Foxy scanned the words. “It looks like they never found the body. They searched the place high and low, but never found anything.”
Betty’s jaw dropped. “That’s because she’s in the wall in the basement.”
“What?” Foxy exclaimed.
“He put her inside. Maybe he even bricked her in while she was still alive. That’s why I could hear her screaming and crying. She’s trapped inside, and maybe,” Betty speculated, “Franklin is only hanging around to make sure no one finds the body so that she can be his forever.”
“And you think that if we can help her cross over that he will too?” Foxy asked.
“Exactly.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Pork interrupted. “What are you suggesting?”
Looking up at her father, she made a face of unease. “I’m suggesting we rip down the wall and find her body.”
CHAPTER 15
* * *
Before leaving the library, Betty got on one of the computers and quickly looked up some simple instructions on how to exorcise an evil spirit. After sorting through dozens of methods which ranged from vaguely plausible to outright ridiculous, she settled on one with a chant written in Latin.
Printing off the instructions provided, they all got back into Muddy’s SUV and headed to the hardware store to gather some supplies. They bought two pickaxes’, a shovel, an electric lantern, and two pieces of wood which Foxy fashioned into a cross, just like they’d seen in so many vampire movies.
At this point, the sky was growing quickly dark and the trio was feeling apprehensive about facing the haunting during the nighttime. However, feeling that they couldn’t wait for daylight, for Muddy’s sake, they hopped into the SUV and headed for the Old Bar.
Pulling up along Cherry Street, they all climbed out and stepped into the silent darkness of the building. Standing there with pickaxe and shovel in hand, Betty could already feel the oppressive cold bearing down on them. Glancing toward the walled-up staircase, she felt a shiver run down her spine. Was he in there, waiting for them?
What would he try next? What would he do when they opened the wall in the basement?
“Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s do this.”
The trio crowded together, moving behind the bar and to the basement door which stood open. Reaching out, Pork hit the light switch, illuminating the area below.
They couldn’t all fit on the steps together, so they were forced to go one at a time down into the darkness. Getting in a line, Betty took the lead with Foxy right behind her and Pork bringing up the rear.
Instantly, Betty was overcome with that same sense of absolute, all-encompassing dread she’d felt the very first time she’d ever stepped into the basement. Her stomach turned sour, and her skin prickled with the cold—but she still forced herself to press on down the steps.
The old stairs groaned under their weight, almost as if warning them to turn back.
Reaching the concrete floor at the bottom, they looked around the room at all the piles of junk.
“Where is it?” Pork asked, raising his voice so he would sound confident.
“This way,” Betty instructed, leading them through one pile and then another until they reached the wall. “The crying came from here.” She pointed at the brick.
Sighing, Foxy hefted her pickaxe. “Let’s get to it.”
“Pop, you keep a hold of that lantern, and be ready to turn it on if the lights go out like they did before on me.”
“Ready,” he agreed.
The first clang of metal against brick echoed through the room like thunder, piercing everyone’s ears. Several more similar clangs resounded one after another, both girls swinging with their might to break through. The old brick was brittle and seemed to chip away easily.
Bits of mortar splintered off and crumbled to the floor as a carved indentation began to appear.
Swinging extra hard, Betty’s pickaxe penetrated the wall at a weak spot. “We’re getting through,” she announced, removing her tool and leaving a small hole behind.
Getting close to the wall, she attempted to peer through. It was too dark to see anything, but the stench of death and rot seeped through.
“Come on,” she instructed. “Let’s keep going.”
As their axe’s met stone, the hole slowly began to grow in size. The low whimper of a woman’s cries echoed quietly from inside under the sound of each strike.
“I-I can hear her,” Foxy gasped, her face growing pale. “She’s really in there.”
“Don’t stop,” Betty encouraged her friend, swinging again at the well. The hole was the size of a basketball now, huge chunks of brick coming out.
As the continued swinging, the crying grew louder. Whole bricks began to fall, and the dark space behind the wall became more apparent.
Slowly, the hanging lights in the basement began to buzz and then dim.
“Pop, the light,” she cried as the room slowly plunged into darkness.
Just before they lost all visibility, Betty could see the hole had reached nearly a four-foot diameter.
“The light,” she cried, the blackness around then became so thick that she felt as if she could touch it.
The woman’s crying had suddenly stopped along with their chiseling, leaving them standing in a fresh eerie silence. For a moment, Betty felt like she’d fallen into a black abyss where no one else existed.
“The light, Pop, get the light on,” she insisted, feeling fear begin to prickle all over her body.
“I’m trying,” he replied gruffly as if struggling. “This darn button just won’t work.”
A low scratching noise came from the wall.
“G-guys?” Foxy whispered. “I hear something inside the hole.”
“I think I got it,” Pork noted. An audible click echoed in the room, followed by the illumination of the two tiny fluorescent bulbs inside.
The light filled the hole, and both women screamed.
Crouching at the opening, a pale woman with black hair, sunken gray eyes, and blood running from the open wound at her hairline let out a wild shout of laughter. Her hand, which only had scabs where her fingernails used to be, gripped onto Foxy’s wrist.
“Foxy,” Betty screamed, trying to grab her friend.
She wasn’t fast enough. The redheaded woman was suddenly dragged backward into the depths of the earth beyond, as if attached to some rapid moving pulley system, disappearing into the darkness within.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
“Foxy, no,” she screamed into the hole. It wasn’t just an indentation beyond the wall, it was a narrow tunnel of dirt leading further down at a steep descent.
“Get away from there,” Pork shouted, grabbing her daughter by the arm with the kind of strength he hadn’t exhibited in years.
“We can’t leave Foxy,” she exclaimed as her father forcefully moved her away from the cavernous maw.
“We’re going, NOW,” he insisted, pulling her toward the stairs.
The sickening laughter continued to echo alongside the screaming as they moved toward the stairs.
“Let me go,” Betty insisted. “We aren’t leaving her.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Pork retorted. “We can’t climb down into that pit.” Pulling his daughter up the stairs, they exited the basement and made a b-line for the front door. When they reached it and tried the handle, it was locked.
“We’re locked in, just like Mrs. Perkins,” Betty exclaimed.
“Try pulling it together,” he instructed her. They both gripped the handle and pulled with all their might, but to no avail. The door was sealed with some otherworldly force.
That’s when the low chuckle echoed through the room, a man’s chuckle.
Spinning on her foot, Betty faced the walled in stairwell. “H-He’s here.”
There was a low scraping noise of stone on stone.
Slowly, the loose brick that Pork had removed earlier that day and then replaced came sliding out
of the wall and fell to the floor with a thunk. “I’m coming through,” the man on the other side threatened in a garbled voice, his mouth at the hole.
The first loud clunk of axe versus stone sent a wave of nausea through Betty’s body. This was followed by a series of thuds as the wall over the stairwell began to vibrate. Bits of mortar began to fall free, and soon entire bricks were falling out.
“He’s chopping his way through,” she shouted.
“That exorcism,” Pork insisted.
Betty had completely forgotten about the wadded-up paper in her pocket until just now. Digging it out, she unfolded it and held it up to the lantern’s light. “Where is the cross?”
“Here,” Pork fumbled for makeshift holy symbol he’d jabbed into his belt loop.
“Hurry, hold it up toward him while I read the incantation.” She had seen the cross used in horror movies and hoped it worked in a real paranormal situation. She needed all the help she could get.
Quickly, she began to read the gibberish on the page, hoping she was pronouncing it all correctly.
The wall continued to disintegrate under the blows of the otherworldly axe. Bricks were breaking into pieces and flying across the room, scattering dust particles through the air.
She finished reading the chant and looked up to see Franklin Pence peering through the large hole.
“It’s not working,” she shouted.
“Read it again,” Pork urged her.
She obliged, spouting off the words like crazy.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him slip through the opening. She stopped reading out of fear alone.
Standing in the shadows against the far wall was the shadow of a person—the axe man.
He stood there in the dark staring at her, breathing heavily.
Turning one hand, the ghost limply brandished something.
Betty instantly saw the glimmer of the axe.
“Forget it,” she shouted. “Run.”
Dumping the cross on the floor, Pork ran after his daughter as they headed for the back door. Stopping for only a second to try the knob, they quickly learned that it too was sealed.
“Down, go down.”
They darted for the dark stairway into the basement and made their descent, slamming the doorway behind themselves. Pounding down the steps, they came to stand on the concrete floor, and Pork lifted the lantern.
Again, Betty let out an involuntary scream. The bloodied ghost of the woman was crawling out of the hole on her hands and knees.
“They’re down here, Franklin,” the woman croaked, her eyes rolling around sickeningly in her head. “I’ve brought them to you, just as you asked.”
The doorway above them burst open, almost coming completely off its hinges as it slammed against the wall. Franklin was on the stairs, axe in hand.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
“This is it,” Betty groaned, watching the two morbid looking ghosts coming for them. “We’re dead.” Had it been worth it? Them stupidly trying to exorcise ghosts when they had no idea how to?
“There has to be a way out of this,” Pork responded. “There is always another way.”
“No, no way,” Betty screamed. “I’m out of ideas.”
Turning around, she grabbed onto her dad for strength, clutching his arm.
That’s when she spotted it in the dim lantern light cast along the wall—the guitar she’d seen earlier that day. Suddenly, she had an idea.
“I need to get to that guitar, Pop.”
“Now is not the time for music,” he shouted, looking back and forth for anything he could defend himself with.
“The incantation,” she exclaimed, showing the crumpled paper in her hand. “It has a rhythm to it like a song.”
Pork’s eyes widened with recognition. “I’ll hold them off if I can,” he told her, leaning down and picking up a nearby chair to use as a shield. “You get the guitar.”
Nodding, she let go of him and made a run for it.
Reaching the corner, she swept up the old guitar with one smooth motion, laying the old leather strap over her shoulder.
Turning to face the spectral force, she watched the two spirits converge upon her father. Franklin raised his axe, a wild and uncanny look in his glowing red eyes, and brought it down with a sickening thunk.
“No!” Betty shouted, reaching out as if she could grasp her father.
“I’m fine, Betts,” he replied. “Sing that darn song.”
She quickly realized the axe had only hit the chair, saving her father. He wouldn’t get another lucky shot like that.
Quickly, she unraveled the paper and laid it flat on a chair in front of her. Gripping the guitar like she always did, she began. Playing a series of power chords that came naturally to her, she bobbed her head to the beat she was making.
The bleeding ghost grabbed a hold of her father by the legs, sending him toppling to the floor with a grunt. Franklin raised his axe high above his head and prepared to bury the blade deep in Pork’s chest.
Glancing at the strange, rhythmic words, Betty desperately began to sing, making up a tune as she went along.
To her surprise, Franklin stopped mid swing, groaning as if he just had some sort of pain shoot through his body. Similarly, the bloody ghost tensed up.
“Keep going,” her father shouted. “It’s working.”
Her voice began to raise with passion, singing out her heart, singing from the very deepest part of her soul, to save her father.
The ghosts both began to scream and groan in pain, their bodies giving off a strange reddish smoke as if they were burning. Parts of their bodies began to disappear as if they were disintegrating into thin air.
Soon, Betty heard another voice join in with hers. It sounded like Foxy. She didn’t know the words but had picked up on the tune.
The woman’s voices rose together, reaching a fever pitch of occult metal music. Finally, as the song reached its end, both ghouls let a final harrowing scream escape their red translucent bodies. In an explosion of bright red light, both of them were gone, leaving little else but a few wisps of red smoke behind.
CHAPTER 18
* * *
“You okay, Pops?” Betty asked her father while she helped him off the ground.
“I’m going to be sore for a few days,” he admitted. “But this time, I won’t mind staying in bed.”
“That’s good,” she replied, patting him on the back as he stood up. The lights in the room had come back on of their own accord, making everything that had just happened seem unreal.
A grunt from nearby drew their attention. Foxy appeared at the opening in the wall, her face caked with dirt and her hair matted to her forehead.
“Foxy,” Betty exclaimed, running over and helping her out of the hole. “Thank heaven you’re okay.”
“I thought I was dead,” she admitted.
Betty let out a quiet laugh, “I thought so, too, but I’m glad we were both wrong.”
“So, are they gone?” she asked, looking around the room with a dazed expression.
Pork nodded, limping forward. “They’re gone, hopefully forever.”
“Well, in that case, I could use a shower,” Foxy admitted, looking down at her messy clothes with a quiet laugh.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Betty smiled, “Let’s get out of here.”
Walking across the room, Foxy paused at the stairs. “By the way, you guys wouldn’t believe what’s down at the end of that hole.”
* * *
The strange sub-basement at the end of the dirt tunnel was filled with all manner of junk. Watches, garters, perfume bottles, combs, mirrors, and tons of other items that turned out to be antiques. Betty’s only guess was that these had been some sort of morbid souvenirs that Franklin had kept from each victim he murdered.
By the sheer amount of it all, she couldn’t help but wonder how long he had been at it—wandering the countryside and
finding innocent women to kill.
She was still trying to figure out Annabelle’s involvement in the whole thing and why she had purposefully tried to help her captor murder them.
The only morbid guess she had was that, when Franklin had killed Annabelle’s sister, he had taken her as a souvenir and walled her inside the sub-basement with his collection. Maybe, in death, he had promised her freedom from this prison if she could bring him more victims.
The Pentagram Sisters had become his latest target.
Annabelle’s skeleton, which was found among the items, was given to the local police. They cleaned out the rest of sub-basement and sold many of the antiques for a small fortune, enough to really do up the Old Bar nicely.
* * *
“You guys ready for your first real gig?” Pork exclaimed, rubbing his hands together while the girls set up for their performance.
It was opening night at the bar, and the place looked amazing. It had been decorated with a theme of ghosts and skulls in blacks and reds. They also had framed posters of some of their favorite heavy metal artwork from the eighties on the walls.
“We are more than ready,” Muddy nodded, making sure her bass guitar was properly wired to the amp. “We’ve been waiting for this night for much too long.”
“Hopefully everyone enjoys our new song,” Foxy smirked, eyeing Betty. “Especially since we wrote it right here in the bar.”
“I’m just sad I missed the whole thing,” Muddy admitted.
“No, you’re not,” the other two band members responded in unison. They all laughed at the sounds of their voices together.
“Anyway,” Betty shrugged, a big smile on her face. “It isn’t a big deal if we make it big, as long as we’re passionate about what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Muddy teased. “You love music.”
“Hey,” she shot back, “playing music is what saved our butts down there. Don’t ask me why it worked, but it worked.”
THE BIKER AND THE BOOGEYMAN (The Cracked Mirror Series Book 1) Page 7