P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

There was less water now, but more rats. The scratching and scampering were almost constant, and every once in a while the light would catch one as it moved along the edge of the wall. He started keeping the beam at waist level, not wanting to see them.

Then he started spotting trash.

Large, open cans of corn, peas, and soup, the edges of the tins crusted with mold and crawling with roaches. Then the smell of urine, and he lowered the beam to the floor, knowing what he was going to see, but needing to look anyway.

Feces. Little piles. Dried. Some fresh. A trail of them.

Louis put a hand out to the wall to steady himself, fighting the gag in his throat. He wanted to close his eyes, but he knew if he did, he’d lose his stomach.

He forced his feet forward, one step at a time, and kept moving until the smell faded. The corridor was clear for a while longer, filled with just tiny pieces of garbage and an occasional dead mouse.

He realized he had stopped counting his steps and he wondered how far he’d come and he found himself looking up, as if he could somehow see through the ceiling and earth and figure out what building he was under.

He moved on, following the jump of the flashlight beam. The sound of the rats and water was still in his ears, and he realized he was growing used to it, beginning to think of it as normal.

Then he came to another intersection.

This time the tunnels went in both directions, and he had three new paths he could take.

He walked straight ahead, counting on some weird feeling that it might be right. Maybe fifty more feet, another intersection. Again splitting in four directions.

He had a sudden strange image of Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs along their trail. He reached inside his jacket, grabbed a felt-tip pen, and used it to mark an X on the tile wall with an arrow pointing back toward the way he had come.

He heard a soft shriek, something like a frightened animal might make, and he turned quickly, scanning the tunnel. He waited, unsure what it had been.

Now another shriek. Stronger. Closer. Human.

He spun back, unable to tell the direction, his mind suddenly electrified with a dozen thoughts that were coming too fast. Was it a woman?

Then a third, this one a full scream.

Oh, Jesus . It was a woman.

Where was she? Was she alone? She had to be alone. Ives had left, hadn’t he? Why else close the doors? Why lock himself out?

She had to be alone. Had to be tied up or just lost. And he had to find her.

Then another scream, this one piercing, and it was echoing all around him. He took a step down one of the side tunnels, listening, but still there was no sense of direction. He was about to shout back at her, but she screamed again-a long, agonizing scream that ricocheted through the dark tunnels and seemed to go on forever until it was absorbed by the darkness.

Then. . laughter? Yes, just a trickle of it, so quick and unexpected that when it was gone he wasn’t sure he had heard it.

Ives. He hadn’t left the tunnels. He was down here with a woman and he was hurting her.

Louis started to call to her but he stopped himself. Shouting would alert Ives that he was here. But Ives already knew that, didn’t he? But what if he didn’t? What if Louis called to her and Ives panicked and killed her? Then came looking for him?

Jesus. Think, Louis. Think.

Another scream, a ragged, piercing one. Louis stepped to his right, drawn to that tunnel, and he moved down it.

More screams, a rush of them, each one louder and more wretched. Louis quickened his step, the light jumping, his ears following the echos. But there was still nothing to see. Nothing.

Until suddenly another cinder-block wall. As sturdy and solid as the one by the mortuary.

Louis spun back.

Where the hell was she?

He trained the light into the tunnel, the beam stretching long and deep into the blackness.

Where the hell was he?

He couldn’t remember ever being so cold. The noises were all different now, the walls alive with scratching, like they were filled with a million rats he couldn’t see. And water seemed to ooze from the tile.

The flashlight was off now to save the battery. As he stood in the darkness leaning against the wall, he tried not to think about the dampness between his toes or what was dripping on his head.

The screaming had stopped an hour ago.

He wanted to know what time it was. He clicked on the flashlight. It was after 7:00 P.M. Dark outside now. He turned off the flashlight.

He slid slowly down the wall, hoping the floor was dry. It was, but it was cold. He sat anyway, drawing his knees up and leaning his forehead against them.

He heard the squeak of a rat, but he didn’t move. It struck him how weird that was. Four hours in here and suddenly rats were nothing. But maybe they’d always been nothing. Maybe now he knew rats better than he knew the smell of clean sheets fresh from Frances’s dr yer.

Mississippi had rats. They had been all over the junk-yard and the dump. And sometimes they’d crept up to the house, looking for something better maybe. Something fresher to eat. Or flesh to gnaw at.

You bit again, Louis?

Yes, ma’am.

You been playing in the dump?

No, ma’am.

Louis lifted his head, not liking this memory, trying to focus on something to clear it away, but there was nothing to see. He knew he should get up, knew he should keep walking because it would help his mind work. But he was going to give himself a few more minutes.

Our childhood, be it good or bad, makes us what we are, Mr. Kincaid.

“Well, Doc, you might be right about that.”

Shit. Now he was talking to himself. But maybe that wasn’t so bad either. Talking kept the mind alert.

A scream came from the darkness, but unlike the others, it was weak and pitiful. It kicked at his heart, and he found himself on his feet, moving again down the tunnel, pushing into the blackness.

The scream came again, louder now, and laced with whimpering and words. He could make out words now. Real words.

“ Please . . please stop. . please don’t hurt me anymore. .”

He started running.

“Oh God! God, help me. I want to die!”

An intersection again. The corners marked with his pen, but it didn’t matter now. The screams were all that mattered, and he could hear her close now. He was close.

“Help me! Help me!”

She had to be right ahead. He slowed his steps, turning on the flashlight, sweeping it across the floor. He was afraid Ives would see him coming, but he needed to see where he was.

But then it was quiet again.

“Are you there?” he called. “Tell me where you are!”

A muffled sob, fading whimpers, and the sound of something being dragged. Ahead. They were up ahead. He moved forward. He had gone on almost fifty feet when he realized he hadn’t heard another sound.

He stopped, silence filling his ears. He pulled in some air to steady himself, and kept going, his eyes watching the beam on the concrete floor. It was clean here. Just roaches running along the edge of the wall.

Then the beam caught something wet and dark.

Blood was pooled at his feet. More blood streaked the floor ahead, disappearing into the darkness. And on the wall, about three feet up, scrawled in blood the word BITCH. And the handprint again.

He spun to the darkness. “You fucking bastard!” he shouted. “Where the hell are you?”

His words hung in the damp air until the tunnel sucked them up. He looked back at the blood, holding the flashlight steady on it. Then he knelt, feeling a strange urge to touch it. Still warm.