The Descendants

by Kirk Kilgrave

  “But I asked him if there was another way to break the—”

  “He wasn’t sure he could trust you,” Eloise responded. “He only decided to tell you his story after hearing you were afflicted with the curse.”

  Logan understood that, but they went through a lot of trouble to spring him from Hell. That showed a pretty fervent desire to speak with a damned soul. Why hadn’t Abner just trusted him to begin with? This was just one more reason not to trust his great-grandfather.

  But had Abner lied about Lucretia’s grave? Did he have some devious plan he wanted to set into motion? Logan asked Eloise, “How come he didn’t pass that down, so my father would eventually know that?”

  She stayed quiet for a moment. “He says there are certain perks in Hell, but he didn’t explain himself.”

  “Does he expect me to believe that Satan told him that—”

  Jocelyn shook her head. “Demons talk amongst themselves on this plane of existence. Then they report back to Lucifer. So to answer your question: yes, he could be telling the truth.”

  Eloise turned to Jocelyn. “Abner is looking your way. He says Lucifer has a message for you.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes went wide. She stayed quiet for a long moment as she looked to Father Demetrius, and he visibly clasped her hand tighter. Then she returned her gaze to Eloise. “What’s…the message?”

  “They will be coming for you…soon.”

  Jocelyn jolted, only to straighten in her chair.

  The energy transmitted through Eloise and Logan felt the movement as well. Considering that Jocelyn’s specialty was dealing with demons, and that Satan had passed that information along, Logan took it to mean that he would unleash demons upon Jocelyn. Given the abject look of terror on Jocelyn’s face, Logan suspected he’d correctly unraveled the message.

  Eloise was quiet for a moment and then looked at the pocket of space behind Logan. “After the curse is triggered, Lucretia will wait an additional five days before ascending from her casket, the same amount of time she waited before committing suicide.”

  “So,” Father Demetrius said, “Lucretia will turn into some sort of zombie?”

  “That seems to be the case,” Eloise said.

  “Awww, come on,” Logan said. “How is that possible?”

  “How is this curse possible?” Eloise responded.

  Logan wondered if Abner made up this idea of burning Lucretia’s body to get back at her for slighting him. If the man was delusional, that might be something a crazy person would do. “Do you believe him about burning Lucretia’s bones?”

  Eloise looked down, nodded, and met his gaze again. “And Logan? Today is the day Lucretia is supposed to rise from the grave.”

  This time, he felt a tremor of fear in her hand. It didn’t fill him with confidence, but it told him they didn’t have time to waste.

  “If we do as Abner says,” Eloise continued, “Lucretia won’t be able to manifest as a…zombie and physically attack you.”

  “She’s terrible enough as a ghost.” He shivered at the thought of looking outside and finding Lucretia’s corpse standing in the backyard watching him. He looked at everyone around the table. “Let’s go dig up a body.”

  26

  After Eloise anchored Abner to the lower level and closed the portal to Hell—she wasn’t sure if Satan would allow him to return to this dimension—Logan heard the front door whoosh open. He wasn’t expecting any guests, so he withdrew his hands from Eloise and Father Demetrius and left the room. He darted toward the living room.

  Ashleigh spotted him and stepped back, placing a hand over her heart. “What’s the matter?”

  Beside her, Tyler stared at him with a stunned expression making his mouth drop open.

  “What’re you doing here?” Logan asked, anger striking his tone. At this point, he didn’t care how discombobulated he sounded. His siblings had in all likelihood planned to return home the moment he dropped them off. It would give Eloise time to begin the séance, and once they arrived, his siblings presumed that, in order to remain calm and composed, no one at the table would get up or force Ashleigh and Tyler to leave. Logan admitted the sneaky yet clever tactic would have worked had they not just halted the ritual.

  “We took an Uber,” Ashleigh said.

  “Yeah, but the first one never showed up,” Tyler said. “So we got another one.”

  Logan jammed his hands in his pockets, so he didn’t use them to express the depth of his irritation.

  “We’re going through this, too,” she said. “We weren’t expecting to sit at the table, but we earned the right to hear what’s going on. We’ll stay in here. We won’t make a sound. Just stop treating us like children.”

  “You are children,” he shouted.

  “I’m a teenager,” Ashleigh said. “Just like you!”

  “I’m an adult, Ashleigh. There is a difference.” Logan clenched his teeth. He turned his attention to Tyler, but his brother winced and directed his eyes elsewhere. Had he frightened him? Probably not. Logan presumed Tyler just didn’t want to get bitched out. And who could blame him?

  Logan worked on gathering his composure. That was a difficult endeavor when considering the conversation he’d just had with Abner. He focused on his siblings. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  Tyler frowned at him. “No problem…Dad!” He turned and raced up the stairs.

  An eruption of vehemence threatened to overtake Logan, but screaming as Tyler continued up the steps would only result in anger and a slew of harsh words. If anything, Tyler might resent him even more, so Logan let him go.

  Besides, Ashleigh made a good point. They’d also experienced frightening incidents. Logan wondered if he should have confined them to their rooms instead of banishing them elsewhere. Not that forcing them to eat snacks and watch a movie could be construed as punishment, especially since Lucretia could have attacked them anywhere they went. Logan just didn’t want them in the house while Eloise performed the ritual.

  His sister glared at him, her upper lip curled under the lower one.

  “I’m sorry, Ashleigh. I just wanted to protect you two.”

  “Well, that was a shitty way of showing it.” She took the stairs two at a time until she vanished into her bedroom. A moment later, the door slammed.

  Logan stood there a moment, thinking perhaps he should have asked for their ideas before sending them out of the house. But that’s not what parents do. They don’t ask their kids what course of action they should take. They make unilateral decisions. And Logan had followed that example.

  That’s when he realized that Tyler was often justified in calling him “Dad.” He’d thought they he was mocking him as an act of rebellion, which may have still been the case, but otherwise, Tyler had every right to call him out.

  Logan wanted to apologize, but they were upset, and he sensed that if he showed his face too soon, they would resent him even more. He’d let them cool off a bit and approach them later. In the meantime, he could catch up with Eloise and make sure they were ready to leave.

  He entered the kitchen and found Eloise, Jocelyn, and Father Demetrius gathered around the table. They wouldn’t be able to begin digging until after dark, which meant they had most of the day to kill. “I forgot one thing,” he said. “Does the Williamsburg Cemetery have security measures in place?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Father Demetrius, “I’m quite popular there since quite a few of our parishioners have decided to be buried at that site, which in this instance might be to our benefit. There are plans to install an electronic security device, but at the moment, the cemetery has contracted out for a team of security guards who watch the grounds on a rotating basis.”

  “Do you know any of them?” Logan asked.

  “All of them,” said Father Demetrius with a mournful expression. “Nowadays, I seem to visit every few weeks. I’ve been there dozens of times, so I know the layout pretty well.”

  Logan headed into the l
iving room until he stopped beside the staircase. “Hey, guys, we’re going to need your help!”

  “Forget it,” Ashleigh called down. “We’re not important, so we’re going to move out.”

  “Perfect! The gang downstairs is going to stay awhile. I told them they could have your rooms.”

  Footsteps pounded rapidly upstairs. A couple of seconds later, Ashleigh appeared at the top of the stairs. Her flushed face was mangled in a look of fury. “Logan! I was being sarcastic!”

  Logan got a laugh out of that.

  Tyler appeared beside his sister a moment later with a crooked smile. “Jocelyn can bunk with me! Do you think we’ll both fit in my bed?”

  “Maybe.” It took all of Logan’s self-control to keep his face and voice neutral. “And if you’re lucky, she might even read you a bedtime story.”

  “What?” Ashleigh asked, narrowing her eyes in a suspicious manner. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Seriously,” he said, “we need your help with something, so I guess I’m glad that you’re both here.”

  Ashleigh folded her arms. “What did you mess up?”

  “Nothing. Our great-grandfather said we need to dig up a body and burn it to keep Lucretia from digging out of her grave and coming after us.”

  Ashleigh narrowed her eyes. “You’re joking.”

  “Actually,” Logan said, “I’m not. Tyler? You up for it?”

  “Cool!” He rushed down the stairs with an exhilarated expression. “Let’s go!”

  Unfazed, Ashleigh cocked her head to the side. “You can’t fool me.”

  “If you’d prefer, you can always keep your great-grandfather company. He’s confined to the kitchen. We’re having him wait here until we get back.”

  “He’s down there now?” she asked. “That’s B.S. A ghost isn’t like a dog. You can’t just tell him to wait around and you’ll be back after you go around torching gravesites.”

  “I thought you’d want to help out, but if you’d rather hang out with Abner, then who am I to get in your way? He might even explain how he killed those three men.”

  Ashleigh quivered and started down the steps without comment.

  His sister’s reservations about Abner sticking around had merit, so while Ashleigh and Tyler went outside, too scared to stay in the house with their great-grandfather in the house, Logan met with the others in the kitchen.

  They spent the next couple hours planning how to handle the extraction, followed by visiting a hardware store to stock up on shovels, a gallon of gasoline, flashlights, and batteries. When the sun went down, Logan and his siblings entered Eloise’s car, while Jocelyn and Father Demetrius got in her vehicle and led the way to Williamsburg Cemetery.

  On their way, Logan recited the story Abner had given, after which Ashleigh summed up the tale by calling it “total bullshit from a racist, thieving, murderous bastard.” They arrived less than ten minutes before closing, but Eloise didn’t follow Jocelyn down the long-winding black path toward the little security guard station. Instead, she stopped around the corner before the entrance, parked on a side street with little traffic and no streetlamp, and popped the trunk.

  Logan exited the vehicle with his siblings and Eloise. He removed a fold-up ladder and looked through the eight-foot metal fence to scan the graveyard. A full moon, unencumbered by clouds, shined down, lighting up the grim environment a good distance away. The night air was crisp and cool, and a slight breeze made the mostly leafless tree branches rattle overhead. Dry leaves trickled across the grass, passed across numerous headstones, and flittered through the fence.

  Jocelyn drove toward the guard station, outside a tall green fence. The priest exited the vehicle, stopped at the station, and spoke with the guard. He’d seek permission to stay past closing time and get the directions to Lucretia’s headstone.

  Logan unfolded the ladder that now stood eight-feet tall and placed it beside the fence. The others shielded him on all sides to prevent onlookers in cars to see the ladder. He looked up ahead to see how Jocelyn and Father Demetrius were faring at the cemetery entrance.

  Within the next thirty seconds, Father Demetrius shook hands with the guard, reentered the car, and Jocelyn rolled into the facility.

  Eloise started up the ladder, reached the top, and jumped down into the grass before tumbling to safety. Her hands were slick from the rain that fell earlier that afternoon, and she wiped them off on her pants. Tyler followed and took to the activity with delight, while Ashleigh reluctantly leaped over the fence and had a rough landing. Upon rising, she cursed under her breath and wiped her hands against her pants.

  Logan ascended the ladder, jumped over and then lifted the ladder over the fence. He collapsed it and leaned it against the fence so they could return to it later. The cemetery was massive, and he guessed that at least two thousand grave markers littered the grounds.

  When Father Demetrius finally drove down the path about fifty yards away, Logan flicked on his flashlight and flashed it to alert the priest of their location, after which the holy man slowed to a stop. Logan turned off the flashlight and led his team to the car. Then they hopped in the vehicle.

  “We’ve got less than thirty minutes,” said Father Demetrius. “Then Jocelyn and I will have to leave.” They drove in silence for a couple of minutes, but the holy man appeared crestfallen.

  “Are you okay, Father?” Logan asked him.

  “No. The only way to convince the security guard, Gregory, to let us stay late was to hand him a small bottle of whiskey. He’s an alcoholic. Right after we pulled away from the guard station, I saw him take a long swig through my rearview window.”

  Upon hearing that, Logan was sad to see that the priest had enabled someone who battled the bottle on a daily basis. That obviously didn’t sit well with Father Demetrius, and it seemed he already began internally questioning whether he’d done the right thing. “I’m sorry you had to do that,” Logan told him, “but I also thank you for helping our family.”

  The priest nodded, but his downcast expression made it clear he still struggled with the decision. “When this is all over,” he said, “I’m going to come back here to make sure Gregory makes it home okay.” Then he whispered under his breath and made the sign of the cross.

  Logan realized his own gratitude came from a selfish place in his heart, and he should take the brunt of the culpability for Father Demetrius’s immoral behavior. It cut him up inside that he’d encouraged the priest to break vows that he lived by. He didn’t take that lightly since the priest would suffer untold inner turmoil over his actions. When this was all over, Logan planned to speak with God, demand that he take the heat for Father Demetrius’s actions, and seek for forgiveness.

  For the moment, however, the security guard might not be as careful inspecting the grounds or even do a haphazard job of it to ensure that all visitors had left after closing time before returning to the guard station. According to Father Demetrius, the guards at this cemetery had lately become a lot more careless in their security measures since some of them might soon be laid off due to the impending arrival of a new electronic security system.

  The priest lowered the map of the cemetery’s layout and pulled to a stop. He pointed to their right. “That should be Lucretia’s grave.” He cut the headlights. Behind them, the trunk lifted.

  Logan hurried out, followed by the others. He removed a metal shovel with a rectangular head for each of them and then handed everyone a flashlight. They would never dig six feet within the next half hour. They had estimated it would take six hours for one person to remove that much dirt. Since they had six people, they could complete their task in one hour. For that reason, Father Demetrius and Jocelyn would return immediately after driving out of the cemetery and hop the fence like Logan and the others had done earlier.

  “Is everyone ready?” Logan asked. He flipped on his flashlight and aimed it a few feet ahead of him at the ground to prevent attracting attention from others off in the distance. He led the gro
up toward Lucretia’s grave, but when he approached it, he realized they wouldn’t need to stick even one shovel in the dirt.

  Clumps of dirt lay all around her headstone. A large jagged hole appeared in the center of the solid oak casket. Lucretia’s body was not inside.

  27

  Logan stared at the destroyed casket and then turned his attention to the white shroud in the minimal dirt beside the hole. Unlike traditional burial practices, the coffin was placed no more than a foot and a half from the surface. He presumed that Lucretia had paid off those who tended to the burial services to ensure for this type of arrangement. There was no use trying to analyze the situation. It wouldn’t change the situation. It had happened. Lucretia had escaped. Now she would be coming for him in human form.

  He checked the area around the coffin and saw shoe footprints in the circular pattern in the dried dirt. He imagined Lucretia going around in a circle, chilled from the cold air and shocked by the sights and sounds of the twenty-first-century city environment. The footprints were still visible and not muddy, which meant the witch had in all likelihood exited the coffin within the last two hours, after it already stopped drizzling. A long bone, devoid of flesh laid a few feet away.

  Logan stared at the bone, wondering if it was from Lucretia’s arm or leg. He supposed she’d used it to bash her way out of the coffin. Could she feel pain? It took only a second to realize that her body was dead, so she didn’t have any pain receptors. Still, it was a hideous sight, one that showed her desire to leave her casket to kill him and his family.

  He turned to find the others staring at the casket in shock. He assumed the security guard hadn’t checked this area. Otherwise, he would have called the police to check on this matter. “We don’t know when she dug herself out. She could still be in the cemetery.”

  Then he spotted Ashleigh crying silently. He went over and hugged her but directed his attention to his brother.