Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  Ashamed, Robert dropped his gaze, his mind processing all of the things that fit the prescription that Cal was writing.

  When Cal spoke again, he did so softly, his tone caring.

  “I thought so…these are all symptoms.”

  “Symptoms of what?” Robert asked, his own voice timid.

  “Of spirits stuck between worlds, Robbo.”

  Robert shut his eyes.

  Muffled speech sounded from beneath Cal’s hand.

  “Well?”

  Robert nodded.

  “Fine,” he said, dejected. “I just want things to go back to normal.”

  Cal nodded and brought the phone back to his ear.

  “Shelly, I need your help…”

  Chapter 29

  "You know why they bury bodies six feet deep?" Cal asked, thumbing the bottom of his beer bottle.

  Robert sighed.

  "No—but I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway."

  Cal raised his gaze, and Rob was momentarily taken aback by the fear in his eyes.

  "They bury them six feet deep, Robbo, to make sure that the dead can't crawl out again..."

  A shiver ran up Robert’s spine as he thought about the gleaming bone jutting out from the mud at the back of the property.

  Shallow graves.

  He tried to think of how deep he had buried Ruth’s body. It couldn’t have been more than two feet.

  “Six feet?” he asked in a small voice. It was all he could think of to say.

  Cal shrugged.

  “Thereabouts. I dunno—it’s what I read. Not sure about exactly six feet, but if you don’t bury them deep enough, some…well, some come back. And when you couple that with something traumatic that happens in life, something that is unresolved, it only makes things worse.”

  Robert nodded; Cal had told him this part already. He still wasn’t sure how much he believed, but there was no denying that what had happened to the Harlops at the hands of the patriarch had been traumatic.

  “And this Shelly, she’s going to help us out?”

  Cal shrugged.

  “Yeah. I think so. Honestly? I’ve never even met her.”

  Robert’s eyes bulged.

  “You what?”

  “I never met her. I mean, not in person. Talked to her online a bunch, but—”

  Robert’s hand started to tremble.

  “Calm down, Robbo. Everyone says she’s the best.”

  Everyone…who the fuck is everyone? Chemtrail enthusiasts? Holocaust deniers? 9/11 conspiracy junkies?

  Robert couldn’t calm down. Not even a half a bottle of Glenlivet could help calm him down.

  He was going to prison. Amy was going to be without a mother and a father, he was certain of this now.

  “Calm, Robbo, calm,” Cal said, then finished his beer. “We wait. Sleep, maybe…you look exhausted.”

  Robert scoffed.

  “Sleep, yeah right.”

  “Lie down on the couch. Try it.”

  Robert reluctantly lay on the couch for a moment, and when he blinked next, he felt his lids open more slowly than usual. Maybe it was the scotch, or just the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of the past few days. But either way, he was tired, and maybe, just maybe, he might be able to sleep.

  If only a little.

  ***

  Robert’s eyes opened slowly, and like when he had awoken in the car that morning, he was completely disoriented. And he had a splitting headache.

  Evidently, Cal had been right. Robert was capable of sleep; he just wasn’t sure that it hadn’t done him more harm than good.

  He rolled onto his side, grunting at the pain that still engulfed his shoulders and arms. And his hands…his hands were probably the worst. The searing agony in his palms was so bad that he was too frightened even to look at them.

  Cal was asleep in the chair, sitting upright his mouth agape, something between a whistle and a snore caught in his throat.

  Grimacing against the pain and his headache, Robert struggled to a sitting position without making much noise. And then he sat there in the dark house for a moment. Moonlight leaked in through the windows, letting him know that several hours had passed since he had spilled his guts to Cal.

  A thought suddenly filled his mind, one that was so strong that it knocked any of his grogginess away.

  I need to get out of here. I need to wake Amy and get out of here.

  His eyes flicked to the table and the empty scotch bottle, and the beer bottle that Cal had also put there. And the keys—his eyes fell on Cal’s car keys.

  It took him three tries to make it to his feet, his legs were so stiff and sore. During these attempts, his eyes remained locked on the keys.

  The fantasy that ran through his mind wasn’t right; he still possessed enough of his faculties to know this much. After all, Cal was his best friend, and he was here to help him, and it wasn’t right that he was going take his keys and leave the man here with—with Ruth, Patricia, James, and Jacky; the fucking demented, ghostly Brady bunch—God knows what.

  But he couldn’t stay. Now that he had slept on what Cal had told him, he knew that he couldn’t stay here with Amy waiting for Cal’s Internet girlfriend to come.

  They would all end up in prison before the sun rose in the morning, him a murderer, Cal an accomplice.

  Swallowing hard, Robert shuffled to the table. He wasn’t sure if it was the lasting effects of the scotch or his sleepiness, but his movements were labored, like he was walking through jelly. His first swipe at the keys missed, and he jostled the Glenlivet, nearly sending it crashing to the floor. He scooped them up on his second attempt.

  Cal snorted, and Robert turned to his friend—his best friend, maybe his only friend—and he felt his face sink with sadness.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m sorry, Ca—”

  A whimper from somewhere in the other room caused the words to catch in his throat and his heart to pound. Robert remained completely still and he waited for it to happen again.

  There.

  The sound came again, and this time there was no mistaking it—it was a girl’s cry.

  Amy!

  Robert shuffled quickly passed Cal and moved out of the room and into the center hallway. He paused in front of the staircase, staring upward.

  Is she upstairs? Did she go back upstairs when Cal came?

  He couldn’t think straight; his head was spinning, and he felt a dull throb near the base of his skull.

  No way. No way would I let her go back up there after what happened on the roof.

  The cry sounded again, a little louder this time, and his eyes shot toward the kitchen.

  No, not upstairs…downstairs.

  Fear gripped Robert as he moved toward the kitchen, hoping beyond all hope that Amy would be just sitting on the floor in the kitchen. But even before he turned the corner, he knew in his heart that she wouldn’t be there, that the door to the basement, the one with the padlock, would be open.

  And it was.

  Robert reached into his pocket with a trembling hand and slowly teased out his cell phone. Even though the radio was fried, the flashlight still worked.

  He flicked it on, and the old-fashioned galley kitchen was suddenly awash in artificial blue light.

  “Amy?” he whispered.

  And then there was no doubt.

  The whimper came from behind the partially opened basement door.

  An uncomfortable mixture of déjà vu and dread seemed to suddenly encase every cell of Robert’s being.

  Don’t go down there…it’s a trick. Just. Stay. Here.

  He shuddered.

  It’s not Amy…it’s not Amy…it’s not Amy…

  But no matter how hard Robert tried to convince himself, he was helpless to stop propelling his worn body toward the door.

  He had no idea how Amy—it’s not Amy—had opened it, or why, but none of that mattered right now.

  He put Cal’s keys in his pocket and reached for
the door with a shaking hand. The wood felt strange in his mangled fingers, indistinct, more pressure than feeling of wood.

  Even with his phone’s flashlight aimed downstairs, he could only see a few feet into the damp darkness.

  “Amy?” he asked, a little louder this time. He wished to God that she would just answer, that it wasn’t Patricia Harlop’s whimpering that he had heard.

  His searching foot found the first step, and then the second. Recalling how he had fallen last time, he made sure each foot was firmly placed before going to the next.

  “Amy? You down here? Please, Amy, just answer me.”

  There was no cry as a response, but something else. A crunching sound, followed by tearing, like someone was ripping an old t-shirt.

  His hangover was intensifying with every step, and he found it increasingly difficult to make sure of his footing. Grinding his teeth, he pressed onward.

  Eventually his feet landed on the soft dirt ground and he sprayed the light around, trying to get a good look at his surroundings. Last time he had been down here, it had been in near complete darkness. He found the chain to the light, but when he pulled it he heard a small pop and then it dimmed and went out.

  Great.

  Returning to using his cell phone, he took a small, tentative step forward. He could make out a stained silver bucket in the corner, and a rusty length of chain attached to the wall at one end and terminating in an archaic-looking cuff.

  She was chained here; Patricia was chained to the wall here. When things got tough, James locked her in the basement.

  He shook the thought from his head.

  “Amy!” he shouted. “Amy!”

  Nothing.

  His phone light flickered, and he shook it, willing the battery not to die. Then he squinted, trying to make sense of the shadows that blanketed the corners of the basement.

  Where the hell is Amy?

  For nearly a minute, Robert stood in near complete silence. But then he heard another crunch, this time mere inches from his ear.

  Robert whipped around so quickly that he almost fell. Stumbling, he collected himself just before going down. Then he raised his eyes, and if his mouth hadn’t been frozen with fear, he would have screamed.

  As he had suspected all along, it wasn’t Amy in the basement, but Patricia.

  Unlike last time, however, the girl was now standing in the corner, clearly having just stepped out from beneath the stairs. She looked just as she did in the photograph, her skin so pale and her eyes so dark that she appeared to exist only in black and white. The only difference was that she was thinner now…by God, she was so thin.

  Robert swallowed hard and continued to stare.

  Clutched in one of her pale, thin hands was the rat. As he watched, frozen, unable to even breathe let alone move, the girl brought the rat to her mouth and bit down on it with brown, crooked teeth.

  It was a sight so grotesque, the tearing of the desiccated flesh so grating, that Robert nearly vomited. But thankfully, his stomach, like the rest of him, seemed to be locked in place. The girl chewed once, a second time, then swallowed. Slowly, almost mechanically, Patricia Harlop raised her gaze and stared Robert directly in the face.

  “Please,” she said, her voice, like her rag-covered body, thin and wavering, “I’m so hungry.”

  “You can’t…you can’t be real,” Robert blubbered, surprised that his mouth actually worked. “You’re dead.”

  The words didn’t seem to faze little Patty.

  “I’m hungry,” she repeated.

  Robert unexpectedly regained control of his faculties just as the girl reached out for him with her free hand, the fingers spread, grasping. He shuffled backward, bumping up against the bottom of the stairs.

  “So hungry,” she moaned. “Please, help me. Help me. Help me!”

  Robert somehow managed to hoist his body onto the first step. As he stared, unwilling, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrible sight, the girl’s eyes suddenly changed. The pupils and dark irises became cloudy, frothy even, like waves breaking on the shoreline. Blood slowly started to leak from her tear ducts, staining her otherwise pale features.

  “Help me!” she suddenly roared, lunging at him.

  Robert turned, dodging her touch by a hair. Then he sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Falling was no longer an option.

  Any reservations about the realness of what he had seen vanished the second he stared into her eyes.

  The girl in the basement was the ghost of Patricia Harlop, of this he was now certain. Little Patty, chained to the wall by her father, left to eat rats or starve.

  Robert somehow made it to the top of the stairs without falling and he threw himself into the kitchen, not even feeling his body erupt in pain when his shoulder struck the tiled floor.

  It was only then that he realized the moaning sound that droned on and on was coming from him. Eyes locked on the door, he shoved himself to a seated position and then slithered backward.

  He made it partway through the kitchen before his back hit something hard.

  And then his moan became a scream.

  Robert screamed until his vision became spotted and his throat ragged. A cold hand slipped down over his mouth, and he was suddenly spun around.

  He half expected to see James there, looking down at him, smiling beneath his oak-colored mustache. Ready to take him to the roof and throw him off as he had done to Patricia and Amy.

  And there was nothing Robert could do to save himself.

  But it wasn’t a man…it was a woman.

  A tall woman with shortly cropped blonde hair that he had never seen before.

  “Shhhh,” she whispered. It took Robert several seconds to realize that unlike Patricia, this wasn’t an apparition but a real person.

  “Shelly?” he croaked.

  The pretty woman with the plump red lips nodded.

  “You saw her again, didn’t you?”

  Robert felt like crying.

  “Who?” he sputtered.

  “Patricia Harlop…you saw her, didn’t you?”

  Chapter 30

  Cal was wide awake now, but he was still slumped back in his chair much as he had been when he had been snoring away like a rusty chainsaw. Robert was sitting across from him again, while Shelly stood between both of them.

  Robert’s hands were trembling.

  I’m so hungry…

  The words alone were haunting, never mind her bleeding eyes and the fact that she had been gnawing on the corpse of a rat.

  One thing was for certain: Ruth was wrong. Patricia hadn’t fucking fallen off any roof. Like Amy, she had been shoved. Only difference being that Amy hadn’t been starved first. And that he hadn’t been there to catch Patricia.

  Robert licked his lips, trying desperately to moisten them. It seemed impossible; he was dehydrated, hungover, confused, and generally in pain.

  Nothing made sense. Nothing except, of all things, what Cal had said. That somehow this place was haunted…that the Harlop family wasn’t ready to pass on yet. That they had something left to resolve before they could move on.

  That they had been buried in shallow graves.

  He cleared his throat, and then looked up before saying the first thing that came into his mind.

  “How did you know about Patricia?” he rasped. His gaze landed on Shelly’s large green eyes, and once again he was struck by how attractive she was. She had a serious expression on her face, and he thought that maybe she had a pound or two to lose around her middle, but she was still undeniably attractive.

  This wasn’t what he had pictured when Cal had said that he was bringing an Internet friend to the Estate.

  She chewed her lip for a moment, as if considering how much information she should share.

  “Spill it,” Robert said, waving his hand in front of him. Just this simple movement sent a shockwave of pain up and down his entire arm.

  “Ah, fuck it, you’re gonna have
to hear this shit anyway,” she said. She was attractive, no doubt, but had the mouth of a sailor. She was so crass that Robert thought that he even caught Cal wincing once or twice. “I know about this place, about Harlop Estate, because it’s all over the fucking Internet. Seriously, you two ever Google anything on the fucking web before? Fuck, I just type ‘Harlop Estate’ and a whole whack of shit pops up.”

  Robert raised an eyebrow at this. For some reason, he hadn’t even thought of Googling the place.

  Shelly removed the backpack that was slung over her shoulder and squatted on the floor while she opened it. Robert’s eyes strayed to the tops of her breasts that hung out from the dropped neck of her black t-shirt.

  Fuck? What is wrong with me?

  A brief memory of Jacky, rolling with her in the mud and the maggots winding in and out of her face was enough to force these thoughts away.

  Been feeling strange lately? Doing things that you wouldn’t normally do? Getting angry a lot, Robbo?

  His eyes fell on the folder that Shelly removed and handed out to him.

  “Look, Cal told me that you are a…what the fuck is it called? A fucking nonbeliever, I guess. An accountant, ha! But still, before you take this…”

  Robert waited.

  Eventually, Shelly sighed.

  “Look, it’s gonna fuck with your head, alright? I mean, really fuck with it.” She held a palm up to Robert. “I mean, based on what Cal told me, this is going to make you even more fucked up than you already are.”

  Cal laughed at this, and Robert shot him a look that shut him up quick.

  Robert, curious now, took the folder from the woman.

  He didn’t know how things could possibly get more fucked up than they already were.

  Bracing himself, he opened the folder and his eyes fell on an old photograph of the Harlop Estate from what had to be many years ago, given that it was in a much better state, with clean, crisp lines, the shrubs and lawn meticulously manicured. Robert flipped the image up, and turned his attention to the newspaper article from May 14, 1943 that was clipped to it.

  Murder at the Harlop.

  A lump formed in his throat, one that didn’t seem to go away no matter how many times he swallowed. He kept reading.