Haunted

“Help!” she screamed as loudly as she could. A sinking feeling told her that no one would hear her—even if they were still around.



She bit into her lower lip, hugging her arms around herself, and feeling the chill of the rain. The sun had gone completely. In the deep hole in the earth, it was darker than she could have possibly imagined, the sky above her offering nothing but gray.



What the hell had happened? A massive gust of wind? Or a hand with a tremendous force? And why?



“Help!” she shouted again. She dug at the earth around her, trying to get a hold on anything. But the grave had been deeply and cleanly dug. There was nothing to grasp.



She tried to claw her hands into the earth, but it merely crumbed away at her touch. She jumped, trying to reach the perimeter of the grave. She got one handhold, and slid back.



Gasping for breath, trying to move her soaking hair from her eyes, she paused for a minute. Someone was going to realize that she was missing.



Weren’t they?



“Help! Help! Help!”



An unbidden sense of panic seized her, and she began to shout and try desperately to crawl from the grave again herself. The sky rumbled with a fury. There was a flash of lightning, and then the sky seemed darker than ever. Already shivering, drenched, and exhausted, she lay back against the earth of the tomb, trying to reason.



The darkness, the depth of the grave, the scent of the earth around her entered into her instinct and made her afraid.



“I talk to ghosts!” she whispered aloud to herself. “Why on earth would I be afraid, now, in a cemetery?”



But she was afraid. The mud at her feet was getting deeper and deeper, rising now to her calves. She imagined she felt creepy, crawly things sliding up her flesh. She was cold; it might have been a summer’s day, but she was thoroughly wet and the wind kept sweeping down. Her teeth were chattering, and she felt hemmed in by the darkness, as if she was locked in a coffin as well as a grave.



Cell phone.



The two words popped into her mind, and she almost smiled, thinking she’d been an idiot. Except, of course, that she’d hit her head, and it was spinning.



She dropped down to the ground, trying to find the small black purse she’d carried for the occasion. The ground was pure mud.



So were her hands by the time she opened the purse.



And so were the contents of her purse.



She found the phone easily enough, but it was caked with mud. She pressed on the keys, talked to the phone, tenderly tried to clean it.



No good. The water had gotten inside. The water—that kept rising around her, joining with the earth, making her pit more and more of a slushy, mucky, mire.



In fury she threw the phone across the pit. It thunked sickly against the side. The rain was still falling. The day was getting darker and darker. The wind whipped around, creating an eerie noise, as if all the banshees in Ireland howled at once.



She closed her eyes, hoping for a word from someone, a sense of security, of comfort. She was desperate for an assur ance that everything would be all right, she would find her way out of the grave.



What if…



She was supposed to have knocked herself out completely when she fell? What if she was supposed to remain there, silent, lost, while everyone assumed that she was with someone else. And what if it had been a real hand that had pushed her, forcing her into the grave?



And that real person was coming back….



“Help!” She screamed the word again.



She closed her eyes. Visions of floating bones swept by her mental vision. Darkness seemed to sweep around her, touching her. The way that panic was setting in, she saw so much more. Rotting corpses, floating to the surface, finding life, swaying before her…darkness, the mud sucking her down, hands of the dead curling around her ankles, pulling her deeper and deeper into the muck.



“No! Darcy, no!” she chastised herself aloud.



They would come. Someone would come for her, soon enough.



“Josh?” she whispered softly.



She didn’t see him. But she felt as if a brush of warmth came over her. “Josh…help me!”



Again, a sensation of warmth, of comfort. In her mind, a whisper, You’ll be all right.



“Stay with me, Josh. I’m afraid,” she said softly.



But then, a huge bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. She heard an explosion, and didn’t know what it could be until she heard a cracking sound.



“Josh!” she cried.



But there was nothing. No whisper of assurance. No sense of warmth. She was alone, entirely alone.



A massive creaking filled the air then, and she realized what had happened.



The oak, the giant oak had been hit by the lightning.



A second later, she screamed as it came crashing down, right on the spot of the open grave that jailed her.



Adam arrived with his carful of people.



Clint, Clara and Sam.



“Where are the rest?” Matt asked Clint.



“Carter’s driving here with Delilah—they should be right behind us. Mae is parking her truck around back. Jason Johnstone was helping David Jenner with his equipment. Reverend Bellamy couldn’t come—he’s busy making new arrangements for a funeral that was supposed to be this afternoon. Mrs. O’Hara had her own car, and—”



“Darcy. Where the hell is Darcy?” Matt asked.



“She didn’t come with you?” Adam demanded, walking over.



Clint sniffed out a sound of distaste. “That screwball, Max Aubry, probably coaxed her into driving with him.”



“She left with him?” Matt asked.



“Oh, yeah. Well, she walked away with him, at least,” Clint said.



Matt nodded, rose, and walked over to one of the pool tables. He set up the balls with precision. Aimed to break them, and sent the cue flashing so hard that they distributed across the entire table.



“Matt? Want me to order for you?” Penny asked tentatively, watching the game he was determined to play by himself.



“Sure.”



“What do you want?”



“Food.”



“Matt?”



“Just get me a burger, Penny. Thanks,” he added after a second.



Clint walked over to the table. “Matt, I can call Aubry’s paper, get his cell phone number.”



Matt stopped playing and leaned on his cue stick. “For what? So I can demand that he bring Darcy back to us?”



Clint grimaced. “I should have stuck with them.”



“It’s all right. The guy’s a jerk, and there’s no way out of it. And hell, Darcy is over twenty-one, and in her right mind. At least, mostly,” he added wryly.



Clint stared at him for a minute, trying to think of something to say. Then he lifted his hands, and walked away.



Matt sank the balls, one by one, with the first shot. By the time he finished, he had somewhat cooled down. He remained angry, though. And he wasn’t sure if he was most furious with himself for not being more vigilant, with Max Aubry for being an opportunist, or Darcy for being…



Darcy.



He set the cue stick down and returned to the table. Penny was at his one side, and old Anthony Larkin had joined them. Good. Anthony wasn’t talking about the ceremony for the skull. He was excited by the prospect of the battle reenactment.



“I’ll be riding old Geyser, and though we may both be long in the tooth, I promise, we’ll give the young ‘uns dragged down to the battlefield a damned good show,” he advised. “You riding for your homeland, Matt?” Anthony asked.



“You bet. I’ll be in my best sheriff’s uniform, making sure the crowds stay under control, and that none of you blows yourself up!” Matt told him lightly. Looking around the room, he saw that everyone he had seen at the cemetery had arrived.



Carter and Delilah were there. Mrs. O’Hara had made it, and was deep in discussion with Adam Harrison. They were both such history buffs. They seemed like a team made in heaven.



“Hey, Matt!” Carter called. “Where’s Darcy?”



“I don’t really know,” he replied.



“Is she still with that wretched Mr. Aubry?” Delilah asked from across the room.



“Darcy hardly turned traitor, the way you’re all making it sound,” Adam said. He stared across the Matt, perplexed. “Wait a minute—I don’t think she’s with him at all. He accosted me, right before I headed for the car. And actually, I had assumed she was with you, Matt.”



“I’ll bet she just wanted to tell Reverend Bellamy what a lovely job he did,” Penny said.



Darcy needs you.



Matt nearly jumped a mile, jerking around quickly to see who had whispered at his ear.



There was no one there. No one. The person nearest to him was Penny, and she was a good three feet away.



“Who said that?” he demanded.



Penny, wide-eyed, turned around to stare at him.



“I just said that Darcy probably went to talk to the Reverend Bellamy,” she said. “Why, is that bad? Why do you look so angry?”



“Maybe that reporter went back to her,” Adam said, as if he was trying to assure himself. “The rain had started, and I was anxious to get away, but he had just left Darcy, so he probably went back to her, and maybe got her into his car.”



Darcy…Darcy…



Her name was like a whisper in Matt’s head. An urgent whisper. He stood so quickly that his chair fell behind him. He gave no notice.



“I’m going back to find her,” he said, and started out of the room.



Adam Harrison rose as if he would accompany him. Matt gave him no notice, he suddenly felt such a sense of urgency.



Alone, he ran out of the Wayside Inn and hurried for his car.



The old oak’s heavy branches covered the entire opening to the grave and protruded down into it. After her initial terror at the fall, Darcy had tried to use the tree to crawl out. But every time she got a grasp of a branch, it split in her hands, sending her splashing back hard into the rising mud.



She was soaked clean through, cold, miserable, freezing, and wondering if she could survive an overnight stay in the stygian pit. The afternoon had waned, and real darkness was setting in. Something slithered by her in the water and she choked back a scream. A snake.