Jules stopped. “We’re here.”
Frowning, I glanced around, but this resembled every other square foot of forest we’d tromped through so far. I blew warm air out through my clenched teeth.
Tyler and Jules let the corpse flop to the ground with athudthat sent my insides into an unpleasant freefall, and I flinched as it landed.
Jules went to his knees and started cleaning away leaves. He was a hulking, feral bear on all fours. “Come on. Help. Dig.”
“Uh, with what?” I asked.
Tyler dropped to his knees beside Jules.
“For what?”
“Come on. Move.” Ari glanced at me, and I crouched, trying to figure out what they were looking for, but before I could start pawing at the snow and layer of leaves under that, Tyler let out an excited shout.
“Got it!” He lifted the edge of something. It turned out he’d gotten ahold of a big round wooden lid. He flipped it upward off a hole in the ground. Grinning, he let the piece of wood fall to the far side of our group and wet leaves scattered on top of the snow.
“That’s dangerous,” I said, glancing around. “Anyone could fall in this.”
Jules gave me a long look. “That’s why it’s covered.”
“What is it?” Tyler asked.
“An old well. I found it while hiking. It’s deep. You can’t see the bottom.” Jules puffed up his chest, a satisfied smile settling on his face.
I stepped closer to the edge and shined the flashlight down the hole. My stomach flopped harder than a fish on land. The sides were made of stones that looked as if they’d been stacked by hand, and they glittered as the beam struck them. “This is old. Wonder how old? Probably really fucking old. You’re right.” I leaned farther over the ledge. “You can’t see the bottom.”
Tyler grabbed the back of my suit jacket and yanked me away, shaking his head. “You already fell once. Let’s not go for total disaster.”
My cheeks burned and my stomach twisted with excruciating humiliation. He would never, ever want to kiss me again. “I wasn’t going to fall in.”
“Sure. Let’s not test that theory,” he grumped, sounding more like his old self.
Ari and Jules unwrapped Mike, and I looked away. Now that I didn’t have adrenaline on my side, I was feeling tired and nauseous.
“Why?” I asked, covering my mouth as curiosity got the best of me. The corpse came into view much faster than I would’ve wanted. “Why are we bothering to do that?”
“So he decomposes faster.” Ari grabbed an arm, doing just fine balancing and wielding the flashlight at the same time, the jerk, and Tyler grabbed the other one.
“Tyler.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to convey, except part of me didn’t want him to be the one to do this. I couldn’t stop imagining this hole as a chute that would take Mike straight to a well-deserved hell.
He ignored me.
They unceremoniously tossed the corpse in as if they sent bodies to the great beyond every day of their lives. Hell, what did I know? Perhaps they did? It was ten seconds before we got an echo of a splash. I forced myself to function and set down the flashlight so I could help move the lid back in place. Jules rolled up his tarp with military precision, making a tight, round cylinder, then tied the rope around it. I shuddered. He definitely had practice with that. He didn’t want to waste a good tarp.
How many bodies had been inside it?
Jules tracked my movements the entire time we were gathering our things to get the hell out of here, and I got the feeling he wanted to toss me in the hole, too.
I let out a long sigh of relief when we had all our belongings accounted for. The last thing we wanted to do was accidentally leave anything here.
“So, you don’t think anyone will notice our night deposit?” I asked, feeling close to puking as Jules started back out of the woods toward our vehicles at a breakneck pace.
As in, he didn’t care if I broke my neck.
“They haven’t yet,” Ari said with a smirk.
Just as my heart was starting to settle down closer to its normal rhythm, Tyler grabbed my hand, and it was off racing again. I smiled at him and laced our fingers together.
