“Jesus!” I hiss. My heart is thumping out of all control. “No. It won’t open.”
“Let me try.”
I stand aside and watch as Will leans a scrawny shoulder into the door. I roll my eyes and leave him to it, picking my way around the opposite side. That’s when I see it.
A window.
It’s not in the same place and it’s higher than I remember, though I guess even creepy prophetic ghost dreams can be inaccurate that way. Everything else is the same, though. A square, deep-set window. Bars on the outside. Scratched, dirty glass beyond them.
I need to see through that window.
“Will,” I hiss. He pops his head around the corner, sweat beading on his upper lip. “Look.” I point to the window and he nods, lacing his hands together without a second thought.
“Need a boost?”
I brace myself on the wall, stepping into his knotted fingers. “Ready?” He nods and I push myself up, grabbing hold of a bar with my free hand. I can feel him struggling already. I let my eyes adjust to the gloom inside of the mausoleum and scan around for any sign of Meghan.
“I can’t see her.” I hold on to the bars with both hands now. I crane my neck around to peer at a corner and see a foot. And that foot is attached to a body.
But not my sister’s body.
From my vantage point I can just about make out the male figure sitting in the corner, clutching a pile of rags in his arms, the way a mother would hold a new-born baby. I squint as Will wobbles precariously under me. I’m running out of time. Where is Meghan?
A shaft of late afternoon sun bursts through the low clouds, illuminating Tommy like some kind of fallen angel. That is when I catch a glimpse of the curved, skeletal hands protruding from Tommy’s bundle.
He’s embracing nothing but bones.
My hand slips on the bar. Will can’t hold me any more and we fall. The crash of our two bodies hitting the ground rumbles through the graveyard like thunder. I spring to my feet, praying to Saint Anthony that Jess has reached the police, before remembering he’s the patron of lost things and not victims of crazed maniacs.
The heavens open, sending huge torrents of rain down, fast and furious, plastering my hair and clothes to my skin immediately. I stride round to the doorway.
“Help me!” I scream at Will, trying to make myself heard over the rain and readying myself to slam into the door. But I don’t need his help.
Instead, the door creaks open from the inside.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” Tommy fills the doorway, and it’s his voice, but not like I’ve ever heard it before. It’s dull and thick and . . . cruel. I’ve never heard him sound like that.
“Meghan?” My voice is stronger than I thought it would be, and I’m glad. I can’t let him know how scared I am.
“She’s here.” He backs out of the entrance and a shaft of grey light fills the little structure, the rain stopping as suddenly as it started. Meghan’s limp body is stretched out next to some kind of plinth, face down on the ground. I run towards her without thinking and pull her head into my lap.
“Meghan!” I brush graveyard dirt from her smooth cheeks and shake her gently. She’s pale, too pale, and the crook of my arm beneath her head is starting to grow sticky and warm.
“You monster,” I grind out, baring my teeth at him. “What have you done to her?”
“She was making too much noise.” He says it almost casually, like giving someone a head injury to keep them quiet is the most natural thing in the world. “I had to shut her up.”
I shake Meghan’s body gently, then a little harder when I don’t get a response. She protests against me, eyes rolling behind their lids. She’s alive.
I take my eyes off my sister and have a proper look at Tommy for the first time. He’s more dishevelled than usual, filthy and haggard looking. It’s hard to believe that this is the same fresh-faced boy I thought I was falling in love with. Was this really my first love? Talk about tragic.
He skulks back to the dark corner and sits down, in a world of his own, stroking the tattered cloth that holds who knows what inside of it. I chance a glimpse at the door and spot Will in the shadow of the doorway. Tommy hasn’t noticed him yet. I hold up my hand to stall him and he nods then ducks back, phone in hand.
I need him to get Meghan out of here.
Tommy is bent over his bundle. My eyes try their best to make out shapes and objects, but nothing is familiar to me. Well, one thing is, but I’m trying not to look at the open, empty coffin on the plinth above my head.
“Meghan?” I press my lips to my sister’s ear, trying to rouse her. “Megs? Can you hear me? I need you to wake up.”
