Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  A quick glance out the window revealed that sometime during the night the rain had stopped and for once the sun seemed to be out, shining brightly down on the Harlop Estate.

  “Daddy? What happened to your hands?”

  “Huh?” Robert grunted and looked down. The sight of his raw and shredded flesh made him cringe, and he flipped his hands over, hiding the majority of the damage from both Amy and from himself. “Nothing…nothing.”

  “Why are you covered in mud?”

  Robert gave himself a onceover. Although some of the mud that covered his jeans had dried, most hadn’t, leaving behind thick smears of the brown stuff. There were more streaks of mud on his rain jacket.

  “I was—I was—” But he realized that he couldn’t really tell Amy anything about what he had done last night, nothing about burying Ruth’s body and then rolling around in the mud with Jacky. And he hated lying to the girl. So instead of answering, he changed the subject.

  “We need to go inside, sweetie. Get our stuff, pack up.”

  Amy sat up, and her thin blonde eyebrows traveled up her forehead.

  “We’re leaving?” she asked. Robert detected a hint of sadness in her voice.

  “Yeah, we’re leaving,” he replied, his eyes drifting out the front windshield and falling on the cracked and broken cement steps leading up to the massive wooden door.

  In his periphery, Robert saw Amy pull Mr. Gregorius up to her face.

  “Daddy?”

  Robert kept his eyes trained ahead on the Harlop Estate, wondering why in God’s name he had ever brought Amy here in the first place.

  “Hmm?”

  “Mr. Gregorius doesn’t want to leave.”

  Robert reached for the door handle, wincing at the feeling of the hard plastic in his ragged palms.

  “Well, Mr. Gregorius is going to have to deal with it, because we are not staying another night in this place.”

  He pulled the car door open and relished the sensation of the hot sun on his face. It would take much more than this to actually warm him to the core, he knew, but this was a welcomed start. He was about to step out when Amy grabbed his arm.

  Robert turned and was surprised by his daughter’s suddenly cold expression.

  “What is it, swee—?”

  “Mr. Gregorius says he doesn’t want to leave, that we still have work to do here,” she hissed.

  Robert cringed.

  Work? Do you not remember last night? Do you not remember that you were shoved from the roof?

  He squinted at her, trying hard to figure out what was going on in her head.

  Maybe she remembered, maybe she didn’t. Either way, it would do no good to remind her.

  Robert shook her hand away.

  “Like I said, Mr. Gregorius will have to deal. Now come inside and help me pack our things.”

  ***

  Robert wasn’t sure why he was so surprised; after all, things had gone so horribly wrong since moving into the Harlop Estate that fuckups like this one had become the status quo.

  He and Amy had packed up their clothes in less than fifteen minutes, and were out of the house in under than twenty. Both had come to grips with putting this terrible experiment behind them.

  He would find another way to pay the bills, make sure that they had a way to eat. A place to live. But it wasn’t going to be here.

  After buckling Amy into her booster in the back and lowering his aching body into the driver seat, a feeling of dread started to form in the pit of Robert’s stomach. It was so strong that he hesitated before putting the key in the ignition.

  There was something wrong—something else wrong. It took him another moment, but then he realized what it was.

  The dome light had never turned on when he’d opened the door.

  Robert swallowed hard and turned the key. As he had feared, the engine made an abbreviated chuffing sound, but didn’t turn over. He tried again, but this time was only greeted by silence, confirming what he knew in the back of his mind all along.

  The battery was dead.

  He turned his head skyward and stared into the bright sun.

  “Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  His breathing was coming in ragged bursts, and he felt his face redden. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and then started to twist his grip, trying to crush it. The thin skin that had formed over his blisters throughout the night tore and warm liquid trickled between his clenched fingers.

  “Daddy?”

  “Not now, Amy,” he said through gritted teeth. He snaked his right hand down into the track pants that he had changed into and pulled out his cell phone. After his extracurriculars last night, there seemed to be some water trapped beneath the screen, but it miraculously powered up nonetheless.

  His anger suddenly vanished, and was immediately replaced by solemn condemnation.

  “Please,” he whispered, waiting as the phone’s software loaded. But when it finally booted up, in place of the bars that he expected, there was only a red X.

  “Fuck!” he yelled again, his anger returning in spades. He threw the door open and stepped out into the sun. Rearing back, he felt compelled to throw his cell phone as far as humanly possible. But at the last second, his eyes fell on the cherub with the X’d out eyes and this somehow grounded him.

  Smashing his cell phone wouldn’t fix any of their problems.

  Robert lowered his arm. He felt like weeping, and if it weren’t for Amy, he probably would have. He would have simply collapsed into a heap and waited until someone—Sean, maybe? The police?—came and found him there. And then they would find Ruth’s body and throw him in prison.

  And that was okay.

  That was what he deserved.

  An image of the elderly woman’s skull caved in on one side with a quarter-sized hole from the fireplace poker, oozing gray brain matter and dark blood, came to him, and he suddenly felt sick.

  Bile rose up in his throat, but when he felt a small hand brush his right arm, he choked it back down and turned to face his daughter. Amy was holding her now grimy pink bunny rabbit tightly to her chest.

  “Daddy?”

  Robert wiped his tears away.

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “There’s someone here, Daddy,” she said with a nod.

  Robert’s brow furled.

  Someone here? Like…like James or Patricia or Jacky?

  But then he heard the sound of the front gate being forced open, a horrible metal on metal grinding that made his ears ring.

  Robert rose and stepped to action, moving protectively in front of his daughter.

  “Go,” he whispered. “Go back inside and hide. Right now.”

  Amy made a face, an expression that made it painfully clear that going back inside the Harlop Estate was not high on her to-do list. And it wasn’t something that Robert was keen on either. Yet, he couldn’t have her here; she couldn’t be seen with him.

  Just in case…in case of what, he wasn’t sure. But after last night…

  He hesitated, but there was another metallic grind, and the gate was pushed even wider, just wide enough for a figure in a dark black hoodie to squeeze through.

  Robert turned back to his daughter, fear in his eyes.

  “Go! Please, Amy! Go inside!”

  Chapter 28

  Robert stared at his glass of scotch as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. He swirled the golden liquid slightly, then quickly brought it to his lips and gulped the rest of the glass. Standing on wobbly legs, he turned and went to the liquor cabinet to refill it.

  “Robbo, listen, man, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what the fuck happened.”

  Robert shut his eyes for a moment, trying to force away the vision of Ruth’s collapsed skull, of Amy being shoved from the roof. Of Jacky and her blonde hair and soft, sweet lips.

  He didn’t believe in ghosts, but his rational mind was having a hard time reconciling what he had seen, what had happened,
with the pragmatic world. He kept telling himself that it was a trick, that this wasn’t happening outside his mind, but it had all been so real…his hands had vibrated when the poker had struck Ruth’s skull, and his mouth had filled with the taste of maggots when he had kissed Jacky’s corpse.

  With a deep breath, he opened his eyes, poured himself two fingers, finished it, then poured a third drink before turning back to face his friend.

  Cal, for what it was worth, looked as if he hadn’t slept in days either. The man’s greasy black hair hung limply over his forehead and covered part of his face, but it did a poor job of hiding the thick, dark circles beneath his eyes. He had since removed the dark sweatshirt he had arrived in, revealing a stained Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt beneath. The bottom hem of the shirt was ragged, and there were several moth-eaten holes large enough to reveal his pasty white belly beneath.

  Robert swallowed hard.

  “I—I came here to look after a woman.”

  Cal nodded.

  “Yeah, I knew that much—where is the old broad, anyway? Her chair and oxygen tank are at the bottom of the stairs, but—”

  Robert hushed him by raising his hand.

  “I just wanted to try and start over, you know? For me and Amy?”

  Cal raised an eyebrow inquisitively at this.

  “Well, yeah, I mean the place is huge…I get it. I won’t lie to you, Cal—I wanted the money from this place. Need the money.”

  He turned his eyes back to his scotch again, feeling his ears start to warm. He wasn’t one to overshare, but this was Cal, for Christ’s sake.

  Why am I embarrassed of anything around Cal?

  He cleared his throat.

  My name is Jacky…

  “I lost the house, Cal, and my bank accounts are empty. Because of Wendy, I owe over twenty thousand on our credit cards. I’ve got nothing.”

  He sighed heavily, but caught himself before the tears came again.

  “I have nothing…nothing except this house. But now…”

  Robert raised his gaze and was surprised by Cal’s expression. He detected what he thought was scorn on his friend’s round face.

  “Fuck Wendy,” the man said softly.

  “Don’t say that,” Robert replied instinctively. “It’s not good to speak ill of the dead, Cal. Besides, she was my wife.”

  Cal grimaced.

  “She was a bitch, Robbo. Face it. A cheating bitch who racked up bills all the while she was fucking your boss. You say you want to start over? Then you need to forget about Wendy. That would be a start.”

  Robert could only stare. He wanted to defend Wendy, felt obligated to defend her, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  After all, what Cal was saying was true.

  Wendy was a bitch.

  For a moment, an awkward silence hung over the two old friends, but it was eventually broken by Cal, who suddenly shrugged and held out his glass.

  “Enough about her—she’s gone. But I’m here…so are you gonna fill me up and tell me what the fuck happened with the old hag?”

  Robert retrieved the bottle of Glenlivet from the antique bar and sat down, putting the half-finished bottle between them.

  They were going to need it.

  ***

  It took about an hour for Robert to recount his entire tale. Talking about it had a strange calming effect on him, almost as if saying the words made it less real, made it more of a recollection. It served as a buffer to the actual events.

  And he also realized how crazy it all sounded. To him, anyway.

  But Cal was…different. Always had been, always would be.

  After he was done, his friend proceeded to just stare at him, his small, dark eyes scanning Robert’s features, making him slightly uncomfortable.

  A thought suddenly struck him.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told him…everything. Maybe he’ll call the cops.

  But when Cal spoke, he knew that this was a baseless fear.

  “You look like shit, Robbo,” he said. Then he scratched at his belly and sipped his scotch.

  The bottle on the table was nearly empty.

  Robert scoffed.

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  Cal sighed and put the scotch down on the table and then interlaced his fingers, leaning back in the chair. His index fingers shot up and tapped together. Every one of the man’s movements seemed infuriatingly slow to Robert.

  Why isn’t he reacting? Yelling at me? Calling me a murderer? Saying something…anything?

  “What—what—?”

  Robert ran out of gas and let out a sigh of his own.

  Cal cleared his throat.

  “Look, I know that things have been crazy for you, what with the…accident, and all.”

  Robert shook his head.

  “I know, I know. I would say the same thing…but, Cal, he pushed Amy.”

  Cal’s face turned dark, his thick black eyebrows masking his eyes.

  “And then what?”

  Robert shrugged.

  “I told you already…she fell, and I caught her…Jesus Christ, Cal, I actually caught her.”

  Cal looked incredulous.

  “You caught her?”

  Robert threw up his hands.

  “Yeah, me. What the fuck, Cal? Why are you focusing on that? What the hell do I do about the—” He lowered his voice. “—about Ruth’s body?”

  Cal chewed the inside of his lip.

  “I believe you, Robbo, I do. I’ve been…well, ever since Wendy’s accident, I have been looking into this stuff.”

  Now it was Robert’s turn to make a face.

  “What stuff?”

  Cal reached for his scotch and took a drink.

  “Ghosts, apparitions. You know.”

  Robert shot to his feet, and for what seemed the hundredth time since moving into the Harlop Estate, he felt his blood beginning to boil. The place had an effect on him, turned him into something, or someone, that he didn’t much care for.

  “For fuck’s sake, Cal! I can’t deal with your conspiracy bullshit now. I need help, man.” His voice hitched. “I need real help—I don’t know what to do. I really have no clue what to do.”

  Cal, as usual, remained calm.

  “It’s not a conspiracy theory, Robbo. Like I said, I’ve been doing research, and I found a whole lot of people with experiences like the one you just described.”

  He leaned in close and lowered his voice an octave.

  “Sometimes…sometimes when people die, for whatever reason they can’t cross over. They can’t rest in peace, as they say. Not just yet, anyway. Usually it’s when something really bad happens to these people, but not always. They need help moving on, Robbo. They need a little boost. And I think that’s what happened here”—he raised his hands above his head, indicating the high ceilings—“in the Harlop Estate.”

  Robert took several deep breaths and stared at his friend.

  What bothered him most wasn’t the absolute certainty with which his friend spewed this nonsense, but rather that he hadn’t seen this coming. For Christ’s sake, Cal believed that all the major nations were exerting mind control by crop-dusting the world with chemicals from planes.

  Robert wanted to leave, to go get Amy from the other room and get the fuck out. But something kept him in place…the vision of the girl, Patricia, the one with long, greasy black hair and a rat clutched in her hand. Robert’s eyes inadvertently flicked to the photographs over the mantle. First to Ruth’s face, then James and Patricia’s. He couldn’t look at Jacky’s…that part was the only bit of the story that he had left out.

  Robert didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or the boogeyman…after more than a decade as an accountant, he had never seen a line in the ledger regarding provisions for an apparition.

  Still, if Cal was good at anything, it was first identifying problems, then working through them…even if his methods were unusual. The man had a knack for speaking bluntly, b
ut also for giving Robert advice that he could actually act on.

  His thoughts turned to when he had first told Cal about his engagement with Wendy. Cal had told him straight up that he thought it was a bad idea. Robert had brushed him off, and Cal had agreed to be his best man at the wedding. But now…now he couldn’t help think that Cal had been right all along, that marrying Wendy had been a bad idea.

  After all, it had gotten him here, hadn’t it?

  “The girl you saw,” Cal began slowly, “the one on the roof, the one that became Amy, was that girl, wasn’t it?”

  Robert bowed his head. He didn’t need to see Cal’s outstretched finger to know that he was pointing at Patricia’s photograph.

  He nodded.

  A silence fell over them for a minute, before Cal suddenly jumped to his feet, startling Robert.

  “What are you doing?” Robert asked.

  Cal ignored him and started digging in his pocket. A grunt and a yank, and he pulled his cell phone loose.

  “Whoa, whoa…hold up a sec, Cal—who are you calling?”

  The man clicked a few buttons and then appeared to be scrolling through some text.

  “Cal? Who are you calling?”

  When the man still didn’t answer and brought the phone to his ear, Robert stepped forward and reached out, intent on grabbing it from him. But Cal turned away.

  “Cal!”

  Finally his friend acknowledged him, and pulled the phone away from his face, covering the bottom half with his pasty, pudgy hand.

  “You want to make it out of here? Alive? Stay out of prison? Try not to go insane? Or worse?”

  Robert nodded.

  “Then I need to call someone.”

  “What the fuck? Who? I’m—I’m—”

  “You need to trust me, Robert. There are things at work in this house that neither you nor I understand.” He paused. “Can’t you feel it? Can’t you just fucking feel that there is something wrong here?”

  Robert shook his head.

  “Even after all you’ve seen, you still can’t admit it, can you? Think about it, Robbo. Been feeling strange lately? Doing things that you wouldn’t normally do?” He paused. “Getting angry a lot, Robbo?”