at the right of the stairs, lifting the candle to light up the wall.
It was dank down there, and she smelled mildew. Her toes sloshed
in a bit of water. Yep, leaks from the storm. On the wall facing the
stairs she finally found the circuit breaker box. Beside it were stacks
of old boxes, everything dirty and damp. She flipped the downed
circuit breaker switch and the bulb overhead blossomed into one-hundred-watt
light. Stacks of old furniture, most of it from the forties,
perhaps some even earlier, were piled against the far wall. So
many boxes, all of them very large, labeled with faded and smeared
spidery handwriting.
She started forward to look at the writing on one of the labels
when there was a low rumbling noise. She stopped cold, fear spiking
through her. Where was it corning from? Where? All the nightmares
from the night before tore through her. Sam’s words–
“haunted house.” Shadows, the damned basement was filled with
shadows and damp and rot.
She whipped around at the crash not thirty feet away from her,
in the far corner of the basement. She watched as the wall heaved
and groaned and spewed brick outward onto the basement floor,
leaving a jagged black hole.
She stood there a moment longer, staring at the hole in the wall.
She was surprised. The house was very old, sturdy. Why, suddenly,
would this happen? The storms over the years must have gradually
weakened this particular wall and now, finally, the one last night
was the final blow. Perhaps all the damp contributed, as well.
She walked to the corner, dodging crates and a huge steamer
trunk that looked to be from the nineteen twenties. The light
didn’t reach quite that far. She raised her candle high and looked
into the black hole.
And screamed.
Chapter 7
That black gash in the basement wall had vomited out a skeleton
mixed with shards of cement, whole and broken bricks, and thick
dust that flew through the air to settle slowly, thickly, on the basement
floor.
The skeleton’s outstretched hand nearly touched her foot. She
dropped the candle and jumped back, wrapping her arms around
herself. She stared at that thing not more than three feet from her.
A dead person, long dead. It–no, it wasn’t an it, it was a woman
and she couldn’t hurt anybody. Not now.
White jeans and a skimpy pink tank top covered the bones,
many of which would have been flung all over the basement floor
were it not for the once-tight jeans holding them together. One
sneaker was hanging off her left foot, the white sock damp and
moldy. The left arm was still attached, but barely. The head had
broken off and rolled about six inches from the neck.
Becca stood there, staring down at that thing, knowing that at
one time, whoever she was, she’d breathed and laughed and wondered
what the future would bring. She was young, Becca realized.
Who was she? What was she doing inside a wall in Jacob Marley’s
basement?
Someone had put her there, on purpose, to hide her forever.
And now she was just shattered bones, some of them covered with
moldy white jeans and a pink tank top.
Slowly Becca walked back upstairs, covered with dust, her heart
still pounding. In her mind’s eye the skeleton’s skull -was still vivid,
would probably remain terrifyingly vivid for the rest of her life.
Those eye sockets were so empty. Becca knew she had no choice.
She phoned the sheriff’s office on West Hemlock and asked to
speak with the sheriff.
“This is Mrs. Ella,” came a voice that was deep as a man’s, and
harsh–a smoker’s voice. “Tell me who you are and what you want
and I’ll tell you whether or not you need Edgar.”
Becca stared at the phone. It certainly wasn’t New York City.
She cleared her throat. “Actually, my name is Becca Powell and
I moved into Jacob Marley’s house about a week ago.”
“I know all about you, Miss Powell. I saw you at the Pollyanna
with Tyler McBride. What’d you do with little Sam while you two
were gallivanting around, enjoying yourselves at one of Riptide’s