other side. A steamer trunk against the wall, but nothing else. Turning slowly, he raised his beam to the corner and swept it around the entire cellar. Along the walls, he saw a collection of old gardening tools: shovels, a rake and a hoe. Shelves, mostly empty but some lined with canning jars. Little else. The dirt floor was clear except for a few stacks of bushel baskets.
“Looks okay,” Jack said.
With a nod, Abe stepped down the rest of the stairs. He turned around and aimed his beam at the steamer trunk. Its latches were in place. “Get whatever you need,” he said, “and let’s go.”
Jack, at the foot of the stairs, took three shots. Abe kept his eyes shut against the quick bursts of light from the flash.
“Let’s go.”
“Hang on. I want a look around.”
Abe gave him the flashlight. As Jack started to wander the cellar, he gazed up the stairway at the door. He imagined it swinging shut. If someone came from above and locked it…
“Over here,” Jack said.
“What?”
“That hole Gory talked about.”
Abe hurried across the dirt floor and joined Jack beside a crooked stack of bushel baskets. The hole at his feet was roughly circular and almost a yard in diameter. It didn’t go straight down, but dropped away at a steep angle in the direction of the cellar’s rear wall.
Abe covered his eyes. Jack took a photo.
“That’s it,” Abe said. “Let’s go.”
“Take this a minute.” Jack handed the camera to him.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Hang onto it.”
Crouching, Jack aimed the flashlight into the hole. He lowered his face close to the edge and peered in.
“The girls are waiting,” Abe said.
“I know.”
“We’re already late.”
“A couple more minutes won’t make that much difference.” Lying down flat, Jack started squirming head first into the hole.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Abe muttered.
“I won’t go far.” Jack’s voice came up muffled.
“The fun part,” Abe said. “will be backing out.”
In the last glow before the light faded out, Abe fell to his knees and clutched a cuff of Jack’s jeans. Then he was in darkness. Looking over his shoulder, he watched the dim patch of gray at the cellar door.
They could be up there, right now. They could be on their way out of the house.
He yanked Jack’s cuff. “Come on.”
Jack was no longer moving.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” His voice sounded thick as if he were speaking with a pillow over his mouth. “Goes on and on,” he said.
“Come out of there.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Something up ahead. Looking at me.”
Abe felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “What is it?”
“Let me get closer.”
“What
“It’s not coming. Huh-uh. It’s…an owl head. No owl, just its head. Man, there’s all kind of bones and shit down here.”
“Great. Time to leave.” He grabbed Jack’s ankles and started to drag him out.
Moments later, light appeared in the hole—a glowing rim around Jack’s shoulder. His head appeared. Abe kept pulling. Jack worked his way backward, elbows shoving at the clay.
Then he was out.
“Infuckingcredible,” he said. “I could only see about twenty feet, but you oughta see all that shit. Bones all over the place down there.”
“Human?”
“Nothing that big. Maybe dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons. Smaller stuff, too, like from mice or rats. Why don’t you take a quick look?”
“Thanks anyway.”
“I wonder if I could get a picture of that stuff. Worth a try, huh?”
The quick, soft sounds of footsteps rushing down the stairs sounded more animal than human.
Janice pressed herself against the moist clay wall of the tunnel and stared into the blue light. Her heart felt as if it might smash through her ribs. Her breath came in harsh sobs. She clutched the knife with both hands, blade toward the cellar, and held her breath.
She only glimpsed the beast as it passed the tunnel entrance. Her knees sagged. She braced herself against the wall to keep from falling. Her stomach lurched. She swallowed the hot, bitter fluid that rose in her throat.
This—or one like it—was the thing that had raped her. Its claws had ripped her flesh, its snouted mouth had sucked and gnawed her breasts, its penis had been deep inside her and she could still feel the hurt from it.
This—or its brother—was the thing that had murdered her parents and…
She heard a wet, tearing sound.
Pushing herself from the wall, she stepped across the tunnel. Shoulder against the cool clay on the other side, she eased her head past the corner.
The beast, hunched over slightly, had its back to Janice as its claws tore flesh and muscle from her mother’s thigh. She watched, too stunned to move, as it raised the dripping load to its mouth.
A corner of her mind whispered for her to flee, to make good her escape while the creature was busy eating.
No, she thought. I can’t.
The sound of its chewing made her gag. She covered her mouth and ducked out of sight, but she could still hear it.
And then she ran.
She wasn’t quiet about it. She knew she should sneak but she couldn’t, she rushed across the carpet and a savage growl rumbled from her throat and the thing heard her and looked around with scraps of flesh hanging from its mouth and it looked at her with blank pale eyes as if it didn’t give a damn and kept on chewing as it turned and swung a clawed hand at her face. She ducked and rammed the blade into its belly. It roared, spewing the food onto her hair and back. Staggering away, it smashed against her mother. The body’s legs splayed out with the impact. The arms jumped. The head wobbled. The spike slipped out of sight as if sucked into the chest hole, and her mother dropped onto the beast, driving it to its knees.
Janice stepped back, staring at the tangled bodies, half convinced for a moment that her mother was somehow alive. Then the beast, down against the wall with the knife still embedded in its belly, grabbed her mother by the throat and groin and hurled her. The corpse flew at Janice, hit the carpet at her feet, and rolled toward her with flopping arms and legs.
Janice leaped out of its way, spun around, and raced back into the tunnel.
She should have kept on stabbing, damn it.
She cried out in agony as her shoulder slammed against the wall of the tunnel. She bounced off, collided with the other wall, and fell down sobbing. Quickly, she got to her feet. She stumbled onward, one arm out to feel her
