Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) (18 page)

“The residents of Gaslight City lynched the woman the box used to belong to, and Archie Mahoney robbed her defenseless corpse. Isn’t that how your ancestors ended up with it?”

“The box is staying where it is. In the Mahoney family.” Carl pointed one finger at me. “You calm down and shut your mouth.”

“Peri Jean Mace! You can’t talk to people like this, especially not my cousin.” Julie laid one cool hand on my arm.

I sat as still as I could. If I moved one muscle, I would slap her cool hand right off me. Julie let go of me and turned to Carl.

“A man we both know—one who was like a father to her—died a couple of days ago. He was looking for your box when he died.” Julie did a combo head shake and eye roll. “I think she wants it out of some sense of duty to him.”

Carl grunted and gave me a nod, his watery eyes still hard with anger.

“If you stop right now, I’m willing to forget all this.” Julie’s voice was sharper than I’d heard it since the day a tourist’s child broke an expensive carnival glass vase and the parents got snitty when Julie expected them to pay for it. The moment of truth was staring me right in the face.

Am I ready to die on this hill? Lose my business over this?
No.

I had bills to pay, financial responsibilities. I worked too hard building my day labor business to piss it away in one day. There would be no starting over. I’d have to look for minimum wage shift work at something owned by out-of-towners. No Gaslight City natives would hire me and risk Julie’s wrath. It took every bit of self-control I possessed, but I clamped my mouth shut and sat back in my chair. My ear canals burned as though little jets of steam could shoot from them any second.

“Are you finished?” Julie stared at me.

My pride wouldn’t let me answer, so I stared at my lap, the back of my neck on fire. What I saw in my ex-friend’s eyes dug at me more than anything she could have said. Flat out don’t give a shit shone out of Julie’s windows of the soul. She’d decided her cousin should have Priscilla Herrera’s curse box, and the deal was done in her mind. Aside from forcefully taking it, nothing I said would do a damn bit of good.

Something moving in the yard caught my eye, and I gladly turned away from Julie and peered out the dirt caked window, unable to see much detail. A huge shadow moved across the yard, coming toward the house, darkening the ground as it went. It didn’t look good.

* * *

S
omeone was yelling at me
. I turned to see Julie all red-faced. She glared at me and set her jaw. “I’m asking if you’re finished, Peri Jean.”

“Shut up and look out the window.” I pushed back my chair and ran the few steps across the kitchen, getting as close to the filthy window as I could without touching it in hopes of widening my field of vision. A short distance from the house, the sun still shone. The darkness only covered the house and yard. A strong wind whipped through the murky dusk, almost laying the tall grass on its side. The lighter items in Carl Mahoney’s junk collection blew around. The dollheads jittered on the fence, their eyes opening and closing. The window began to rattle in its frame. I heard dishes in the cabinets clinking together. I took several steps backward, though I knew it wouldn’t help if push came to shove. We needed to get into a windowless room, preferably in the middle of the house. “Storm’s coming. Fast.”

“Ain’t no storm.” Carl’s beer bottle jittered on the table in front of him and overturned, the beer foam rushing into his lap. He slapped it away and stood. “I checked the weather.”

The back door blew open, and Julie bleated. About a hundred yards from the house stood an unused well. A concrete disk covered the opening, indicating the well was no longer in use. The disk rattled on top of the well, jumping until I could see space between the well and the concrete. Bony fingers appeared at one edge of it and pushed the disk aside like it was nothing. It thumped onto the dirt next to the well.

My heart tried to climb up my throat, gave up, and started banging against my ribcage instead. The disk would weigh a hundred dense pounds. Heavy enough I’d have had a hard time moving it alone. The whipping air carried an almost electric current, which turned the fine hairs on my arms into tuning forks, standing them rigid. My muscles bunched. I was ready to run but couldn’t make myself move a muscle. The only part of my body moving was my trembling knees.

Skeletal fingers hooked over the edge of the well, and I knew something on the other side was climbing up to join us. A small skull appeared, rising over the well’s edge, hooking its arms over and pulling itself out. Carl joined Julie in screaming, though his screams had words.

“Stay down! Stay down! Stay down!” The man’s eyes were so wide I wondered if it was possible for his eyeballs to pop out. Even if they didn’t, I bet his heart would give out before too long. My muscles tightened to the point I thought I might pee my pants, but still I couldn’t move. The skeleton threw one bony leg over the side of the well and hefted itself over the side.

“Stop it, Peri!” Julie came to stand next to me. “You stop this witchcraft or whatever it is.”

“You think I’m making this happen?” I touched the black opal through my shirt. It was cool and calm. Unusual in the face of something paranormal. Usually it heated up and burned me. “You’re crazy if you think I’d do this.”

Julie’s mouth popped open like one of those candy dispensers. “How dare
you
call me crazy.”

Her words slammed into me, hurting to the deepest, most hidden part of my soul. Crazy. The thing I feared people saying to me, thinking about me. A hundred years ago, they’d have done me the same way they did Priscilla Herrera for the same reasons people kill spiders in their houses—just in case. I tore my gaze from Julie to check the progress of the skeleton.

It crawled across the yard, growing tattered, parchment-colored skin as it came. The skull filled in, revealing solid black eyes with no whites and cracked, broken lips. Its proximity allowed me to see the femurs had been broken and the back of the skull was bashed in. Using fingers covered with broken and cracked skin, the skeleton gripped the door jamb and pulled itself to a standing position and stepped into the house.

The black opal finally came to life, going from cool to ember hot. I yelped and pulled it away from me. Instead of the power I usually felt coming from it, I felt a sucking sensation, making me think of water running out of a sink. The skeleton dragged itself a few more feet forward and grabbed my ankle. I recoiled, choking on the spit flooding my mouth, but the hand held me fast. A voice filled my whole world—the house, my head, even the outdoors.

“Who has my box?” The voice sounded garbled like a thousand voices all talking at once, using each other to form the words.

I tried again to shake off the horror holding onto me. It tightened its grip. I bent at the waist, intending to pluck its hand off me even though I could barely stand the idea of touching the thing. The black opal’s heat increased to an unbearable level. As soon as I made contact with the bony hand, light flashed, and the skeleton fell away, the false life in it gone.

I fell backward, dizzy and devoid of energy, gasping as though I’d been exercising. Another gust of wind hit the house, making the old boards cry out. The skeleton twitched, once, twice, three times. It rolled to its knees and got to its feet and lurched at me. We weren’t done. I held my arms out to ward it off, unprepared for the next attack but too ignorant to know what to do.

“Peri Jean Mace, I am the future of this town unless you fulfill your destiny.” Its teeth clacked together as the words came, even though the words didn’t seem to come from the bones.

The skeleton opened its arms as though inviting me to give it a hug. I pushed myself backward and hit the wall. Imaginary ants swarmed over my skin. My lips and cheeks tingled. I wanted to turn my gaze somewhere else, to relieve the terror, but I couldn’t. The skeleton came closer, its coal eyes fastened hungrily on me.

Red flashed behind my eyes, and my vision turned inward. I saw Hannah Kessler sleeping in her bed. The skeleton came from under the bed and reached up one bony arm to grip her leg and raise itself onto the bed. Her eyes flew open, and her mouth opened to scream as the skeleton opened its mouth to bite into her. A black hound with red eyes chased Kansas Fischer, the son of my dead best friend. Tears streamed down the boy’s face as he tried to outrun the thing. The animal launched itself and slammed into his back, forcing him to the ground. Its mouth ripped into the back of his neck. Rainey Bruce sat locked in her car, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth opened in a scream as flames engulfed her.

“No more, no more.” I forced myself out of the vision and back into Carl Mahoney’s filthy kitchen.

“Where is my box?” The skeleton screamed.

I glanced at Carl Mahoney. The horror turned on the man, opened its mouth wide, and let out a roar. Carl tried to run but tripped over his own feet and hit the floor. The man whimpered and tried to scuttle away, using his hands to slide himself toward the living room. The skeleton jerked and stumbled after him. Carl backed himself against a pile of crap. His legs kicked wildly as the skeleton stood over him.

“Give up your ill-gotten gains, thief.” The skeleton’s hiss shook the room.

“Do it, Carl.” The steadiness of my voice surprised me.

“No, no, no.” He whined. “It can’t have my box.”

His words were like a cold slap on my face.
Your box?
After all this, Carl still thought it was his box. Unbelievable. I wanted to run over and kick the old man cowering on the floor, but a whine filled my head. It hurt worse than any screech I remembered hearing and gained in intensity each second. I clapped my hands over my ears, which did nothing to block it out.

A shadow fell over me, and the young, tattooed version of Priscilla Herrera leaned over me. She offered her hand. I took it without hesitation and let her pull me up. Then she stepped into me, the chill of her deadness inundating me, filling every nook and cranny. The whine turned to a sweet sound, the call of an old friend. I knew I had to follow it.

I ducked past the skeleton and Carl and stumbled toward the sound, bouncing off piles of crap in the living room. A stack of magazines toppled and slid across the floor. I tried to plow through them but they slid underneath me, throwing me off balance. I grabbed the nearest thing, which was a stack of jigsaw puzzles. Boxes went flying, and I hit the floor with them.

“Son of a syphilitic bitch,” I screamed and slapped the floor. I rolled onto my stomach, preparing to get up and saw what sat in front of me. The box was as I’d seen it in my vision, though a lot worse for the wear. It bore dings and punctures where generations of greedy-assed Mahoneys tried to get into it. Though the world raged around me, the box drew my full attention, shutting out the chaos. I picked up the box, and energy flowed into me, restoring the energy the skeleton took to become animated.
The skeleton.
What happened to it? I turned to stare at the animated corpse. Its limbs tangled with Carl Mahoney’s, keeping him away from me.

Priscilla Herrera’s voice spoke in my head.
Time to send my servant home.
Knowledge of unfamiliar words and phrases, of frustration and fear, exploded in my head. The deluge overrode everything not of it. Nothing belonged to me anymore. I became an observer in my own body. My legs marched me straight to the skeleton. Though I wanted nothing to do with the awful thing, I saw my hand reach down and grab its arm, tearing open the thin skin, making black ichor ooze. My muscles strained as I hefted it off Carl Mahoney.

Words I didn’t plan came out of my mouth. “Be gone. Go where you can rest until I need you again.”

A whirlwind filled the room. Cabinet doors opened and dishes crashed to the floor. The water faucet came on, blasting water into the sink. Light radiated from somewhere near me. I glanced down and saw it coming from underneath my t-shirt. The light pushed at the wind swirling around the room, sweeping it out the door. I added my own will to it, pushing at the force, willing it to go the same way I had helped Mysti. The house shook around us, so hard I imagined it coming off its underpinnings and flopping over on its side. The burners on the gas oven came to life with a soft whump, their flames burning high.

“Turn it off,” Carl screamed at Julie. She tried to make her way to the oven but the wind pushed her down, blowing her against the wall.

The skeleton pulled itself out of my grasp and jerkily made its way back to the well, climbing in and disappearing from sight.

“This box is mine,” Priscilla Herrera and I yelled as one. “You will never have it again, and you will not stop me from taking it.” The heat from the black opal burned my skin, and I wanted to reach to pull it off, but my arms didn’t work.

The storm left the house in degrees, the same way it came in. It passed out of the yard, the cloud cover going with it. The power still thrummed through me, pulling everything so tight it ached.

You must learn to do for yourself
. Priscilla’s voice was soft, no louder than a whisper.
The day will come when you have no one to help you.
With that, she left. I slumped to the floor, too weak to move. The curse box rolled from my hand and stopped a few feet from me. Carl Mahoney’s gaze fastened onto it. I gathered the last of my strength and snatched it up before he could even think about beating me to it.