Leaving the Blazer, they jogged to the far side of the semi truck, where traffic had come to a standstill.
They approached the nearest automobile, a battered red station wagon with no muffler. “Police emergency,” Frank shouted “We need your car.”
Engrossed with eyeballing the smashed-up truck, the wagon’s single occupant didn’t respond to their presence until Frank jerked open his door and hauled the man out by one arm. The driver began to protest, but when he caught sight of Frank’s shotgun, he fell mute and fled.
Frank took over the driver’s seat.
Paul jumped in the passenger side, laying the bulky duffle across his thighs.
Frank gunned the engine and pulled off into the grass, rounding the semi. Past the big rig, the station wagon’s noisy motor must have alerted Detective Humble. She poked her head up over Paul’s Expedition just in time to watch them race past.
“Frank,” she hollered after them. “What the hell are you doing?”
CHAPTER 52
With each shovelful of earth bringing them closer to the corpse, a stronger emanation of death arose from the dank ground. The odor wafted into Tim’s nostrils, forcing him to pause every few shovel loads to straighten up and draw a breath of fresh air. Even the stiff breeze did little to disperse the stench.
“I think I’m gonna barf,” Becky said between breaths.
“Yeah, me, too,” Tim agreed. “It can’t be much farther now. Just try to hang in there, okay?”
She formed a weak smile in return and hefted another load of dark soil out of the pit. They both dripped with sweat, marred from head to toe with gritty black filth. Every now and then loose dirt spilled back into the grave and clung to their dampened arms and faces, smearing across their skin whenever they moved to wipe it away.
The bugs presented another annoyance. They hung in the air like a cloud. Mosquitoes hunting in the tall weeds had descended upon them in undefeatable numbers, continuously assaulting them from every angle and raising itchy welts across their flesh. Tim tried not to think of how many had become stuck in the blood coating his calves.
Despite the foul stink and regardless of their aching muscles or the torrent of insects, the two kept going, digging deeper and deeper, determined to appease the creature in hopes of freeing Mallory.
“God, I’m scared,” Becky whispered under her breath.
“You’re doing better than the others,” Tim encouraged her. “I know this isn’t easy, but right now, we’re Mallory’s only hope.”
“You must really like her,” Becky replied between shovel loads. “I mean, to go through all this for someone you haven’t known for very long.”
Tim glanced up. Even under the extraordinary circumstances a blush warmed his cheeks.
“You say I’m the good friend,” Becky continued, “but you’re the one who reminded me what was at stake here. If not for you, I might have j-just run away. W-what kind of f-friend is that?”
He could see she teetered on the verge of tears. He stopped to correct her, to tell her that her fears and the urge to flee were all justifiable. But before he could start the girl made another jab at the ground with her shovel and its blade struck something hard that lay less than six inches beneath the dirt. The impact vibrated through his shoes.
The two regarded each other with sober eyes.
Tim made several additional strikes with his own shovel, each hit producing an identical hollow-sounding thump.
They cleared the last of the dirt in less than two minutes, outlining a rectangular, flat-surfaced coffin.
“There it is,” Tim mumbled to himself, studying the box’s dimensions.
He had expected to uncover a modern casket made of steel or hard wood, one with a glossy outer finish, copper trim, brass handles, and a curved top. He also operated on the assumption that the coffin might be sealed inside a plastic or concrete grave liner, something he’d learned about after his grandmother’s funeral of several years ago. What they’d found proved to be far less exquisite. Whoever conducted the burial did so at a minimal expense, having utilized a simple particle board container just large enough to hold a body, with no grave liner at all. Realizing its flimsy construction, Tim stepped to the coffin’s edge, indicating for Becky to do the same, afraid their weight might be too much for the cover to hold.
“How are we going to lift it?” Becky asked, wiping her eyes.
He took their two shovels and tossed them out of the grave. “There are steel eyebolts screwed into each corner,” he said, pointing. “They probably lowered it down here using two ropes, one fed through each end. Maybe we could lift just one end at a time if we had something to use as a line. Do you have a belt on?”
“No, but Adam does,” she replied. “He wears the dumb thing with everything he puts on.”
“Adam, we need your belt,” Tim ordered.
“My what?”
Adam and Lisa lingered several yards away, their attention shifting between Tim and Becky in the open grave to the quiescent car in the parking lot.
“We need your belt to lift this thing,” Becky told him. “Now, hand it over and start helping, or you and me are through.”
The boy studied her expression for a moment, then began unbuckling the leather braided belt. “All right,” he replied, handing it over.
Tim took it and squatted down over the casket’s lower end, furthest from the headstone, over the dead man’s feet. He squeezed the belt’s end through one of the dirt-caked eyebolts, then threaded it back through its own buckle to form a closed loop.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He helped Becky out of the grave, then climbed out himself. “We’re going to need everyone’s help for this.”
The sky above them launched tortuous spears of light toward the ground. Several shots vanished just beyond the tree line, brightening the entire region. Everyone flinched with the immediate explosion of sound that followed.
“Shit,” Adam screeched. “That was close.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tim responded. “Now, everyone get over here and pull.”
Adam and Lisa shifted nervously but finally joined Tim and Becky at the grave’s brim. They took hold of the belt and began hauling up the casket. After three good tugs, the box broke loose of the earth compacted around its perimeter and lifted several inches upward.
“Yes, that’s it.”
The coffin tilted to the tethered side and raised farther, a foot off the ground, two feet.
When the container’s opposite end had come away from the grave’s far wall, Tim went to the headstone. From that end of the hole, he lowered himself back into the grave, landing where the coffin’s head had rested. There, looking down at the sloping casket, Tim saw its surface highlighted by another flash of bright lightning. For a split second he imagined he could see straight through the coffin’s lid, the lightshow allowing him a glimpse of the corpse inside, eyes open, looking back at him.
He banished the thought and dug his fingertips under the casket’s edge before it could return, lifting while the others pulled.
Inside the slanted coffin, the body of Kale Kane shifted with each tug.
CHAPTER 53
Frank sped north on County Road 19, summarizing for Paul what had taken his daughter and what the monster intended to do with her.
“A sacrifice?” Paul blurted.
