The closer she got, the sharper her memories became. It looked like a man in profile leaning up against the rock wall with one leg bent, knee jutting out, foot flat against the stone behind him. His chin dipped down as if he was looking at something on the ground. As she got closer, she saw that it wasn’t a single formation but a series of small rocks jutting out in different places, creating the illusion. It could only be seen from a certain distance and angle. Once you passed him and looked back all you saw were random rocks sticking out of the wall. A few feet from the standing man was a small opening. It was only about three feet tall. She crouched down to look inside, but there was only darkness. She pulled out her phone and turned it back on. No service, it announced. Still, it had a flashlight.
The cave was small, only big enough to accommodate two people at most. It was cool and damp and filled with rocks. She was just crawling in when, outside, a twig snapped. She startled so abruptly that she hit the top of her head on the cave’s roof. Massaging her scalp, she pocketed her phone and turned back to the entrance, sliding the Marlin around to the front of her body only to realize that the only way to hold it so that she could shoot whoever was out there was if she lay on her stomach.
Another twig snapped as she flattened her body to the ground, resting the barrel of the Marlin on some small rocks in front of her. Cheek pressed against the stock, she peered outside of the cave and waited. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Whoever was out there wasn’t trying to be quiet. A pair of heavy, black, steel-toed boots came into view. Then a familiar voice hissed, “Jo!”
“Ray?”
The boots jumped back. Then Ray’s face appeared in the cave’s entrance. “What the fuck are you doing in there?”
She extricated herself from the cave and stood, but kept her hands on the Marlin, the barrel pointed toward the ground. Ray pointed to the gun. “And where the hell did you get that?”
Josie narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you worry about what I’ve got.”
He stepped closer to her. His face looked thinner, his skin sallow. “I’m worried about you,” he said. “You need to come with me right now. Away from here. You can’t be here, do you understand me?”
Her hardened voice faltered. She hated herself for it. “You know what, Ray? I don’t understand anything anymore. I sure as hell don’t understand a goddamn thing about what is happening in this town anymore.”
She tried to step around him, but he moved with her, blocking her way. She poked him in the thigh with the barrel of the gun. “Get out of my way, Ray.”
“Yeah, Ray,” said a male voice to their left. “Get out of her way.”
They both turned to see Nick Gosnell standing several feet away. He held a shotgun in his hands and it was aimed directly at Josie’s head.
Chapter Fifty-Five
There was a tension-filled moment of awareness before the three of them acted simultaneously. Josie raised the Marlin, pumping a round into the chamber as she brought it up, and fired a shot at Nick. Ray pushed her out of the way, sending her shot wide. Nick fired back. Josie tumbled into the rock wall, hitting the back of her head. A bright light flashed across her vision. She tried to take a step but fell forward, the Marlin jabbing her in her side. Ray rushed Gosnell, and Nick’s shotgun boomed again. The two men tumbled down the dell and out of sight, a whirling dervish of flailing limbs and the sleek black of the shotgun barrel. Josie’s vision seemed to split, everything multiplying by two, and then returned to normal. She reached back and felt blood in her hair. She could hear Ray and Nick crashing through the underbrush in the distance. She tried to stand again, but her legs were made of jelly. She moved toward the noise on her hands and knees, the heavy Marlin slung across her back, until the sound stopped.
Ray.
There had been no more gunfire. Was Ray still alive? The thought made her sway on her knees. She could go back to the cave, maintain a defensive position there until she figured out what the hell was going on. She would be able to hear Gosnell coming from inside the cave, see his shoes. She’d shoot before he could move on her. Then she could get away. If she could just stand. She tried to stand. The forest around her spun. She sat back on her heels and shifted the sling to bring the Marlin around to her front.
By the time she heard the crunch of feet in the leaves beside her it was too late. Her hands fumbled with the Marlin but they were clumsy and unsure. Someone behind her lifted her body as if she weighed nothing. The cold metal of the Marlin’s barrel pressed into the side of her throat. On the other side, the coarse material of the sling cut into her skin. As her carotids were slowly crushed, the spinning forest around her went gray, then black.
Chapter Fifty-Six
She woke to complete darkness. Reaching up, she gently felt her fluttering eyelids to make sure she was really opening her eyes. Little by little, sensation came back to her: a heavy pounding in the back of her head, the cold feel of concrete beneath her bottom, a smell like rotted wood and mildew. Her back rested against something soft. She turned slightly and pushed against it with one hand. Something hard clamped down on her forearm and she shrieked, writhing away and kicking with all her might. It took several seconds for her to register Ray’s voice beneath her screams.
“Jo, it’s me. It’s me.”
“Ray?” she called into the blackness.
Her hands searched all around her but all she felt was concrete. She heard a whistling sound and, too late, realized she was hyperventilating. She hated dark closed-in spaces. Her heartbeat thundered over the sound of her wheezing breath, her body flailed around in the darkness even though she willed it not to move—to be still, to calm down, to catch a breath. Then Ray’s arms were around her, his breath hot on the nape of her neck. “It’s okay,” he told her. “You’re safe. I’m here with you.”
She wanted to scream at him to let go of her, but she couldn’t find the words, just a sound like an animal trapped in a bear trap. A terrible keening that hurt her own ears. Her body still recoiled against his touch, familiar as it was. She knew it should be comforting, but it wasn’t.
As if reading her mind, Ray said, “I know you don’t want me to touch you, but you need to calm down, Jo. Pretend I’m Luke or whoever. Please, calm down.”
The keening continued. Her mind screamed commands at her in rapid-fire fashion, none of which her body was able to obey. Breathe. Stop struggling. Be quiet. Calm the fuck down.
Ray loosened his grip on her but still held her against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Shhh,” he cooed. “Jo, everything is okay. Listen to my voice. You can still listen to my voice, right?”
He was right. The night that had ended their marriage—even before Misty came into the picture—had not ruined that for her. She calmed to a whimper, her breath slowing fractionally.
“I won’t hurt you,” he told her. “I promise you that. You know me, Jo. I would never hurt you.”
Lies, all lies, but she listened anyway because she had to. Because his voice had once been home to her. She followed the sound of it back up from the rabbit hole of hysteria, clinging to it as though her life depended on it.
“I’m here with you,” he continued. “I’m not going to leave you.”
Her heaving chest slowed. The wheezing stopped. She could almost speak.
“You’re not a kid anymore. You’re not alone. The darkness can’t hurt you, remember? It’s only darkness.”
He was right. The darkness couldn’t hurt her. Neither could a small space. Or her mother. But there was a new monster outside the door, and he had already tried to hurt them. They were in the black box now.
Her voice was small. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay,” Ray said, although by the small catch in his voice, she suspected he was keeping something from her. Her hands began searching his body for injuries, but he caught them and held them fast in both of his. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Really.”
She wished she could see him. She leaned back into him, and they sank to the floor together. “He took our phones,” Ray said. “Not that there’s any service up here. I tried kicking my way out, but it was a no go.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Gosnell’s… bunker.”
“Bunker?”
“Well, whatever you want to call it. He built this place out in the woods behind his house. Like one of those earth houses or whatever.”
A structure in the earth. A hole in the ground.
“Have you been here before?”