Grave Intent (37 page)

“Yes!” Michael struggled with the clutch and
gearshift until the tractor finally sputtered out from under the
lean-to.

Soon, he had the antiquated piece of iron
rolling toward the cemetery. Fiddling with the tractor knobs, he
foraged for lights. The engine coughed again, and Michael abandoned
the knobs, concentrating only on the lever that made the loader go
faster. He pulled down on it hard, and the machine jerked forward
with a puff of black smoke.

When Michael neared the first tomb, he pulled
the steering wheel to the right. The tractor groaned and continued
to chug forward.

“Turn, dammit.” He pulled hard to the left.
The machine turned left, but only after rolling over the grave. The
shovel smashed into the three-foot tall, concrete cross perched on
top of the tomb. The cross exploded into cement chips and powder.
Michael gnashed his teeth and set the tractor at full throttle.
“Come on!” He rocked back and forth on the seat as if the effort
would make the machine travel faster. The steering wheel spun
wildly as he struggled to keep the tractor headed in a straight
line.

The shovel yawned and jerked from left to
right, clipping a wing off a nearby angel statue. Michael finally
got the hang of the knobs that moved the spade and controlled the
steering, but only after he’d beheaded a bust of the Immaculate
Heart and pulverized four cherubs. He scanned the cemetery again,
amazed that a legion of cops weren’t swarming the place. God, he’d
made enough noise to put the National Guard on alert.

Pushing up on the throttle, Michael slowed
the tractor until it idled a few feet away from the Stevenson
girl’s grave. He slid the gearshift into neutral, then stood so he
could peer over the hood of the tractor while he forced the levers
that moved the front end loader. The thick shovel shuttered in
protest, then slammed against the edge of the slab. Marble chips
flew in every direction, and Michael gasped, craning his neck to
make sure nothing had hit Ellie.

She still lay in the same spot, deathly
quiet.

Michael’s hands trembled when he pulled back
on the lever to try again. This time he was able to hook the bottom
lip of the shovel under the vault cap. He sat down heavily, his
body suddenly shivering with cold.

His job was to bury people, not dig them up.
This tractor stuff was new to him. If he wasn’t careful prying off
the vault cap, it could fall on Ellie and crush her. And what if he
did get it off without hurting her? What if he opened the grave
only to discover he’d been wrong? That returning the coin didn’t
make a difference at all? What would he do then? What would
they
do then? He fingered the bulky shaft that moved the
shovel. If he took the lid off, there’d be no turning back. What
then? What?

With his jaw clenched, Michael shoved the
gear forward. There was only one way he’d ever find out.

Metal groaned, and the tractor chassis
quivered as the shovel labored against the slab. He heard marble
grind and slip away from the iron lip, but before he could switch
gears to readjust the position of the spade, the vault seal cracked
open with a loud
shhhrooopp!

The cap lifted higher, and Michael suddenly
felt as though a million ants were crawling inside his body. His
hands numbed around the lever as the loader pushed the marble slab
farther until it teetered on its side.

A gust of wind blew across his face, carrying
with it specks of sand that bit into his skin. He squinted against
the stinging gale, but his eyes didn’t leave the slab until it
flopped over onto the ground safely away from Ellie.

Michael wiped a shaky hand across his mouth
and got off the tractor. He checked on his daughter to make sure
she was still breathing, then hurried back to the side of the grave
and peered inside.

A gauzy haze of red light filtered into the
hole and spread across the concrete shelf four feet below, making
it easy for him to see the thick eyehooks that poked up from each
corner of the shelf. Michael began to pace along the edge of the
grave. How was he going to lift that slab of concrete to get to the
casket below? The loader couldn’t reach down that far.

Frustrated and anxious, Michael rubbed his
hands over his face. Another gust of wind blew over him, parting
the hair along the back of his head. It whispered for him to
hurry.

Michael dropped his hands and peered over at
the tractor, stumped. The shovel nodded gently in the wind as if to
commiserate with him, and it was then he remembered the chain in
the tool chest. He ran back to the loader.

After pulling the chain from the box, Michael
stretched it out on the ground. It was nearly eight feet long with
inch and a half thick hooks welded to each end. He rolled the links
over with a foot, thinking. If he cater-cornered the hooks by
placing one through the top left eyelet of the shelf and one on the
bottom right, maybe—just maybe—he could lift it out.

Michael grabbed one end of the chain, hoisted
it over the shovel, then pulled on the shorter end to even out the
lengths. With that done, he took hold of the rusted links and
lowered himself into the grave.

Michael shut his brain off to the
claustrophobic feel of the vault walls that surrounded him and the
smell of damp, freshly tilled dirt. His fingers moved clumsily over
the metal loops as he secured the hooks in opposite corners.
Satisfied that they would hold, he quickly hoisted himself out of
the tomb

Once he’d cleared the hole, Michael ran back
to the tractor and climbed onto it. He shoved levers until the
chain pulled taut. The loader shuddered, and he felt the back end
begin to lift off the ground as the machine struggled with the
added weight.

Within minutes, the concrete shelf swung into
view. Michael lowered it gingerly to the ground, then shut off the
engine. He jumped to the ground and hurried over to the shelf.

The hooks slipped easily away from the metal
loops, and he tossed the dangling chain back over the grave. He
would need it again to climb out of the hole, which was deeper now,
at least six feet to the top of the casket.

Michael peered down at the bronze box below.
The red light that seeped into the grave was even brighter than
before, and it turned the coffin lid into a warped mirror. The
reflection he saw in it was his own haggard and drawn face.

The wind rushed him again, harder this time,
and Michael glanced up nervously. He felt something, sensed
something wrong. He leaned over to get a better view of Ellie. As
far as he could tell, she hadn’t moved.

But the ground had.

Puzzled, Michael looked down at his feet,
feeling vibrations under them. With each knock of his heart, the
vibrations grew stronger, stronger still, until it felt like a
freight train speeding through some underground tunnel beneath
him.

Michael groped for the chain but missed it as
something crashed behind him. He looked back and saw nearby tombs
swaying and quivering. Their flower vases toppled, then shattered
in a detonating spray.

While he watched in disbelief, something
rammed into Michael’s side. He stumbled, flailed to keep his
balance, then pitched headfirst into Thalia’s tomb.

CHAPTER FORTY

Janet heard Anna as clearly as if the woman
had been sitting in her lap. Yet she still stood outside, between
the headlights, wearing a long, white gown and a determined
expression. She appeared hazy, almost translucent, and her body
wavered, like a pond unsettled by a constant breeze.

“You must not go,” Anna said, her voice low
in Janet’s ear. “Your presence will only hinder him. Even now he
may already be too late.”

“Is—is that a ghost?” Heather whispered
behind Janet. “Is s-she dead like a ghost?”

“I don’t—” Janet said to Heather, then
grabbed the door handle and yanked on it hard. She didn’t care if
Anna was a ghost or a washed out marionette. “What do you mean too
late?” she yelled, not knowing if Anna could hear her. “I have to
help them!”

“Don’t go out there, Aunt Janet! Don’t—”

“Open this door,” Janet shouted, hitting the
door panel with a fist.

“If he does not get there in time, my
daughter will be lost to nether world forever,” Anna said. “She
will never know peace. You must not go.”

Janet glared through the windshield. Anna
remained still, not a strand of her long, black hair out of
place.

“You must not go,” Anna repeated, but her
lips never moved. “It is almost time. Almost.”

Suddenly, the night sky exploded with bright
crimson light, and Janet felt the floorboard beneath her feet
vibrate. Startled, she jerked her feet up and scanned the windows,
trying to look everywhere at once. “What’s going on?”

Heather threw herself across the backseat,
sobbing, “It’s happening! Ellie’s going to die! She’s going to
die!”

“Stop it!” Janet yelled without meaning to.
“Nothing’s going to happen to Ellie!”

“But the child speaks the truth,” Anna said,
her voice louder in Janet’s ear. “For at this moment your daughter
is very near death’s door.”

“No!” Janet beat a fist against the
windshield. “Go away! It’s not true! It’s not!”

A deep rumbling sounded from outside the van,
and the vehicle began to vibrate as though caught in an earthquake.
The crimson glow intensified, and the night seemed to pulse with
its power. From the direction of the cemetery, Janet heard a
cacophony of destruction. Crashing and banging, booming and
smashing, it sounded like a prelude to Armageddon.

“Let me out of here!” Janet screamed,
pounding the passenger window with both fists.

But the doors remained locked, and all she
could do was watch as Anna vanished before her eyes. The sounds of
devastation grew deafening, and Janet felt herself teeter on the
precipice of madness. There was little doubt in her mind that she
was hearing death’s battle cry. And it was charging toward her
husband and child.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Silver and white sparkles burst behind
Michael’s eyelids the second his body slammed sideways against the
casket. Somehow he’d managed to twist far enough over to keep from
bashing his head in, but not his left shoulder. Pain radiated sharp
and fierce all the way down his arm. Every gasp of air felt like
razor blades cutting through the lining of his lungs.

Michael moaned and rolled over onto his back.
In the ruby incandescence six feet overhead, he saw fern leaves and
flower wreaths whipping across the tomb. The wind howled
relentlessly, and he could still hear the tumble and crash of heavy
objects. The chains above his feet clanged noisily against the
concrete vault.

“El-Ellie,” he called, his voice weak. His
insides quivered with apprehension. He’d not been able to penetrate
the shield around his daughter, but it was possible that fallout
from the tremors had.

Images of Ellie crushed under a headstone
came unbidden and forced Michael to sit up. He gasped loudly as
bolts of pain shot from his chest to his back.

After catching his breath, he reached for the
chains so he could pull himself out of the tomb, wanting
desperately to get to Ellie. The metal links swayed away from his
fingertips. They clinked, clanked, clinked rhythmically, like the
pendulum in a clock persistently measuring seconds. Michael dropped
his hands and studied the casket beneath him. He didn’t have time
to go back up again. There was a chance Ellie was still holding
onto life in that blood-colored bubble, and as long as that chance
existed, he needed to finish what he’d come out here to do. If he
didn’t, she’d be dead anyway, tremors or not.

Michael eased toward the lower half of the
casket, then drew his legs up under him and knelt. Ignoring the
pain in his body, he leaned over and felt for the latch on the side
of the casket lid. His heart fluttered wildly when he touched it.
He tried to remember whether the casket had been locked after the
viewing. If it had, there was no way he’d be able to open either of
the lids without a casket key. Michael said a silent prayer and
pushed with his fingers. The lock shifted open easily.

“Thank you,” he murmured, then pried the lid
open an inch. The scent of embalming fluid and new velvet wafted up
through the vault.

In that moment, the wind howled overhead,
shifting to near hurricane strength. Wreath stands flip-flopped
across the grave, and rose petals, day lilies, and carnations
showered down on him.

Michael squinted up through the spray,
worried about Ellie, and noticed that something had changed across
the eight-foot plane at the top of the grave. The crimson glow that
had led him to his daughter, that had encapsulated her like a
resurgent womb, had given way to a pale nimbus the color of
apricots—the color of a new day.

Terror bolted him upright. “No!—wait!” He
shoved a hand into his pocket, pulled out the coin, and held it up.
“See? It’s right here! I brought it back just like you wanted,
before the sun!”

The wind wailed louder, angrier.

Michael shuddered and dribbles of sweat ran
down the sides of his face. He quickly scooted his body forward a
little, then straddled the casket, wedging his feet between the
vault walls and casket.

“Look,” he shouted, and pulled the top casket
lid up, opening it all the way. Thalia rested in the same position
she’d been in when he’d closed the coffin hours ago. “I’ll even put
it under her hand again if that’s what you want!”

A tempest of air whirled down into the grave,
sending with it a glass encased vigil candle. It bounced off
Michael’s head and onto the bottom end of the casket, where it
shattered.

“Stop—no! Here!” Michael squatted, lifted
Thalia’s hands and slid the gold piece beneath them. He looked up.
“She has it now, see? She has it. It’s over!”