House of the Angels

Dylan hated walking home from the bar this late at night, knowing he would have to walk past St. Mary’s Cemetery. The only things that dwelled there were drunks, muggers and the dead. Thank God Rachel wasn’t with him. She was too afraid to go in there anyhow.

Dylan made absolutely no eye contact with anyone on the streets, save for the few people who said hello to him. He smelled of sweat, bourbon and cigarette smoke, a foul combination for anyone who had been crammed into a small bar with dozens of other people, some too drunk to even walk home. The air was heavy with the heat and humidity while a few moths flew directly into the streetlamps.

He made his way past a group of people who stumbled across the streets, shouting and hollering at one another to hurry up or asking lewd questions along the way. Dylan rolled his eyes and kept on walking, hands shoved deep in his pockets and his eyes downcast towards the ground. He just wanted to get home as quick as he could so that he could be with Rachel.

Rachel was the only person in his life that he had who could take away all the pain he had drawn out of others. She kept him anchored firmly to the earth when no one else would and kept him from flying back home. Dylan loved his life on earth, but much of the time he hated all the sad things he saw that affected the everyday lives of ordinary people.

Firefighters and police officers had been the worst. Dylan had lost count of how many he had visited, or how much of their grief he had swallowed. He had seen too many of them grieving the loss of their partners or their families losing their husband or wife. Once he had visited a police officer who had lost his partner in an arrest gone wrong and when Dylan took away his grief it nearly crushed him.

He had awoken in the middle of the night after that incident as he lay beside Rachel in her room, his brown eyes stinging with bloody tears as he clung to her for dear life. Rachel had been the only thing there to give him comfort that night and forever after.

Dylan’s senses suddenly began to go awry when he felt the presence of something lingering in the cemetery. He was curious to know what was lurking around in there at this hour, but cautioned himself against going in there. It’s probably some mugger waiting for his next victim…he thought. But then again.

Dylan cautiously climbed over the rusty iron gate and began following the cobbled path that snaked around hundreds of graves and mausoleums all weathered and covered in specks of black mold and lichens. Huge willows reached out and brushed against his shoulders with their long, leafy fingers.

As he wound his way through the maze of graves, Dylan could feel the presence getting stronger. When he came to the grave etched with the name of Gaston Bordereaux, his senses grew red hot. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up and before he knew it he caught someone by the throat and slammed them against the wall of the tomb.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?!” Dylan snarled.

“Dylan cut it out it’s me!” croaked the person’s voice as he struggled to breathe.

Dylan groaned with annoyance when he realized who it was. “Grey what the hell are you doing here?”

Grey took several deep breaths when Dylan had let him go, sinking against the wall, down to the ground beneath his feet. He smoothed aside his neat crop of dark hair and adjusted his black and red flannel shirt. “Sorry.” He panted, his voice sounding like that of a boy caught between boyhood and manhood. “I should’ve told you I was here.”

“Long ways away from home aren’t you?” Dylan freshly remarked.

“Mason Noir?” Grey questioned. “I thought you would’ve known by now that I hate living in that shithole they call a house. I hate living with Hillary too.”

“What’d she do to you now?” Dylan asked. “Tried selling your soul at a buyer’s market?”

“Worse.” Grey responded. “Putting up with that is only the half of it. She uses me and everyone else in that house as though we’re her plaything.”

“Even Damon?”

“Damon doesn’t care.” Grey spat as he tossed aside a fallen leaf. “I think he kind of likes it to be honest.”

Dylan shuddered a bit as the image of Hillary and Damon crept into his mind. It was certainly something he didn’t need to see nor did he have any desire to see it.

“How’d you sneak out?”

“I excused myself from the dinner table.” Grey explained. “She won’t even know I’m gone. Sally hardly joins us for dinner anyways.”

“Was that why you came down here?” Dylan asked him.

“No.” Grey replied. “I have something to tell you.”

Dylan’s eyebrows arched with curiosity. “Go on.” He said. “I’m listening.”

Grey was silent for a few minutes before he drew up the courage to speak. “You know those kids that got killed down at Belle’s Grove, right?”

“Yeah.” Dylan answered.

“I wasn’t there when it happened.” Grey explained, picking a piece of lint off his shirt. “But Hillary said she wanted to have some fun and I guess that was how she wanted to do it.”

“So she just decided to kill four kids?” Dylan asked, disgusted by Grey’s explanation. “How did you know about this?”

“She came home, bragging about it with the others.” Grey told him as he hugged his knees. “I could hear her and Sally arguing about it downstairs.”

“She had no idea their parents knew Sybilla, did they?” Dylan questioned.

“I guess not.” Grey blurted out. “I didn’t want to be a part of her sick games. I guess it’s better I did too. I didn’t want to be locked in the attic for a month.”

The attic? Dylan thought. Who would be cruel enough to lock someone in an attic? He was beginning to think that there was more to this story than Grey was letting on. He would have to further pick his brain to find out.

“Is that what she does when someone screws something up?” Dylan asked.

Grey shook his head. “Worse.” He said in a low half whisper.

A small hungry germ in the back of Dylan’s mind yearned to learn more, hungering and thirsting for knowledge that only Grey would have.

“What does she do? Tell me what she does.” He pressed. “I won’t tell anybody but Sybilla.”

Grey was reluctant to tell Dylan anything, knowing he would tell Sybilla. Grey feared the voodoo priestess more than he feared the dark.

“She’s done horrible things to people up there.” Grey told him. “Sally leads her victims to the attic and they never come out. Sometimes you can hear them scream before she kills.”

Dylan’s heart went cold when Grey told him Sally Caulfield’s chilling secret. There had been plenty of tales of famous murderers and serial killers who roamed the bayou in search of unsuspecting victims. But this? This was far too disturbing for him to really contemplate.

“I gotta get home.” Dylan told him. “If something happens, you know where to go right?”

Grey nodded.

When he and Dylan parted ways, Dylan continued his walk towards home, contemplating the chilling secret Grey had revealed to him and wondering just what the hell he had gotten himself into. He would have to have been insane not to tell Sybilla he had seen his friend. Though a friend Grey was, he would never be truly accepted by the others at Angel Manor. But then again he never fully trusted Grey. And maybe….just maybe….it was for the best that he didn’t.