Husk

by Hults, Matt

  “Complete a job for me,” it replied. “The four of you go into the cemetery and unearth the center grave. There are shovels waiting and most of the work has already been done. Dig up the coffin and bring me the body of Kale Kane, if you want Mallory to live.”

  Tim’s skin prickled with unease. Kale Kane. The serial killer? He’s here!

  “Time is short,” the creature warned. “Bring me Kane now, or your friend dies.”

  “All right,” Tim shouted.

  He and the others piled out of the car and faced the waiting graveyard. Its eternal markers stared back. The night air had taken on an unseasonable chill, but remained thick with moisture and the threat of the churning storm above.

  Tim moved away from the vehicle last, taking tentative steps toward where Mallory’s friends had gathered. They looked to him with imploring glances.

  “What do we do now?” Adam whispered. His gaze kept darting to the wilderness.

  “We do like it said,” Tim answered.

  “But we could run,” Lisa said. “It couldn’t follow us out here, not through the trees.”

  “No way,” Tim warned. “Now, come on, before it does something to hurt Mallory.”

  They looked to the car, to the blazing headlights that seemed to watch them, then followed Tim through the gate. They let him lead the way amid the monuments, wading through the waist-high weeds to the grave they’d been instructed to unearth.

  Piles of dirt rimmed the open pit.

  Two shovels awaited use at each side.

  “Oh, my God,” Becky screeched.

  Hordes of glossy black crickets crawled across the tombstone and around its base, scuttling over and under one another, some spilling into the grave itself.

  The two girls huddled close to each other and kept their distance. Tim didn’t blame them. Though harmless, the insects’ exaggerated number proved daunting.

  He took up one of the shovels and cleared away a majority of the bugs, heaving them into the weeds. Once finished, he knelt and started into the hole, indicating for Adam to join him.

  “Let’s get to work,” he whispered. “Maybe it’ll let its guard down if it thinks we’re doing what it wants.”

  “Hell with that,” Adam said. “We have a chance, right now, just like Lisa said. If we can get into the forest, it won’t be able to catch us. We’re halfway there now.”

  Tim shook his head. “Trust me, it can and it will.” He dropped into the open excavation and looked up at them. “Besides, I think I have an idea how we can all get to safety, but first we need to get Mallory out of that car. If we bring it the coffin, we might have a shot at freeing her, but I’ll need your help to do it.”

  “You’re nuts,” the boy replied.

  “It’s for Mallory’s life,” Tim replied. “What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you understand—we leave, and that thing will kill her. You guys are her friends, you can’t abandon her.”

  “He’s right,” Becky said. The fear in her face seemed to have dwindled. Disentangling herself from Lisa, she stooped and picked up the shovel. “I’m with Tim. We have to help Mallory. She’s the one still stuck with that monster, not us.”

  Together, Tim and Becky began clearing the remaining soil from the killer’s coffin while Adam and Lisa fidgeted several paces away, not watching.

  CHAPTER 51

  Paul knelt on the interior roof of the overturned Expedition, immobilizing Rebecca’s head with his hands while Melissa examined her injuries. Once the detective established she wasn’t in shock and it would be all right to move her, they eased her out of the seat.

  “Got her shoulders?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, she’s going to be fine, just hold her steady.”

  They freed her from the wreckage and gingerly laid her in the short grass bordering the roadside. Not far away, the driver of the runaway semi paced back and forth, crushing a baseball cap in his shifting hands.

  “Ah, crap, you don’t know how sorry I am,” he stammered. “Shit. I mean, I don’t know what happened. I tried to stop, I did, but the damn steering went out and the brakes wouldn’t work. L-look, I’m fully insured.”

  Frank came around the Ford’s front end and handed Paul a folded blanket to use as a pillow. “Here, a couple of good Samaritans pitched in some supplies.”

  Paul accepted the blanket and positioned it under Rebecca’s head, smoothing several strands of glossy auburn hair from her forehead.

  “How’s the patrolman?” Melissa asked Frank.

  “Alive,” he replied. “Which is damn lucky, considering how mangled his cruiser is. The brunt of the damage hit on the passenger side, but the guy’s in rough shape. One of the motorists who stopped is a surgeon, so I left him in her care while I came to check on you.” He gestured to Rebecca. “Is she okay?”

  Melissa nodded. “Her pupils are responsive and she’s come halfway around once already. She should wake up any second. She probably just fainted but I still want her checked out once the ambulance gets here.”

  Glowing eyes of lightning burned overhead.

  “What about our kids?” Paul asked, voicing the question he knew would have a heart-wrenching answer. “Whoever took them got away, didn’t he? How are we going to find them again?”

  Melissa looked at him, then glanced at Frank.

  “You don’t have anything to worry about,” Frank replied. “I’ve got a CB in my truck, and we radioed for police backup the second we left the barn. With this accident, there’ll be cops all over the area in a matter of minutes. We’ll find that Mercedes, Mr. Wiess.”

  Paul liked the sound of the man’s reassurance, but he couldn’t help noticing Detective Humble’s dubious expression.

  “There’s a first-aid kit in my Chevy,” Frank added. “If you want to come along while I get it, we can check the reports and see if the car’s been spotted.”

  Melissa opened her mouth.

  “Detective Humble will watch over your lady friend here. We’ll only be a second.”

  Paul nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  The two of them left the roadside and hurried to the grassy channel that separated the opposing lanes of traffic. Frank’s Blazer sat near its center, the vehicle’s right rear tire all but lost within the demolished wheel well.

  Frank opened the lift gate and pulled out a shotgun.

  Paul froze. “What are you doing?”

  “I know where your daughter’s being taken,” Frank said. “And if you want to see her again, we have to move fast.”

  Paul looked to the gun, to Frank’s face, then back to the gun. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

  Frank dragged a large duffle bag out of the cargo space and offered it to Paul. “I’ll explain on the way. Now take this and let’s get moving.”

  Still stunned, Paul couldn’t answer. He accepted the bag and nearly dropped it to the ground before catching it with his other hand. Metallic items clinked inside. “What the hell do you have in here? It weighs a ton.”

  Frank eyed him. “Consider it a modern-day exorcism kit.”

  Paul gaped. “What does that have to do with—”

  “I’m talking about your daughter’s life,” Frank cut in. “Now, are you with me?”

  “All right,” Paul agreed. “But how will we catch up with them? Neither of us has a working vehicle.”

  “Then, we’ll just have to borrow one,” Frank replied.

  Leaving the Blazer, they jogged to the far side of the semi truck, where traffic had come to a standstill.

  They approached the nearest automobile, a battered red station wagon with no muffler. “Police emergency,” Frank shouted “We need your car.”

  Engrossed with eyeballing the smashed-up truck, the wagon’s single occupant didn’t respond to their presence until Frank jerked open his door and hauled the man out by one arm. The driver began to protest, but when he caught sight of Frank’s shotgun, he fell mute and fled.

  Frank took over the driver�
�s seat.

  Paul jumped in the passenger side, laying the bulky duffle across his thighs.

  Frank gunned the engine and pulled off into the grass, rounding the semi. Past the big rig, the station wagon’s noisy motor must have alerted Detective Humble. She poked her head up over Paul’s Expedition just in time to watch them race past.

  “Frank,” she hollered after them. “What the hell are you doing?”

  CHAPTER 52

  With each shovelful of earth bringing them closer to the corpse, a stronger emanation of death arose from the dank ground. The odor wafted into Tim’s nostrils, forcing him to pause every few shovel loads to straighten up and draw a breath of fresh air. Even the stiff breeze did little to disperse the stench.

  “I think I’m gonna barf,” Becky said between breaths.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Tim agreed. “It can’t be much farther now. Just try to hang in there, okay?”

  She formed a weak smile in return and hefted another load of dark soil out of the pit. They both dripped with sweat, marred from head to toe with gritty black filth. Every now and then loose dirt spilled back into the grave and clung to their dampened arms and faces, smearing across their skin whenever they moved to wipe it away.

  The bugs presented another annoyance. They hung in the air like a cloud. Mosquitoes hunting in the tall weeds had descended upon them in undefeatable numbers, continuously assaulting them from every angle and raising itchy welts across their flesh. Tim tried not to think of how many had become stuck in the blood coating his calves.

  Despite the foul stink and regardless of their aching muscles or the torrent of insects, the two kept going, digging deeper and deeper, determined to appease the creature in hopes of freeing Mallory.

  “God, I’m scared,” Becky whispered under her breath.

  “You’re doing better than the others,” Tim encouraged her. “I know this isn’t easy, but right now, we’re Mallory’s only hope.”

  “You must really like her,” Becky replied between shovel loads. “I mean, to go through all this for someone you haven’t known for very long.”

  Tim glanced up. Even under the extraordinary circumstances a blush warmed his cheeks.

  “You say I’m the good friend,” Becky continued, “but you’re the one who reminded me what was at stake here. If not for you, I might have j-just run away. W-what kind of f-friend is that?”

  He could see she teetered on the verge of tears. He stopped to correct her, to tell her that her fears and the urge to flee were all justifiable. But before he could start the girl made another jab at the ground with her shovel and its blade struck something hard that lay less than six inches beneath the dirt. The impact vibrated through his shoes.

  The two regarded each other with sober eyes.

  Tim made several additional strikes with his own shovel, each hit producing an identical hollow-sounding thump.

  They cleared the last of the dirt in less than two minutes, outlining a rectangular, flat-surfaced coffin.

  “There it is,” Tim mumbled to himself, studying the box’s dimensions.

  He had expected to uncover a modern casket made of steel or hard wood, one with a glossy outer finish, copper trim, brass handles, and a curved top. He also operated on the assumption that the coffin might be sealed inside a plastic or concrete grave liner, something he’d learned about after his grandmother’s funeral of several years ago. What they’d found proved to be far less exquisite. Whoever conducted the burial did so at a minimal expense, having utilized a simple particle board container just large enough to hold a body, with no grave liner at all. Realizing its flimsy construction, Tim stepped to the coffin’s edge, indicating for Becky to do the same, afraid their weight might be too much for the cover to hold.

  “How are we going to lift it?” Becky asked, wiping her eyes.

  He took their two shovels and tossed them out of the grave. “There are steel eyebolts screwed into each corner,” he said, pointing. “They probably lowered it down here using two ropes, one fed through each end. Maybe we could lift just one end at a time if we had something to use as a line. Do you have a belt on?”

  “No, but Adam does,” she replied. “He wears the dumb thing with everything he puts on.”

  “Adam, we need your belt,” Tim ordered.

  “My what?”

  Adam and Lisa lingered several yards away, their attention shifting between Tim and Becky in the open grave to the quiescent car in the parking lot.

  “We need your belt to lift this thing,” Becky told him. “Now, hand it over and start helping, or you and me are through.”

  The boy studied her expression for a moment, then began unbuckling the leather braided belt. “All right,” he replied, handing it over.

  Tim took it and squatted down over the casket’s lower end, furthest from the headstone, over the dead man’s feet. He squeezed the belt’s end through one of the dirt-caked eyebolts, then threaded it back through its own buckle to form a closed loop.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He helped Becky out of the grave, then climbed out himself. “We’re going to need everyone’s help for this.”

  The sky above them launched tortuous spears of light toward the ground. Several shots vanished just beyond the tree line, brightening the entire region. Everyone flinched with the immediate explosion of sound that followed.

  “Shit,” Adam screeched. “That was close.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tim responded. “Now, everyone get over here and pull.”

  Adam and Lisa shifted nervously but finally joined Tim and Becky at the grave’s brim. They took hold of the belt and began hauling up the casket. After three good tugs, the box broke loose of the earth compacted around its perimeter and lifted several inches upward.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  The coffin tilted to the tethered side and raised farther, a foot off the ground, two feet.

  When the container’s opposite end had come away from the grave’s far wall, Tim went to the headstone. From that end of the hole, he lowered himself back into the grave, landing where the coffin’s head had rested. There, looking down at the sloping casket, Tim saw its surface highlighted by another flash of bright lightning. For a split second he imagined he could see straight through the coffin’s lid, the lightshow allowing him a glimpse of the corpse inside, eyes open, looking back at him.

  He banished the thought and dug his fingertips under the casket’s edge before it could return, lifting while the others pulled.

  Inside the slanted coffin, the body of Kale Kane shifted with each tug.

  CHAPTER 53

  Frank sped north on County Road 19, summarizing for Paul what had taken his daughter and what the monster intended to do with her.

  “A sacrifice?” Paul blurted.

  Frank nodded, shouting his reply over the vehicle’s blaring engine. “This thing is going to kill your daughter and harness her life energy—her considerably abundant life energy—to permanently bond itself with Kale Kane.”

  “After bringing him back from the dead? You can’t be—”

  “I am serious, Mr. Wiess,” Frank interrupted. “And everything I’ve said will be nothing compared to what will happen if we don’t save your daughter.”

  Paul shook his head, his eyes shimmering in the street lights. “But it doesn’t make sense. Mallory doesn’t hear voices or see visions or anything like that. She worries about what boys will think of her hair style, or how many friends she has on her Facebook page. She’s a normal teenage girl.”

  “Her power isn’t something you can see,” Frank replied. “She may never realize how gifted she is, but the entity knows it, and that’s all that matters right now.”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out an automatic pistol. “Have you ever used one of these before?”

  Paul gazed at the gun as if it were a poisonous snake. “No.”

  “There’s a double safety,” Frank said. He tapped a small button near the trigger an
d depressed it with a click. “The other you press with the thumb of your firing hand, got it?”

  Paul nodded.

  Frank passed the weapon over, and Paul accepted it with a hesitant hand.

  “Keep a firm grip,” Frank said. “It’s loaded and chambered. You’re ready to shoot.”

  “Fantastic,” Paul replied.

  “I know how much this is for you to have to accept on such short notice, but believe me, it’s all true. If we don’t stop this beast from getting possession of Kane’s body and killing your girl, we won’t just be up against one of these things but an entire legion of them.”

  “A legion of what… Demons?”

  “Spirits, demons, monsters—it doesn’t matter what you call them. It simply boils down to Good and Evil. The problem with humanity is that we divide ourselves on the definition of what is Good and end up killing each other over whose beliefs are right.”

  Ahead, Frank saw the Lexus that had rammed his Blazer sitting unattended on the roadside, along with an unoccupied squad car. Beyond them waited the turnoff to the cemetery.

  “On the other hand,” he added, “Evil remains constant.”

  * * *

  Melissa looked around, searching for what could be done next.

  In the last several minutes she had coordinated with other police and several civilians to gain control of the situation along Highway 55 and mold order out of the chaos.

  Two backup squad cars arrived seconds after Frank had left the scene, one responding from the prowler call at the Weiss residence, and another from the Damerow farm investigation. With the combined assistance, they attended to several problems at once and treated the situation.

  Dangerous debris had been cleared from the street.

  Flares were set up around Hale’s cruiser while his injuries were seen to.

  An ambulance was on its way.

  In addition, while the workers completed those tasks, Jimmy Gibbs backed his battered but operational eighteen-wheeler onto the roadway’s shoulder, allowing the backed-up traffic to pass.