the one by our house. Rosehill. Have you ever heard of it? It’s surrounded by dozens and dozens of rosebushes. Some of them are over a hundred years old. They climb up in the trees and hang down from the limbs. In the summer, the scent is like heaven. I loved playing there when I was a little girl.”
“You played in a graveyard?”
“Why not? It was quiet and beautiful. A perfect little kingdom.”
“You are a very strange woman.”
“I thought I was practical.”
“Strange, stunning and practical.”
My heart quickened. I loved his description even though it seemed so out of character for him. It made me think of Rhapsody for some reason. Strange, stunning and practical. A girl who could play kick ball and cast spells.
The steady beam of the flashlight revealed nothing ahead but more brick walls and more darkness.
We’d only been walking for a few minutes, but already we seemed a long way from the opening through which we’d crawled. I wondered if help had arrived yet. Devlin must have told them I was trapped in the chamber, but how would they know to look for us in here? We were far enough away by now that I doubted they would even hear us if we called out.
Devlin stopped so abruptly I almost plowed into his back.
“What is it?”
“Another opening.” He slanted the beam toward the bottom of the wall to our right. Some of the bricks had been removed to make a hole large enough to crawl through.
He knelt in front of it and shined the light through.
“Is it another tunnel?” My query bounced off the walls and came back to me.
“Looks like it.” He paused, still probing the darkness. “I smell mildew and rot. This place is old.”
“What do you suppose it was originally used for?” I stood in the dark, hugging my arms around my middle. The air was damp and dank. Like the touch of a ghost. “These tunnels must have taken years to dig.”
“Maybe there was an old plantation house here before the cemetery was built. This could be part of a cellar system. They sometimes put the slave quarters underground.”
Slave quarters. Perhaps that explained the pall that lay over Oak Grove.
My gaze lifted. It must be twilight up there now.
“Wouldn’t this place flood when the water’s up?” I asked.
“Probably why there’s mildew and slime all over the place.”
I glanced around nervously. “How do you suppose he found it?”
“Old records, deeds. Or maybe he stumbled upon it by accident like we did.”
“We keep saying
“Most predatory killers are male.” Devlin straightened.
I nodded toward the opening. “Are we going in there?”
“No. I think we should stay in the original tunnel. We can always double back. Let’s just keep going.”
We started walking again.
“This place reminds me of a recurring dream I had as a child,” I said, falling into step behind him. I tried not to project beyond the strength of the flashlight beam. “It was terrifying. So traumatic you would think I’d been lost in a tunnel or a cave in real life, but there was nothing like that where I grew up.”
“Maybe the tunnel represented a different kind of trauma.”
“Maybe. At one end, I could see a faint glimmer of light and on the other end, nothing but darkness. I would always start out walking toward the light, but then something would compel me to turn and I would go toward the darkness, only to be tugged back around to the light. This would happen over and over again. A few steps in one direction, turn, a few steps in the other direction. It was the most awful tug-of-war you can imagine.”
“Were you alone?”
“Yes. Except…once in a while I could hear a woman’s voice. She spoke in whispers. I could never quite make out what she said, but I always listened and listened, hoping that she would tell me where I was supposed to go, but she never did. And if I stopped for too long, the hands would come out of the walls.”
“Hands?”
I shuddered. “Dozens of them. Pale and grasping. I knew that if they managed to grab me, they would pull me down into some dark place far more terrifying than what awaited me at either end of the tunnel. So I would start walking again. A few steps toward the light. Turn. A few steps toward the darkness.”
“You never made it to the end?”
“Never. I’d wake up with the most dreadful feeling of being lost and not having a clue where I was or where I was meant to be.”
“Sounds like a near-death experience,” Devlin said. “Not that I believe in any of that stuff, but the way you described your dream is a lot like the way I’ve heard people talk about an NDE. Except for the hands,” he added. “That’s new.”
“The hands were the scariest part.”
He waved the flashlight over the walls. “See? No hands.”
“Thanks.” I tripped over the corner of a loose brick and righted myself with a palm to his back. Quickly, I pulled away. “Have you ever had a recurring nightmare?”
“Yes.” He paused. “And then I wake up and remember that it’s real.”
The silence stretched on and on.
Twenty-Eight
We were well into the tunnel by this time. Too late to turn back. I could feel a chill at my back and imagined a ghost behind me, creeping through the shadows, coveting my energy, leeching my warmth.
I whirled, my heart in my throat. “Did you hear something?”
“No.” Devlin turned and swung the light down the tunnel.
I caught the gleam of beady eyes and then the scurry of tiny feet. Just a rat.
We pressed forward. I was breathing a little easier now, knowing the sounds I’d heard from behind me were nothing more than the scratch of rodent claws on brick. And oddly, telling Devlin about my dream had lightened my mood, unchained me from a childhood terror that had dogged me for years. It had also made him my confidant. I’d never told anyone about that nightmare. What this said about my feelings for him, I was a little too scared to consider.
We had been keeping a steady pace, but now I slowed, my head turning to the side as a new sound invaded the silence. I paused, took a step forward, then glanced over my shoulder.
“Something’s back there.”
Devlin barely broke stride. “Another rat.”
“No, not a rat. Listen.”
Nothing but silence.
Then it came again, a sort of furtive shuffle. The hair sprang up at my nape.
“There! Did you hear it?”
Devlin whirled, the light beam piercing the darkness. “Stay calm.”
“I am calm,” I said over the thunder of my heartbeat. “What do you think it is?”
“I can’t tell.”
It wasn’t a ghost. This was something very real, something solid and alive.
Devlin transferred the flashlight to his left hand, and with his right, drew his gun from the holster. Again and again, he swept the beam across the darkness.
“Get in front of me,” he said and handed me the flashlight.
“He’s back there, isn’t he?” I whispered.
“Just keep moving.”
