Terry kicked and pulled. Bella and he had been trying for a while to get the shed open, but it was bolted shut. He cursed and resorted to stomping on the door.

  Bella sighed. A look of defeat passed over her face.

  “Maybe there’s a key or something.” She said.

  “What?”

  “A key. At home we have an extra key under the doormat. Just in case.”

  “That’s weird.” Terry griped, but they walked around opposite sides of the shed anyways.

  The sides of the shed had mud covering them from being kicked up by the rain. Bella dug in the dirt on her side. Terry just stared at the ground. He began to wonder why nothing would go his way, and why things couldn’t have just stayed normal. Then he got a glimpse of metal against the wooden shed.

  “Hey.” He gasped.

  Terry reached down and grabbed it.

  “Did you find a key?” Bella ran around.

  It wasn’t a key. It was heavy and thin. A long wooden rod came from it and leaned against the shed. Then, he noticed a second one. Both were half-buried in the turned-over soil.

  “Even better.” He stated.

  He held up two shovels to Bella with a smile.

  They each took one and ran through the cemetery. They slowed when they got to the tombstones. And studied them, looking for the last name, Clines.

  Cadence walked past the totaled truck. She gave a look of disappointment to the dead body of her kin. Her face twisted, and she let out laughter. Then, she strolled along past the wreckage, toward where she believed the graveyard was.

  “This is going to be an exciting night,” she smiled to herself.

  Michael walked to the sheriff’s car, shouting for him. There was no response. He walked around. A first aid kit was scattered on the ground, with packaging that held bandages blowing from the chilly breeze. A puddle of blood turned the parking lot a dark crimson. The car engine was still running, and the driver’s door was wide open.

  “Sir?” Michael called.

  In the driver’s seat was Sheriff Johanson. He breathed heavily and kept his eyes closed. His hand was pressing something into the spot below his shoulder. He muttered to himself.

  “Sir.” Michael said again.

  The sheriff was despondent. Instead, he continued to mumble to himself as if he were meditating on recovery.

  Michael got closer but felt his foot kick something on the ground. It was black, heavy, and metal. Michael squinted at it. It was a gun.

  He looked back up to the Sheriff who said, “Gotta find Terry, gotta find him.”

  Michael clenched his fists. Why did everything revolve around Terry? Did Terry hurt the sheriff, too? The apartments were nearby. The apartments Terry lived in. The lady said Terry was causing everything. Terry, Terry, Terry. The more Michael saw, the more he thought, it was Terry who was at fault for everything, and his mom’s death.

  Sheriff Johanson didn’t notice Michael standing there, but if he was conscious enough, he would have seen Michael’s face grow red, his eyes turn dark, and hate fill the air.

  Michael picked up the gun from the ground. It was heavy, but his hands still fit around the handle enough to use. He looked at the officer. Then, took it and walked away.

  The angel he met on his way from the truck wreck said Terry was at the graveyard. Since he was at the apartment, he had an idea of where he was. He walked quickly, swaying in his steps, to where the cemetery was.

  A bit of time passed. The graveyard had a fog that rested along the ground. There was a cawing of crows taunting them nearby. They were the only animals Terry had noticed in a while.

  They dug the shovels into the ground. It took them a bit to find the grave. Terry didn’t remember Mister Clines’ first name. But, they found a tombstone with week-old flowers. It had the same last name. Two dates, one of the days he died which Terry remembered quite well. They started digging immediately and eventually got halfway through.

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  Bella was sweating. It was cold, but the running, worry, and digging kept her warm from inside her rain jacket. Her adrenaline was beginning to wear off though, and Terry could see it in the way her eyes began to droop.

  “Take a break, and keepa look out.” Terry said.

  “Shuddup.” She answered.

  After a few more shovelfuls she finally took Terry’s advice and sat on a pile they had been throwing dirt onto. She kept a lookout and helped to prevent the wet dirt from slipping back into the grave.

  Terry shoveled and shoveled. He kept an eye out for the crystal. It should be somewhere where they dug. Worms were crawling through the mud and squirmed away from the humid cold. Grubs did the same but weren’t as fast, and the shovel cut them up with no hesitation, revealing a revolting puss of guts. The soil smelled rich, but the deeper he dug, the rotting stench began to grow prominent.

  Finally, Terry’s shovel made a clank. He and Bella shivered at the sound, then jumped at what it meant. She jumped back into the grave with him.

  They upturned the dirt on top of the coffin, sweeping their hands through.

  “What does the crystal thing look like?”

  “It’s a black pyramid,” Terry answered.

  They searched, removing all the dirt that covered the collapsed coffin lid.

  “I’m not finding it,” Terry began to panic.

  There was nowhere else to search. He jumped out and dug through the dirt piles. Nothing, just tiny rocks and sand, dirt, roaches, grubs, worms, and a ring. The other things that were set on his coffin before he was put below weren’t anywhere to be found either.

  “What could have happened to it? You sure you put it in his grave?” Bella began asking.

  “I know I did for sure.”

  “Well, where is it?”

  Terry couldn’t answer. He stood disappointed and in thought. He looked at the coffin. He stared at it and stared.

  “There’s one last place we can check.” He said before jumping six feet back into the grave.

  Bella looked at him in question. He waved at her to help him.

  He explained. “Remember in the museum. There was a small section about supernatural stuff that happens in Trident Grove.”

  “Yeah. Didn’t look at it much, though.”

  He continued. “There was a story about the dead coming back to life.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Kinda. But not really? It said the land was thought to be cursed, and the dead would come back and take the things that were important with them back to their grave.”

  “How’s that make any sense?”

  “Dunno. Help me out.”

  Bella looked at him. Like a light switch, she realized what he was about to do. She shook her head violently. “No, no, no.”

  Terry grunted. Then, signaled for her to step aside.

  He readied his hands and dug them against the side of the coffin door. It was crushed in from the pressure of the dirt when buried. He hesitated. There was something that just felt invasive. He didn’t know what to expect. How decrepit would Mister Clines’ body be? The stench was already bad enough. He sighed and held his breath. Then, he pulled with all his strength and opened it.

  A wave of decomposing flesh rotted the noses of the two. Almost immediately Bella vomited violently into the soil. When she had nothing else to throw up, she turned away burying her face into the sleeves of her jacket. Terry gagged, but not from the smell. Mister Clines’ body was unrecognizable. His skin stretched like a canvas over his skeleton. He wasn’t human, not anymore. His eyes were shrunk to marbles. Centipedes and maggots crawled through holes in his flesh. Terry could barely look at the man he used to know and almost forgot to look for the crystal.

  A branch snapped near the woods.

  Terry looked through itching eyes to the hands of the corpse. There was a reflection from the sky above. In the corpse's hands was the crystal. Terry reached for it. Its grip was tightly wound through the fingers like Mister Clines was holding onto it for his life. Terry pried the fingers apart. They were stiff as fossils. A couple of fingers broke before he could squeeze it out.

  “Terry?” Bella whispered.

  “Yes!” Terry jumped in triumph, holding the crystal.

  He crawled out of the grave.

  “Terry,” Bella said.

  He focused his eyes on the crystal in his hands once he got out. It was the same as before. As if it was unchanging despite where it’s been. “Yeah. Let’s rebury the body and then head out.” Terry mumbled.

  “No,” she said. “We need to go now.”

  Terry looked up. Three wolves of the blackest night were approaching behind Bella, stalking their prey, and readying to go in for the kill.

  “Grab your shovel,” Terry said while picking up his own. It now had small speckles of throw-up on the handle, but he ignored that.

  The two had their shovels now up in the only way they could think to hold them: held outwardly in defense.

  “You go behind, I’ll go left?” Bella asked.

  Terry nodded. “If one gets close enough, hit it with your shovel.”

  The beasts continued to step towards them, growling through tooth-filled mouths.

  There was a slow clap coming from behind them. The two turned to Cadence with a grin on her face. They were surrounded on both sides.

  “Thank you for your hard work,” she said. “Now give me the crystal.”

  Terry creased his brows and stared her down. “No.”

  Bella and Terry’s backs touched. Bella faced the hungry wolves and Terry faced the mermaid. On one side of them was a dug-up grave, and on the other side were more tombstones and a fence. Both held their shovels sturdy in their hands.

  “I am not going to ask you twice,” Cadence stated.

  “Now!”

  The two ran toward the fence. They took strides around and the monster closest to them pounced with its claws outstretched.

  Terry felt a tug on his foot. He fell to his face in the dirt. The shovel fell out of reach in front of him. There was a burning sensation in his ankle.

  Cadence let out a full belly of laughter.

  “You are pathetic,” she chuckled and grabbed the crystal from his jacket pocket. “Feel free to make a meal out of them,” she called to the wolves as she walked away.

  The twin swung and bashed the one jumping towards her in the head with the shovel. There was a loud clanging sound that vibrated through the air. The wolf flew out of the air and into the still-open grave. A piece of the shovel went in the opposite direction.

  The other two went for Terry. Trying to ignore the pain in his ankle, he stood up, took two lunges forward, grabbed the shovel, and turned around. He swung at the one closest to him. He missed, his foot gave out under him, and fell on his back. In a desperate attempt, he thrust the shovel out in front of himself and shut his eyes.