“Oh,” said that old man, wheezing a bit. “Well, why didn't ya say so?”
Kim frowned.
“Have they been found?” asked Richard, his voice dropping an octave.
“N-no,” stammered Kim. “Me and my husband just moved into their old house, and I'd like to know more about them.”
“Uh huh, uh huh,” he said with a grunt. “And what would you like to know? They were dear friends, the two of them. Godliest folk I ever knew.” Each of the man's respirations rang out clearly on the line. She thought she could hear the hiss of some device, perhaps an oxygen tank, in the background.
Kim bit her lip. “They were godly, were they?” She maintained her volume, not wanting to have to repeat herself. “Very devout?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “The two of them never missed church in all the years I knew them. They'd get there earlier than the rest of us, wait in the parking lot before the services would start.” He hacked for a moment, then calmed. “I remember it well. Marshall would sometimes do the readings when Father Metzger didn't feel up to it. Why, once, during one winter, they had to be sent home from the church. Father told 'em they had to beat it, that services were cancelled for the day because of a pending snow emergency. That's how dedicated those two were. I dunno what happened to 'em, but I pray every day that the two of 'em are at peace, wherever they went.” He then added, with a short burst of coughing. “And wherever they went, I'm sure they went with the Lord.”
Kim's thoughts were scattered by this man's unexpected answer. It didn't make any sense. Enid had told her that the Reeds were somewhat averse to religion, not at all devout. But here this man made them out to be saints, never missing a day of mass. Which one of them was right? She palmed at her forehead and paced in a circle, trying to come to terms with Richard's reply. “OK,” she said after a moment of puzzled silence. “And this Father Metzger. Is he still alive?”
“Oh, no,” replied Richard. “That old church up on the hill that we all used to go to closed up about ten years back when Father Metzger passed on. Bothered Dakota and Marshall a lot when the church got shuttered. Never was another one to replace it, either. Not out where they lived, in the boonies.” He cleared his throat loudly, gratingly.
“Right.” She kicked up a clod of dirt and grass with her shoe. Who's right, then? Enid or this guy? I mean, there are a bunch of religious statues and things in the house, but Enid sounded so sure... “All right, and did the Reeds have any children?”
To this question, at least, he provided the expected answer. “No, no children, those two. A shame. They'd have made fine, godly parents.”
Kim nodded. OK, so that's three close acquaintances now that didn't know about this baby they found in the woods. What the hell? How could they have kept it a secret all these years? Maybe... maybe the two of them put up fronts and acted a different way depending on who they were around, but... who's right? Kim knew that likely none of them were. As before, she realized that none of these people knew what she knew, had seen Dakota and Marshall for who they really were. The former owners of the Beacon estate were certainly a mysterious pair, and they'd evidently been good at keeping their secrets.
When she'd entertained a bit more chit-chat, she hung up on Richard and was quickly dialing the next number, which she'd been told belonged to a “Lilith.”
This number, however, proved disconnected. Putting the phone to her ear, the annoying dial tone registered, followed by a pre-recorded message about how the number was no longer in service. Her anticipation died forthwith. It was all she could do not to throw her phone into the woods. There goes your last lead. Now what? She grimaced, stuffing her phone into her pocket and ruminating on the talks she'd had with these strangers. From them she could only surmise that the secretive Reeds had been many-faced, wearing numerous masks around their acquaintances.
Her gaze wandered listlessly about the yard. She watched the quivering grasses as they were caressed by the breeze, looked to the dense, black columns populating the woods. Then, she looked to the back of the house, where something caught her eye.
Propped up against the stucco exterior, to the immediate right of the kitchen window, was a shovel. At the sight of it, she recalled the unmarked grave near the edge of the woods. In the night, she'd been chased off from that spot by the hideous, screaming specter of Dakota. But now, in the sunlight, with a pleasant breeze playing upon the land and her resolve strengthened by the lack of any other leads, she felt she could revisit it.
Is that really a good idea? she asked herself. I mean, what could you possibly find there without defiling the grave? That's a crime... and, anyway, it's a terrible thing to do. She gulped, digging her heel into the grass. What if someone found out about it? That you'd messed with this old, unmarked grave? She shook her head, as if to convince herself. Nah, no one could possibly find out. It's out in the middle of nowhere. It's abandoned, unmarked. If you mess with it, no one will ever know. You could even cover it back up. Poking around in that grave is the only way forward. It's distasteful, sure, but you stand to solve this mystery by digging into it. If you find the skeleton of their baby, then perhaps you'll know why it is that Dakota still haunts this place. Maybe there will be some clue in there... something that'll tie everything together...
It was wrong. She didn't really want to do it. But in that moment, she could think of no alternative.
This was the perfect lead, and it was in plain view, staring her right in the face.
She would be stupid not to dig it up.
Then again, it was really messed up. Digging up a stranger's grave... was that really what this had come to?
She went for the shove, then paused.
Kim nibbled on her lip, then reached for it again.
No... no, just leave this be. It's not right... it's not your place to mess with this. Maybe... maybe the police should know about the grave and carry out an investigation to see who's buried there.
She twitched a little, a light breeze swaying her in the other direction.
The cops don't know the half of it, though. They'd never believe the things I've seen, the things I've gone through. This is my challenge and mine alone. If I'm going to get to the bottom of this, then I have to go it solo. Dakota has revealed herself to me. She'd want me to do it alone, I think.
Unable to completely dismiss her hesitance, Kim grabbed the shovel, pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail and hiked up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She took off across the yard and towards the woods.
Twenty-Seven
Kim stabbed the tip of the shovel into the ground, letting it stand upright as she took a cautious step forward.
There, sitting dully in a nest of grass, was the blank headstone.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
The walk to the grave had been quick, pleasant. In the daylight it was no trouble at all, and the sight of the small grave wasn't eerie in the least. It almost looked as though it belonged there, a proper piece of the scenery. But as she considered digging it up, her heart began to thrash all the same. Kim glanced around, knowing as she did so that she was far from the prying eyes of earthly onlookers. Julian was busy in the kitchen, hammering away at the old cabinets. There was no one else around for miles. She was far from the road, from any settlement. And, for that matter, no one could possibly care about her digging into this abandoned, unmarked space. Perhaps, she thought, it wasn't even a grave.
Vanquishing her doubts, she reclaimed her shovel. With a few quick swipes she yanked away a good portion of the grass that grew about the headstone's perimeter and then wedged the tip of the shovel beneath one corner. Carefully, she pressed down on the wooden handle, loosening it from the soil and lifting it very slightly. With no little apprehension, Kim reached down and picked up the piece of stone. It was in fine shape and surprisingly light. Examining both sides, she found it completely plain, a flat slab of rock, and then cast it aside into the tall grass.
It was time to do some diggin
g.
How far she'd have to go to find whatever was hidden in the plot she couldn't say. Four, five, perhaps even six feet. She wasn't even sure she could manage to dig that deep; she'd never been much for this kind of physical work. Nevertheless, fueled by her intense curiosity, she used her heel to bury the shovel in the soil where the headstone had been and began to dig. One shovelful after another she tossed the moist, grassy earth to one side. She panted as she did so, less due to fatigue and more because she felt positively terrible for doing it. Desecrating a grave; she couldn't have imagined herself ever doing this until just then.
Still, she didn't pause. She didn't even slow down. Kim wanted to know what was buried there, and recalled the fright she'd had in that very spot when she'd been led away from the house in the night. There was something important buried here, it was a certainty. And it was now time for her to figure out what it was.
Grunting, Kim grew sweaty, her sweatshirt becoming damp and clinging uncomfortably to her chest. She wiped the moisture from her brow and continued on, thrusting the sharp tip of the implement deeper and deeper into the soil. The sky didn't seem to change much; how long she'd been digging when she finally hit upon something of interest was lost on her. She'd gone about the digging in a disorganized fashion, striking first into a deep hole of small dimensions, before adding to its radius and then burrowing down till she was knee-deep. She was standing more than a foot and a half in the moist soil, which had been undisturbed for years and ran thick with the roots of wild grasses, when the shovel rattled against something. The sound hurt her ears all the more because she could feel the vibrations in her arms .The sharp tip had scratched against something solid.
Kim leaned down and fought to loose it with bare hands, brushing away soil and attempting to get a good look.
Prodding it harder, she tried to clear it away, to examine it in the light. Teeth clenched, she was prepared to find a skull, a casket, something macabre.
Instead, she came upon a smooth stone.
Thinking little of it, she reached down, felt around its edges and pulled it up out of the ground, hoisting it with two hands onto the edge of the new aperture.
But then, to her horror, the ground beneath her began to shift. Soil fell away under her feet and she felt herself in free-fall. Clutching at the shovel, Kim stabbed at the surrounding ground, attempting to anchor herself, only to come to a stop a few feet down. She'd fallen into something, a chasm of sorts, and a good deal of the earth around her had crumbled away so that she was up to her calves in it. Coughing, shaking herself off, Kim looked up at the sunlit sky, now more distant, alarmingly out of her reach. She'd probably fallen about seven feet into the ground. She reached upward but couldn't quite reach the top of the messy hole she now found herself in. “That's not good,” she muttered, knocking a few clods from her hair.
Though much of it was obscured by detritus and darkness, Kim found the dimensions of the space to be cramped. She had space enough to move, once she'd unearthed her feet and chanced to step about the pit. And a pit, indeed, it appeared to be. Stones like the one she'd previously unearthed could be found along the top. She shuddered as she appraised them, many still buried in the earth. They'd been placed there to act as a barrier, a thin layer of stones arranged as a sort of roof for this subterranean hold. Unwittingly she'd pulled one of them loose and the thing had collapsed, trapping her down below.
Where was she? Though she kicked away the dirt here and there, she saw no trace of a coffin. The little cross forged of twigs protruded from the dirt at her feet, but there was nothing here indicative of its being a grave. No skeletons, no bodies... nothing of the sort. Kim reached out and felt the sides of the pit. They were smooth, had probably been shaped some years ago. Surely this hollow space in the earth wasn't a natural occurrence?
Then, Kim chanced to looked forward for the first time since dropping in, and upon clearing a small mound of dirt and stones, noticed the utter vastness of the space she now occupied. It wasn't as cramped as it'd initially seemed.
She hadn't fallen into a hole at all.
No, if the expanse of pitch black before her was any indication, she'd happened upon the entrance to an underground tunnel. Gulping, Kim felt her way forward. She picked her phone out of her pocket and switched on the light, examining the way ahead. It was hideously dark, and the way forward seemed to extend for an immeasurable distance. There was another difference, too, between this newly-discovered tunnel and the pit she'd fallen into. The tunnel, she found, was not so neatly-made as the pit had been. Where the edges of the pit had been smoothed out purposefully, and by a skilled hand, the way forward carried all the bestial characteristics of an animal's work. It was like a tunnel left by some underground pest, roughly hewn, uneven in places, not at all smooth. Something large and powerful had lumbered through the underground, had carved its way through the earth to an indeterminate point in the unseen distance. If her guess was right, then it led in the direction of her house.
She tried not to think of that, however.
Kim thought of nothing except how she might escape.
Her taste for adventure and investigation was gone. She wanted nothing more than to climb out of the earth, to walk along the sunlit field back to her house, to Julian. Dwelling now, at the entry to this massive, shadow-blocked tunnel, she felt terribly vulnerable. There was no telling what'd made it or why. Something, it seemed, had been buried here at one time. And then, remarkably, it'd fought its way out of its grave, burrowing far and maybe exiting elsewhere.
Kim shivered, appraising the rough edges of the tunnel before her. It didn't look very sturdy; even if she'd wanted to start down its length there was no telling whether it'd collapse on her and leave her hopelessly buried.
More than that, she wondered if whatever had made the thing would be back.
She focused her attentions on climbing out. Using the shovel as a crutch, she buried it in the floor of the hole and reached upward, clawing at the smooth edges and trying to make her way up. There was precious little to keep hold of however, and her injured finger made it so that she had to try it one-handed, lest she rip her wound open afresh. Carefully, she dug her shoes into the wall and tried to climb. Then, with a jump, she grabbed onto a large stone that jutted out from the soil above. She held onto it, clambering up the side of the hole and hoping all the while that it wouldn't give way. The stone remained firm, and with some difficulty, Kim managed to claw her way out of the hole some minutes later.
As she flopped onto the grass and crawled away from the entrance, her limbs burning for the exertion, she looked around. The dead woods greeted her, the sun still burned in the sky. Little had changed since she'd fallen into the hole, but superadded to the cool breeze was the sensation that she was being watched. A surveyance of the woods yielded nothing. Perhaps, then, something was watching her from the pit. She imagined some nightmarish thing ambling through that darkened tunnel, its eyes rising over the lip of the aperture to meet her in the field. Not so long ago the day had been pleasant. Now, the mood was spoiled, ruined utterly by the discovery of this mysterious underground tunnel and the attendant presence. Something sinister had her in its sights and, without bothering to retrieve her shovel from the inside of the pit, she returned home as precipitously as possible, jogging through the field and not daring to glance back.
Where did the tunnel terminate? Did it really lead back towards the house? As Kim galloped along the field, she wondered if she wasn't walking directly above that accursed underground passage. What dread aberration had carved that path through the underground, and for what purpose?
Digging up that grave, she decided, was an awful idea. Whatever was down there... it was better off buried and forgotten.
Twenty-Eight
Julian took one look at her and began to laugh. “Where the heck have you been?”
Her clothing was marked in soil, her arms, face and hair were covered in it, and the bandage on her finger had come mostly unwound. Mo
re than that, the grime was held fast to her body by a layer of glistening sweat. Standing in the kitchen, panting and kicking off her shoes, Kim paused just long enough to give her husband the daggers. From there, she quickly made her way up to the bath.
“You look like a tramp, but I love you anyhow,” he said as she went, laughing all the while.
Throwing her clothes into the hamper, she turned the water on as hot as it would go and let the tap in the bath run for a long while before she even stepped in. She would start with a piping hot shower and then unwind with a warm bath. Carefully she undid her bandage and threw it into the waste bin. The sight of the wound, barely scabbed over, made her ill. Knocking a few pieces of grass from her hair, she glanced herself over in the foggy mirror before stepping into the shower.
The hot water felt amazing against her skin, the best thing she'd felt in ages. She looked downward as trails of brownish muck ran from her body and down the drain. Going to have to clean the tub after this, she thought with a grimace. Dampening her hair, she kneaded at her scalp, dissolved the clumps of dirt that'd clung to her locks and then reached for her shampoo.
The sound of the tap incited feelings of great calm in her. Kim lathered up her hair and let the shampoo sit a while. Then, while her mane was still sudsy, she applied a generous dollop of body wash to her scrubber and went to town on the remaining patches of dirt. All the while, she thought back to the grave, to the massive tunnel she'd discovered. It felt absolutely surreal. Had she told Julian about it-- something she had zero interest in doing-- he wouldn't have believed her. Hell, until she'd fallen straight into it, she wouldn't have believed it, either. But it was real, that yawning, pitch black tunnel. It'd been carved, no, clawed out by something she couldn't put a name or face to. What had been buried there, she wondered, and who had done the burying? And, for that matter, what could possibly possess the strength to create such a subterranean passage? No animal she could think of, even animals known for their burrowing habits, could possibly have created something so impressive.
Black Acres- The Complete Collection Page 16
