Page 80 of Stalked By Shadows

Nothing.

“Fuck!” I ran like a madman then, focused on the search, moving around the cemetery like I was trying to outrun a fire. I took every path, retracing steps and searching every corner. “No, no, no…” The cemetery wasn’t that big. It looked big from the outside, but it really was a big rectangle surrounded by a high white wall. One way in and out. Lots of corners and tombs to hide behind, but he had no reason to hide, and I should have heard him, his steps, his breathing, or even the movement of his clothing.

He was gone.

I heaved for breath, searching the same areas three or four times until my lungs burned, and my side ached from all the running. A dozen times I dialed his phone, praying to hear his phone chime or have him answer, only there was no reply and nothing but silence stretching across the distance.

I found my way back to the gate, praying Micah had made his way out, or maybe even that Lukas had found him and dragged him outside. I panted and felt tears streaming down my face. My brain raced through a thousand horrible options.

Lukas stood with a couple other cops outside the gate. He looked up and waved me over, clearly angry with me. “Where’s Micah?” he demanded.

“No, no, no, no…” I felt every last bit of my resolve vanish in that moment in the realization that he hadn’t come outside to wait for me. “I only left him for a second.” The panic attack that hit me then was almost welcome, as it came so fast and hard that I passed out, blissfully yanked down into a dark place where new boyfriends weren’t stolen by cemetery monsters.

Chapter 24

Icame to lying on the sidewalk with a handful of EMTs fussing over me. They had an oxygen mask pressed to my face and while the clean purity of it felt good, my lungs ached. I pushed the mask away and tried to breathe. The lights of police cars lit up the night almost as bright as daytime. Lukas stood nearby, and there were police streaming in and out of the cemetery.

“Lukas?” I called for him. Micah wasn’t in there was he? They hadn’t found him dead too, had they?

Lukas glanced at me, said something to the other detective he was talking to and headed my way.

“Micah?” I asked Lukas the second he got close enough to hear me.

“We’re looking.” His expression was guarded, tired, and sad. “I saw you both go in.”

“He was right behind me. I heard something. Ran toward it, didn’t find anything, but when I turned back, he was gone.” I reached for Lukas’s arm. “Are they looking for him? Did they find him?” Was he dead?

“I’ve got over a dozen cops in there looking for him. Hell, my sergeant thinks I’m nuts, but I have them searching every grave for openings that might have the girl stuck somewhere. If you had waited, neither of you would have been in there.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Fuck, Alex. What happened? When will you fucking listen to me?”

I flinched. “I didn’t want him to go in there alone.”

“But you couldn’t have convinced him to wait outside with me until we got some units here?”

Tears burned my eyes. “He’s gone. What if he’s gone again…” Maybe not even three months, but forever? I couldn’t bring myself to voice the thoughts. Was it my fault? The day together had been amazing. Small things. Sitting with him while he made projects and worked stuff out in his head. An afternoon nap followed by sweet sex. Dinner and snuggling, time playing with Jet and a laser light while Micah smiled and watched from his place on the futon. For a few hours I’d felt normal, like there was a chance to find happiness even though we were both a little weird.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Lukas said. “Tell me what you remember and the last time you saw him. I’ve got people looking.”

The EMT pressed something cold to my cheek. It hurt. I must have fallen and landed on my face again. At least I didn’t seem to be bleeding. The cold pack helped ground me even while my mind raced in a million directions.

“You with me?” Lukas asked.

“Trying,” I said, fighting down the panic. “You have to find him.”

“We’re looking, now tell me what you remember.”

I closed my eyes and gave him everything. Detail by detail from the second we entered the cemetery, from finding writing on the side of the open crypt, to not hearing bugs, and following shadows. I recalled details this time around that I hadn’t before. The shapes of certain graves, the sound of Micah behind me as I ran toward that last shadow, and the abrupt silence. He had turned down another path, I realized. Having felt or heard something he hadn’t shared. It had only taken a few seconds. When I finished the retelling, I bowed my head to my knees and sobbed. He was gone. Something had taken him like it had taken Sarah.

Lukas’s sigh was deep and tired. “Can I have someone take you home to my place? I’d feel better if I knew you were home safe.”

“I need to find Micah.”

“And I have people looking for him.”

“That worked out really well, last time, right?” I threw back at him feeling the need to hurt because I felt like I was bleeding inside. That quickly Micah had become important enough to me, to make me bleed when he’d been ripped away. Fuck. “Sorry. That was an asshole thing to say, and I didn’t mean it.”

Lukas took my face in his hands and made me look at him. “Stop. All this shit in your head. Stop. I thought you’d help each other, not tear each other up.”

“You didn’t expect him to go missing again.” But I had feared it from the moment I heard that thing in his garden.