“What? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it? It’s O’Connor. He’s here, still in this house, and he likes sixteen year-old girls. That’s why he wanted you in the basement last night. He wants another girlfriend. Another wife.” His words hung in the still, dusty air. “You’re it.”
“Do you think that’s true?” She looked at Seth for an answer. Seth didn’t say anything.
“Well, look, he branded you.” Patrick pointed to the heart-shape burn on Kate’s arm. It had healed, but was still a glowing red.
“But he went after Lucy too....” Kate began in a small voice, not wanting to believe it. She rubbed the burn. It hadn’t bothered her for a while, but suddenly it began to throb.
“Lucy’s pretty close to your age. I guess after you woke up and ran out of the house, O’Connor went after her. God, why didn’t we think of this earlier?” Patrick said, slightly agitated. “I mean, we saw his marriage records. Connor was married three times and all his wives died young.”
“Do you think he killed them?” Kate asked.
“Probably,” Seth said glumly. “That must be why he wanted to throw Jacob out the window. Jacob was your real boyfriend. Jacob was his competition for you.”
“Oh, my God.” Kate felt weak. “He’ll get me too.”
“No, he won’t,” Patrick said, grabbing Kate’s hand. “We’re on to him. We know what he’s up to. Plus, Pansy…she was alone and so was her sister. O’Connor’s wives too, probably. They couldn’t defend themselves because they were alone. You’ve got us.”
“Who’s got you?” Kate said, looking at them both.
Seth laughed for some reason. Then Patrick joined him. Kate relaxed a little. A few minutes passed in which nobody seemed to be able to move. Finally, Seth struck his shovel into the dirt and continued the dig.
*
As they dug deeper, it became clear to all of them that there was too much displaced dirt and not enough places to put it. Pretty soon, they were tossing dirt out the window, onto the laundry room floor. It would be a mess to clean up, but they were counting on the fact that, after this dig, the mess would be the least of their trouble.
After the conversation lagged again, Kate started to hum. After a few minutes, she started to sing softly, if a little breathlessly, from the effort of digging. It seemed to help.
Patrick stopped. “It’s six-thirty,” he said.
“You’re kidding me.” Kate said. The hole was about five feet deep and eight feet wide. It formed a large inverted cone in the middle of the room. Shortly, they would reach the floor.
“I’m hungry,” Patrick stated.
“Let’s take a break,” Seth said, wiping his brow. “It looks like we’ve gotten a lot done already.”
Kate began to say, “I’m surprised we haven’t found anything yet,” when she suddenly saw a funny shaped white stone on the side of the hole. Instead she said, “What’s that?” and pointed to it.
Seth, who was the closest, reached down and pulled at the stone. It came loose in his hand. He examined it closely and rubbed away the clinging dirt particles.
“Huh,” he said as he held it out for Patrick and Kate’s inspection. It was a ring, but instead silver or gold, it was made of a dirty, white rock. Perched at the top was the shape of a tiny human skull. Carved sockets formed its eyes and several slits gave it ten dirty white teeth. Kate pulled away from it in disgust, but Patrick took it into his hands for further examination.
“I think this is bone.” Patrick said, turning it over.
“Do you know what it is? What it means?” Seth asked him.
“I’ll look in my books,” Patrick said.
Patrick put the ring into his pocket. Then, one by one, they exited the room, Seth putting out the lantern. They stacked their shovels and walked up the stairs to the kitchen.
Kate tried to lighten the mood. “Maybe afterward, we could go trick-or-treating.” Patrick laughed and grabbed her hand. Seth looked at them both with interest. She had forgotten that Seth didn’t know their secret yet.
Kate washed her hands and made sandwiches. They sat in the small breakfast nook and ate off paper plates. She almost felt like a normal human being, one who didn’t spend the evening looking for dead bodies. She and Seth chatted, and for the first time in a long time, they didn’t talk about the house.
“So, are you and Laura going to get back together? I haven’t really asked you since you got back from your surprise trip to Nebraska,” Kate asked. Then she looked at Patrick and said, “Laura is his girlfriend back in Nebraska.”
“Oh,” Patrick said and took a bite of his sandwich.
“I don’t know. I went there because she told me she was going out on a date with some other guy. After we broke up, I thought I’d get over her, but I guess I haven’t.” He shrugged, but Kate could see pain in his eyes.
“And?” Kate asked, “what happened when you drove back to see her?”
“She said, ‘Move back to Nebraska.’”
“Wow.” Kate paused and chewed on her lip for a moment. “What did you say?”
“I said that I would.”
“Really?” Kate said, shocked.
“Um, I’m going to go get my books and see if I can find out about that ring,” Patrick said and he walked into the family room to get his briefcase, probably feeling like he was intruding on a private conversation.
“I’ll have to drop out of school for a while. I don’t have enough savings to support myself and go to school.” Seth stopped and sighed, his eyes downcast onto his paper plate, which held only crumbs now.
“Wow,” she said again. “When are you leaving?”
“Probably after this semester, after finals.” He smiled. “Actually, I can’t wait.”
Kate felt a twinge of jealousy. She wouldn’t mind going back to Nebraska, but looking at Patrick now brought her back to West Virginia. “I’ll miss you Seth.”
He smiled. “I’ll miss you too.”
They were quiet for a few minutes as they sipped colas.
Patrick came back into the room with a strange look on his face. He held the ring between his fingers.
“So, what is it?” Seth asked.
“It’s a wedding ring,” Patrick said. “It’s worn by the bride of the dead.”
Kate stared at Patrick with her mouth open. Finally, she repeated, “The bride of the dead.” The words felt like lead in her mouth.
“Right,” he said. “It’s an ancient practice. Apparently, the bride dresses in white, goes to the place where she used to meet her lover, then puts on this ring. Then, she’s officially married to the dead guy.”
“What? What’s the point of that?” Kate said.
“I guess it unites her with her dead lover,” Patrick said. “The ring has to be made of…you’re not going to like this, Kate…the ring has to be made of the actual bone of the dead man.”
Kate looked at the bone ring in Patrick’s hand with revulsion. The bone of a dead man, an evil man, was right there in his hand. “Totally creepy,” she said. Suddenly, she panicked. “Seth, are we in over our heads here? Somebody, probably Pansy, chopped up O’Connor’s bones to make this ring. Where’s his body now? Are we digging up the Bride of Frankenstein or a murderous freak? We must be insane.” She folded her arms across her chest, feeling cold.
Seth nodded. “I know, Kate, but the fact remains that we have to deal with this. We have to live in this house. We have to do something or he’ll come for you.” He paused. “Or Lucy.”
“Lucy,” Kate thought of her sister.
“It’s been quiet so far tonight,” Patrick stated.
“You see, that worries me. It’s too quiet. It’s almost as if the spirits want us down there. After all, the spirits led me, in my sleep, to that room. Maybe we’re doing exactly what they want. Maybe they’ve got us right where they want us.” Kate’s breathing quickened as she spoke.
Seth looked Kate straight in the eye. “I don’t kno
w what else to do.”
“We could tell Mom and Dad that we want to move,” she offered weakly.
Seth looked at her sternly. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll do the trick.”
“Yeah, I know.” She sighed and folded up her paper plate.
Patrick dropped the ring onto the kitchen table. The tiny skull with its tiny teeth faced Kate menacingly. She turned away.
25.
They proceeded back down into the basement quietly, each person nursing his or her own thoughts. They would reach the floor soon. Kate wondered what they would find. Her sandwich turned sour in her stomach. She burped loudly and excused herself.
Immediately, they all noticed something dark in front of the window to the dirt room. It was Seth’s cat, Ink.
“Ink?” Seth said curiously. The cat usually never left Seth’s room. “What are you doing down here?”
The cat looked up at Seth with her slanted, yellow eyes, then scratched at the boarded up door. “Whoa, she’s acting weird. I’m going to put her out in the yard with the dog.” Seth grabbed the tiny cat and walked out.
The lantern was again hung and lit. The shovels were taken in hand. The digging began again. They dug silently for half an hour.
Finally, Patrick broke the silence when his shovel panged off the basement floor. Seth and Kate looked down into the hole with interest. Patrick shoveled away the remaining dirt on the middle of the floor, exposing a circle of dirty rock about six feet wide.
“Nothing,” he said, looking at the floor, shaking his head. “Where to now, Seth?”
“Let’s all work on that wall,” he said, pointing to the wall with the window to the laundry room.
It was especially awkward, the dirt piled high and the footing uneven. They had just started digging, when Patrick yelped and clutched at his neck. He grabbed at something and threw it against the wall. Kate saw a tiny black spider drop to the dirt and scamper away.
“A little dramatic for such a tiny spider, don’t you think?” she said to him.
He said nothing for a moment, then almost whispered, “I don’t like spiders.”
“I can tell.”
“No, I mean, I really don’t like spiders.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you, Patrick Murphy, obsessed with anything creepy and spooky and disgusting, are afraid of a little spider?” Kate teased, interested at this soft side of Patrick.
He shrugged it off and continued with his work. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Conversation was strained, so the three eventually stopped trying and avoided it completely. They dug in silence, throwing dirt into the hole in the middle of the room. The digging went quickly and soon, the entire front wall had been excavated. Nothing.
“Where should we dig now?” Kate asked, wiping sweat from her brow.
“Let’s do the back wall. There’s got to be something more down here,” Seth answered.
Without another word, each person struck their shovel into the soft dirt. Patrick threw aside a shovelful of dirt near the wall and immediately uncovered what looked like a frame. He got down on his hands and knees, brushing away handfuls of dirt.
“It looks like a door,” Kate said. She glanced at Patrick and Seth, but didn’t need to say a word. They already knew. There was another room down here, a secret room. “I wonder if anybody knew it was down here.” Kate whispered.
“I’m sure the Blackers knew about it at one time, but since then, who knows?” Patrick said.
Seth and Patrick both joined in to dig out the door. As she worked, Kate swore she could feel the house begin to vibrate around them, humming along with their work. She stopped.
“Do you feel that?”
“Like a tremor?” Seth asked. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels it.”
“What do you suppose it is?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting close to something.” Patrick paused as if to consider his words carefully. “The house is getting excited.”
The three stood silent for a moment, then continued their work. After about thirty minutes, the entire door was clear from dirt. The more dirt they removed, the more the house seemed to shudder. The old lantern swayed on its hook, hissing. A mountain of dirt now stood in the middle of the room, almost to the ceiling. It made Kate nervous, looking down in the hole, the door in the middle. Seth moved the lantern so it shined directly on the door.
Although they could now open the door, nobody did. Seth sat down in the dirt. Patrick jumped down into the hole and inspected the door. Kate watched.
“It’s just an ordinary door,” Patrick said. “No pentagrams, no claw marks, no blood stains, just old.” He looked at Seth and Kate, who seemed in no hurry to proceed.
“Well,” Seth said, rising to his feet, “I guess we need to get this over with, right? If we see a body, that’s all we need. We can shut the door and call the police. We’ll tell them that we suspected there might be a body down here, from what people told us, and then we’ll have the proof. They can come down here with a team and get the body and give her a proper burial. Hopefully, the house will be livable again.”
“And if we don’t see a body?” Kate asked, knowing the answer but not willing to admit it. “What if we just see more dirt?”
“We’ll have to dig that room out, too.” Seth said.
“And,” Patrick asked, “what if we see something else?”
“Like what?” Kate asked. She didn’t even want to consider a third option. Body or no body. That was as far as she could think.
“We have to be prepared for anything,” Patrick said. He reached into his pocket and rattled something. Kate figured it must be his box of baby teeth. She fingered the tiny gold cross around her neck and felt glad to be wearing it.
“Who’s going to open the door?” Patrick asked.
“I will,” Seth said, reaching for a shovel. He jumped down into the hole and put one hand on the doorknob. He held the shovel in his other hand like a shield. Kate jumped down next to him, holding her shovel more like a baseball bat, ready to take a crack at whatever popped out. Patrick stood at the top of the mountain of dirt, holding a flashlight, shining it at the door.
“Are you ready?” Seth asked.
“Ready.”
“Ready.”
He turned around again to glance at Patrick and Kate. They nodded for him to continue. He turned the knob.
It was locked.
Seth lowered himself and inspected the doorknob. The lock was on this side. “Now, why is the door locked from this side?” he asked. “If there’s a body of a girl in there…who locked her in?”
“Maybe it’s not a girl in there.” Kate whispered, the realization coming over her. “What if something evil is locked in there, Seth? And somebody locked it in. Maybe we shouldn’t open it.”
Seth inhaled deeply. “I know, but we’ve come this far. We can’t stop now. I mean, look at this place.” He gestured to the room, the mountains of dirt piled up to the ceiling.
The house trembled again, this time more violently. Kate again questioned the judgment of what they were doing. Before she could vocalize her feelings of doubt, Patrick tossed his pocket knife down to Seth, who proceeded to stick it into the lock. With an audible click that made Kate jump, the lock was freed.
Again, the three assumed the posture of dog-catchers who had finally cornered the strays, except instead of nets, they held shovels, a flashlight and a disappointingly small cross.
Seth’s hand crept forward and grasped the knob. He turned it slowly and threw the door open so hard, it bounced off the dirt and nearly closed again. Seth threw his shovel in the way and knocked the door open again. Patrick shone the flashlight into the room.
Immediately, she noticed the smell. It was a stale odor, but underneath, a sweet, sickening foulness. She felt a blast of cold air, thick, heavy cold that slammed into her body. Kate’s eyes focused on the flashlight’s beam. Its single beacon of light was drowned out by the penetrating
darkness. Kate squinted, as her heart pounded inside her chest, peering into the room. In the middle of the room, Kate saw a pile of dirty white sticks. Bones.
Kate began to whisper, “What the....”
The house suddenly leapt under them. Kate fell backward against the dirt. The lantern fell from its hook and smashed, the spilled oil catching fire. The room was now illuminated by a hazy blue blaze. It looked like the dirt was burning.
A second later, Seth cried out in pain. She had just turned her head toward him, when a rock flew out of the door and struck the dirt beside her. Kate tried to stand, pushing against the dirt, but finding her hands only sinking deeper and deeper. She struggled to gain her footing in the slippery dirt, but felt herself pulled down, down into the dirt. Suddenly, dozens more rocks flew from the room, spraying the room with missiles. Kate could hear them taking chunks from the walls around them.
The Blacker House Page 26
