Groundskeeper: Have a Dead Night

Coming for Halloween

I’m taking a hiatus from working on Tanager’s Fleet, so I can get a Chloe story ready for a Halloween release. I really enjoy writing the Groundskeeper Tales, so this is really flying along and I’m on track to get it done. It’s nice to get back into the flow of writing. I have a cover worked up, so that’s one less thing! Also, I’m thinking I will collect the first stories into a print edition, as this will be the first novel, and therefore available both as an ebook and in print. Having them in print will enable my readers to collect the set… and I can illustrate them. Which means that may not happen before Halloween!

If you haven’t read the story before this, Groundskeeper: Deadhead, then you may want to, as Dead Night picks up very close to where that one left off.

Nightlife

The convenience store clerk barely looked up when the bell on the door tinkled. He knew who it was from the smell. Not the ripe, feculent, aroma that went with a few of his customers. No, this one was dry like old leaves, with a musky dried-meat undertone. Out of his peripheral vision he saw the customer shambling towards the drinks cooler. Layers of clothing obscured what shape, if any, the person had.

After a moment, the customer approached the counter, head hanging so that the clerk couldn’t have seen its face if he wanted to. A gnarled hand, pale as bone at the knuckles, pushed coins across the scarred glass.

The clerk didn’t need to count them.

“Thank you,” he said. “Have a nice night.”

The customer was already shuffling towards the door, so the clerk wasn’t entirely certain if he heard the response correctly.

“Have a dead night.”

The clerk shook his head as he finished ringing up the sale of the grape soda. “Have to have been good night,” he muttered as he dropped the coins into their slots. At least this payment was clean, sometimes he got dirt and leaves with the coins from this customer. It was always coins.

The customer took a right turn after the heavy steel-and-glass door closed on the warmth and brightness of the store, relative to the night. The streetlamps worked here. Sometimes. One was flickering weakly. Shuffling, with much rustling from the dead leaves that worked as insulation, the shapeless pile of clothing headed up the hill, past the last working streetlamp, towards the cemetery.

Behind it, in the store, the clerk had pulled his textbook and notepad back out onto the counter again. Highlighter poised, he returned to his reading. One of the fluorescent lights near the cooler flickered a few times before reluctantly returning to a weak constant glow.

***

Chloe rolled over, and off the couch onto the floor with a thud. A book landed on top of her, adding insult to injury.

“Ouch.” She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked at the time. “Oh no.”

At least, she thought as she grabbed the stack of books and shoved them in her bag, tossing a notebook and highlighter in after them, she didn’t have to get dressed. She was already dressed from yesterday. Wearing nothing but black also meant it wasn’t obvious they were the same clothes she’d been wearing then. Black ripped jeans, which hadn’t been ripped when she bought them, black tee shirt with nothing on it... Cute graphics would have been a giveaway.

Chloe pulled a brush through her hair, knowing if she looked in a mirror her roots would be showing a mile long by now. She hadn’t had time for hair care, much less finding a more reliable purple dye... She twisted a band around her hair after coiling it into a bun, and ran out the door, scooping up the backpack as she went. She hadn’t taken the time to make tea, or check the weather, so she found out it was raining as she clattered down the stairs from her apartment over the carriage house.

Winter was coming, and as usual it was starting off with a late fall filled with cold miserable rain. She held her backpack over her head as an improvised umbrella while she ran across the parking lot towards the big house. The library door opened as she arrived at it.

“Thanks.” Chloe stepped in, onto a mat she didn’t remember being there, and blinked as a skeleton handed her a towel. “Um?” She looked down. She was dripping wet. “Sorry, Della Dear. I didn’t think about making puddles on your floor.”

After blotting herself off, and wiping her feet, Chloe finished her commute, to the table at the center of the room. Della had disappeared soundlessly, as was her habit, and Mr. Cruor was not yet in evidence. Chloe pulled her books out of her backpack before tucking the bag itself into the footwell under her desk. She might be sitting there later, but the last few weeks had taught her it wasn’t likely.

A single dead leaf on the rug caught her attention, and she scooped it up and into the trashcan, feeling guilty for having so nearly made a mess. It wasn’t that Della minded, or not that much anyway, since she’d just met Chloe to make sure she was dried off; it was more that Chloe understood how hard Della worked. Della did for the inside what Chloe had been doing for the outside until recently at Belleview.

Now, everything had changed. Chloe stood staring at the rain trickling down the outside of the windowglass. Last fall this kind of day had been spent in the shed, cleaning tools, before retreating to her warm apartment with cocoa and a video game. Today was...

“Good morning,” Mr. Cruor announced his arrival.

Chloe turned and smiled. “Good morning, sir.”

“I saw Della in the hall with the tea trolley,” Mr. Cruor informed his apprentice. “Ah, there she is.”

Della pushed the trolley through the open door and into the library where they would be working.

“Thank you, Della,” Chloe told her. “I smell gingerbread!”

“Perfect on a day like this,” Mr. Cruor waited until Della had poured. “And chai. You must think we need warming up.”

Della nodded her delicate ivory skull once before whisking away again, leaving Chloe and her boss to their morning ritual.

“I see you forgot your umbrella this morning.” He sipped at his tea.

“I was in a hurry.” She had long since stopped wondering if he could see her as she crossed to the big house, or simply deduced from her general state of dampness. “And I didn’t look first before leaving.”

“Ah.” He didn’t really say anything, but Chloe sighed deeply.

“This is one of the lessons that doesn’t come from books?” She laid a hand on the stack beside her. “Kind of like, being able to tell the difference between a lich and a wight means you left it too long and now it’s too late to know what weapon you should have carried?”

“I rather think an umbrella would be useful in that instance.” His voice was a murmur and he didn’t meet her eyes as he meticulously ate a bite of the gingerbread, which was dark, rich, and moist enough to not leave messy crumbles.

“It would?” Chloe was caught off guard by this answer. “How?”

“Element of surprise.” He put down his fork and turned slightly, then mimed his actions as he spoke. “Pop open the umbrella, shield-like, then close rapidly, and repeat that cycle while retreating rapidly to a position where you can turn and run.”

She blinked at him, her jaw dropped slightly. “That would work?”

“Both creatures do not possess particularly good vision. By obscuring your true size and location it would, I believe, work. I did it by throwing up my arms, waving them wildly, while shouting.”

He sipped his tea calmly. Chloe closed her open mouth with an effort, made yet another mental note to never underestimate her boss, and picked up her own teacup. It really was a good socially acceptable way to break up an awkward space in a conversation.

“What is on the agenda for the day?” Chloe asked once the moment had passed.

“We have a meeting later this morning, and then, I believe you should take the afternoon off.”

Chloe opened her mouth to object automatically, thought of a long-delayed shower, and closed it again. Mr. Cruor gave her his enigmatic smile.

“How is, ah, the Drama-Llama?”

He was referring to her pet hognose snake, a farewell gift from a former teacher who’d encountered the supernatural and been broken by it.

“Estivating, I think.” Chloe shrugged. “He’s usually pretty sluggish after a feeding, for a week or so.”

“And Derp Kitty?”

Chloe felt the warmth rising in her cheeks. In her defense, she hadn’t named the cheetah, or the snake, but the pet names coming from her formal boss’s mouth emphasized the ridiculously silly words.

“I haven’t been to see him for a few days. Rosa texted a video of him fetching a ball, though.”

“How is Abomination running?”

This name was her fault. Chloe shook her head. “Fine, I think?” The battered Land Rover had come along with her new position, and she hated driving. “I get the hint, sir. I’ll go see Derp after lunch.” She could shower after that, because she’d be covered in fur and the big cat’s peculiar musk. She loved the cheetah, but had learned to be very glad he couldn’t live in her tiny one-bedroom apartment with her.

“Very good.” He finished his tea. Setting the cup down, he spoke more briskly, signaling a change to professional matters. “We will be jointly meeting with Detective Murray.”

Chloe remembered him. He’d thought she was not much older than his daughter. “Is this still about the wraith nest?”

“No, I don’t believe they are even past the preliminary survey of that property.”

“Right.” Chloe wasn’t sure she’d even have noticed unusual activity outside Belleview, she’d been so busy. Or, for that matter, activity inside Belleview, which was more worrying to her.

“There will be some paperwork, and then we will go over a few active investigations with you.”

Chloe blinked in surprise. “With me?”

“Yes, as you are now my successor.” He lifted a finger. “I know you are uncomfortable with your role, Miss Brandt, but the fact remains. You have much to learn.”

“So be quiet and keep my ears open?” Chloe knew she’d been arguing too much recently. She no longer felt like she’d been scooped up by a whirlwind. More like a hurricane.

“Your input will be valued.”

Della returned for the breakfast things. Interrupted by this, Chloe moved her books to her desk, thinking that the meeting would require their worktable to be cleared. She looked out the window, where it continued gray and rainy and would until the snow came sometime later that month, unless she missed her guess.

Chloe looked at the time, then collected the book she’d been working through, and her notebook, before settling into one of the comfortable armchairs. Her desk had a view of the window; Mr. Cruor’s desk stood at a right angle to hers, with bookshelves over it reaching to the ceiling. Their working table stood in the center of the room, with four chairs around it, and here, tucked into the corner formed by a projecting bookcase, were two worn upholstered chairs. She had never seen her boss sitting on them. Chloe opened the book to her bookmark, and started a fresh page on the notebook. Her boss insisted on handwritten notes for two reasons. First, he’d told her, she would remember best what she had handwritten rather than typed. Secondly, and more importantly, some of the books in the library were held securely, and none of their content should be entered onto a machine with internet access.

Surrounded by books, warm, and dry, Chloe laughed silently at herself for missing the work outdoors in the cold and wet. She could get used to this as a job. With the option to play in the gardens when it was sunny.