Page 8 of The Beautiful Dead

Nothing here for me anymore.

Not that there ever was.

It wasn’t like I had friends. People were too much work, and I’d never had the patience for their bullshit. Because I wasn’t a brown-nosing little kiss-ass who hung on every word the jocks spewed, or played any sports, I’d been marked an outcast.

That suited me just fine because the living were exhausting.

The dead were easier.

I’d always preferred the cemetery anyway—the quiet, the stillness, the reminder that none of us got out of this alive. Life was a fleeting illusion, a single bright spark that was swallowed by the darkness of eternity when our hearts gave out. It was the only certainty in the world, and most people feared it but me…?

I was fascinated by something so permanent.

The idiots at school didn’t get that. They ran around like they were untouchable, like they’d never have to face the same decay and rot as the corpses buried six feet under.

But they would. Every single day they woke up was just one day closer to the end. And I was the only one who seemed tosee it.

The door to the private ambulance slammed shut, harder than necessary, but I didn’t care if it pissed off Arti or his team. It wasn’t like Mom would notice. It wasn’t like she’d give a shit.

So why should I?

“Jesus, kid.” Arti shot me a glare from the driver’s seat. “You’re a fucking mess.”

I rolled my eyes, shoving my bag between my feet as I tried to get comfortable on the rock-hard bench seat. The only things I needed were my sketchbook, camera, and pencils. I’d have to pick up a new set of charcoals once Mom was settled, but for now, I had bigger problems—like tuning out Arti’s relentless chatter.

The engine rumbled to life, and the ambulance lurched forward, leaving Cedarbrook behind. Good riddance.

Five minutes in, and my ears were already bleeding from Arti’s voice. If I had to endure the entire drive with him running his mouth like this, I’d throw myself out of the moving vehicle. I could just visualize the way my skin would paint the blacktop as we drove down the interstate. Beautiful.

The last few years had drained me, physically and mentally. I wasn’t just tired—I was bone-deep exhausted. The kind of fatigue that sleep wouldn’t fix. The kind that lived in my muscles, weighed down my limbs, made every step feel like I was trudging through knee-deep mud and battling against a riptide.

I needed silence. Darkness. Solitude.

I shifted, curling up on the seat with my hoodie bunched beneath my head against the cool window. The steady vibration of the road hummed through me, lulling my body into something close to rest. So close but perpetually out of reach, I popped in my AirPods, turned on my favorite serial killer podcast, and finally—finally—unconsciousness claimed me.

A prickleof unease crept up my spine, yanking me from sleep. Adrenaline shot through my system as my eyes snapped open. The world outside was pitch-black. Not the hazy, congested blue of Cedarbrook, but a deep, endless void.

“Welcome back, kid.” Arti’s chuckle grated on my nerves.

I shot him a glare and sat up, stretching as my joints cracked in protest. My eyes caught the clock on the dashboard, the green segments showed six p.m. Five hours. I’d been out for nearly five hours. What the fuck? No wonder I felt like utter shit, and my head was pounding like a motherfucker.

“Five hours?” My voice was rough with sleep.

Arti shrugged. “Storm slowed us down. Visibility was shit, everyone was crawling.”

“Huh.” I scrubbed a hand down my face.

“Almost there. ‘Bout twenty minutes out.”

There wasn’t much to see in the darkness as I trained my gaze on the window. We weren’t in a city, no bright lights and streets lined with clubs and bars. Just an empty, winding road that looked straight out of a horror movie. Tall, skeletal trees lined the narrow path, their branches draped in something that could’ve been moss—or something worse. The weak arc of the ambulance’s headlights barely cut through the gloom, leaving too many shadows for my imagination to fill in the blanks.

Brielle had mentioned they lived outside the city, near Hollow Pines National Park. Her care home—aptly namedHollow Pines Care Home—backed right up against it.

We veered off the road, the ambulance’s headlights sweeping over a weathered sign. The lettering was barely legible, but according to the GPS, we were in the right place.

“You have reached your destination.” The distorted female voice announced, flat and emotionless.

I stared at the driveway ahead, which resembled a dirt track. Potholes—some deep enough to swallow a wheel—scarred the road leading up to the home. Neglected. Forgotten. If Brielle took care of her patients the way she did this place, Mom was not in safe hands.

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