by Lisa Gardner
Kimberly had a prickly feeling at the back of her neck. As if the trees did have eyes, and were anxious to keep their secrets.
Walt veered off the road onto a narrow, rutted trail Kimberly wouldn’t have known existed. Flora had no problem following him; maybe this was what they’d done yesterday.
Right, left, right, left. Sharp turn, sharper turn. Then the whine of the engines as they chugged up, up, up and Kimberly had to clutch Flora for balance.
Abruptly they tore into a grassy clearing. Walt killed his engine. Flora did the same.
The old man climbed off his ATV, picked up his ubiquitous shotgun.
“Now, we walk.”
Flora and Kimberly once more fell in line. And once more, Kimberly could feel unease snaking down her spine.
* * *
—
CROSSING THE MEADOW WAS HOT work. None of them had water, but Walt didn’t seem to notice. He led them to the far line of bordering woods, slipping back between the trees with the ease of a mountain man who’d been doing this all his life.
Kimberly appreciated the shade. She used it to check her phone again. Still no signal. She noticed Flora doing the same. They exchanged glances, but didn’t say a word.
Whatever happened next, they were on their own. Two of them, one of him. In a fair fight, Kimberly would put her money on her and Flora. But Walt didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who fought fair. She was already noting how he held his shotgun, one finger always near the trigger. First order of business would be getting that weapon away from him. Because as long as he could whirl at any second, pump, shoot, pump, shoot . . .
She didn’t have a good feeling about their afternoon anymore.
* * *
—
MORE TWISTS AND TURNS. BY Kimberly’s estimation, Walt could disappear at any moment, and she and Flora would be just as dead as if he’d used his weapon. They looped around and around, the trees growing tighter and thicker around them.
Walt slowed.
Flora nearly bumped into him before realizing the death march had ended. Kimberly came up beside Flora. Straight ahead of them appeared to be a pile of boulders. Except, as Kimberly let her eyes adjust, she could make out various rusted-out objects nearly lost in the overgrown meadow grass, weedy shrubs.
Flora advanced first, going from a rusted-out shell of an old wagon, to a pile of discarded wooded crates, to what appeared to be an old pickax.
“Kimberly,” she called.
Kimberly walked over, followed the line of Flora’s finger to the pickax. The handle appeared old, aged to the weathered gray of wood long exposed to the elements. The metal head on the other hand . . .
“Didn’t your friends say the graves had been carved with a pickax?” Flora murmured.
“Yep.”
“Looks like this one could do it.”
Kimberly nodded, squatting down for further inspection. The metal head didn’t just look new, it bore signs of dried mud and something . . . darker. She pulled out her phone, shot a quick pic. Still not enough bars to share the photo, but at least it gave them a start of documentation.
“What is this place?” Flora asked Walt.
“Old mine. These hills are riddled with ’em.”
Kimberly followed Flora over to the rock pile, where—sure enough—she could now see an opening set back from the first few tumbled stones.
“Is it safe?” Kimberly asked Walt.
He shrugged. “Are the mountains safe?”
Fair enough.
Flora was already exploring the opening. Up close, it was surprisingly large. It appeared some of the rock face had collapsed over the years, creating a jumble of large boulders that partially obscured the opening. But even those rocks had fallen a good ten feet away, meaning an ATV or other vehicle could navigate the opening.
Perhaps pulling a small trailer loaded with a lifeless body, the driver stopping to add the pickax to the pile, then continuing down the mountain to a place where no human would think to look again. Unless, of course, you were an inexperienced hiker with terrible blisters and a need for a walking stick.
A faint moan came from the mine entrance. It built in intensity, before dying off again.
“The wind,” Flora murmured. “The way it cuts through the rocks.”
“Sure,” Kimberly muttered. “The wind.”
Kimberly turned to Walt. “Who knows about this mine?”
“Locals. Mountain folks. Ain’t secret.”
“Do people still go inside?”
“When I was a kid, we’d come here to drink. But then, twenty, thirty years ago, a group of teens headed in and only two came out. County blocked the entrance after that.”
“It’s not blocked now.”
“Nope.”
Kimberly studied the ground. She was no expert, but she thought she could just discern what appeared to be wide tire tracks, close together, such as what an ATV would leave behind.
“Why did you bring us here, Walt?” Kimberly realized for the first time he wasn’t holding the shotgun at his side anymore. He’d positioned it before him, loose but at the ready.
“I followed the screams,” he told her. “I thought if I could find the trees, tell them I had repented, they wouldn’t haunt me no more. Took me a long time. Walking the woods, night after night.
“Eventually, I followed the cries here. But when I came back during the day, the woods had fallen silent again. I had to keep waiting. Then last night, the trees started again. I could hear them, clear as a whistle, standing here.”
“Who’s screaming, Walt?”
“People I hurt. Maybe the girls Jacob hurt. Just wait. You’ll understand what I mean soon enough.”
A noise above them, followed by a small shower of falling rocks. Kimberly jumped as half a dozen pebbles careened down the mine entrance. Flora, already standing in the pile of boulders at the opening, leapt to the side.
Walt’s gaze jerked up. One second he was standing relaxed, the next he was raising his shotgun to his shoulder, screaming, “I see you, devil! I see you standing there!”
Kimberly dropped into a crouch, going for her ankle-holstered .22. Walt was pointing that damn shotgun right at her and Flora. Yelling at shadows, lost in some haze where he looked ready to shoot first, question later.
She was aware of Flora, twenty feet away, reaching for her butterfly blade. A fresh shower of rocks, then a particularly large rock dropped from above, smacking Flora on the head. The woman went down hard, a blur of blood and shadow.
As Walt continued waving his shotgun wildly toward Kimberly, the only person who now stood between him and the mine.
“Begone with you, I say. Begone!”
Shit. Kimberly jerked out her .22, lifted it up from the crouched position.
Pump, kaboom.
Walt let loose with his first load. Too high.
Kimberly honed in on the target. Except, just as she was about to squeeze the trigger . . .
Crack.
The ensuing noise was no shotgun blast, but a rifle. Coming from somewhere above and behind Kimberly as she ducked her head reflexively, then fell back toward Flora, a fresh avalanche of debris crashing upon the mine opening.
Before her, Walt staggered. Bright red blood bloomed across his dirty T-shirt. He pumped his shotgun for a fresh load, aiming it up, up, up. The air cracked again. A second flower of blood joined the first across his chest. He still worked to aim his weapon. Then, his knees buckled. His grip on his shotgun loosened. He sank to his knees.
His lips were moving. A last prayer to God, or to the ghosts that haunted his nights?
Then Kimberly got it. Walt Davies wasn’t pleading for mercy. He was giving her a command.
Go.
His blood-frothed lips moved again.
Get away, get away, get a
way!
More noise from overhead. Footsteps scrabbling down the rock face.
Kimberly looked ahead to the sunny clearing, where Walt was now collapsed in the grass.
She looked behind to the gaping maw of the dangerous old mining tunnel, where Flora was collapsed, bleeding heavily.
It wasn’t much of a decision. She raced for the entrance, aware of the danger descending rapidly from the rock pile above. She zigged right, then left, jumping over one pile of fresh debris, then another as the rifle cracked again. Dirt sprayed her ankles, slivers of rock slicing at her pants.
She stumbled behind the first stone massive enough to provide cover, breathing hard. Flora had slipped behind a neighboring boulder, where she now appeared to be unconscious from a head wound, which coated her face in blood. No time to check for further injuries. Now or never.
Kimberly darted forth, and using all her strength, hoisted Flora up and over her shoulders in a fireman’s hold.
Then Kimberly staggered into the belly of the beast, acutely aware of the armed man, scrambling through the boulder field behind her and much too quickly, closing the gap between them.
CHAPTER 39
THE HOUSE IS AGITATED.
The others don’t feel it. They stare at the secret panel sliding open to reveal a sudden, gaping wound in the cellar. They are shocked and amazed.
The house is scared.
I place my hand on the wall closest to me. I try to tell the building it’s okay. I know bad things have happened here. It’s not the mansion’s fault, any more than it is mine. We’re both victims.
The house is ashamed.
Once more I try to soothe, but the house doesn’t believe me. “Go,” it shifts, groans. “Go, go, go.”
The house shudders deep on its foundation. An ominous cracking sound emits from its old timber joints—this, the others hear.
“Sudden temperature change,” Keith says. “Just causing the beams to contract.”
Smart people are often stupid, I think. But then I worry my lower lip. The building must be very upset. I’ve never heard it do that before.
“Someone should go in.” Keith again. His voice isn’t scared, more like uncertain.
D.D. takes an automatic step around the huge table between us and the tunnel. Then she pauses, glancing at me. I don’t need words to understand what she’s thinking. She can’t walk into that tunnel. She has a responsibility to me; she must keep me safe.
“Go,” the house moans again, and I can feel a small shudder rumble beneath my fingertips.
The sheriff moves forward. “I’ll do it.” He unclips a flashlight from his duty belt, snaps on the beam.
“I’ll go, too,” Keith speaks up. His decision doesn’t surprise me. I would draw him in shades of orange and green and yellow, with a faint shadow of black. He could have more dark around him, but his curiosity won’t allow it.
He has his phone out, fiddling with it.
“Any word from Flora?” D.D. asks sharply.
He shakes his head. They don’t say anything out loud, but I can tell they’re worried.
The older woman glances at me in concern. Mrs. Counsel wouldn’t approve of the woman’s shockingly large build, but would like her pretty blue sweater. As for me, I’m not a fan of strangers. I need to stay with D.D. It’s very important to stay with D.D. I know it, even if I don’t know why I know it. “Maybe we should go upstairs, dear,” the woman says soothingly. “Let them do what they need to do. Wouldn’t you like a glass of lemonade?”
I shake my head, while the house shudders unhappily.
The sheriff steps around the oak table, approaching the secret doorway. The beam of his flashlight punches through the pitch-black gloom, illuminating the tunnel of darkness that waits beyond. Keith joins him, his phone glowing more weakly than the sheriff’s high-powered flashlight. The opening is broad enough for them to stand shoulder to shoulder. Tall enough for them to remain upright.
And yet, even with two beams of light . . .
Nothing but deep shadows ahead, as they take the first step, then another. I reach for D.D.’s hand, but she’s already left my side, rounding the table to where she can better monitor the sheriff and Keith’s progress.
“Tunnel’s not bad.” The sheriff’s voice echoes from somewhere ahead. “Reinforced with wood timbers. Recently used, too. Some of these beams aren’t that old.”
“A secret entrance to a secret club,” D.D. murmurs.
Near the fireplace, the sheriff’s department lady twists the gold cross she wears around her neck. She doesn’t like the tunnel any more than D.D.
I run my fingers down the wall next to me. A gentle touch, meant to soothe.
I’m waiting, I realize. The house is waiting, too.
Then the sheriff’s voice again, more distant. “We found the cook,” his voice booms grimly.
“Do you need help?” D.D. has to cup her hands around her mouth to amplify her question.
“Nothing to be done now. Tunnel goes on for a ways. We’re gonna follow, see if we can discover the end.”
“I’ll call for backup.”
D.D. reaches into her back pocket for her phone.
The older woman moves. Reaches down. Lifts up. Suddenly she has a fire poker gripped in her man-sized hands.
D.D. remains focused on her phone, tapping away.
I open my mouth, but of course, no sound comes out.
The big woman closes the gap between them.
D.D. hits another button on her phone.
The big woman raises the poker over her head.
Too late, I realize her colors aren’t blue and gray. Instead, she swirls with voids of black, screams of red. She is sadness, pain, rage.
She and the demon, they have the same colors.
I try to scream. Silent. Horrified. At the last second, my brain fires to life. I stop wasting effort on my useless throat, rap on the wall instead. Three knocks. Hard, urgent.
D.D. glances up. Just as the fireplace poker whistles down.
D.D. throws up her forearm, tries to twist away. A sickening crack as metal meets bone, then her right arm falls limply to her side.
The poker rises back up, the grandmother woman not looking anything like a grandmother anymore.
I move. I throw myself against the edge of the huge oak table, ramming it straight into D.D. and the woman, because there’s no way to hit one and not the other.
D.D. gets knocked forward, straight into the tunnel, while the hulking sheriff’s lady tumbles sideways, poker clanging to the floor as she tries to catch herself.
Then I feel it. Something cold and dark gathering behind me.
The house tried to warn me. Go, it had moaned. Go, go, go.
But of course, I didn’t listen to it any more than I listened to my mother so many years before.
And now . . .
I turn. He stands in the middle of the wood-framed doorway. He holds his favorite serrated blade in front of him.
He grins.
And I know exactly what’s going to happen next.
CHAPTER 40
FLORA
I’M DREAMING OF JACOB. I know it’s a dream, because he’s smiling at me.
“So you met my old man, huh? Tough ol’ coot. Guess the apple didn’t fall far from that twisted tree. Microgreens, huh? Never woulda thunkit.”
We’re sitting outside the cabin where he held me. In the meadow, on a red and white checked tablecloth. Before us is a fast-food buffet. Fried chicken, hamburgers, pizza, waffles. Jacob isn’t eating, though. He looks younger, more relaxed, with his favorite ketchup-stained T-shirt barely covering his flabby gut.
“Home sweet home,” he says, gesturing to the dilapidated cabin behind us. “Miss it?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Then I realize I’m not sitti
ng on the picnic blanket. I’m back in the box, daylight filtering through the crudely bored air holes, taunting me.
“Now, now, I told you what would happen if you disobeyed. You got away once, Flora. You shoulda stayed away.”
No, I’m not in the box. Because I can see him, which would be impossible. But all around me is dark, with just specks of light. I try to lift my hand to the lid, then discover I can’t move my fingers. My arms. My legs. I’m trapped. Weighed down, a terrible pressure crushing my chest.
I’m in a grave. A shallow grave with just my face exposed, watching Jacob from the edge of the picnic blanket.
“You always thought you’d die here,” this new, happy Jacob tells me. “I used to hear you whimpering to yourself in the box. ‘Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die,’” he mocks. “You never were a strong one.”
I try to wiggle my toes, lift a single finger, turn my head. Nothing. I feel a whimper building in my throat, just as he said. Then, I feel moisture on my face. A single tear tracking down my cheek.
Jacob moves till he’s leaning right over me.
“Never shoulda come back.”
I can’t move.
“But you missed me, didn’t you, Flora? You had to see, you had to know. Because the more you learn, the closer to me you become. And now you’re gonna die in my backyard. Just the way I planned it.”
He grins at me.
I hate him. All over again, even as he leans down and gently wipes the tear from my cheek.
“I loved you,” he whispers. “And you’ll always be mine, cuz deep down in your heart, you know you love me, too.”
Then Jacob is gone and Kimberly looms above me. “Wake up! Wake the fuck up!”
She slaps me across the face.
I wake up.
* * *
—
THE WORLD IS DARK, AND once again I’m disoriented. I can’t see, but I realize I can move. Arms, feet, head. Dear God, what the hell happened to my head? I moan, and Kimberly nearly slaps me again.