The Siege (20 page)

“That we do.  Kind of makes us related.”

Mia smiled at Tom.  “I’d like that.  Can we adopt each other?”

“Yes.  Legally no, but yes, I’d like you to consider me your brother by another mother.”

“And I your sister,” Mia said wistfully.

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” Tom confided.

Mia reached out, and they hugged.  Tom’s arms were long enough to wrap around her swollen body, and Mia’s heart was big enough to add one more.

Chapter Fifteen

The Brown shoe company had taken over the old Civil War armory.  Unlike Springfield, the musket making facility did little to increase the population of the area or the pockets of the owner, Thaddeus Brown senior.  Sometime after the war, his son tried to make a go of the place, trading iron balls for leather.  For a time, the factory thrived, supplying the growing immigrant population of Chicago with serviceable work boots.  No one really knew when the tunnels between the four buildings were dug.  Some say it was designed that way by Thaddeus. Others theorized it happened after, when the deep snow and hard, windy winters threatened to slow production.  Materials could be moved dry underground, no matter what Mother Nature threw at them.

Mia remembered there being rails in this part of the tunnels, although she and Tom could find no evidence of them.  They had entered the tunnels near the old high school baseball field, a route commonly taken by the liquor-consuming, heavy-petting teenagers.

“We need to look where the ground has been disturbed.  Treasure hunters or maybe an animal?  We’ve had unusual weather this year.  The frost could have heaved up some rock and, in doing so, opened the grave.”

Tom shone the megawatt flashlight in front of them.  The shadows cast by the tree roots coming through the brick arched ceiling gave Mia and Tom a few heart stopping moments.

“I’m surprised that you’d even flinch considering your profession,” Tom teased Mia.

“Oh, getting paid for seeing the ghosties does nothing to ease the surprise of a sudden unexpected manifestation.  Actually, I’m more frightened of spiders than of ghosts,” Mia confessed.  “I know, irrational considering the lack of poisonous ones around here.  It’s just that…”

“They’re creepy,” Tom finished.  “Quick moving things like mice and rats freak me out.  A few chipmunks had me wetting myself last time I investigated a supposed burglary at Fester’s grain silos.  The theft of massive amounts of corn was actually an infestation of hundreds of Chips and Dales.”

“Gee, all this time I thought the critters were territorial,” Mia said, stepping around an overturned milk crate.

“These decided to try communal living.”

“Do I want to know how this was resolved?” Mia asked.

“Nope, and I had nothing to do with it,” Tom said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I just wrote up a report for the insurance company.  Most of my time is spent writing.”

“Not at all the life you imagined, I bet.”

“No, but it is satisfying.  I hope to move up and have someone else writing my reports.  Until then, I’ll plod along.  Good thing I took Mrs. Baker’s typing class.”

“Me too.  She didn’t like me though, called me Messy Mia.  I got distracted easily.”

“Whit in the class?”

Mia blushed with memories of her high school crush.  “No, it was the late Pastor Billings.  He must have had a crush on Mrs. Baker because he haunted her classroom.”

“Scandalous,” Tom said.  He stopped and directed the light over a mass of tree roots that made moving any farther impossible.  “I don’t remember these.”

“Me neither.”  Mia bent down and examined the earth on their side of the blockage.  “I don’t see anything here.”

“The roots have pulled away at the wall here,” Tom grunted as he pushed into the wooden web of roots.  “I see a lot of dislodged bricks and… bone.  Lots of bone.  Mia, how many bones are in the human body?”

“Two hundred and six.”

“There’s easily that here but…”

Mia moved as close as she could.  “Tom, what is it?”

“Ah damn, I think we’ve got a mass grave here.  Three skulls and counting.”

“Perhaps there was a pauper’s graveyard here,” Mia suggested, craning her neck so she could see what Tom was doing.  “A lot of disease swept through here before the town was established.”

“Unless a symptom of the disease was a musket ball to the head, I think not.”  Tom backed out and showed Mia the damaged skull he had retrieved.  “I think we have a crime scene here.  An old one, but definitely something outside of the law happened down here.  I suspect your Confederate soldier was either a victim or involved in something horrible.”

Mia took the skull from Tom.  Even through her gloves she could hear the scream.  Death screams never end.  They begin at the time of death and then echo throughout eternity.  “Tom, this one was a young man, a boy.”

“Who executes boys this way?”

“A brute,” Mia said sadly.  “I think that we better talk to your boss.  One old grave is one thing.  A charnel house is another.”

“Do you think your soldier is part of this?”

“Honestly, I don’t know for certain, but it is coincidental and…”

“There are no coincidences,” Tom finished.

~

The men arrived back at the PEEPs office cold, dirty and disappointed.  They had followed Murphy to the area of the fallen ancient oaks.  The roots were exposed, but after a few hours of prodding the ground, they came up empty.  The message light was blinking on the old answering machine that Ted had rescued.  He listened to it once before gathering the group together and playing the tape.

“PEEPers, Tom and I have found a mass grave in the wall of an old factory tunnel on the south side of town.  It’s in Ryan’s hands now.  I don’t know if this is the resting place of our soldier or a murder scene, yet.  I’ll be home at six.  I’ll be bringing home Mrs. Braverman’s lasagna, so no need to cook.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Burt said.  “This little sunshine community has such a dark past.  Not only does the hollow refuse to succumb to being a placid wilderness, the town’s graveyard is built on unconsecrated ground, and now, we find out that there are hidden tunnels full of bones.  It’s a…”

“Ghost hunter’s paradise,” Cid finished.

“What do we do with Rebel Yell?” Dave asked, looking out the window at where Murphy was keeping the young ghost company.

“Offer him a place to stay, unless he would feel better hanging around while they dig up his remains?” Ted said.

“Those other ghosts that attacked Murphy, could they be part of this?” Cid asked.

“Possibly. Although, I’d bet two of them were part of the foreign duo that Tom dealt with the other night,” Ted theorized.

“But they all showed up around the same time,” Cid argued.

Burt, who had been silently listening to the others, cleared his voice.  “Let’s, for now, just assume that they are all tied together somehow.  That is, until we find proof that they aren’t.”

“Guilty until proven innocent,” Dave wisecracked.

~

The ghost pulled at his uniform tunic. “I’m not from around these parts. Why am I here?  Who am I?  I’m so lost.”

“Mia can help you,” Murphy insisted.  “Be patient.  Be calm.”

“I will try, sir.  I don’t even have a name.  The smart-mouthed boy called me Rebel Yell.  I think it is an insult.”

“Boys his age insult each other all the time.  Don’t take offense.  In our day, those would be dueling words, and now they’re just conversation.”

The soldier put his hands through his hair, moving through and untangling the black strands.  He took a piece of rawhide and tied his long hair together.  “I haven’t had a haircut in years,” he said and saw the irony in it and started to laugh.

Murphy joined him.  “Son, how about you and I taking a walk? I’d like to show you my farm.”

“That would be most kind, sir.”

“Before we go, can I ask what brought you here?”

“There’s a light here.  I thought it was
the
light.  I followed a group of strange-talking fellows.  They kept saying, the light that’s here is very valuable.”

Murphy worried that by “the light” they may have meant Mia.  He certainly hadn’t seen
the
light here in a long while.

~

Mia swerved the truck just in time to avoid hitting a man walking down the lane.  She normally would have stopped the truck and inquired what had brought the tall well-dressed man walking down the middle of the road in the dark without a light.  One glance in the rearview mirror was all she needed.  Her eyes took in his manner of dress, and the odd purple glint of his eyes negated any thoughts of her being mannerly.  She increased her speed.  Glancing behind her she saw that the man was the same distance from the back of the truck as when she first saw him.  “What kind of unholy are you?” she asked aloud.  Mia set her mouth and kept one eye on the mirror and one on the road before her she braked hard.

Surprised by this maneuver, the gray-suited figure barreled into the back of the truck.

Mia launched herself out of the truck, grabbing the rock salt-loaded sawed-off shotgun she kept under the seat.  She took aim and shouted, “If I were you, I’d go back the way you came.”

The man righted himself and brushed the slush and grime off of his clothing.  “That is some greeting, Mia Cooper.”

Mia didn’t lower the gun.  “I suggest you take a few hundred steps back and turn right when you hit the main highway.  You and your kind are not welcome in the hollow.”

“I find this preposterous.  You haven’t even heard what I have to say.”

“People who send their calling cards to hurt my friends are rejected on sight.  I know what you are, and you’re not welcome here.  I will not entertain you in my home.  So take yourself and your goons back to whatever hell-hole you crawled out of, and consider this conversation ended.”

“And if I don’t wish to leave?”

Mia fired both barrels.

The man screamed, more because she had the audacity to fire than from the pain.  The blue light in his eyes increased, and as his body expelled the salt, he started laughing.  “Foolish female, you’ve shot your wad, played your hand.  You’re defenseless.”

CRACK! Murphy’s axe cut through him from the back.  He raised it again, but the entity was faster.  He challenged Murphy with a fireball he was generating in his hand.

Silently and with much concentration, the Confederate soldier appeared to the man’s right.  He drew out his spectral sword and, with no hesitation, separated the man’s arm from his body.  The fallen hand opened, and the fireball dissipated.

“Unless you want my friends to further prune you…” Mia started.

The man bent down, picked up his arm and disappeared.

Mia got back in the truck.  Murphy got in, encouraging the Confederate soldier to sit beside him.  Mia put the pedal down and made the farm’s drive in a few seconds.  “Glad you boys were around.  What the hell was that?”

“I assumed you knew what it was, by the way you were talking to it,” Murphy said.

“Bluffing, I was bluffing.”

“I know what it is,” the young solider said.

Murphy and Mia looked at the ghost, shocked.

“I don’t know who I am, why I am here, but somehow I know what that was.”

“Please tell us,” Mia pleaded.

“Other.  It’s called an Other.  I heard the Englishmen that I followed here talk about him.  They said that the boss wasn’t a good man or a bad man; he was an Other.”

“Could you have heard wrong?  Did they say
another
.”

“No, ma’am, they said Other.”

Murphy looked at Mia. She looked worried.  “I need to call Angelo,” she said.

“Why?” Murphy asked.

“We can’t fight that, Murph.”

“We just did. I made him leave,” he said proudly.

“He left because he wasn’t yet prepared to take me.  There are certain niceties it must follow.  It needs to be invited in; it needs for me to listen to its proposal; and then, and only then, when I reject him, he can try to take me forcefully.”

“How do you know this?”

“My grandmother Fred used to tell me stories when I was a teenager.  I thought at the time they were just fairytales.  Birdmen, deer women. Come on, they are stuff that some fiction writer makes up, right?  Once, after I sassed her back, she said that if I didn’t change my attitude, I would attract and then be taken by an Other.  I thought then she said
another
.  But tonight, when our friend here said its name, it all made sense.  She talked about ways to slow down an Other, but I don’t recall her giving me advice on how to defeat one.”

“But if this is true, why is it coming now?  You are a good person. You’ve helped so many.  You no longer have a bad attitude.”

“Karma payback.  I don’t know?  Maybe it takes a long time to come from wherever it calls home.”

Mia saw Ted walk into the office followed by Cid.

Murphy watched as she set her face to one of confidence.  He moved quickly out of the truck and into the office, planting his axe into the floor.

CRACK!

“Murphy, what the hell…” Ted started and took a look at Murphy’s face and got to his feet.  “Cid!” he called.  “Mia’s in trouble!”  Ted ran out the door towards the truck.

Mia opened the door to find herself enveloped in the strong arms of her husband.  Cid burst out of the barn, followed by Curly shooting sparks.  Ted had her almost to the front porch before Mia could speak.

“What a reception!  You take my breath away.  I know Tom’s mother’s lasagna is good but…”

“Murphy said you were in danger,” Ted explained.  “He dropped his axe right in the middle of the conference table.”

Mia didn’t want to scare them, but neither did she want to lie to them.  They deserved the truth.  “Well, I am.  You are, too, if you stay.”

“Of course I’m staying.  You’re my wife.  Now come inside where we can talk about this.”

“We have time to go back and get the food. I can’t deal with this on an empty stomach,” Mia said.

Cid walked over to the truck and reached inside the open door and pulled out the still warm dish.  He grabbed Mia’s keys and locked the truck.  All this time, Murphy stood guard which emphasized the necessity of caution and speed.  Cid’s stomach twisted. He wasn’t sure he had an appetite, no matter how good this smelled.