My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(103)

I am not

I am not afraid

I am not afraid

Tracy considered the square patches of carpet and dropped to her knees, lifting them, feeling for imperfections in the ground. She began digging with her hands.

“Where is it? What did you use?”

The filament inside the bulb grew weaker, now a faint orange. As the circumference of light shrunk, the shadows crept farther down the wall.



I am not afraid



Tracy dug faster. Her fingertips touched something solid. She increased her pace and uncovered a small, round rock. She swore and looked to the door in the wall. She had no idea when House would return, but she could never dig up the entire area she could reach. It was simply too big, and Tracy had a sense that House did not intend to stay in the cave long, as he had with Sarah. She sensed he was on some kind of mission, settling scores. She continued to feel, now almost in blind darkness, and had the strange sensation that someone took her hand and guided it to just a few inches from the hole where she’d uncovered the rock. Tracy felt an imperfection in the ground, a mound of dirt. She ran her hand over it and felt a slight depression beside it. She dug. Just an inch below the surface she hit something solid. Tracy worked her fingers along the object’s surface, scraping the soil away, no longer able to see. Whatever the object was, it was not round. It was straight, rectangular. She dug around the object, trying to find a defined edge. When she found it, she worked her fingers deeper and felt the bottom of it. Tracy secured a fingerhold and tugged at the end, feeling the earth reluctantly give it up. She worked another finger beneath it, then a third. She gripped it and, with a final effort, yanked it free.

A metal spike.





[page]CHAPTER 68





Roy Calloway pushed himself beyond what he thought his body still capable of doing. Mercifully, the snow had temporarily let up, though the wind continued to pummel his unprotected face as he climbed higher. The muscles in his legs had begun to cramp in knots. His lungs felt as though they would burst from his chest. He could not feel his hands or his feet. The urge to stop and catch his breath, to rest, grew stronger. After a few more steps, the trail flattened, triggering a recollection of his hike with Parker House twenty years ago when they’d come to a crest in the hill. If he remembered correctly, the entrance to the mine would be on his left. But could he find it?

He recalled the entrance as having been rectangular, not much bigger than a single-wide garage door. The wood beams supporting it had already begun to list to the left as if about to collapse, and, as with the decades-old road, the mine entrance had also been partially obscured by foliage. It would likely now have been completely overgrown, but Calloway was counting on the fact that Edmund House would have needed to clear the entrance to take Tracy inside.

Calloway swept the beam of his flashlight over the snow. He no longer saw the snowmobile tracks, nor did he see the machine. House must have hidden it and carried Tracy the final distance. He looked more closely and picked up a single set of boot prints.

The mine could not be far.

He used the beam of light to follow the footprints. They led to what he first thought to be a rock, but was, in actuality, a black hole in the side of the hill. The snow had been recently shoveled out to expand the opening.

Calloway knelt and used the light to look about. He slid the shotgun from his shoulder and removed his gloves, flexing his fingers, trying to restore feeling. He unstrapped the snowshoes and staked them in the snow, listening, but hearing only the howling wind, his eyes scanning the darkness. He blew again into his fists, gripped the shotgun, picked up the flashlight, and got to his feet.

He shone the light on the ground and took a step. His boot sunk knee deep. Calloway yanked his leg free of the snow, took a second step, and again plunged to his knees. He moved to his left where the trail of footprints had tamped down the snow, and made better progress up the hill, though he was still plodding. Closer to the hole, he stepped with his right leg into the next depression, but this time his boot did not sink. It struck something solid.

The snow beneath his foot exploded like a geyser, spraying Calloway in the face. He heard a loud snap, a microsecond before metal teeth bit into the flesh of his leg, followed by a second, sickening snap.

Calloway screamed in agony and toppled face-first into the snow.

Something heavy landed hard on his back, driving the wind from his lungs, burying him further, suffocating him. He strained to lift his head, in search of air. Someone grabbed his arms, yanking them over his head. Cuffs pinched his wrists.

He lifted his head, still partially blinded by the snow and pain. A hooded figure walked backward, dragging Calloway by his arms up the slope toward the black hole, like prey being dragged into an underground den.





[page]CHAPTER 69





Horrific screams reverberated down the mine shaft. It sounded like the baying of a wounded animal, but Tracy knew it to be human. House had returned, and he was not alone.

The filament in the bulb had nearly extinguished, and the room had returned to near darkness. Tracy hurried to make a final scratch in the wall, determined to finish what Sarah had started.

I am not

I am not afraid

I am not afraid

of the dark

The cries grew louder, echoing wails of agony and pain. Then, just as suddenly and horrifically, they stopped.