Skull Creek Stakeout (Caden Chronicles, The) (11 page)

Then I heard nothing at all.

C
laustrophobia is the fear of being confined in a small space without any hope of escape. A coffin qualifies. So does a grave. I came to the terrifying conclusion I’d been buried alive. In Meg’s coffin. The smell of her lingered.

Six feet underground there is no light, none at all. Had the coffin rested on the ground or even on the sturdy stone casket supports inside the crypt, I would have detected a hint of moonlight. The sour smell of damp earth and the solid thump of my knuckles rapping the board above me led me to believe I’d been firmly planted.

I opened my eyes fully and yawned. Chloroform is a colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid commonly used as a solvent
in labs. It’s old school and cliché, but effective. And too much inhaled too quickly will kill someone. But I guessed Edwards knew the right amount to administer.

The vapors left me groggy and with a screaming headache. I wanted to go back to sleep, dream, and worry about escaping the coffin tomorrow. Or the next day. Or never.

At the most, a person can live four hours in a sealed casket — and that’s if you work really hard to slow your breathing. I wasn’t hyperventilating, not yet. But the longer I lay on my back thinking about where I was, how I got there, and what was probably happening to Meg, the more panic seemed to be the right option. I struggled to keep calm. I told myself I would get out, that help would come. I reminded myself that Dad and Mom were on their way, that they would find Aunt Vivian at the hospital but not me, and call the police. Maybe they were already searching for me.

But I also knew help might
not
arrive. Not for a very long time. If I hadn’t noticed the grave in the clearing, would the lieutenant? Would anyone, ever?

The yawning subsided. I felt sweat trickling down my neck. Not from warmth but from anxiousness. My senses of smell, touch, and hearing slowly returned. The fog behind my eyes lifted. I pressed my knees against the lid and pushed. I shoved until my jaws ached and I thought my head would explode. The lid did not flex, not a bit.

Think, Caden, don’t be stupid. You can’t waste energy and air being stupid.

I remembered the rope handles I’d seen as I stared into Meg’s coffin. I pivoted my hands until my palms faced outward. I groped in the darkness, feeling my way along the sides as far as the cramped space would allow. When my fingers found the rope, it felt like my very own lifeline. I gripped the cords, one in each hand, and pulled. There wasn’t much slack in the ropes, but it was enough to give me hope.

Each rope was snaked through six holes: inside, out, back inside, out, and so on. I had hold of the middle section. There was just enough space to get my fingers between the rope and wooden sides.

Most boys my age don’t wear belts. I don’t know what belt manufacturers are going to do when Dad’s generation dies off. Go out of business, I guess. But Mom, thank goodness, insists I wear a belt in public. I unbuckled and looped the belt over the left rope handle and buckled it, making it like a link in a chain. The belt reached halfway across the coffin and rested on my stomach. It took a lot longer to wiggle out of my tee, but I finally peeled it over my head. I rolled my shirt as tightly as I could and fed it through the rope hole on the right side of the coffin and secured it to the belt-link with a granny knot. Two links joined in the middle. Now all I needed was some type of lever.

A fat stick would be nice, or a wooden stake.
Edwards had left me with nothing but a small vacuum of air, and that I gulped too fast.

The perfect tool is the one that gets the job done. Shucking my sneaker took a lot of effort. Hooking my leg, I scooted
the shoe toward my left hand. The sneaker wasn’t much of a lever, but it was all I had. I stuck the shoe end between the two strands of the belt and began winding it like a rubber band. No sweat. Even in total darkness I found it easy to twist the belt-rope — at first. But when it became so tight I couldn’t take another turn, I paused to rethink my strategy. Holding the belt-rope in my left hand, I checked the sides. The coffin was definitely starting to bow in. Problem was, the sneaker didn’t have any rigidity. I needed some way to keep the shoe stiff, but how? When nothing came to mind, I clamped both hands on the ball of the shoe and cranked as though turning a soft, pliable bar.

Wood splintering sounded encouraging. I cranked some more. A final turn and that was it; I couldn’t twist it any more. I lifted my knee and wedged it against the shoe to hold it in place, braced my shoulder and head against the top end of the coffin, and pushed. Suddenly it was like the world collapsed on me. The sides cracked and broke and the lid shifted and fell. Dirt filled the space where the sides collapsed. I gave the belt another hard shove with my knee and more wood splintered, pulling the sides inward.

The sneaker slapped my stomach sharply as the belt unwound. Using my right hand I began shoveling dirt into the coffin, pulling it in, pushing it down, packing it with my feet. I scooped dirt and dumped it between my legs. When I had enough space to move my left elbow, I pressed my palm against the ragged edge of broken wood and pushed. More
of the side broke away. I kept shoveling and got my feet into the action, pushing the dirt to the bottom of the coffin. The lid dipped toward one side. A seam opened on the other side. More dirt silted in.

I pawed at the dirt, pulling it in, shoveling it down. The work was messy and slow and tiring. I had to keep stopping to give my left arm a break. After what seemed like hours I was finally able to shove my head through the gap I’d created between the lid and crater in the earth. More digging, more grunting. I wiggled my shoulders out and sat up, ingesting a mouthful of dirt. Blindly I fumbled around for my shirt, found it, and pulled the fabric over my head, making a mask so I could breath without eating dirt.

I had no idea how deep the grave was. If Edwards went the full six feet, I could be digging for hours. Six feet is the depth at which odors cannot escape. At six feet, animals can’t smell the rotting corpse and dig it up. Edwards struck me as a very thorough man.

The trick was to keep digging upward while at the same time packing the dirt down with my hands and elbows. The more I clawed my way out, the easier it became. Once I managed to get onto my knees, the digging went faster. I was a buried miner burrowing his way to life. Fatigue and dizziness from lack of oxygen became my biggest worry. I got into a rhythm and slowed my breathing to a slow panting.

I was still in a half crouch with my arms stretched over my head when my fingers poked through the surface. I can only
imagine how it must have looked from up top — two darkened hands emerging from a grave, fingers flexing and reaching upward like night crawlers coming alive.

Once I was all the way out, I lay back on dirty wet grass and stared up at the moon. Its fullness shone down with such brilliance that I wanted to reach up and hug it.

I took one deep breath after another of clean, fresh air. I lay on the ground and listened for the wolf dog. When I heard nothing, I crawled to my feet and crept across the clearing, slipped past the iron gate, and peeked into the crypt. Only one coffin was missing.
That means he is on the move, taking Meg … where? The morgue, maybe?

I washed my face and hands in the creek. The stag lay by the water’s edge, its mutilated carcass a brown lump in the moon’s glow. Up the trail I crept, keeping my ears peeled for the wolf dog. When I reached the clearing, I saw that Aunt Vivian’s car was gone.

I smiled.

Not because I was too late — but because Edwards had become careless.

I jogged back toward the highway and staggered up the road, waving my arms at oncoming traffic. I must have looked hideous with my clothes soiled by dirt and my face muddy. Headlights bore down on me. The approaching car swung out to pass me. I stepped in its path. Tires skidded, horn blared. I backpedaled just enough to keep the front grill from slamming into me. The driver’s door flew open and before the man could
finish cursing at me, I yelled back, “There’s been a murder and kidnapping. I need to use your phone!”

“Pearl-colored Cadillac, registered to Vivian Caden Carroll. That’s right, Carroll, with two Ls.” I listened as the operator repeated the owner information back to me. I said, “You have her living in Asheville, right? Okay, good, I’m going to give the phone to this police officer now.”

I passed the phone to Lieutenant McAlhany. He listened, made a few notes in a spiral notepad, and hung up. “You caught a break with that GPS tracker in your aunt’s car.”

“I was due. Did the operator say where it is?” I asked.

McAlhany jerked his head down the highway. “Halfway between here and Asheville. Said the vehicle is stationary right now. You want to ride with me?”

“Please.”

I gave the borrowed phone back to the driver and hurried around to the passenger’s side of the squad car. I exhaled deeply, trying not to think of the worst-case scenario.
Please let her be alive, oh God, please.

B
lack is not my color. Black is the color of death and decay. Lately I’ve come to hate its suffocating darkness. Being buried alive will do that.

The three-piece suit fit perfectly. Dad said it made me look older. I felt ancient. I felt a thousand years old. I felt like a failure. If I had been thinking clearly in the lobby of the resort, I would have known there was no way Raintree was the person typing on Meg’s laptop — that it had to be Edwards, and if it was, the smart move would have been to call the lieutenant. But I’d wanted to play the cowboy, ride in like the hero, and save the girl.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“You doing okay, son?”

I looked up from staring blankly at the blades of soft green grass poking up between my shoes.

“Sure, Dad. I’m fine.”

The wooden slat of the folding chair bit my back. The stifling heat of the noon sun caused my white shirt to stick to my back. Ninety degrees in the Great Smoky Mountains and it felt like Arizona in August. No breeze at all, only the whining of insects vectoring in. I slapped the back of my neck.

Wendy leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay if you want to cry. I won’t tell.”

“Shut up.”

“It helps.”

She passed me a tissue; I slapped her hand away.

“Would you two stop?” said Mom. “The service is about to start.”

I followed her gaze and watched pallbearers approach the rear of the hearse. Six somber-faced sentinels, two of the boys not much older than me.

We stood. The men carefully lifted the chocolate-brown casket and walked it toward the grave site. Brown like the color of Meg’s eyes. Rich and shiny and draped in a spray of flowers. The procession entered the tent and placed the casket onto its stand above the grave. I went back to staring at my feet. My new dress shoes cut across the tops of my toes; the narrow backs angled too sharply. I could tell I was going to end up with blisters. I didn’t care.
Too proud to call for help. Too sure
I’d guessed right about the killer. So sure, in fact, Edwards had used my arrogance against me. And Meg.

I hate funerals. All this talk about loved ones going off to be in a better place. It’s nonsense. No one can prove what happens to us after we die. It’s just talk. They should pass a law that says you can’t promise somebody’s loved one will end up in heaven unless there’s actual proof. Only thing is, I hope there is a heaven. If I knew for certain there was, I’d work harder at trying to unravel the mystery of how you get there.

On the way from the guesthouse the morning after I arrived in Transylvania, I’d asked Aunt Vivian her thoughts on heaven and vampires, this business of drinking the blood of Christ at communion.

“I wasn’t much older than you when I became a Christian,” she told me. “It was something you did back then. All the girls my age went to church. Most of the boys, too. Except for David Ashworth. He was sorry trash and ended up in prison.”

“I don’t know hardly any boys my age who go to church,” I’d replied. “The kids I know aren’t interested in religion.”

“Christianity isn’t a religion, dear. Religion is full of rules and penalties.”

“But if I don’t believe like you, I go to hell, don’t I? That sounds like a seriously big rule to me.”

Aunt Vivian smiled at me, reached over, and patted my arm. “I’ll pray God speaks to your heart. That’s the only way you ever come to him anyway. He has to call you.”

The minister motioned for us to sit. Tissues appeared. He opened a Bible and began.

“Joy comes in the morning. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. I pray it is so. I pray the merciful God in heaven …”

I tuned out his words. There was nothing he could say that would help. Edwards, that monster … there was nothing the minister could add or subtract that would undo what had happened. I allowed my mind to replay those final moments with Lieutenant McAlhany.

Edwards did not drive Aunt Vivian’s car to the morgue as I’d expected. Another miscalculation by the “know-it-all Nick Caden.” Instead he’d driven Meg to a hunting cabin. We’d turned into the dirt drive and McAlhany had parked about a quarter mile from the cabin. From there we hiked in. The lieutenant had asked me to wait at the edge of the clearing while he approached the cabin. Aunt Vivian’s car was parked beside the house. I stood close enough to hear the engine pinging and popping as it cooled. From behind a tree I’d watched McAlhany edge over to a side window. Standing on tiptoes he’d peered in, then nodded to me to let me know they were inside. The plan was for me to run back to the squad car and confirm we had located the suspect, but before I could …

“But every time we think we have reached our capacity to face our fears, we are reminded that our ability to confront evil will be limitless. This is a time for remembering the God of love who looks not upon our weakness and turns away, but the
God of love who understands our brokenness and extends his strong arm of grace and mercy. Through God’s love in Christ we are …”

But I hadn’t run back to the squad car. Instead I’d watched as McAlhany unholstered his revolver and brought it up. Sirens sang and flashing blue lights appeared through the trees as more police cars arrived.

Suddenly corner floodlights winked on. The side yard became a dome of yellow. The full-throated blast of a shotgun created a football-sized hole in the cabin’s clapboard siding. McAlhany staggered backward and turned toward me, his lips pulled back away from his teeth, face twisted in agony. He dropped to his knees and fell forward with his right arm folded across his gut. In the spill of blood pooling underneath him, he aimed his eyes at me and tried to smile.

Law officers rushed to the building, surrounding it. My gaze remained on McAlhany, even as Meg’s frantic screams rose above the
blam-blam
of gunfire.

“… so today we remember not just our friend, but a hero, Lieutenant Ralph McAlhany, a servant of Christ.”

“It’s not your fault,”
I heard Meg say. Her words sounded far, far away, like the wispy sounds of a breeze building in the forest.
“You couldn’t have done anything; it’s not your fault.”

Tears stung my eyes. The minister droned on. I sniffed and wiped my nose on the cuff of my shirtsleeve.

Meg’s arm slipped from its sling. She rested her hand atop mine and squeezed.

“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “Really, it’s not. Let it go, Nick. You have to let it go.”

Comforted by her words, I closed my eyes and breathed in deep. Exhaling, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I knew the lieutenant’s death would haunt me forever, but I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t fix my mistakes. I’d been too sure of myself, too cocky, and now he was dead. But still, there are things that are simply out of our control, and death is one of them. If nothing else, all this nonsense with vampires had proven that.

The prayer ended. I opened my eyes and watched Meg’s sad eyes moisten. The pastor worked his way down the row, whispering comforting words to the lieutenant’s family. Still clutching Meg’s hand, I stood and pulled her toward the casket.

If there is a God in heaven, I hope he judges us by our acts of bravery, not by our cowardly thoughts. I don’t know what dark secrets Lieutenant Ralph McAlhany had squirreled away, what hidden sins he harbored in his heart. If Aunt Vivian is right about all this God and Jesus business, it only matters that the lieutenant was man enough to admit he needed help, that he couldn’t save himself. I hope he owned up to his shortcomings and, in those final moments before he breathed his last, asked God for help.

I’ve been thinking maybe I should ask for help too.

I placed my corsage on the casket.

“He would want you to write this story,” Meg said, pulling me away. “Come on, you can borrow my laptop. I’ll help you get started.”