Planting her feet in a wide stance, she swung the stool. It crashed into the grate with a dull, satisfying crunch, like metal meeting bone. The reverberation of the blow raced up her arm. Marissa grunted.
“Come on.” She tightened her grip. Swung again. An image of the doctor flashed through her mind. What he must have done to those girls. What he was planning to do with her.
“Fuck you,” she screamed.
She heaved the stool with all her strength. Three more blows. One for Becky. One for Suzie. One for her.
Chest heaving, she dropped the stool. It clattered on the tile floor.
Marissa crouched in front of the grate. The stool had done the job. The center was caved in, forcing the edges away from the wall. Marissa pried her fingers into the gap and pulled. The sharp metal bit into her flesh, but she ignored the pain, kept pulling until the grate ripped free.
She cast it to the floor and dropped to her knees.
The ventilation shaft was made of smooth, thin metal. Marissa didn’t want to go in there, but she there was no other choice. She had to do it now before he came back. She sucked in a deep breath and angled her torso inside. The dusty scent of metal mingled with the cold air. The shaft sloped steeply up into darkness.
It was a tight fit. She pressed her hands and feet against the sides. The metal groaned and clanged as she applied opposing pressure to the thin walls. Slowly she inched her way up the vent.
The gray light faded to complete and utter darkness as she worked her way up the angled shaft. She couldn’t think—couldn’t breathe in here. A wave of panic swept over her. Her toes cramped, but she kept moving, afraid of falling, hating the dark but knowing there was no other way out.
Metal clanged loudly as she ascended the chute. She paused. Her breath heaved out of her in gasps. The walls felt like they were closing in. How far had she climbed? How much farther did she have to go? Enveloped in darkness, minutes felt like hours. Time had no end. She looked down, desperate for a glimpse of light below, but there was nothing, only a great yawning emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.
Sweat trickled down Marissa’s spine. Was he out there? Could he hear her?
She didn’t know. She had to keep going. Marissa slid one hand up the wall. Moved a foot. Inched forward. A powerful cramp pinched the arch of her foot, contracting the tendon, drawing it as taut as a bowstring. She gasped. Lost her footing. Her scream reverberated down the length of the shaft. Both hands flailed out, searching for something to grab onto. Found nothing.
She crashed down the metal shaft. Bright flashes of pain flared as her head, shoulders, and knees bounced off the walls. Searing heat lit up her elbow as it caught an edge. The razor-sharp metal sheared the skin off.
Marissa landed in a heap at the bottom of the vent.
Disoriented, she crawled out onto the cold tile floor in the bathroom. Hot blood streamed down her forearm—the whisper of air where the skin was ripped away was an ache that stole her breath. Marissa examined the wound. It looked bad. She bent the joint. Hissed in pain. Straightened it again. It was banged up but not broken.
Marissa pressed the hem of her shirt against the wound. Balancing on the balls of her feet, she crouched in front of the vent, feeling a welcome stretch in the arch of her foot.
She was tired. Hurt. She didn’t want to go back into that dark, closed space, but there was no other way out. She didn’t want to be here when he got back.
Placing her hands against the cold metal, she climbed inside once more.
A draft of damp air blew down the vent. Hands and feet pressed against the smooth sides, she climbed. One inch at a time. The square of light at the bottom of the shaft disappeared. The dark closed in around her again.
The first attempt was hard. The second was so much worse. Her muscles screamed from the effort of propelling herself forward. Her arms shook. Inch by inch, she climbed. She reached a juncture where the angle of the vent pitched steeply.
A sob bubbled up from deep inside her. She was tired. Beat to shit. She trembled from head to toe, her muscles drained from the strain with no idea how much farther there was to go.
Alone. Desperate.
She couldn’t go on.
Then she thought about Brooke, alone in that cabin. Hurting. Afraid. Brooke hadn’t quit. Somehow she’d found the strength to move on. Believed that she could do it, that she could overcome. Survive.
Marissa closed her eyes and pictured her family—Brooke, Kelly, and Seth. Imagined them calling to her. Urging her on. She thought about what it would be like to hold this new baby. Everything she would lose if she quit.
Marissa shifted her hand, fighting her fear, her pain, her exhaustion. She moved up the shaft inch by inch until finally the darkness around her faded to gray. A stab of hope coursed through her at the sight of daylight above. Rain pattered against metal. The scent of wet pines invaded the shaft.
Chest heaving, Marissa reached the angled top of the vent. Pressed against it. It was heavy. It barely budged. Her grip on the wall slipped. She caught herself. Tried again. Her legs shook with the strain of holding her in place.
The rusty hinges squealed. With one final shove, the top of the vent tipped back.
Her breath billowed around her in clouds of steam as she climbed from the shaft. Exhaustion descended like an iron weight across her shoulders, forcing Marissa to the ground. She knelt on a cushioned bed of dead pine needles and took stock of her surroundings.
Through the branches, the ruins of an old house rose like a crumbling gravestone from the sodden earth. The weathered siding was stripped bare of paint. Blackened with decay. Empty windows peered across the farmyard. Beyond the house, a skeleton of a barn stood amid a tangle of blackberry bushes, their thorny limbs wrapped around the rotting beams like muscle and sinew clinging to bone. A rusted tractor and hay wagon sat abandoned in the yard.
Dread churned at the pit of Marissa’s gut.
She had to get out of here.
Her legs burned as she rose from the ground. She emerged from the trees and scoured the overgrown farmyard for any sign of the doctor, but he was nowhere to be found.
The terrain was wholly unfamiliar. She had no idea which way was out.
Marissa turned her back on the barn and fled toward the safety of the trees.
Chapter 53
The ancient barn was a listing skeleton in weathered gray. The uneven ground flew beneath Seth’s feet as he gave chase. Wilcox barreled through the front of the barn while Seth cut left through a gap in the side wall.
The deep shadows rendered him blind. The stagnant smell of rotted hay and manure hung in the air. He didn’t see the object flying toward him until it was too late. The metal bucket glanced off his shoulder and opened a cut along his cheekbone. It crashed on the floor behind him in a cacophony of sound that sent the crows streaming from the rafters.
Knocked off balance, Seth threw his arms wide. He slid on a layer of matted straw and landed in a concrete trough running through the center of the barn. Sparks of pain lit up his ankle like a string of runway lights.
“Dammit.”
His fall had cost him time and he’d lost sight of the bastard.
Dim light streamed through the gaps in the barn wall, and Seth strained to catch a glimpse of Wilcox. A flash of movement caught his eye. Wilcox raced toward an opening in the back.
Seth bounded after him, fear driving him on.
If he lost Wilcox, he lost Marissa. And if he lost her . . .
Wilcox navigated a maze of stalls at top speed, the gates barely slowing him down. A stab of fear sliced through Seth. He was losing ground. Seth ignored the pain in his ankle and picked up the pace. He leaped over an overturned wheelbarrow and dodged past a fallen beam. Each obstacle put Wilcox a step ahead—gave the bastard a chance to escape.
Seth was still fifteen feet away and closing fast when Wilcox slipped through a hole in the back wall.
“Christ,” Seth roared.
A glimpse
of blue scrubs flashed by the cracks between the barn boards. Seth didn’t see the closed gate that barred his path. He crashed into it at full speed. The wood splintered under the weight of impact. Something sharp clawed Seth’s side in a bright gash of pain. Seth ignored it and kept running. He plunged through the cluttered stall and burst out through an opening in the wall into the field beyond.
Daylight flooded his vision. He squinted, sweeping his gaze across the field, desperate for any sight of Wilcox. But all he saw was the dead brown grass swaying in the bitter wind.
Goddammit.
He didn’t just disappear.
Then Seth heard a sound that made his blood run cold. The click of a gun hammer being drawn back.
He spun.
Alexander Wilcox stood with his feet planted wide. A gun pointed directly at Seth. Center of mass.
Seth dodged right. Wilcox pulled the trigger. The deafening shot echoed in the still morning air. The bullet sailed past. Seth slipped on the muddy ground. His full weight crashed down on a plywood platform hidden in the tall grass.
He heard a crack. The rotted wood split. Gave way.
The ground beneath him vanished. Down Seth spiraled. His arms flailed out, desperate for something to grab onto, to slow his fall. But there was nothing. Only the air rushing past as he continued to plummet in a nightmare fall into a bottomless pit.
Chapter 54
Marissa heard a gunshot. Stopped dead in her tracks. On the far side of the barn, twenty yards away, the doctor stood in the long brown grass. His back was toward her, but she could see the gun pointing at the ground.
He fired another shot. It roared like thunder across the open field. She heard a scream. Primal. Agonized. Terror erupted inside her chest.
Go. Go.
Marissa rolled onto the balls of her feet. The safety of the woods lay a quarter of an acre beyond the house, but she took off in the other direction. Without thinking. Barely breathing. Toward the barn. Toward the sound of that scream and the person who was hurt, or worse, who would die if she didn’t do something to help.
Marissa sprinted through the overgrown yard, desperately searching for something she could use as a weapon while she still had the element of surprise.
Cracked boards and branches littered the ground. Then she saw it. A shovel propped against the barn wall. The handle was broken, its spade rusty and brittle. Marissa picked it up. He was still facing the opposite direction, fully intent on his target. She gripped the weathered handle like a baseball bat and raised it above her head.
She was five feet away and closing fast when the doctor heard her coming. He pivoted toward the sound of her footsteps in the grass and pointed the gun.
Marissa’s breath caught.
A current of fear writhed through her. Off-balance, she swung the shovel. The blow landed short. The spade of the rusted shovel drilled into Wilcox’s hands and he cried out.
The gun fired. Flew from his hands. White-hot pain seared a blazing trail along the side of Marissa’s hip as the bullet grazed past and drilled into the hard-packed dirt.
Marissa dropped the shovel. Blood flowed down her leg.
Wilcox strode toward her.
She had to get the gun.
Marissa raked her hands through the grass, scrambling ahead on all fours until a hard glint of metal caught her eye.
She spied it, five feet away where it had fallen beneath a hay wagon.
Marissa lunged for it.
Wilcox grabbed the shovel.
She heard his footsteps drawing closer. She reached for the gun. He hauled back and swung the rusted spade toward her head. Marissa rolled to the side. The vicious blow landed wide, scattering dust and debris in its wake.
Marissa kept reaching until her grasping fingers seized on the gun. The feel of it was alien in her hand. She rolled onto her back. Pointed the gun at Wilcox. He reeled back. Marissa squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
Dammit.
Shock froze on his face.
Marissa pulled the trigger again. Desperate.
The gun was jammed.
Chapter 55
Seth careened down a long, narrow shaft. His leg struck something hard and he heard another crack. An electric current of pain jolted up his ankle all the way to his hip. He cried out.
The bottom rushed up to meet him. He crashed into it. Broke through. The sudden shock of water closed overhead, the bitter cold like the stab of a thousand tiny pinpricks of ice shredding his skin. The shock of the cold was dimmed only by the megawatt starburst of pain shooting up his leg.
The icy depths slowed his rapid descent. Seth never hit bottom. He had no idea how deep he plunged before he stopped. Instinct drove him upward. He burst through the surface, a scream ripped from his lungs. Black dots flooded his vision as the pain overwhelmed him. His head swam, but Seth clung to consciousness like a drowning man clutching a life raft.
He gasped the frigid air into his lungs, fighting to stay above the waterline. Seth’s vision cleared and he looked up.
The old well was deep. A silhouette stood on the edge of a circle of light, twenty feet above. The gun was pointed at him as Wilcox took aim. Seth sucked in a breath of air and ducked beneath the water.
The muffled sound of a gunshot rang out overhead. Seth stayed down as long as he could, until the burning in his lungs gave him no choice but to surface again.
Treading water was agony, like mashing a fistful of glowing coals into an open wound half way down his tibia. He used his arms, legs barely moving. The cold water, the excruciating pain, sapped the strength from his limbs. Exhaustion weighed him down, and he searched the walls for something to hold on to—a pipe, a bolt, a seam large enough to wedge his fingers into. But the roughhewn wall slid beneath his palm. He sank beneath the surface.
The murky water enveloped Seth like a thick, dark cloak. Down here, there was nothing. No light. No sound. No time. Only the gentle pull of the water. And pain.
He sank deeper, letting go. Panic receded like the tide. No longer cold, he hung there—suspended in space and time. A profound sense of peace engulfed him like nothing he’d ever felt before.
Seth.
He heard her. Holly’s voice had eluded him in the graveyard, but down here in the dark, he heard her as clear as day. Was he dreaming? Dead? He didn’t know. All that mattered was that Holly was here.
His heart cried out.
Miss you so much. I love Marissa, but I miss you.
Me too, baby.
I’m sorry. So sorry. Forgive me.
Holly smiled then. The sweetness of her smile radiated toward him, filled him with warmth.
There’s nothing to forgive.
But I failed you.
Oh, baby. You can’t save everyone.
He’d saved so many people in his career, but his wife, the one person he loved more than anything, had died. Nothing he could do would ever change that.
It’s time to go up, Seth.
Where?
You know. Back there.
Up. To the surface. Where there was only pain. Suffering. Loss. And death.
I want to stay here. With you.
No, baby. It’s not time. She needs you. Your child needs you. Now go.
Flashes of light streaked by in the dark water as Seth traveled up, as if propelled by Holly’s hands, until he reached the surface. He coughed the murky water from his screaming lungs, struggled against the exhaustion that sapped his strength, and looked up. Daylight was a gray circle twenty feet above.
Wilcox was gone.
Chapter 56
A hideous grin split Wilcox’s lips as he swung the shovel in a reckless arc at Marissa’s head.
She rolled beneath the hay wagon. The crushing blow caught the metal wheel. Her heart pounded.
Close. So close.
The shovel’s handle snapped off, just above the spade.
Marissa’s chest heaved. Terror burned through her veins like wildfire as
the doctor loomed above her, a piece of the handle still clutched in his hands. He gripped it like a spear and raised it to strike.
A second ticked by. Then two. Each one felt like forever.
Then the doctor stepped back. Pressed a hand against his temple. His face crumpled in confusion. He stared at the handle as if it was a snake.
He tossed it aside and looked down at Marissa.
“What are you doing under there?” he barked. “Get up. I need your help with this patient.”
Marissa froze, not knowing what to think. What the hell was wrong with him? Had he gone totally mad?
“Come on. What are you waiting for?” he bellowed.
He was serious. Hallucinating? She didn’t know, but whatever shift had taken place inside him, she decided to play along.
“Where’s the patient?” she asked.
“This way.”
He gestured toward her impatiently and strode around the barn. Marissa climbed out from beneath the wagon and rose to her feet. Blood soaked the side of her scrubs. She pressed her hand to the bleeding wound. Each step was painful as she limped behind him.
He stopped on a pile of broken boards. They shifted under his weight. Wilcox’s jaw clenched as he eyed her.
“If you don’t move your ass, I will write you up.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and fixed her with a thunderous look. “You keep an eye on him. I’ll call transport.”
He was in the midst of a full-blown breakdown. She was sure of it. She circled the shattered platform, keeping a wide berth.
The doctor raked his hands through his greasy hair and spun away in the direction of the bunker.
Marissa edged toward the hole in the ground. She heard water. Splashing. Peered inside.
It was dark. Impossible to see.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice echoed down the long shaft.
“Marissa.” The reply was faint.
Oh God. No.
Her heart cracked open. Somehow he had tracked her here, to this awful place.
“Seth.”
“Where is he?” Seth asked.
Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2) Page 30