Once they had shoved the heavy piece of furniture aside, a trap door appeared in the hard-packed dirt. Chelsea pried open the door. “Get down there.”
“What? There might be bugs and snakes and…” She cringed at what she might encounter in the hole in the ground.
“There’s nothing down there but dead people. Hurry before Zeke comes to check on us. You don’t want him coming down here.”
Kristie didn’t move.
“You want me to call him for help. I will.”
Chelsea could turn from sympathetic co-conspirator to spiteful prison warden in a matter of seconds. Kristie had witnessed her transformation many times. Never had the sudden change in Chelsea resulted in anything good.
Kristie glared at the woman, and when it appeared Chelsea was about to open her mouth, she complied, got on her stomach to slide down into the hole, and dropped to the ground. Barely had she managed to get to her feet and survey her surroundings before Sharona’s body fell through the hole on top of her.
She couldn’t help it. She screamed, trying desperately to shove the dead weight off her.
Chelsea tossed a shovel through the opening and the tool almost hit Kristie on her head. She glared at Chelsea through the opening above her. The woman’s long hair fell around her anxious face. For a moment, it seemed as if Chelsea was nothing more than a frightened little girl. She raised a finger to her teeth and began to chew on the nail.
A white light appeared behind Chelsea, glowing around her.
“Dig,” Chelsea shouted again and the light dissipated.
Kristie flinched and picked up the shovel. Before she drove the tool into the dirt at her feet, she fired her warning shots at Chelsea. “You could have helped us, but you didn’t. Don’t pretend any longer that you’re one of us. You’re not. You’re just like them.”
Chelsea’s face hardened, her jaw setting into a rigid line, her eyes narrowing into two slits. “I’ll never be like them.” She knelt and watched Kristie through the opening. “Start digging further back in the basement. There’s already someone buried where you’re standing.”
Kristie gasped and jumped back a couple of feet.
“Right there is good. You’d better get started.”
Kristie forced the shovel into the soil. In her weakened condition, it would take a long time to dig a hole deep enough to cover Sharona. She paused and stared up at Chelsea one more time before she went back to her chore. “Sharona is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. Until the day you die a miserable death. Yeah, even after you die, she’s going to haunt you. And if she doesn’t…I will.”
Shaw's Landing (Haunted Hearts Series Book 4) Page 27