My voice trembles. “Can you walk me over?”
The breeze turns cooler, and I’m quick to notice how the shadows of the overhead trees have set a chilling path for what looms in the distance.
Devil’s Tunnel.
Where my best friend had been dumped, and where the ones before her had been thrown away.
It’s crippling and nauseating. It makes my knees turn rubbery. I keep moving though, forcing one foot in front of the other.
Harlen is beside me, extending his hand toward me, and even though my own is clammy from the terror I’m working hard to suppress, I take his, descending the sharp concrete slope that lands at the entrance of the semicircular storm tunnel.
There’s a murky, shallow pool of brown water in the center and the concrete walls are covered in painted graffiti. Most offer messages to the lives of the lost, and others are threats of what would happen if someone came face to face with the man that had resurrected my grandfather's murder spree.
I shift on my feet when they turn numb, latching onto my biceps as a sharp shiver slices horizontally across my shoulders and down the base of my spine.
Chase’s cigarette gives him away. The glowing cherry, the only speck of brightness among the lichen-lined walls of darkness.
“You okay with this?” Harlen asks, still by my side.
I’m staring ahead, watching the shadow of Chase Keller, a brother and a son, who had lost far too much.
He’s resting against the concrete, his head reclined, throat extended as he sucks on the cigarette, blowing small wispy clouds into the air above him. And if he sees us, he doesn’t make it known.
I turn to Harlen, my voice comes out in a croak. “No…” I’m shaking my head. “I’m not.” Then, I pause to swallow through the ache in my throat. “If it wasn’t for my grandfather…none of this would have…” I can’t finish, and Harlen doesn’t push it.
I pinch at my wobbling bottom lip, get myself together. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to scream, and then…I just wanted to cry.
“If it wasn’t for whathedid…you and I both know Jade would still be here,” I whisper with a shake of my head. “He paved the path for another monster.”
I stop talking and catch my breath, my mouth is dry. I’m shaking so violently I can hear my own bones click. “And now he’s back, and he’s coming for me and all we can do is wait…”
Fingers latch onto my arm, Harlen spins me toward him, draws me in for a hug.
He presses his chin to the top of my head, and I nestle myself into his solid chest. His breath warming over my scalp, causing me to shiver.
He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t blame him for that. Agreeing with me is unnecessary and disagreeing with me will only make him a liar.
“I’ll wait, okay? I’ll be in the truck. You need me, I’ll be here.”
I pinch at his waist before letting go.
The deeper I walk, the cooler it becomes.
My breath has begun to crystalize, and I find myself breathing through my mouth, willing my nose to adjust to the rancid smell of stale water and death.
It lingers in every crevice, a branding, letting others know what the tunnel had become—what my grandfather had created.
Chase doesn’t look up, and the closer I get, I notice it’s because he isn’t reallyhere.
His shell is, that much is obvious, but his mind, in a place like this, could only be lost to the horrors.
Transported into the notebook he’s clenching in the palm of his hand, Chase seems shut off from his surroundings, crawling through his own blood covered walls, and curiosity rustles through me. I want to know where it took him, what he was penning.
Pain is cut in sharp angles across his stubbled face, his brows furrowed. Chase Keller looks ragged and beat-up, yet beautiful and vulnerable, all at the same time.
But I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him this way.
I pause, choosing to clear my throat. Taking him by surprise was the last thing I wanted to do today.
