Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

I just wanted to freak them out a little, so they’d rethink their agenda. Will and I had the same goal, albeit for different reasons.

The grave had become a local legend. In Will’s mind, Edward McClanahan belonged to everyone.

In my mind, if he stayed in his grave, my brother would be shit out of luck on buying it.

Will moved around the wrought-iron fence surrounding the crypt, fitting all the scarecrows we stole from Mr. Ganz’s Halloween yard display and the basketballs we also stole from the supply closet onto each head.

I stared at the McClanahan tomb, its dark, stained-glass windows and smooth, new stone, unmarred and clean. Brand new and ready for use.

“He shouldn’t be moved, right?” I asked, making sure we were still on the same page.

“Right.”

After we’d left the dance, I sent him to the gym while I raced to the bio lab and stole all the dead animals floating in jars full of formaldehyde. I put them on a cart, wheeled them to a window, and Will drove up with his truck and helped me load.

After making a couple of more stops, we were here. Ready to show the McClanahans what would happen if they moved Edward.

The vigil… would follow him. Year after year, unfailing, and complete with a Children of the Corn vibe.

If they didn’t want their final resting place to become a pilgrimage for messy, destructive, sexually active teens, they’d change their minds.

I took one more look around the cemetery, making sure we were alone as I lit the candles.

Only the shadows of the trees on the grass—blue in the moonlight—moved as the breeze shook the leaves free off their branches.

I half expected Will to try to take out his phone to film this, but thankfully, he didn’t. I didn’t want to wind up on one his videos.

Adding the dead animal offerings, I checked to see that Will had finished the scarecrows, complete with basketball heads and scary faces drawn in Sharpie with forbidding eyebrows and teeth.

I laughed and rolled my eyes, hearing him snort at his own cleverness as he moved around the fence.

I stuck in the tiki torches from Will’s garage around the crypt, lighting them, and then fished some light green chalk out of one of the bags that I’d grabbed from bio lab.

Running inside the fence, I raised the chalk to the stone, about to start the vandalism part, but I looked up at the stained-glass windows once more, hesitating.

“It is empty?” I said again. “Right?”

I didn’t feel bad about the vandalism or petty theft, but I would if people were laid to rest in there right now.

But he just shook his head. “They just finished it. No tenants yet.”

I nodded, squeezing the chalk. Go to hell, then, Martin.

Hurrying, I drew triple Xs all over the wall, reading in one of my coffee table books about a ritual where you draw the symbols on a tomb, making a wish. If the dead grant it, you have to come back and leave an offering and circle the Xs.

It was washable, and the tomb would be good as new when they cleaned it, but if the spark caught fire with the public, they’d be continually cleaning this tomb for a century.

Will grabbed a blue piece and helped, both of us smiling and rushing, because it would be no good if we got caught, especially me, and he knew it.

I grabbed the bag off the grass that I used to haul the candles, and we backed away, staring at the McClanahans’ newest nightmare.

“Hey!” someone yelled.

I sucked in a breath.

“Oh, shit.” Will grabbed my hand and pulled me, running down the slope. I looked behind me, seeing a man in a khaki uniform jogging after us.

Oh, my God!