Death In Her Eyes - Erin Bedford Page 0,5

whatever I found to be the least nonsensical and touchy feely. Probably a lab tech. I could hide in a tiny lab every day and blow shit up.

Nikki was going to be a nurse.

“We’re here kiddo.” Uncle Bob who had been snoring most of the trip, kicked my black ankle boot with one of his dress shoes. I glanced at him and then looked back out the window. We actually were there. When had that happened?

“Come one kiddo. They ain’t gonna start without you.” Uncle Bob waited outside the door for me as I smoothed out my short black dress over my knitted tights and stumbled out onto the gravel of the graveyard road.

So, this is what a graveyard looked like. For all the deaths I’d seen I’d never actually been to a funeral before, let alone a graveyard. I had enough problems with the dead. No need to rock that boat quite yet.

I followed the trail of somberly dressed people as we made our way toward where my mom’s new home would be. It was a lot cheerier than I would have expected a graveyard to be. I mean where was the darkened skies, the crows, and all the creepy weeping angels? Maybe that was only a nighttime attraction. Shouldn’t have signed up for the midnight special.

A hand grasped mine in theirs before I could pull it back. When I followed the hand up to the owner’s face I relax. It was just Nikki. No more visions for me today.

Yay.

“How you holding up?” She gave me a small concerned look.

I rolled my eyes at her. “How do you think?”

“Well, judging by the scowl on your face I’m assuming your Aunt Kate said something rude again and you are trying to decide if it is worth it to tempt the fates and kill her early.” I snorted and tried to cover it up with what looked like a distraught cry of anguish. God, do I love this girl.

Nikki pulled me into a hug in front of the coffin that held my mother’s body and pretended to be comforting a crying daughter, when really I was trying hard to breathe through my laughs. She gave me a particularly hard pat on the back. Her signal for knock it off already, it wasn’t that funny. What can I say, I was easily amused.

When I finally had myself under control, I pulled back from her and took my rightful place next to the coffin. The minister was staring at me as if he knew I hadn’t really been crying. I narrowed my eyes and jerked my head towards him. I almost started laughing again when the large man startled at my hard gaze and quickly looked down at the book in his hand. My eyes wandered away from the man as his gravelly voice went on to talk about walking through the valley of death.

Man, you’re preaching to the choir.

My gaze drifted to the surrounding graves. There were a few family tombs around the outskirts of the graveyard. Each lined up along the metal fence. At least that part of the graveyard was consistent with horror movies. I moved my eyes along the different types of graves and paused.

There in the midst of them, sticking out like the only straight guy at a Jonas Brothers concert, was a tree. Though, it was mid-June, the tree looked like it was stuck in a perpetual winter. Not dead, but not full and vibrate like the rest of the trees outside the graveyard. I stared at the tree for a moment, wondering why they decided to put one tree in the whole lot of land. As I stared the shadows of the tree grew and widened, stretching out into long black wings on either side. My head jerked up from the ground just in time to see a lone figure step out of the shadows.

A man. At least he looked like a man. He was blurry at first, but after a few moments he seemed to solidify. Dressed in what had to be a pretty expensive black suit along with a pair of dark shades stood my dad. Bart.

What the hell was he doing here? How did he even do that? Crap he’s looking at me.

I looked away from him and turned my gaze back to the minister. Did they see? I chanced a quick peek at the others around me. None of them seemed to have noticed the man just standing in the middle of