the open door, he stepped back and closed it, the flakes making a scratching sound as they bounced off of the slick material. Following him around the front end of the car, Scott handed him the rechargeable flashlight and the two stood briefly at the base of the stairs leading up to the porch.
Harry turned to Scott, and with a brisk nod, the two ascended the stairs.
“You say you came straight out this door last night?” Harry asked, staring at the lock box engaged on the handle of the door.
“Yeah,” Scott responded, noting the same thing.
“All right then,” Harry said, fumbling for his keys.
Holding out his keychain, Harry flipped through the handful of keys until he found an old, brass key. Shoving it into the lock box, he yanked it off the doorknob with a loud thunk. He set it on the windowsill to the right of the door, which he slowly opened inward.
The stale smell of dust and the water that dripped from the ceiling through the walls and onto the floor, mildewing in the rotting wood, overwhelmed their nostrils. Much of the graffiti that covered the walls in the main room was illegible as the water had dampened the drywall to the point that it appeared like an abstract watercolor collage. The hardwood floor was warping, some of the seams peeling up and inward, the floor sounding as if it could just crumble beneath their weight.
“After you,” Harry said, gesturing with his hand, allowing Scott to pass first through the doorway into the kitchen.
Kicking aside a pile of plaster in the middle of the bowed plywood floor, Scott headed straight for the door leading down into the basement. His heart had begun to race, his lips parting to assist in the panting. Throbbing mercilessly, all he could hear in his head was the pounding of his pulse in his temples. Reaching out with his shaking right hand, he grasped the doorknob, turning to look at Harry.
All of the color had drained from his face as well. His fingers clenched the handle of the flashlight so tightly that his knuckles had turned bright white. A pained expression wore deeply into his face, and he forced a smile for Scott’s benefit, closing his eyes briefly and taking a deep breath. He just nodded, and Scott could tell that meant that he was as ready as he was going to get.
The knob squeaked in his turning hand, the door creaking loudly as he swung it wide. Their straining eyes fought to adjust to the thick darkness, only a thin line of light visible from beneath the boarded window. Dank earth accosted their nostrils as they descended the rickety stairs. Switching on his flashlight, Scott pointed it at the wall of earth behind the hot water heater, illuminating the lip if the darkened hole, halfway up the wall.
“That’s it,” he said, pointing through the shadows as a long ray of light burst from Harry’s flashlight behind him.
The two landed at the bottom of the stairs, the soft ground sinking slightly beneath their feet. With a quick glance back, Scott slipped between the furnace and the hot water heater, setting his flashlight atop the rim of the hole, and pulled himself up, ducking his head, and crawling into the tunnel. Clutching the light in his right hand, he inched forward, flashing the beam all about the ground that entombed him.
Dirt from the slightly damp floor of the tube rose between the fingers of his left hand, covering the knees of his slacks.
“Are you sure you know where this leads?” he asked, craning his head over his shoulder in the tight quarters.
“No, but I’ve got a hunch.”
Shrugging, he turned back to the tunnel. There was something in the middle of the floor straight ahead, right at the point where the light faded into the darkness. Creeping toward it, he slowly became able to discern what it was. Long shadows traced the floor past the pile of bones that he immediately recognized from the night before, the palms of his hands still stinging lightly from where they had punctured the tough skin. The yellowed bones, tattered, fur-covered flesh dangling from appeared to by a series of small ribcages. As he neared, he was able to make out the long, arched front teeth of what had apparently been a large rodent on the sloping, hollowed skull lying askew in front of the pile. He counted at least five more of the skulls as he crept closer. There was something unique about the dried, curling flesh that hung from the decaying bones, something that was suddenly quite obvious. The edges of the shredded flesh were rippled slightly in a series of arcs, and there was no mistaking their origin. They were bites, from a human set of teeth.
Stopping briefly, he flashed the light around. There were long, parallel lines carved into the floor and walls all around him. Reaching up, he placed the tips of his fingers in the niches carved into the ceiling above him. They matched perfectly.
“Check this out,” he whispered as Harry crept up on him from the rear.
Skirting the pile of bones, he worked his way deeper into the tunnel, the muffled sound of the river barely audible as it echoed through the larger tunnel ahead. He could see the metal-rimmed edges of where the grate had been at the end of the stream of light. His breath coming in short bursts; the dirt began to stick to his clammy palms. Shuddering, he paused, poking his head out of the smaller tunnel into the cavern beyond. Flashing his light from one side to the other, he could see the dim light from the outside clear down to the left, nothing but more darkness to his right.
Trying to calm his breathing as it bordered on hyperventilation, he set the light on the ground beside him, closing his eyes only briefly. Wiping his damp forehead with the back of his trembling hand, he swallowed the dry lump in his throat and climbed out of the tunnel and onto the floor. Frantically, he grabbed his flashlight, whirling and shooting the light into every darkened cranny that he possibly could. He heard Harry groan as he slipped down behind him.
“That’s…” Scott started, the words catching in his dry mouth. “That’s where the tunnel starts by the river.”
Harry’s light flashed down the tunnel toward the gray aura of light before turning immediately back and pointing to the right.
“Then that’s where we need to go.”
The thin lines of light darted from the tips of the flashlights in their hands as they pressed on through the tunnel. Small icicles hung from the rocky ceiling overhead, glittering as the lights flashed overhead. Bat guano was crusted to the walls and floor to either side of the shallow stream of frozen water in the center, the icy covering crackling beneath their tread, echoing through the darkness. Small creatures skittered ahead of them, skirting the edges of their dancing lights, clinging to their shadows as they scurried about, cringing against the base of the walls.
Bending slightly to the left, the tunnel stretched on as far as they could see. They had been walking through the blackened corridor with no end in sight for close to a mile already. The air grew increasingly cold around them, their damp breath crystallizing against the flesh on their faces.
“What’s that?” Scott asked.
Harry squinted to see the end of the tunnel. A stone archway appeared at the end of the tunnel in their diffused rays. Nothing more than a roughly stacked series of coarse stones mortared together around an oblongated half circle of darkness. As they neared, their lights bouncing up and down with their strides, they could see that the tunnel bent away at a ninety degree angle to the left, leading, as best as they could tell, to the south.
“This thing has got to be well over a hundred years old,” Scott said, breaking away the crumbling chunks of mortar.
Spider webs floated from the surface of the large rocks, their white ball-like egg sacs nestled tightly in the crevices between the rocks and the cement glue. The archway was stained along the floor, rising waters marking the stones with a light green line as high as chest level.
“I think this is where we need to be,” Harry said, flashing his light into the darkened corridor beyond the arch.
“What do you think is back there?”
“I know there are tunnels underneath the old convent leading to the hot springs. The castle itself used to be a haven for tuberculosis sufferers who were taken to the supposedly therapeutic waters of the springs every day to be cleansed of their affliction. As it was socially unacceptable for people with TB to be moved out in the open during the day, they had to be shuttled back and forth through these tunnels. The guy who used to own all of this land, this Cavenaugh, his daughter suffered from it, and finally died. After burying his only child, it was only a matter of time before he disintegrated himself, but he used it as a sort of hospice for others with TB until he died and left it to the
