# # #
They swept the area with their lights. The floor was made of thick, sturdy timbers that were stained with water but didn’t flex at all when Alan tested his weight on them. Amber held a flashlight to supplement the light from her headlamp. In the first room, swallows had made nests up in the corners, where the beams met the walls. Amber bent to look at tracks in the mud on the floor.
“Raccoon?” she asked.
“I guess.”
They found a doorway at the far side and headed towards it. Alan spotted the stairwell off to the right. He waved to Amber and they stayed closed to the wall as they crept that direction. In the center of the hall, the floor sagged. Where they walked, it didn’t even creak.
The stairs were stacked stone. Moss grew on the walls and water dripped from above.
“What do you think?” Alan asked.
“Seems safe enough. Unless the whole place collapses, I guess.”
Alan turned his headlamp to look back the way they had come. He reminded himself that they were there to gather information. His instincts told him that they wouldn’t find out anything from this building. He couldn’t tell if that was real or if he was just telling himself that because he wanted to get out of there.
“We came,” he said. “Let’s see what’s down there.”
Amber nodded.
She led the way. The stone stairs were slick with mold and moss. They were descending into rot. Below them, he could hear the river coursing through the foundation of the mill.
“You notice that there’s nothing here?” Alan asked.
“Like what?”
“No leftover trash, no grafitti, no footprints.”
“It was fenced off.”
“Not very well,” Alan said.
“This isn’t a very well-populated area, is it?”
“Still,” he said. “When I was a kid, we would have flocked to a place like this. Until very recently, kids were bored all of the time. I would think that in the seventies every kid within fifty miles would have come here to drink beer, smoke pot, and hold seances.”
“Maybe it was better sealed up then,” Amber said. “That hole we came through could be fairly recent.”
“I guess.”
Amber reached the bottom of the stairs and looked down at her feet. The floor of this level was like cobblestone. She pointed her light at an arch that led into another big room. Alan focused on the corners where the walls met the ceilings and where beams supported the floor above. He was looking for any cobwebs or spiders. He saw none.
Just ahead, water was dripping into a puddle, making a musical sound that echoed off the walls.
Amber zipped up her outer layer. It felt ten degrees cooler than outside.
“We should get some space between us. Cast different shadows,” Alan said. Amber nodded. She held her light out to the side and she and Alan headed in different directions. He followed one wall and she took to the other. They pointed their lights towards the center of the room.
“Hold on,” she said.
He froze.
Amber gestured and pointed her light where she wanted him to go. After a second of studying the ceiling, she shook her head. “Nothing. Feels like something though, doesn’t it?”
Alan stood still and forced himself to close his eyes. She was right. It felt like they weren’t alone. When he opened his eyes again, his heart was pounding. Alan whipped his light around, expected to see some sign of the things.
Amber shook her head. “I don’t understand. I know they’re here, but they’re not.”
“I think this is good enough,” Alan said. “This is evidence. We take this back and compare notes with Ricky’s research.”
“No,” Amber said. “I want proof.”
Alan pointed his light straight down to make sure he was walking on solid footing and he crossed the floor to get to her.
“Amber, we both saw the one at the cabin. Now we’re feeling the presence here. That’s good enough.”
She wasn’t listening. Her lights were trained on a spot at the far wall.
The section of wall was made of horizontal planks of wood. Amber began to move towards it.
Alan followed.
When she reached the wall, Amber put her hand against the wood. Alan held his breath when she worked her fingers into the gap between two of the boards.
“Hold this,” she said, handing him the flashlight.
She used both hands to tug and the board popped free. She backed up as it sagged and then fell to the floor. The planks were covering a gap in the wall. Alan carefully moved closer and angled his light to see. There was another stair well behind there. Amber pulled away another board and he got an even better look.
“I can’t see where the steps end.”
“We have to go down,” she said.
# # #
“No,” he said.
The sound of the river rumbled up from below.
“Just to be certain.”
“No.”
“Then I’m going alone.”
“Amber, be serious. You don’t get to make unilateral decisions like that. If you go down there and something happens, that gives me the burden of getting help. I won’t be put into that position against my will.”
“You don’t get to make all the decisions either.”
“Then convince me.”
Amber took a step back from the wall and put her hands on her hips. She made a slow turn, casting her light around the room before she finally turned back to him.
“Last night, we went out to a food truck,” she said. “There was nothing wrong, but we couldn’t do it. We were all terrified by our own shadows and we had to get out of there. I can’t live like that. I’ve spent too long trying to avoid this kind of conflict. I’m going to be done with it.”
“I know,” he said. “I understand—I really do. But think about this from my perspective. The reason I’m out here is to try to secure a safer future for my family. If something happens to me here, I can’t do that. I’m not going to throw it all away just to face my fears.”
“We’ve come this far. We both sense something, right? Just a
