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Grave Danger
Heather Graham
The annual Thriller anthology of short fiction, now in its third year, brings together the most exciting mystery and suspense writers. This year’s collection, Love Is Murder, is edited by Sandra Brown. Among the featured authors is New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham, whose original short story. “Grave Danger” is now available as a free ebook.
For special-effects artist Ali MacGregor, it can be hard to tell fantasy from reality. Especially when her coworker Victor leaves her alone in the studio one night, surrounded by scary creations—zombies, werewolves and mangled corpses. And then she hears footsteps…. Footsteps that shouldn’t be there.
Nearby, Ali’s ex, cop Greg Austin, is called to the graveyard set of a horror movie after a real corpse appears. But the dead man isn’t who his ID says he is. And Victor isn’t who he seems to be, either. Greg quickly realizes that Ali, the woman he’s never stopped loving, is in grave danger….
Contents
Grave Danger
GRAVE DANGER
HEATHER GRAHAM
Spooky…and them some! Action-packed…and then some! Trust it to Heather Graham to plot so many twists into one short story. —Sandra Brown
The shuffling sound of footsteps had brought her here.
A leg lay on the floor, burned and scorched, blood pooled and congealed along the severed flesh at the kneecap area. In the shadows, Ali MacGregor stepped carefully by it. She blinked and saw the enormous monster beyond the leg. Fanged teeth appeared to drip saliva; the eyes were red, as if within them, all the fires and brutal evil of hell could be found.
Ali stood still, her heart thundering. She heard the noise again, the shuffling sound that had brought her here. She moved as silently as she could. Another step brought her face-to-face with the decaying skeleton of a one-eyed zombie.
Tattered flesh fell from the bones. The jaw bare, the tongue and teeth looked truly macabre. Now, its head hung in a parody of sadness, creating something even more horrible about its appearance—a touch of humanity, eaten away.
On screen, it had been one of the most terrifying creatures ever.
She was proud of the zombie. She’d had a part in the creation, and she thought it was one of her best pieces. The one eye was brilliantly blue, and it seemed to watch her as she listened again to the shuffling sound that had come from the storage room at the production facilities of Fantasmic Effects.
It was strange. She was accustomed to the horrific and the bizarre; without it, she wouldn’t make a living. But it was one thing when she was here during the day, when the rhythmic churn of sewing machines could be heard, when buzz saws roared, and there were people at every different workstation.
How different it was by night….
She was there alone for the first time. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be alone. Victor Brill was supposed to be working with her. They were finishing up the last of the half-eaten zombies for tomorrow night’s shoot in the “graveyard.”
The ironic thing, of course, was that the fake “graveyard” lay just beyond a real graveyard. A small plot in back fell under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church. The land had been purchased and donated by Blake Richards, the brilliant man who had founded Fantasmic Studios. Despite his love of horror and the occult, Blake had been a devout Catholic, and a boy who had almost gone wrong, except for the intervention of a priest. Now, Blake Richards was buried in the plot that immediately bordered the brick-walled parking lot of the studios, and the fake cemetery had been established nearby.
The cemetery had never frightened her. Not the real one, certainly. She’d loved Blake Richards; he’d hired her. He’d been the kindest man in the world, and the first to give a young artist a chance. So why was she so frightened tonight?
Victor. The jerk.
Victor had headed out to buy them both some fast food to get them through the next few hours. He’d left at five, when it had still been light. Now the sun had set, and the world around her was dark. Fantasmic Effects was out of the city, away from the congestion that seemed a part of all of Los Angeles County. Still, there were other studios and businesses not that far away. Enough so that there were scattered streetlights here and there.
The werewolf still seemed to be looking at her.
Hungrily.
I could call Greg. If he wasn’t working, he’d come. He’d come save me…just as he had been determined to save Cassandra.
That sudden thought made her wince. Maybe Greg was with his ex-girlfriend now. Or, maybe, Ali had thrown away her happiness because she’d never really grasped his sense of responsibility. He’d told her once that as a homicide detective, he’d learned that it was only the living he could really help. Sure, the dead did deserve justice, and he could help get that justice for them. But it was those still in danger—whether from a perp or themselves—who still really needed help.
Thinking about Greg wasn’t going to help her now. Realizing that she’d only gone on a few half-witted dates since she’d left their apartment that night certainly wasn’t exactly good for her mind, either. Remembering the ruggedly handsome and rough-hewn sculpture of his face, and thinking that she’d never been frightened of anything with him around was not going to get her through the night. And, certainly, thinking about being in bed with him on a lazy day, his naked flesh next to hers, even the scent of him intoxicating, would not stop the shuffling sound from terrifying her now….
She gave herself a mental shake. Oddly enough, thinking about Greg was helpful. She felt stronger, remembering his strength and determination, coupled with an even temper that always seemed to allow him to go forward.
What would Greg say now? she wondered.
She smiled to herself. Well, in all honesty, Greg would tell her to get out and get away, and call a cop. But then, he might also smile and remind her that her imagination was truly fantasmic, and that sometimes she had to live in the real world. Lord, there had been that one time when she had been working on the gauntlets for Knights and Aliens when he had stood behind her, fingers in her hair, knuckles brushing down over her cheeks while his whisper teased her ear, reminding her that the knights weren’t real, but he was, and he only had a few hours left before heading out for his shift.
They’d made love for hours then, and she had laughed and suggested they should actually make a movie: Homicide Cop and Prop Girl. Naturally, he’d be Supercop, and she’d have extra powers, and of course, he told her, she did have extra powers—what her lips did to his flesh was superhuman….
That was then. This was now.
Yes, it was just that it was dark, and she was alone. What was benign by day seemed frightening by night.
So, the werewolf had the appearance of being about to pounce at any given second. And the damned zombie seemed to be watching her, too, as if it was about to salivate any minute. She’d had a part in creating them; they were damned good effects!
She heard the shuffling sound coming from the rear of the storage room again.
She was an idiot. She needed to get downstairs and get the hell out.
She couldn’t just run out; she had to finish work tonight—if she still wanted to have a job tomorrow. She could imagine trying to explain herself to Dustin Avery, her boss. “The zombie and the werewolf were freaking me out, Dustin, and I kept hearing this shuffling sound…so, let’s just put that umpteen-million-dollar shoot off a day. It’s Victor’s