The pop of the flame and the sound of his own breathing was loud in Emmett’s ears. For a moment, a single shining moment, he actually did believe there was something grand awaiting him—if not a pile of money, maybe antiques, or even jewelry. And within that moment, there was a nanosecond where he was willing to imagine himself free at last. Free of the horrible house. Free to run off to Paris.
Although Sam would still be in Kansas. Emmett wondered if Sam would come along for the ride. He hoped so.
“Up ahead.” Sam was still whispering. “I think it’s…a room.”
They shuffled in. Difficult to tell exactly by the light of a flashlight beam and the leaping flame of a single candle, but it looked to be a good-sized space. An old furnace took up the center of the room. Sandy grit rained from the groaning ceiling as they crept closer for a better look.
Emmett said, also in a whisper, “And here I thought the percussion boiler was original to the house. Looks like something even scarier pre-dated it.”
“This is no boiler.”
It looked like a boiler—the fittings at the bottom where a gas line hooked in, at least. Maybe it was a boiler that had mated with a big Weber grill and a margarita fountain. “If it’s not a boiler, then what are all these pipes sticking out of it for?”
Sam bent to look at a second piece of equipment, connected to the first by a long, downward-angling pipe. Emmett had taken the second chamber for some sort of storage or overflow reservoir. Sam pointed to a spigot at the base. “It’s a still.”
“As in moonshine?”
“Bathtub gin. White lightning. Hootch.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Emmett mused. “Someone had quite the operation here, once upon a time.”
“Kansas was the first dry state. This isn’t original to the house, but it’s old.” Sam sized up the apparatus. “I’d say they must’ve been selling, not just brewing. Not with this big boy.”
“Bootleggers. In my horrible house.” Emmett put his hand over his heart and sighed theatrically. “Finally—something to not hate about this place.”
He and Sam stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing at huge metal drum. Neither of them moved to ease away from the other. “You really hate this house?”
“Passionately.”
“I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. I’d give anything for a place of my own. No matter how much work it needed.”
Then stay here, Emmett wanted to say. Help me fix it. Because with you here, it doesn’t seem even half as horrible. But since he’d just met Sam, he figured he’d come off as desperate if he said as much—even if he tried to blame his lack of judgment on the sewer gas.
He didn’t say it, of course, but the pause where he couldn’t think of anything else to say was loaded enough to keep him speechless. Still, neither of them had moved apart—and if Emmett wasn’t imagining it, Sam had pressed even closer, and he leaned down to speak directly in Emmett’s ear. “So, who wins the bet? Neither of us?”
“How about…both?” Emmett was so busy priding himself on being so smooth about doubling their potential dates that he was taken completely and utterly by surprise when Sam leaned in farther still, and pressed a tentative kiss to his lips. Emmett was almost too shocked to respond—almost—but just as Sam was about to pull back, Emmett leaned into the kiss and returned it.
Sam smelled like male things—toolboxes and pickup trucks and his old denim jacket—and Emmett needed to tilt his head up for the kiss. Tall, guyish and endearingly shy…a killer combo. Emmett knew Rosemary was going to be envious of his sudden spark of luck. Even as she settled in to her new Parisian flat.
When Sam finally did pull away, candlelight danced over his features. The dark that had seemed so sinister when they first uncovered the secret passage now felt lacksidaisically romantic. Emmett wondered if the tea light would stay put if he balanced it on top of the old still, or if it would manage to catch onto something that was still flammable despite its eighty-plus years on the planet. At least now if he blew up, he reasoned, he’d do it with a smile on his face.
It might have been awkward to kiss someone while holding a candle on a plate and attempting to keep from setting himself on fire, but Emmett was up for the challenge. He slid his free hand around Sam’s neck to see if he could coax another kiss. Sam surrendered easily. Very encouraging. And then Emmett felt the brush of Sam’s tongue against his lower lip—very encouraging, indeed.
Emmett chanced some tongue and felt Sam’s breathing catch. He pulled Sam closer. Something heavy clattered to the floor. Emmett opened his eyes, startled. It was much darker than it had been when the kiss began.
“Shoot…” Sam ducked away, still clutching his jar of nails, and made a grab for the flashlight he’d just dropped. It rolled out of his grasp on the uneven concrete, wobbled, then picked up speed. Sam followed in a crouch, scuttling after it, but the flashlight stayed just out of reach.
Grit sifted from the ceiling and rained down, mostly on Sam, with a sound like frying bacon. Emmett cupped his hand around the candle flame. “I think that’s our cue to move to the sofa,” he said. Unless you want to skip that and head straight to my bedroom, he longed to add, but he decided he’d better not overburden his newfound luck.
Sam almost had the flashlight, but a shower of old ceiling caught him in the eye, and he stopped to rub at it.
“Don’t, you’ll make it worse. I have saline solution upstairs.”
Sam rubbed his eye with the back of his hand. “I think I got it.”
Emmett tried to shield the candle with his body while he crossed the room to retrieve the flashlight. Getting plunged into total darkness with Sam would normally have been a good thing. But not in that particular location. The flashlight rolled away from Emmett, and then Sam, swerving eerily on the uneven floor as if a spirit guide were steering it.
Sam laughed—nervously, Emmett thought, and made another grab. The flashlight paused, teetered, and rolled away faster still. “This is ridiculous,” Emmett said. He lunged for the flashlight, and cracked his hand against something large and distinctly wall-like. “F…udge.”
Sam laughed. “You don’t need to be polite. Feel free to swear.”
“You’re the one who said, and I quote, ‘Shoot.’ I’ll save the F-bomb for later.” The full implications of what he’d just said sank in, along with visions of himself using the “F-bomb” in its most literal sense of the world—asking to perform the act, or maybe begging to have it done to him—and Emmett was thankful for the darkness. Even though it had just caused him to split a knuckle on an unsuspecting wall, it kept him from seeing Sam’s reaction to the latest doozy.
“What did you hit? Is that a wall?”
“It came out of nowhere. Sideswiped me.”
Sam pressed a hand to the wall and a fresh onslaught of grit rained down, accompanied by a long, ominous creak. “I’m a little leery of this ceiling.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“So where’s the flashlight? Did it fall somewhere—is there a grate in the floor?”
Emmett could have groped for it in the near-dark, but he was none too fond of getting ubiquitous basement crud under his nails. He set the candle plate on the floor, figuring they’d spot the flashlight casting a shadow a foot to either side of the place they were currently searching. The flame guttered wildly.
Emmett cupped his hands around the candle. His heart pounded. “I hope that flashlight didn’t have sentimental value. I think we’re gonna have to make our great escape and chalk it up to collateral damage.”
Sam stared at the candle flame. “Is that a breeze?”
“Weren’t you the one who just explained to me that we were underground?”
“What if there’s more? What if there’s another tunnel? Or a cave?”
“Closest cave’s in Flint Hills.”
The flame guttered again, and yes, now that he was aware of the possibility—though in the midst of trying to discount it—Emmett realized he did f
eel a slight breeze against his hand.
Sam, who was evidently less intimidated by the crud, felt for the flashlight. “There’s a gap, right here, a three-inch gap. It doesn’t even feel like a wall. I think it’s…a door.”
“Of course it’s a door. Because anyone who’d put up two false walls is either a moron…or a genius.”
Sam ran his hands up the wall, door, whatever it was, and knocked on it. Emmett was tempted to tell him that would only work when there was someone on the other side to answer it, but he figured voicing that opinion wouldn’t get him any closer to the couch…or the bed.
“Hear that?” Sam whispered. They were back to whispering again. “It’s hollow.”
“Mostly I hear ceiling crumbs bouncing off your jean jacket. Seriously, Sam, let’s get out of here.”
Sam’s whispering grew urgent. “I found a latch.” He grabbed one of Emmett’s hands and jammed his fingers into a slot in the wall. “Right here. Feel it?”
“If we had enough light, we’d see this wasn’t some kind of secret subterranean passage. I’m sure it’s just a storage closet.”
“C’mon…open it.”
Emmett did his best to ignore the spongy feel of egg sacs, the leavings of some long-dead spider, pressing against the pads of his fingers. If he were with Rosemary, he could have jerked his hand back and done the “icky” dance. But Rosemary didn’t smell like machine shop. She didn’t kiss him with tongue.
Emmett squeezed. At first he thought nothing would happen—that the latch was too old, too disused to function. But then he felt a slight give, and then a click.
Ceiling rained down so hard it was as if there were someone in a secret compartment up above dumping a bag of kitty litter on them. Emmett dove to shield the candle with his body.
“Fuck!” He batted out the smoldering patch of fabric on his sweatshirt, and told himself to be happy he wasn’t wearing something really flammable, like flannel.
Once it was clear Emmett wasn’t going to burst into flames, Sam grabbed him by the arm. “You’re wrong. It is a secret passage.”
FOUR
This hallway was narrower than the first, with packed-earth walls and a ceiling low enough to force Sam to duck. “Let’s go to the hardware store,” Emmett suggested, “grab a couple of flashlights, and then have a look at this.”
“The flashlight’s got to be here somewhere.” Sam did a cursory search, but the flashlight was nowhere, as if it had simply ceased to exist. “Don’t you want to just see how far it goes? We already found a still. What else is stashed down here?”
Emmett’s big secret was that beneath his protective shell, he’d always been a pushover—something Rosemary knew full well, but only chose to exploit on select occasions. It had taken her a couple of years to figure it out, though, while Sam seemed to zero right in on the tendency and embrace it like an old friend.
The hand he’d been holding the long-lost flashlight with rested on Emmett’s shoulder now. And so Emmett allowed himself to be talked into delving down into the cramped earthen tunnel with nothing but a single sputtering candle to guide him.
The tunnel stretched far enough that Emmett wondered if it would open out on the other side of the hill. “At this rate,” Emmett said, “we’re gonna end up in Sunflower Heights. And they have a rent-a-cop who gives a pretty stern warning to anyone who doesn’t have a sticker on their windshield.”
Sam squeezed his shoulder. “I’ve always wondered why it’s called Sunflower Heights but it’s built in a valley.”
“It’s one of those things you need to live in a gated community to comprehend.”
Emmett stopped walking, pulled a second tea light from his pocket, and lit it from the first. The two flames, side by side, made a big difference in the amount of light being cast. Emmett added a third candle, and saw Sam watching him by that candlelight. Handsome. Young. Eager. Practically a stranger, and yet, Sam was right there with him—fully present, in the heart of the hill, creating new memories…a new history.
When Sam leaned in for another kiss, Emmett held the candles off to one side. He felt like he’d never been so aware of himself and his body before: the weight of the saucer and the sense that it might be tilted; the flicker and dance of candlelight throwing subtle patterns against his closed eyelids; the cool caress that played over his teeth when Sam drew breath in response to a daring sweep of his tongue.
The kiss ended and they both paused, close, silent, until finally Emmett couldn’t resist saying, “I really, really want to go back.” He slid his free hand around Sam’s waist and let his fingertips graze the waistband of Sam’s jeans.
Sam placed a small, fleeting kiss on Emmett’s lips, like a promise. “We’ll see what’s here…then we’ll go back upstairs.”
Emmett no longer cared where the flashlight had rolled off to. He practically charged down the passage—which, seriously, was much longer than he’d imagined, maybe a quarter of a mile, maybe more—or maybe it just felt that way.
The floor sloped down, and the slightly gritty texture turned slimy. “Groundwater?” Emmett wondered out loud.
“The air doesn’t seem so dry here.”
Emmett strained to make out a jumble of dark-on-dark at the edge of the candles’ light. “Maybe it has something to do with that cave-in up ahead. Probably cracked the pipe to some banker’s Jacuzzi. Now can we go…?” He almost said “to bed” but he caught himself just in time.
Sam slipped by Emmett and inched up ahead. “I don’t think it’s a cave-in. It looks like it wasn’t finished, is all. And there on the wall, right before it. Is that…a door?”
Emmett was about to reply, but a flash of white caught his eye, Sam’s white shirt, striking in the candlelight against the darkness, and a dark vest. He’d been wearing a vest under his jean jacket? It wasn’t the sort of fashion statement Emmett would have expected from him. And it seemed like an odd time to ditch his jacket, given the obvious lack of coat hooks in the tunnel. “What happened to your…?”
Sam clutched the Mason jar to his chest and pressed his ear to the door. “I don’t think I hear anything.”
“Sam—”
Sam turned the latch. The door swung outward. “There’s a room,” he whispered. “It’s full of stuff.” And without even waiting for Emmett, he went in.
Emmett rolled his eyes, but he followed. He supposed, in all fairness, that they were so far down the tunnel he was no longer technically the property owner, and Sam had as much right to plow ahead as he did.
“Full of stuff” was an understatement. The room was a small storage chamber about eight feet square, and every wall was floor to ceiling kegs and crates. Everything was wood——no plastic, no Styrofoam, no corrugated cardboard or packing peanuts. Emmett raised the saucer to get a better look at the merchandise…and found it wasn’t a saucer at all.
It was a lantern.
“What are you wearing?” Sam said.
Emmett’s groin dropped. Literally. It was as if his boxer briefs were there one moment, gone the next. He barely resisted the urge to cup his free-falling testicles in his hand. “Me? What are you wearing?”
Sam looked down at himself like he’d never seen a vest before and clung to his Mason jar for dear life. “How’d you do that?”
“I didn’t do anything.” In hopes of being more subtle about settling himself, Emmett grabbed for the waistband of his jeans—and found it halfway up his ribcage. And he was wearing suspenders. “Okay, I’m hallucinating. There was a gas leak, and we’re both sprawled out on the basement floor with spiders in our hair thinking we’re a couple of treasure hunters in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Maybe Rosemary’ll find us before it’s too late.”
Sam patted the front of his vest. “Wool.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some change. “This is real. Why would I hallucinate having thirty-eight cents in my pocket?”
Emmett reached into his own pocket. His yielded up a handkerchief and a pocket watch. “I’ll bet I even halluci
nated that I kissed you.”
“I think I was the one who kissed you.”
“Now I know I’m dreaming.”
The sound of a door slamming cut short any additional argument as to who kissed whom. A rectangle of light appeared on the far wall—a door—and the illumination shone in from beneath it like a pale liquid had just spilled on the floor. Sam and Emmett looked at one another. And then the sound of heavy footsteps carried through the closed door.
Emmett whispered, “Oh my God, we’re in someone’s house.”
“No we’re not. It’s a store or a business. No one keeps this much stuff,” Sam gestured with his Mason jar toward the ceiling-high stack of crates, “in their…house.” He stared at the jar, puzzled. The nails, screws and bolts were gone. It held water instead.
While Sam and Emmett looked at the jar in bewilderment, the door banged open. Emmett squinted against the light that was a dozen times brighter than the glow of the lantern he held.
A man stood in the doorway, so backlit that he was little more than a silhouette. “All clear,” he said, no-nonsense and authoritarian. “C’mon out and show us what you got.” And he said it so matter-of-factly, too. As if they’d been…expected.
Emmett and Sam stepped out of the storeroom, blinking against the light. The man in high-waisted wool pants and suspenders had a mustache that belonged in a barbershop quartet. He led them into a wood-paneled hallway with a bright bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The smells of pipe tobacco and sweat were thick in the air.
Emmett noticed Sam straining to catch his eye. He stopped gawking at the hallway long enough for Sam to mouth, “What is this?” to him, but all he could do was shrug and try to keep up with the man with the mustache.
The man led them to another room lit by a glaring, bare bulb. Wallpaper covered the plaster from wainscoting to ceiling, and a stark wooden table with a single chair took up most of the space. The man sat. Emmett took that to mean he should remain standing. Among the odds and ends on the table—some books and ledgers, an inkwell, an ash tray—were a pair of shotglasses. The man pulled them to the edge of the table and said, “Well, go ahead and pour.”
Moolah and Moonshine Page 3