Old Bones (Haunted Series) Read online

  Old Bones

  A novel by Alexie Aaron

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ~

  Copyright 2013 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron

  ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON

  HAUNTED SERIES

  The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow

  Ghostly Attachments

  Sand Trap

  Darker than Dark

  The Garden

  Puzzle

  Old Bones

  PEEPS LITE

  Eternal Maze 3.1

  Homecoming 3.2

  CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES

  Decomposing

  Death by Saxophone

  Discord

  I dedicate Old Bones to the wild and wonderful readers on Facebook who support, prod and encourage me. Without these passionate people, the Haunted series would not be what it is today.

  I like to thank my fierce and supportive editor, Kelly, who challenges me and helps me to grow as a writer. I’d pick you first for dodge ball every time.

  Table of Contents

  The Archeologist

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Alexie Aaron

  The Archeologist

  He moved stealthily, following the procession, keeping to the shadows, careful of his footing. The old building reeked with the odors of age and disuse. Scattered on the floor were signs of addiction, needles, bottles and rotting food. Charles progressed slowly, taking no chance that he was being followed.

  The richness of their garments was contrary to his research. He filed the details of their dress, the inked marks upon their skin, and the copper earrings in his mind to share with his partner. There was no time for note taking. No time to stop and rest. He was on the trail of the find of the century, not just an amendment on a previous report.

  Rumors became theories quickly in their line of work. The competition was staggering with fresh batches of researchers filling the halls of academia daily. His partner craved the acclaim of her peers, young and old. She relied upon him to feed her compulsive needs and wants. To him her demands were just requests that he’d gladly take care of, anything to bring a smile to her lips.

  He came upon the procession by accident. He spent days following them, daring not to communicate lest he be found out and this lead be taken over by another group better funded, more liked in the archeology community.

  The last pilgrim passed by him. He moved behind the basket-carrying female, hoping to blend in with the rest. He matched the cadence of their footfalls until he moved as one with the group. Charles was so pleased with his assimilation into the past that he forgot the present and the nature of the floor he walked on. He ignored the creaks and groans that should have been a warning. Instead, he only heard the music of the birds, the scent of the breeze and the rustle of people moving through time.

  The floor gave way under him. He flailed around, reaching and finding the edge of the rotted timber. Grasping it, he pulled his body up and rested his chest a moment on the edge before pushing upwards and crawling to safety. Only then did he chance a look downward to what would have been his doom. Cement, rusted iron and worm-eaten wood would not have cushioned his fall, it would have broken him. He sat back noting that the floor still vibrated. He got to his feet to begin his retreat, but a flash of color drew his eyes across the chasm. The last basket carrier was still in sight, her copper adornments catching the sunlight of centuries past.

  Charles moved around the hole carefully, hugging the wall of the abandoned factory. He was winded but determined not to fail his wife, his Amanda. He would bring her back the proof that she needed to substantiate her claim. A piece of pottery, a cupped piece of stone, an arrowhead, or a cache of bones would make her eyes shine and the longed for smile to reappear on her lips. He would move a mountain to please her. He would not return a failure; he couldn’t.

  He caught up to the procession and watched as they moved through the floorboards unaware of what time and mankind had done to their pilgrimage trail. They walked on the sundried mud of the Mississippi River plain, although they called it by another name. Charles found the stairs, moving heedlessly down the remaining risers. Once he made the basement floor, he ran on the crumbling cement until he was once again with the pilgrims. They stopped and waited while their leader issued orders. They made camp. Charles moved among them confident that these specters of the past would not acknowledge his future presence.

  He took out his notebook and scratched down his impressions. Charles sketched the men and women, taking time to draw the markings they wore upon their skin and embossed in their jewelry. One particular male stood out, not only because he gave the orders but his dress, his stance and his confidence assured Charles that he was revered by the pilgrims but feared by their servants. He stood taller than Charles, dressed only from the waist down. He wore one thick braid of hair that fell from the crown of his head over the massive pectorals of his chest. In his ears were copper earrings in the shape of a shield. On them were faces, carefully formed by an ancient jeweler, that appeared to look at Charles as if they could see him. They stared down their long crooked noses at him with their goggle eyes. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the ghost lest he unbalance the echo, making the residual image sizzle and leave his sight.

  Instead, he sketched the man, determined to bring back a representation to Amanda who would be thrilled that another of her theories had been proven, even just spectrally. Charles shook himself and looked around him. He noted the encampment and its relationship to the present time. He would return with permits and a team to dig up this floor and unearth anything the pilgrims left behind. With luck, a shard of pottery could have survived the Civil War expansion of St. Louis. The ignorant builders looked upon the mound as just fill, dirt and old bones to be buried and forgotten as their buildings rose.

  He moved past the encampment and sought out the stairs. The cold of the dark basement was beginning to take its toll on his joints. He rubbed his hands to ease the pain as he took a moment to look upon his discovery once more. The ghosts of the Mississippi pilgrims carried on with their preparations, unaware of the observer from the twenty-first century. They did not look up as he climbed the stairs. They didn’t hear his footfalls above them as he moved out of the building. Only one noticed him, felt his breath when he stood before him drawing pictures in that skin-covered thing. He pushed through his world into this one and followed
the man. He smiled, his pointed teeth shining in the half-light. It was his turn to hunt…

  Chapter One

  Mia looked over at Ralph and winced. He was holding up a selection of sundresses. Their bright floral patterns all but danced off the cotton they were printed on.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Mia said.

  “You’re going to Kansas, m’dear, and there you will have to face the scrutiny of women who will judge you behind their smiling eyes. I’ll be damned if you show up in those cargos and hoodies you insist on wearing,” Ralph insisted. He handed the dresses to the salesclerk who dutifully took them to the dressing room area to await Mia.

  Mia glanced over at a mirror and took in her attire. It was clean, a bit wrinkled, but she didn’t have time for an iron because Ralph had arrived on her doorstep on time. Her Nordic-blonde hair, fresh from the hairdresser, bounced around her face, setting off her wide-set moss-green eyes. “Okay, I hear yah. But those colors are so loud…”

  “Fashionable,” Ralph corrected. “Honestly, do you ever look at a magazine, watch a commercial or glance around you? Every woman is wearing these.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Mia said. “You are after all a Tony-winning set designer. I’m sure you did your research on Kansans before you left this morning.”

  “Guilty.”

  “I’ll try them on, but if I look like Ado Annie, I’m going to…” Mia let her threat hang in the air as she followed the saleswoman into the dressing room.

  Ralph laughed. “I didn’t think the girl saw Oklahoma. There’s hope yet,” he said to no one in particular.

  Mia reemerged dressed in a yellow frock that was cut a bit too low for polite company. She pointed to her cleavage, as if it was necessary, and said, “The girls are showing.”

  Ralph surveyed the petite bombshell who was his goddaughter and agreed with her. “Yes, it won’t do. Try on that green one,” he instructed.

  Mia walked back into the room and pulled the yellow dress over her head and unceremoniously tossed it on the chair in the corner. She thought a moment and walked over, picked it up and hung it back on the hanger. She was with Ralph and in one of his favorite stores; she would behave herself and not embarrass him. She looked over at the mirror. All of the scars from Lund had faded from her skin. Maybe she would actually buy a two-piece bathing suit this year. She tried on the green dress and smiled. Now this was more like it. It was modest but because of it she looked sexier. She lifted up her hair and commented, “All I need is those glasses and…”

  “Who are you talking to?” Ralph asked. “Get out here and let me see that dress.”

  Mia walked out into the shop and twirled. She waited for his appraisal.

  He nodded and handed her a pair of strappy sandals. “Here, put these on,” he ordered.

  Mia took off her shoes and socks and slid on the matching green sandals. “Well?”

  “Nope, too green, maybe a melon pair, pick up the flowers in the dress…” Ralph said, walking towards the shoe department.

  Mia turned and looked at herself in the three-way mirror. She smiled at the goth girl who was leaning against the wall beside her. “A bit girly girly, as Patrick would say.”

  The girl rolled her eyes and pointed to her shoes. Mia looked down and saw that she had on a pair of rugged, black ankle boots.

  “You’re right. I’ve got a pair like those at home.”

  “Who are you talking to? Honestly, Mia, you spend too much time alone. Try these on.”

  Mia did as she was told.

  “Yes, yes, yes, that’s the look. That’s what you’re to wear to the engagement party picnic,” Ralph instructed. “Now for the ensemble for when you arrive to meet Ted’s mother…” he said and wandered off.

  Mia looked at the goth girl and asked, “I find it interesting that you’re hanging around here. Are you in purgatory?”

  The ghost smirked and pointed to the young woman assisting Ralph. “My little sister works here. I like keeping a watch on her.”

  Mia nodded in understanding. She caught sight of Ralph under the pile of iridescent tees and pants and groaned. “I feel a migraine coming on.”

  “Who are you talking to now?”

  “You,” Mia said as she grabbed the pile of clothes and headed back into the dressing room.

  ~

  Charles climbed over the debris that had collected in the doorway and entered the alley. He was amazed that this property hadn’t fallen under the wrecking ball before now. All around it the neighborhood was going through a resurgence. New buildings grew from the ground where the old Civil War era factories had been. Just like old Cahokia, a new St. Louis was emerging, building itself over the old one. And in this particular case over an ancient one. As a man, he acknowledged progress as a necessary evil. As an archeologist, he abhorred it.

  He mused about future archeologists and what they would think of this building. Built originally during the Civil War, a new face was put on it in the Roaring Twenties, and from the look of it, the last improvement to the site was in the 60s. Would they even dig down deep enough to see evidence of a civilization that thrived here in 1050? Would the bones and pottery still be here? Would Amanda’s theory that the Cahokians moved to northwestern Missouri be proven? Or would it all turn to dust under the footings of another shopping mall?

  The entity watched as the man took out something from within the pockets of his clothing. He put it to his ear and started talking.

  “I followed the procession to an abandoned factory. Yes, I’m sure it was the same group. No, I didn’t confuse them. The leader is very distinct. Dresses in the way of He-who-wears-human-heads-for-earrings. Wisconsin. We’ve been through this before. Of course I know the painting, any first year student… Amanda, that is unreasonable. Several layers of concrete between me and your request, dear. I’ll have to go back to Monks Mound and… alright, I know you need proof. I need a permit. It’s getting dark. I’ll call you from the hotel.”

  Most of the words were foreign to him. He had learned through the centuries the language of the invaders from across the big pond, but their talk was constantly changing. They had eight or nine words for the juice of the bean alone. The man talked of Red Horn’s son. Did the man-who-digs-in-dirt think he was Red Horn’s son? Anger bubbled inside him. He thought about all he had accomplished when the second star appeared in the heavens. He had become a god. Red Horn’s son indeed. He should have stood shoulder to shoulder with Red Horn in the tales told by the people. After all, he was He-who-walks-through-time. What happened to his record, his images on the wall of the caves, the stone carvings, the effigies? Did all he accomplished on that fateful day he took his first step into the future get erased? He was immortal. He stood between the living and the dead, yet no one knew his name?

  His anger made him lose control of time, and he felt the pull backwards. He would remember the face of He-who-digs-in-dirt, and when he saw him again, he would make known that he was not Red Horn’s son!

  Charles heard a crackling behind him. The sound of static was in the air briefly and then it was gone. He turned, looked back at the factory and sighed. He was getting too old for the hunt, the dig, the fight for territory. But Amanda wouldn’t be swayed. She wanted to climb to the top of their peer group and didn’t care if she broke his back to do it. This should have saddened him, but instead it only increased his ardor for his wife.

  She was the first outsider he had told of his gift. He remembered how she smiled and said, “We can make use of this gift, but tell no one, else they will lock you up, stick needles in you and take you away.” And so he had hidden the ability to see the dead from all but his wife. When his daughter showed signs of it from birth, they chose to ignore it in hopes she would tire of it, and it would go away. He kept her in the house that he had bought for his wife that fateful day they became lost. Amanda fell in love with it the moment they stepped inside. It was a place for her to write, a place where their rivals couldn’t sneak i
n and steal her work.

  When it became evident Amanda was with child – his fault in her eyes – they needed to settle down for a while. She took to writing papers and left everything else for him to sort out. And when the child was born, he asked her what to call the girl. Amanda thought a moment and started to write down the letters M I A before she became distracted and got up, walked to her desk and began typing her theory about the role of the goddess in Mesoamerica. She never returned to finish this task.

  He hadn’t thought about Mia for some time now. His child was quite independent and didn’t bother her parents for help. He knew Ralph and Bernard, his friends from college, kept an eye on her. Mia didn’t disturb their lives. Only recently her world dared to touch theirs. What had possessed that annoying woman to write those slanderous emails that he kept from Amanda? She claimed that Mia had become a promiscuous, disruptive person. She cited that their daughter was erratic and dangerous, claiming to be able see ghosts. He reached out to Bernard and asked him to investigate the claims. Bernard assured Charles that the assertions were false, just the jealousy of a colleague. He also told him that Mia had made a good life for herself, and there was talk of a marriage to an industrious young man.

  This revelation had shocked Charles. Was Mia old enough? How many years had it been since he’d laid eyes on her? His phone vibrated, and he looked at the caller and saw it was Amanda. Thoughts of Mia disappeared as he answered the call.

  Chapter Two

  “Just wave your hand over this, and it will change the channels,” Ted instructed Murphy who frowned at the device on the table. “I know the last six remotes bit the dust, but I assure you that this one will survive your magnetic personality, dude.” He went on to explain how he combined an EMF detector with the original remote to come up with this design.

  Murphy nodded, pretending to understand what the hell the boy was talking about. He liked Ted and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Ted had been laboring on a system with which Murphy could watch TV without the assistance of Ted or the other PEEPs. Ted would be leaving soon with Mia to go to Kansas to meet his parents. Burt, Mike and Cid would arrive a few days later for the engagement party Ted’s sister was throwing for them. Murphy was not invited.