Moans, Mummies, and Murder (The Dead-End Drive-In Series Book 2) Page 2

  “We’ll move it the rest of the way Val,” Belle offered.

  “Nonsense. I’m going to help. I am the assistant manager, after all.”

  “And I don’t want you hurting yourself. Why don’t you just keep an eye on things while we move it.”

  “Oh, all right,” Val relented, realizing that she was already winded.

  After some careful, and strained, moving, they managed to get the large crate near the raised brick platform on one side of the room. Sometimes, Belle would show movies inside the restaurant when the weather didn’t allow for outdoor screenings. She had a screen behind the large curtains on the short stage.

  “I was hoping to put it up here, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to heft it up there,” Belle noted.

  “I’d have to agree with you there,” Anna said.

  “Hey, girls. Can we at least get it open? I’d like to see exactly what it is that you’re dragging around the room.”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ve been dying to get a closer look at it myself,” Belle said.

  “I’ll grab the crowbar,” Val offered, standing up from the chair where she had sat to rest.

  “Hey, we might not need it.” Belle grabbed the lid, realizing it was somewhat loose. “The nails are barely in the wood.”

  “Wow, whoever did the shipping did a bang-up job. Seriously, sis, better make sure this thing is intact.”

  “Just help me pull off the lid, okay?” Belle groaned, getting tired of her sister’s attitude.

  Both women got a hold on the lid and pulled. A loud squeak of metal against wood echoed through the restaurant. Still, the lid wasn’t free.

  “One more time, I think,” Belle said.

  Again, they tugged on the lid, and the nails came free of the already splintered and stripped holds.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone already opened it,” Anna commented.

  Val moved over and the three women looked in at what appeared to be a large pile of packing straw. Grabbing handfuls and moving the straw aside, Anna and Belle revealed the treasured contents inside.

  The ancient style coffin had rounded shoulders and a head, mimicking the shape of the person interred inside. The faded face of a long-dead man, adorned in the traditional headdress and clothing of the Egyptian royalty, was painted on the sarcophagus lid.

  It appeared to be crafted completely from stone.

  The three women were silent for a few moments, each of them in complete awe of what they were looking at.

  “You know, I’m not an archeologist, but this looks darn authentic,” Belle said.

  “No wonder it was so hard to move. It’s made completely of stone.” Anna reached out and brushed the worn surface. Instantly, she recoiled.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Belle pressed.

  “It’s warm.”

  “Of course, it is. It sat in a hot truck all morning.”

  Anna looked up with one cocked eyebrow. “But it’s not even nine yet. The sun’s not been up very long.” She placed her palm against the surface. “Besides, it’s stone. It was in this box, in the back of that truck. Shouldn’t it be at least a little cool?”

  “Why does it matter?” Belle shrugged. “Let’s see if we can get it out of the box.”

  “It may be easier just to take it apart,” Val offered.

  “She’s right. We should probably just take the sides of the box off.”

  Belle leaned on the edge of the wood and looked down at the ancient looking coffin. “Guess we’ll need that crowbar after all.”

  “I’ll grab it,” Val announced, heading out of the room.

  For a few moments, the room was silent while the sisters leaned on the edges of the box, looking in at the item inside.

  “It’s magnificent, isn’t it? The perfect addition to this movie premiere,” Belle whispered.

  “Is there anything inside?”

  Belle shook her head. “No, unfortunately. Since the mummy was always played by an actor in make-up and bandages, they never actually made a prop for it.”

  “That makes sense.” Anna paused, staring at the lid of the sarcophagus. “Do you . . . think we should open it anyway?”

  “Not really. I already know there isn’t anything inside. The ad said so.”

  Anna bit her bottom lip. “Just in case?”

  Belle glanced up at her sister with a curious look. “Are you afraid?”

  “Of course not,” she protested. Her face flushed red for about a second, a clear indication to Belle that her sister was lying.

  “Okay, we can pop it open.”

  “Actually, never mind. That’s fine. I believe you,” Anna sputtered out in a fast and almost incomprehensible string of words.

  Belle couldn’t help but smile at her again. “Now you’re afraid to open it because there might actually be something inside?”

  “Will you cut it out?”

  She giggled quietly. “You always were a bit of a scaredy cat.”

  “I am not.”

  “Sure, you are.”

  “No, we have a ghost living upstairs in that apartment with us, don’t we? He sleeps in the film projector?” When Anna had first moved in with her sister, they’d had the strange experience of seeing a character from one of the old black and white movies step out of the film and into reality. Turned out it was the ghost of a recent murder victim who had possessed (or gotten trapped) inside one of the movie’s characters.

  Because of this strange hiccup, the ghost wasn’t sure how to cross over. Instead, he had become a friend to the sisters and was now living with them.

  “Harlem isn’t scary, and you know it. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Anna folded her arms in a show of defiance. “He’s still a ghost, isn’t he?”

  “That’s true, but he’s just a big ol’ softie.”

  “It doesn’t help that he looks like Vincent Price,” Anna chuckled.

  “If anything, it makes him even cuter.”

  “Cute? Did you just call our resident ghost cute?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I did.”

  “Are you girl’s talking about me?” came the wistful voice from the staircase.

  Both women jumped at the voice and turned to face the man who’d just appeared.

  “Harlem,” Belle exclaimed in a high-pitched fit of surprise. Her face flushed and she hoped that he hadn’t heard her calling him cute.

  His figure was colorless and transparent, flickering as if he were cut right out of the projection of an old movie. As always, he wore a dark suit, had a small pencil mustache, and had his hair perfectly slicked back.

  “I just woke up and I heard you two arguing down here. What’s going on?”

  “We were just opening my new centerpiece for this weekend’s film premiere.”

  Walking across the room, his ghostly shoes making no sound on the linoleum floor, he came to stand over the stone coffin. “Woah. Is that a real sarcophagus?”

  “No, it’s just a replica of a movie prop.”

  Anna grunted quietly. “Let’s just open the darn thing, okay?”

  “Anna’s a little frightened that there might actually be a dead body inside,” Belle whispered to Harlem.

  “I heard that, and I am not.” Anna was beginning to sound more and more like her own twelve-year-old self again. Belle remembered plenty of times when she’d scared her sister, hiding under her bed, in the closet, in the laundry basket. It was always fun.

  Anna hadn’t appreciated it and still held a slight grudge. She’d never enjoyed watching all the scary movies with Belle and their father. She just got too scared.

  “I’ll admit, now I’m interested to see inside, too,” Harlem confessed.

  “Okay, okay. Let’s just do this,” Belle said. “Do you have the energy to help lift it? It’s made of stone and might be hard to lift.”

  Harlem nodded. He’d quickly learned that if he went inside the projector unit upstairs that he would get more energy to touch an
d move things in the real world. His image was also brighter and more vibrant afterward. It was basically his equivalent of sleeping.

  The three of them got a grip on the lid, or as best they could.

  “On the count of three,” Belle instructed them. “One, two, THREE!”

  With all their might, they each pulled up on the stone lid. Even with their combined strength, it was a struggle to get the thing up and off.

  Slowly, painstakingly, they shifted the lid sideways. The sound of stone scraping stone echoed in their ears until finally, they’d uncovered the inside just enough to see in.

  Both girls instantly let out surprised gasps, letting go of the lid so that it fell into the straw padding along the edge of the box.

  Belle could feel her heart beating like a drum inside of her chest as she examined the contents. Inside the sarcophagus was the shriveled form of a bandage-wrapped mummy.

  }

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  “Sorry, it took so long, girls. Someone put the crowbar away in the wrong place,” Val apologized as she entered the room. As soon as she got close enough to the open stone coffin, she gasped and dropped the crowbar.

  It clanged loudly along the floor.

  “I thought you said it was supposed to be empty,” Anna accused her sister.

  “It is supposed to be empty.” Belle looked up and down at the body inside. Was it a real body? Was it a real mummy, even?

  Leaning over, Val picked up the crowbar. “Girls, I’m sure it’s just part of the prop.” It sounded as if she were trying to convince herself more than the sisters.

  “But the ad for the rental said it was empty.”

  “Maybe the last renter left it in here,” Anna suggested.

  Belle tilted her head and looked at her older sister. “Really? Someone just accidentally left a mummy in the coffin?”

  “It could happen. Maybe they made it themselves out of gauze, glue, and black paint or something.”

  “I just don’t know,” Belle whispered. She glanced up at Harlem who was still examining the body. She wanted to ask his opinion but didn’t dare do it in front of Val.

  Besides the two sisters, no one else could see or hear Harlem. Of course, if he exerted enough energy to move objects, someone would think they were being haunted.

  In a sense, they’d be correct in that assumption.

  “Dear, I’m sure it’s just a like a special bonus they gave you. Two props for the price of one,” Val offered with a smile.

  Belle nodded at the motherly figure. “You’re right. Probably just a bonus.” The only problem was, she didn’t remember a listing online for a mummy prop at all. Glancing at Harlem’s expression again, she saw that he wasn’t so sure either. She’d have to get him alone later and ask his opinion.

  Anna made a visible gagging face. “I just wish it didn’t look so real.”

  “Come on, let’s get this box taken apart at least.”

  * * *

  A half-hour later, they had managed to get all the boards on the box apart and stacked the pieces (along with the straw padding) in one of the back storage rooms. When they sent it back to the movie prop renter’s office, they’d need to reassemble the box.

  At this point, the sarcophagus was lying on its back near the stage. Belle was hoping to lift it up so it was standing on its end facing the diners as they came in later that night. It would be the perfect advertising piece for the event on Friday.

  The only thing that really bothered her was the strange “prop” inside. She wanted to believe that the thing laying in the old looking crypt was just a fake, a well-crafted replica, of a real mummy—but something inside her, deep down in the pit of her gut, made her question her judgments.

  Harlem’s uneasy expressions weren’t helping, of course. He had left a little earlier and headed back upstairs, claiming he wanted to do some research online about the renter’s company and the prop they’d sent.

  Belle had given him a look of approval. She didn’t want to look crazy in front of Val by talking to what appeared to be thin air.

  “So, who is hungry?” Val asked while they all sat around in chairs, taking a break from the hard work of undoing the crate and moving the pieces.

  “Starved,” Anna confessed.

  “We haven’t had any breakfast, yet.”

  “I assumed as much. Let me head into the kitchen and whip something up,” Val offered.

  Ever since the girl’s parents had passed, when Belle was only fifteen, Valerie Bronson had become like a second mother to them. Anna had been just old enough that they didn’t need to move out of their home, but Val had been there every day with food of all kinds and to check up on them. Often her husband, Police Chief Dan Bronson, had come along. He was a jolly sort of fellow, laid back and fun loving, who had become a good father-type figure in their lives.

  Of course, especially for Belle, he would never come close to replacing the kind of relationship she’d had with her real father.

  Before he died, they’d spent nearly every night sitting together on the couch watching horror movies on the oldies channel via cable. Belle had opened the drive-in theater as her way of preserving his memory.

  Heading into the kitchen, the girls sat at the counter while Val got to work making Louisiana style French toast, also known as Pain Perdu. The recipe used a special brioche loaf instead of normal bread or Texas toast. The other secret ingredient was the added Frangelico which was mixed in with the egg and cream to make a custard to coat the bread with.

  It was a heavy and indulgent dish, but every single bite was like heaven.

  “I’m still waiting to get the official poster for The Mummy’s Bandages from the director,” Belle mentioned.

  “They haven’t sent the poster yet?” Anna asked.

  “I’m hoping to get it today. Then I can hang it in our upcoming feature box out front for people to see. I want this to be a big hit since it’s our first time we’re going to be doing a movie premiere like this.” She was hoping, if this went well, that’s she’d be able to do similar events down the line.

  Honestly, she loved the excitement, the anticipation, and the decorating.

  Thinking about decorating brought her mind back to the sarcophagus again—and the strange shriveled body inside. For some reason, it really bothered her.

  When her mother had been alive she had talked about how Belle had the sixth sense. She said she could always sense when something was amiss, or when something strange or unnatural was afoot.

  It was one of the ways her mother explained away Belle’s fascination with scary movies. It only made sense, after all.

  However, why was she feeling that way now? There was no way that mummy could be a real dead body, right? She shivered at the thought. “I think I’m going to get some fresh air,” she told her sister, hopping down from the counter stool and heading toward the front of the building.

  As she walked through the dining room, she eyed the sarcophagus lying in the middle of the floor. She couldn’t help but hear the opening music to Blood from the Mummy’s Crypt in her head. It honestly gave her chills of both excitement and fear at the same time. The idea of encountering a real-life mummy was so cool, especially since Belle was fascinated by them. On the other hand, it was kind of creepy.

  A real mummy might be stolen from a museum or collector, or maybe it was a new find that had gotten misplaced.

  She honestly didn’t know what to think.

  Stepping out front, she paused as the sun shone on her face. Taking a deep breath, she drank in the mid-morning air, welcoming the day.

  That’s when she noticed it. The delivery truck was still there. Why was it still there?

  Maybe they’d realized their mistake, that they’d accidentally left an extra prop inside the stone coffin, and they’d come back to pick it up?

  Walking toward the vehicle, she noticed that the back doors were sitting open as if someone had just gotten in or out. Coming around the truck
she peeked into the back interior to see if the delivery man was there and she could talk to him about the mummy.

  Despite the dimness of the interior, she could just make out a crumpled shape on the floor of the truck. Unable to control herself, she let out a surprised shriek.

  The delivery man was definitely there, no doubt about that, but he was laying on his back with his mouth wide open. His face was an unnatural shade of purple, a single strand of gnarled looking gauze was wrapped around his neck.

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  “His name is Pax Donaldson,” Dan Bronson, Chief of Police, informed Belle and Anna as they stood just outside the yellow tape of the cordoned off area around the delivery truck. He was a round, but happy looking man with dark skin, a bald head, and a bushy mustache. “Says so right on his nametag.”

  “But he is dead?” Anna pressed, even though she already knew the answer. Belle had clued her in on all the gory details of the body. Purple face, bruises all along the neck. It was a long shot that he would still be alive.

  “As a doornail, I’m afraid. Strangled with that piece of bandaging, I’d say. Of course, Will can tell me for sure when he arrives.” Will was the local coroner. He was young for a man in his profession but was darn good at it—at least according to Dan.

  “Oh my gosh, that’s awful,” Anna whispered.

  “And you say he was alive earlier this morning?” Dan asked.

  Belle glanced over the Chief’s shoulder at the truck. “Yep, he was alive. Dropped off the centerpiece for my current decoration scheme.”

  “Decoration scheme? Val didn’t mention that.” Val hadn’t come out when her husband had arrived to inspect the crime scene. She kept herself busy by preparing food for when they opened the restaurant at four in the afternoon.

  “Yeah, it’s Egyptian and mummy themed.”

  “I see,” he mused, wiggling his upper lip and brushing his mustache back and forth.

  “He seemed a bit jumpy like he wanted to get out of here quick,” Belle continued telling him about what had happened that morning. “That’s why I was surprised to see his truck still around.”