Riptide

the insurance company and the tree-removal people and not to
    worry about a thing, everything was covered.
    Becca went back to the house and toured for the next twenty
    minutes, not seeing any damage anywhere inside. The electricity
    flickered on, then off again. Finally, when it was nearly noon, the
    lights came on strong and bright. The refrigerator hummed loudly.
    Everything was back to normal. Then, with no warning, the hall
    and living room lights went off. The circuit breaker, she thought,
    and wondered where the devil the box would be. The basement,
    that was the most likely place. She had to check down there anyway.
    She lit one of her candles and unlatched the basement door,
    which was at the back of the kitchen. Steep wooden stairs disappeared
    into the darkness. Great, she thought, now to top it all off,
    maybe I can fall and break my neck on these rickety stairs. They were
    wide and felt sturdy and strong, not so dangerous after all, a relief.
    There were a dozen steps. The floor was uneven, cold and damp
    concrete. She raised the candle and looked around. There was a
    string hanging down and she gave it a pull. The bulb switch clicked
    but nothing happened. This light must be on the same circuit. She began
    at the right of the stairs, lifting the candle to light up the wall.
    It was dank down there, and she smelled mildew. Her toes sloshed
    in a bit of water. Yep, leaks from the storm. On the wall facing the
    stairs she finally found the circuit breaker box. Beside it were stacks
    of old boxes, everything dirty and damp. She flipped the downed
    circuit breaker switch and the bulb overhead blossomed into one-hundred-watt
    light. Stacks of old furniture, most of it from the forties,
    perhaps some even earlier, were piled against the far wall. So
    many boxes, all of them very large, labeled with faded and smeared
    spidery handwriting.
    She started forward to look at the writing on one of the labels
    when there was a low rumbling noise. She stopped cold, fear spiking

through her. Where was it corning from? Where? All the nightmares
    from the night before tore through her. Sam's words--
    "haunted house." Shadows, the damned basement was filled with
    shadows and damp and rot.
    She whipped around at the crash not thirty feet away from her,
    in the far corner of the basement. She watched as the wall heaved
    and groaned and spewed brick outward onto the basement floor,
    leaving a jagged black hole.
    She stood there a moment longer, staring at the hole in the wall.
    She was surprised. The house was very old, sturdy. Why, suddenly,
    would this happen? The storms over the years must have gradually
    weakened this particular wall and now, finally, the one last night
    was the final blow. Perhaps all the damp contributed, as well.
    She walked to the corner, dodging crates and a huge steamer
    trunk that looked to be from the nineteen twenties. The light
    didn't reach quite that far. She raised her candle high and looked
    into the black hole.
    And screamed.

Chapter 7

    That black gash in the basement wall had vomited out a skeleton
    mixed with shards of cement, whole and broken bricks, and thick
    dust that flew through the air to settle slowly, thickly, on the basement
    floor.
    The skeleton's outstretched hand nearly touched her foot. She
    dropped the candle and jumped back, wrapping her arms around
    herself. She stared at that thing not more than three feet from her.
    A dead person, long dead. It--no, it wasn't an it, it was a woman
    and she couldn't hurt anybody. Not now.
    White jeans and a skimpy pink tank top covered the bones,
    many of which would have been flung all over the basement floor
    were it not for the once-tight jeans holding them together. One
    sneaker was hanging off her left foot, the white sock damp and
    moldy. The left arm was still attached, but barely. The head had
    broken off and rolled about six inches from the neck.
    Becca stood there, staring down at that thing, knowing that at
    one time, whoever she was, she'd breathed and laughed and wondered
    what the future would bring. She was young, Becca realized.
    Who was she? What was she doing inside a wall in Jacob Marley's
    basement?
    Someone had put her there, on purpose, to hide her forever.
    And now she was just shattered bones, some of them covered with
    moldy white jeans and a pink tank top.
    Slowly Becca walked back upstairs, covered with dust, her heart

still pounding. In her mind's eye the skeleton's skull -was still vivid,
    would probably