Catacomb (20 page)

As a last measure before they began, Oliver put his phone faceup on the table, perhaps thinking Micah might forego the usual shaking shutters and overturned chairs for more modern means of communication.

Dan inhaled deeply, preparing simply to sit and endure. For so long he had gone out of his way
not
to think about Micah or what had happened last fall; the further away it was, the easier it became. The warden, the Scarlets, Professor Reyes, Brookline . . . He had almost reached the point where he could live with the memories, and now he was being asked to bring it all back.

But thoughts of Micah came to him immediately. For a second, it felt as if the low, rhythmic chant of Oliver’s voice asking for Micah’s help was working like a spell, conjuring images of the school and the last seconds of Micah’s life—the punishment he’d received for helping Dan escape. Despite the overabundance of candles in the room, Dan fought off a chill. The air in the room thinned, as if it were being sucked out by a vacuum. He felt something brush the back of his neck and gasped, convulsing, his eyes opening by sheer instinct.

His vision returned in time to see something silver shooting across the table toward him. Cold and final, it slammed into his eyeball, sending him toppling to the floor. He crashed with a shout, crumpling against the rickety chair back.

“Dan!”

Abby and Jordan were there, kneeling next to him while he frantically ran both hands over his face. There was nothing. No spike through his eye, no wound. Nothing.

“I felt . . . God, I could swear. . . .”

He rolled away from the chair and got to his knees, raising his head to meet the astonished gazes of Oliver and Sabrina.

“You felt it, too,” Oliver said, nodding. “He was here.”

“
Something
was here.” He tried to catch his breath, tilting his head back and letting it fall loose on his neck. But something in the window caught his eye. The curtains had been pulled mostly shut, but in one small gap he noticed a face—a stark white face that made his blood run cold.

He had seen that face before, not in his nightmares but in photographs at the archives, at Uncle Steve’s. . . .

“Something
is
here.”

Oliver pulled back the curtain over the window, revealing a man whose face was hidden behind a crude rabbit mask. The candles in the window glinted off a sliver of silver in the rabbit-man’s hand, a bone saw that glittered with a hundred sharp teeth.

Dan stumbled to his feet, shouting, but it was too late, the man was already sprinting away from the window, rushing to the door.

“T
he door!” Oliver screamed. “Brace the door!”

Dan and Jordan slammed into the door together just as the knob rattled and turned. The weight of one adult, then two, then three rocked back against them from the other side. Sabrina flew to the window, looking out into the street.

“Shit, there’s too many of them!”

“How many?” Oliver shouted back. He had disappeared behind the counter, tossing first a hunting rifle and then a baseball bat to Abby.

“Six, I think,” Sabrina called back.

“We can’t hold them,” Jordan grunted. Both he and Dan cried out as the back of a hammer cracked through the wood, showering them in splinters. “We really can’t hold them!”

“Lock it and run!” Oliver vaulted over the counter, taking the rifle from Abby and leaving her with the bat. “Go! I’ll hold them off while y’all get out the back.”

Dan didn’t need telling a second time. He had already thrown the deadbolt, but he jammed his hand against it again and turned the smaller lock on the knob, then grabbed Jordan and hauled him away from the door.

“Go!” Oliver took Sabrina by the arm and spun her around, pushing her toward the back door. She hesitated, but Abby
pulled her through the curtain and into the storeroom. Fumbling for his phone, Dan managed to dial 911 with trembling fingers, his thumb hitting the call button just as the first rifle shot split the air.

“Who the hell was that?” Jordan yelled, following Sabrina, who had sprinted ahead to lead them safely through the side door. She ducked low as they ran, and the others did the same, flinching whenever another shot went off.

“I don’t know,” Sabrina replied. “Robbers ain’t stupid enough to come this early in the night.”

“Yes, I’d like to report a break-in,” Dan barked into his phone. “In progress. The address? It’s, um . . .” He tapped Sabrina on the shoulder and then thrust the phone into her hands. “Tell them where we are.”

The second the phone was out of his hands, Dan felt his courage collapsing. What if they made it outside only to be attacked there? The police would take a while to get there, more than enough time for Oliver to run out of bullets. The gunfire was too loud, too jarring, the sound tearing through his body and making his teeth rattle.

Sabrina paused at the back door, finishing the call and handing Dan back his phone. “Quiet. Let me check if it’s clear.”

Behind him, he could hear one of the girls from the séance crying. It was too dark, and he couldn’t see where the muffled little sobs were coming from. He could feel Jordan at his back and Abby ahead, tremors gripping her every few seconds while they waited for Sabrina’s signal.

Then they were out, and while the open air felt less claustrophobic, it also felt more vulnerable.

“How many bullets are in that rifle?” Dan asked, shuffling over to the edge of the building. He peered into the alley, breathing a sigh of relief when he found it empty. “We have to go back and help him somehow.”

“No, no way,” Jordan whispered, frantic. “I vote for run like hell.”

“Jordan’s right. What are we going to do with a baseball bat?”

“We can’t just leave him!”

Oh God, it was like Micah’s death all over again. Oliver wasn’t going to make it, and Dan would spend the rest of his life with the man’s death on his hands. Why did history keep repeating itself?

Maybe the others would run, but Dan was sick and tired of feeling hunted. He darted down the alley, not knowing or caring if his friends were following. There was no plan, not yet, but a plan would come when he saw what was left of the store. Sirens whined and grew louder, screaming in from the street to the right. The cops had mercifully arrived quicker than he’d thought. Clinging to the brick wall, Dan listened to the rifle shots cease, shortly followed by the sound of pounding footsteps.

That’s when he saw them: six masked figures, all sprinting across the avenue to the opposite sidewalk, and from there into a narrow alley.

Screw the plan
. Keeping his distance, Dan chased after.

I
t wasn’t until he careened into the far alley that he heard footsteps at his back. Jordan and Abby. He pushed his legs harder, running after the masked attackers before they could fade into the crowded gloom of one of the main streets. They were at least four blocks from Oliver’s shop now, and Dan was gaining on them as quickly as he dared. He waited behind a Dumpster until he felt certain they were too far ahead to notice him. That was when Abby and Jordan caught up.

“Are you crazy? You can’t take these people on.” Jordan made a grab for Dan’s sleeve, but he dodged.

“I’m not trying to fight them, Jordan. I’m not an idiot. I just want to see where they go.”

“Why? So you can go back later and get yourself killed then?”

“No, so I can figure out who the hell they are.” Dan wasn’t going to argue and he wasn’t going to raise his voice and risk being seen. He broke into a run again, modulating his speed to try to keep at least a block between him and his targets.

They vanished around a corner, and when Dan turned it, slowly, carefully, he found himself at a fork in the alley, where an ancient grate in the cobblestone road vented a plume of steam. Dan swore under his breath, checking down both potential escape routes. They were short lanes, and already empty. A
few ambient footsteps echoed down from the right fork, and he veered that way, hoping he’d made the right call.

The short alley branch dumped him out onto a wide, two-lane road, one that was well kept and tourist friendly. A bright café sat across the street, its doors closed for the night but a string of fat Christmas bulbs still twinkling in the window. He listened again for the footsteps, trying to ignore the sound of Abby and Jordan gasping for air behind him.

He hooked around the slender, two-story building that housed the café. Dan drew up short just as he rounded the corner, peering down a new alley to see the last of the figures pulling off his mask and ducking into a side door. A ragged canvas awning hung over the door, protecting what looked like a downward staircase that led into the building’s basement.

“Gotcha,” Dan murmured. He wiped blindly at the sweat on his forehead, not noticing until then that his shirt was soaked through.

Jordan and Abby caught up to him again, and he motioned for them to be silent, pointing to the door to indicate where the people had gone inside.

“I hope you realize how lucky you are,” Jordan whispered. “What is this place?”

Dan waited a few seconds, until he was sure that the people weren’t immediately coming back out. Hopefully they were in the clear now.

“Let’s find out,” he whispered back.

He walked slowly out into the alley. The front of the building looked completely out of place in the ugly alley; the façade was recently power washed and pristine, painted a bright, chalky white.

Beside the staircase down to the basement, a three-step walk-up led to a silver door. Dan took out his phone and snapped a picture, then dropped a pin on his map app so he could save the address. Next to the silver door, a sign advertising Rampart Street Funerary Home had fallen at an angle, a huge For Sale sticker tacked to the bottom.

Who knew how long that sticker had been there. Clearly, this funerary home was still in business.