Grave Intent

by Deborah LeBlanc

  “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!”

  The walls surrounding him shuddered, and the casket lid slammed shut.

  Michael quickly pulled his legs in, stood, and threw a fist into the air. “What more do you want from me?” he screamed. “What—”

  The casket suddenly shifted beneath him. Startled, Michael grabbed for the chains, but missed as his shoes skated over the coffin’s smooth surface. His legs flailed into a split, and he dropped down hard in a straddle, his left foot jamming between the coffin and vault. So much pain exploded through Michael’s body it stole his voice, and his mouth simply opened, and tears welled up in his eyes.

  Another shudder sent the casket shimmying closer to the vault wall, sandwiching his left ankle firmly between concrete and bronze. With ragged, gasping breaths, Michael tried to pull his leg up, but couldn’t. The pressure only increased against his ankle.

  “S-s-stop!” he cried.

  A shower of leaves rained over his head, and deep, hoarse laughter rolled into the tomb.

  Anger sent a burst of energy through Michael, and he flung out his arms. “What the fuck do you want, goddammit!”

  Different voices answered with snorts and chuckles, bellows and squeals of delight. The collected volume of them rose to a delirious pitch.

  “Ellie!” Michael cupped his hands around his mouth to gain volume over the taunting laughter. “Elllllieeee!”

  Abruptly, every sound above him ceased.

  Michael peered up, stunned by the silence. The wind no longer blew across the top of the grave. The only movement was the swelling colors from a rising sun. He no longer saw any trace of the crimson light.

  He wet his lips, then called out nervously, “Ellie?”

  More silence.

  “Ellie!”

  When Michael still didn’t hear anything move overhead, he leaned over and groped for the chains. His fingers fell short of reaching them by two feet.

  “Ellie! Ellie answer me!”

  The silence that came back to him crept into Michael’s heart and made him more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Had he been too late Ellie? Had they killed her because of some stupid technicality? Because he hadn’t put the coin back in the casket before sunrise?

  Unless it be returned to her before rising of second sun, there will be death without mercy. The old man’s words thundered relentlessly in Michael’s head. He’d said, returned to her—her—not returned to the cemetery or even carried into the grave, but returned to her.

  “Ellie! Jesus, Ellie, answer me!”

  If only he’d left for Carlton sooner instead of wasting so much time trying to reach Janet by phone.

  “Ellie Marie Savoy, answer me!”

  If only he would have driven faste
r.

  “Answer me, baby, please!”

  If only he’d have run from the cop and through the woods quicker.

  “P-p-please—El—”

  Michael felt something large and thick ball up in the middle of his chest. It rolled upward, threatening to smother him, then exploded out of his mouth, voiced in a sob. He fell onto his back, covered his face with his hands and cried, deep racking sobs that lifted his shoulders off the casket.

  “Oh, G-God—not my little girl,” Michael gasped. “Pl-please, n-not my baby. I’m begging you, take me, please, take me instead!”

  The sound of his weeping echoed against the crypt walls and washed back over him again and again until it seemed like a multitude cried with him.

  After a long while, Michael slid his hands away from his face, completely drained, so empty. He stared up from his prison into an orange hued sky and knew he would forever hate sunrise.

  Barely giving thought as to how he’d get out of the crypt, Michael let his eyes roam along the outside rim of the grave. They settled on a small figure standing near the left corner, just above his head. Arms quickly lifted over the figure’s head, hands clutched, and Michael caught the twinkle of sunlight on crystal. He blinked, heard a grunt, then watched the hands thrust downward, releasing something. It tumbled—tumbled—crystal head—tail—hooves—then smashed against the casket near his foot.

  The coffin immediately shifted away from the wall, releasing Michael—his foot—his mind—his eyes—

  Ellie stood near the edge of the tomb, rubbing her eyes with a fist as though she’d just wakened from a deep sleep. She looked down at Michael and gave him an exuberant smile. “Mornin’, Daddy.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO