The Sweetest Kill: A Young Adult Paranormal (31 page)

"Evil shall perish in the depths of hell," she whispered to herself as she read the barely visible engraving on the stone. Her heart thudded irregularly when she realized she might have found it. With clammy palms, she brushed away some debris and stray leaves, and her eyes got bigger when she confirmed that she’d indeed found what she was looking for. Looking around wildly, she cursed herself again when she realized she hadn't thought to bring any tools with her.

"Idiot!" she hissed to herself. Then her eyes spotted a long piece of wood that seemed perfect, so she started digging with it. The ground in her town was always soft from the constant rain and she knew it wouldn't be too difficult. She just didn't know how deep it was. After thirty minutes of constant digging, Wendy found herself out of breath and her clothes and skin caked with mud. The hole was now about three feet deep. She gave a small laugh, thinking what her mother would say. Her arms burned from the strenuous activity and she was close to giving up and coming back tomorrow, with a shovel this time. But she knew she wouldn't sleep tonight if she did that. Looking up, she knew it had to be around twelve or so since her stomach had been rumbling non-stop. She lifted the piece of wood once more and struck the earth.

Thud. 

Her pulse quickened at the sound. ‘This must be it!’ she thought with a huge smile. To anyone else she must have looked like a crazy person, with how she was now dressed and the fact that she was digging up a grave. She could imagine Jamie trying to talk her out of it now.

With the wood, she scraped around the large boxlike coffin so she could have enough room to open it and not stand on top of it. It took another thirty minutes, but she eventually succeeded when her feet were no longer on the wooden top. Her eyes widened when she saw a cross engraved on it and traced the carving with her dirt-caked fingernails.

Her guilt began to come back full force. This was someone's grave, not her way to help her family out of debt. At the thought of her family, her mind drifted to her sick brother. He has a heart defect that the doctors had only detected this past year. It was fatal unless treated with the right surgery – one that costs more than a four-year tuition to Harvard, which is exactly what her parents were trying to pay with only a community college graduate kind of salary. With that thought in mind, she pushed away her guilt and started to pry open the lid.

She pulled too hard at first and sliced her index finger on a loose splinter. She cried out and stuck the bleeding finger in her mouth, but not before drops of it landed on the coffin and seemed to seep into it. The taste of iron and earth flooded her taste buds as she tried to suck the pain away. She shuddered from the taste, but it did help with the sting. Heaving a big sigh, she thought of how beat up she'll look tomorrow at school. With her limping from a bad ankle and probably bruises from the fall, it won't be long before rumors start to fly about. She tried to open it again, with her heart sprinting at the thought of what lies beneath, but she had to shove her fears aside for the time being. Finally, she pried the lid open with a loud creaking sound, which she thought only happened in horror movies.

She gasped and screamed as she scrambled to not get so close to the rotting corpse before her. There was still flesh on the bones, remarkable, but it was spotty as most of it was gone. The smell made Wendy gag and she gasped again when she saw what looked like fingernail markings on the inside of the lid. It was then that she came to a startling realization, that it truly was Lord Vincent, and that he was really buried alive! His clothes were tattered and torn but still looked to be in semi-decent shape, almost as if it was a zombie costume for Halloween, with its few holes. With a shudder, she realized there was dried blood on them as well. Her conscience came to the fore and she cursed herself for thinking this could possibly be justified!

Her eyes caught something shiny, and it was then that she saw what was left of the body was lying on a small mound of silver, just like in the story. Wendy bit her lip at the temptation. This could help solve her family's problem. Help save her brother's life.

With shaky hands, she reached in and grabbed a hold of a very old looking necklace that had a red ruby ensnared in the center. Her heart did reach out to the poor man with the rope still wound around his body. Since she ignored her conscience from the time she started to walk here, she decided the least she could do was untie him as an 'I'm sorry' of sorts.

Black hair that could rival the color of a raven lay in a heap behind the head and had cobwebs and various bugs crawling through it. It disgusted her, but she was also disgusted with herself, grave robbing this poor soul. His eyes were long gone and that image will forever be burned in her memory. With eyes shut, she forced herself to untie him, if only to appease her guilty conscience a little. Without her knowledge, her bleeding finger dripped ever so lightly into the open jaw of the lying corpse. If Wendy had opened her eyes, she would've seen the two very pointy canine teeth that lay behind the rotting lips.

After that was done, she felt a little better despite taking the treasure back to her home. She wasn't sure how she was going to explain it. Maybe the truth, she wasn't sure. All she knew now was that this was the ticket to save her family. Gathering up all the silver that lay behind the body, she heaved it up and out of the hole before climbing out. Wendy knew she shouldn’t just leave the grave open so she shoved the rest of the dirt back in. She carried as much of the new treasure as she could in the gym bag she had the forethought to bring, stuffed the rest in her school bag, and walked back home.

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