Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 32

  “And you’re sure that we can’t just bury them deeper?”

  Shelly shook her head.

  “There’s a small window for them to pass, and if they aren’t buried deep enough and they don’t pass right away, you’re gonna have to help them along. But, fuck, I can’t stress this enough: don’t let them touch you. Whatever you do, however this plays out, they can’t touch you.”

  Robert swallowed hard and nodded.

  They had concocted a plan based on a hodgepodge of evidence that Shelly and Cal had dug up from the Internet. For all of her talk, Shelly had never actually done what they were planning to do now.

  To send the Harlop family to the Marrow.

  Because only Robert was part of their narrative, or at least this was how Shelly described it, he was the one that was going to have to do most of the heavy lifting. Shelly wasn’t even certain if she and Cal would be able to see the Harlop family, another one of the just many what ifs, hypotheticals, and woo-woo that they were dealing with; there just wasn’t a good manual on this kind of stuff, a fact that made Robert more than uneasy—he was terrified.

  Their plan was to wait until nightfall, and when—if—the Harlop family showed up, it was Robert’s job to get them to touch a personal object, one that meant something to them, and then he was to ‘bind’ them to it. When they released the item, they would also be released from this world and pass over.

  Or so the story went.

  Details of how, precisely, this ‘binding’ was to occur were sketchy…and it was the part that made Robert most nervous. He was hopeful that Shelly would share some last-minute details about this as the sun began to set, but staring at her now, analyzing the way she nibbled the inside of her cheek, which pushed her already substantial lips out a bit further, he wasn’t so sure.

  “What the hell am I going to do?” Cal asked.

  “You are going to dig the graves,” Shelly replied instantly. When Cal raised an eyebrow and stuck out his gut as if to say, this body ain’t for diggin’, she continued. “What? Robert’s hands are mangled…and besides, he has to bind the spirits.”

  When Cal simply stared, Shelly scoffed.

  “Me?” She put a hand on her hips and pushed her breasts forward, mocking Cal’s gesture. “Not happening.”

  And so that settled that. After Robert somehow bound the quiddity, Cal would make sure that they never came back by reburying the bodies.

  Deeper this time.

  Now all they had to do was find items that meant something to each of the Harlop family members, which wasn’t as easy as Shelly made it out to be. After all, what the hell did people from the forties hold dear? Tea? Backgammon?

  All they had to go on was the information in the newspaper articles and a smattering of online blog posts, but there wasn’t much meat to any of these. It seemed that after the Harlop tragedy, and after the police had fucked up by initially claimed that Ruth and Patricia’s deaths had been accidents, things had been brushed under the proverbial rug.

  “Hey, get this…” Cal said, reading from his phone. “The Harlop house was never sold.”

  Robert, who was looking through the bookshelves for something—a well worn book, perhaps—that might have held significance to Jacky or Patricia, turned to face his friend.

  “Never?”

  He shrugged.

  “Never.”

  For a brief moment, Robert thought that this fact might actually bode well for him, that the prospect of inheriting the house, the reason why he had gotten in this mess in the first place, might still be a viable one after all of this was over.

  Based on what Cal said next, it was obvious that he was thinking the same thing.

  “Don’t think so, Robbo. After all, as far as I know, dead people can’t sign deeds.” He made a face and thought about that for a moment. “Hey, Shelly, what if Ruth’s favorite item was a pen? Think we can get her to sign over the deed to the property to Robert before she is on her merry little way to the Marrow?”

  Robert smiled, despite himself. Then he went back to looking at the books as Shelly offered a fake ‘ha-ha’.

  And there it was, a book on the mantle, one whose thin spine barely held together, the title so perfectly fitting that Robert did a double-take: The Old Man and the Sea. He pulled the book out and stared at it for a moment—it had been one of his favorites too. He opened the cover carefully and read the inscription on the yellowed first page.

  To my dearest Jacky,

  When the walls hold you too tightly, may you float away on an endless sea.

  Love,

  Ruth

  Robert closed the book and wiped a tear from his cheek. He couldn’t comprehend the horror that Jacky must have felt when her uncle came into her room at night. Thoughts of keeping her safe reminded him of Amy, and how he hadn’t checked on her for a while.

  “Hey, guys?”

  Cal turned to look at him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I found something for Jacky: her favorite book.”

  Shelly smiled.

  “Perfect. That should do nicely. Remember, most of these trapped souls want to go to the Marrow…it’s only the James’ that are less willing—that require coercing.”

  Another wrinkle in this oh so thought out plan? What else is new.

  “Sure, whatever. Look, I’m going to check on Amy real quick.” He glanced to the window and realized that it was nearing dusk. “Going to put her in the car to sleep while this all goes down.”

  Shelly looked at Cal, who returned her gaze with a sour expression.

  “What? You don’t think I’m going to leave her here with all these fucking ghosts on the loose?”

  They offered nothing in response. Robert put the book on the small table and then started toward the entranceway.

  “Okay, well, what do you want me to do with her? Hmm?” When Cal and Shelly both remained silent, he left the room. “That’s what I thought. I’m taking her to the car. You find something for Ruth and Patricia. I’ll look for James.”

  ***

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you have to go to the car.”

  Amy looked up at him with her soft eyes.

  “But why, Daddy? Mr. Gregorius wants to stay here.” Robert shook his head and lifted her from the couch, cradling her like a baby. “I want to stay here.”

  “I’m sorry, but Daddy has some work to do. I know it sucks, and that sleeping in the car is the worst. But I’ll make it up to you, I promise. And after tonight, it will all be over.”

  Her expression lifted at this.

  “We can go home tomorrow?”

  Robert thought about that for a moment. This, the Harlop Estate, was supposed to be their home.

  “Home,” he said absently. It wasn’t a real answer, but he was hoping that she wouldn’t notice. “How about ice cream tomorrow? All day?”

  Amy’s small mouth made an ‘o’ shape.

  “All day? All day?”

  Robert laughed.

  “Yeah, all day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  Amy’s face morphed from incredulity to suspicion.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No joke.”

  She laughed, and Robert smiled. As he carried her out of the room, his foot banged against something solid and he stumbled, nearly dropping Amy to the floor.

  “Shit,” he grumbled, looking around Amy’s body.

  On the hardwood, still spinning from when he had kicked it, was the wrought iron fireplace poker.

  The smile immediately sloughed off his face and he hurried out the door.

  He had found an item that meant something to James Harlop. He just had to think of a way of getting the man to take it from him.

  Chapter 33

  Robert stared at the eclectic pile of items on the table before them.

  There was the book for Jacky, the mask from Ruth’s wheelchair and oxygen tank attachment
for the matriarch, and the fireplace poker for James.

  They had everything they needed, except something for Patricia. They had searched through the rooms on the lower level and the bedrooms upstairs, but they couldn’t even find anything to hint that she even existed. Which, judging by the stories, was exactly what James Harlop had been trying to do; make it seem like the little girl with dark hair didn’t even exist, by first trying to starve her, and when that didn’t work, by just claiming she had an accident.

  Anger seeped into Robert at just the thought of James Harlop pushing her tiny body off the roof.

  “Can you think of anything? Anything at all, something she was wearing, maybe?”

  Robert shook his head.

  “Rags…she was wearing rags. There was nothing that—”

  But then the image of the girl in the basement came to him and he shuddered.

  “Wait,” he said, thinking hard. And then it came to him; he knew exactly what had meant most to her. “A rat,” he whispered.

  Shelly frowned.

  “A rat?”

  “I think…I think she was starving and was eating a rat, chewing the tough—”

  Shelly snapped her fingers and pointed.

  “Bingo. Where was it? Where did you see it? On the roof or…?”

  Robert swallowed hard.

  “The basement. But she was holding it, so how…?” He let his sentence trial off. He was still having a hard time trying to understand how all this binding stuff worked, and how he could get the Harlop family to grab their items without touching him.

  And he still hadn’t mentioned the dozen or so times he had touched Ruth...how he had even bathed the woman. Robert wasn’t sure what that all meant, but for some reason he felt compelled to keep this to himself.

  “No, it’s fine. If she was eating it, then the bones will still be there in the basement. Doesn’t matter if she kept part of it with her. Remember Ruth?”

  How could I forget? Braining her and then realizing that she was just a bag of bones.

  He was still trying to wrap his mind around that one as well.

  “Yeah, but…”

  I don’t want to go back down there, he almost said. But the last thing he wanted to do was look like a total coward in front of Shelly. Despite the circumstances, they had gotten along well.

  Really well.

  Maybe when all of this is over…

  He shook the thought from his head.

  “You have to,” she informed him. “Go get the rat; don’t be a pussy.”

  Cal laughed and Robert shot him a look.

  “Fuck, easy for you to say. You didn’t see—”

  —her eyes, her bleeding eyes—

  “—didn’t see—”

  —her mouth, full of rat fur—

  “—didn’t hear—”

  —her crying about being hungry, begging to be let out—

  “—aw, fuck it. I’ll go,” he said at last. He reached over the table and grabbed the wrought iron poker. It felt strong, real, just like it had when he had swung at James the first time but missed. “But I’m taking this with me.”

  ***

  Of course they couldn’t find a replacement bulb for the one that had burnt out in the basement. It would have surprised Robert if they had been able to, given how bad his luck was.

  Armed only with his cell phone flashlight and the poker, he took a good look at the door to the basement. It didn’t match the decor in the rest of the house, he realized, because that bastard James Harlop had reinforced it to keep his daughter down there.

  “Jesus,” Cal whispered. He ran his fingers over the deep grooves on the back of the door that started at nearly waist height and went all the way to the top step. The indentations were rust-colored from where Patricia Harlop had tried to claw her way out.

  Robert inadvertently tightened his grip on the fireplace poker.

  This time, unlike their first encounter, he felt no apprehension with regards to swinging the poker at James Harlop and sending him to the Marrow. He just hoped that there was a horrible eternity waiting for the piece of shit.

  Thunder suddenly cracked so loudly that it echoed throughout the house. All three of them turned their eyes upward and listened as the rain started to pour down on the Harlop Estate again.

  And then the lights flickered.

  Shelly took a deep breath and turned to Robert.

  “Hurry,” she said. “They’re here.”

  Robert’s heart skipped a beat as he lowered his gaze to the stairs.

  He couldn’t believe that he was heading back down into the basement…in search of goddamn rat bones of all things.

  Chapter 34

  As before, the weak light from Robert’s cell barely made a dent in the damp darkness of the basement. As he stepped off the bottom rung and onto the dirt ground, he realized that it was softer underfoot, as if the rain that bombarded the place had finally found its way into the basement.

  And it was cold.

  For some reason, it was at least twenty degrees cooler down here, much colder than a basement should be, even in the summer.

  His breath puffed in front of his face and he shivered, Shelly’s haunting words echoing in his head.

  Be quick, we have to do this tonight. They’re here.

  He hoped that the rat would be just at the foot of the stairs and that he wouldn’t have to enter the basement proper. But he didn’t get his hopes up; he had learned over the past few weeks that when it came to luck, his had all but run out.

  Swallowing hard, Robert moved to the corner closest to the staircase, but it was empty. As he moved to the other corner, he passed the silver bucket—that had served as Patricia Harlop’s toilet for God only knows how long—and felt a pang of sadness. He imagined Amy in her place, screaming, crying, begging to get out, and his heart sank.

  How can someone do that to anyone, let alone their own child? How can—?

  A noise—ragged breathing—from behind him cut off his train of thought.

  He turned slowly, steeling himself against seeing Patricia and her bleeding eyes again. He tried to tell himself that she wasn’t there to get him…that she was just scared and confused. It was odd, but he felt fairly calm, his previous encounters having served to mute the shock of not only her appearance, but her existence as well.

  And then Shelly’s warning echoed in his mind, and his anxiety level cranked up a notch.

  Whatever happens, you can’t let them touch you. They will ride you to the Marrow, and once you get there, you can never come back…

  He had touched Ruth plenty of times since he had arrived at the Harlop Estate—he had bathed the woman for Christ’s sake—but she had never touched him. Which meant one of two things: one, that, as Shelly suggested, Ruth had to touch him and not vice-versa; or two, that this was all batshit insane and he was actually just living the worst vivid dream of all time.

  At this juncture, Robert considered the evidence fifty-fifty.

  Thankfully, his anxiety was for not as Patricia wasn’t standing behind him. In fact, he only saw more of the dark brown ground. For a second, he allowed himself to consider that maybe he had just imagined the sound of someone else breathing in the basement. His eyes flicked up to the stairwell and the open door. Shelly was staring down at him, her pretty face filling most of the doorway, Cal’s round head peeking over her shoulder.

  Judging by her neutral expression, she hadn’t heard the breathing.

  Maybe…

  He banished the thought, trying hard to stay on task.

  And then he saw it tucked just under the wooden staircase risers: the skeleton of a long-dead rat, no more than six inches long, the ribs—what were left of them—covered in a tangle of spiderwebs. The jagged, broken bones reminded him of the sound Patricia’s rotten teeth had made when she had bitten down…of how thin and gaunt she was…of how she was starving to death.

  “Found it!” he said, more enthusiastically than he had initially intended.
He looked back up to Shelly again, and was encouraged by her smile. He placed the fireplace poker down in the dirt and squatted and reached for it.

  “It was—”

  “Help me…please help me.”

  The voice was so close to his ear that Robert thought he could actually feel the girl’s cold breath on his skin.

  “Fuck!” he yelped, jumping as far forward as he could given his squatting posture. He jammed his palms into the cold, wet ground and scrambled to his feet, spinning as he did.

  Patricia was staring at him with her pitch-black eyes.

  Robert’s heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he feared a heart attack was imminent.

  “Shelly!” he yelled out of the corner of his mouth. “Shelly! She’s fucking here! What the fuck do I do now? Shelly!”

  Robert backpedaled so quickly that he nearly fell again. Even when he threatened to go down, his eyes remained locked on Patricia instead of searching for more solid footing.

  There was something strange about the way the flashlight was illuminating her features, her skin a pasty gray like a black-and-white photograph that had been left in the sun for too long. Still breathing rapidly, on the verge of hyperventilating, he moved the phone ever so slightly, turning it so that the light deflected obliquely off of Patricia as she slowly moved toward him.

  For a brief moment, he thought he could pick up the ground behind her, as if she wasn’t one hundred percent solid.

  Robert shook his head, trying to focus. The only thing that mattered now was making sure that no matter what happened, Patricia didn’t touch him.

  “Shelly! SHELLY!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

  What the fuck are they doing up there? And where the hell is Cal?

  He allowed his eyes to drift from Patricia’s for only a moment, and they were subconsciously drawn to the fireplace poker that he had placed on the dirt ground. Then he glanced at the rat carcass in his hand.

  Even though the rat was the item to bind Patricia, he would have felt a hell of a lot safer with the piece of wrought iron in his hand in that moment.