“You were trying to trap my spirit in that totem?” the corpse groaned.
Frozen in terror, both sisters watched as the coffin lid slowly moved aside and a skeletal hand emerged from within its inky depths.
“Not trap, dear, not trap. I was making it so we could be together.”
“No, you wanted to trap me here with you, so I couldn’t move on.” The hand pushed the lid back further.
Standing up, Benny held his hands together pleadingly. “No, I love you dear.”
“Selfish man,” the voice spat from inside. Pushing the lid the rest of the way, the dim candlelight revealed her ghostly face.
Belle covered her open mouth, shocked at what was happening before her very eyes. She’d watched hundreds of scary movies about situations just like this.
Beside her, Anna was shaking with fear.
“Come along, dear,” the woman croaked. “If you want to be with me forever, your wish is my command.” Her eyes narrowed at him and smile appeared upon her face. “Come with me to the grave.”
“No, no, dear,” he cried, putting up both hands defensively, as if she had a gun trained on him. “I-I was wrong. I shouldn’t have tried to trap your soul and keep you with me.”
“But why stop now?” her cracked lips spoke. “Come to the grave with me.” Her claw of a hand clamped down on his arm and her voice boomed manically in the darkness, dropping two octaves deeper. “Come join me in eternal slumber.”
“No, let me go,” he screamed, trying to pull away. It did no good.
Clawing at the dirt and stone for his life, he couldn’t resist her supernatural strength. She dragged him inside the darkness of the stone coffin and held him there—her arms wrapped around him in a morbid prison.
Then, as if by an unseen force, the coffin lid swung up and slammed shut over the two bodies inside. The last whisper of a scream came from Benny’s throat, fading into the silence.
CHAPTER 19
“I’ll never sleep again,” Anna groaned as she stood in the kitchen scooping fresh cooked pies into plastic baskets and handing them to the eager patrons waiting at the service window.
“You won’t sleep?” Belle argued. “How do you think I feel? I knew the guy. He worked for me. I thought we were friends.” She sighed, shaking her head as she pulled a second batch of the cinnamon apple pies from the deep fryer—the scent of them wafting through the air. “Then he turned out to be a murderer.”
Anna shivered. “I wasn’t nearly as disturbed by her dragging him inside as compared to what Dan found this morning,” she admitted, remembering the scene when the police chief had opened the coffin.
Indeed, Benny was still inside, still in the clutches of his wife’s arms. But his hands were twisted in agony, his eyes and mouth wide in an expression of horror, and his hair had turned completely white.
He had died of fright.
Well, that’s what you get for playing around with things you don’t understand, Dan had muttered.
Anna hadn’t known it growing up, but now she was aware that Val and Dan had some knowledge of voodoo and the occult. Dan had actually accepted the idea of the zombie powder, the totem, and Benny’s “accidentally falling” into his wife’s grave.
He did not, however, believe that a ghost had returned and asked the girls for assistance.
“It was pretty disturbing,” Belle agreed. “But I’m just glad this whole ordeal is over.”
“What I still don’t understand is Harlem,” she admitted. “How did he end up looking like Fredrick Loren’s character from House on Haunted Hill? And why were we the only ones who could see him?”
The younger sister shrugged. “Harlem’s only explanation is that, because the totem got dropped in the projector booth that there must have been some sort of reaction with the electronics.” She sighed quietly. “You know how it always is in the movies. Ghosts can control electricity.”
“And he just ended up . . . what . . . merging with the movie that was cued up to play?”
She nodded. “The seems like the only answer.”
“And the fact that we’re the only ones who can see him?”
“Only three people besides Harlem ever touched that totem, right? Me, you, and Benny. Only we were able to see the soul that had been attached to it.”
Anna nodded. “I’d say that makes sense, but it doesn’t. None of it does. Not one single thing about the last few days have been remotely logical.”
“Maybe sometimes you need to let go of logic,” the younger sister offered.
“I suppose.” Glancing up, Anna looked out the large service window at the crowd of cars all parked and waiting for the evening’s movie to begin. It was a truly impressive site, almost as if they’d gone back in time to the nineteen fifties.
“Well, it’s nearly dark, and I better get the movie going.”
“I’ll stay here and keep serving,” Anna reassured her, “It seems there are a few stragglers waiting to get their food before the movie begins.”
“Sounds good.” Taking off her apron, she hung it on a hook and headed for the kitchen door. “By the way, Anna?” she said.
“Yeah, Belle?”
“I’m glad you changed your mind about working here with me.”
She nodded. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”
“I knew you liked this place when you called it our restaurant in the graveyard.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” she laughed. Picking up a warm chocolate pie, she bit into it and let the sweet sensation of cocoa and sugar envelope her. “Delicious,” she whispered.
* * *
Stepping into the projection booth, Belle found Harlem at the controls. “Think you got it all figured out?”
“Seems pretty easy,” he admitted. “After all, I am from one of the movies.”
“I know, I know,” she laughed. “Do you have the radio broadcast set up?”
Reaching out, he flipped a switch. “Check.” Instead of having speakers in the theater itself, they broadcasted the film’s audio each night over a radio station which Belle owned. That way, customers could tune in their radios and have surround sound right inside their cars.
“Got the movie queued up?”
Moving the computer mouse, he clicked on the film for the evening. King of the Zombies. “Ready.” They’d quickly found out that when Harlem rested inside the projector, which was much like sleeping, he was rejuvenated, his picture was clearer, and he had more control over touching and moving things in the real world.
“Looks like we’re all good to go.”
“Hey, Belle?” he asked, having picked up the nickname from Anna and Val.
“Yeah?”
“Before we start the movie, I just wanted to thank you for all your help, and your sister’s too, in solving my murder.”
“We were glad to do it,” she told him, “Even if seeing a living corpse scarred both of us for life.”
“And thanks for letting me stay and help out around the drive-in, even though no one can see me and I’m,” he smiled sideways, “technically dead.”
“Hey,” she shrugged, “having our own local haunting may just boost business.”
“I’m glad to help as long as I’m here.”
She nodded, refraining from stating her wish that she hoped he could be with them forever. In a matter of a few days, she’d become attached to the strange entity of a man. She was beginning to think he was attached to them as well.
Smiling at him again, she pointed at the play button on the movie. “All right. Let her roll.”
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Sisterly Screams (The Dead-End Drive-In Series Book 1) Page 8
