Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (15 page)

“
You did see
that, right?” I asked her, my eyes begging for sanity. “Please tell
me that wasn’t just for me and Dex again.”

She gave me a half smile. “The
ball again? Oh, I saw that. I just don’t believe we’re truly alone
here after all. And I don’t mean in the supernatural way, either.
Who knows who Davenport has upstairs, playing tricks on us?” My
mouth dropped slightly at her resistance to believe. She nodded at
the camera and continued, “By the way, I really hope you got all
that.”

As it was, I had gotten all of
that, albeit a little shaky and peppered with our obscenities. But
it was there. Despite how Rebecca saw things, it did feel good to
actually capture something like that on film. It wasn’t proof by a
long shot, but if it scared the shit out of Dex and I, it would
scare viewers.

I looked up from the footage to
see Dex staring at me impatiently.

“
What?” I
asked.

“
Do you want
to go in or not?”

Honestly, after seeing that
ball go past, my answer was hell to the fucking no. But since
Rebecca was so certain that everything was a set-up, a cruel part
of me hoped we could prove her wrong. Besides, when you were with a
skeptic, it made things a little less scary.

Well, in general. Probably not
this time.

I took in a deep breath, trying
to steady my nerves against the idea of going inside some long,
closed up tunnel that some ghost child was playing ball in. “You
lead the way,” I said. Then for good measure, I added, “Rebecca you
can take the rear.”

I half expected to hear Dex
make a joke about that, but he was so wrapped up in the moment that
he didn’t even notice.

He pointed the flashlight into
the tunnel and very carefully stepped down into it, me holding his
upper arm for balance. Once he was in, he looked up at me. “It’s
just about a foot or two lower than where you’re standing. It’s
kind of slippery in places though, so watch your step. I’ve got
you.”

Before I could say anything, he
reached out and grabbed me around the waist. My weight was no match
for his brute strength, and he picked me up and gently placed me in
the tunnel so that my feet were on the step just below him.

“
Thanks,” I
said, never tiring from the feel of his strong hands around me. It
definitely tried to take my mind off the current situation, but
really, there was no getting around that I was now standing in a
long-forgotten tunnel that was used to transport dead bodies. As
Dex helped Rebecca climb in, I looked all around us. There wasn’t
much to see except a few feet in front and back, as far as the
light would reach. The stairs we were standing on were worn cement,
splattered with dried stains that I hoped were dirt and rust.
Beside the steps was a smooth incline for the stretchers to wheel
on. The walls were cold and grey, and with a strange bit of relief
I could see the remnants of a graffiti tag where someone must have
left their mark back when the place was abandoned. If the vandals
could brave it, so could I.

As Rebecca shined her light
around, it seemed like the tunnel went on forever in both
directions. “Should I prop the door open with something?” She
looked genuinely concerned which threw me off for a moment, until I
remembered her claims of claustrophobia.

Dex gently took the camera from
my hand and the light from Rebecca. He eyed the door with
consideration. “It’s heavy and has traction on the floor, see?” He
gestured to the bottom of the floor in the hallway where the door
scraped along. “There’s no draft in here either. We should be
okay.” He slid his eyes to me, giving me a silent chance to back
out.

“
Well, let’s
go,” I said. “We don’t have all night.”

He nodded and aimed the camera
in front of him. “I’m assuming the tunnel runs diagonally along the
length of the building. The very top probably lets out above the
far corner of the west wing.”

I felt the darkness sitting on
either side of us, the coldness of the tunnel seeping into my
clothes. I quickly jabbed Dex in the back. “Hey, we’ll worry about
that later. Let’s just get to the second floor.” It never left my
mind for one second that the ball had rolled somewhere behind us,
at the end of the chute, and there was no telling if the ghost that
kicked it there had gone after it or not.

In other words, I didn’t know
what was worse—the void in front of us or the black emptiness
behind us.

Thank god I was sandwiched
between the two of them as we very carefully made our way up the
passageway. I felt all my senses on fire as we went, my eyes happy
to be watching my feet instead of the unknown that lay in front of
Dex and his camera. The only sounds were our footsteps that echoed
faintly from the closed-in walls and the raggedness of our
breaths.

“
Everyone
holding up back there?” Dex whispered. As if he couldn’t feel me
hanging onto the back of his jacket like a little kid.

“
Uh huh,” I
managed to say, my mouth dry.

We waited to hear Rebecca’s
response but she didn’t say anything, though I could feel her
breath and presence at my back.

“
Feeling
claustrophobic yet?” I prodded her for an answer. When she still
didn’t say anything, I dared to look behind me.

Despite feeling her breath a
second ago, I could barely see her. She’d stopped in the middle of
the tunnel, about ten feet away, her figure backlit faintly from
the residual light of the hallway.

“
R-rebecca?” I
asked, my voice shaking. I stopped and pulled Dex back. He
immediately shined his light on her.

“
Are you all
right?” Dex asked. “Why are you being creepy?”

“
Shhh,” she
said softly. “I’m listening.”

“
To what?” I
whispered as goosebumps prickled my arms.

She didn’t say anything but
remained absolutely still. I could hear my own heart thudding in my
chest, Dex’s breathing, the whir of the camera as it tried to
focus.

I was about to ask again what
on earth we were listening for when I finally heard it.

It was a few notes of music.
But more specific than that, a xylophone, like the kind I used to
play around with as a child. I held in a gasp as my brain tried to
recognize the faint melody in it. The notes would come and go, as
if being swept away by an imaginary breeze, so the song never felt
fully formed.

“
Ring around
the rosy,” Dex said in a low voice. I turned to look at him,
wincing at the light he was holding in his other hand.
“Listen.”

He was right. I could
pick out the tune, and once I did, I got pummeled with that
get the fuck out of here
feeling. We’d made it about fifteen feet into
the tunnel and I’d already had enough.

Of course, I didn’t tell them
that. I could feel Dex watching me closely.

“
Let’s keep
going,” I said quickly. I looked over to Rebecca who slowly nodded.
I could see the music was intriguing her and that her rational mind
was trying to attribute it to something logical. I wished she could
pass some of that logic on to me because her mind seemed like a
safer place to be.

We resumed walking, and as we
did, the tune began to fade until we were left again with the sound
of our own breathing and blood pumping within us.

“
Okay,”
Dex said slowly, coming to a stop. He shined the light forward,
illuminating nothing but the never ending tunnel as its greying
walls disappeared into the black. I was terrified of the darkness
that lay ahead, getting that same peculiar feeling I’d gotten
earlier in the day when I stared up at the building. Seeing
nothing, but feeling—
knowing
—that something was hidden
in front of your eyes and watching you.

He looked over my head at
Rebecca. “Do we want to try communicating in here or on the second
floor?”

“
Communicating?” I repeated, my skin dancing with raw nerves.
“In here? No way. Not tonight. We should do that after the tour
tomorrow so we know what the hell we’re dealing with.”

“
There’s
obviously something in this tunnel with us,” he said, his voice an
octave lower. “Don’t you feel it?”

At that, a loud, gritty
scraping sound rushed up from behind us. Dex immediately shined the
light down the chute, illuminating the door to the first floor.

It was closing on us.
Slowly.

As if someone on the other side
was pushing it shut.

“
Oh god,” I
gasped as the door closed with a groan, sealing us inside the
tunnel.

CHAPTER EIGHT

With the door closing with such
heavy finality, Rebecca suddenly sprang into action. She started
walking down the stairs as quickly as she could until Dex and I had
to run after her in order to keep illuminating her way.

“
Rebecca!” I
called out as we caught up to her. She was frantically running her
hands along the walls, looking for the outline of the door. As on
the other side, there was no door handle or anything to indicate it
was a door at all.

“
Here,” Dex
said, handing me the light and the camera. He told me to shine it
on the wall dead ahead and he started running his hands over it.
When he found a groove in the cement, he shoved his shoulder
against it and the door budged open a crack. We expected the light
from the first floor hallway to come seeping in, but everything was
dark. Terribly dark. The timer must have turned the lights
off.

“
I’m getting
out,” Rebecca said as Dex pushed his palms flat against the door
and got it fully open. Though Dex made it look easy, I could tell
how heavy the door was. Just how the hell did it close on
us?

“
Getting
scared?” Dex asked.

Rebecca gave him a sharp look
before he helped her step up and into the hallway. “Scared? If you
think I’m going to chance getting trapped in that bloody tunnel
again, you’ve got another thing coming.” She stood a foot above us,
wiping her hands on her capri pants. “Now, are you two still going
to go for the second floor or do you want to save that for some
other time?”

Dex shrugged, far too cavalier
considering what had just happened. I mean, once again, hello, how
the hell did that door close?

“
Aren’t you
concerned about the fact that someone pushed the door shut?” I
asked her, suppressing a shudder as I said it. “Someone that’s
probably on the first floor.”

She gathered her cardigan
around her and quickly smoothed her hair behind her ears. “It was
probably the wind.” I exchanged a look with Dex that said “what
wind?” but we let it go.

“
Well,
kiddo,”Dex said, taking the camera from me and putting his hand in
mine. He gave it a hard, comforting squeeze. “Do you want to pack
it up and try again tomorrow, or do you want to see what’s on the
second floor?”

I want to go
back home to Fat Rabbit and laze around on the couch drinking wine
and watching Netflix
, I thought. I don’t
want to be standing in a death chute, heading to the second floor
with one person less than we started with.

Time for me to put on my brave
face. “Can we do, like twenty minutes? When the time’s up, we head
back?”

“
We can do
anything you want, baby,” he said, taking a step closer until he
was pressed up against me. Even in the dim light I could see the
warmth in his eyes, his desire to protect me above everything else.
“You know that.” He bent down and kissed me softly.

Rebecca cleared her throat.
“All right then, I’ll leave you two be.” We broke apart in time to
see her take out her iPhone. “I’ve sent my alarm for twenty-two
minutes from now, two minutes extra because I assume you might want
to have a quickie in the death tunnel there. I’ll give you a call
then, sound good?”

“
Production
manager of the year,” Dex said, raising his hand in a false toast.
“Can you prop the door open this time, just in case?”

She smiled as if it was her
idea in the first place. “I’m already on it. See you in a few.”

Then she walked off down the
dark hall, happier to be by herself than with us. I took in a deep
breath and looked at Dex. He was giving me the eye and I could tell
he had an erection from the way he was pressing it firmly against
my hip.

“
Don’t even
think about a quickie,” I warned him with a sharp shake of my head.
“I couldn’t come in this place even if you had two
dicks.”

He grinned. “That sounds like a
challenge. You know that can be arranged.” Considering he packed a
fucking dildo to New Orleans, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I
just punched him in the chest. Actually, I was glad for the topic
and our fun banter. It was easier to forget where we were and what
we were doing.

“
Time is
running out,” I reminded him.

He bit his lip and let his eyes
rake over me. “Have I ever told you how hot you look when you’re
scared out of your mind?”

“
You’re an
ass.”

“
You love
it.”

“
I
love
you
, stupid. Ass or not. Now either we go to the damn floor or
we’re going after Rebecca and I’m going to bed and pretending I
never came in here.”

Dex made a slight bow,
gesturing up the passageway. “After you.” Since I was frozen to the
spot, he put his hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around so
that I was facing in the right direction. “Unless you want to be
behind me.”