Wicked Hungry

“The ghouls?” we ask, looking around.

“Can’t you smell them?” asks Rewsin.

“Uh, I thought—” I say.

Rewsin barks once again, a laugh this time. “You thought the stink was me?” He sniffs once. “I may not smell too sweet, mortal, but ghouls have a truly ghastly reek. Be wary of them.”

The horn sounds again.

“Oh well,” he growls. “Got to go.”

He bounds off through the forest, toward the sound of the still blowing horn.

There are several immediate problems. First, Frumberg is unconscious or playing dead on the ground. Second, Rewsin is bounding off toward where the new mall is being built. Toward the gateway, but also toward Carolina’s house. Toward Carolina. Toward Carolina and Meredith.

Third—perhaps the most pressing problem—is a shuffling movement, coming from the direction of the gravestones. Rewsin is gone, but we are not alone.

And, quite frankly it still reeks.

Sulfur, but that’s not all. Death. Rot. The foul smell of disturbed cemetery ground. The shuffling noise grows, along with a low, mumbling groan.

Jonathan crouches down next to Frumberg.

“Is he...?” I ask.

“Dead?” Jonathan says. “Nope. That demon was right. He’s still breathing. I can’t seem to wake him up, though.”

“Leave him, then,” Enrique says. “You know they need us more over there.”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan say

s.

“I don’t know, either,” I say. “Can you smell what I smell? What did he say about ghouls, anyway?”

“Oh no,” Jonathan says, standing up, and sniffing, looking around. “No, please no. This is not happening.”

Is it my imagination, or has the reek grown stronger, the moaning louder, the air colder?

But my phone is ringing, and it’s not a text message this time. It’s Carolina.

“Stanley?”

“Carolina?”

“Where are you? Are you coming or not?”

“Sure, we’re coming, Carolina,” I say, looking around for anything old and rotting. “We’re just a little tied up at the moment.”

I can’t see anything yet, even with my flashlight on high beam, but the smell is overpowering. I gag.

But what is that? Over the sound of the moaning, the sweet melody of a lone flute tugs at me ever so gently.

Carolina is talking in my ear. “Stanley, what’s going on?”

“Let me talk to Meredith,” I say.

A stone falls to the ground with a dull thud. A stone? No, a gravestone. Who or what pushed it? Something up here on the ground, or something...down beneath? Pushing up with old rotten fingers? I shudder, but Carolina is still talking to me.