Grave Shadows
Jerry B. Jenkins
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Grave Shadows
Copyright © 2005 by Jerry B. Jenkins. All rights reserved.
Cover and interior photographs copyright © 2004 by Brian MacDonald. All rights reserved.
Authors’ photograph © 2004 by Brian MacDonald. All rights reserved.
Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez
Edited by Lorie Popp
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Scripture quotation are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jenkins, Jerry B.
Grave Shadows / Jerry B. Jenkins, Chris Fabry.
p. cm. — (Red Rock mysteries ; 5)
ISBN 978-1-4143-0144-0 (pbk.)
[1. Bicycles and bicycling—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Family life—
Colorado—Fiction. 5. Colorado—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Fabry, Chris, date. II. Title.
PZ7+
[Fic]—dc22 2005005292
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Epilogue
About the Authors
Chapter 1
My friend Jeff Alexander was dying. We all knew it. I prayed God would perform a miracle, but I’m not sure I believed it would actually happen. When Jeff mentioned going to the graveyard near the haunted house, it made my skin crawl.
The hardest part of any cemetery is looking at the graves of kids. Did they get sick? fall down a well? The only thing you know is that they’re sleeping with angels or in Jesus’ arms—that’s what the tombstones say.
That summer started out like most. Ashley and I were glad to be out of school and going into the eighth grade. She’s my twin sister and likes to tell everybody she’s older, but it’s only by a few seconds. We can talk about everything but age.
Instead of just watching TV all day or bugging Mom for extra chores to make money, I told Jeff I’d ride with him on a bike hike. It was the least I could do since he has cancer. Sometimes he looks really good, like he’ll live longer than us all. Then he has bad days.
Imagine a 200-mile bike ride. Made my butt numb just thinking about it. But it was for a good cause. Every mile meant more money for cancer research, and it was a chance to spend time with Jeff.
The plan was to start in Vail and ride through the mountains all the way to Colorado Springs. It wouldn’t be easy, but my stepdad, Sam, says nothing really good in life is easy. I guess our family should really be good, because it’s not easy living with two new people who don’t believe the way you do. Sam and his daughter, Leigh, aren’t Christians, and my mom and sister and I are. We have a little brother too, Dylan.
Sam’s wife and younger daughter died in the same plane crash our dad died in. Sam met my mom at a memorial ceremony, and they fell in love. That was before Mom became a Christian. We moved from Illinois to Colorado, which is probably the biggest change in scenery imaginable. Instead of everything being as flat as a paper plate, there were mountains all around, thin air, animals, snow in April and May, and no Cubs games. It was a shock, but Ashley and I got used to it.
The bike trip was a week away when Jeff suggested the graveyard trip. Ashley and her friend Hayley said they wanted to go too, and I figured the more the merrier.
That’s when things got interesting.
Chapter 2
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Hayley said as we pedaled up a hill behind Bryce and Jeff. They were riding a tandem, a two-person bike. Hayley and I were on separate bikes. It was getting really hot and hard to keep going.
“You mean dead people coming back?” I said, trying to catch my breath.
“Yeah, people who haunt you.” She let out a “Woooooooo!” then said, “I saw this TV show where they recorded an actual ghost walking through a room. There were a couple of kids asleep in bunk beds, and through the dark you saw this misty green thing move past them, stop, then walk right through the wall.”
Bryce and Jeff were so far ahead they couldn’t hear us. They were going really slow, like they might have to stop any minute.
“It was probably just special effects,” I said.
“No, they put a camera up and didn’t touch it the whole night. I couldn’t sleep for a week after I saw that.”
The story gave me goose bumps, or maybe that was just my body shutting down. We were in the third mile of a five-mile ride to the end of Red Lake Canyon, a dirt road that winds around the
side of the mountain until it flattens at the top. Bryce and I had never actually been to the very end, and we were both excited to see the haunted house.
“There are no such things as ghosts,” I said. “When you die, that’s it. You don’t come back and hang around little kids in their bedrooms.”
“Then what did I see on that show?”
I hit my brakes and stopped by the side of the road. Empty Mountain Dew bottles littered the washed-out rut, along with a Sonic Styrofoam cup and an old tire. Colorado’s a pretty state and people usually take care of things, but I guess when they get this far they forget where they live.
Hayley had been to our church a few times, but I was sure she wasn’t a Christian. And I didn’t want to just spout stuff my mom told me. “All I know is that the Bible never says people who die come back and haunt us.”
Usually when I mention the Bible or Jesus, Hayley gets quiet or changes the subject. Lately she’s seemed more interested.
“What does it say then?” she said.
“That we only get one chance. We don’t come back as a frog or a tree, another person, or a ghost. After we die, God judges us, and the most important thing is what we do with Jesus.”
Jeff let out an exhausted yell from in front of us. “I have to stop.”
Chapter 3
I stopped, and Jeff and I stood panting. We were almost to the flat part of the road, but I’ve learned that when Jeff yells you have to stop.
When I first heard about Jeff’s cancer, it made me want to run from him. It was painful to see him get weaker, lose his hair, walk funny. Mrs. Ogilvie, our counselor at church, helped me see Jeff needed friends the same as everybody else. The only reason I wanted to run was because I didn’t want to lose another person in my life, like my dad.
Being friends with somebody who’s sick is like trying to pull a stubborn tooth. It’s hard at first, but the more you pull and the more painful it gets, the better it feels when the thing’s actually out of your mouth. Except there’s no cancer fairy, though I wish there were.
“Can we walk the bike the rest of the way to the top?” Jeff said, still panting. He had on a backpack that looked like it weighed more than he did.
“Sure,” I said.
Ashley and Hayley caught up and walked their bikes too. I guess so we wouldn’t feel bad. Jeff and I had been riding the Santa Fe Trail, an old railroad line that’s been turned into a bike and running track. It goes for miles and miles, but we’ve worked up to 10 miles each way. That’s on flat ground. Riding in the mountains is different.
“What about you, Bryce?” Hayley said. “You don’t think there’re any ghosts back at this old cemetery, do you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t believe in ’em.”
“I’ve been coming here for months,” Jeff said when he caught his breath. I wondered how we were going to ride 200 miles up and down hills when he couldn’t even go five without gasping. “I haven’t seen anything at the cemetery except for deer and a few foxes.”
The farther we climbed, the rougher the road got. There were washed-out sections and deep ruts.
“How do you get back here?” Ashley said.
“Dad drives. We built a tree house near the cemetery. Can’t wait for you to see it.”
When we got to the top of the hill, we stopped in the shade and took out our water bottles. A car rumbled past, kicking up a lot of dust, and I smelled something that made me think I’d never eat another bite in my life.
Hayley groaned. “What’s that stink?”
Ashley pulled her shirt over her nose and pointed to the edge of the road.
“Skunk pancake,” Jeff said.
He was right. A car had flattened a skunk, and it looked and smelled like it had been there for days. We moved past it, and the girls turned their heads.
“Roadkill-a-rama!” Jeff said.
I added, “Flattened where he ran!” and I thought Hayley was going to kill us.
Something about the skunk wasn’t really so funny, though. It gave me a bad feeling.
Chapter 4
The rest of the ride wasn’t as hard because the road flattened. Every now and then we’d get a view down the mountain through a break in the trees, and it looked like something you’d see on a brochure about visiting Colorado.
Pinecones dotted the road, and black squirrels with pointy ears darted back and forth. There weren’t many houses back here, but the ones we found were either plain and simple or mansions. A little gravel driveway might lead to a trailer with old cars out front. The next driveway might wind down a hill to a house that looked like a palace with a tennis court or a pool.
We also saw beer cans and cigarette lighters thrown about. I’d heard that teenagers came out here to party at night. Old newspapers blew around with other trash. When Hayley spotted a DQ cup she said, “I could go for a grape Mr. Misty right now.”
Some of the trees didn’t look healthy. Only pine trees and aspens grow at this altitude, but the tops of the pines were brown, like they were dying. Maybe it was just the time of year or the invading pine beetles, but the decaying trees made me think of Jeff.
Barbed wire ran along the edge of the road, going from tree to tree. Several horses stood by the fence and seemed to watch us, their backs twitching and tails swishing at flies.
“There it is!” Hayley said.
Chapter 5
The house loomed above us like it was attached to the clouds. The deep blue sky made its faded shutters and peeling paint look more dingy. It looked like something out of a scary movie where people get stranded and are chased by some maniac.
The trees opened and bordered the house like a picture frame. Weeds and thistles covered the front yard—if you could call it that. An aspen grove had taken over one side of the hill.
“The graves are over there,” Jeff said, gesturing through the trees to a spot past the house.
I cringed as we rode past. I’d heard so many stories about people who had been killed, gold prospectors who haunted the grounds, and more. A well in front of the house had a graying bucket at its edge.
“Keep going,” Jeff said.
We pedaled to a rickety picket fence at the end of the road and parked our bikes. We walked into the graveyard, shaded by some of the largest pine trees I had ever seen. I checked my watch. We had gone five miles, but it had taken more than two hours, and if we were to be back home in time for dinner like we’d promised, we’d have to leave soon.
Jeff carried his backpack and led us to the end of the graveyard, pointing out the oldest markers. One had a simple wooden cross and looked a thousand years old. It was actually from 1904, and Jeff said it marked the grave of the son of a man we had studied about in Colorado history.
He trotted to the fence, climbed over it, and stood in front of a tree that rose like a monster. Planks had been nailed directly into the trunk. Ashley and Hayley looked skittish, but Jeff led the way and we scampered up.
Chapter 6
The view from the road was something, but the scene from the tree house was amazing. It was like we were on top of the world. Jeff and his dad had nailed a railing around the tree house so no one would fall. We could see the town of Red Rock in the distance, houses dotting the landscape like pieces on a Monopoly board.
To our right Pikes Peak spread like a brown masterpiece. Straight ahead stood the spires of the Air Force Academy Chapel. Past that was Colorado Springs.
“Ever been here at night?” Bryce said.
Jeff’s eyes sparkled. “You should see it. A million lights flicker. Kind of makes it okay that we don’t have fireflies around here.”
Jeff seemed energized, as if just being here gave him life. He pointed out other places he recognized and even showed us where our house was by identifying the red rocks behind our property.
We drank from our water bottles, and Bryce climbed down and got our lunches from the bikes.
Jeff just picked at his food, taking some pills with his sandwich. He pulle
d out a pad of paper and jotted a few things. “It’s for my column,” he said.
“Great, we’re going to be famous,” Hayley said, chuckling.
One of Jeff’s dreams was to be a writer, and with the help of the local newspaper he had become one. “Jeff’s Diary” carried his weekly thoughts and experiences. Sometimes it was funny, other times sad. Everybody I knew read it, even if they didn’t read anything else in the paper.
Bryce seemed focused on the haunted house.
“See any ghosts?” Hayley said.
Bryce turned, his face pale. “I thought I saw someone in that upstairs window.”
Chapter 7
Sometimes it’s weird what you think you see when you’re scared. I didn’t want to notice anything in that upstairs window. Could it have been the wind moving the shutters? Was someone there? What were they doing in that spooky old house?
“You guys investigate,” Jeff said. “I’ll stay here.”
Ashley and Hayley and I climbed down and walked up the old driveway, which looked like it had been made for a horse and buggy. We skirted the front and stopped at an old outbuilding that looked like it was home to a bunch of snakes.
Shutters hung at weird angles from the house. A balcony with a crumbling railing ran around the top floor. All the windows were broken. You’d have to throw a rock for at least a year to hit any glass.
“You guys scared of dying?” Hayley whispered.
We looked at her like she was playing with the dead skunk.
“No, I mean like Jeff. He doesn’t seem scared at all.”
“Can we talk about this later?” I said. “Besides, he’s not going to die.”
Hayley nodded and moved to the front of the little building. The half-moon cut into the door told me this had been an outhouse—an outdoor bathroom. I’d read about them but had never actually seen one. I peeked inside at a long bench with a hole cut in it.
“Let’s go in the house,” Hayley said.
“Thought you were afraid to die,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt Hayley’s feelings, but she was getting on my nerves.
“We should see who’s in there,” she said.
I stepped onto the back porch. Weeds grew through the floor. The boards creaked and we stopped, listening.
