The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville Read online

  "Though even then," Aleina added with a bright smile, "I doubt very much you will ever approach that normal life you hope to achieve."

  "Ha, ha." But she was probably right.

  I apologized, again, for leaving the hospital without telling anyone on staff. We talked a few minutes more; she wanted to know what I had been up to. I, much to my surprise, told her the truth. Then she hugged me again, and we went our separate ways.

  "No," Sly replied quite bluntly when I asked him if he thought they ‘d check for prints on the knife they found. "I don’t think they even want to take the chance."

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it. Pierce had been gunning for me from the start, and if he had the chance to put me behind bars, well . . .

  Later, in the middle of the afternoon, as Sly and I were gathering the paraphernalia we would need for the night's expedition to the graveyard, Detective Pierce roared into the driveway in his rusted station wagon. He had to lock the breaks to keep from rear-ending Sly's car. The baleful expression on his face when he exited his car and approached us in the garage told of another tragedy in Dodsville.

  When he reached us, he slammed his fist down on Julie's car. "Damn!" He shook his head in disbelief. "How did you ever manage it this time, O'Neal?"

  "Manage what?" Sly and I both asked at the same time. I was holding onto a shovel, and immediately leaned it up against the garage wall. No use in handing out any more clues on what we were up to than we had to.

  Pierce stared silently at the both of us for a minute, most likely, I thought, trying to read our expressions. "You know about Beliwitz?" he asked calmly, at length. Though I could still see the complete anger behind his eyes, he was trying to maintain a sense of dignity.

  "Why?" I replied, feeling suddenly nervous. "What's happened to him?"

  Pierce rubbed his eyes. "Seems somebody got into his room, past my guard, and stabbed him three times in the chest." He stopped rubbing his eyes and stared at me. "And, if I remember correctly, Stephen O'Neal was trying to get into his room only this morning to see him."

  "Randy's dead?" Again Sly and I spoke in unison. The nervousness I felt only a minute ago turned to complete shock.

  "How?" asked Sly, alone this time, as I was unable to come up with the right word.

  Pierce nodded toward me. "Why don't we ask your friend here, since he's the one who did it?"

  I pointed my finger back at him. "Don't start this shit again," I said, feeling myself about to lose control.

  "You admit you went to see him this morning, don't you?"

  "Of course. You even saw me. But I never got in." My thoughts drifted away from Pierce's lame accusation. If Randy had been murdered, then that only proved someone else was at work in Dodsville. Someone prodigiously more evil.

  The shovel I had just leaned against the garage wall fell to the floor with a loud crack. Pierce gave it only brief attention. There was a question in his eyes about it, but he didn't ask.

  Julie entered the garage through the connecting door to the house. "I saw you pull in," she said to Pierce. "What's happened now?"

  Sly informed her about Randy's updated condition.

  She shook her head in disbelief and looked to Pierce for confirmation.

  Pierce nodded. "The window in his room was jimmied open from the outside." He rubbed his eyes again. "But Beliwitz had a third story room. And there was no sign of ladder marks on the lawn underneath the window." He tapped a finger on Julie's car, almost as if he were nervous in our presence. "You wouldn't happen to know who might be responsible?"

  "Randy wasn't the sweetest person in the world," Julie replied coldly. "No telling how many enemies he made."

  "For the record, O'Neal, I really don't believe you did it," Pierce said. "Yet, you must admit that it's pretty strange how all these people around you end up dead or missing."

  Why did everyone want to drill the fact into me all the time? "Not everyone," I replied. "You're still around."

  "That's funny, O'Neal. But believe me, I don't feel all that comfortable knowing you." He started back to his station wagon, but turned around before opening his door. "Don't any of you disappear," he said. "At least, not if you can help it." He chuckled to himself and drove off.

  "Who do you think did it?" Julie asked of either Sly or me after we were alone.

  I shrugged, and Sly only stared reflectively down the block after Pierce.

  "Do we have everything we need for tonight?" he asked at length, without expression.

  I picked the shovel off the floor. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

  The Graveyard

  A storm threatened our plans as a sudden squall hit Dodsville a little after ten o'clock. But the thunder and lightning rolled through the city quickly, and the light rain that followed only lasted an hour. By midnight the skies were clear and cool. Only lightning bugs flashed in the bushes.

  "Good grave robbing weather, huh?" I commented as we stood on the porch. It was meant as a joke, but neither Sly nor Julie reacted.

  I could almost feel the tension radiating from them. And how could I blame them for being on edge? I had no idea what the punishment for grave robbing was, which was technically what we were up to, but with everything that was going down in this town I was sure we'd be in more than just hot water. Yet, I wasn't the least bit frightened or apprehensive. This adventure tonight felt like old times with Reed. We were embarking on a ghost hunt. Though, this time we were hunting for the ghost of Reed--figuratively speaking, of course.

  Julie had even a better excuse for being reluctant. We were going to dig up her little brother's grave, and either she would be forced to view his rotting corpse or have to face the fact that he wasn't actually dead. She shivered noticeably and Sly put his arm around her. The strain showed on both of their faces.

  "Shall we go?" I said, before either one of them changed his or her mind.

  We walked down the steps in silence. Almost like mourners, I thought.

  "Can I have the keys to my car?" Sly asked me. His face was stone cold serious.

  I dug them out of my pocket and tossed them to him. "Don't trust my driving?" I asked, still trying to break the tension.

  Sly put his pipe to his mouth, hesitated, and pulled it back out. He shoved it into his shirt pocket and opened his car door. For some reason I couldn't quite grasp, his not lighting the pipe and smoking it bothered me. I looked up to the stars for a moment, their presence humbling me as usual, and then I crawled into the backseat along with our grave digging supplies: two shovels, two lanterns, one crowbar, and a twenty-foot rope. All three of us were dressed in our darkest attire, hoping to blend in as much as possible with the night. Julie even wore a black cap to cover her blond hair. The moon was out and bright, but we agreed that was more to our advantage. We wouldn't have to use the lanterns nearly as much.

  We drove down the city streets of Dodsville without speaking, as if talking would bring us down to face the reality of what we were undertaking. In the silence it was more like a dream. We met no cars on our way--the roads of this frightened town were empty. A few houses we passed still had a light or two burning, but the curtains were pulled tight and no one dared to look out.

  The cemetery lay a mile due east of the city limits, and the headlights of our car lit on the sign of the Evergreen Cemetery, announcing our arrival. The moon was still full, or close to it, and once Sly pulled into the burial grounds he turned off the headlights. Old pine trees that had been planted more than a century ago loomed alongside the narrow drive, like giant caretakers watching over the dead. The moonlight was strong enough to cast ominous shadows from the headstones. My heart pounded heavily within my chest, and I wished desperately someone would talk. But we continued in silence, driving slowly past large headstones of prominent families, short headstones of poorer families, and some that lay flat, even with the ground. We past the entire Rodsworth family, all six of them, who had perished when thei
r house burned to the ground in the middle of the night when I was seven years old.

  Julie shifted uncomfortably in front of me, and I knew we were approaching Reed's gravesite. I tried to think of something to say that would ease the tension in the car, but nothing came to mind. What we were about to do, none of us would forget for the remainder of our lives.

  No matter how it turned out.

  Sly pulled off the gravel drive a few yards, and stopped. Reed's headstone loomed in front of us, but no one exited the car for a minute. Tabitha’s fresh patch of grassless dirt lay next to Reed’s grave, but no headstone as of yet had been placed over her.

  "Shall we go to it?" I said at length, wanting to get things on their way before I had too much time to think. I was frightened enough already.

  Sly grabbed the shovels out of the backseat and handed one to Julie as soon as she got out of the car. Wanting to be of some help at least, I grabbed one of the lanterns and turned it on. Melissa's signature on my cast glared up at me. She had been the first to sign it.

  "Turn it off," Sly said, nodding toward my lantern. "You will only attract mosquitoes, and God knows what else.”

  I obliged and followed him to the grave. Julie was already there, standing silently in front of the headstone. She had her shovel stuck in the grass, but was staring at the inscription in the granite.

  "Well," Sly said as he stuck his shovel into the dirt, "let's get this over with.”

  Julie sighed, and even in the moonlight I could see the pain written on her face. She wiped the hair out of her eyes and started in alongside Sly.

  I walked over to the nearest pine and sat down on the grass, leaning back against its aged and weathered trunk. We were situated almost on the far end of the cemetery and nowhere near the highway. Every once in a while a car would drive past, but the headlights didn't come close to reaching us back behind all the towering pines. Unless someone was deliberately looking for us, I felt fairly safe that we wouldn't be discovered.

  Sly kept a steady pace with his shovel, but Julie stopped every few minutes, for a moment, to catch her breath. I felt more than a little guilty watching her do what was rightfully my chore. Yet, there was no way I could shovel one-handed, so there was nothing I could do about it but sit where I was and wait. After five weeks, my bone was probably healed enough to lift some dirt, but I didn't want to take any chances in prolonging my having to wear a cast. Another week and I would be free and clear, and I knew that what was happening in Dodsville would reach me personally soon enough. I would need the use of both my arms.

  I was looking behind me for anyone sneaking up on us, when I heard the definite scrap of metal sliding across cement. In the quietness of the graveyard, the sound was magnified and goose bumps rose on my skin. They both scraped the dirt of the lining as quietly as they could, but I felt for sure they disturbed the dead.

  Standing over the grave, I watched them finish the job. Reed's headstone towered ominously over the little pit they had dug, leaning slightly inward now. His name was freshly etched in the granite along with his dates of birth and death. A somewhat appropriate epitaph was inscribed below: "He will walk among those he touched in life forever." Someone had been here recently as fresh daisies lay on both sides of the tombstone, covered now with a light layer of dirt dug from the grave. Also, a single fresh yellow rose lay on the dirt over Tabitha’s.

  "Turn the lantern on a minute," Sly said. He and Julie breathed heavily. In the moonlight beads of sweat glistened on their foreheads.

  I switched on the lantern. Underneath their feet lay the grave liner.

  "Great," Sly said, wiping his brow with his sleeve. "It's the liner I was hoping for. This won't be too much of a problem." He scraped some more dirt off the area around some iron rungs on both sides.

  Julie climbed out of the hole and headed for the car. I figured she didn't want to be around when we opened the grave and checked for her brother, but she returned immediately with the rope.

  "I could have gotten that," I said, again feeling more guilt. "I'm not a complete invalid, you know."

  She smiled, though I couldn't tell if it was forced or genuine. "Sorry, not thinking."

  Sly motioned impatiently from the hole for the rope. "Come on. Quit screwing around."

  Julie's smile disappeared as she tossed him the rope. "You don't need to be such a grump. We're all under a lot of strain here. Not just you.”

  "Sorry," he said, satirically.

  He tied one end of the rope to one of the iron rungs on the right side and stepped out of the grave. He pulled on the middle of the rope, and the concrete slab rose vertically into the air. Dirt fell through the darkened hole underneath and onto the coffin below.

  Eager to finally be able to assist, I grabbed on this half of the liner. "I got it," I said. It felt fairly secure leaning against the headstone, but I didn't want to take the chance of a sudden breeze blowing it back into the grave and onto Sly.

  Sly untied the rope on my liner and retied it to the other half. He threw the end of the rope out to Julie and lifted the liner up by hand. Julie secured the rope on a branch of the pine I had leaned against earlier.

  I held the lantern out over the hole. We all stood over the grave and stared down at the coffin. Reed's coffin.

  "Well, well, well," someone said behind us. I recognized the voice immediately.

  Jerking around to face him, I almost knocked my half of the liner back into the grave. Detective Pierce leaned against the second pine tree down from us, his arms folded in front of him. He smiled, and I knew why. What we were doing looked pretty bad, considering all the missing bodies and persons in Dodsville lately. The three of us stood mutely where we were, not knowing what to do or say.

  Pierce pushed himself off the tree and headed toward us. "I can't wait to hear your explanation for this one." When he reached the grave, he peered down into the hole and back up at the headstone. His shit-eating grin wavered a bit. "You must be kidding?"

  Down at the bottom of that hole at my feet was the answer to our biggest question. Only a few feet away, but with Pierce present now, it might just as well have been a country mile. "What did you have to show up for?” I muttered under my breath.

  "What was that you said, O'Neal?"

  "If you hadn't of--" I stopped in mid-sentence as I looked down at the coffin. Both latches on each side were broken. There were scratches around them, as if someone had smacked them with a shovel a few times.

  "This was your last straw, I'm afraid, kids." Pierce shook his head. "I'm going to have to--"

  "Before you run us in, just let us open that coffin," I said, cutting him off. "I think you won't regret it if you do. There's a big piece to the puzzle down there, and it's only a few feet away."

  Pierce pursed his lips to reply, but hesitated. He looked down into the hole, and his eyebrows shot up. "What the hell are you talking about, O'Neal? Piece to what puzzle?" He shifted the weight off his left leg to his right. "Or are you simply buying time?"

  Sly put his arm around Julie. Both looked to me to answer him.

  "It's too hard to explain right this minute," I replied. "But I beg you, please let us open that coffin."

  Pierce looked back down into the hole silently for a minute, thinking; then he shook his head. "You're crazy," he said, pointing a finger at me. "Now--"

  "Look!" I pointed myself, down at the coffin. "Can't you see for yourself? Somebody's already broken into it. Those latches are both busted. See the marks around them?"

  ''You guys did that," Pierce replied, but I could see doubt behind his eyes in the lantern light.

  "You were watching us the entire time," I said, pleading now. "Weren't you?"

  Pierce nodded, but didn't reply.

  "Then you know we didn't have the time to do that. We were just about to when you made your presence known. Right?" That last I asked of Sly and Julie. They both nodded.

  Pierce stared reflectively down at the coffin. Julie suddenly started to cry, and
Sly held onto her more tightly for comfort. He looked up at me and shrugged.

  "Nope," Pierce said at length, looking at Julie. "I'm taking you in. Then maybe I'll come back myself and see what it is down there that you’re so damn interested in. You're a bright person, O'Neal. I'll give you that. You've managed to stay out of the reach of the law for quite some time now. I can't take any more chances."

  I only stared back at him, glaring my best.

  Pierce shrugged. "Stand in my shoes for a minute. What would you do?"

  I wasn't going to leave without seeing what was or wasn't in Reed's coffin. "I'd shoot me in cold blood,” I said laconically, and jumped down onto the coffin. I heard a squish as I landed. With the rain we had been receiving lately, the coffin was resting on a puddle of water. The grave liner was nowhere near close to being waterproof.

  Pierce had indecision written on his face when I looked up to see how he was reacting. Julie had stopped crying, and along with Sly, waited for my next move. No one thought of holding onto the half of the grave liner I had just let go of, but it balanced precariously on its own. If it fell, it would land squarely on my back.

  "Go ahead," Sly said, waving at me in disgust. "Open it."

  Pierce started to say something, but relaxed and sighed. He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  I straddled the coffin and my shoes sunk down into the mud at the bottom of the grave. Groping along the edge of the top, I found the groove and pried my fingers under it. I had dropped the lantern when I jumped, and now Sly held it out over the hole for me to see. I hesitated a minute, sucked in my breath, and pulled the cover up. I swung my left leg up over the lid and down into the mud on the right side, pulling the cover open the remainder of the way.

  The coffin was empty.

  The lining was covered with a thick green moss, and for a second I had thought I was looking at a severely decomposed corpse. The pungent stench that clamped my nostrils shut didn't do anything to make me believe otherwise, either. But it took only that one second to realize there was no body.