The Paupers' Crypt (19 page)

Jenny stepped out into the doorway of the study and brought the semi-automatic pistol up. Both hands were on the grip, the index finger of her right hand curled firmly around the trigger. She lined the sight up with Josephus’ chest and waited for the man to notice her.

It only took a moment.

He stood in the center of the hallway. Jacob looked bloody and dead on the floor. Shane was near him, writhing in agony.

Brian was unconscious, Josephus holding him up by the collar.

“Jennifer!” Josephus said happily. “I’m so pleased you’re here.”

Chapter 68: The Cavalry Arrives, 9:33 AM, May 4
^th
, 2016

Henry Martini blocked the end of the driveway at one eighty-five Old Nashua Road and jumped out of his cruiser. He saw Neal Lars’ truck, the back end of which was in the front yard while the nose and cab were firmly embedded in the old farmhouse.

Someone screamed, and Henry drew his weapon as he ran to the front steps. He raced up them and kicked open the door as he yelled, “State Police!”

The deadbolt ripped through the doorjamb and part of Henry recoiled in horror at what he saw. Two men were down, while a third dangled unconscious from the arm of a fourth. To the left was a woman, who had a Glock pointed at the fourth man.

And it was the fourth man who interested Henry the most; the man perfectly fit the description that Neal Lars had given.

Henry leveled his own pistol on Dylan, the assailant and said, “Sir, put the man down.”

Dylan didn’t even look at him. He was focused solely on the woman.

“Go away,” Dylan said. “None of this concerns you. Jennifer and I have some issues to discuss.”

Henry kept his eyes on Dylan, but he addressed the woman.

“Jennifer?” he said.

“Yes?” she asked. Her voice was calm, the gun steady in her hands.

“I’m going to ask you to lower your firearm and leave the building from another exit,” Henry said.

“Oh no,” Dylan said. “She can’t leave. I have her husband. Her beloved Brian. If she leaves, I’ll gut him like a fish and leave him screaming on the floor.”

“No,” Henry said. “You will not. You’re going to carefully lower Brian to the floor. Am I understood?”

Dylan dropped his free hand to Brian’s stomach and chuckled. “Have you ever seen a man’s intestines pulled out before?”

Henry didn’t answer. The situation was spiraling out of control. He needed to keep everything calm until other units arrived.

“No,” Dylan said. “I don’t believe you have. Very few people have actually had the pleasure of seeing it, let alone participating in the same. I find it to be one of life’s little gifts. There is something truly wondrous about seeing a person’s innards strung about like so much garland.”

“Dylan,” Henry said.

“Silence,” Dylan snapped. All of the playfulness had left his voice. “This harlot and I have unfinished business to which I must attend. My time here, I have no doubt, is abysmally short. You can either retreat to a position of safety, or you can watch me kill Brian first, and then Jennifer.

“And if you should ruin my revenge,” Dylan said, turning to look at Henry, “I shall have to appease myself with your sorry flesh.”

Dylan’s pupils seemed to
flicker
.

For the first time since arriving at the house, Henry was afraid. His palms began to sweat and his grip on the pistol loosened. He wanted to run to his car, get the AR-15 rifle out of the trunk and come back with it.

Just to be sure,
He told himself.

A small voice in his gut told him the rifle might not be nearly enough.

Chapter 69: A Decision is Made, 9:40 AM, May 4
^th
, 2016

Jenny kept her pistol on target. Chills ran through her as she listened to Josephus speak about eviscerating Brian. It wasn’t from fear, though, but rage.

The more Josephus spoke, the deeper, more profound her anger became.

The world slowed down.

She couldn’t hear anything the State Trooper or Josephus said. She became hypersensitive, and it looked as though the world was a film being advanced one frame at a time.

Josephus’ hand moved with all of the speed of a sloth to hover above Brian’s stomach. She watched as Josephus turned his head, quarter inch by quarter inch, to face the trooper. She saw his lips part and form words. She saw the trooper’s eyes move casually from Josephus to Brian, and back to Josephus.

Jenny read the fear in the man’s face, and she understood it.

But it wasn’t the trooper’s loved one who was being threatened.

Her Brian was there.

Without rushing, Jenny lowered her pistol and took careful aim on Josephus right elbow. She breathed in slowly, made sure her hands were steady and pulled the trigger.

Her ears barely registered the sound of the gun, but she saw the bullet explode out of the barrel. She could see the vapor trail as it hurtled towards Josephus.

And her aim was true.

The bullet struck.

The body Josephus had taken control of was thin. The body of a long distance runner. When the round punched through the joint, it neatly severed the lower arm from the upper. Blood sprayed out, and the arm dropped, the fingers locked on Brian’s collar. Brian fell to the floor in slow motion and flopped slightly as he landed.

The condescending sneer on Josephus’ face was replaced by a comical expression of surprise. Jenny watched the ejector of the pistol throw the empty brass casing in a high arc away from the weapon. Josephus turned to look at his severed arm, and the world slammed back into full speed.

With a shriek, Josephus lunged towards her.

Jenny emptied the rest of the Glock’s clip into his chest, and the State Trooper did the same.

Chapter 70: In a Box

Josephus awoke to darkness.

Dylan, whom he had possessed, was dead.

But Josephus wasn’t back in the crypt.

In fact, he didn’t know where he was.

He tried to move but found he couldn’t. He couldn’t see or hear anything. Josephus gathered all of his strength and pushed himself as far as he could go. He was in a room lit by strange, long lights, and all of the surfaces seemed to be made of metal. He saw bodies on metal tables, all of them in the process of being cut into.

Josephus turned around and saw the pale, mangled form of Dylan. The severed forearm had been placed on the man’s thin chest, which had a score of bloodless wounds.

Why am I here?
Josephus wondered.

And then he found the answer; his bone. The one he had made Dylan swallow. It was still in the man’s stomach. He was bound to the dead man’s flesh. He needed more of himself if he was to regain his strength.

But how?
Josephus thought.

A steel door in the far wall opened, and a tall, thin man with plain, ordinary features walked in. He looked like every man and like none. He walked purposefully to the first body, checked some paperwork attached to it, and then he moved on to the next.

Josephus felt a wave of relief at the sight of the man. Josephus gathered his thoughts and threw himself at the man’s mind.

Yet nothing happened. The man was impervious. Unassailable. The man waved at his ear as though he shooed a fly away.

And then he moved on to the third body.

Josephus pushed again, yet in spite of his effort, the man did nothing.

The man stopped beside Dylan’s body, picked up the papers, nodded, and then moved the table. As the table moved, so too did Josephus.

With terrible dismay, Josephus realized he had bound himself to a corpse.

Chapter 71: A Bonfire, 9:30 PM, May 20
^th
, 2016

For a price, anything could be purchased.

Brian had found a professional spelunker who didn’t ask questions, and who accepted cash payments. For a modest fee, the man had gone into the crypt, found the passage to the stream, and recovered every last bit of Josephus’ remains. Said remains were in a duffel bag at Brian’s feet.

He sat in an Adirondack chair in the backyard, swatting away a particularly annoying mosquito. Jenny was beside him, her hand in his, and Shane sat a few feet away. In a new fire pit, several large logs burned brightly. Sparks occasionally shot up when a knot in the wood burst and embers drifted up once in a while.

The three of them were drinking red wine, which Brian’s cardiologist said he could drink. In moderation.

Shane’s arm and hand were in a cast, and they would be so for a while. Brian was waiting for a couple of partial dentures to come in. Josephus had knocked several of them out.

Jenny had been forced to get a prescription sleep aid. Her nightmares about Josephus were sufficiently violent enough to force Brian to sleep in the spare bedroom.

The one who had suffered the worst, aside from the man who had been possessed, was Jacob Wurbach. Josephus had killed him. Shane, who seemed to have friends everywhere, was able to get Jacob buried in a small lot down in Nashua. Far, far away from Wood’s Cemetery.

Brian was worried about Josephus, and he had even asked Leo to inspect the crypt before he sent the spelunker in. But the malicious ghost hadn’t been there.

Nothing had been there. Leo hadn’t even been able to find the shadow world Josephus had created.

Brian didn’t trust it. None of it.

“You okay, babe?” Jenny asked, squeezing his hand.

“Hm?” He asked, looking over at her.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Yeah,” Brian replied. “Just wondering where Josephus is.”

“I hope he’s in hell,” Shane said. He drank the last of his wine and set the empty wine glass down on the ground. “I mean, I really, really hope he’s suffering in hell right now.”

Jenny nodded her agreement.

Brian did the same as he let go of Jenny’s hand and stood up. He set his own glass on the arm of his chair and picked up the duffel bag. He carried it over to the fire, squatted down and reached into the bag. One by one, he withdrew Josephus’ bones, and he tossed them onto the wood. The smell was harsh, bringing tears to his eyes. Yet he continued to burn Josephus’ remains.

Dark, oily smoke rose up from the flames, and the bones cracked as they burned. It took him a long time.

When he finally stood up, Jenny said from behind him, “Burn the bag too, Brian. Burn it all.”

Wordlessly, Brian lifted the bag and tossed it onto the logs. As the fire ate at the fabric, he brushed his hands off on his jeans, walked back to his chair and sat down. Once more, his hand found Jenny’s, and he took another drink of wine.

In silence, Brian, Jenny and Shane watched the flames.

Chapter 72: St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Milford, NH

Rich Deering stumbled out of the parking lot for the Milford Steak House. Annie, the bartender, had taken his keys. She had also called Kristy, his wife.

And Rich really,
really
didn’t want to listen to Kristy complain about him being drunk. It was a man’s right to be drunk.

Hell
, he thought,
a man’s got to get drunk once in a while.

He had used the argument before. With limited success. Rich and Kristy had a fundamental disagreement as to what once in a while actually was. She believed it meant once or twice a year. Rich was a firm defender of several times a week. It made for some loud discussions at the house. Not to mention, him appearing in the police section of the Milford newspaper a couple of times a month for drunk and disorderly.

Rich wasn’t going to wait for her to arrive. She’d complain the whole way home, then scream and yell at him once they were in the apartment, and eventually the cops would show up.

Nope
, Rich told himself.
Not today.

He looked around and saw the gate to St. Joseph’s Cemetery was open. The weather was warm, he realized. A hint of summer in the night air.

No one will bother you in a graveyard,
a soft voice whispered to him.

Rich nodded his agreement. No one ever went into cemetery’s, not after dark. Too afraid. It would be a great place to sleep one off. He could always make his way home in the morning after Kristy left for work. No, the cemetery was looking good.

Damn good.

Smiling happily to himself, Rich walked to the edge of the parking lot. He wasn’t drunk enough to not look both ways. When he was certain the way was clear, he crossed the road and fell when he reached the break-down lane. For a minute, he lay in the sand of the shoulder, looking up at the night sky. The stars and the moon were bright, and Rich smiled.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. He closed his eyes. He was tired.

No,
the little voice in his head whispered,
you can’t sleep here. She might find you.

Rich’s eyes snapped open. He definitely didn’t want to be found on the side of the road by Kristy. He would never hear the end of it. She would probably start in on the whole rehab clinic again.

Like I’ll ever go there,
Rich snorted. He rolled onto his stomach and managed to get himself up on his feet after several attempts. He brushed the sand off of himself clumsily, and stumbled his way into the cemetery.

Now,
he thought, looking around.
Where to sleep?

Several mausoleums looked good. He could tuck himself in behind one and get some decent shut-eye and not have to worry about Kristy. She loved to wake him up when he had a hangover.

Rich headed for the closest building, but as he did so, the little voice spoke up again.

What if she comes in here?
the voice asked.
She’ll look at big places. The places up front. You should go to the back. No one ever looks out back.

Rich couldn’t argue with the voice’s logic, and he wondered, for a minute, how he had gotten so smart.