The large, gray stone building stood in a clearing at the end of the road, surrounded by towering pine trees. A stone sign in the driveway had Sorry You Died Funeral Home etched into the rock.

Allie ran up the steps and knocked on the polished oak door. No answer. She turned and walked around to the other side. Two large chimneys loomed out of the roof in the back. She banged on a metal door. A tall girl with long, wavy black hair tied up in a ponytail answered.

"Hi Allie, what's up?" Kaycee Patel wondered. She came outside, shutting the door behind her. There was a rustling in the trees and a white-tail deer ran across the lawn in front of them. Wildlife was a common sight out here since the funeral home was on the outskirts of town. It was quiet, and working at night was a little scary. Kaycee believed many of the spirits lingered on the grounds until they were laid to rest.

"Do you want to go to the cemetery with me? I can't get ahold of Jesse and I need to check something out," Allie said, knowing Kaycee would understand.

"Yeah, that sounds fun," Kaycee grinned. "Mom and dad are downstairs in the basement, getting ready for the Jaleski funeral tomorrow. They don't need my help so I'm free all weekend."

"Jaleski?" Allie repeated.

"Yeah, Evan Jaleski died in a workplace accident a few days ago," Kaycee explained. "But just between you and me, it wasn't an accident. Evan worked for Bane Morningstar, and I think someone over there killed him." She had spent all afternoon going over the last-minute funeral details with his wife, Aida. They had four children and now Aida would have to raise them alone. She felt sorry for the woman but didn't let on her suspicions. Her parents hated it when she talked negatively about anyone, particularly Bane Morningstar.

"Bane is pure evil, I don't understand how no one else sees it." Allie sighed. Most of the horrible things that happen in this town somehow always involved Bane Morningstar in one way or another. She suspected that he was likely the reason that Cat became the person she is.

"I mean, he may be the human incarnation of Satan, but he has that obnoxious, charming personality. I swear he could talk his way out of anything." Kaycee groaned. Just the thought of Bane was obnoxious, it seemed that only she and Allie could see through his nice guy act. Most girls in town were obsessed with him. As they entered the cemetery, Kaycee could feel the temperature drop. The gates were open and her brother Mason was digging the grave for poor Evan, his shape barely visible from the iron arch entry.

"I was at Bo's house earlier today and stumbled across a picture of a man who looks just like Bane with a girl who looked like Cat but she looked starved and sickly, then there was a man who looked just like Bo, but it was a picture from the '30s," Allie explained, pulling up the picture on her phone.

Kaycee felt goosebumps crawl over her skin as she noticed all the similarities between the people in the pictures and their present-day counterparts. If it wasn't for the outfits and slight physical differences, she would have sworn the picture was taken recently.

"The oldest graves are this way," Kaycee said, leading Allie toward the far end of the cemetery. The pale moonlight illuminated the graves, casting eerie shadows across the ground. They passed by Mason, who climbed out of the freshly dug grave. He leaned his shovel against the large pile of dirt, and Kaycee noticed that their usual grave digger, Edward Maranskie, was nowhere in sight. "Hey Mase, why are you digging the grave by hand? Where's Ed?"

"The backhoe broke down and Ed hauled it to the shop," Mason explained. "He called earlier and told me that the rental center is completely out of backhoes. Imagine that! He never came back to help finish up the grave. When he left, he was muttering something about a cursed burial. So I doubt we'll see him again until after the funeral." He picked up the shovel and loaded it into the back of a Honda side by side parked beside the grave.

"Who the hell would rent every backhoe in town?" Kaycee demanded. There were no major construction projects going on right now. She remembered seeing orange signs at the airport stamped with the name Tooth and Nail Construction, and heavy equipment trucks parked near the runway. But she never saw anyone working there. Whatever plans they had never expanded past building hangers for a small fleet of crop dusters.

Allie didn't say anything, but she was pretty sure the backhoes were being used on the Hellborne House renovation.

"I don't know." Mason shrugged, running a hand through his hair. Both Mason and his identical twin brother James had red hair like their mother and their uncle Church. Mason kept his hair short, and he looked so much like Church did when he was their age, Allie could swear she was looking at her psychologist. "Anyway, what are you guys up to?"

"We're looking for the graves of anyone with the last names of Morningstar and Gibbs," Allie explained. She walked into the darkness toward the back of the cemetery. Mason grabbed a flashlight out of the ATV and followed her with Kaycee.

They walked past the newer graves, and in the light cast by the flashlight Allie saw a headstone dated 1996. Damian Wilder. The name practically jumped out at her as the memories flooded back. She was three years old, standing beside her mother, crying as a man with dark blonde hair told them that Damian Wilder was dead. Her father was gone, killed in an accident while on the job. They were never given any details about the circumstances of his death.

"I found something!" Kaycee's voice jolted Allie out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw that they had reached the oldest part of the cemetery. Kaycee stood in front of a crumbling headstone, and in the glow of the flashlight Allie could just barely make out a name. Claude Gibbs 1890-1930.

Allie frowned. Was Claude Bo's grandfather, or his great-uncle? And why was there only one grave with the name of Gibbs? Maybe Claude was the original in a line of clones.

"The memorial for the Kaliwse family is right here!" Mason yelled, waving Allie over.

Although the bodies were never recovered, the town still placed a set of tombstones out to honor their memory. As Mason got closer, he realized that someone had vandalized their graves. The only grave left untouched was Catherine's.

Mason went to brush a cobweb off of the grave and immediately his head was filled with images of a young woman in a cell composed entirely of a weird light he had never seen before. She was screaming, but before her face came into view, he was tossed back into reality. His head throbbed as though he had been hit by a baseball bat.

"What's wrong?" Allie demanded as Mason jerked his hand away from the grave, his face drained of color. Before Mason could answer, they heard the unmistakable sound of an engine, and headlights lit up the cemetery as a black sports car pulled up to the gate. "Look, that's Matt's car!" Allie exclaimed. She glanced at the clock on her iPhone and saw that it was almost 10:30. What was Matt doing here this late?

The doors of the black car opened and Allie was shocked to see not just Matt, but Rory and Jesse, too. "Allie!" Rory shouted, storming through the cemetery until she had reached Allie's small group. Matt and Jesse lagged behind. "Jesse told us you would be here. Where the hell did you go earlier?" Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the older brunette suspiciously. Allie had never seen Rory so angry.

"I took Jesse back to work," Allie explained as Matt and Jesse caught up to them. Jesse looked perfectly fine, so he obviously wasn't sick and hadn't been abducted. "Jesse, thank God you're okay. I was so worried when you didn't answer your phone," Allie said, hugging Jesse tightly.

"Don't change the subject," Rory growled. "You have a lot of nerve being concerned about Jesse after you just ran off when I passed out at the restaurant! You may have gotten Bo to help me, but you didn't bother to stay and see if I was all right. You were probably glad for the distraction so you could go snoop around some more!"

"Rory! How can you say that?" Allie gasped. "I thought we were friends!"

"Well, Allie, you do get kind of crazy when you're investigating one of your theories," Jesse spoke up quietly. Allie whirled around to face him, her eyes filled with disbelief. Normally, Jesse supported her in everything that she wanted to do. He rarely questioned her judgment.

"Is that why you've been avoiding me? You think I'm crazy?" Allie hissed, and Jesse backed away slightly. He shouldn't have opened his big mouth. "You're a real ass, Jesse Foster!" Allie yelled, tears streaming down her face. She turned to leave, and suddenly there was an explosion of bright light as some kind of energy field surged through the cemetery, throwing everyone in opposite directions. Jesse landed several feet away from the tombstones, his ears ringing.

Eerie transparent figures began to fill the graveyard. Most seemed incredibly confused and terrified. Mason couldn't believe his eyes. People recently deceased were everywhere, and even more frightening, some of the ghosts were wearing clothes from as early as 1920. Before they could register what had just happened, there were smaller flashes of red light as beings covered in dark black robes began appearing.

The ghosts began screaming and scattering in all directions. Rory watched in horror as one of the hooded creatures caught a ghost and proceeded to slice through it with a long blade of some kind, causing it to vanish just as it had arrived in a bright flash of light. The unholy screech echoed through the graveyard. Most of the creatures gave chase to the escaping phantoms, leaving the humans untouched in the middle of the chaos.

As the final hooded being disappeared into the night, a few ghosts remained, looking lost in the darkness.

Allie realized that Matt, Jesse, and Rory had disappeared, leaving only her, Kaycee, and Mason standing in the middle of the haunted graves. Turning around, she came face to face with a transparent version of Bo Gibbs. The color drained from her face and words failed to find her. There was just no way that ghost was just Bo's grandfather. Hesitantly she spoke, "Claude?"

The ghost's eyes widened. "What year is this?" He looked dazed from wherever he escaped from. "Where is that fucking traitor Bo?"

"It's 2018," Allie explained. She looked from Claude to the dates on the grave beside him. Maybe someone had exhumed Claude's body and extracted his DNA to create a clone. Komazzi Crimson definitely was smart enough to do it. Years ago, she had accused Komazzi of trying to use some of the kids in town in a cloning experiment. He'd denied it, and since Allie didn't have any proof, no one else would listen to her. One of these days, she needed to sneak into Crimson Inc. and explore the labs. "Bo is your clone, isn't he?"

"Clone?" Claude repeated. His eyes scanned the dark cemetery, as if he were searching for someone. His next words sent a chill down Allie's spine. "No...Bo is my twin brother."