Shallow Grave (6 page)

I moan.

Shannon's draped over my back, hugging me and pulling on me and sobbing, and I'm kneeling on the floor, hanging on to my head with my busted fingers screaming, talking nonsense to an invisible thing that's tearing my brain apart.

The poor girl's going to lose her mind.

I might beat her to it.

“Jessica. It's Jessica, right?” I say. “I know you're here. I hear you. What do you want? I'll listen. I WILL LISTEN! Okay? Just—stop.”

And just like that, everything stops. The pain, the whispering, everything.

It surprises me.

It's so quiet after all that noise.

I let out a ragged breath. Shannon sits back, but she keeps a hand on me. Slowly, I lower my hands.

My head feels fine. Clear and painless.

I sit up and flex my fingers, looking from one hand to the other. They feel fine too.

No blood.

No breaks.

No biggie.

I look at Shannon in wonder.

“Are you okay?” she says.

“I'm not sure if okay's the word,” I say. “But my fingers are fine.”

Shannon lets out a long breath.

I look at her. “That was scary.”

Shannon's wide eyes follow my gaze toward the door. She runs her hands through her hair. “That was Amityville scary.”

“Amityville?”

“Yeah. Didn't you ever watch
The
Amityville Horror
?”

“No. Do I want to?”

“Probably not, after today.”

We're quiet for a few seconds. “Act of god?” I ask.

She gives a weak laugh. “Well, I hope to hell that wasn't karma.”

She looks at me. She tries to smile, but her lower lip trembles. When she speaks, her voice is only a whisper. “Are we going to get out of here, Elliot?”

Chapter Thirteen

This is bad.

We're trapped in an old boathouse on a Friday night with a ghost that's as pissed as a bull whose balls have just been burned off.

But I think I've got it figured out.

“We are going to get out of here,” I tell Shannon.

I can tell she doesn't believe me.

“Right,” she says, gesturing toward the door. “Like we can just open the door and walk out.” She stands and walks to the door. Pushes on it. It won't budge.

“See?” she says. “So easy. Look! I'm outside already!”

She braces both arms against it and shoves.

“Shannon,” I say, my voice a warning.

She ignores me. Pounds on the door with her fist. Kicks at it. Slams her shoulder into it.

Nothing. Which is probably good, because this is usually around the time all the weird stuff starts to happen. This ghost doesn't want us to leave, and any movement we make in that direction seems to rile it up.

Shannon points at the hook, which is dangling down, clearly not locking us in. “You think we'll get out?” she asks. “How do you figure? You just saw for yourself how easy it is to leave, Elliot.” I can hear the tears in her voice. “We're trapped in here.”

“We are not trapped,” I say. Maybe it's a lie. But the words make me feel better.

Shannon leans her head against the door. I hear her sniff. “I don't want this to be happening,” she whispers.

“Well, we're in it now,” I say. “Not much we can do except to give this… Jessica…what she wants.”

“Which is?”

“To be heard. She seems to have something to say.”

Shannon snorts. “I'll say.”

“Why don't you spare me all the mystery, Shannon, and tell me who she is?”

After a moment, Shannon lifts her head. She turns and slides down the door until her butt's resting on the floor. She leans her elbows on her knees and sighs. “She was a senior,” she says. “Jessica Chapman. She was pretty. Beautiful. Ridiculous, really. Captain of the cheerleading team. She disappeared after a football game last spring. Just vanished. It made the news and everything. They had a manhunt going for days. They couldn't find any trace of her.” She shivers.

News to me. I don't read the paper or listen to the radio.

“I haven't heard anything about it,” I say. Even though I'm new to Wildwood, surely people are still talking about a missing person?

She shakes her head. “I haven't heard much, either, since school started up,” she says. “Maybe we talked it all out in June. And I guess life goes on. She was two grades ahead of me anyway.”

“What do they think happened?”

Shannon shrugs. “Some people said she ran away,” she says. “Too much pressure at home, too much pressure at school. She was the best at, like, everything. Good marks, lots of friends. She was expected to flatten everyone at the regional cheerleading championships, like she did the year before,” Shannon says. “But she never got the chance.”

“Why not?”

“She disappeared a week before the competition.” Shannon shrugs. “Maybe she just…took off. Maybe it was too hard to be such a perfect person.”

Hear that. I could've had a whole big conversation with Jessica about it.

“A lot of other people, though, they think her boyfriend killed her,” Shannon says.

“This Troy guy?”

She nods. “Troy Joliette, yeah. He didn't even go to grad because that's all anyone was talking about.”

“They have anything on him?”

“I didn't follow it all that closely,” Shannon admits. “He went away to college this fall. I think he's still a suspect though.”

“Why do people think he did it?”

She shakes her head. “I don't think anyone thinks there's any good reason, really. Troy and Jessica were totally in love.”

I wouldn't be so sure. I think about what my mom says. How you never know from the outside what people's relationships are like on the inside. It explains a lot about her and my dad, she told me. How everyone thought they had it all together until one day they just…didn't.

“Maybe they weren't as in love as everybody thought,” I say.

Shannon looks doubtful. “Maybe not. But even if they weren't that in love, I still can't see it,” she says. “Troy was a really nice guy.”

I think about how I felt about Shannon before I spent any time with her. The assumptions I made.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” I say.

She nods. “For sure, they can.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “This Troy. He was the captain of the football team.”

Shannon looks at me in shock. “How did you know?”

“Captain of the football team dating the captain of the cheerleading team?” I laugh. “It's the American Dream, baby.”

She raises her eyebrows at me. “Yeah, but in the American Dream, your boyfriend's not supposed to kill you.”

That's when the lightbulb above us shatters.

Chapter Fourteen

I duck and cover. Shannon shrieks.

What did we say that made the light explode? The American Dream thing? Or was it the thing about her boyfriend killing her?

Listen
.

I'm all ears, I think.

Now that there's just the one lantern going in here, it feels downright scary. What if it goes out?

I glance around for the other ones. Maybe I'll light them back up.

A noise from under a shelf makes my skin crawl. The Ouija board slides into view. It creeps toward us, scraping across the tiny grains of dirt strewn on the wooden floor.
Ssshhkiff.

My brain goes all swimmy for a few seconds.

Shannon makes a tiny noise deep in her throat. She pulls her legs in tight to her chest.

The board stops half a foot away from me.

And how is it that the chalk hasn't even started to fade?

“I think she wants to talk,” I say.

“I'm not so sure I want to talk,” Shannon says.

When the lid rolls toward me—on its edge, like a hula hoop that a small child might roll down a country lane, the most normal thing in the world—Shannon takes a shaky breath.

“I'm not so sure we have much choice,” I say.

We watch as the lid settles itself on the board.

HELLO.

Adrenaline shoots into my lower gut. I think about the last time I touched that thing. The burning.

Then I think about the door slamming on my fingers.

And the pain in my head.

Listen
.

We really have no choice.

I reach out and pull the board toward me, ignoring the fear that flares in my belly.

I put my fingers on the lid.

Let's get this show on the road.

I look at Shannon. She's biting her lip. Thinking.

Then she puts her hands on. We lock eyes across the board, a couple of soldiers about to jump into combat without knowing whether our chutes will open.

I'll do the talking this time.

The lone lantern flickers as I turn my attention to the board. “Are we speaking with Jessica?”

A shiver arcs up my spine as the lid moves. Without hesitation it slides to YES.

“How did you die, Jessica?”

My scalp tightens as the letters are spelled out.

R-O-P-E.

My eyes skip away from the board, toward the coils of ropes hanging from large hooks on the wall.

I look back at the board. “Were you strangled, Jessica?”

YES.

Shannon swallows and closes her eyes.

“Did you die here, Jessica? In this boathouse?” We've already asked her whether she's ever been in here, and she said no. But maybe she was wrong. Or lying. Because why else would she be here?

NO.

A ripple of relief floods me. Somehow it's better to imagine that she didn't actually die inside this place. But then, if not here…where?

“Where did you die?”

D-O-C-K.

The same dock that's just outside the door.

Shannon makes a thin noise.

“Where are you now, Jessica?” I ask. “Where is your body?”

No answer.

“Was she strangled and dumped?” Shannon asks. “What kind of boyfriend would do such a thing?”

“If she was dumped,” I say, “then her body must still be in the lake.”

“That's, like, all around us,” Shannon whispers. “She could be anywhere. She could be right under us, Elliot.” She peeks down between her knees, like she can see into the water below.

“Did Troy Joliette kill you?” I ask. Better get our facts straight.

The lid flies to NO so fast, my fingers almost slide off.

We exchange glances.

“Not Troy?” Shannon says.

Like a slapshot, the yearbook slides across the floor.

Shannon screams. I can't blame her. We should expect the unexpected by now, but I guess there's still room for surprises.

I jerk my leg away from where the book hits me. “Jesus.”

We watch as the pages begin to turn, riffling forward, then backward. When they finally settle, we're looking at a two-page photographic spread of the Wildwood Cheer Team.

I sit back and take my hands off the board.

Shannon's attention pivots back to me. “Don't take your hands off!”

I shoot her a look of exasperation. “Or what? Or I'll let the spirit out? Bit late for that.”

She stares at me. Then, with an irritated little huff, she takes her hands off too. We look at the yearbook.

“I don't like this,” I say.

She snorts. “Have you liked any of this?”

I'm already edgy. I don't want to be here any more than she does.

And I didn't even get us into this mess.

I look straight at her. “It was going okay until you had your dumb idea to make a Ouija board.”

She stares at me. “You're blaming me for this?”

I look around. “Uh, who else is there? It wasn't my idea.”

Shannon presses her lips together. When she speaks, her voice is tight. “Well, I'm not the genius who touched the Ouija board when he wasn't supposed to,” she says.

Something inside me snaps. “It wasn't my fault, Shannon,” I roar.

She recoils like I've slapped her.

A cold wind pushes its way up through the cracks in the boathouse floor. The roof creaks. I look up to see dust spilling from a hole in the ceiling.

Shannon looks up too. “Can't this just be over?”

Then she bursts into tears.

Chapter Fifteen

Oh god. I feel awful. I shouted at her and made her cry.

Like we don't already have enough to deal with.

I can't stand the sight of Shannon with her hands over her face like this. I shuffle closer and put my arm over her shoulders.

She lets herself lean against me. I pull her into a hug, wrapping my arms around her. She melts into my chest and tucks her head under my chin and cries and cries.

Her hair smells like watermelons.

After a while her sobs ebb into sniffles, but she's shivering. We sit like that for I don't know how long. Until she stops crying, I guess.

Shannon wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, leaving behind dark streaks from her makeup. She gives a quavery laugh.

“That was weird,” she says. She's still leaning against my chest.

“What? That wind under the floor?”

“No, the crying. Well, yeah, the wind too.” She takes a shuddery breath. “I haven't bawled like that since I was maybe ten.”

I give her a little squeeze. “Fear'll do that to you.”

She looks up at me. Her eyes are pretty in the lamplight. Her lashes are still wet.

Cat's eyes.

“I guess,” she says. She gives me a little half smile.

And before I even think about what I'm doing, I'm kissing her. I feel her gasp of surprise, but she's right there to meet me, her hands twining up around and behind my neck. Her mouth feels like velvet.

We pull away and look at each other, shocked. She stares at me, wide-eyed, her hand covering her mouth, like we've just done something outrageous.

What am I doing?

More.

Shannon reaches for me, and I pull her close, sliding my hands into her hair. She presses herself against me. I feel the blood rushing into every part of my body. Hot. Dizzy. Her mouth opens under mine, and I imagine how the hard steel of her piercing will feel against my tongue. I taste her breath against my lip—