Orange, blue, and black covered the sky. Their colors mixed together making it look unworldly. There was a stillness in the air that made everything look eerie.
Mace blinked several times trying to orient herself. The last thing she remembered was sipping her cold brew…
Realization dawned into her when Mace realized where she was.
She looked at her immediate surroundings. The crime scene was in front of her. The gray ashes looked ominous against the dim light of the sun.
The crowd were faceless. Je Anne had always painted her humans this way. The shade of each of them told her how they were different from each other.
Mace shivered. Something was not right. Something sinister was near. She could feel its intense need for blood.
Not just blood, but for something more.
From the corner of her eyes, she saw movement coming from the ashes. A flutter. It was barely there, it could be her imagination. Je Anne's works were…
A hand burst from the ground near her. Searching for a leverage to pull itself up.
"Shit!"
She exclaimed, jumping away from it. But another one popped up again catching her foot in the process.
Her heart was in her throat as she tried to dislodge the hand that caught her. She was shaking her foot, trying to loosen its grip, but it only held on tighter.
Mace threw her hands in the air and pulled her gun from its hostler then pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
She pulled it again, and again, but no bullets came. Frustrated, she threw the useless gun at the hand on her feet. It moaned causing Mace to let out a litany of curses.
The hand on her foot felt boney and it seemed like most of its flesh had started to rot away. There was a stench coming out from it that was making her stomach churn. She tried to pull away from it, but still it held on.
"What the effing hell do you want?!"
Mace shouted at it, she knew that she sounded stupid, but she didn't care. This place where she was, had no hold on reality.
"Help…me…"
A weak reply came out from somewhere. Followed by several more hands bursting from the ground.
Mace's eyes became wide with the number of hands she saw, and how each of those hands began to pull themselves up from the ground.
The air began to thicken and their rotting smell filled her nose. Their almost skeletal bodies slowly pulled themselves upward, each movement accompanied by eerie moans that sent chills down her spine.
She looked around, trying to find a way to escape this nightmare she found herself in. the sky was turning darker and darker, as more bodies surfaced.
The holding onto her was already halfway out, she let out a gaps of dread when she realized who it was.
It was Jeron's sister. Her small face was hollow, eyes sunken, skin gaunt and peeling. Her clothes had been eaten burned and she could see maggots creeping out of her chest and neck.
Mace fell on her bottom and could only watch as they all emerged from the ground that imprisoned them. Her heart was racing, breaths shallow, and her hands were perspiring so hard. Her gun was useless as well.
All she could do was ride out this…whatever that was happening.
She expected them to come at her, to blame her. Tell her it was her fault. But they didn't.
Instead they began dragging themselves to the murder scene.
And all of them started digging at the far end of the property.
Mace stood up, her movements slow as she tried to calm her beating heart. She regulated her breathing so as not to gain their attention. She walked on their side, trying to see what made them gather in that particular place.
From where she was standing, they had dug through the ashes and was now…
"H…e…l…p m…e…"
Jeron's sister's voice said behind her. Really close behind her. It was like she was…
"You should have arrested him…"
In the next instant, several of the rotting bodies tackled her to the ground and began clawing at her skin.
Mace fought. Pushing and kicking each of the corpses that came upon her. She wanted to run only to find four bodies clinging to her legs, stopping her from moving. One by one, they latched on to her.
Covering her bodies with theirs, while they moan and screech in despair. Mace was unable to move at this point.
Her body was shutting down, the stench was overpowering and it was affecting her thinking process. She needed to see what they saw. She needed to know what they were trying to tell her.
These were not the same bodies that was on the ground, they were different. They felt much much older.
Mace struggled to walk, putting all her strength on one leg after another. Willing her body to warm up, to fight.
Inch by painful inch, they began to move. The moans grew louder as she drew closer to where Jeron's sister stood gazing down at something.
She raised her hand, it was already covered with the melted flesh of the corpses clinging to her. She could feel her own skin burn and melt, fusing her and her captives into one.
Her hair was beginning to fall off and the only thing that was functioning was her eyes and her motor system. Her mouth had become mere bones and she could feel whatever caused her to decay climbing into her eyes.
As her eyesight slowly died, the last vestige of light she saw was Jeron's sister pointing at the ground…and…
Mace sat up her hand automatically going to her face, checking if her skin was still okay. She breathed a sigh of relief and laid back on the sofa.
A dream. Another gaddamned dream.
She glanced at the painting that was directly at her line of vision, it took Je Anne three days to finish the fifth scene. She only needed two more and she was done.
The painting she was looking at was the same one in her dream. This was the scene after everyone had left and only she, Je Anne, Jerome, and Drake were left.
Like her dream, it was almost twilight, the hues of color reflected the dark outcome of the day. The burned house looked like the fire had just died down. The ground was littered with burned leaves and shoe prints. Mace could even see the make of each of the shoes.
She stood up and walked closer to the painting. Something was…
There.
On the far side of the property she noticed something on the ground that was near the line of trees. She grabbed a magnifying glass and examined the place.
There was a sliver of light coming from that place. It was hard to see because of the glare of the sun, but Je Anne was able to capture the smallest detail.
Mace took a picture and sent it to their group message. She didn't have to wait long before Je Anne responded,
"You slept at the office again?"
Mace only sent an emoji with a teardrop on the side of its face. It was enough and Je Anne understood.
She was still grinning when Jerome replied to her message:
"Call Drake, we need some power tools tomorrow."