It was twelve midnight exactly.
Inside the coffin, Brad lay silent and shaking, his eyes fixed heavenward. He was dressed in a clean hospital gown, his broken leg bandaged in a thick blue cast. Isobel reached for him, but her hands swept cleanly through, as though he were a hologram.
“Brad!” she shouted.
His shaking intensified.
“Is-Isobel?” he murmured. His eyes stared sightlessly past her, focused on something above her.
She tried grasping for him again, but once more her arms ghosted straight through him.
Something thick, wet, and warm splattered against her arm, stopping her. She looked to see a bright crimson starburst of blood glistening on her forearm. Had she been hurt?
Another splatter came, this one straight into the open palm of her questioning hand.
Isobel looked up. Blood oozed from the statue looming above her.
Great streaks of red coursed the length of its robes, sliding down the folds of its stone gown, pooling in the dirt.
“Isobel!”
Brad flew upward and past her, his limp form yanked from the grave like a rag doll, plucked by an unseen force. He swept up, distorted and stretched, elongating as he was sucked one inch at a time into the visage of the statue. It drew him in, arching the moment it absorbed him completely, Brad’s screams snuffing into silence.
Within the darkened hood, two pinpricks of ruby light sprang to life.
Stone gave way to spilling folds of brilliant crimson. Blood soaking through the stirring fabric of its robes, the figure moved. It turned its head and stepped down from the anchor of its granite base. Isobel stared in motionless horror as the specter rounded the gaping hole in the earth, its blood-dabbled robes fluttering about its shape as it floated more than walked.
A heavy train of red fabric followed the form. It dragged through the ash, causing a cascade of red-stained grit to spill over her.
Isobel coughed and fell back, sprawling into the now empty coffin. She squinted through a haze of dust, mesmerized as she watched the dripping thing drift around the outer perimeter of the open grave.
“Brad?”
The figure stopped. Its glistening, fiendish gaze fell on her. From within the drape of its sleeve, it raised a hand over the open grave, over her. The blood-drenched, bone-thin fingers curled one at a time into a slow fist. Beneath her, she felt the ground tremble, then shudder. Above, the edges of her enclosure quivered, dirt and rock loosening until, at last, they broke forth in a tidal surge.
Earth poured over her in rushing waves from all sides. It fell against her body in heavy clods, a suffocating weight that fast became crushing.
“No!” she screamed, flailing. She thrashed, battling to loosen herself from the raining soil and ash that threatened to consume her. She fought to stand, causing the dirt to press more tightly around her. It claimed her legs, trapping her. She reached with both arms toward the edge of the grave, toward the open sky, but the earth gushed, building to her waist, to her chest. It piled past her shoulders, her head, and now raced to consume her arms, swallowing the light one fragment at a time. With it went the vision of the trees, the gravestones, the ashen sky, and the scarlet, blood-drenched visage of the Red Death.
44
Red Death
The growing silence seared her mind. Isobel arched against the constricting earth, the enclosing darkness. Her dirt prison shifted in answer to her movements, compressing.
Out! She needed to get out!
With her mouth clamped shut, she unleashed a scream from the back of her throat. But who would hear? She couldn’t move her arms. Her legs. Anything. Panicked, she realized she’d been holding her breath. The packed dirt squeezed her chest, crushed her lungs. She couldn’t breathe!
She gasped involuntarily and was rewarded with a mouthful of coarse grime. She swallowed and her body convulsed at the acrid taste. Her lungs burned for air. Her heart knocked hard against her rib cage, begging for release.
If she didn’t get out, she was going to die. She knew it. She was going to die.
Varen. She thought his name over and over in her head. Varen, where are you?
No answer came to her, and gradually she grew still again. Locked in the earth’s suffocating embrace, she listened to the flutter of her heart, the only sound in her ears as, beat by beat, its rhythm began to slow. Its thump reminded her of the sound of a clock, one that was winding down, about to stop forever.
At least she’d gotten to see him, she thought, to tell him how she felt. At least he knew. At least she’d tried. Tears pricked at her eyes. How could she die when she’d promised to come back for him? When he was waiting for her? She squeezed her eyes and felt the tears leave her, stolen by the absorbing dirt that had taken her breath, and with it, her final hope.
