Cold River - Carla Neggers [26]
Drew Cameron was buried in the Cameron family plot on the far southeast corner of the cemetery. Hannah and her brothers had attended his funeral but not the graveside service. She doubted any of her ancestors were buried at Four Corners. Her parents were buried at a little church graveyard past the hollow where she’d grown up.
She zipped up her jacket and hunched her shoulders against the cold as she came to the corner. Bowie’s van was parked a little ways down Cameron Mountain Road, at the end of a narrow lane cut between the cemetery and a steep, wooded hill.
Hannah crossed her arms on her chest, really cold now.
Poe continued his barking and growling.
She looked out across the old headstones just as a breeze kicked up, blowing fine snow into the air.
Creepy, she thought, and kept walking toward the parked van.
Eight
Poe, who had to be at least six or seven years old, jumped up in a side window, yapping madly as Hannah eased between the van and the snowbank on the side of Cameron Mountain Road. “Hey, Poe,” she said, trying to soothe the agitated dog. “What are you all excited about? Did you see a rabbit?”
He calmed slightly as she reached the lane. Exertion and adrenaline had warmed her up, if only slightly. She glanced around for Bowie. He’d never leave Poe in the van in the cold for too long, but she didn’t see him. Could he have scooted across the street into the church?
“Easy, Poe. I’ll find Bowie, okay?” The lab’s barking was more intermittent now, and she raised her voice as she called for his master. “Bowie, where are you? Poe’s going crazy here.”
She listened for any response, any indication of what had gotten the dog so excited. She could see that Bowie had done a careful, thorough job on the old stone culvert that ran along the edge of the lane and provided drainage for the cemetery. He must have stopped by to clean up or check on a potential problem. Whatever his other faults, Bowie was an expert mason who did quality work.
Poe settled down, and Hannah called Bowie again. She could feel the effects of her long hike and the day’s tension in her legs now. She debated going back to the van and letting Bowie’s dog out to come help her find him. She wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts, but she definitely didn’t like being alone in an isolated, cold cemetery at dusk.
“Hannah.”
It was as if someone had just whispered her name into the wind.
She stopped abruptly, her boots crunching on the packed snow.
“Bowie?” She heard a slight catch in her voice. “Is that you? Are you hurt?”
A stiff breeze blew across the cemetery, cracking naked tree limbs together and whooshing through the branches of the hemlocks and white pines on the hillside.
“Hannah…Hannah…Hannah.”
The voice—rhythmic and unnerving—came from near the stone-and-concrete crypt built into the hillside farther down the lane. Hannah felt her throat tighten and her hands stiffen inside her jacket pockets. She went as still as she could, listening, but she heard only the wind in the trees.
Where was Bowie?
Who was whispering her name?
She noticed several long-handled tools leaned up against the end of the crypt close to her and decided she’d arm herself with a shovel, then head back to the McBanes’ and get help if Bowie didn’t surface.
She crept a few steps closer to the crypt. She didn’t know if there were any bodies inside. The McBanes could be pragmatic about cemeteries, but she wondered if she’d be as spooked if she’d heard someone whispering her name at the old church across the street. It had to be Bowie. Who else could it be?
She reached for a shovel that was leaned against the crypt. On the other side of its thick wood door was a four-foot pallet of granite blocks. Next to it was a taller pile of what looked like debris Bowie had collected in repairing the culvert. Rock, dirt and broken bits of concrete had dislodged from the pile and fallen, bringing along most of the black tarp that had been draped crookedly over both the debris and the pallet of