Born on the 4th of July

by Heather Graham Pozzessere

  He knew one thing. They had to keep moving. It was a long and elaborate tunnel system, but somewhere in it, they had to find his mother.

  Quickly.

  Because Charlie Dearborn had disappeared.

  So had Merissa Hatfield.

  And they were certainly going after their victims, ready to spirit them away, and if they weren’t all stopped soon . . .

  They might disappear into a darker void forever.

  Chapter 5

  Angela lay perfectly still, her mind racing.

  Merissa Hatfield and her accomplice had obviously worked this all out.

  A cemetery!

  And in the days of Covid19, while a cemetery didn’t tend to be crowded, it was also a time when people were staying home, when they were busy trying to survive, they didn’t worry as much about bringing flowers to a cemetery or remembering their departed loved ones. Even funerals were sparsely attended.

  Of course, those managing the cemetery would know when a burial was going to take place.

  They’d also watched, she was certain. They had known Annie Green would come to honor her father; they’d even known her husband left her there for her private time before joining her.

  As to her, well . . .

  She’d walked right into their office. And while she hadn’t presented them with her credentials, she had presented them with a challenge.

  Taking her had made sense in two ways.

  She was expecting a child.

  And since she claimed she had a witness, she was a danger to them.

  But they had to know by now that law enforcement was crawling all over the cemetery.

  That would mean they’d need to move quickly.

  Footsteps, hurried, came closer, closer, closer . . . and stopped.

  She knew it was Merissa Hatfield.

  She dared to open her eyes; they were shielded by the remnants of the shroud.

  Merissa Hatfield had her phone out; she was staring at it and then pounding at it. She let out a sound of furious aggravation.

  Apparently, some cell phones didn’t work in these tunnels.

  “Where are you, you ass,” Merissa murmured. “We’ve got to get out of here, we’ve got to get them to the farmhouse and abandon ship! Where are you, where are you, where are you? I can’t drag two pregnant cows through the tunnels alone!”

  Cow?

  Two pregnant cows?

  That’s what the women they probably killed after birth were to them; farm animals, breeders, nothing more, while the infants were precious cargo, sold to the highest bidders.

  She tried to judge Merissa Hatfield’s position and the woman herself. She had only come after Angela when the man had already accosted her. Angela had been held—and that was the only way she had gotten the knock-out rag over her nose and face.

  She wasn’t tough, and she wasn’t trained.

  Well, she wasn’t pregnant, either.

  But she was only tough when she was in control, when her victims were in a state in which they couldn’t fight back.

  That was the deciding factor.

  Once again, she begged silent forgiveness from Papa Jim.

  She curled her fingers tightly around the femur.

  She heard Jennie’s ghost whisper out in worry.

  “She doesn’t see you; she doesn’t see you! Lay low. We can get more help!”

  “Stupid cell phone!”

  Merissa Hatfield threw her cell phone down and then seemed to think better of it. “All right, I don’t know where the hell you are, but I can get one of those bitches to the farmhouse and cut the damn brat out of her and run. Screw you, Charles! I’m on my way out of here!”

  She was going to leave; she’d find Annie Green.

  Cut the damned brat out of her and run!

  Angela no longer had a choice.

  She threw her legs over the side; she meant to spring up.

  She was almost at her full nine months of pregnancy—springing was not really an apt description for anything she could do.

  But she was up.

  Merissa Hatfield swirled around. For a split second, she stared at Angela, her mouth gaping in horror.

  Angela could only imagination what she looked like, draped in the torn and decaying remnants of Papa Jim’s shroud.

  But then Merissa let out a scream of rage and hurtled herself toward Angela.

  Angela lifted Papa Jim’s femur, and swung with all her might.

  *

  There had to be a spring, a mechanism.

  And Jackson reminded himself, whatever it was, it was something that had been created circa the Civil War.

  He tried again to move the altar; it wouldn’t budge.

  Then he thought the mechanism didn’t have to be by the altar or under the altar. If it was a lever, it could work from connections that had been set just about anywhere.

  He stopped, frustrated, and looked around again.

  Each of the square niches in the wall for coffins were sealed in and had an iron basket at one end for flowers.

  He started at the front on the left side and twisted, turned, and inspected them, one by one.

  His frustration grew again.

  Then . . .

  Midway through the right side, he twisted one of the little iron buckets.

  And it kept going.

  The altar shifted backward and a hole was revealed.

  He rushed to it and Cameron followed. They saw steps led downward into darkness.

  “Corby, yes!”

  His son had been right. Tunnels stretched below. And whoever had taken Annie Green had come through this mausoleum and taken her down . . .

  Angela had disappeared from the office.

  So, there were other entrances. The tunnel system had to be vast and huge and lead to . . .

  He started down the ladder and then hesitated, thinking that the earth-packed tunnels might not offer cell service.

  He tried Corby’s phone and then Adam’s. No answer.

  He tried Jon Dickson. No answer.

  He called headquarters.

  And that was needed. Within minutes, the cemetery and surrounding areas would be flooded with police.

  He headed quickly down the steps . . .

  And into what appeared to be a dark abyss.

  *

  The tunnels were gruesome.

  Corby couldn’t think of any other way to describe them.

  He had done his reading so he knew they had been dug out slowly and painstakingly by a group of people who had done the work at night, by darkness, determined on their belief that slavery was wrong. There had been a few underground vaults from the early days, and the tunnel workers had built on that.

  But when the war had ended and the world was in conflux and people were free, they still weren’t seen as equal. And so those who were friends, close or even relatives, wound up being buried deep in the ground in the “white” cemetery.

  Others were buried here as well. People of all colors. Corby had found sketches of the services that had been performed in the tunnels that had become catacombs.

  He knew all this; he applauded the silent heroes of the past, and he would have loved to have known the good priest and the Rosser family member who had so secretly brought it all about.

  But now . . .

  It was creepy.

  He wished he knew more about the silence. Some of the bodies were down to their shrouds and their bones. Some had actually been buried in poor coffins, decaying like all else now. Sometimes, the dead had been partially mummified. There were thin shrouds stretched over faces with sightless eyes and macabre, open mouths.

  He felt something on his shoulder and nearly jumped a foot in the air.

  It was Josh’s soft touch.

  “Sorry!” Josh said quickly. “I just . . . well, it doesn’t matter, you know. We aren’t the bodies we have or the skin we wear. What makes us who we are is all that we keep in our hearts and our souls and our minds. I mean—” Josh pau
sed, making a face, “I sure don’t want to know what my body looks like now, and to this day, I don’t know why some of us stay and some just go, but . . . I know this. These souls have gone on. What we see here . . . is only discarded clothing. Don’t let it upset you!”

  Corby nodded and smiled. “I know why you’re here,” he told Josh. “Because you’re good and your dad and others needed you and . . . and I need you!”

  “Always wanted a little brother,” Josh assured him. “We’ve got to keep moving. Well, cell phones may be worthless down here, but the flashlights in them are pretty darned good!”

  They moved on, but as they did so, Corby nearly barged into Jon Dickson.

  Dickson knelt, and while the light they had wasn’t much, Corby could see that he was frowning. “Adam?” he said, lifting fragile, stained material. “This isn’t an old corpse.”

  “Oh, my God! One of the missing women,” Adam said.

  “No,” Jon said, his tone puzzled. “It’s a man. I’m not a medical examiner, but . . . dead several months? Looks like . . .” He hesitated, pulling the shroud away. “Single bullet to the chest; there’s a massive stain in the area. Strange decomp down here. I’d say this man had been in his late thirties or early forties . . . business suit, white shirt, both stained in the chest area.”

  “Shot and killed and dragged down here?” Adam asked.

  Corby didn’t look; he didn’t want to see the man who hadn’t been down in the tunnels long. It was bad enough to see the remains of those who had been brought down here out of love.

  Adam was knelt by Jon, inspecting the dead man. Corby felt Josh’s lighter-than-air touch again.

  “I’m all right,” Corby assured Josh. “This is what these guys do. It’s what my mom and dad do—to make things right, they have to see things that are ugly.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m going to be like them when I grow up; I’m going to do what I can to stop awful people.”

  “And you’ll know so much. You’ll be good at it,” Josh assured him.

  Both Jon and Adam were standing.

  “An accomplice who got in the way?” Jon murmured.

  “Or just someone who got in the way,” Adam suggested.

  “Well, we need to get going,” Jon murmured.

  “They’re not going to kill Angela or Annie Green until they get their babies,” Adam said, and then he winced. He should not have said that in front of Corby.

  Jon looked at the young boy. “Adam is right; they’re not going to kill Angela or Annie until they have the babies.”

  “Product!” Corby said, shaking his head with anger.

  “We’ll find them!” Jon assured him.

  They walked on. Corby began praying his mother knew these people had a gun—or guns. She would know. She would bide her time; she was so smart. And she was capable.

  She was . . .

  Taken. And she needed help. They had to save her.

  They had to.

  *

  Angela wielded Papa Jim’s femur with determination and purpose. She caught Merissa Hatfield squarely in the stomach, right beneath the ribs. The woman shrieked in shock and pain, doubling over.

  Angela took the opportunity to deliver a stunning blow to her head, causing her to fall to the ground, unconscious.

  The ghost of Jennie Wilder stared at her.

  “You wield a mean . . . bone,” she said. “You can—well, you’re tough. I was tough—honest. I had to be to survive, to make here, and then further north, but . . . you are tough.”

  Angela smiled at her.

  “And desperate!” she said softly.

  She took a moment to look at Jennie, smiled and shook her head. “You were tougher than me! I can’t even imagine what running was like, the way you had to run. I can’t imagine desperately crawling through these tunnels—wait, sorry! I mean, I can’t imagine praying you got where you needed to be lest you be caught. And I can’t begin to imagine what it was like, coming out of the Civil War, forging a brave new world.”

  Jennie smiled. “Well, the brave new world is forever being forged, right? But come on, we have to hurry. She’s down. He isn’t.”

  Angela paused to hunker down and check on Merissa Hatfield. Her pulse was steady; she was going to be all right.

  “You’re checking on the woman who wanted to kill you?” Jennie asked her.

  Angela grimaced. “I’m not a judge or jury—and we may need her. Other people must be involved in this. I don’t have any cuffs, but I don’t want her coming to and coming after us.”

  “A belt?” Jennie suggested. “The gentleman over there died in 1867. His name was Peter Martin. He was wearing a leather belt.”

  “Thank you,” Angela murmured.

  Peter Martin was draped in a decaying shroud as well. She winced inwardly as she lifted the shroud. The man had been entombed with a leather belt.

  “How did you know?” Angela asked Jennie.

  “He was my friend; I was here when we buried him.” She smiled weakly. “I promised him I’d be near him soon enough. Please, he would not mind; he was a good man.”

  “Thank you and . . . forgive me, Peter,” Angela said.

  She took the belt, disturbing the corpse as little as she could.

  And she made certain Merissa Hatfield wouldn’t be freeing herself and getting up to come after them.

  “Thank you,” Angela whispered to Jennie. “Now—”

  “This way. Quickest way out is through the Rosser tomb. You came through the office; and the other way, you reach the farmhouse. But if you want to get out and hopefully find the people who will be searching for you, this is our best way. And we need to hurry!”

  Jennie looked anxious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone is coming . . . coming back from the office. We have to turn down that fork in the tunnel, the one that leads back to the Rosser tomb.”

  Angela nodded, hurrying along with Jennie again, grateful for her ghostly guide.

  She had just reached the fork when Jennie cried out softly.

  “He’s here, he’s here—he’s just ahead. Get in, get in one of the niches . . . hurry, I’ve learned his footsteps, I . . .”

  Angela slid into one of the niches, wincing once more as she shoved the resting dead aside and grabbed at bits of shroud to cover herself.

  This one was so decayed that she could do little, but she inched as close as she could to the tunnel wall, sought again for a bone as a weapon, and lay still.

  She could hear the man muttering to himself.

  “Stupid bitch, stupid bitch . . . she left the office! We could have held them off, we could have given them the footage of the entrance and exits—that would have been nothing! Merissa, you idiot! Where the hell are you?”

  He suddenly stopped. “Where are our cows?” he muttered.

  A flashlight went zooming around. Angela held still.

  And then it settled on her.

  She had no choice. This time, she was wielding an arm bone.

  She was able to slam it in the man’s face, but not hard enough to knock him out.

  “Bitch!” he screamed.

  But he didn’t go down.

  Nor did he drop the Smith and Wesson pistol he was carrying—and aimed at her.

  “You want the kid to die, too?” he asked her.

  She’d lost; she’d fought so hard. She had her ghostly help, and even as she stared at the man who had kidnapped her, she heard Jennie softly sobbing.

  “Sir, you do know now, don’t you, this place will soon crawl with FBI and police officers?” she said evenly. “You might want to cut your losses.”

  “Well, guess what, bitch? As soon as I get you out of here and collect my other brood mare, these tunnels will explode. And we’ll be long gone,” he said. “Now, you can keep being a royal pain in the ass and I’ll just shoot you here and now and accept collateral damage. Or you can keep that baby alive. Your choice.”

  Angela shook
her head. “I don’t think you understand what you’ve done. I think you underestimate the love of husbands and fathers—and that some of those husbands and fathers have more power than you might be expecting.”

  He laughed. “You’re talking about that idiot tapping on coffins up in the Rosser mausoleum? Or the idiot kid who thinks he knows everything?”

  “Not an idiot. That kid is my son, and you’d be shocked at what he knows,” Angela said.

  He stepped forward, place the gun to her temple.

  “Dead now, kid dies, too. We walk, walk ahead of me.”

  There was no choice. Angela turned and started to walk.

  At first, she had no clue of what was happening.

  She heard Jennie cry, “Hallelujah!”

  She felt a rush of wind.

  Then she heard the man who had held the gun on her let out a startled grunt and then a shriek of pain.

  She turned around.

  Jackson was there with Cameron Adair. He had the man down on the ground, and he was holding him in place and reaching in his pocket for plastic cuffs.

  He looked at her anxiously. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded weakly. And as she did so, she saw Adam, Corby, Jon Dickson, and Josh were coming around the other bend. Jon had his Glock drawn, ready, in case they had met with any surprises.

  “Mom!” Corby cried her name in anguish and came rushing to her.

  She wrapped him in her arms and looked at the others. There wasn’t time to express her appreciation that their team was incredible.

  “I’m fine,” she said, “and we’re not far from Annie. We need to get back to her quickly. I think we must get her to a hospital as soon as possible. Oh, and Merissa Hatfield, this guy’s accomplice, is tied up with a belt near her.”

  Jon Dickson nodded and hurried on through, followed by the ghost of Cameron Adair—who paused long enough to acknowledge the ghost of Jennie Wilder. “Thank you! We haven’t met but I know you helped. Thank you.”

  Jennie couldn’t reply; he was gone, following after Jon Dickson. But she looked at Corby and Josh and Jackson and Adam, frowning.

  “You’re dead!” she said to Josh.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “They all see you—”

  “My dad sees just me. But Corby here sees you just fine, as does his dad—that’s Jackson. Corby’s dad, and the baby’s dad, too.”