28. Charlie
twenty-eight
Charlie
The cupboard door splintered under my shoulder. Finally.
Fucking, finally.
I stumbled into the corridor, breathing hard, sweat sticking my shirt to my back.
My shoulder throbbed where I’d rammed it against the wood over and over.
Take that, Brad. Apparently breaking down doors wasn’t such an impossible feat after all—just a bloody painful one that took twenty minutes of sustained assault.
Molly materialised directly in front of me. She wrung her translucent hands together.
“Sir, please. I have strict instructions to keep you safe. Master Bartholomew was very clear—”
“It’s okay.” I tried to grab her shoulders, my fingers threading straight through cold air. “Molly, we need to ignore Bat’s instructions. We need to help him.”
Her one eye widened. “But, sir—”
I was already moving, flying down the spiral staircase, two steps at a time.
Down the corridor. The basement door gaped open at the end. My trainers slapped against floorboards as I ran, heart skittering.
The blood hit me first.
Dark. Pooled at the bottom of the stairs. Splattered up the walls in arterial sprays. The electric saw lay discarded on the floor, blade still spinning, whining down to silence. What the actual…?
But the door.
The door was still sealed shut. Metal bands intact. Like it had never been touched.
“Where… where is everyone?” I whispered to the empty manor.
“They’re all down there.”
I spun round. Vivian stood at the top of the stairs, perfectly composed in her grey dress, blonde pin curls in place.
“Everyone,” she continued. “The priest. The Lancasters. Your prat of a colleague. And Bat.”
My stomach lurched. “They’re through the door?”
“It dragged them through.” She descended one step, her movements fluid and theatrical. “Well, Harrison Lancaster, at least. The others followed one by one. Then the door flew back up. Resealed itself. As if it had never opened at all.”
I charged down the stairs.
The blood squelched under my feet. I didn’t care. I reached the door and threw myself against it.
Solid. Immovable. Like hitting a brick wall.
“Bat!” I slammed my fists against the metal. “Bat, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I hit it again. Again. My poor shoulders screamed in protest. The door didn’t even rattle.
“Bat, please!” My voice cracked horribly. “Please come back!”
Silence pressed against my ears. Heavy. Suffocating.
Why was it so silent down there?!
My eyes landed on the saw. I lunged for it, fingers closing around the handle. I pressed the blade against the metal bands, triggered it—
Nothing. The blade shrieked against the metal, sparks flying, but didn’t even leave a scratch.
I dropped it with a curse.
Vivian drifted down to stand beside me.
“You need to float through and see what’s going on!” I demanded.
She frowned. “The basement is sealed. We can’t get in there. Never have been able to. But… this probably means… Bat likely can’t get out.”
“I’m going to absolutely bloody murder him.” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Vivian’s crimson lips curved into a smile. “Bit late for that, darling.”
Right. I pressed my forehead against the cold metal of the door, throat tight, chest aching.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
I pushed past Vivian and took the stairs back up two at a time. Back in the corridor, I started pacing. Think. Think.
Police? I could call them. Explain that multiple people had vanished into a basement behind a magically sealed door. They’d send someone eventually. Probably some young constable who’d dismiss it as a prank. Who’d walk into this nightmare wholly unprepared.
Who’d die because I’d called for help.
I moaned softly, pressing two hands to my face.
Gerald, then. Ring Gerald. Warn him Brad was very possibly dead. At minimum, ask for bloody advice on what to do when a malevolent ghost imprisoned your colleagues behind an impenetrable barrier.
I fumbled for my phone. No signal. Of course not. This godforsaken manor never had signal. I’d have to go hunt for it upstairs, all while Brad, Father Ashworth, Evelyn, and Harrison were being devoured downstairs.
“Sir.”
Molly appeared beside me, her hands still wringing. “Stay here. I’m going to find Tom.”
“The gardener?” I couldn’t help but snap. “How is Tom going to help right now?”
She’d already vanished.
Thunder cracked overhead. The manor’s lights flickered.
I kept pacing. Four steps one way. Turn. Four steps back. My glasses slipped down my nose and I shoved them up with shaking fingers.
Bat was down there. With that thing. That presence that had murdered God knew how many people over centuries.
What would it do to him now? Could it hurt a ghost? Destroy one, even?
My chest constricted. I couldn’t breathe.
Another crack of thunder, closer this time, shaking the manor’s bones.
The lights flickered once, twice, then died completely.
Fucked. I was completely and utterly fucked.
Molly reappeared in a swirl of grey, Tom materialising beside her.
“There’s another way in,” she gasped, words tumbling out in a rush.
“What?” I said. “In where?”
“The basement!” she shrieked. “Where else?”
Right. Fair.
“What do you mean? How?”
Tom stepped forward, barely visible in the darkness. “If you come with me, I’ll show you.”
I didn’t hesitate. Followed him down the corridor, through the entrance hall, out the front door—
The storm slammed into me.
Rain hammered down in sheets, instantly soaking through my jumper. Wind tore at my hair, plastering it to my skull. I could barely see two feet ahead, just Tom’s faint outline moving through the downpour.
The garden was a nightmare of mud and dead grass. My trainers squelched with every step. Water streamed down my face, into my eyes, my mouth. I spat it out and kept moving.
Tom led us across the grounds, towards the perimeter where trees crowded the fence line. Branches thrashed overhead, groaning under the wind’s assault.
The crypt.
That stone structure Brad had found before, half hidden by ivy. Iron-banded oak door, black with age. Chain wound through the handles, secured with that massive padlock.
Tom stopped in front of it. Turned to face me, rain passing straight through his body.
He opened his fist.
A key sat in his palm. Muddy. Covered in dirt like he’d just dug it up from somewhere.
“When the house was built,” Tom said, raising his voice above the storm, “they constructed a tunnel between the basement and the crypt. In case of attack, see? You’ll need to move the sarcophagus once you’re inside.”
My hands shook as I took the key, cold against my palm.
“Thank you,” I breathed. “Thank you so much.”
I fumbled with the padlock, fingers already numb from the rain. The key slipped. I tried again, forcing it into the rusted mechanism. It caught. Turned.
The chain fell away with a heavy clank.
I grabbed the iron handle and pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
“Come on.” I braced my foot against the stone frame and yanked harder. “Come on.”
Something gave. The door scraped open an inch. Two inches. Then, just enough for me to slip through if I turned sideways.
I glanced back at Tom and Molly. They both lingered several feet away, clearly refusing to follow me inside.
Cowards.
I bet Rosemary at least would have been up for an adventure with me, but going back inside the manor to track down a Victorian schoolgirl just to have company while ransacking a crypt seemed in poor taste.
I squeezed through the gap.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
The smell hit first. Decay. Damp stone. Something ancient and wrong that made my stomach lurch. I fumbled for my phone, tapped the torch on.
The beam cut through the blackness, illuminating—
Oh God.
Oh God.
Spiders.
Everywhere.
Massive ones, their bodies fat and dark. Smaller ones scuttling across the walls. Different species. Huntsmen, their legs spanning my entire hand. Garden spiders with bloated abdomens. False widows, glossy black against the stone.
And webs.
Webs upon webs upon webs, stretching from floor to ceiling, corner to corner, draping across the sarcophagus in the centre of the room like funeral shrouds.
My breath came in short, sharp gasps.
No.
No no no no—
A huntsman the size of my fist dropped from the ceiling, dangling on a thread directly in front of my face.
I screamed. Stumbled backwards. My shoulder hit the door, slamming it shut with a boom that echoed through the crypt.
Trapped.
The walls pressed in. Too small. Too tight. Just like that gap in the stone wall, that tiny cave filled with—
My hand.
Plunging into the nest.
Eggs bursting under my palm.
Hundreds of tiny bodies swarming up my arm, into my hair, down my shirt—
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Just spiders, everywhere, crawling on me, inside me, consuming—
Stop.
Stop it.
I pressed my back against the cold stone door, forcing air into my lungs. One breath. Two. Three.
Bat was down there.
Bat needed me.
The sarcophagus sat in the centre of the room, just visible through the maze of webs. I’d have to walk through them. Let them touch my face, my skin, my—
Bile rose in my throat.
Bat’s smile. That night in bed. His fingers so gentle as he plucked the money spider from my hair.
“Got it. You’re safe now.”
I took one step forward.
A web caught across my face. I gagged, clawing it away, feeling the sticky silk cling to my fingers. Something scuttled across the back of my hand.
I screamed again. Shook my arm violently. It flew off into the darkness.
Another step.
More webs. Thicker now. They draped across my shoulders like spectral hands. I could feel them catching in my hair, wrapping around my throat.
A spider ran across my cheek.
I retched. Doubled over. Vomit burned up my oesophagus as I spat bile onto the stone floor. My whole body shook, sweat mixing with the rain still dripping from my clothes.
Bat. Think of Bat.
I straightened. Wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
The gap in the wall. Too narrow. Spiders everywhere. Unable to move.
Dad’s voice, distant and desperate: “Charlie! Charlie, where are you?”
But I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t scream. Just hyperventilating, covered in them, feeling them crawl into my mouth—
No.
I forced myself forward.
One step. Another. Through the curtains of web that stuck to my face, my arms, my chest. I could feel them now. Individual spiders, disturbed by my passage, running across my skin.
I sobbed. Kept moving.
Bat’s brown eyes. The way they crinkled when he laughed.
“You’re lovely, Charlie.”
The sarcophagus loomed before me, covered in so many webs it looked wrapped for burial. I grabbed the edge, feeling the cold stone beneath the silk.
And pushed.
It didn’t move.
“Come on!” I shoved harder, putting my whole weight behind it. “Move, you bastard!”
A massive spider—some species I didn’t recognise, hairy and dark—crawled onto my hand.
I screamed. A proper, throat-tearing scream that echoed through the crypt. I shook my hand violently but it clung on, its legs wrapping around my fingers.
I scraped it off against the sarcophagus edge. It fell away. Disappeared into the shadows.
Bat.
I gripped the sarcophagus again. Planted my feet. Pushed with everything I had.
It scraped across the stone floor. An inch. Two inches.
Revealing a dark hole beneath.
The secret entrance. Stone steps leading down into absolute blackness.
I stared at it, breathing hard, covered in webs and spider bites and my own vomit.
I really felt like I was in a horror film now.
More spiders probably waited for me in that tunnel. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe, drawn to the darkness and the damp.
But I’d come this far.
I took a breath.
And descended into the dark.