Ante Mortem Read Free Page A

cut the corner. Poof, gone.”
    “ Gone?”
    “ Gone. They took their eyes off her, and she vanished. Whole town went nuts for months. That was about a year ago.”
    Isaac looked at the playground and scrutinized the slab. “I saw something about it in an old paper at the library. I didn’t make any connection.”
    “ Yeah, well, who really would? I learned the town doesn’t get so excited when an adult vanishes. It happened about six months after the girl. She was a nurse up at the county hospital, not from around here. Nick showed me the video. He was kind of a perv. Always watched the women from the security room after they left the store.” Jarrod stopped for a moment and brought one hand to his mouth. His voice cracked as he said, “she just vanished... right there... in the middle of that goddamn court.”
    “ Did you know her?”
    Jarrod’s shoulders slumped as he nodded. “We were sort of dating. Nobody said anything. The cops wouldn’t believe the video, called it a hoax.”
    Isaac took a few steps onto the slab. “I don’t understand.”
    “ I don’t either, man. But I know what’s under that slab. Goddamn Evergreen.”
    Isaac turned and looked at his old friend.
    “ Do you remember that creepy spot out west—we called it Diphtheria Hill or whatever?”
    “ Yeah, the legend. Kid’s stuff. We scared our girlfriends in high school, brought them out there to make out. The story was that a bunch of pioneer kids were buried out there... they all died of diphtheria... a sort of mass grave on top of the hill. Nobody ever found anything, like gravestones.”
    Jarrod took the envelope in one hand. “Where do you think The Legends was built, huh? And the graves weren’t on top of the hill, Isaac. They found them, all these little bones—dozens of bodies, maybe hundreds—right where Evergreen was digging foundations for the condos.”
    Isaac frowned, looked back at the court. “I still don’t...”
    “ Look, what would happen if somebody found out? Evergreen would lose the land—historic location and all that. Red tape out the ass, Isaac. They had to do something with those bones, and they found a lot of them. They pledged a new playground to the city council that week.”
    Isaac’s face bleached white.
    “ I was there, man. I helped pour the cement over those bones, no questions asked.” Jarrod’s voice broke, and he stopped for a moment, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t know how, there’s a lot of crazy shit in this world I don’t understand, but three disappearances in one year—something is not right about what we did. Something isn’t right about this goddamn playground.”
    Isaac backed onto the sidewalk.
    Jarrod handed him the envelope. “Here. You take a look. Do what you want with this shit. I’ve had enough of it.” He turned and walked into the darkness.
     
    When Isaac tore open the envelope, a pile of papers and even a few photos slipped out onto his kitchen table. Most of the papers were copies of emails sent from executives at Evergreen to a foreman at Conco— Jarrod . The text of the emails verified Jarrod’s tale about the bones. The pictures looked like they could have come from an archeology site, not the ground work for condos. Isaac collapsed on his bed, trying to understand anything and pushing any wild thoughts of what could have happened to Anne from his mind. He lay in bed until dawn forced through his blinds.
     
    In the morning, he reviewed the video again, pausing on the frame just before Anne seemed to sink into the concrete. Jarrod’s story stabbed at his brain. Isaac squinted at the monitor, studying the strange blurs at Anne’s feet. The realization hit like cold needles jabbed into his neck. Those small blurs looked a little like hands. Something—Isaac shuddered to think what—had pulled Anne into the solid concrete slab.
    Isaac called in sick to work and composed a letter to the Kansas City Star . He wanted the