Christmas Spirit

by Rebecca York

  “Yes,” she answered, because she didn’t see any alternative. They couldn’t stay out here like sitting ducks. And what good did a gun do them if they couldn’t see who was shooting at them?

  Hysterical laughter threatened to break through her terror. Or maybe it was because of the terror. Sitting ducks. A lot of people shot at ducks in this part of the country. She’d never thought she would be like the water fowl.

  Michael began crawling across the ground, using a clump of bushes as a screen. As he moved, he circled around, heading back toward the road. They had covered about thirty feet when she heard four more shots, rapid-fire.

  “It’s not near us,” Michael whispered as he reached back to put a hand on her arm. “Quiet.”

  She did as he said, and she heard a whooshing sound. “What is it?”

  “I think that’s air escaping from your tires.”

  She struggled not to gasp.

  “So we can’t drive away,” he clarified. “We’ve got to go the other way. Come on.”

  Michael started moving farther into the underbrush, staying low to the ground. Chelsea followed as fast as she could. It was a hard way to travel, and she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up.

  But she had to. If she didn’t, whoever was out there would find them.

  She wanted to look behind her, but she knew that would only slow her down and expose her face. Instead, she kept crawling.

  They traveled through the underbrush, stopping every few yards to listen. They were heading toward the bay. She knew that much. Beyond that, she didn’t have a clue.

  What would they do if they came to the creek? Plunge into the frigid water or turn along the bank? Neither seemed like a good alternative.

  As she kept moving, it felt as if the air was thickening around her, the way it had in the psychomanteum.

  Something made her look up. Ahead of her, she saw the air waver. Then, to her astonishment, she saw the figure of a woman.

  When she made a strangled sound, Michael turned. “What?”

  “Up there.”

  He looked where she was pointing, then shook his head. “What?” he said again.

  “You don’t see her?”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s the ghost. Lavinia.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, and she wondered if he thought the stress had driven her around the bend.

  The ghost gestured, then spoke in a low whisper. “This way. Hurry.”

  Chelsea caught the urgency in her voice. She crawled past Michael, following the ghost because that seemed to be her only option.

  As she moved, her hand and then her knee hit something solid, something different from the springy vegetation that they had been crawling over. A series of wooden boards.

  She stopped short, and Michael came up beside her.

  “What?”

  “There’s something here.” She gestured urgently toward the boards.

  He moved to the side and pulled the solid surface. Like a door, it opened to reveal a hole in the ground.

  “It’s like the pit at the warehouse,” he muttered. “Only it’s designed to keep someone out—not make them fall in.”

  He pushed the door up just enough so that he could slip inside, then reached his hand up. “Come on.”

  She didn’t like going into a hole in the ground. If the person stalking them found them down there, they were trapped. But if they stayed out here in the open, the gunman would likely gain on them, because they couldn’t make much headway crawling.

  Michael seemed to think it was the best alternative, which gave her the guts to climb down into the hole.

  She slipped under the cover, squeezing through, scraping the top of her hand before dropping a few feet to the ground below.

  She winced.

  “What happened?”

  “My hand. It’s just a scrape.”

  He cursed. “Sorry.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, even though her hand was throbbing.

  “What is this place?” he whispered.

  “Maybe smugglers used it. Or it could be from the underground railroad.”

  “That was over a hundred and fifty years ago.” After a second he added, “We’d better not talk.”

  “Okay.”

  It was almost pitch-black inside the hole. She wouldn’t use the small flashlight in her purse; it might shine out through the cracks in the boards. Then, to her astonishment, an eerie blue glow rose in one corner of the space.

  She gasped and jumped back. If there wasn’t someone outside with a gun, she would have scrambled back out of the hole in a heartbeat.

  “What the hell?” Michael muttered, taking a step back, his whole body poised to fight some unknown enemy.

  “You see it?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  As she stared at the blue light, a strange sensation stole over her. The light had startled her initially, but now she felt a kind of friendly feeling emanating from it.

  Michael tried to shove her behind him, but she put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I think the ghost is lighting this place for us.”

  Even to her own ears, that sounded ridiculous. At the moment, though, that was the only explanation she could come up with.

  “Yeah, well, the ghost is going to get us caught,” he muttered.

  The light flickered for a moment, then steadied.

  “We’d better use it,” she whispered as she began to inspect their refuge.

  It was a pit about six feet deep and five feet square. In the blue light, she could see a wooden wall at one side. Crossing the dirt floor, she pulled at the wall, and it swung aside, revealing another, smaller space.

  “We need to get in there,” she whispered.

  Michael looked doubtfully at the tiny crevice.

  His hesitation made her stomach knot. “Please. Just do it. And hurry.”

  He turned to stare at her, then did as she asked, climbing in, then reaching for her.

  She squeezed into the narrow passage after him, pulling the wall back into place. There was hardly any room, so that they had to huddle together.

  As they did, she heard a sound—footsteps walking through the underbrush above them.

  She felt Michael’s body stiffen and knew he had raised the gun. In the darkness, she clung to him.

  Was the blue light still shining in the main chamber? Would it give them away?

  And would her breathing? It seemed to ring in her ears, to fill the whole enclosure with sound.

  She kept repeating a silent prayer. Keep walking. Just go on by us. You don’t know we’re here.

  Whoever was searching the area above them didn’t seem to get the message. He stopped above them, and she waited for him to pull the door back.

  Instead, from ground level, she heard another volley of gunshots, coming in rapid succession, this time blasting through the wooden planks and into the hole. Four, five, six shots.

  She cringed.

  Then there was a scraping sound, and she realized the gunman was pulling the boards aside.

  Would he figure out where they’d gone? That they were in the hole, hidden from view by the door at the side of the pit?

  Breath frozen in her lungs, she waited and she felt Michael tense, ready to shoot.

  Long seconds passed, and her body grew stiff from holding the same position. But she dared not move.

  Finally, whoever was up there muttered a curse—presumably because he thought the hole was empty and he didn’t know where they had gone.

  After what felt like an eternity, he dropped the wooden cover back into place with a bang. Again, centuries ticked by before she heard his footsteps recede.

  Michael brought his mouth to her ear again and spoke in a barely audible voice. “We have to stay here for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. Until he gives up looking for us and leaves.”

  She nodded against his sh
oulder. “Can we get out into the main pit?”

  “Better not. He could come back and decide we doubled back and hid in here.”

  “Okay.” She shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable.

  He reached up to touch the ceiling above them, then the walls. Keeping his voice low, he said, “I think we can stretch out our legs. If we hear him coming back, we’ll pull our legs in and move the door back into place.”

  “Okay.”

  He moved the door aside, then slid his legs forward, making a sound of satisfaction as he shifted out of the cramped position. She did the same. “What a relief.”

  He gripped her arm. “Keep your voice low. If he hears us, we’re dead.”

  “We have a gun.”

  “A revolver. And he’s got an automatic weapon. Unless we can set up some kind of ambush, he’s got too much of an advantage.”

  She dragged in a breath that sounded more like a moan.

  “Sorry.”

  “No. You’re right,” she answered in a barely audible voice. “And he’s probably still out there looking for us.”

  As they both contemplated that unhappy truth, Michael asked, “I don’t suppose you have a cell phone?”

  “Sorry. I left it in the car. What about you?”

  “I’m not getting enough bars in the area, so I left it in my room.” He sighed. “That was a serious miscalculation.”

  “Neither one of us thought we were going to get shot at.”

  “So why did you bring a gun?”

  “I guess I’ve been…worried.”

  “Since I came here?”

  “Before that.” She swallowed. “I kept feeling like someone was watching me.” Raising her head, she looked upward. “So, who do you think it was up there?”

  “I wish I knew. We have to assume it’s somebody involved in the murder. He followed us out here.”

  “We saw Phil Cardon drive past.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe he might be a killer?”

  Chelsea thought about it. “I can’t say I like him a lot, but I also can’t picture him killing that woman. Lavinia.”

  The mention of the ghost brought her back to the way they’d discovered this hole in the ground.

  “She helped us find this place.” She turned her head toward Michael, although she couldn’t see him in the dark. “Do you believe that’s true?”

  She heard him drag in a breath and let it out. “I guess I have to. I can’t come up with any other explanation for your finding the hole or for that weird blue light.”

  “Yes.”

  He gripped her hand. “There’s something I should say to you.”

  The way his voice sounded in the darkness made her stomach knot. “What?”

  “When I came here, I thought the whole ghost business was…” His voice trailed off.

  “A bunch of crap?” she asked, unable to keep an edge out of her own voice.

  He sighed. “You could put it that way.”

  “Everybody was talking about me.”

  “Yeah.”

  She wanted to ask him more questions, but a sound from above made them both go rigid.

  Footsteps? Was the guy coming back, looking for them?

  Quietly, Michael drew his feet back into the hole. Chelsea did the same, then reached for the wooden wall and pulled it against the opening to the little tunnel. Michael shifted again so that he was cradling her and yet still holding the gun in firing position. He pressed his lips to her cheek, and she closed her eyes, huddling with him in the dark, wishing she could pretend they were in bed together and not a hidey-hole in the ground.

  The footsteps passed by, not right beside the hole but a few feet away. Either the guy wasn’t going to look in the hole again or he’d forgotten the location. Neither meant he was giving up.

  Michael shifted so that he could look at his watch. It was after nine. If they planned to wait until cover of darkness, they had a long wait.

  Above them, thunder sounded, shaking the ground nearby. Then rain began to pour down.

  She could hear it pattering on the wooden boards that covered the top of the hole.

  It pounded steadily, and when the ground underneath them grew wet, Chelsea grimaced. Pushing the wooden wall aside, she saw rain pouring into the hole.

  “Maybe this was a safe hiding place when we first came down here,” Michael muttered. “But it’s not safe now. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She felt her throat tighten. “What if the guy is still up there?”

  “Maybe he thinks the storm will do us in.”

  It could, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  “I’ll go up and have a look,” Michael said.

  She grabbed his arm. “No!”

  “If we stay down here, we’re going to drown in mud,” he said. Unless you have a better suggestion, I’m going topside.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  While Chelsea waited in the dark, wet hole, Michael stretched up and eased the cover aside. As weak daylight and rain flooded in, she braced for the sound of shots. Luckily all she heard was the rain pounding down and splashing into the water at the bottom of the pit.

  Michael heaved himself up and flopped onto the ground. Again, she waited for shots. Again, there was only the rain—and another clap of thunder.

  Long seconds ticked by until Michael finally reached down for her. Clasping his fingers around her forearm, he tugged her up, and she slithered onto the ground.

  “Stay low,” he warned as he started crawling through the underbrush.

  She followed him, moving awkwardly, praying that they got out of the area without being spotted.

  They were fifty yards from the pit when he stopped behind a clump of scrubby trees.

  Chelsea pulled up beside him. Her coat and pants were soaking by now, and she knew they had to find shelter.

  “Did you say there was a hunting cabin around here?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember where?”

  “No. But maybe I can find it.” She looked around, trying to orient herself. She hadn’t been to the cabin in years, but she remembered it was closer to town than where they’d stopped the car.

  “Can we stand up?” she asked Michael.

  “I hope so,” he answered, getting to his feet and looking around.

  Cold rain pelted down, and now it was mixed with sleet. If they didn’t get inside soon, they were going to be in big trouble.

  She pulled up the hood of her coat, grateful for the shelter it gave her. Glancing at Michael, she saw water running through his hair and dripping down his face.

  When he saw her expression, he pulled her close and gave her a quick, hard kiss.

  “More later,” he promised, then wrapped his arm around her waist as they made their way through the scrubby landscape, both of them stepping into water-filled holes from time to time as they floundered onward.

  Chelsea’s teeth chattered. Her hands had started to feel like blocks of ice, and she could barely put one leg in front of the other. With the part of her brain that was still functioning, she fought panic, because she was pretty sure that she had missed the cabin.

  “I have to stop,” she whispered.

  “No. You have to keep going,” Michael answered, holding her up as they staggered onward.

  When she was about to drop in her tracks, she did a double take. A building loomed ahead of them in the gloom—a building she hadn’t even seen until she was almost on top of it. At first she thought she had made it up, as she took several steps forward, but it stayed real and solid. It wasn’t the hunting cabin. It was someone’s summer home.

  “There.” She gestured with as much strength as she could muster.

  They approached the door and climbed wide front steps. Reaching out a hand that looked half-frozen, Michael rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he tried to turn the knob. She almost sobbed when it didn’t open.

  Plopping down on the steps, she
sat with her teeth chattering, looking out at the rain and sleet falling around them.

  They were so close to shelter, yet it might as well be a million miles away.

  Michael began searching along the edge of the steps. Several flowerpots had been grouped in an arrangement near the door. He picked them up, then held up his hand triumphantly, showing her a key.

  When he’d opened the door, he hauled her up and into a foyer.

  There she sat down on a bench, waiting while Michael walked down the hall, her brain too numb to take in much—other than the reality that they were finally sheltered from the storm.

  Leaning her head against the wall, she closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. But she opened her eyes abruptly when Michael laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “To the bathroom.”

  He led her down the hall to a white marble bathroom. She looked down at their muddy footprints. “We’re making a mess.”

  “We’ll clean up later.”

  He tugged off her wet coat, then started working on her wet pants. Next, he sat her down on the closed toilet seat and helped her out of her boots.

  When she was wearing only her damp underwear, he helped her into the bathtub, where he dipped a cloth in a small pot of warm water and washed off her hands and face.

  “Where did that come from?” she asked in confusion.

  “The hot water is turned off, but there’s a propane tank for the stove. I heated a little water.”

  When she was cleaned up, he led her down the hall to a bedroom, then pulled aside the covers. It was cold in the bed, but her body heat and the wool blankets he’d piled on began to warm the sheets.

  A few minutes later, Michael came back and slipped in beside her.

  She sighed as he rubbed his hands up and down her arms and over her back and shoulders.

  “That feels good,” Chelsea murmured.

  “I’m glad.”

  “I wish we could turn on the heat.”

  “That’s not working. Neither is the phone, unfortunately. We’re lucky there’s propane in the tank.”

  “Can he find us here?” she whispered.

  “I think he gave up the hunt when the rain started.”