Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Page 11

  Chapter 19

  “Amy!” Robert glanced at the brown door at the back of the kitchen, and breathed more easily when he saw that it was still closed. And locked. After Amy’s nightmare, he had put the padlock back on, and then made sure it was closed tight. The odd thing was that he hadn’t been able to locate the key—had never even seen the thing—which meant that either Ruth had come down to unlock it (unlikely) or Amy had it.

  Or Patricia.

  Robert shook his head and went to the landing of the grand staircase.

  That wasn’t real. It was stress; stress and shock from falling down the stairs.

  “Amy!” he shouted again.

  Then he waited.

  Aunt Ruth was in the room with the fireplace, her nose buried in a book, and he poked his head in.

  “Ruth? Have you seen Amy?”

  She grunted and shook her head, not even bothering to raise her eyes.

  “Thanks,” he grumbled. He was about to head upstairs when he peeked around the staircase to the glass doors near the back of the property. It was pouring outside again, making it difficult for him to see much of anything, but he noticed that one of the doors wasn’t completely closed. He hurried over, wondering why Amy had left it open after coming back in this afternoon, but when he got closer he saw muddy footprints on the flagstones outside.

  Robert’s breath caught in his throat.

  The footprints were small, barefoot, and just about Amy’s size.

  He pulled the door open a few more inches and tried and block the rain from pouring in with his body.

  “Amy!” he yelled into the downpour. But it was no use; his words were swallowed by the rain. Squinting hard, he stared into the blackness, trying to pick out her small form.

  Robert saw no one; only her footprints on the flagstones, refusing to be washed away. Beyond the stones, he could see several muddy depressions in the deep grass, but these quickly faded away. It wasn’t quite six in the evening, and yet the rain was so powerful and the clouds so dark overhead that it was nearly impossible for him to make out anything more than twenty feet from the door.

  Frowning, Robert leaned inside and pulled the door shut.

  A quick glance down showed that his shirt was completely soaked, as was the front of his pants.

  It looked as if he had pissed himself.

  What the hell is she doing out there in the rain?

  Robert hurried to the front of the house, retrieving his rain jacket and his worn running shoes. Had he known that it rained ninety percent of the time in Hainsey County, he would have brought his boots.

  But he hadn’t.

  Those, like the rest of his stuff, were back at the house, probably being boxed up by men with muscular arms adorned with REPO tattoos.

  Fuck.

  It suddenly struck him again just how fucked up things really were.

  How bad they had gotten.

  A massive lightning strike illuminated the entire house as if fireworks had been set off inside. Robert cringed, but when the massive thunderclap followed, he veritably crouched, instinctively covering his head.

  When it passed, he stood up straight, realizing that he was once again behaving like a scared child, and that this wasn’t helping things. And it definitely wasn’t helping Amy.

  He peeked into the sitting room to see if Ruth had noticed the storm, but the woman hadn’t even flinched; her nose was still buried in the book.

  “Going out to see if Amy’s in the rain,” he informed her.

  Ruth grumbled something incoherent, but didn’t look up.

  Robert hurried to the back door and glanced out before pulling it open. He was surprised to see that while although the footprints appeared faded from the heavy rain, he could still make them out.

  He took a deep breath and yanked the door wide, steeling himself against the torrential downpour and the wind.

  Then he stepped outside.

  “Amy!” he yelled. “Amy! You out here?”

  Robert’s voice had grown hoarse from shouting, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Amy!”

  Even though the rain had flattened the trail that she had left in the long grass, Robert followed the direction they had pointed toward the back of the property. Any moment now, he expected to see Amy, playing in the mud, laughing and rolling like a dog trying to rid itself of ticks.

  At least that was what he hoped.

  The wind and rain were so strong that he was forced to bow his head as he plunged forward, his hood pushed down to his eyebrows.

  Twice he looked back, only to see the lights from the house about fifty feet away.

  It felt like he had walked three times that distance.

  Robert continued forward, telling himself that once he made it to the edge of the property where the fields began, he would double back.

  She’s back inside…the footprints are from earlier in the day.

  But his inner monologue had become untrustworthy, unconvincing.

  “Amy! Amy, if you’re out here, answer me!”

  He picked up his pace, pushing harder into the rain.

  After a few more steps, he made out a shadowy outline in the distance.

  “Amy?”

  He was practically running now, the tall, wet grass grabbing at his legs, threatening to pull him down.

  His heart sunk.

  “Shit.”

  It wasn’t Amy, but the large boulders that marked the back of the property. He continued toward them anyway, hoping that Amy was just playing a silly hide-and-seek game, that she was cowering behind one of them. As he neared, his feet started to sink progressively deeper in the soft mud. Even in the rain, Robert confirmed that the boulders were definitely larger now, the hard rain over the past few days having eaten away at most of the soil, making the ground surrounding them a muddy mess.

  “Amy!”

  Just as he was about to turn back, he caught sight of something sticking out of the mud near the largest stone. It was white, and seemed wholly out of place amidst the dark brown, soupy earth. He hustled over to it, crouching on his haunches to get a better look, not caring that his jeans were immediately coated in the mud.

  Robert’s first inclination was that it was Mr. Gregorius’s white belly, but as he leaned closer down, he realized that that was impossible.

  It was too white, too hard to be a stuffed animal left out in the rain. Besides, Amy would never abandon the bunny like that.

  What the fuck is it?

  He reached out and flicked a hunk of dirt off the top.

  His heart seemed to stop beating when he finally realized what it was.

  “No,” he moaned.

  It wasn’t Mr. Gregorius, but the bones of a human hand sticking out of the mud. The fingers appeared tensed, the tips digging into the soft ground, and with the wrist angled the way it was, protruding from the mud, it appeared to Robert as if it were trying to climb out.

  He wiped rain from his brow, then glanced up, trying to focus on the stones. It only took another second before he identified what they really were: these weren’t normal rocks, strategically placed as some sort of crude property marker, but massive tombstones that rose higher than his waist.

  His heart finally pumped, flooding his body with both blood and adrenaline. The sensation was so powerful that he fell backward. Robert went with the fall, and then tried to scoot backward, but the mud was too soft, too wet, and his efforts only served to make him sink deeper.

  A yelp escaped his blue lips as another bolt of lightning illuminated the evening sky, affording him a clear look at the words crudely etched in the hard rock: Patricia Beatrice Harlop.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  Robert flipped over and scrambled on all fours, finally managing to escape the mud’s hold. When he made it to more solid earth, he stood.

  And then he was running—running as hard and fast as he could back to the house.

  Blood rushed in his ears, giving the thunderclap that followed t
he lightning a strange, ocean-like quality.

  “Amy!” he hollered at the top of his lungs. “Ammmmyyyyy!”

  The lights from the house suddenly came into view, and he redoubled his efforts.

  He was nearly back on the flagstones when he detected movement from above.

  Robert glanced upward and immediately stopped cold.

  He had found Amy.

  Chapter 20

  “Get down from there! Amy!”

  But either his daughter didn’t hear him, or she was ignoring him. Her head was downcast, her chin nearly pressed against her pink t-shirt, her hair dark and wet, covering her face. Although Amy’s arms were limp, he could see that she was holding something in her right hand.

  Mr. Gregorius.

  Robert’s mind flashed to the story that Ruth had told him about how Patricia had fallen off the roof.

  “Amy! Get down from there!”

  Rain continued to pelt his face, intermittently obscuring his vision.

  But what if it isn’t Amy…what if it’s Patty? Patty and her rat, the one she was probably forced to eat when things got bad…

  He shook his head and cursed himself for not being able to concentrate, to focus on the fact that his daughter was on the fucking roof of a hundred-year-old mansion in the pouring rain.

  “Amy!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Amy, go back inside right now!”

  Behind her, he could see the open window, the seafoam-green walls of their shared room.

  “Amy!”

  Robert wiped the rain from his face, and as he did, Amy slowly raised her head.

  Only it wasn’t Amy.

  It was little Patricia, her face sallow, her cheeks sunken. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. Weeks even.

  “Fuck,” Robert groaned, so shocked that his revelation had come true that he actually stumbled backward.

  Patricia’s eyes were a solid black, all pupils, no hint of iris or whites.

  Movement from behind her drew his gaze. There was someone moving toward the window from inside the estate.

  Robert took another step backward, unsure of what to do next. His heart was racing, his vision blurred now from both the rain and the blood pumping in his retinas.

  Ruth? It’s Ruth…it has to be, coming out of the window. But what the fuck is she doing on the roof?

  Part of him knew that what he was seeing wasn’t real, that it was just some sort of mirage, but it seemed real. Everything about it, from the way the rain bounced off Patricia’s rag-covered shoulders, the way the light from inside spilled from between her legs and around her head, like some sort of fuzzy halo, seemed so utterly and completely real.

  But it couldn’t be; it just couldn’t.

  Because Patrick Beatrice Harlop was dead.

  As he watched, the figure crouched and then stepped out of the window and onto the roof behind Patricia. Lightning flashed, but Robert didn’t need the illumination to confirm that it most definitely wasn’t Ruth coming onto the roof to collect her daughter. There was just no way the old croon could be that nimble. Besides, this figure was larger, much larger, and had a thick brown mustache and dark pockets encircling even darker eyes.

  Eyes like Patricia’s.

  It was the man whose picture was up on the mantle beside Ruth’s; it was James Harlop.

  Robert was tempted to close his eyes, to will all of this nonsense away, when a thunderclap brought him back. He suddenly felt dizzy, caught between two worlds. His senses were telling him that this was real, that there really was a girl on the roof with her father creeping up behind her, while his rational mind was informing him that that was impossible. That this was just a figment of his imagination, fueled by stress, fatigue, and God knows whatever else he had been feeling over the past few horrible months.

  But regardless of whether these apparitions were actually real, he was still a good person. And he couldn’t risk the possibility of a young girl, a young girl Amy’s age, getting hurt. Or worse.

  “H-h-hey!” he stammered. His words were immediately swallowed by the rain, and he shouted again, more forcefully this time. “Hey! What are you doing up there? Amy—uh, Patty, get down!”

  But neither of the two dark outlines on the roof seemed to notice him, let alone respond. The man slowly crept forward, and was now but a few feet from an unsuspecting Patty, who seemed to still be in a trance, or sleepwalking, or something that kept her gaze rooted on her feet.

  “Hey!” Robert shouted again. Finally getting some feeling back in his legs, he stepped toward the house. “Get down from there!”

  Again, neither of them responded. James Harlop kept moving forward, careful not to lose his footing on the worn roof shingles. Lightning flashed again, and when Robert saw the man’s face for a second time, the man’s motives were as clear as the thin lips that were forced together in an icy expression.

  He’s going to push her off the roof!

  Robert stared upward in disbelief.

  “Hey! Get the fuck away from her!” he shouted. “Get away from—”

  Then something happened—two things, actually, happening nearly simultaneously. The thunder from the lightning suddenly tore open the dark sky, and Patty raised her face to meet Robert’s gaze.

  Only it wasn’t Patty anymore.

  It was Amy. His Amy.

  His Amy was on the roof with a man stalking her from behind with only one sadistic intention.

  Robert shook his head, trying to make sense of what was happening. When clarity continued to elude him, he tried blinking rapidly.

  That didn’t work either.

  “Daddy?”

  Even though the word was but a whisper, it somehow made it to his ears through the torrential downpour.

  Amy’s fear was palpable.

  Robert wanted to run inside, to bound up the stairs and onto the roof and save Amy…but he was terrified that the second he left, James would push her off.

  Instead, Robert did the only thing that he could. He moved to directly beneath her and screamed his fool head off.

  “Get away from her! Get away from her, you goddamn freak! Amy! Amy!”

  But the man still didn’t respond to his shouts. Nor did Amy.

  “Amy! Go back inside, go—”

  But as he surveyed the scene, he realized that what he was saying didn’t make sense. With the man just a few feet behind her, still moving slowly, crouched, there was no way that Amy would be able to make it to the open window—he was standing in her way.

  Robert quickly changed tactics.

  “Amy! Turn around! Turn around, Amy. Turn around and run!”

  But it was too late. James Harlop suddenly reached out and shoved Amy hard in the back with both hands.

  The little girl’s mouth went wide and she screamed, a horrible shriek that cut through the rain as her small body plummeted toward the concrete flagstones more than twelve feet below.

  Chapter 21

  Robert Watts wasn’t a religious man, but by all accounts, what happened next was a miracle. Even his pragmatic brain thought as much. After all, what else could explain the fact that he managed to actually catch his daughter’s falling body in his open arms? An accountant never even able to catch a beach ball in the swimming pool let alone a human being shoved from a roof. And yet he had.

  Amy’s weight sent him crashing to a knee, but the spark of pain that flared from the impact barely registered with him. As his daughter stared up at him with wide eyes, Robert found himself unable to do anything but gape.

  Then as lightning lit up the sky again and was quickly chased by thunder, the stark reality that a man—that James Harlop, his uncle, if Ruth was to be believed—had actually shoved his daughter off the roof weighed down on him. Robert pulled Amy in close, holding her tight, and kissed the top of her wet head.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” he said quietly as his eyes flicked back up to the open window. “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  His eyes
darted back to the roof, and he caught James’s dark outline in the rain heading back in through the window.

  Amy eased herself from his tight embrace and looked up at him. There was a deep sadness in her eyes.

  “Why did he push me?” she asked.

  This question threw him for a loop; the fact that she knew she had been pushed, that it was a he that had pushed her, took him by surprise. After all, she had been standing with her back to him for the entire time.

  Robert shook his head, avoiding the question.

  “What the hell were you doing up there, Amy?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and resisted the urge to shake her. Her face was continually being pelted with rain, and she blinked rapidly to clear the water from her eyes before responding.

  “Daddy?”

  “Why, Amy? Why the hell were you on the roof? Did you see Patty? Did Patricia tell you to go up on the roof?”

  A look of confusion crossed Amy’s face, and he assisted her to her feet as he stood.

  Why isn’t she more scared? She just fell off a roof, for Christ’s sake.

  “Because, Daddy.”

  Robert’s eyes narrowed.

  “Because why?”

  She held Mr. Gregorius up. The animal was soggy and wet, his ears heavy from the water and flapping in front of his face.

  “Mr. Gregorius told me to.”

  Robert gritted his teeth and reached out and snatched the toy from her.

  “Hey!” she cried out, immediately trying to grab it. “Give it back!”

  He held her away with his other hand.

  “I don’t know what has gotten into you.”

  His thoughts wandered to the hand he had seen in the makeshift grave, the mud melting away, revealing more and more of the white bones. With Amy on the roof, he had forgotten all about the tombstones. A shudder suddenly racked his entire body. “This—this place is not right. And we are leaving.”

  Robert grabbed Amy’s hand and pulled her toward him a little more roughly than he had intended.

  “We are leaving right now.”

  A quick check indicated that his car keys were in his pocket; they could come back for everything else later.