“I need your help, Violet.”
“With what?”
“Protecting my baby.”
That gave me pause. Jane had been pregnant long ago, way before my entrance into her life. However, she’d lost that child in utero when a no-good son of a bitch had beaten her up during a drunken rage. After that, Calamity Jane Realty had become her “baby,” soaking up all of her time, energy, and love.
Had Jane the ghost found something down in the Hellhole that could hurt her business? A secret that might destroy all of the years of hard work she’d poured into it? Or was this some memory glitch of hers in which her actual child was still alive? Was she replaying her pregnancy and the loss of her baby? What did Cornelius call it when a scene from the past replayed over and over? A residual haunting?
“Please hurry, Violet, before I have to close the gate again for good.”
Crappity crap! I looked around the basement, wishing I had some sign from Doc that going down into the Hellhole was the right thing to do. Then again, what were my other options? To sit here on the floor until what? Maybe down there I could finish whatever quest I was here to fulfill and return to the land of the living.
Stuffing the steel bar in the back of my pants, I lowered myself to the floor and started down into the Hellhole, my foot finding the first rung sticking out of the cement wall without a problem. The climb down went quickly. Before I knew it, I was at the bottom of the hole looking up at a dark circle overhead. I half expected the iron grate to slam shut, but it didn’t.
I turned slowly, seeing the diamond-shaped ward on the wall that we’d seen in a video Jane had taken with her phone before she died. Was this ward to keep something from entering the hole from above? Or was it meant to stop whatever was down here from getting out?
Chills peppered my arms. Doc, where are you?
“Violet, come on,” Jane called from the dark tunnel across from the ward.
Pulling the steel bar out of my pants, I stepped into the darkness, holding it and the miner’s lamp in front of me. The warm glow spread out along the rock walls and ceiling, which were held up by thick, cobweb-draped timbers. Ahead in the shadows, I could see Jane waving for me to follow.
Grimacing at the stench, which was twice as strong down here in the dark, I made my way deeper into the tunnel. After about twenty feet down a slight slope, the walls opened wider and the ceiling no longer felt like it was pressing down on my head.
I lifted the miner’s lamp toward the ceiling, surprised to see arched stone structures every five feet or so instead of timbers. They weren’t normal-looking arches, like what the Romans were known for in their heyday. The sides were straighter, coming together with a wedge-shaped keystone set in the top center.
Another thirty or so feet and a bend in the tunnel later, I paused at a fork in the road. The vaulted arches continued to the left, leading into the darkness. On my right, the trail sloped downward at a steeper angle, the tunnel lined by timbers again that were holding up walls and a ceiling of stone.
Which way had Jane gone? I took a few steps down along the right fork, shining the lamp into the inky blackness.
“Violet,” Jane called from the other tunnel, the one with the strange arches. “This way.”
Happy not to be traveling deeper into the earth, I took the left fork, picking up speed to catch her. After rounding another bend, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel—literally. It was bright enough to make me squint, coming through an oval-shaped opening.
I started to jog, my eyes hungry for more light, my heart excited to return to civilization. I saw a shadow pass on the other side of the opening. That must have been Jane.
As I drew closer to the light, I kept expecting the opening to shut in my face, leaving me alone in the darkness. I picked up my pace, sprinting by the end, skidding to a stop at a manhole-sized opening at the end of the tunnel. I shined the light around in what looked like a partially walled-in doorway, the mortar around the stacked stones crumbling with age. Several of the stones lay on the floor at my feet, pulled down by gravity or knocked inward by someone or something on the other side.
I eased toward the hole, listening for any sounds before sticking my head out through the opening.
I was in another basement, only this one was in better shape than Calamity Jane’s. The loosely mortared flat stone walls were light gray, some spots partially covered in a layer of plaster or something like it. White pipes with stenciled abbreviations painted on them were secured to the walls, while smaller silver pipes ran the length of the ceiling. Here, the floor was cement rather than cobblestone.
Careful not to light myself on fire with the carbide lamp, I eased out through the hole in the wall. I managed to scratch my elbow on some rough mortar on the way through, the sting from the injury confirming that this wasn’t a normal nightmare. On this side, the hole was about chest high, but a set of old crates were stacked in front of it, acting as makeshift steps.
I climbed down to the floor, the crates creaking under my weight. When my feet touched the cement, I turned and scanned the area. I was in a small alcove amid several sagging computer boxes and a couple of old five-paneled wooden doors lying on their sides. The place smelled like stale cardboard and damp cement. I sniffed again, picking up a whiff
