Page 70 of Purrfectly Haunted

James grabs the bag and his flashlight, while I carry the empty suitcase. Tonight we're both wearing our ExorSquad uniforms, even if I doubt we’re still employed. We didn’t feel like going grave robbing in our normal clothes.

Is it grave robbing if we steal the remains of a murder victim no one knows about?

“Come on. Let’s find this mausoleum. Typical Monday, right?” he jokes.

He offers me his hand, and I grab it gratefully. The cemeteries are the least haunted places in the city, but it doesn’t make them any less creepy in the dark.

He only turns on the flashlight when we near a mausoleum to read the name on it.

It take us fifteen minutes to find the one we’re looking for. It’s an impressive structure of white marble, covered in reddening vines.

I pull out the heavy brass key Lana gave us and insert it in the rusty lock. I have to apply some force to open it, and the heavy door makes too much noise as it gives. I step back, spooked by the darkness beyond, remembering the basement. But I know the ghost of the remains we are looking for is haunting someplace else.

“You know, in the contract we signed with ExorSquad, they forbid us to disturb graves and burial sites,” I say sheepishly.

He aims the light beam at me, and I squint against the sudden brightness. “They do? Why?”

“The contract mentions cursed remains and serious spine injuries...”

“Wonderful.” James pushes in front of me, ever my protector.

“You know, you should really read your contracts before signing them.”

He makes a non-committal noise and without hesitation walks into the mausoleum. I follow after him hurriedly.

The burial chamber isn’t large enough for us to stand side by side. It smells like dust and rotten leaves. I don’t know why I expected it to smell of death. Lana told us the last family member to be buried here died eight years ago, leading to her inheritance. He probably turned into a dried husk by now.

I shudder, trying not to think about all the remains around us.

“Let’s search deeper, among the older sarcophagi,” James says.

I follow him down a few stone steps, slippery with moss. The burial chamber goes underground, as if it wasn’t already creepy enough. Cemeteries are usually quieter, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t any ghosts.

As before, I hear the rustle of leaves in the wind.

Except there is no wind underground, I realise. No trees. What I hear are whispers.

I swallow thickly. “James...”

“Yeah?” He’s still looking at the names on the sarcophagi.

“Do you hear that?”

He pauses to listen. “No?”

Either I’m imagining things, or it’s something only I have the ability to hear. Am I hearing echoes of the afterlife?

“Are you okay?” James asks, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Aye... Let’s just hurry. I don’t like being here.”

“What? Visiting a musty burial chamber isn’t your idea of a good time? Surprising.”

His good humour helps a little, but it’s not enough to make me ignore my rising panic. I don’t like this.

“Ha! Found it. Meredith Lynch, died in eighteen twenty-four. Help me open it.”

He props the flashlight on a ledge and pulls out the tools we borrowed from Lana, long screw drivers and a hammer. Together, we work on the stone sarcophagus until it gives out in a cloud of dust. We cough and step back. I brace myself, but we only find old bones scattered inside. Of course, these have been resting here for almost two centuries. And unlike Egyptian pharaohs of old, the bodies weren’t prepared to withstand time.