Once he was satisfied that he looked good, he made his way past the car and over toward the cabin, although he stopped when he noticed that there was another car already parked nearby.
“Great,” he said with a sigh as he realized that this car belong to Doctor Levant. “Just my luck.”
Feeling a little annoyed that he wouldn’t be alone with Chandler, he nevertheless tried to look on the bright side. He hurried toward the cabin, but he stopped again when he saw to his surprise that the two bodies had been moved from the cart.
He turned and looked around again, but there was still no sign of Chandler. Something felt different, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong. Hesitating for a moment, he tried to figure out what was gnawing at the back of his mind, but he quickly forced himself to stop being so paranoid. He told himself that Chandler would only have moved the bodies if she’d had a good reason, so he walked around to the side of the cabin and pulled open the door.
“Hey,” he said as he leaned inside, “I just thought I’d—”
He stopped as soon as he saw the cabin’s empty interior. There was no sign of Chandler at all, and no sign of Doctor Levant, although the dead old man remained in place on his chair, looking toward the broken window.
“Chandler?” Clark said after a moment, as he began to notice that the cabin was in disarray. The table had been overturned, and the battery-operated light had fallen to the ground and lay smashed. “Doctor Levant?”
He hesitated for a moment, before stepping back and trying to work out what could have happened. He didn’t want to panic just yet, and after a few seconds he realized that – for whatever reason – Chandler and Doctor Levant must have headed out to the forest. That wasn’t entirely unlikely, since they might have discovered something nearby that shed light on the site as a whole, although as he looked toward the forest he couldn’t help but note that the entire area seemed eerily quiet.
Stepping back around to the front of the cabin, he reached into his pocket for his phone. He’d tried a few times to call Chandler that morning, but there was only partial, patchy signal at the site. As he brought her number up again, however, he noticed what looked like a freshly-disturbed rectangle of mud on the ground just a few feet away, with a shovel having been tossed aside.
Concerned, he took a step forward.
Suddenly he heard a bumping sound over his shoulder, and as he turned he felt a rush of relief as he saw Chandler staring at him from the side of the cabin.
“Hey,” he said, slipping his phone away and taking a step toward her. “I was starting to get a little creeped out there for a moment. What’ve you been up to?”
He waited, but Chandler simply watched him. There was a curious expression on her face, and her brow was slightly furrowed. Something seemed different about her. She usually stood proud and tall, but now she was a little hunched and her head was tilted slightly to one side. Her arms were hanging loose, too, whereas she usually kept them tucked in her pockets.
“I saw Levant’s car,” he continued. “I didn’t know he was going to be here.”
Again he waited, and again Chandler didn’t reply.
He took another step toward her.
“So what’s the deal with those bodies?” he asked. “I noticed some of the stuff’s damaged in the cabin. Did something happen during the night?”
He waited.
She stared him.
He was about to ask her again, but then he noticed a patch of mud smeared against one side of her mouth. In fact, he was starting to realize that she looked quite disheveled, with a few scratches on her face. Her hair was unkempt, too, and there was some tears on her shirt.
“What’s wrong?” Clark asked, as his concern grew. “Catherine?” He reached out and put a hand on the side of her arm. “Tell me what’s happening?”
She stared for a moment longer, and then she looked past him.
“Catherine?”
He watched the same expression on her face, and then he turned to try to see what she was staring at. For a moment, however, all he saw was the clearing and – in the distance – the tree-line.
“I don’t get it,” he said cautiously. “What is it? Is Doctor Levant here?”
“Your clothes,” Chandler said behind him, her voice sounding throaty and scratched. “They’re funny looking.”
“Huh?”
He began to turn to her.
Suddenly Chandler grabbed his throat and pulled him back, and then she forced him down onto his knees. He tried to get free, but she already had a hand on his face and she quickly slipped a gold coin into his mouth before clamping her her hand tight.
“Now you’re going to get a new body too,” she said with a grin, as Clark tried but failed to get free. He was struggling to breathe, and finally the coin almost choked him as it slipped down his throat. “Welcome back, darling,” Chandler continued, watching as the fear in Clark’s eyes suddenly gave way to a shocked, glassy expression. “We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
149 years ago
The door to the mortuary swung open, and Richard Garrett stepped through into the cold, dank room. Immediately, his gaze settled upon the two bodies that lay on a table over by the room’s far end.
“You’ll be Mr. Garrett, then,” the mortician, Andrew Bold, said, turning from the bench where he was preparing some fresh solutions. A young boy worked next to him. “It’s about time you showed up.”
“The paperwork took longer than it should have,” Garrett replied, making his way over to the table and holding up the document from the Sheriff’s office. “Never have I encountered such officious fools as I find in some of these small towns. Still, at least now everything’s signed and—”
“I don’t doubt that for one moment,” Bold said, interrupting him, before glancing with a nervous expression toward the two bodies. “Everyone wants rid of them. The fact that you’re willing to pay is just a bonus.”
Garrett stepped around the table and looked down at the two corpses. As he’d been informed, one was male and one was female. They’d been laid out naked, and the rope marks were clear around their necks. For a moment, Garrett could only stare at the bodies, and deep down he could already sense that they were of the type that he required. He’d been performing this service for so long, ever since the war had ended, that his gut reacted every time he came close to such creatures.
“I suppose you know the stories,” Bold said.
Garrett didn’t reply.
“I’m not a superstitious man myself,” Bold continued, “but ever since these two criminals were executed, it’s like they’ve been… calling attention to themselves. We even buried them, a few days back, but then things got worse and they were dug up. Something’s still not right, though. Can’t you feel it in the air?”
Still, Garrett said nothing. Instead he was staring at the corpses with a hint of wonder in his eyes.
“I don’t like what you do,” Bold said firmly, “but I understand it. So get on with it.”
“Leave the room,” Garrett murmured finally, still staring at the bodies.
“I think—”
“I told you to leave the room.” Garrett’s gaze was still fixed on the two corpses. “My horse and cart are waiting at the rear of the building. I shall go out that way, so as to avoid being watched by the townsfolk. For the same reason, I shall leave town along the old mining road. I do not like to make a spectacle of what I do.”
“And you’ll take them far away from here?” Bold asked. “We have your word on that?”