Fifth Grave Past the Light by Darynda Jones Page A

got me every time. On the bright side, the rush of adrenaline helped. Not a lot. I still needed a caffeine fix, but at least I was awake enough to realize I quite possibly had my underwear on inside out. Something didn’t feel right down yonder.
    I approached the woman with caution when another movement caught my attention. I had to look up. Up! And there on my wall was another woman. This one looked about thirty. She could’ve been a natural blonde. Wasn’t sure. But she was crawling up my wall toward the ceiling. She scurried to a corner and curled into it.
    I did a 360, turning to assess my surroundings, and counted no less that five more women in varying states of terror. They were all filthy, all covered in the same oil, and from what I could see, all strangled. My heart sank for them. They couldn’t have all died recently. I would have heard something in the news. Then I realized their clothing and hairstyles were from different time periods. While one looked almost recent with a Faded Glory button-down, another actually looked from about twenty years ago, chunks of her hair pulled into a ponytail with a fluffy neon scrunchy. The terror in their eyes, the mindless fear that paralyzed them, ripped through my heart.
    My front door opened.
    “Good morning,” Cookie said as she walked in, almost ready to face the world. She looked like she hadn’t gotten much sleep, and she had a rather nasty shiner.
    “Hey, you,” I said, pretending not to notice. I poured her a cup and added all the fixings.
    “What do you think?”
    “What? Oh, you mean your black eye? I hardly noticed.”
    “Don’t say that,” she said with an indignant gasp before pointing at her eye. “I earned this puppy. I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth. Amber made me breakfast.”
    “No way.”
    “Way. And it wasn’t half bad once I picked out the shell fragments.”
    “Nice.” I took a sip of my coffee. Smacked my lips. Took another sip, then handed it to Cookie. “Here, taste this.”
    She took a sip, then handed it back, smacking her lips, too. “What is that?”
    “Not sure. Mr. Coffee has never let me down.” I took another sip. “Maybe it’s not him. I ran out of dish soap and had to use shampoo. I’m not entirely certain I rinsed well.”
    “You did your dishes with shampoo?”
    “It was either that or my apricot body scrub.”
    “No, good call. A little shampoo won’t hurt you.”
    “Right? I just don’t know what my day would be like without coffee to give it a good kick start. Is it wrong that every time I run out of creamer, I become slightly suicidal?”
    “Not at all. I became suicidal once when Jug-N-Chug ran out of French vanilla flavoring syrup.”
    “I hear ya.” Coffee was that place where the sun comes up over the horizon and lights the heavens in a burst of vibrant colors. Shampoo remnants didn’t change that fact.
    “Is your aunt Lil here?” she asked.
    Aunt Lillian had died in the sixties and was now a semipermanent roommate. Thankfully, she traveled a lot. “I think she’s still in Africa. She loves that place.” Speaking of dead roommates, I perused the woman hanging – literally – in my space bubble. “When you get a break in class, I need you to do some research.”
    “Okay, on what?”
    “I have an apartment full of departed women.”
    Cookie stopped. She looked around, suddenly wary. “Like, right now?”
    “As we speak.”
    “How many are we talking?”
    “Let me count.”
    I strolled into my bedroom, made a detour to count the one in the shower, then came back out and pointed my finger in every direction imaginable. Watching Cookie’s expression go from slightly worried to horrified was also a lot like that place where the sun comes up over the horizon and lights the heavens. Only, you know, funnier.
    I walked back into the kitchen and went through the cabinets. “Nine,” I said, matter-of-fact. “Oh, wait.” I went to the fridge and checked it, too. “Nope, just nine.