What the Dead Want(52)

They remained as quiet as possible while she processed the rest of the film. Hawk was staring at the thing now, examining it. Gretchen could see his disgust, see him trying to calm himself down. She carefully took the film out of the canister and unrolled it from the spool. There was little time to dry it so she pressed it to her leggings, hoping not to damage it.

Then she took a pair of scissors off the enlarger table and cut it into five neat rows, placed them on the contact sheet and then turned the enlarger on, giving it seven seconds.

The click and light of the enlarger startled the hooved thing and it grunted and shrieked, squealed like an animal about to be slaughtered. It began to stomp and puff itself up, its body changing. It reared up and came closer to Hawk, spinning, trying to stomp on him. Hawk slammed the thing back against the wall, but it came at him again, clawing at his neck.

Gretchen lunged at the thing with the scissors but it knocked them from her hand, grazing her side. Hawk was trying to grab hold of it now, his hand on the dingy and tattered white sheet, pulling—the thing squealed as Hawk grabbed its face and pushed it into the last tray of chemicals, holding it down as it thrashed and stomped. Gretchen managed to toss the contact sheet into the first tray of the sink and watched the rows of images appear. She rubbed it around in the developer and then tossed it into the fix and counted the eternity of thirty seconds while the creature flailed beneath Hawk’s grip. Hawk was punching it now to subdue it. And the thing seemed to be getting weaker.

Gretchen grabbed Hawk’s hand, holding the contact sheet in the other and pulled him away from the creature, and they ran from the room, slamming the door. Outside the room was the man dragging the sack. Waiting.

He reached out a bony hand and grabbed Hawk, pulling him toward the sack. Gretchen pulled the ivory hair clip from her head, leaped forward, and stabbed him in the stomach until a thick viscous liquid poured from the man, spilling onto the floor. She held the contact sheet away from him and tried to run, but slid in the dark oily blood and began to fall.

Hawk grabbed her and helped her up. They ran for the stairs and took them two at a time. When they reached the bottom Gretchen was weeping with frustration at having to leave the mirror again. She turned as if to head back, but Hawk pulled her hand hard, trying to shake some sense into her, and then they heard Celia and Rebecca shrieking behind them, asking for help, then laughing and calling, “Here, kitty kitty kitty, here, kitty kitty kitty. Come play with us. . . .”





TWENTY-EIGHT


RATTLED AND BREATHING HARD, GRETCHEN AND Hawk raced out of the house and off the porch, into the driveway. Gretchen squinted at the contact sheet but couldn’t make it out. She kicked at the pillars on the porch, infuriated that she had again left the mirror—and maybe her mother—behind. She’d only accomplished what Esther had wanted. Esther was hijacking her thoughts.

The field was filling up with cars and people wandering around. The spiritualists from Shadow Grove had come to commune with the murdered and the murderers, to honor the dead. Unlike the fearful residents of Mayville, these people sought out the thrill of contacting the dead. A circle was forming by the edge of the woods where the church once stood. Rain had picked up again and the high grass was wet and becoming marshy.

A car with one headlight was approaching fast and loudly rattling on the road in front of them. Hope and Simon pulled up beside them and screeched to a halt.

“We found one last photograph of the Communion,” Hope said. “You can see they were standing in front of a big gilt mirror—the mirror. He made them watch as he set them on fire.”

Gretchen and Hawk jumped into the dry shelter of the car, and she turned on the overhead light and peered over the contact sheet again. There they were—the rest of the shots she’d taken in the house. Esther just before she killed herself in her studio surrounded by her photographs; the house in all its cluttered, ghost-ridden ruin.

And then finally—a shot she’d taken in the field as she’d run to Hawk and Hope’s last night. The church ablaze. And outside, a large group of men in white, their hoods taken off in the arrogance of their crime, standing in front of the burning church, holding shotguns and smiling—a group picture.

“Got you,” she whispered under her breath. “At last.”

She handed the picture to Hawk.

“All of them,” he said. “It must have been the whole damn town.”

“This is it,” Hope said. “This is what our mother was looking for all this time. How were that many people held inside? How did they do it? Who did it? And here it is. All those faces, we can see them clear as day.”

“But Mom was looking for a real photograph—not some echo from the past,” Hawk said. “Not some spirits reliving their heyday.”

“They’re there in the field,” Gretchen said. “And they’re there now surrounding the house.”

“Hello?” Simon burst in. “They’re NOT REAL. For all we know they do this every year.”

“For all we know they do,” Gretchen said. “But this is the first year we know who they are. They can’t hide behind a sheet.”

“Poor Celia and Rebecca still blame themselves for starting the fire. They blame their friendship. Who knows what they were told about how bad they were before they were killed.”

“Well, whatever it was, they’re living up to it,” Hawk said, rubbing the bite mark on his arm.