Page 27 of Grave Beginnings

“In blood?”

I glanced at him and then back at the print. “Huh?” It glowed red, and only then did I realize it didn’t look like blood. Blooddidn’t glow. I took a step back, but Angel put his clean hand on my back to stop my retreat.

“You’re fine.”

I wasn’t. Was this my power?

“Breathe. I’ve got you. Can you describe the print to me?”

“Uh, a small handprint, visible fingers and parts of the palm, about half the size of my hand. On that book right there.”

“Stay there a second,” Angel said. He pulled off his gloves, then tugged his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of the spot before flipping the screen toward me.

“What the fuck?” There was nothing beside my hand. “There’s a handprint there.” I stared at it, knowing it was as vivid as the rest of the blood. In fact, more so, like it dripped fresh blood while everything else had begun to dry.

Angel met my gaze, his eyes widening slightly, but he nodded. “Are there more?”

I swept my gaze around the room and found half a dozen. “Yeah.” I sucked in air as a bunch of things hit me at once. “Are my eyes red?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“You’re fine.”

“You can’t see the marks? They’re everywhere.” And I was panicking. Holy fuck, I’d never asked for this sort of nightmare.

Angel put his arm around my shoulders, steadying me. “You’ve got this. Breathe.”

I sucked in air as the room spun for a minute, everything swimming. The stench of death and blood filling my nose was almost clarifying. I wasn’t Alice in some fairytale. Glowing, bloody handprints weren’t the worst supernatural gift I could fathom. Not if it led me to the killer before they could hurt someone else.

“I’m okay,” I said, a little too quickly.

“Let me grab markers from the forensics team,” Angel said, his expression guarded. “They might have another scanner with them, heat sensitive or something?”

“You believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Angel asked. “Do you regularly lie about creepy handprints at murder scenes?”

“Never.”

“Okay, then. Be right back.” He picked his way around the blood spatter and toward the gathered group of SED uniforms.

“You can do this, dumbass,” I muttered to myself. “Creepy superpower activated.” I followed the handprints, trying to decide if there was anything different about them. Some looked as though they’d been pressed to a surface to create the perfect print, others a ball of wadded up lines, as if it were a small fist.

I whipped around at the sound of a giggle right beside me, thinking someone was laughing in my ear, but I was alone at the back of the store. Angel and the rest of the SED were up near the front. What the fuck?

“Hello?” I whispered, worried everyone would look at me and think I’d lost my mind. No answer. I headed for the next print, near the hall to the bathrooms and the stockroom door. As I passed the stockroom, another giggle made me freeze. The heavy door should have muted any sound from beyond, but that laugh had been clear as day. My heart raced as I approached the window in the door, expecting some small, terrifying face to peer back at me, but the stockroom looked empty.

I nudged it with my shoe, ready to run if something jumped out at me. The stockroom was completely empty and still. I stepped inside, slowly making my way around the long, narrow room. There was a dock door for a truck—but it was closed—and a door that read ‘exit.’ That door had a handprint near the handle and was unlatched.

Weren’t zombies supposed to be mindless, or had all themovies lied to me? Did zombies leave bloody, spectral handprints? I couldn’t recall seeing any at the daycare. Fuck.

I tiptoed toward it, fearing the worst, but there was only one print. Maybe this was the way it escaped? Could zombie kids run? I really needed to memorize the damn manual.

The chill in the air intensified as I approached the door. This one was one of those heavy fire doors without any windows. I kicked it with my foot, and it swung open into the light of day shining down behind the store. A giant, closed dumpster loomed near the distant wall a good fifteen feet away, but nothing moved. Another handprint marked the side of the green box as though teasing.

“This is the worst game of hide-and-seek I’ve ever played,” I grumbled to myself. I approached the bin and hesitated, straining for any sound that might indicate movement, but heard nothing. I reached for the lid, heart pounding. “No jack-in-the-box, please. Holy fuck. I’m pretty sure I’d die of fright.”