The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Devil's Hound (13 page)

As the boys went their separate ways, Lizzie noticed a figure lying motionless behind a tombstone. It had a single arm flung out as if to point out some unseen danger. It was impossible to see clearly in the darkness, but the figure was wearing white, just as Becky had been.

“Becky!” Lizzie shouted, racing toward her. The figure was facedown and not moving, and Lizzie had the horrible thought that she was too late. Was she unconscious? As she reached down to roll Becky over, she noticed that her friend's hair didn't look quite right. It looked more black than brown in the moonlight.

Lizzie grabbed a cold shoulder and turned the body over. The face of a dead woman rolled up into view, pale in the moonlight. Lizzie shoved her knuckles into her mouth to keep from screaming. She turned away, squeezing her eyes shut, fighting the sudden urge to be sick.

Up ahead, the hound began to bark furiously.

“The dog's back at last,” a gruff voice said from somewhere close to the light. “What's it makin' all that noise for?”

“God only knows,” said another voice, sounding irritated. “I told you we should have tossed it in the canal. It's useless, that dog.”

“Give it a smack,” the first voice said.

“I done that loads of times. Last time it bit me,” the other voice argued. “Save your breath for work!”

It was the two men from the canal. Lizzie was sure of it. She crouched down and began to move stealthily toward the men, making sure to keep out of sight behind the gravestones. She could just make them out now, dark shadows in front of the light. They were shoveling.

“I think it's seen something,” the first voice said. “We should check.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Who's going to come out here on a night like this?” the other scoffed. “Now shut your trap, and keep digging.”

Dru and Hari were closing in on the grave robbers too, hiding behind tombstones of their own. The hound stopped barking and lay down, whining softly as if he was afraid.

He's worried about Hari
, Lizzie suddenly thought.
He knows these men are dangerous.

Soon there was nothing but a single headstone between Lizzie and the villains. She crouched, heart pounding, and listened to the sounds of soil sliding from their shovels into the open grave. Dirt rattled against something wooden.

Suddenly it hit her.
Becky's in the coffin
, Lizzie thought
. They're burying her alive!

“Stop!” Lizzie screamed. She ran for the man closest to her — the older one — and grabbed his shovel, nearly tugging it out of his hands. They staggered back and forth at the edge of the grave. Lizzie glanced down into it and saw the coffin was almost completely covered with earth.

“It's that girl again!” the man yelled. “Get off!”

“You're too nosy for your own good,” the other man grunted. “And there's enough room in that there grave for two of you. You can go and keep your friend company.”

Holding his shovel like a club, the younger man ran around the grave and came at Lizzie from behind. She was caught between the pair of them. All she could do was let go of the shovel and try to duck and dodge as best she could.

“Hold still!” The younger grave robber slammed his shovel down like a sledgehammer, trying to hit Lizzie. She scrambled away, falling back into the mound of freshly dug earth. Soil trickled into her boots as she struggled to get to her feet.

The grave robber gave her an ugly grin. “Chop, chop, little worm,” he said, twisting the shovel in his hands so the edge faced down. He swung it again, using it like an ax now. Lizzie quickly rolled out of the way, and the shovel sank into the earth where she'd been seconds before, showering her with dirt.

“Finish her off, Jimmy!” the other man shouted, leaning on his shovel like a cane.

The man laughed and stood over Lizzie. He braced one leg on either side of her so she couldn't roll away and raised the shovel overhead.

Helpless, Lizzie looked up at the glinting metal, wondering if it was the last thing she'd ever see. Then, from the shadows, Dru flung himself onto the man's back. The man gave a shrill scream of surprise. Dru bit his ear, making him howl even more, and Lizzie quickly scrambled away.

The man dropped his shovel and grabbed Dru's hair, trying to throw him off. As the other grave robber approached to confront her, Lizzie grabbed the fallen shovel and jumped down into the grave, out of his reach.

“Hit him, Jeff!” screamed the struggling man, lurching to the left and right as he tried to buck Dru off his back. “Get him off me!”

The other man swung his shovel clumsily at Dru's dangling leg, but Dru nimbly hoisted himself onto the man's shoulders and out of reach. The flat part of the shovel whacked the man's knee, and he shrieked in pain.

Dru vaulted off the man's shoulders, landing perfectly on the soft earth. Even without an audience to cheer him on, the acrobat's timing was impeccable.

“Sorry, Jimmy. I couldn't help it!” the grave robber whined.

Lizzie knew she wouldn't be able to get the coffin lid open on her own. Even if she hadn't been standing on top of it, there was just too much earth weighing it down. So she frantically began to shovel the dirt out of the way, flinging it over her shoulder. From up above she heard yells and howls of pain — she could only hope that Dru would be all right.

Suddenly she heard her friend cry out as he was thrown to the ground. “
Salauds!
” Dru gasped. “Let go!”

“Got you now, you little brat,” one of the men grunted. “Twist his arm around a bit more, Jeff. See if you can't break it.”

“Hari!” Dru roared. “What are you waiting for?”

There was a deep growl from somewhere close by.

“Get them!” Hari shouted.

With a flurry of barks and snapping jaws, the hound turned on his former masters. Lizzie heard ripping cloth as he got one of them by the leg. The man screamed and struggled. “Call it off! Call your dog off!”

“That dog's ours!” gasped the other, backing away. “You got no right!”

“He doesn't seem to think he's your dog anymore,” Hari said coldly. “I wonder why?”

“I'm bleeding!” wailed the fallen grave robber. The dog was pulling on his leg like he was playing tug-of-war with a tree branch. “Jimmy, come and help!”

“No chance, mate,” said Jimmy. “I'm off.”

“You coward!”

Jimmy started to run, but he didn't get far. All Hari had to do was whistle, and the dog knew what to do. He released the moaning grave robber, who rolled over clutching his leg, and bounded off after Jimmy.

A single snap, a scream, and a sound of a man falling over told Lizzie that the hound had caught his prey. That took care of the grave robbers. Now there was only Becky to find. If she was even down there . . .

Lizzie kept shoveling, throwing earth out of the grave as fast as she could. Without warning, her shovel struck wood. The coffin.

“Still got that rope, Dru?” Hari called from somewhere above her.

“Of course,” Hari replied.

“Good. Let's tie these two up.”

Lizzie stood to the side of the coffin and tried to pull the lid open, but it wouldn't budge. Her fingers felt the bumpy heads of iron nails along the side. The grave robbers must have nailed it shut.

Determined not to give up, Lizzie worked the shovel's edge back and forth into the crack below the lid, then pulled it back like a crowbar. With a low groan, the lid grudgingly came up half an inch.

Encouraged, Lizzie gripped the lid tightly and pulled with all her strength. A slow landslide of earth slid off the rising lid. Suddenly it began to rise even more as someone pushed it up from within. Wood splintered and cracked, and then finally — as Lizzie gave the lid a frantic tug — it came off completely.

Becky lay in the coffin below gasping for air. As soon as the lid was up, she sat up like a jack-in-the-box. Looking at Lizzie with tear-streaked eyes, she asked, “Am I a ghost now? I'm dead, aren't I?” Becky sounded close to madness. “You can talk to ghosts, and I must be one.”

“You're fine.” Lizzie patted her friend on the back. “You're not a ghost. Just breathe. Take your time.”

Becky flung her arms around Lizzie, hugging so tightly that it hurt. “They put me in the coffin!”

“I know. Hush. It's all right.”

Becky's fingers tightened like claws, and she breathed heavily. “It was so dark . . . I couldn't even move in that box . . . I screamed and screamed, but nobody came.”

Lizzie struggled out of Becky's grasp with difficulty. “Let's get you out of this hole, quick as we can,” she said. “Up you go.”

Lizzie helped Becky out of the grave. Becky kept babbling as they made their way up. “I could hear the earth landing on the coffin lid, boom, like a drum. And I could hear them laughing.” A sudden new fear came over Becky's face. “Those men! They'll come back! They'll get you too!”

“Oh, no, they won't,” Lizzie told her confidently. “Come and see.”

She showed Becky where the two grave robbers had been tied up. Dru and Hari had done a thorough job with the rope. The grave robbers were swaddled up as tight as flies in a spider's web.

“Proud of yourselves, are ya?” one of them leered.

Becky turned away. “I can't look at them,” she said hoarsely. “Not after what they did. They're monsters.”

Lizzie walked down the hill with her a few paces until the grave robbers were out of sight. Then Becky sank to the ground and began weeping hysterically.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Lizzie asked, as gently as she could.

Becky nodded and wiped her nose. “After you left me by my father's grave, I felt a bit silly. I mean, crying wasn't going to help, was it? So I thought I'd try to catch up with you. Only it was too dark to see, and I couldn't find you anywhere.”

“That was brave,” Lizzie said, trying to lift Becky's spirits a bit.

“Then I saw a light,” Becky went on. “I thought it might be you, so I went closer, and I saw those two men. They'd dug up some poor woman's grave, and I saw them throw her body on the ground, with no more respect than if she were a sack of potatoes! It made me so angry, and then I thought of my dad, and that made it worse. I just ran at them, yelling my head off.”

“Jeez!” Lizzie was genuinely impressed now. “Bet you gave them a scare!”

Becky laughed a little through her tears. “It did. I gave them such an earful! Told them I'd report them, that they'd never get away with it. Then the big one, the really nasty one, he said, ‘Well, there's two of us and only one of you, love, so I don't think you'll be reporting nothing.' Then they . . . they . . .” Becky broke off and began to tremble violently.

Lizzie finished the sentence for her. “They put you in the empty coffin?”

Becky nodded. She said something so faintly that Lizzie had to ask her to say it again.

“They said nobody would miss me.” Becky looked up at the moon, grimacing in tearful misery. “And it's true! I don't matter to anyone now that my pa's dead! Who'd even notice if I just vanished off the face of the earth?”

Lizzie hugged her. “Of course people would miss you. What a silly thing to say!”

Becky clung to Lizzie as if she feared the ground would rear up and swallow her again. Just then, the hound came trotting over curiously. It seemed to sense that the girl was distressed and nuzzled its nose up under her hand with a soft, questioning whine.

“Hello,” Becky said, surprised. “Where did you spring from, eh?” She stroked the dog's sleek fur for a moment, then hesitated and stopped, unsure if she should go on. But the dog pawed at her, clearly wanting more attention.

“He likes you,” Lizzie said, pleased.

Becky carried on fussing over the dog and scratching his chest until he beat his leg happily on the ground. The dog was calming Becky down, so Lizzie silently got up and went to see what was happening with Dru and Hari.

They were in the middle of a whispered debate. “We should go and wake the sexton up,” Hari insisted. “It's his job to look after the graveyard. He'll know what to do.”

“And leave these two here alone?” Dru jerked a thumb at the tied-up grave robbers.

“We can't bring them with us, can we?” Hari said.

“Maybe we should chuck
them
in the grave,” Lizzie said coldly. The way the villains' eyes widened in fear gave her a sweet feeling of revenge. “Oh, don't worry, you two,” she told them. “We're better than that.”

After checking that the ropes were securely tied, they all went to find the sexton's cottage, leaving the prisoners behind to curse each other's foolishness and their own bad luck. Dru remembered seeing a little house close to the outer wall, and sure enough, that proved to be the right place. The cottage looked cozy and comfortable considering it was on the edge of a graveyard.

It took three rounds of knocking before a window opened, and the sexton stuck his head out. Lizzie tried not to laugh at his floppy nightcap.

“What's this all about?” he snapped. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Lizzie said, “but there's grave robbers in your cemetery.”

“Grave robbers?” the sexton repeated.

“I knew it, Harold!” a woman's voice squawked from inside. “Didn't I tell you there was something going on? Funny lights and a dog barking. I said it a hundred times. But would you go and look? Of course not!”

“I'll be right out,” the sexton said sourly.

He opened the door to them in a hastily pulled-on overcoat, still wearing his nightcap on his head. He looked from one person to the next, deeply suspicious. “Well?”

“We caught 'em in the act, sir,” Lizzie said. “They'd dug up a lady! But we fought 'em, and we won, and now they're all tied up. You can see for yourself.”