than a dozen people standing around the grave.

"Aw, crap," Richie muttered. He looked in accusation at the headstone, now pristine and perfect. A voice made him jump once more, and only then did sound explode around him, like a stereo amp suddenly switched on.

"Into the Kingdom of the Lord God we commend the spirit of Martin Gardner, to reside in Your holy presence in everlasting peace."

On the other side of the headstone stood a Roman Catholic priest in formal robes, holding a prayer book in his hands before his solemn face.

"We do not mourn for his passing, but instead lift our hopes to You, O Lord, that You may grant him passage into your Kingdom."

A burst of sobbing caught Richie's attention, and his gaze snapped towards it. Marilyn stood shaking with grief behind the same black veil that she wore in the present. As the priest exhorted the Lord further on the subject of the departed, she sobbed again and buried her face into the shoulder of her sister Sandra.

Sandra let out a tired sigh. She looked to Richie like she would rather be somewhere else.

"Makes two of us, Mom," Richie said. His voice shook as much as his heart pounded.

The priest sprinkled holy water over the grave. Only then did Richie look down and notice that the grave was open, having just been dug, and lying right at his feet was...

"Jesus!" Richie yelled, hurtling himself back.

He stared at the casket, lying next to the grave, waiting to be buried. His eyes shimmered, and he wished he could will this vision to end.

"You'd better give Sandra a hand, Hank," Richie heard a whispered comment over his left ear. "I don't think she's much up to giving Marilyn comfort."

He heard a resigned sigh. Richie turned and held his breath as a broad-chested man walked right into him ... and then through him...

... Goddamn, why do I have do this shit? I'm just the guy that likes to fuck her, not attend all her stupid family...

Richie let out his breath and gulped air as if he had been suffocating during the moment of mental contact. Richie cursed under his breath. He hated that ability most of all. Bad enough that he could see or hear what happened in the past; seeing into people's heads as well spooked him more than the cemetery itself could.

Richie tried to maneuver to somewhere away from both the casket and the crowd of people, but he was hard-pressed to do both. He thought he had found the proper spot when a young man decided to take a step forward, and his leg passed into one of Richie's.

Yeah, figures the little chiseler would croak now. I should've gotten him to cough up that two grand he still owed me before he wrapped his car around that tree...

Richie stumbled to the side to break the mental touch, though he smirked at the thought that Martin was not quite the model husband Aunt Marilyn had claimed.

Another figure advanced towards him. He side-stepped and avoided contact, but brushed the side of a young teenage girl...

Like, why do I hafta be dragged out to the sticks for something like this? I don't even know this woman. Gawd, and look at Slutty Sally over there! Thinks she's soooo hot and soooo wonderful cuz her mother lets her wear high heels...

Richie staggered forward. Before he could turn to find another place to stand, he lost his footing and stumbled. His right foot passed through the casket and the body within.

Richie felt as though his blood had frozen solid and ice had crystallized inside his bones. His body went numb from head to toe, and the sight and sound of the funeral dissolved into icy mist. The air still trapped in his lungs came out in a rattling breath rotten with decay. His mouth opened as if to scream, but his throat was frozen as well.

... Evil woman! ... Damned witch! ... No right to cry over me!...

The thoughts entered his head like a raspy, wheezing voice in his ear, as if spoken by vocal cords already tattered with decomposition.

... Drove me to drink! ... Gambled to make back money you spent! ... Nothing good enough for you!...

Richie tried to gasp in air, but his lungs felt like lead, as if his own diaphragm had withered away. His feet gave way to a wide, yawning darkness below him, fetid air drawing down in chilling invite.

... I wasn't drunk, you cow! ... Stop telling people that! ... I killed myself to get away from you! ... I'D TAKE YOU WITH ME IF I COULD!...

Richie fell, swallowed up by the grave, pulled into the abyss by the departing spirit.

"Richard Gardner, how dare you?!"

Richie let out a cry and stumbled back, his eyes wide as he stared at Sandra and Marilyn. "Huh?? What?!"

Marilyn surged forward and grabbed Richie's wrist, yanking his hand into the air. Richie was so disoriented that he submitted without a struggle, staring at his aunt's gaunt face. He shivered with the lingering chill of the grave, hand clutching the air as if still convinced he was falling into the death void.

"How dare you touch my husband's headstone!" Marilyn screeched. "You will have more respect for the dead, or so help me, I..."

Sandra's hand curled around her sister's and yanked. It came away with a force that made Marilyn gasp and wince in pain.

"Get the fuck off my son," Sandra declared. "You have a problem with him, you tell me, and I'll punish him."

Marilyn could only stare in shock. Sandra held her wrist for another few seconds before letting go.

Richie was still trembling. His heart hammered in his chest. His eyes darted towards the grave, as if he expected it to open up and pull him back in.

"You ... y-you ... your son was defiling my husband's resting place!" Marilyn finally squeaked, cradling her wrist in her other hand as if Sandra had broken it.

"Take a fucking chill pill, Marilyn. He was just leaning his hand against the headstone."

"He was muttering something. Something about my husband. Something about him killing himself!" She turned to Richie, her eyes wild with fury. "He didn't kill himself, he was drunk and crashed his car into a tree, you little idiot!"

Sandra sighed and turned to her son. "Well, Richie? Did you say something like that?"

Richie's glazed eyes shifted between the two women. "No, I didn't. I didn't say nuthin'."

"It's 'I didn't say anything, ' you ignorant..." Marilyn hissed through clenched teeth.

"That's enough, Marilyn," said Sandra.

"But he said it! I heard him!"

"No, just shut your mouth, I've had it for one day. You said your peace and laid your flowers. Now let's get the hell out of here."

Marilyn gave her sister a look of affront, then huffed and marched towards the car.

Sandra frowned at Richie. "And I don't want to hear a damn word from you about your aunt, even after we drop her off, you got me?"

"Yeah, Mom, no problem," Richie said, his voice still shaky.

Richie followed his mother towards the car. He looked back at the grave and shivered, quickening his pace until he came alongside Sandra, for once a source of solace rather than tribulation.

Diane Woodrow could not decide whether to be excited or worried.

Her anticipation was at a fever pitch. Her mother had pulled back her curfew, which meant nothing more meaningful than brief excursions to the mall during the weekdays. Worse, she had she had been dragged to a family function the first half of the weekend. Her desire had pooled and seethed until she could not hurry to the house fast enough late that morning.

Yet she had anguished that it would come to nothing. According to the calendar, she should have been in the heaviest day of her monthly cycle. Instead, there was nothing, not even a trickle, not even any cramping. Even her mother suspected something was wrong, peppering her with questions crafted to coax Diane into an admission of a missed period.

Thus she arrived at the house late, her mother having delayed her. She raced through the living room, vaulted the stairs, and flew into their favorite bedroom. "Heather, I'm sorry I'm late, I couldn't... mmmph!"

Diane flailed until her head caught up with her senses. Then she moaned into Heather's mouth. Her body quivered as Heather's hands slid around her slim waist and over her rear.

Diane lifted two trembling hands to Heather's shoulders and nudged. Heather leaned into the kiss before allowing her lips to part from hers. "Something wrong?" she asked in a husky voice.

Diane swallowed. "No, not really, I just ... I just wanted to ask ... I-I ... oh my..." Her body quaked in Heather's arms. Her pussy steamed behind panties that now felt too tight. Her nipples rose and tingled as they brushed Heather's chest.

Heather grinned. "Getting horny?"

"Good God, yes," Diane moaned. "It was just a-all at once ... you ... you didn't use a spell on me just now, did you?"

"No, I didn't, I just ... well, I wanted you that way."

Diane's eyes widened. "You did? You mean, you ... w-wait ... I..."

She trailed off as Heather unzipped her jeans and sank her fingers into Diane's damp panties, squishing them into her soaked slit. Diane clutched at Heather, her knees weak.

All coherent thought flew out of her head. Her jeans slid down her legs, the slow glide of the fabric against her skin making her tremble. Even as she stepped out of them, Heather undid the buttons of Diane's blouse and pushed it back from her bra. Heather rubbed the pad of her thumbs against the raised bumps on the cups of the bra. Diane let out a quaking sigh and fell to her knees, panting, her pussy aching.

"Perfect position, Diane," Heather cooed as she undid the hooks in Diane's bra.