Charlie Honeycutt had never once before pondered the harsh reality of death. Yes, he knew what death was and how it worked, yet it was a concept that had been entirely absent from his life. He was fifteen years old and, quite frankly, that naturally caused him to assume that death did not apply to him. The greatest loss thus far to have befallen him was that of a pet goldfish that he'd had for approximately two seconds. He had flushed its unblinking corpse down the toilet, reconfigured its fishbowl into a kickass underwater garden, and promptly forgotten about the entire ordeal.
But then his perfectly healthy, if slightly old, grandmother had up and died on her way to pick up cinnamon rolls. And only because they happened to be Charlie's favorite and she knew it. Cinnamon rolls, he thought incredulously. Lumps of dough with a cinnamon filling, albeit delicious, had killed his grandma. If only she'd been surrounded by family that could have saved her, like she should have been. Charlie didn't think he could stomach eating one ever again.
His grandmother was the only person in the entire world who knew everything there was to know about Charlie Honeycutt. That he couldn't stand desserts that were fruity, even if apple pie was supposedly an American classic. That he loved playing football but not basketball because playing in an enclosed space, specifically his high school's overly claustrophobic and foul smelling gymnasium, made his palms sweat. And that he'd yet to kiss his extremely pretty, extremely popular girlfriend for the first time because the thought of it transformed him into a bumbling disaster.
Except now no one knew any of those things, besides Charlie himself. Because the one person who had was dead. His grandmother was dead. Dead to the world and eternally missing to him. A picture of her smiling eyes and wild hair flashed like a concentrated beam of light before his eyes, nearly blinding him with pain. The fact that all he now had to remember her by was a hunk of crude stone with a few words on it made the ache spread further. One sentence. One singular, miniscule sentence that declared her a beloved friend and cherished mother. To all the strangers who wandered by, that's all she would be. The same words that graced nearly every other headstone in the damn place; those people would simply shrug their shoulders at the familiar line and continue on to their destination, ignorant of how unlike everyone else his grandmother was. She wasn't just everyone else. She was Charlie's grandmother. His very best friend, not even caring how pathetic it made him sound.
Never mind that she'd led her own life long before becoming any of those things that were etched onto her gravestone. She was her own person, a kindred spirit, before she'd been a friend, a mother, or even a grandmother. So Charlie sat and glared at her stupid headstone like the angst ridden teen that believed he was the only one in the entire world with problems that he was and didn't think of his grandma at all. Because that one, lone line was not the person that he'd loved so dearly. It did not represent the woman whose words he'd coveted so fiercely. Looking at it pissed him off. And so he brooded and steadfastly glared moodily at the hunk of junk. All the while, his girlfriend sat cross legged behind him beneath the shade of a tree, scrolling on her phone mindlessly. Not because she didn't empathize with Charlie's pain, but because the funeral had ended over two hours ago and Charlie had refused to budge since. Even his parents had long since departed, most likely due to the fact that his father didn't wish to linger at the place where his mother's body was to begin withering away.
Just as Charlie began to ponder escaping the cemetery and relieving Sophie of what had to be mind numbing boredom, the ground beneath his very feet gave a mighty heave. And then it exploded.
He did not mean this in a rare attempt to use symbolism. He was not speaking of metaphorical pain that imploded his metaphorical heart. He meant quite literally that he was blown off his feet and sent landing on his ass as dirt spewed from the ground around him like a fucking tsunami. Or tidal wave or whatever the heck you wanted to call it. He called it annoying as hell as he was momentarily blinded by the clumps of detritus and other various items one would find on the ground that he'd rather not think about. And his ass hurt now, as well as his metaphorical heart. He was even more pissed off and pathetic at this point.
He distantly registered what sounded like the shrieking of a dying hyena but was most definitely Sophie screaming her head off. He could only watch in a daze as a body extracted itself from the clinging embrace of its resting place.
Suddenly, he couldn't breath. The air tasted of death and smelled like decay. Because the figure hunched over grandma Honeycutt's sad little headstone was, in fact, his grandmother. Except she was dead and yet somehow looming above him where he lay sprawled on the ground, her empty eyes that were the exact shade of hazel as his staring stonily ahead. She was a corpse, one that appeared as if it had been long dead and not recently buried, her skin flaking off in uneven patches that reminded him of erratic snowfall. Maggots convulsed in the corners of her eyes, in the horrific claw marks that wringed her neck like a wreath from a frightening Tim Burton movie.
Charlie had to work really hard not to upchuck in that moment. Instead, he blinked stupidly at the corpse as it tottered unsteadily for a brief second, abruptly turning on its heel and limping away in its tattered dress. The same magenta sundress Charlie's family had buried her in not hours earlier. He made an indignant sound in the back of his throat. There was no way. There was no possible way on planet earth that whatever the hell that thing was was his grandmother. Before he could blink once more, the thing was gone, leaving a cloud of dirt and wriggling maggots in its wake.
Sophie latched onto his arm and he nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise. It was totally surprise and not fear of another walking dead person about to rip his arm off that caused a high pitched yelp to spring out of him against his will. Charlie observed the wild look in Sophie's doe eyes. Her delicate hands shook when she used them to push stray strands of straw colored hair behind her ears. Charlie moved to pull her into a reassuring embrace, needing it himself too, but was interrupted by someone clearing their throat near the decaying tree Sophie had been resting against comfortably just minutes ago.
He glanced up, praying to whatever higher power existed above that there not be another dead person alive again when he noticed that it was one of the new students from school that stood in front of them. And then he began praying for it to be another corpse. He didn't care if it had rabies and ate vast quantities of his brain. He didn't tend to use most of it anyway.
Callum, the new one that had the air of a seasoned drill sergeant, was smiling broadly for the first time that Charlie had ever seen him. He pushed his shoulders forward to propel himself off the tree and stalked toward them. Charlie felt himself gulp and used every ounce of willpower he had not to throw up. Again.