Chapter 25 Above
Above
What’s down there?” Dev asks from above. I don’t answer at first, my flashlight sweeping around the abandoned room.
The room—-bunker, my mind supplies—-is a cold rectangle of concrete, filled with refuse and broken furniture.
Milk crates are stacked in one corner. Broken chairs are heaped in another, along with a toppled table and a broken toilet.
On the opposite wall stands a bed frame.
The thin mattress, rotted and, from the looks of things, inhabited by any number of small creatures, leans up against the wall.
The slats of the bed are broken, several of them scattered on the ground.
But what I stare at isn’t the furniture. It’s the wall before me. It’s covered in red—-red handprints, pressed onto the concrete in frenetic clusters.
“Holy shit,” Dev says, coming down behind me. “Is that blood?”
“Paint, I think,” I say distantly, drawing forward. I set my hand against one of the prints. It’s nearly a match. I sweep the flashlight around the room.
“I don’t think anyone’s been down here in a long time,” Dev says.
I walk toward the bed. A few links of rusted chain dangle from a metal ring on the wall. There are scratch marks by the metal plate that secures it. They look old.
“Audrey.”
Barry’s nails click on the stairs.
“We should get out of here,” Dev says urgently. “Now, Audrey.”
I crouch down. There’s something on one of the bed slats. Scratch marks. No—-writing. I draw it close, leaning in to make out the worn words.
Don’t swear
Be polite
Don’t cry
Save food
Toilet = water
A cold trickle goes down my spine. I reach for another board, flip it over.
NEVER SAY YOUR REAL NAME
NEVER SAY
NEVER SAY IT
The writing is frantic. And then, below it, in styles too disparate to have come from the same hand—-
My name is Amanda.
My name is Madison.
My name is Stranger.
My breath catches between my teeth. I’ve seen that phrase before. Where have I seen it before?
“Audrey?”
“Someone was down here,” I say. “More than one.”
I stand, look back at Dev. He looks gray, queasy. He looks like I feel. “Where are they now?” he asks.
Barry sits in the middle of the room, staring at a place near the wall. Then he looks at me and gives a single bark.
The sound that means he scents death.