VenCo(9)

In the ground-floor hall, she balanced the high basket on the tops of her feet, reached in through the dark basement doorway, and flipped the switch. The lights flickered and ticked and finally jumped into dim life.

“Cheery.”

Hoisting the basket, she carefully navigated the narrow stairs. The basement had once stretched the entire length of the sizable house. Now it accommodated a spacious bachelor apartment where a very short bald man named Mr. Godet lived with his collection of Star Wars figurines. Passing his door on the way to the laundry room, Lucky wondered if Godet knew the story of the Great Escape. Would he even notice if the ghost of a lunatic appeared to him while he dusted Boba Fett with high-end makeup brushes? Then again, maybe all that was left of the escaped prisoner was the latticework of his skeleton crushed under the apartment floor.

The laundry “room” was an olive-green washer-dryer set installed between the old boiler and a shelving unit full of archaic-looking tools. Shivering a little in the damp, Lucky set the basket down and began sorting the whites from the colours. Head full of ghost stories, she couldn’t stop glancing around her, the space having morphed into something sinister. Several corners of the basement were filled with brooms and mops, huddled like stooks of corn and throwing sharp shadows. But it was the long army-green metal cabinet along the east wall that kept stealing her attention.

Once she got a load into the washer, she squared her shoulders and walked over to the cabinet. She’d never really inspected it closely before, but sure enough, there it was—a dull silver lock, looped through the handles and clamped tight by her own grandfather.

She took the lock in her hand. It was heavy, dusted with coppery rust, with a keyhole in the bottom. She let it drop, and it banged against the metal doors, making her jump.

As the washing machine splashed and sloshed, Lucky leaned in cautiously and placed her ear against the smooth metal of the door. She closed her eyes and exhaled on the cool surface, and then, with the tip of her pinky finger, she quickly traced the word escape into the condensation.

She imagined a man in torn blue pyjamas. He would have a long beard and wild tangles from years without a comb, his eyes rimmed red from dust. At this very moment, she imagined him leaning on the opposite side of the thin metal door, hoping that she would open the lock that would release him.

She was so far gone in her fantasy that she damn near choked when the spin cycle unbalanced and the washer started banging and shaking.

“Dammit!”

She pushed in the dial and opened the lid to reposition the wet clothes. As she separated the sopping fabrics, she heard metal clatter to the bottom of the tub and went up on her tiptoes so she could reach in far enough to scoop up whatever it was. Three dollars in change, a bell off a cat toy, and a key. She really needed to remember to check Stella’s pockets, since it was obvious the woman had given up doing it herself.

Wait . . . a key. Could this be the key? Stella had said she was going to look for it. Lucky held it up and studied it under the light of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was nothing unusual about it—she wasn’t sure why she thought there would be. Maybe this wasn’t it. There was only one way to know for sure.

She went back to the cabinet and hefted the lock. She lined up the key with the slot in the bottom and pushed. It fit.

“Holy shit, holy shit . . .”

Taking a deep breath, she turned the key and the lock snapped open in her palm. Before she could second-guess it, she pulled the lock from the latch and yanked on the stiff door. It screeched as it released, and she squinted, bracing for impact.

But there was nothing, just a little wash of cold air in her face.

She bent to peer in. There were shelves at the top, laden with rusted cans, a cloudy jar of nails, and a collection of screwdrivers and rope. But the bottom section had been kicked out, the broken metal back warped and pushed to curl against the locked door. The floor was littered with contents that had fallen—broken glass, stiff paintbrushes, and some rags. Behind the broken metal was a dark hole where the cold air whistled through.

Lucky got down on her hands and knees and shone her phone flashlight into the hole. It was a tunnel, an actual fucking tunnel. She sat back on her haunches, taking a few seconds to psych herself up, and leaned in farther, past her shoulders.

“Hello?”

Nothing in return except silence, not even an echo.

“Anyone here?”

How can anyone be here? she asked herself, feeling a little embarrassed. Even if this was the old tunnel, no way was the patient still here. She had the sudden image of a grinning skull an inch from her face and pulled her neck in. What if there were rats in there? Or bugs? She snatched her hand to her chest and wiped it on her T-shirt.

She decided she was being ridiculous. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said out loud. But she’d come this far. It was all-or-nothing time. She already had nothing, so instead she chose all. Focusing her phone flashlight into the hole, she passed over the crunchy rags and fragile glass and crawled inside.

It was tight on all sides, bare dirt under her knees, rocks clotting the walls like hard warts. Twenty feet in, the tunnel dead-ended in a spill of rubble from the cave-in. Was that where he was buried? No, she was going to believe he had really escaped out through the cabinet into the bright world—decades ago, before her grandfather locked it up.

“I hope you made it, buddy,” she whispered. “I really do.”