Scarecrow (29 page)

But that had been the easy part, I reminded myself, and to my surprise I heard a sob in my throat. The worst was yet to come.

My legs felt like lead as I trudged through the snow to the barn. It was bitterly cold, and I blew on my hands, stumbling along like some mechanical thing. The barn was shapeless and unfamiliar without a light. With a sheer effort of will I forced myself inside, groping along the floor, the walls, to where I’d seen Seth store the lanterns…
But maybe that thing
—
whatever it is—is in here—here-waiting for me…
There were restless stirrings and rustles around me. I told myself it was only the animals and nothing more…
waiting to finish what it didn’t finish last night…

Something ran across my feet. I choked back a scream and thrashed into the wall, hitting my head, immobilized for a second as stars exploded behind my eyes, rocking the floor beneath me. I reached out and found the storage shelf, fumbled with the lamp, and as the match hissed into life, my frantic eyes raked through the barn, teased by shadows that leapt and danced up the walls.

I found the shovel in a corner by the door.

And the heavy work gloves where Seth had flung them down near the milk buckets.

They still smelled of him—his sweat and the clinging dampness of rich earth…

Blinking back tears I draped an old sack around the lantern so that the light was well hidden.

Then I let myself out into the night.

The snow had tapered off. Thankfully, I plunged ahead through the wintry haze, my arms trying to shield the lantern as I went. The world hung suspended between dark and dawn, an unnatural grayness that stopped the evolution of time. Wind whined around me, sliding the snow into crouching drifts, shifting the landscape around me even as I tried to find my way through it. I had the strangest feeling that if I turned to look behind me, the house wouldn’t be there anymore—that I’d come to, lying in a tangle of wreckage to find I’d dreamed this whole thing—this farmhouse and these people, this child with supernatural powers…this lover who had disappeared and left me achingly incomplete…
Something’s happened to him…I know it…

Clenching my teeth, I stumbled on. Everything looked different out here at night, in the snow. I paused near the treeline at the west side of the house, unsure of my direction. I had only come here in the safe light of day. Now I tried to peer into the woods, separate the shadows, the real from the unreal.

Something moved behind me.

I whirled before the sound had stopped, yet there was nothing. The world blurred at my back, indistinct images, all in black and white and dirty gray.

I whipped the cover off the lantern and stepped forward into the trees. A flame struggled feebly through the dirty glass of the chimney, casting a jaundiced glow at my feet. Like a fairy light, it led me on, sputtering against a backdrop of clotted boughs and shadows, shifting nervously ahead of me, disappearing without warning into a thready bank of cold mist—only to beckon me again a few yards further on. I clutched the lamp so tightly that my arm began to ache, yet I didn’t dare slow down, even to shift the weight. I couldn’t stop at all, I was too afraid.

Something’s happened to him.
The shovel felt ten times heavier than it had in the barn. I stumbled over a snow-covered tree root and nearly lost my balance, striking out with lamp and shovel at the thousand unseen terrors waiting to grab me. Feeling foolish, I plunged recklessly ahead, mindless of the branches that snagged my hair, tore at my fingers, my frozen cheeks. I knew I was bleeding, but I’d begun to lose all feeling long ago.
Was this the right path?
Perhaps I’d gotten all turned around somewhere…miscalculated and missed the path completely…I was mad to have come here in the first place…mad even to have thought of it. The clearing burst upon me without warning—a vale of dreary, half-washed light, littered with the lopsided relics of grief and silent respect.

I held the lantern high and stood still, gazing around me at the little cemetery.

Generations of Whittakers slept peacefully beneath the snow. And the nightmares that could not touch them now, waited silently in the shadows, watching.

I moved forward, my labored breathing burning a trail through my lungs. There was Micah’s grave—there, on the end, overhung by snow-frosted canopies of low-bowed trees. Gritting my teeth, I aimed my shovel at it, a sudden thought stopping my downward thrust. Suppose the ground had frozen! How stupid not to have thought of it. Yet as I gave an inward groan, my momentum struck the first blow, and the shovel sank into soft, mushy earth.
I can’t believe I’m doing this…my God, I really must be crazy…

There was a soft sucking sound as the mud oozed apart, then closed over the blade of the shovel. Squaring my shoulders, I began to tug, feeling the resistance, the steady downward pull as it tried to draw me in. I had a wild notion of the grave refusing to give up its own—how it would pull at me…trap me there with its other victim…

Crying out from the exertion, I felt the ground suddenly give, reeling me backward with a shovelful of heavy, wet earth. I flung it aside and struck again, this time pulling free almost at once. I tossed that away and plunged in again, each thud echoing like cannon in my head. Again I heard the soft sound of dirt being flung on Micah’s coffin…so final.
He’s got to be here…if he wasn’t here the grave would be open.

Panting now, I wiped a dirty hand across my brow, my breath like sobs in my throat. I didn’t know how long I’d been at it, but I hurt all over, sweat streaming from my body despite the cold. The pile of earth behind me was growing, the mound at my feet had opened, widened, become a yawning pit of black, slimy secrets.
I’ll have to take the lid off…look inside…
A vision of Micah’s face swam before me, blond hair and compassionate blue eyes, that angelic smile and the shy tilt of his head. But what would he look like now—without embalming—only a simple wooden box between him and the elements.

My shovel hit wood.

Stunned, I lowered the handle, gazing into the open grave. I hadn’t remembered climbing down, yet I was deep in the mud, the lantern a sickly glow somewhere off to the side of me. For one fleeting instant I really believed I’d gone crazy—totally and completely mad—and as the memory of Franny’s face came out of the dark to haunt me, I dropped the shovel and covered my face with my hands, shaking uncontrollably.

I had to know. For Franny’s sake—and Girlie’s—for my own,
I had to know…

Something moved behind me.

With a stifled scream, I whirled to face the darkness. Shadows clustered around the edges of the clearing, ringing it with secrets; the wind moved through bare branches and cried.

I thought I heard a rustle.

A shuffling sound.

Something moving, off balance, scattering snow.

I picked up the shovel, holding it like a weapon…ready to swing.

A fine spray of wet flakes flittered over the top of the grave, an icy wind stirring my hair…the flame of the lantern…

Minutes crawled by.

My arms ached from the weight of the shovel, my breath rasping, the sound of a cornered animal. My throat was raw.

Slowly…finally…I lowered the shovel, sheer relief making my muscles watery. I strained my ears but heard nothing. Only my heart hammering sickeningly in my throat, echoing dully in my brain.

I plunged the shovel in one more time. Three times. Seven. My arms felt like burning rubber. Sweat stung my eyes and I blinked hard, trying to clear them.

I could see the coffin now, outlined thickly with mud.

I took the shovel and began to scrape.

Around me the trees gave an audible shudder—I heard it rather than saw it—a long low moan as branches trembled and tightened together, alerted by some unseen terror.

I lifted my head, eyes scanning the night through a haze of exhaustion and panic.

Wearily I dropped to my knees and put my hands on the coffin lid.

It wouldn’t budge. The neat border of nails held it fast.

My head dropped onto my chest as I fought back tears.
Stupid!
Why hadn’t I thought to bring a hammer? My mind raced in a kind of fog. Slowly I pulled down the shovel, gauging it with narrowed eyes. Holding my breath, I tried to wedge the blade into the crack between the coffin and the lid.

It just fit.

I worked feverishly, a new surge of strength coursing through me which I never knew I possessed. The nails began to pull free…one by one. Relentlessly I pried them…with the shovel…with my hands. The wood felt slippery—to my dismay I saw my fingers were covered with blood. I felt no pain. Inching my fingers into the crack, I got a firm hold and began to lift.

At first nothing happened.

I hit the lid with upturned palms, felt the pressure of splinters sliding into the heels of my hands. I hit the wood—again—again—it echoed like a faraway heartbeat, a strangely remote sound though I knew it lay just beneath my fingers.

I heard the wind crying—a haunting, pathetic cry—and I realized it was me.

“Open! Damn you,
open
!” My fist crashed against the lid, and there was a splitting sound, a long low moan of shattered resistance. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, tears blinding me, sobs racking my body, as I gave one last desperate shove.

The scream filled the clearing, the woods, the whole black, black night—the scream of wood giving way…the scream that tore from my throat because I didn’t want to look—didn’t want to see—
didn’t want to know
—

And he was lying there—
lying there
—with lantern light oozing over him, showing the dark, spreading stain.
But Micah wasn’t bleeding
—and the hole in him, so deep, so wide, that I could see the entrails…and the small dark things squirming and swarming inside him.

The smell washed over me in a fetid wave, and I felt myself falling, pitching forward, into the stink and decay.

It can’t be! Dear God—

I clutched at the air and felt something grab me from behind, and as another scream tore from my throat, I stumbled and grabbed the shovel, whirling to face the new terror that awaited me.

It stood there, hands reaching, and as the shovel fell from my grasp, all the strength rushed out of my body, crumpling me to my knees.

“My God,” I mumbled, sobbing. “My God…”

The thing came slowly out of the shadows and looked down into the coffin.

“It’s Dewey,” Girlie said.

I
SEEMED TO BE
standing outside myself, hovering at a safe distance nearby. I saw myself move like a sleepwalker, looking around in dismay as if I couldn’t recall where I was or how I’d come to be there. The child behind me had eyes that saw clearly in the dark, and as a cold gust of wind toyed with the low flame of the lantern, I felt myself descending in a dizzying rush, coming to consciousness again with hands that groped aimlessly, seeking something to hold.

“Where’s Micah?” I heard myself say, but the child didn’t seem to hear, and the words came again, ripping from my throat with a ferocity that shocked me.
“Girlie, what did you do with Micah
?”

The round luminous eyes widened in helpless emotion—so quick I couldn’t read them—
pain? fear?
—and without warning, Girlie turned and fled back through the woods, swallowed up into the night.

“Girlie!” I screamed, and it wove through the trees, twisting itself back to me, taunting me with echoes of my fear.
Girlie…Girlie…

I turned back to the stinking corpse at my feet.

There was a patch of gray, lighter than the rest, beginning to form along the treeline, sleepy shadows beginning to slink away. I felt a brief moment of panic for what I still had to do. I held my breath, trying not to gag, then I took up my shovel once more and went to work.

No wonder he hadn’t come! No wonder he was later than he’d ever been before, and no one could understand why!
Except someone
had
understood, I realized grimly, someone had understood because that person had killed Dewey before he could take me away from here.

I sucked in my breath, my stomach churning dangerously. What had happened to him, to have put a hole that size in him? A shotgun? I knew there were guns on the farm, I’d seen Seth carrying them, both shotguns and rifles, but I had no idea what a gunshot wound looked like in real life. On TV a shotgun could blow a hole in someone the size of a cannonball…
but would a little girl know how to use a shotgun?

Realizing what I had just considered, I paused for breath, shocked at the workings of my mind. I had been here too long, I was beginning to think crazy like all of them, consider crazy impossibilities as if they happened every day. Of course Girlie couldn’t have done this, she was only a child…
but just last night you really wanted to believe she had powers…you came here tonight to see if she’d raised Micah from the dead…

Oh, God, I truly am losing my mind.
Yes, I had come here to prove something, but not that Girlie
had
brought Micah back. I had come to prove that she
hadn’t.
That she
couldn’t.
So what could I conclude about her now?

I stabbed my shovel, scooping furiously, flinging dirt into the hole with a new and surprising strength. Girlie had said that Micah couldn’t sleep, and I had wanted to believe—
so badly
—that she had only been referring to his tortured mind. But then the noises had come…noises that
three
of us had heard. And something had followed me into the barn that night…had tried my bedroom door…had gotten to Franny.
What had she felt in those last horrible seconds of sanity…looking up at a walking cadaver…realizing her request had been granted…
I shook my head fiercely, clearing away the unwanted images. For the hundredth time I told myself it couldn’t happen. For the hundredth time I told myself it was impossible.

Then what had happened to Micah?

I froze as a new thought struck me.
Could I have opened the wrong grave?
Could someone have found Dewey’s body and buried it here and I’d dug up the wrong spot? I whirled around, straining my eyes in the paling light. There were other mounds, all covered with white, all identical in the dark and in the snow. I’d been so sure that Micah’s grave was this one, but could I have been mistaken? What if it was the one
next
to this one? Or that one over there? The earth on this grave had been freshly turned, but suppose there was another grave I’d missed, with earth just as freshly dug.