The Devil's Caress by June Wright

Author:June Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verse Chorus Press
Published: 2018-02-19T14:18:16+00:00

Chapter Seven

I

The white headstones of the cemetery gleamed in the moonlight. There was a terrible beauty about the peaceful scene which sprang from a sense of loneliness rather than from actuality. Marsh, who prided herself on her realistic attitude in her dealings with death, could not prevent an involuntary shudder. Some age-old part of her, linked with an era of superstition, almost caused her to run away. It was the whinny of a horse that brought her back sharply to the existing conditions.

From the shadow of the pine trees in the corner of the cemetery where he had stood that morning, Shane emerged. In either hand he carried a spade.

“He wouldn’t dare!” Marsh whispered, aghast. “It’s just not possible.”

Michael had vaulted the low rocky wall of the graveyard. She saw the two meet and exchange a few words and then clamber across the graves to the newly turned piles of earth covered with their limp flowers.

Trying to quell a deranged idea that it was all a nightmare, that it could not possibly be happening, Marsh slid down into the ditch which bordered the road. The moonlight was so bright now that she bent double and worked her way along to the wall of the cemetery like an animal.

It was a ghoulish scene under the hard cold light of the moon with the breeze soughing through the pine trees. The two men were working without a word, digging at one of the graves. The earth broke easily under the steady labour. Once Michael paused and took off his coat, but the older man beside him kept up his rhythmical movements without a break. Only when the horse whinnied again and came stamping out of the shadows did Shane turn his head. He whistled once and the animal quietened and began to crop the weeds on the nearby graves.

Cramped and cold and nervous, Marsh waited behind the wall. She was both fascinated and repelled as she watched the preparations for an illegal exhumation. Her mind was too shocked to form any idea of what she should do or why she should even stay, but she could not move.

Presently Shane threw down his spade and went over to his horse, while Michael knelt beside the grave flashing his torch into its depths. When the older man came back there was a murmur of voices. Then Shane lowered himself into the hole.

Marsh bent her head on her arms, nauseated. When she looked up again the two men were straining at ropes on opposite sides of the grave. Slowly and painfully a coffin streaming soil came out of the ground.

It slipped back a few inches and Shane gave a sharp order. Both men were breathing heavily but they continued to work rapidly. The coffin was placed alongside the trench. Michael spread out a large ground-sheet while Shane prised open the lid of the coffin. Together they lifted the body out and laid it on the sheet, which was wrapped around it and tied with the ropes.

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