Chapter Nine

Lies

VINCENT STARED AT the rows of bottles. Wine. Rum. Whiskey. Tequila. Vodka. Colored glass and vibrant labels. He gravitated toward the vodka and picked up a bottle of Smirnoff Green Apple—the larger of the two bottles available, which James used to playfully call “family-sized.” Then, he checked out.

He’d tried to drive straight to Greenwood Cemetery. Pennsylvania law prohibited trespassing on cemeteries after sundown, but if he didn’t go tonight, he’d never go. He’d made it halfway there when the thought of seeing that patch of unsettled earth sent him back the way he’d come. He didn’t know if he’d intentionally driven to Fine Wine & Good Spirits or if the glowing white letters drew him in like a moth to a flame. Either way, he found what he needed.

As soon as he got back in his car, he twisted off the cap and took a shot. Liquid fire the whole way down. Another. Just as bad as the first. He clamped his mouth shut to keep it down. He twisted the cap back on, stuck the bottle between his legs, and started his car.

He’d known his visit with Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont wouldn’t go well. He’d expected to be insulted and belittled. He hadn’t expected the loathing. God, that look on her face. He was pretty sure he could drink the whole bottle and still see her expression when he closed his eyes. And he didn’t even get any answers. He just got the location of where they’d buried James.

He took one more shot for the road.

Greenwood Cemetery was a few miles away. He followed the winding roads, putting the destination out of his mind. He focused on the warm feeling of the vodka settling in his stomach. Not necessarily a comforting warm. More of a burning sensation. A lit match that wasn’t hot enough to distract him from the reality of driving to his boyfriend’s gravesite.

James’s gravesite.

He concentrated on the road.

Before long, Google Maps informed him he’d arrived. His headlights shone on a hinged gate that closed off the road to the cemetery. There were bronze plaques fixed to waist-high stone pillars flanking the entrance. Each read: “Greenwood Cemetery, Incorporated in 1875.”

A chain was wrapped around the end of the gate and an adjacent metal pole, held in place with a silver lock that gleamed in the headlights. The trees on either side of the pillars prevented him from driving around the gate. He considered backing up and trying to ram it open. He might have, if it weren’t for the houses across the street from the entrance. He drove a little further down the road and parked on the shoulder.

He didn’t realize how bad his hands were shaking until he let go of the steering wheel. He took another swig from the bottle in the hope of drowning the urge to flee. He’d come too far to turn back now. Clutching the neck of the bottle in one hand, he climbed out of his car.

Pain shot through his chest.

“Fuck.”

Something about the way he’d stood up had pissed off his ribs. He leaned against the side of the car and fought to breathe. Six months. That was how long Dr. Carter told him it would take for his ribs to heal. He should have taken all the pain medicine he was offered when he had the chance. He’d give anything to feel that beautiful numbness again. The only thing he had now was the vodka, and it had barely affected him.

He walked along the side of the road to reach the gate. The porch lights and lampposts from the houses across the street provided enough light for him to see where he was going. In one window, a woman sat at a dining room table with a girl who was dressed in a school uniform. The girl’s mouth was moving, and the woman motioned to the girl’s plate. The girl ignored her, too focused on whatever she was telling her mom—probably about her school day.

Had he been so eager to tell his parents about his day when he was her age? He wasn’t sure. For as far back as he could remember, he described his days in one-word answers like “long” or “boring.” After his mother’s diagnosis, he did his best to sugarcoat the horrors of high school. The sicker she got, the hungrier she became for details—like she was trying to gather as much information as she could about his life before she was no longer a part of it. As a result, his lies became all the more elaborate and sickeningly sweet until she was gone and a part of him wasn’t sure what was the truth and what was a fabrication.

He didn’t have a person who cared enough to ask him about his day until he met James. And with James, he didn’t have to lie. He could leave in all his anger and frustration. They’d spend so much time talking about what had happened to them when they were apart that James could probably pass any of the classes Vincent was taking with flying colors. How strange it was to return to the silence. To know that he was the only person in the world who knew what had happened to him today. He needed to get used to it.

He was alone now.

He had almost reached the gate when something black darted across the ground in front of him. He stumbled back before he realized it was his shadow. He turned around, and a bright light blinded him. He squinted his eyes. The light split in two. Headlights. Someone was driving down the road. He stumbled into the cemetery through the space between the pillar and the trees. Dead undergrowth crunched under his shoes. He pressed his back against the pillar and crouched down as low as his sore ribs would let him.

His heart pounded, and his chest burned. The world swayed around him. He prayed that whoever was in the car hadn’t seen him. The last thing he needed was for the cops to find him drunk in a graveyard at night. Rays of light shot through the gate and lit up the dirt road stretching out in front of him to the cemetery. He waited for the car to pass and the light to disappear, but it didn’t. He could hear the engine purring as the car slowed to a stop.

Shit.

They must’ve seen him.

Any moment now, a car door would open, and someone would have questions for him to answer. He was so busy listening for the car door he almost didn’t notice that the light had turned red. Vincent glanced around the side of the pillar. The car pulled into a driveway across the street. He remained where he was until whoever was in the car went inside the house.

He took another drink and set off down the dirt road. The farther away he got from the houses, the harder it became to see in the dark. His eyes eventually adjusted enough to make out his surroundings in the pale moonlight. There was another house down the road on the right. Probably belonged to the caretaker who must have gone to bed early. Not a single light was on in the house. Vincent stayed closer to the line of trees on his left in case he was wrong.

As per Greta’s instructions, he made a left at the first road he came across. Down the path he went. He chugged more vodka. It made it harder to walk in a straight line, but it also dulled the pain in his chest and the soreness in his legs. Just when he was starting to think he’d gone down the wrong path, the road split in three. He took the one on the left.

The trees thinned. Graves swam around him, undulating like waves in an ocean. He kept blinking his eyes to focus them on the path. At some point, he spotted—or thought he spotted—a pair of eyes peeking out at him from a distant obelisk. They seemed too close together to be human. A small comfort. Maybe a deer. Or a coyote. Or a bear. Whatever it was, its eyes were on him, following his progress.

He took another swig and continued down the path a little faster. His legs felt heavy, but he forced them to move. One foot in front of the other. Over and over again. Rinse and repeat. And there it was—the pine tree. Swaying high above the sea of gravestones. The green needles blue in what little light the moon and the distant city provided. James was buried somewhere beneath it. Vincent took another gulp of vodka.

He didn’t remember walking over to it. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the rectangular patch of dirt that was just outside of the ring of pine needles beneath the tree. He knew there wouldn’t be a headstone. The earth hadn’t had enough time to settle. But the little metal marker stuck in the earth at the top of the dirt looked so utterly pitiful. He drew a little closer and, with significant effort to slow down the rotation of the earth, he made out the two lines of text:

JAMES A. BEAUMONT

July 5th, 1994–February 16th, 2017

He took another mouthful of vodka. He was supposed to say goodbye. Come to some realization that James was really gone and return to what was left of his life. That was the whole point in him coming here, wasn’t it? Closure? Something to make his existence more bearable. Staring at the little marker that danced in front of him, he felt no rush of certainty. He saw nothing in that frosted pile of dirt except a lie.

James wasn’t in that grave. Vincent had covered James in mud. And James had carried him to safety. And—

Something crawled up his leg. He felt its little legs scurry across his thigh. He screamed and stumbled back, hitting his leg. He slipped in the dirt and hit the ground. The world blurred. If there was pain, he didn’t notice in his rush to kill whatever was on him. He didn’t see anything on his jeans. But he felt it, buzzing between the fabric and his flesh.

Not a bug.

His phone.

He let himself breathe. He sat up and pulled it from his pocket. He blinked his eyes until he could read the number. Ralbovsky and Tillman. Before he could decline the call, it ended, and not long after, a voice mail appeared on his screen. He clicked on it.

“Vincent. It’s Detective Tillman,” she said in a restrained manner. “We got a call from Mrs. Beaumont. Said that you were trying to break into her house and wouldn’t leave. She’s very upset. Wanted to make a police report—despite the fact Fox Chapel is outside our jurisdiction. We talked to her, and she is letting it go. But we need to talk to you. Call us back. In the meantime, you need to stay away from—”

“You need to shut the fuck up!” He wished it were a phone call so that he could say it to her. He tossed his phone away from him.

They were all part of the lie. James’s dad had lied about identifying the body. Ralbovsky and Tillman couldn’t stop lying to him to save their lives. No, James wasn’t here. The marker. The grave. All of it was a lie. James was alive. Vincent had seen him with his own eyes in the hospital, and he trusted himself far more than any of those assholes.

He went to lift his hand up to open the bottle for another sip, but he must have dropped it when he fell. He found it in the dirt, cap missing and dirt coating the rim. The ground around it was dark from the spilled liquor.

Fuck.

He raised the bottle to the moon, praying he hadn’t wasted it all. A third of it remained. After he wiped off the rim, he gulped down a mouthful and looked at the grave. If James wasn’t buried in the ground, then who was? Was it an empty casket? He might not have gotten answers from Mr. and Mrs. fucking Beaumont, but he could answer this one. He just needed a shovel. He’d dig the thing up and give it a look-see. Show everyone they were a bunch of fucking liars.

He managed to get to his feet. The world tilted back and forth like he was on that Noah’s Ark ride at Kennywood. The one where everything moved too mechanically to properly imitate a boat on rough waters besides the resulting nausea. He stumbled to keep himself upright. He needed a shovel. A shovel. The word sounded strange in his mind.

Shovel.

No. He needed to focus. He looked around him. Graves and trees and nothing else in sight. He collected his phone and shone the flashlight into the darkness. Something moved behind a tree in the distance. Something big. No. Just the tree swaying. Tilting in Noah’s Ark.

In the far corner of the cemetery, he spotted a small wooden structure. Maybe a toolshed. He started in that direction until he noticed the big silver lock on the door. He stumbled back to the grave.

Fuck it. He didn’t need a shovel. He had two attached to his arms. He sat down in the dirt. He dug his fingers into the cold earth and pulled out handfuls. Good. This would take no time. He did it again. And again. But the earth was so damn cold it wouldn’t budge after he had taken away a few clumps of dirt that were as hard as stone. He clawed at it. Pain flooded his hand. He pulled it up to the moonlight. Blood ran down his arm from his ring finger. He’d say from the nail, but there wasn’t one there anymore.

His saliva felt thick. Stomach acid crawled up his throat. No. He clamped his hands over his mouth, but he couldn’t stop it. Vomit shot from his mouth. The world needed to stop spinning so fast. He couldn’t see straight in this merry-go-round from hell. His throat burned. That acidic smell. God, it was terrible.

He just needed to lie down for a minute to regain his strength. He pressed his cheek into the puddle of warm vomit. Shut his eyes and prayed for it all to end. More vomit shot from his mouth. He buried his face in it. The slimy texture filling the space between his skin and the earth was the last thing he remembered.

 

HE AWOKE WITH a searing pain in his head. He brought his hands to his temple, expecting to find the hilt of an ax. Just skin. His hand throbbed. He rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and felt the grainy texture of dirt and vomit.

The night returned in flashes. He’d drunk at least half, if not more, of that bottle of vodka. He’d gone to Greenwood Cemetery. He’d tried to dig up the grave. Then, he’d vomited. He could still smell it on him. He lifted his eyelids. He was lucky. It was still dark outside. He waited for the moon and the stars to come into focus, but all that did was a cracked plaster ceiling.

He went to push himself up from the ground, but his hand went further into it. Soft. Like…a bed. He looked around him. Dark square shapes. He searched for details to ground himself. Anything to explain where he’d woken up. He wasn’t at the cemetery or in his car. He was inside a house. But he wasn’t at Henry’s.

Two dressers came into focus, and an old wooden desk with enough books and papers stacked on it that it could topple over at any minute. It looked just like James’s desk. And those dressers were the same as the ones in their apartment. It was their furniture, but they looked so strange in the shadows it took him a moment to realize that he was back in their apartment.

It didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t stand, much less walk or drive. Someone must have brought him back here. Who could have done it and why they had taken him here of all places were questions he didn’t even know where to begin to find answers.

He heard it then.

The wood floors creaked in the living room.

He watched the bedroom door. It was cracked open. Must be Sam or Henry. He opened his mouth to call for them, but then another thought hit him. How could they have known I was at the cemetery? Greta could have told Sam, but why? And if they’d collected him, why take him to his apartment instead of Henry’s house or Sam’s apartment? He clamped his mouth shut.

Another memory flashed through his mind. He’d seen something in the graveyard. Behind that obelisk. And again, behind a tree. No, not something. Someone. Had the stranger brought him back here? The door started to open. There was no time left to think. He flopped back down in bed and swallowed the stomach acid that climbed up his throat. Maybe the stranger would let him sleep. Go back to wherever he’d been waiting in the apartment so that Vincent could try to figure something out. He just needed a few minutes to collect himself and think.

He listened and tried not to move an inch. It was hard to tell if the stranger had stopped in the doorway or come into the room. Unlike the living room, the bedroom was carpeted. A plush green carpet that muffled footsteps.

Something cold grazed his cheek. A hand. Fingers. Caressing him. He couldn’t hold in the scream. He raised his arms to protect himself and focused on the man standing over him. Broad shoulders. A thin, muscular physique. Light hair that glowed in the dim light coming in from the living room. Not a stranger.

James.