The Paupers' Crypt (8 page)

Jenny strained her ears, yet she heard nothing.

But when she inhaled deeply through her nose she could smell something. A terrible, sickening scent. She gagged and looked around as she clutched her hands to her stomach. Her throat hurt and clenched spasmodically.

Foul wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the smell, it was beyond foul or wretched. It was as though someone had bottled the essence of putrid flesh and malignancy, and then released it into the air.

“You smell Him now, don’t you?” Ruth asked.

Jenny nodded and whispered, “Who is it?”

“Josephus,” Ruth whispered. “He’s coming.”

The cold deepened and Jenny’s muscles tensed.

“Follow me,” Ruth whispered and turned away.

Jenny did.

Ruth moved quickly, as though there was a path in the fog only she could see. The pavement beneath Jenny’s feet shifted to grass, and her low heels were tugged at by the grass. The cold continued to follow and settled into her back. Jenny tried to ignore it, yet the fear in her continued to grow.

Ruth began to run, and so did Jenny.

“Where are you going, Jennifer?” a voice asked from behind her, and Jenny recognized it from the phone.

She knew it was Josephus, and he meant her harm.

“Straight ahead!” Ruth hissed. “Run!”

Jenny broke into a sprint, and a moment later, she broke free of the fog and stood in the morning’s sun. She came to a stop and saw she stood half a dozen feet from her car. Jenny dropped to her knees, vomited, and began to weep.

Brian was in the cemetery and trapped in the fog.

Chapter 19: Not Alone, 10:20 AM, May 2
^nd
, 2016

The room stank. A rank, foul stench of filth, rot and sorrow.

Brian nearly gagged on it, staggering back. The room discovered was rectangular, occupied by a large, dining table made from a rich, ebony wood with a dozen matching side chairs. The table was set with bright white dishes. Empty glasses and neatly folded cloth napkins of dark red, flanked each plate. Gleaming silverware spread out on either side; three forks of varying sizes on the left, a knife and two spoons on the right. Crystal and brass chandeliers hung from a vaulted ceiling. The room was bitterly cold, and what looked to be a dead man sat at the head of the table.

He was wrapped in a thick bearskin, his head leaning to the right. Long, thin hair hung in ropy strands to his chest. His sunken face was pale. The teeth, visible between parted lips which were nothing more than hints upon the desiccated flesh.

A short way behind the body was an exit. A tall door, perhaps nine or even ten feet high, although it couldn’t have been more than a foot wide. It looked to be made of porcelain, the light of chandeliers reflected brilliantly in its depths.

“This is terrible,” Brian said, trying to breathe only through his mouth.

John nodded in agreement, letting go of the doorknob as he stepped further into the room.

Brian followed, and the door slammed shut, causing his heart to jump. He glanced back and was surprised to see there was no doorknob.

The only way out was through the door which stood behind the man.

Brian turned back to the table and stopped.

The body was looking at him. Bright blue eyes stared across plates and silverware. The man smiled, and Brian felt dread nestle in his heart.

“John,” Brian managed to say.

John paused, looked at the man in the chair and stopped sharply.

“You’re alive,” the living corpse said.

John nodded and Brian said, “Yes.”

“Strange.” The man’s mouth barely moved as he spoke. “What are your names?”

“Brian Roy,” Brian said.

“I’m John.”

Then John asked, “What is yours?”

The man blinked, was quiet for nearly a minute and then said, “Owen. Owen Nickerson.”

“How long have you been here, Owen?” Brian asked.

Owen smiled, a hideous expression filled with desperation. “A fair question. It deserves an equally fair answer. Yet, I do not have one to give. The truth, Brian, is I do not know how long I have been here. Perhaps you will tell me what year it is?”

“Two thousand sixteen,” Brian said.

Owen’s smile faltered and fell away. “Well, I must say, it certainly doesn’t feel like I’ve been here for sixty years. Apparently I have, though.”

“How old are you?” John asked in a whisper.

“I was twenty-five when I came here, and it doesn’t feel as though more than a year has passed,” Owen replied. “Although, I am sure I look much worse for the wear, do I not?”

Brian and John could only nod.

Owen closed his eyes, chuckling. “Yes. Twenty-five.”

“There’s nothing to eat here,” John said after a moment. “How are you living?”

“Oh, there’s food, eventually,” Owen said. “He feeds me. He likes to keep me alive, although, I do not know why.”

“Who?” Brian asked.

“Joe,” Owen said, smiling his death’s head grin. “Yes, Joe. He makes sure I have enough to eat, just not enough to make me strong enough to escape. I don’t suppose I even want to leave, not anymore.”

“Who’s Joe?” John asked, looking confused.

“Josephus,” Owen said knowingly. “And it seems he brought you here as well. He generally doesn’t bring along a pair, though. This is new. This is
different.
”

Brian cleared his throat and asked, “How, exactly, is this different?”

“I’m not sure which one of you I should eat first,” Owen replied.

Chapter 20: Jenny Makes a Decision, 10:30 AM, May 2
^nd
, 2016

As Jenny walked away from the bizarre fog which separated her from Brian, her mind raced. The world was nothing more than a backdrop to her thoughts. She followed various lines of possible plans to fruitless dead-ends. By the time she reached her car, she had considered and discarded ten of them. When she unlocked the car door, she had latched onto an eleventh.

Jenny put the car into drive and headed towards Nashua.

Behind her, the fog dissipated.

Chapter 21: Time Stands Still

Josephus Wahlen stood in the gray world which was his, and his alone.

There were others in it, of course. They feared him, though, which was as it should be. He smiled as he watched the woman leave.

The little one, named Ruth, had helped her evade him. Ruth’s sole purpose was to entertain, and she continued to do so. She was afraid of him, yet not paralyzed by the fear. Her actions were unpredictable, and it excited him.

As he watched the woman leave, he felt certain she would return, soon.

With the faintest of thoughts, Josephus scattered the fog, sending tendrils of it shooting back along the ground to the marsh. He smiled as he thought of the marsh. When he had been imprisoned in the crypt, the vibrant life from the tall reeds, and still waters had fed him, sustained him as his hatred grew.

Josephus had lived long enough, hated strong enough in the crypt to leave his flesh before he died.

He turned away from the road and made his way through the cemetery to the crypt. The other dead scattered, averting their eyes to avoid his wrath.

Josephus whistled to himself and wondered if Brian and the other one had met Owen yet.

Chapter 22: A Knock at the Door, 11:00 AM, May 2
^nd
, 2016

He studied the chessboard for several minutes and tried to ignore Carl’s smirk.

“You’re not helping me think,”
the other man said in German.

Carl’s smirk changed into an innocent smile as he replied, “My young friend, I have no idea of what you are speaking.”

“I’m sure,”
he replied.

The doorbell rang, and Carl looked up, surprised. “I did not know you were expecting company.”

“I’m not,” he said
with a sigh. He stood up, left the game and the dead man then went out into the hall. He was still in a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt, his feet were bare.

When he reached the front door, he stopped and called out, in English, “Who is it?”

“My name’s Jenny Roy,” a woman said. “My husband is Brian. I’m looking for someone named Shane.”

Shane Ryan opened the door and saw an attractive, middle-aged woman, her face pale and her lips pressed tightly together. “I’m Shane. Is everything alright?”

She shook her head.

“Come in,” Shane said, and he moved aside. She stepped quickly into the house, her eyes scanning over everything. Shane closed the door and said, “Why don’t we go to the study.”

He led the way and called out in German, “Carl, I have a guest.”

When he entered the room, Carl was gone, although the chess game remained where it was with Shane’s king still in check.

“Please,” Shane said, “sit down.”

Jenny nodded and took the seat so recently occupied by Carl. If a chair could be occupied by a ghost.

“Okay,” Shane said, “tell me what’s going on.”

She quickly spoke to him about Woods Cemetery in Mont Vernon, of the fog, of the phone call with a ghost. Of Brian being trapped.

At the end, she said, “I need your help.”

Shane nodded. “We’ll have to figure out what to do. Do you have problems with ghosts, Jenny?”

“No, not all of the time,” Jenny said. “Why?”

“I’m going to have to ask a few friends to assist us,” Shane answered. “And not all of them are alive.”

“Go for it,” Jenny said. “I want my husband back, and I want him alive.”

“My goal as well,” Shane said. In German, he said, “Carl, can you hear me? If so, will you come to the study?”

The air to the left of the chess board shimmered, and Carl appeared. Jenny didn’t react.

“Should I make myself known?”
Carl asked in his native language.

“Please,”
Shane answered in the same.

Carl nodded, and his faint image solidified ever so slightly. He looked like a superimposed image on a photograph, there but not really, and if Shane squinted, he could make out the study wall behind the dead man, but Carl was present enough for Jenny to notice him.

Her eyes widened, and her hands tightened upon the arms of the chair.

“Jenny,” Shane said, speaking gently, “this is a very good friend of mine, Carl Hesselschwerdt.”

Carl inclined his head slightly and gave her a small smile.

Jenny smiled back and asked, “So, how does this work?”

“A good question,” Shane said. To Carl, he said in German, “Her husband is a friend of mine. He is trapped in a graveyard, by a mist. Will you do me the kindness of asking the dark ones if they know anything about such a thing?”

“Of course,”
Carl replied, and then he vanished.

Jenny was startled for a moment, and then she looked at Shane. “He’ll help?”

“He will certainly try,” Shane said. “He’s going to ask around. I guess that’s the best way to put it.”

“Sort of like a ghost network?” Jenny asked.

“I’ve got a small library upstairs, too. It’s almost all military stuff, but I’ll look a little deeper.” He stopped as her eyes widened. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”

“A ghost library,” she said softly. She smiled, “A ghost library.”

“You lost me,” Shane said. “I don’t have a ghost library.”

“No,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “But, I do.”

“What?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was this man’s, Leo’s, it was his place. It’s downtown, here in Nashua.”

“Leo?” Shane asked. “Is he a ghost, because I think we’ve met?”

“Yes, you have met. Brian told me how Leo helped you guys up in Rye,” Jenny said, nodding.

She stood up. “I need to get there. I’m sorry.”

“Hold on,” Shane said, getting to his feet. “Hold on. Why don’t we go down together? I can help you look. Is it a big place?”

Jenny grinned. “Huge.”

Chapter 23: Choosing Lots

Brian looked at Owen warily.

The skeletal thin man smiled gruesomely.

“This is bull,” John said, taking a step towards the door.

“John,” Brian started to say.

Before he could tell the man to stop though, Owen’s bearskin robe parted slightly. The blue steel barrel of a pistol appeared, and the distinctive sound of the hammer being cocked filled the room.

John stopped.

“Very good,” Owen said, his voice low and pleasant. “Now, gentleman, we have ourselves and interesting situation. Well, interesting for me, at least. Usually, Joseph merely sends the smaller of God’s creatures to me, and I feast upon them. Rarely do I enjoy a full meal, although there have been others I have eaten. Unwary folk, or unlucky, like yourselves.

“Never, as I have said,” Owen continued, “has Josephus delivered two to me. Part of me wishes to shoot you both and to be done with it. Yet, I have had frightfully little entertainment over the years. I have occupied myself with remembering books I have read. Films, seen as a boy.”

Owen chuckled, and Brian was surprised to see the pistol never wavered. Owen was much stronger than he appeared.

“Are either of you familiar with ‘the custom of the sea?’ ” Owen asked.

Both Brian and John shook their heads.

“A shame,” Owen said. “Well, let me enlighten you, then. You see, my uncle was a fisherman, a Gloucester man by birth and by trade. Fished the Grand Banks for cod. He told me all sorts of delightful stories. When he was drunk, however, those stories were a little darker.”

A thin, bony hand slipped out from under Owen’s bearskin, took up a glass and brought it to his lips. Although Owen took a sip, Brian saw the glass was empty.

“Refreshing,” Owen murmured. He smiled. “Yes. Now, when my dear uncle drank, he spoke of things that most people do not. And one of those was what he called ‘the custom of the sea.’ It sounds charming, doesn’t it?”

John said nothing, and Brian only nodded.

“Alas, it is not,” Owen said with a sigh. “It is a veiled reference to cannibalism. It speaks of men adrift at sea and starving to death. The good of the many outweighs the rights of the one. A single man would be sacrificed in order to sustain his comrades. The decision was made through the drawing of lots. The shortest straw, as it were.”