That galvanized Phil. He jerked to stand up straight and whispered, "Did you hear her last night?"
James looked away. "She wasn't awake. She was just dreaming."
"How could we hear her from so far away? Even my dad heard it. Listen." He grabbed James by the lapel of his jacket. "Are you sure she's okay?"
"A minute ago you were convinced she was dead and gone.
Now you want guarantees that she's fine.
Well, I can't give you any." He stared Phil down with eyes as cold as gray ice. "I've never done this before, all right? I'm just going by the book. And there are
always things that can go wrong. But, " he said tersely when Phil opened his mouth, "the one thing I do know is that if we leave her where she is, she's going to have a very unpleasant awakening. Get it?"
Phil's hand unclenched slowly and he let go of the jacket.
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I just can't believe any of this." He looked up to see that James's expression had softened slightly. "But if she was yelling last night, then she was alive then, right?"
"And strong," James said. "I've never known a stronger telepath. She's really going to be something."
Phil tried not to picture what. Of course, James was a vampire, and he looked perfectly normalmost of the time. But Phil's mind kept throwing out pictures of Poppy as a Hollywood monster. Red eyes, chalky skin, and dripping teeth.
If she came out like that, he'd try to love her. But part of him might want to get a stake.
Forest Park cemetery was completely . different at night. The darkness seemed very thick. There was a sign on the iron gate that said, "No visitors after sunset," but the gate itself was open.
I don't want to be here, Phil thought.
James drove down the single lane road that curved around the cemetery and parked underneath a huge and ancient gingko tree.
"What if somebody sees us? Don't they have a guard or something?"
"They have a night watchman. He's asleep. I took care of it before I picked you up." James got out and began unloading an amazing amount of equipment from the backseat of the Integra.
Two heavy duty flashlights. A crowbar. Some old boards. A couple of tarps. And two brand-new shovels.
"Help me carry this stuff."
"What's it all for?" But Phil helped. Gravel crunched under his feet as he followed James on one of the little winding paths.
They went up some weathered wooden stairs and down the other side and then they were in Toyland.
That was what somebody at the funeral had called it. Phil had overheard two business friends of Cliff's talking about it. It was a section of the cemetery where mostly kids were buried. You could tell without even looking at the headstones because there were teddy bears and things on the graves.
Poppy's grave was right on the edge of Toyland. It didn't have a headstone yet, of course. There was only a green plastic marker.
James dumped his armload on the grass and then knelt to examine the ground with a flashlight.
Phil stood silently, looking around the cemetery. He was still scared, partly with the normal fear that they'd get caught before they got finished, and partly with the supernatural fear that they wouldn't. The only sounds were crickets and distant traffic. Tree branches and bushes moved gently in the wind.
"Okay," James said. "First we've got to peel this sod off."
"Huh?" Phil hadn't even thought about why there was already grass on the new grave. But of course it was sod. James had found the edge of one strip and was rolling it up like a carpet.
Phil found another edge. The strips were about six feet long by one and a half feet wide. They were heavy, but it wasn't too hard to roll them up and off the foot of the grave.
"Leave 'em there. We've got to put them on again afterward,"
James grunted. "We don't want it to look as if this place has been disturbed."
A light went on for Phil. "That's why the tarps and stuff."
"Yeah. A little mess won't be suspicious. But if we leave dirt scattered everywhere, somebody's going to wonder." James laid the boards around the perimeter of the grave, then spread the tarps on either side. Phil helped him straighten them.
What was left where the sod had been was fresh, loamy soil.
Phil positioned a flashlight and picked up a shovel.
I don't believe I'm doing this, he thought.
But he was doing it. And as long as all he thought about was the physical work, the job of digging a hole in the ground, he was okay. He concentrated on that and stepped on the shovel.
It went straight into the dirt, with no resistance. It was easy to spade up one shovelful of dirt and drop it onto the tarp. But by about the thirtieth shovelful, he was getting tired.
"This is insane. We need a backhoe," he said, wiping his forehead.
"You can rest if you want," James said coolly.
Phil understood. James was the backhoe. He was stronger than anyone Phil had ever seen. He pitched up shovelful after shovelful of dirt without even straining. He made it look like fun.
"Why don't we have you on any. of the teams at school?" Phil said, leaning heavily on his shovel.
"I prefer individual sports. Like wrestling," James said and grinned, just for a moment, up at Phil. It was the kind of locker-room remark that couldn't be misunderstood from one guy to another. He meant wrestling with, for instance, Jacklyn and Michaela.
And, just at that particular moment, Phil couldn't help grinning back. He couldn't summon up any righteous disapproval.
Even with James, it took a long time to dig the hole. It was wider than Phil would have thought necessary. When his shovel finally chunked on something solid, he found out why.