Alistair’s eyes widened. “Not without you!”
Mom and Jake were right there, moving in their caskets. “I can’t leave them.”
“Junior!” Sullivan shouted. He ran to the casket, ripped the linen cloth aside, and pulled out a small form.
A small, terrible form.
The breath stopped in Sam’s throat at the sight. His time in the ground hadn’t treated the boy well, despite being embalmed. His eyes were sunken, the lids torn and ragged where they had been stitched closed by the funeral home. Mold crawled over one pale cheek, and his hair was clotted with unnamable fluids. Even the strong wind couldn’t dispel the stench of formaldehyde and rot.
But he was back. Maybe it just took time? The hex was still doing something, the magic still flowing through him from Alistair and into the disc, the hexes.
“My boy,” Sullivan sobbed. “I’ve missed you so much. Oh my God. Oh my God.” He buried his face in his son’s disgusting hair, seeming oblivious to everything that was wrong.
Mom sat up, struggling to free herself from the hexed cloth.
“You let me die,” Junior said in a ghastly voice. “Why did you let me die, Papa?”
Sullivan seemed taken aback. “I-I did everything I could, kiddo. And you’re back now. It’s all okay. I’ve fixed it.”
“You spent all your time with your business, never with me.”
“No.” Sullivan shook his head frantically. “I was doing it for you. You and your mom. I love you!”
“But I don’t love you,” Junior said—and locked his small hands around Sullivan’s throat.
Sullivan gurgled and flopped like a landed fish. He should have been strong enough to fend off a child, or at least a living one. But Junior was filled with the hideous strength of death itself, squeezing Sullivan’s throat tighter and tighter even as strands of rotting flesh came off under Sullivan’s fingernails.
“Sammy,” Mom said.
He couldn’t look—but he had to look.
She stood upright in her casket, wearing the dress she’d saved for special occasions at church. Now it was slick with rot, dripping as she took one unsteady step out of the box she’d lain in. Her foot made a horrible squishing sound, and something leaked over the edge of her low-heeled shoes.
Beside her, Jake clawed aside the linen covering. His time in the ground had mummified him, any remaining flesh and skin sunk tight against the bone, shriveled lips exposing his teeth. His parents’ Golden Child, who could do no wrong, reduced to this…
“Because of you,” Mom snarled. “Look at what you did to your brother. You should have died in his place.”
Alistair tried to pull Sam back. “Get behind me!”
“No!” Sam set his feet. He couldn’t just turn his back on them—they were his family, they’d died because of his mistakes, but if he tried hard enough maybe he could still make it right.
Jake’s mouth creaked open. Sam struggled to see the hearty older brother he remembered in this shriveled thing. “You should have stopped me that day, Sammy,” Jake hissed. “I died because of you.”
“Once a failure, always a failure,” Mom spat, echoing the words Dad spoke when he hadn’t saved her.
“I can—I can fix it, I can make up for it, just…”
Mom was getting closer, her arms outstretched as if for an embrace. “Yes, you can. You can put things right. You just have to die.”
His heart pounded and his vision swam. What was he to do? This was his mother, his brother, he owed it to them, to his family, he had to—had to?—
“Sam!” Alistair put himself bodily in between them, facing Sam with his back to Mom and Jake. His amber eyes caught Sam’s gaze and held it. “Listen to me, please. We need to put a stop to this. I don’t know what the hex summoned, but it’s not them. Sullivan’s little boy loved him, I know he did.”
“But—”
“They’re just saying what’s in your own head!” Alistair’s fingers dug into Sam’s arms hard enough to bruise. “Maybe some of that originally came out of your mom’s mouth, but that doesn’t mean this is her. And it damn sure doesn’t make it true.”
Tears stung Sam’s eyes. He wanted to believe Alistair, but… “What about Opal and Dad? What about The Pride?”
