Cruel World(113)

“Really?” Ty asked.

“Wouldn’t lie to ya.”

“Cool! Thank you, sir.”

Hilton smiled and then rolled toward the wall. Soon soft snores drifted from him, and he broke wind loudly. Alice put a hand over Ty’s mouth before the laughter could slip out and shot a look at Quinn, a bemused smile on her face. Quinn shrugged and pulled out the revolver, rotating the cylinder around and around. Four shots left. He glanced at Hilton and then back at the brass shells before holstering the weapon and standing.

Quinn moved across the room and inspected the pile of tools. They were all rusted beyond use. Screwdriver tips blunted, saw blades clogged, chains coiled like snakes, hammers orange and pitted. Above the pile was a hole in one of the cement blocks, its edges rounded and smoothed. He ran a finger inside it. Nothing but the hollow center of the block.

“What are you doing?” Alice asked. He came back to her and sat down.

“Nothing. Looking around.”

“You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

“No.”

“You must be exhausted. Lie down for a while, I’ll keep watch.”

He leaned closer to her. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“With him,” he said, nodding toward Hilton.

“He’s eccentric and a hermit. Probably hasn’t talked much with people in years.”

“I know, but there’s something wrong with him. His eyes.”

“Quinn, what choice do we have? Those things are still around, it’s almost dark, and we have no idea where the next safe haven could be.”

Quinn grimaced and rubbed his brow. God he was tired.

“I know. Okay, let’s just get through the night. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Agreed. Now go to sleep. I can handle myself. Where are the matches? I want to light a candle before I can’t see at all.”

He handed her the small matchbook that he’d brought down from upstairs. She drew one of the matches across the striking strip and lit a candle. The darkness slowly lifted, light flickering on the block walls barely revealing the supports above them.

Alice handed him back the matches, and he laid down near Ty, his head resting against the floor. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep with the lump of dread that pulsed in the base of his stomach, but exhaustion gradually drew him deeper into darkness. His eyelids were immovable weights that drifted lower with each second. The candlelight wavered in his blurry vision before winking out like a firefly.

~

“Quinn.”

The whisper woke him like a dousing of ice water. He opened his eyes and blinked several times because there was no change. He was blind. Somehow he’d gone blind while he slept and now the world was only darkness.

A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked.

“It’s me,” Ty whispered.

Quinn looked around, searching for the boy’s face in the darkness. The candle had gone out. He remembered Alice lighting a candle. There was a muffled clink of steel across the cellar.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Denver was digging. I got him to stop, but what is this?” he asked, taking Quinn’s hand in his own. Ty guided his palm to the rough floor, over a rock, and onto something half-domed and smooth. He could feel loose dirt around the object where the dog’s paws had pulled the earth free.

Denver whined.

Quinn felt the object again. It was buried several inches beneath the cellar floor. It was dry, crusted with soil. His fingers met two depressions filled with dirt.

“What is it?” Ty asked again.

Quinn got on his knees and dug in his pocket, searching for the matches he knew were there. He got them out, fingertips prying one from the pack. He folded the cover over, pinning the match between it and the striking strip. He pulled.

Flame fluttered and flared, pouring light onto the hole where a human skull stared up at him, eye sockets packed with dirt.

“Shit!” Quinn said, dropping the match. His mind flooded with possibilities in the half second it took him to grab for the revolver at his hip—that wasn’t there.

A flashlight clicked from across the cellar and shone on him. Denver growled once, deep and long.

“Shut it,” Hilton said, pinpointing the dog with the beam he held in his left hand. In his right he gripped the revolver. Alice lay on Hilton’s cot, eyes clouded with pain, her wrists bound by the rusted chain he’d spotted earlier in the pile of tools. Her mouth was gagged with a strip of dirty cloth.