Page 1 of His to Haunt
Prologue
Rachel
He’s so fucking twisted.
His voice is low and purring when he tells me that he likes the sound of my whimpering. The psycho cat caught himself a little birdie and can’t stop licking his razor-sharp chops.
I know I made a big mistake; I let myself believe in lies. Even the eyes of a predator can demonstrate something resembling love, but it’s more a dark, ravenous, insatiable need.
His need, his possession, became the antidote to my isolation.
But he is the cause of that isolation. His depravity consumed everything in its wake, whittling away at those dear to me and then squashing my will until there was only vulnerability—raw, painful, and bleeding. Like a hole in the heart slowly draining.
That’s when he finally got me. That’s when I begged.
He likes it when I beg.
Down here in the dark, dank tomb, I can feel the shadowed spirit of death lingering in the cold air around me. I try so hard not to panic, but the sinking pit in my gut has a mind of its own, and I can’t stop shaking. Nobody can hear if I scream orcry out in agony. Knowing this makes the pain worse -bottled, pressurized, crushing. Nobody can hear me but him.
Inheritance
Leena
More dead than living.
The unseen ocean is beyond a big highway, across a stretch of fields, over cliffs. The scent of it on the fog brings back happier memories. I haven’t visited the beach since I was a kid. My sister Rachel was still with us then. We’d jump the smaller waves and ride the big ones, pretending we were mermaids.
Today, the only thing I’m swimming in is a sea of tombstones that wind the base of the mountain chain to my right. They call it a cemetery town. A fucking cemetery town!
More graveyards than houses, with the occasional little brick floral shop offering condolences in the rolling sea fog.
Even the welcome sign looks like a gravestone, a round-topped slab of rough granite sticking up from the ground in mulch with plain, bold font: Welcome to Moonvine.
Being welcomed here feels like a bad omen, just like it was for Rachel, but I need to stay positive.
As I tighten my grip on the steering wheel, the fake diamonds wrapping it cut into my palms, probably leaving red scaley marks—beauty is painful. Kimmie got me the cover for mytwenty-second birthday this summer. Cute in a flashy, Kimmie sort of way.
I consciously loosen my grip a tad. Navigating this steeply narrow road after driving five hours through the California desert with nothing but four-forty air conditioning and Mom’s random staccato gasping, I’m ready to pull over and rip the damn thing off, give my hands a break. I’m sure Kimmie would understand.
We’ve always been the type of besties that balance each other with our differences. She is the energetic fire sign; I am the moody water sign. She went to beauty college and is working on opening a spa. I went into psychology. She’s the classic extrovert: creative, messy, and open to new experiences. An introvert, I’m classified as a conscientious personality. Organized, thoughtful, and reticent about change.
But now we’ve done a one-eighty. I’m changing the script by moving away. This relocation is putting about a hundred miles between us, and that isn’t changing any time soon.
The stretch of cemetery ends, followed by another floral shop and another cemetery. Is this place for real?
When I first got the news of my surprise inheritance, I looked up Moonvine online. The little historical town borders Colma, which was never supposed to be a civilization but a literal necropolis where all of San Francisco buried their dead. The Gold Rush dead. The plague dead. The earthquake dead. Millions of dead with very few above-ground inhabitants.The Silent City. City of Souls.
Apparently, even the original San Francisco graves were relocated here, which accounts for the abandoned tombstones repurposed in strange places. Used as gutters and sea walls and otherwise scattered about. The tombs of the poor who couldn’t afford to have their bit of stone moved with the remains of their deceased destined for a mass, unmarked grave.
A disturbing thought. Especially considering the local legends about the walking-dead and vampires mentioned as a side note in the article I read. Followed by a disclaimer that the journalist just couldn’t resist making a dig, and no pun intended.
Weirdly funny.
A wind gust sways my car around a sharp turn, and the pockets of fog rearrange into a disorienting patchwork. I swerve to miss a branch but fail with a miserable thunk. Goddamn! Eyes clinging to the strip of road visible through the low clouds, I resist glancing to my right. If Mom were awake, I’d know. I couldn’t drive slow enough to please her the whole way here.
When she finally dozed off, it was petal-to-the-metal time. If only I could have listened to my music, the trip would have flown by.
After slowing the vehicle around a sharp turn, the fog begins to break, the evening sunlight cutting through. Trees appear, redwood phantoms quivering around a decorative fountain pond, apartments behind it. I slow, getting a better look at the street sign. Moonvine Lane. That’s our road.