Page 1 of Grave Beginnings

PROLOGUE

Fog blanketedthe streets like a shroud, thick and suffocating, as Joe and I pulled up to Happy Toddlers Daycare. The building’s cheerful sign loomed with a grim energy. A line of uniformed officers formed a barricade in front of the entrance.

“We should wait for SED,” Joe said, his gaze locked on the building and his hand hovering near his holster.

“There are kids in there,” I snapped, already out of the car and striding toward the door. As detectives, we outranked the uniforms, and I wasn’t about to stand around while children were in danger.

“And zombies,” Joe called after me, his tone sharp. He pointed upward. Above the clouds, a jagged line of sparkling darkness flickered like a lightning bolt frozen mid-strike. It cut through the building, splitting open to reveal a gaping tear in the Veil. Beyond it, something shimmered, alien and wrong, peeking into our world from another realm. Some claimed it was the world of the dead, others a realm of unlimited supernatural creatures. All that mattered in that moment was saving those kids.

“And kids,” I shot back, unstrapping my taser from my belt. My gun stayed holstered; I wasn’t about to risk firing blindly in a room full of children. The uniforms shouted warnings as I approached, but I flashed my badge and pushed past them, my heart pounding in my ears. The door stood slightly ajar, and I kicked it open, bracing myself for the worst.

Blood streaked the lobby carpet like a bad paint job, toys lay scattered, and furniture was overturned as if a tornado had ripped through the room. The unnatural stillness turned my blood to ice. A chill crept up my spine. My breath hitched as I scanned the room. Where were the kids? The caretakers? Had they been pulled through the Veil?

The tear pulsed and writhed like a living thing, a mass of shimmering jellyfish tendrils descending through the ceiling and walls as though the building were no more than a mirage. It crackled with electricity, its edges flickering and unstable. A handful of uniforms filed in behind me, their guns drawn, using me as a human shield.

“We need to wait for SED,” one of them said, his voice trembling, gun up and pointed, finger on the trigger.

“Put your fucking gun down,” I barked, not bothering to look back. “There are kids in here.”

“And zombies!” someone else shouted. “The 911 dispatcher said zombies!”

I ignored them, my focus locked on the main play area ahead. I stepped carefully, avoiding the streaks of blood, my taser gripped tightly in my hand.

The overhead lights flickered, some shooting sparks where the Veil sliced the electrical lines, dimming the room to wobbly shadows. Small figures shuffled with jerky, unnatural movements. One of them turned toward me, and my stomach churned. Its face was a grotesque mask, skin sagging on one side, eyes black and empty, mouth hanging open in a silent scream. It was a child, or at least it had been. Had the Veil split done this to them?

Blood and viscera was splattered across the floor like macabre confetti. A caretaker’s leg, torn and mangled, protruded from beneath an overturned table. My throat tightened as I forced myself to keep moving.

The zombie toddler, a little girl with blonde pigtails, locked her hollow eyes on me. She chewed mechanically, a chunk of something pink and fleshy in her mouth. My grip tightened on the taser as she shuffled closer, her tiny hands clawing at the air. She let out a low, guttural growl and lunged, her fingers reaching for me.

I raised the taser, but my finger froze on the trigger. She was just a kid. “Stop!” I shouted. A jolt, like static electricity, surged up my spine and out with the word, and for a split second the very air between us shimmered.

She froze mid-lunge, her eyes wide and unblinking, her body suspended in a grotesque display of animalistic rage. The other children paused, slowly turning with a sway of broken doll heads to face me as if awaiting further instructions. Their blank expressions focused unnervingly on me.

I took a half step back, my mind racing. The command had worked—how? The distraction broke whatever strange focus the children had on me. In an instant, they moved, their small bodies jolting forward with unnatural speed.

“Fire!” someone shouted, and the room erupted in chaos. Gunfire roared, deafening in the confined space. Blood sprayed as bullets tore through the small bodies, and I rushed forward, as if I could somehow shield them from the horror.

“Stop shooting!” I screamed, but it was too late. The little girl leapt over me, and someone behind me shrieked in pain.

A jolt of electricity hit me like a freight train. My muscles seized and I crumpled to the ground, my head smacking the floor hard enough to send stars exploding across my vision. Gasping for air, I barely registered the screams and gunfire above me before darkness swallowed me whole, dragging me intounconsciousness. For a moment, there was no Veil, no zombies, no blood-soaked daycare, just blessed, silent oblivion.

1

“Jude…”

“Youtaseredme.”

Joe looked away. I followed him out the main hospital entrance and into the parking garage. It felt strange to be outside, like I’d truly been released from prison. The last two weeks—the voices were everywhere; inside me, around me, pulling me under. I could see the morgue in my mind, the rows of steel drawers, the cold, lifeless bodies waiting for someone to claim them—had been surreal. The betrayal burned, like everything I’d known and trusted for the past decade had been ripped away.

“They think I was commanding those things.”

“You were,” Joe said, almost too quiet to hear.

“What?” I grabbed his shoulder to keep him from walking away.

“They stopped when you said stop, like marionettes on a string.”

“I didn’t?—”