by Dan Dillard
All packed, he hurried back to the kitchen.
“Bye Mom. Bye, Dad.”
“Hold on just a second,” his mother said.
“Use your manners. Don’t be noisy. I’ve got some errands to run tomorrow. Both your father and I should both be home by five, but don’t stay all day, okay?”
“Right. Got it,” Robbie said impatiently.
“Maybe you and I can have lunch together?”
“Maybe. Don’t you have to get the car fixed?” Robbie said.
“Yes. And unpack…and figure out how to turn the truck back in to the rental place.”
Robbie stared off into space, losing interest in the conversation.
“Just have a good time,” Evelyn said.
“Can I go now?”
“Not yet,” Evelyn said, smiling a sweet, mother’s smile.
He rolled his eyes and stepped toward her. She wiped his hair away from his forehead and kissed it, hugging him at the same time. He endured it, but looked miserable. His dad gave him a stern nod, still stuffing his face and Robbie hugged his mother back.
“Okay, mom. Now can I go?”
She nodded and Robbie bolted out the door. His parents watched with proud faces. Evelyn stared a little too long. She was tired. She lifted her gaze from the front door to the mountains of boxes surrounding her and sighed. Greg patted her arm and she gave him a weak smile.
“He’s already got friends. One less thing to worry about,” he said.
“I’m still calling their mother,” she said.
“I knew you would.”
She dialed the phone and waited. When Mrs. Winter picked it up, she said, “Hi. This is Evelyn Chance, we just moved in down the street?”
***
Robbie rode his bike down the driveway headed to Zack and Amy’s house, but slammed on the brakes and looked over his shoulder. The sun was still fairly high in the sky and he thought he just might make it if he hurried. The manhole cover wasn’t but a five minute ride away. He swung the rear tire of his bike around and went the other way.
Huffing and puffing, he found the last hill and coasted down and under the overpass. The sun was peeking through the trees, twinkling orange in the multicolored sky. He set his bike down and knelt down at the rusty circle, quickly grabbed a tooth and slipped it into his pocket.
“Five bucks is five bucks,” he said.
Robbie pedaled back up the hill and headed off to Zack and Amy’s house.
CHAPTER 9
As the sun went down, the crickets started to chirp, frogs sang their Autumn song just before the frosts came and put everything to sleep. The manhole cover shone damp in the pale light from the street lamp. It bounced a little, and then one side popped up. The cricket and frog songs silenced as if by a light switch. Even the wind was still.
Yellowish, bloodshot eyes appeared underneath and scanned the area. Slow, raspy breaths were the only sound. A shadowy hand held the heavy metal disc up while another felt around on its rough surface. It found one tiny tooth and disappeared below. It resurfaced, searching for the second, but found nothing. The hands’ movements became frantic, like a fish flopping on land, trying to find water.
Slapping at the surface, the hand finally shoved the cover to the side with a groan and a loud scraping sound. The head of the figure came out of the hole, peeking about cautiously for onlookers. Shadows kept its details a secret. It hunted, but the second tooth was gone.
“He done took it. Took da wrong one, he did,” it said in an angry whisper.
The dark figure smacked the ground with its knotted and callused hand, then ducked below the surface and pulled the plate back in place. It slid into its rim with a metallic thunk.
CHAPTER 10
Zack popped his head back into his room with a handful of soda cans and a roll of paper towels. Amy was sitting on the floor, spinning his football on its tip. She watched it twirl down to its side and roll away, then grabbed it and did it again.
“Where’s Brad?”
She looked up, grabbing the football.
“He said he’d be back in fifteen minutes and the story was on, Robbie or no Robbie.”
Zack set the sodas on his desk, careful to fold a paper towel in half and use it as a coaster. Amy grabbed on and popped the top open with a crack and a fizzy sound.
“Careful with that,” Zack said.
She frowned at him.
“I’m not gonna spill it,” she growled.
Zack folded another paper towel and set it on a book next to her on the floor.
“Just in case,” he said.
He opened his own drink, then turned as the sounds of struggle and a muffled voice stopped at his door. Then someone knocked. Amy stood up and answered, pulling the door to Zack’s room open. Brad stood there, with Robbie tucked under one arm, his mouth covered by Brad’s hand. In his other hand, he dangled Robbie’s backpack. He shoved Robbie forward, keeping a hand on his shoulder.
“You guys lose this? It was at the door asking for you. If not, it’s going back in the trash can,” Brad said.
Robbie chuckled. By the look on his disappointed face, it wasn’t the reaction Brad wanted.
“Come on in,” Amy said and shut the door behind them.
She tossed Robbie a soda can, and he popped it open, sucking the foam off the top as it dribbled down his hand and onto his shirt. Zack cringed.
“Tell us the story,” Amy said.
Robbie nodded. Brad sat down and looked at each of them intensely.
“Not sure you can handle it,” he said.
Robbie smirked. “No, I’m certain you infants can’t handle it,” he said.
Brad smacked him in the back of the head.
“Ow!” Robbie said.
“No one talks to my brother and sister like that but me.”
Amy stuck her tongue out at Robbie and then looked back at Brad. All eyes were on him. He looked around, as if anyone else might be hiding in that room, trying to listen in, then started talking.
“Crowe’s Foot Cemetery sits on the edge of town for a reason,” Brad said. “It’s haunted,”
Robbie’s eyes rolled.
“Yeah right.”
“Didn’t you see the mist floating over it?” Brad said.
Robbie nodded. “Yeah, I saw it.”
He didn’t look convinced. Brad glared at him, then relaxed.
“The mist is like a blanket. It keeps the dead...asleep in their graves,” Brad said, his voice deep and he used a poor British accent in an attempt to be scary.
“That’s bull. Total bull,” Robbie interrupted.
Amy smacked his arm. “Shut up and listen, toad. You might learn something.”
Robbie rubbed his arm and closed his mouth. Brad continued, grinning.
“Like I said, a blanket to keep them down. It was put there by the Tootheater.”
“What’s this Tootheater anyway?” Robbie asked.
“Are you gonna keep interrupting me?” Brad asked.
“Maybe,” Robbie said. “If you’re gonna keep lying.”
Brad stared at him, ignoring the statement. “To answer your question, he’s a devil, but was once a man. He takes teeth from the children and eats them—only baby teeth. That’s why you have to leave them on the manhole cover. If you don’t, he’ll find you and take you while you sleep.”
Brad had their full attention at that point.
“When a storm blows through, or even on a windy evening, that misty blanket goes away temporarily… and at dusk or at dawn, you can see them.”
“Who? Who can you see?” Robbie said.
His eyes grew round, showing the full whites as he listened.
“Ghosts.” Brad whispered.
Robbie shuddered, spilling his soda. Zack jumped on it with the paper towels in hand, dabbing it up.
“Damn,” Zack muttered.
“For real?” Robbie asked. “Have you ever seen them?”
“There’s no such things as ghosts,
” Zack said, still patting the spilled soda.
Brad made a smug face and didn’t respond to Zack’s statement. Robbie’s face regained its skeptical quality, one eyebrow raised and his lip curled up under his nose.
“So what’s a stupid manhole cover got to do with it?”
“That’s where it lives.”
“You told me it lived in the graveyard?” Zack said.
“I don’t get it,” Robbie said. “Some dude eats teeth, and lives in the sewer?”
Brad closed his eyes in frustration, and took a breath. He put one hand on Robbie’s forearm and gave it a firm squeeze.
“Listen, because I’m only going to say this once.”
The kids huddled. Brad made eye contact with each of them again. Robbie sipped loudly on his can of soda. Zack nudged him in the shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Robbie said.
Brad grabbed Zack’s desk lamp and held it under his chin, casting a glow on his face from below. The effect was like an old monster movie.
“A hundred and fifty years ago,” he began, “There was a dentist named Harlan Crowe, right here in this town... only the town was called something else back then.”
“Crowe’s Foot. Like the cemetery,” Zack said.
“That’s right,” Brad said and continued. “He lived over somewhere near where the mall is today. Anyway, he was a shepherd in the Underground Railroad.”
Zack perked up.
“Like your school paper,” Amy said. “What is that anyway?”
“It was a way for slaves to get to Free states. A secret trail of hiding places. Shepherds were the people who helped the slaves hide out while they were on their way to freedom,” Zack said.
Brad stared at him, shocked.
“We’re learning about it in history class,” Zack said. “I have to write a paper.”
“Was it really underground?” Amy asked.
Brad nodded.
“Some parts. Supposedly, some went right through Walker’s Woods,” he said.
Robbie slurped again, and Amy nudged him. Brad frowned and Robbie set his soda can down.
“So this dentist, Crowe, used to bring slaves into his office with the promise of freedom. There was a passage that lead from his office, down through a trapdoor and into a tunnel. At night, they’d sneak the slaves out through that tunnel to a safe zone where the slaves could be picked up in wagons or carriages and taken to free states.”
“Where’d it lead—the tunnel?” Zack asked.
“I’ll get to that,” Brad replied. He looked around, ready to field any other questions before continuing.
“But he wasn’t helping them like he’d promised.” He paused, letting that thought sink in for a moment. “He’d put them to sleep with ether or laughing gas...”
Amy chuckled. “What the hell is laughing gas?”
“It’s what dentists use to make you sleep, so they can drill and scrape on your teeth,” Brad said. “And don’t say hell.”
“Why don’t they call it sleeping gas?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why the hell’d he do that if he was going to free them?” Amy said.
“Why the hell do you keep interrupting me? And stop saying hell,” Brad said, annoyed.
He mussed her hair and she made like she was zipping her lips shut.
“Anyway... that was just it. He claimed to gas them, so they wouldn’t remember the route. To keep it a secret, even from other slaves. A secret from the law. So no one could find out where the Underground Railroad was.”
Robbie’s jaw hung open. Zack’s eyes were hard, intent on listening. Amy was silent.
“What he was really doing, was performing strange experiments on them...and collecting their teeth,” Brad finished.
“Why their teeth?” Zack said.
“Why can’t you just listen to the story? God!”
“Okay,” Zack said. “Okay.”
Brad waited a beat, giving Zack a good, angry glare. Then he looked at Robbie who clapped his hands over his mouth. Amy rolled her lips and clamped them together so she looked like an old woman with no teeth. Satisfied, Brad went on.
“Legend was he ate them because they gave him some sort of strength or magical power. Crunched ‘em up like hard candy. The truth is, he was probably just insane,” Brad said.
“Ya think?” Amy said.
“What happened to the slaves?” Robbie said.
“I give up,” Brad said. “You three just ask questions and I’ll answer them as best I can. At this rate, I’ll never get through the whole story.”
“Okay,” Robbie said. “But what happened to the slaves?”
“He killed them. Then he buried them in the underground passages,” Brad said.
Robbie sat up straight. “I still don’t get what the manhole cover has to do with it,” he said.
“The word is: those hidden passages from the Underground Railroad became our sewer system. The dead slaves were buried down there, sealed in the old brick walls. Their spirits roam that sewer in search of the dentist, looking for revenge so they might finally rest,” Brad said.
“Ghosts? You expect us to believe there are ghosts in the sewer too?” Zack said.
“You’re the one who believes in a tooth-eating boogeyman,” Brad replied.
“He’s got you there,” Amy said.
Robbie laughed.
“You believed it too, Amy,” Brad said.
“Nuh uh,” she said.
Zack turned his attention back to Brad.
“How exactly do you know all this?” he asked.
Brad’s face lost its color and he looked distant, as if remembering something terrible. He turned the light back on in the room, and put the lamp back on Zack’s desk.
“When I was about ten, me and some friends went down in that sewer, just playin’ around ya know? Zack, you were maybe five, Amy, like three,” Brad said.
The theatrics were gone from his speech and it sounded more like he was confessing in church.
“What friends?” Zack asked.
“A couple of my buddies, Mike and Rodney.”
“The same Mike and Rodney?” Amy asked.
He nodded.
“Rodney’s older sister told him about the Tootheater, and we wanted to see what was down there. The three of us went down there. We didn’t know anything about the Underground Railroad at the time.”
“And,” Zack said.
“And there was nothing there at first. One tunnel led to another, and another empty tunnel. It seems like they went on forever, all the way to the edge of town, under the cemetery...and then we heard it.”
“What?” Robbie said. “What’d you hear?”
“Moaning and wailing,” Brad said.
“What’s wailing?” Amy asked.
Brad looked at her from the corners of his eyes. Zack grabbed at his desk, finding his dictionary and flipping some pages. “Wail. Verb. To give a cry of pain, grief, or anger,” he said.
Amy mouthed the word oh.
“It was a ghost,” Brad said.
The air left the room and Amy gulped.
“One of the murdered slaves,” Brad continued.
“D-did you see it?” Amy stammered.
Brad nodded.
“What’d it look like?” Zack whispered.
“Like a man. Like an old man, he was there, but he wasn’t, like a shadow or something, ya know?”
“Wow,” Amy said. “You’re like one of those paranormal guys on that TV show.”
“Then what?” Zack asked.
“Then they crapped their pants, I bet,” Amy said.
Brad shook his head.
“No. No, we ran back to the ladder and outta there as fast as we could.”
The four sat quietly for a minute, letting everything sink in.
“How come you never went back?” Zack asked.
“Why? I saw a ghost. That was enough. I don’t need to see another one.”
Silence
again, then Zack sat up as straight as an arrow.
“A picture of a ghost would be worth a lot of money, don’t you think?” he said.
“I guess,” Brad said.
Robbie leaned in.
“How much money?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But you turds would never go down there. It’s way too scary.”
“You were ten. I’m thirteen. That’s a world of difference,” Zack said.
Brad grinned. “Right,” he said.
Amy looked at Brad.
“I’m braver than he is,” she said, winking and pointing at Zack.
“I believe that,” Brad replied. He mussed her hair again.
“Whatever,” Zack said. “Hey, is Dr. Crowe the same one that the town used to be named after?”
“Yeah. Crowe’s Foot. Changed it back in the sixties when they found out what he did. All that’s left with his name on it is his mausoleum and the cemetery,” Brad said.
“How do you know that?” Amy asked.
“After we saw...it...I did some research. I found some information about the sewers and the construction of the town. Read about the name change and there was an article about Mrs. Lark. She was the one who campaigned to change the name.”
“She’s my history teacher?” Zack said.
“She was mine, too. I talked to Mrs. Lark back then. Asked her about it, the name change and all. She told me about the Underground Railroad, about Dr. Crowe and the killings. I asked her about the ghosts.”
“What’d she say?” Robbie asked.
“Said she wasn’t surprised. She said ‘You’d haunt too if you’d been done that wrong.’”
“Maybe we should talk to her?” Zack said.
“Yeah,” Amy said, shaking her head. “We could go tomorrow.”
Brad stood up and grabbed two cans of soda from Zack’s desk. He opened the door and turned to them.
“G’nite, turds. I’ve got more important things to do. Hope you three sleep well,” he said.
The door creaked as he slowly pushed it closed and he laughed an evil, muhaha laugh.
Zack, Amy and Robbie stared at the door, creeped out. No one moved from his spot. Suddenly, the door flew open and Brad yelled, “Boo!” The trio shrieked and Brad laughed, slamming the door and stomping down the hallway.
“Turd!” Amy shouted.
“Do you think there’s anything to that story,” Zack asked.
Robbie shook his head. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said.
Amy added, “Me either.”
“So…do you wanna go down there?” Robbie said.
Zack grinned, nodding. Amy punched Robbie in the arm, then punched Zack.
“Dumb and stupid,” she said.
