Brian Freeman - The Bone House

Mark groped for the light switch on the wall, and when he found it, he flicked it upward and downward several times. Nothing happened.

'The power's out.'

'Oh, shit,' Tresa murmured. 'He's here.'

Chapter Forty-Four

Cab found an old steel gate at the dead end of Juice Mill Lane, where it butted up against the western land of the state park. He examined the gate in the darkness with the beam of a Mag-Lite. Two dented signs hung over the top rail, tied with rusted wire. One said No Trespassing. The other was a number stamped like a license plate in faded white letters: 11105.

This was Peter Hoffman's land.

He studied the rutted road beyond the gate that disappeared into the thick of the forest. The ground was a muddy mess of dirt and grass. He didn't see footprints, which told him that no one had been here in the rainy hours since Peter Hoffman's death. That was good. If Hoffman had a secret that had got him killed, and if this land was part of that secret, then Cab didn't want to wait until morning and give someone else a chance to visit overnight.

The rain kept on like Chinese music, making a plink-plink rhythm on the roof of the forest. He walked around the gate. The ground had a damp, wormy smell. He saw one fat worm in the light, stretched out like pink candy among the old leaves. He picked his way along the path, noting Private Property signs with reflective letters shining among the wet, glistening trees. Far from the old gate, he spotted vines draped over a narrow trail, where an ash had fallen, blocking the way with a mossy trunk. He stepped over the tree and followed the trail away from the road, sweeping the dirt with a back-and-forth arc of his flashlight. Fifty yards inside the forest, he spotted a glint of glass reflecting from the ground. Standing over it, he saw an open, empty bottle of Jameson's whiskey. The glass was clean; it hadn't been lying here for long. It was the same brand he'd found on the kitchen table at Peter Hoffman's house.

Hoffman had been here recently.

Cab lifted the flashlight and saw the remains of a cabin in front of him.

The dilapidated structure was quickly disappearing back into the arms of nature. Snow and rain had punched the roof downward, leaving gaping holes. The walls bowed inward, specked with remnants of red paint. Popped, rusty nails lined the beams like broken teeth. The door hung open, rotting away from its top hinge, and the chambered windows were broken into jagged fragments. Shredded yellow curtains billowed into the rain. Weeds grew as high as the gutters.

Cab walked up to the door and exposed the interior of the ruins to his light, scattering red-eyed mice. He saw an old stove, its door hanging open, with a rusted grate still inside. Two wooden chairs lay in broken slats on the floor, and bricks from the chimney had crumbled forward into scattered rubble. Rain splattered into puddles through the open roof, and he saw black pellets of feces. Old spiderwebs hung like lace across the windows. Other than the animal presence, the cabin had been unoccupied for many seasons, left to fend for itself in a losing battle against the elements.

Peter Hoffman had been planning to send Cab here to this spot with the section of map in his pocket. Cab was sure of it.

Why?

He followed the damaged walls of the ruins. When he'd made a complete circle, he took a cautious step inside. Debris sprinkled from the gaps in the roof. His foot sank through a rotting beam, trapping his ankle between jagged spikes until he bent down and pushed aside the splintered wood to free himself. He cast his light upward into the rafters, where he saw deserted bird's nests and wasp hives.

Cab backed out of the cabin. He studied the trail, which petered out amid a solid grove of pines. In the cone of light, he spotted the empty bottle of Jameson's again, and he made his way there to stand where Peter Hoffman would have stood. Near the bottle, he spotted a small square of dirt where nothing grew. It was almost invisible among the tall weeds. He pushed through the grass into the bare space, and when he kicked at the mud with his toe, he found that the ground at his feet was actually metal. He bent down and scraped aside the dirt until his fingers were black and found a corrugated metal door, two feet by two feet, built into the earth inside a concrete border. It was a tornado shelter.

He saw thick hinges where the door was secured to the concrete foundation. Opposite the hinges, he saw a heavy padlock that kept the hasp of the steel door clamped shut.

The padlock needed a key.

Cab dug in his pocket. He extracted the key he'd taken from Peter Hoffman's body and got down on all fours. He didn't care about the knees of his suit getting sodden and dirty. He balanced the flashlight on the ground and took hold of the lock and used his thumb to clean the key slot, which was caked with grime. When he saw the opening, he inserted the key and twisted.

The lock snapped open.

'I'll be damned,' he said aloud.

Cab crouched there, breathing heavily, not daring to move. His wet hair was pasted to his forehead. He turned the shackle sideways and squeezed it out of the staple and put it aside on the ground. With the edge of his fingers, he pried at the hasp, but it had rusted shut with disuse and wouldn't move. He grimaced, tugging harder. When it resisted, he dug out his own keys and wedged one of them under the hasp and yanked again. This time, it sprang open with a bang, scraping Cab's fingers and drawing blood.

He forced his nails under the edge of the metal door. He lifted, but it was heavier than he expected, and it slipped out of his wet grasp and clanged shut. He tried again. The hinges, which hadn't moved in years, groaned and refused to turn. He worked his palm under the narrow opening and pushed, winning a few more inches. This time he used both hands, breaking through the accumulated rust bonding the steel together and forcing the lid open. It fell backward, and Cab fell with it, nearly tumbling down into the shelter.

He righted himself and stared into the blackness of the square opening. A metal ladder disappeared below. Pent-up smells of must and decay bloomed out of the hole. When he pointed his flashlight downward, he saw a dirty concrete floor ten feet below him, where the shelter opened into a larger space. He couldn't see anything beyond the tunnel leading into the cellar.

Cab laid his flashlight on the ground. He took hold of the metal ladder and tested his weight on it. The braces clamping it to the concrete wall wobbled but held. The steps felt secure. He turned off the light and shoved it in his pocket, and he was blind as he took the next step down into the hole. It was dark above him, around him, and below him.

He descended into the belly where Peter Hoffman kept his secrets.

He supposed everyone had such a place, real or imagined, a black cave where you buried the things you wanted to forget.

His feet landed on the concrete floor of the storm cellar. Spiderwebs clung with sticky fingers to his skin and his hair, and he spat strands from his mouth. He felt the dampness of the earth in the porous walls and rain dropping through the hole into a pool where he stood. The opening at the top of the ladder looked small above him.

He switched on his flashlight.

The space was tight. No more than ten feet separated him from the opposite wall. As he shifted the beam of light, he saw metal shelves lined with canned goods buried in thick dust and plastic jugs of water. Bottles of beer, too, cloudy and stale. Black mold covered the wall like burnt eggs. He saw hundreds of worms, most of them dead on the floor. More cobwebs sagged from the ceiling, clinging to the corpses of bugs like treasure.

He saw a single wooden chair in the middle of the room, as if someone would come here to do nothing but sit and think about his life passing. He tried to imagine why Peter Hoffman came here.