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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] the rung nearest me. "I found something!" I heard his voice echo towards me. "Come here!" "I can't see." I heard him huff in annoyance and come back into sight, his flashlight lighting up a ring of floor in front of him. "See now?" "Yeah." "Then come on." He waited impatiently as I joined him. I always managed to make him mad. It wasn't my fault. I didn't like the dark. We walked down the creaking hallway and through a doorway. The door was broken, lying in pieces on the floor. Michael ignored that, and took me inside a small room. There was a bed against one wall, and a nightstand. "Great-great-grandpa Connor's room," Michael said. "See?" he pointed out a box that had been dragged out The Hanged Man's Ghost - 262 from under the bed -- I could tell by the marks through the dust. I followed Michael to the box and together we started to go through it. There were old case files, odds and ends. Michael pulled out a wooden box; it was about the size of a loaf of bread, and locked. "You see a key anywhere?" He looked around the box. He found a candle and a matchbox, lighting it and handing it to me. "You look over there, and I'll look over here." "Okay." I dug around the bed and nightstand. I pulled out the stand's drawer, and it fell out onto the floor. I heard metal strike the floor and after a moment, found the key. It had been wedged under the drawer. "Got it!" Michael grinned, taking the key and unlocking the box. Inside was a pair of old handcuffs, a badge, and a pocket watch. I picked up the badge, and Michael took the pocket watch. "You think this was Grandpa Connor's?" He fiddled with the mechanism for a moment, and then the watch opened. The room got cold, and the flashlight flickered, and then went out all together. We were left with only the candle for light. A white shape was converging just out of the light. I screamed as the very dead smelling thing formed in front of us, Michael stood firm for a moment -- but then it lurched forward. He dropped the watch. A burst of air blew out the candle and we both ran for the door, and up the ladder. The Hanged Man's Ghost - 263 Michael slammed the trap door shut and for a moment we sat there, panting. We'd laughed like madmen after a while but the very next day, Michael was different. Mean. Possessed. Now, spirit Michael pulled his hands away from my face and I fell down onto my knees. I felt frozen. My lips were cracked and I tasted blood. "Holy Mother of God." "You saw?" "I saw." I looked at my brother's fading spirit. "This is going to end now." He nodded and then disappeared. I headed for the basement, more than a bit irritated with my Great-Great-Grandfather Connor. And this is why cops aren't allowed to keep souvenirs. The trapdoor was just where I remembered it, though Da had nailed some boards over it when I was in middle school. Not a problem, as he kept his tools down here. I grabbed a crowbar from his work table and set to prying up the boards. Physical labor was immensely satisfying when I was angry. Once I had all the boards up, splintered and kindling, I pulled the trap door open. I took a flashlight from the worktable and flicked it on. It was seven feet to the floor below me, with the ladder gone -- another measure taken by Da to keep his kids out of the entirely unsafe building below us. I'd have to jump. I was pretty sure I could make it both ways. Most of it was filled with dirt at this point, to make the foundation stable, but I could tell the hall and room were still undisturbed. I doubted very much that Da had ever come down here. The Hanged Man's Ghost - 264 I lowered myself down and fell the short distance down to the floor as gently as I could. The creaking was terribly loud now, and I'd prefer not to be trapped down here in a mess of broken floorboards. I hurried down the hall and into the room. It looked as it had in my memory. Nothing had been disturbed since Michael and I had run. There was a layer of dust over everything, but you could still make out where Michael had dragged the box out from under the bed. And there, next to the box and also covered in a layer of dirt and dust, was the pocket watch. I picked it up and shoved it into my pocket, heading back to the trap door. As I reached the door, it swung down, snapping shut with a thud. I jumped up, slamming my hand against it, but it wouldn't budge. Behind me, I heard laughter. "Can't get away now," an entirely too familiar voice rasped. I turned around and faced the ghost of Eustace Greene. He'd been a small man, wiry, and somewhere between thirty and forty. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a waistcoat that had seen better days. It was hard to believe someone so unassuming had murdered so many people. "You're going to hell." "How? You can't get out of this cellar without burning the watch, and you've got nothing to burn it with. You're trapped, Fynn." "What did you do with Tara?" "She's safe...for now. Of course, if she isn't found soon, she'll suffocate and die but...needs must." "Where is she?" I snarled. "No harm in telling you now, I suppose. You aren't The Hanged Man's Ghost - 265 going to make it out of here alive. I put her in a tomb in the churchyard of Saint Hedwig's. Your family tomb." "You're a sick bastard, you know that?" "Your family destroyed me!" he screamed. "Your grandfather sent me to the hangman. You deserve to suffer." His voice died down to a rasping whine. "You murdered innocent people. What did you expect would happen? My grandfather did his job, and I'm going to do mine." "How? You're all alone down here." "No, I'm not." I could feel them forming around me. The temperature of the air kept dropping. "You hurt my friends, the people I care about. And they are not at all happy with you." Robert was the first ghost to appear, coming at Eustace from behind. Then Jessica, clawing her hands into his arm. Reggie appeared in front of Eustace, hands grabbing his neck. A young man in his teens was the next to materialize. The jumper from Saint Hedwig's... he took Eustace's other arm. Michael appeared last, flickering like a candle flame. The ghosts of his victims descended on Eustace Greene like hungry cats after a dead fish. I still had the watch clutched in my hand. I popped it open and dropped it on the floor, crushing the glass under my boot heel as hard as I could. Springs and gears crunched under foot. Eustace shouted something and a small burst of white smoke erupted from the watch. Had I destroyed his connection to it? The ghosts tore him apart. The screams weren't human. It was layers of a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |