Free Colm & the Ghost's Revenge by Kieran Mark Crowley Page B

toppled over into the abyss.
    Spending some of the best years of your life looking for coffins wasn’t what he considered a useful way to pass the time. He had tried to get out of it, as he was a weasel by nature, but he had been advised to do as he was ordered. Two others had turned the job down before he was offered it. They were both dead now. Very dead, in fact. Dead enough to have different body parts buried on different continents from what he’d heard.
    He climbed onto the back of the four-wheel-drive truck and handed out the shovels. He issued all the men with headlamps so that they could see what they were working on, then instructed two of the stronger ones to remove the most important piece of equipment from the back of the truck – a bulky lamp. A powerful spotlight that produced high-intensity UV light. The men struggled under its weight. Their knees trembled and their feet sank into the marshy ground.
    â€˜What we want light for?’ Alexander, a huge Russian, asked.
    â€˜In case your headlamps fail,’ Camus replied, hoping that everyone was too tired to see through the flimsy explanation.
    â€˜Why not flashlights as back up?’
    Thank you, Alexander, you nosy Muscovite, he thought. He needed a distraction and quickly before the others started asking questions too. He slipped his mobile phone from his pocket and held it above his head.
    â€˜I have been talking to my colleague and he has authorised me to pay you double if you get the work done in two hours.’
    That should focus their minds. Some of the men grunted, others accepted the news with solemn faces. But the possibility of earning extra money enticed them. They were mercenaries after all. They automatically moved into their pre-arranged positions on a piece of wasteland just beyond the graves and tombs. Each had their own space, a metre radius in which to dig.
    â€˜I not heard phone ring,’ Alexander said.
    What was it with this guy and his questions? Should he try sarcasm or intimidation to shut him up? Intimidation probably wouldn’t work. The man was tough. He had callouses the size of bumblebees on his hands. And he probably wouldn’t understand sarcasm.
    â€˜If Alexander doesn’t get to work within the next thirty seconds then none of you gets paid,’ Camus said.
    The filthy looks from the others were enough to make anyone’s blood run cold and Alexander was no exception.
    â€˜I work, I work,’ he said, giving in.
    Camus consulted the map one last time. Even with the headlamp it was hard to see it clearly. The light glared against the laminate covering he used to keep it waterproof. Rivulets of rainwater ran across the surface.
    It looked liked they were at the right spot.
    â€˜Dig,’ he shouted, just as a fork of lightning crackled across the night sky. If that’s a sign, it’s not a good one, Camus told himself. The combination of the rain and electricity in the air, the lamps and the graveyard setting, put him in mind of the end of the world. That’s what it felt like to Jean-Paul Camus. The end of the world.
    The men got to work. They eased their shovels into the soft ground, pushing down on the blades with hob-nailed boots. Their shovels sliced through the earth as Camus lit the first of the many cigarettes he would smoke while the men laboured.

    They had been digging for over an hour and the lashing rain had finally ceased when one of the men cried out.
    â€˜What is it?’ Camus asked excitedly. The man was standing up to his shoulders in the hole he’d dug. Muddy water swirled around his knees. The others stopped what they were doing, watching, their faces set to grim.
    â€˜I’ve hit something,’ said the man.
    â€˜Could be rock,’ someone said.
    Or it could be what we’re looking for, Camus thought with a mixture of excitement and dread. ‘Get him out of there.’
    A couple of the men helped the digger climb out. Camus slid