Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  Patricia kept moving toward him, and he woefully held out the rat carcass like some sort of burnt offering.

  “Please, Patricia,” he said, his voice wavering. “Don’t come any closer…”

  It was in that moment, when the girl failed to acknowledge his desperate pleas, that Robert came to fully realize how insane their plan actually was.

  How the fuck am I supposed to bind this little girl with obsidian eyes to a goddamn rat corpse? How can I get her to touch it?

  It was ludicrous.

  “Please, I want to help you, to get you out of here…”

  He was debating another option—just throwing the rat bones at her and running upstairs—when Patricia suddenly stopped. At first, he thought that she was responding to his words, or maybe that she had only now seen the rat in his hand.

  Maybe this isn’t such a bad plan after all.

  But then her eyes started to go that milky, frothy white again, and her mouth, which was suddenly caked with rust-colored dried blood that was equally as likely to have come from her chewing her lips off as it was from eating the rat, went wide.

  He recognized the expression; even in this twisted quiddity, he didn’t doubt what it was.

  It was fear.

  Robert’s legs began to tremble, and the bones in his hand rattled audibly.

  “He’s here,” Patricia said, her voice taking on that strange, airy whisper that it had acquired the last time he had come down to the basement.

  Robert swallowed hard.

  Patricia slunk backward before receding out of the limited reach of his cell phone light. He started to turn, and almost made it all the way around before he heard a voice.

  “Nobody’s supposed to be down here.”

  It was a man’s voice, deep and gruff.

  And then the man with the thick, dark mustache lunged at him from only three feet away.

  Chapter 35

  The fall saved him.

  Just seeing the burly man—James Harlop, still somehow wet from the roof—was enough to shock Robert to the ground.

  The man literally lumbered directly over top of him, his legs spread just wide enough to miss touching Robert by mere inches. As he traveled over him, Robert caught sight of a ragged gash—more of a hole, really—just below his chin. Shelly was right; he was one tough bastard to choke the life out of Jacky after suffering a wound that egregious.

  Robert spun on his back like an overturned turtle, trying to make sure his eyes remained locked on James as he regained his balance and turned back to face him.

  James Harlop was even more intimidating up close. He had the same black eyes as his daughter, and a thin bottom lip that was only just visible from beneath his thick mustache.

  And yet Robert knew that he was smiling.

  “Nobody supposed to be down here.”

  When he spoke, the wound below his neck flapped, making Robert’s stomach lurch. This tipped the scales, and Robert lost it. He opened his mouth and started to scream as long and loud as he could. Then he followed this up with more shouting.

  “Shelly! Cal! Get the fuck down here!”

  Robert’s eyes darted about frantically. He could see the fireplace poker, but it was behind James and there was no way he would be able to get it without either brushing against him or the man’s massive hands grabbing him.

  He finally heard stirring from the staircase, but time down in the basement seemed to be moving out of sync with that in the rest of the Harlop Estate above. Shelly and Cal’s footsteps—if it was them, please be them—were coming too slowly compared to the pace at which James started to shamble toward him. Their words, if that was what they were, were slow and too baritone to understand.

  The man seemed impossibly large, nearly seven feet tall. And thick. Despite the fact that he was wearing a soaked trench coat that shared the same color scheme that plagued Patricia, Robert could see that the man was thickly built, his arms threatening to pop the seams.

  James suddenly reared back and laughed, the horrible sound not only coming out of his mouth, but also whistling out of the hole that had killed him.

  Robert gagged and spat onto the dirt floor. He debated switching off the light, trying to hide, maybe, sneak by James as he had thought of doing with Patricia, but the fear that gripped him was all-encompassing. He couldn’t trust his body to switch the light off without dropping the phone, let alone actually running without falling.

  So instead, he just sat there, his track pants becoming damp and muddy, holding his phone in one hand, the rat bones in the other.

  James leveled his black eyes at Robert.

  “I told no one to come down here.”

  And then Robert did the unbelievable.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The man laughed again.

  “That’s what Patricia used to say,” he replied coldly.

  The man was less than a dozen feet from Robert now, but he was still gripped by fear and unable to move.

  “I’m going to strangle you like I did that slut Jacky.”

  He took another step forward, and just when it looked like he was about to lunge, movement off to the side drew Robert’s attention.

  “Thank—”

  He was about to thank God for Shelly and Cal, because they had finally made it to the basement. But the outline he saw was too small to be either of them.

  “Patricia?” Robert whispered.

  This word was enough to halt James’s forward advance. He turned in the direction that Robert was looking.

  “You go—”

  But now it was James’s turn to stop mid-sentence.

  When the figure darted to right up next to James, Robert’s eyes went wide.

  He immediately recognized the pink shirt and jeans. And he also recognized the dirty purple bunny rabbit in her arms.

  “Amy!” he cried. “No! Amy! Go upstairs! Run!”

  But the girl didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, she was staring up at James with a look of wonderment on her face.

  “Amy! Please Amy! Run!”

  But Amy didn’t run. She didn’t do anything but stare.

  The thought of this animal touching Amy was enough to thaw the ice that gripped Robert. He leapt to his feet with speed and dexterity that he didn’t know himself capable of.

  He had lost his house, his wife…he had lost everything, but he wasn’t going to lose Amy to either James or the Marrow.

  No fucking way.

  “Turn and look at me, you big bastard,” he said, his voice taking on a low, guttural quality.

  But the man didn’t move and now it was Robert’s turn to stalk him. He took two steps forward. Realizing that he was still holding the rat carcass, he tossed it to one side, not caring where it landed.

  Patricia was not his concern anymore. His only concern was James and Amy.

  Always Amy.

  “You better turn around—”

  “Or what?” the man bellowed. But he turned anyways, and Robert tried to ignore the fact that his eyes had started to froth like Patricia’s had before.

  “Or I’ll kill you again.”

  The man laughed.

  “You can’t kill—”

  Robert took another step forward.

  “I’ll send you to the fucking Marrow, you rapist bastard.”

  James’ laugh died immediately, and for a second his eyes seemed to clear before going white again.

  “What do you know about the Marrow?”

  Robert said nothing, resigning himself to just stand there defiantly. He chanced a look at Amy and tried to send her a message using only his expression.

  Run, Amy. Run upstairs, grab Cal and get out of the house. Never come back.

  But the girl just stared at him. Then she moved her arm, and for the first time since seeing her, Robert realized that she had something in the hand opposite the one that held Mr. Gregorius.

  How the hell did she get past Shelly and Cal? More importantly, why did they let her past?r />
  “You can’t kill me,” James spat. “And I won’t leave this place.”

  Robert’s plan had worked; the man was distracted by his comments and no longer interested in Amy. But now Amy had to hold up her part of the unspoken bargain.

  She needed to run.

  When he glanced over at her again, the object in her hand reflected some of the light from his cell phone.

  It was the fireplace poker.

  Amy smiled, which made Robert’s heart melt.

  Smiling had become a rarity after the accident.

  In one swift motion, she lowered the poker and threw it underhand like an arrow between James’s legs. It landed on the dirty ground a few feet from him with a small pff and Robert leapt for it.

  James must have finally realized what was happening as he bellowed and then he too dove for the poker.

  Robert, for once in his life, was quicker; for all the man’s size, he was too slow, not quite agile enough. Robert landed on his stomach, the air forced from his lungs in an audible whoosh. The fingers of his right hand wrapped around the hard metal, just as James soared through the air. Robert dropped the phone in the dirt, then gripped the poker with both hands. In one fluid motion, he sprang to his feet, leading with the poker like a spear at a fifty-degree angle out in front of him.

  His timing was perfect. The poker slid directly into the wound in James’s chin, sliding effortlessly through the existing hole, then through the top of his mouth, stopping him cold. Robert turned his head to the side, expecting to be showered in blood from the much taller man. But when he felt no liquid splash his head and face, he opened his eyes and looked up.

  James sighed, and his eyes started to go completely white like acute cataracts.

  Robert, keeping the poker at arm’s length embedded in the man’s face and chin, anchored himself with his back leg and then shoved with all of his strength. The poker inched upward even further, until the tip broke through the top of James Harlop’s skull.

  A gassy release and a foul stench suddenly filled the basement.

  Robert’s heart skipped a beat, and he suddenly remembered Amy. He only looked away for a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction too long.

  Something cold wrapped around his hand that still clutched the poker, something as cold and frigid as ice, drawing his attention back. Somehow, James had managed to lower his head and eyes to look at Robert despite the poker keeping his neck ramrod straight.

  And then the man spoke. The words were barely comprehensible with the poker wedged in his face, preventing his lips from touching.

  But Robert understood them nonetheless.

  “Your wife is here, Robert…” he said, and Robert’s eyes went wide. There was a horrible chuffing noise that might have been laughter, but it ended just as quickly as it had started. “…and the goat…the goat is coming.”

  These were the last words James Harlop uttered.

  Robert looked down and saw that when he had been distracted, James had clasped his massive hands over top of his.

  Despite the man’s ominous last words, the only thing that rang through Robert’s mind was Shelly’s warning.

  Whatever you do, don’t let them touch you.

  A tremor passed through him, and he glanced up and stared into James’s white eyes. Time seemed to slow again, and as he stared, he could see that they weren’t perfectly opaque, but they appeared to be frothing. He looked more closely still, and was seemingly drawn into them.

  It wasn’t a static whiteness, he realized, but a sea of some sort. A roiling sea, the waves frothing and rolling and breaking continuously on a beach.

  Robert Watts was staring at the shores of the Marrow.

  Chapter 36

  And it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  Chapter 37

  Cal stared down at the dirt, sweat dripping from his forearms and his damp t-shirt clinging uncomfortably to his body. He wasn’t cut out for work like this.

  “That good?” he asked, not bothering to turn to face Shelly.

  He had dug four graves, one for each member of the Harlop family, out by the back of the property near the existing tombstones. Only this time they were deep graves.

  They had unearthed Patricia’s and even James’s bones in the shallow graves; it was James’s massive hand that had broken the surface. Jacky’s bones had been found by the shed, out in the open, which Cal had a hard time reconciling. Best he could figure was that for some reason she had been buried really close to the surface, so close that the rain had washed her entire skeleton down the slope and toward the Estate.

  It didn’t matter now, however; they had all gone to the Marrow. All that was left was making sure they received a proper burial.

  He wrapped each of them in their own sheet, and then slowly lowered them into their individual graves. On top of each, he had gently laid their personal item to which they had been bound: a book, a gas mask, a handful of rat bones, and of course the fireplace poker.

  It was this last item that made him cringe.

  James Harlop didn’t deserve to be buried in this way, didn’t deserve the same treatment, however paltry, that the other Harlop family members had gotten.

  “Dunno, should be. Bound to their items, they should be well on their way to the Marrow now,” Shelly answered. They were both tired, even though Cal had done all of the digging.

  Cal stared a little longer, his eyes focusing on the rat bones.

  “Doubt it’s actually six feet,” he remarked passively.

  Shelly shrugged.

  “Like I said, they’re bound now. Should be alright. Glad that you put them down the hill a bit, though, just in case the heavy rains come again, threatening to erode the soil.”

  Cal nodded and then turned his gaze skyward, squinting into the sun. It was bright, brighter than he could remember. It felt the way late summer should feel: hot and sunny.

  And no damn rain.

  Thoughts of rain made him think of the Marrow, and for what felt like the hundredth time, he wondered if Robert had been touched by James Harlop.

  If he too was now in the Marrow.

  And, oddly, mixed with the fear and guilt he felt about his friend, he also felt a pang of envy. After all, he was the one that had to sit and hold his dying friend in his arms, watching as his quiditty leaked out of him like some sort of…

  Cal quickly pushed these thoughts aside, chalking them up to the result of an extremely long night, a night in which they had accomplished much, but a night that neither he nor Shelly had slept a lick.

  After they had gone down to the basement, they had found Robert, lying on his back in the dirt, eyes closed, breathing rhythmically. As if he were sleeping. And clutched in his hand was the fireplace poker.

  Cal had had to use both hands to pry his fingers off.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. They had heard a commotion of sorts, a muffled cry, but by the time they’d gotten downstairs, Robert had already been lying on the ground. As they had struggled to carrying his unconscious body upstairs, they had heard a little girl crying.

  Patricia Harlop slipped out of the shadows, her head low, her hands at her sides. She was confused, disoriented, and alone. She was more than happy to be on her way, and binding her to the rat bones had proven surprisingly uneventful. And it felt good.

  The smile on her face as her spirit faded had warmed Cal’s heart. And it was a relief to both of he and Shelly that it wasn’t just Robert that could bind, or even see, the spirits. The limited information they could dig up on the subject suggested that very few were capable of this ritual, especially if they hadn’t become part of the narrative, as it were.

  They had found Jacky in the kitchen next, scrubbing the counter furiously. Jacky was even more confused than Patricia, and she actually had come onto Cal. She was a beautiful woman, and it made him wonder if maybe something similar had happened to Robert. And a man in his state, having just lost his wife…well,
he didn’t even want to think about that.

  Shelly had bound Jacky to The Old Man and the Sea. The woman’s face had lit up when she saw the book, and Shelly had carefully handed it to her, making sure that their fingers never made contact. And that was it.

  Cal had been preparing himself a glass of scotch while Shelly was pressing a cool cloth to Robert’s forehead. Although neither of them said anything, Cal could only imagine two reasons for Robert’s condition: one, the optimistic reason, was that everything that had built up over the last few months, culminating with his interaction with James Harlop, had been just too much; that it had broken him. The other option was that he had touched James and had been taken to the Marrow. Neither Cal nor Shelly wanted to consider the second option.

  Wake up, Robbo. Just wake the fuck up.

  It had been while contemplating this that Cal had heard the rusty squeaking coming from upstairs. Cautiously, he and Shelly had made their way to the second floor.

  Ruth was struggling to get from her wheelchair to her bed. She was sickly thin, and her breathing, now that they had removed her mask, was coming in wheezy bursts.

  Cal helped her. Using the sheet to wrap his hands and make sure he didn’t touch her, he helped her into bed. Then Shelly stepped forward and asked if she wanted to have a little oxygen before she fell asleep.

  “Oh, that’s where that silly thing went.”

  And once Shelly had lowered the mask, Ruth Harlop also faded.

  Which brought them to here, to Cal sweating profusely in the hot sun, scooping the last of the dirt on top of the four graves.

  “Should we say something?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. A eulogy, maybe?”

  Shelly shook her head.

  “Naw, I don’t believe in that shit,” she said, and then turned and slowly made her way back to the Harlop Estate. Cal stared at her ass moving in her tight jeans as she went. “Let’s go check on Robert, there is still one more thing we have to do,” she said over her shoulder. Then, after a pause, she added, “And stop looking at my ass, pervert.”