Douglas Preston - Two Graves

He fell silent as Dukchuk raised the club again menacingly. She would call the police; he’d be arrested; he’d go to jail. It was the end of his career. What on earth had he been thinking?

The manservant looked over his shoulder at Miss Wintour, with a querying glance that carried the unmistakable question: What should I do with him?

Felder swallowed painfully. This was it: the call would go to the police, and all the ugliness would begin. He might as well accept it. And start coming up with a good story.

Miss Wintour glared at him a moment longer. Then she turned to Dukchuk.

“Kill him,” she said. “And then you may bury his remains under the floor of the root cellar. With the others.” She turned away and left the library without a backward glance.

62

DR. JOHN FELDER WALKED ACROSS THE MUSTY, FADED carpeting of the old mansion, his movements slow, almost robotic. His head pounded; blood oozed from a cut on his temple, trickling down his neck; and his broken ribs grated on each other with each step. Dukchuk followed behind, occasionally prodding Felder in the small of his back with the club. The only sounds the manservant made were the swish of his tunic and the padding of his big bare feet on the carpet. The old lady had disappeared into the upper regions of the house.

Felder continued down the hallway without really seeing anything. This wasn’t real, this couldn’t be happening. Any minute now and he’d wake up on his uncomfortable little pallet in the carriage house. Or maybe—just maybe—he’d wake up in his own apartment back in New York, and this whole crazy trip to Southport would prove to have been nothing but a wild nightmare…

And then Dukchuk prodded him again with the rounded end of his club, and Felder knew—all too clearly—that although this was a nightmare, it was no dream.

Still he could hardly believe it. Had old lady Wintour really given Dukchuk instructions to kill him? Was she serious or was it just an effort to scare him? This business of burying him in the root cellar with the others—what on earth could that mean?

He stopped. Ahead—in the faint, sickly electric light—he could make out a dining room, and beyond it what looked like a kitchen, with a door in its far wall leading out into the night—to freedom. But Dukchuk prodded him again, indicating with his club that Felder was to turn down another hallway to his left.

Now, as he resumed walking, Felder began to look around a little. Ancient, flyspecked lithographs lined the walls. Little china statuary sat on side tables here and there. But there was nothing, nothing that could conceivably be used as a weapon. He let his hands brush against his pockets as he walked. He could feel their contents: the screwdriver, the scalpel, the envelope with the lock of hair. The Maglite lay on the floor of the library, where he’d sprawled initially. The huge, nimble, muscular Dukchuk would just laugh at the scalpel and its one-inch blade. The screwdriver was a better bet: could he perhaps jam it into the man’s chest? But the freak was so strong, so muscular—so quick —that he would never succeed. It would just make him mad.

It was hopeless. Worse than hopeless.

Dukchuk rapped on a closed door with his club, then gestured for Felder to open it. Felder turned the handle, his clammy hand sliding wetly over the white marble, pulled the door open. Beyond lay darkness. Dukchuk turned an old-fashioned knob on the wall and an overhead light came on, dangling from a wire. Ahead lay a rude set of stairs, leading down to the basement.

Felder felt his legs go wobbly with fear—fear that had been buried under disorientation, pain, disbelief. This was for real. “No,” he said, cringing back from the stairway. “No. Please. You can’t do this.”

Dukchuk poked him in the back with his club.

“I’ll give you money,” Felder babbled. “I’ve got a hundred and fifty, back in the carriage house. Maybe two hundred. We can go to the cash machine. It’ll be our secret, she won’t even have to know—”

Dukchuk jammed him in the back again, much harder. Felder teetered, catching the railing to keep his balance. Any harder and he’d be sent hurtling headfirst down the stairs.

“You can’t kill someone like this. They know I’m renting the carriage house. The police will come looking, they’ll tear the house apart.” But even as he pleaded, he realized the police would do nothing of the sort. Who would believe a little old lady capable of cold-blooded murder? He’d rented the place under an assumed name, he’d told nobody he was staying here. Even if the cops came, they’d just knock on the door, ask a few polite questions, and go away.

Another hard jab.

He tried to swallow, felt himself gagging with fear instead. He took a step forward, then another, moving painfully down the steps like an old man. Dukchuk followed, keeping back several steps.

Time seemed to slow. Every step down into that basement was like a small agony. Kill him. And then you may bury his remains under the floor of the root cellar. Oh, God—oh, God, he really was about to die. Or was it still a sick, macabre joke, an effort to terrorize him? Somehow, he didn’t think so.

He reached the bottom of the steps and stopped. It was chill and clammy, lit only by the bare bulb at the top of the stairs and a flickering, lambent light that came from a chamber to the left. A narrow hallway led ahead, with other, closed doors leading off from it.

This was it. He waited, bracing himself for the vicious blow to the head; for the blinding pain to explode in his brainpan; for the white light that would quickly fade to black. But instead Dukchuk prodded him ahead with his club.

They passed the open door on the left. Out of the corner of his eye, Felder saw tall, flickering candles; strangely painted linen hangings; small stone figurines arranged on plinths in a semicircle. Dukchuk’s lair.

They were heading directly toward a closed door at the end of the hallway. As he stared at it, Felder’s breathing began to quicken and he heard himself sobbing audibly. “Please,” he murmured. “Please, please, please…”

They stopped at the end of the passage. Dukchuk motioned for him to open the last door. Felder reached for it, his hand trembling, his legs almost unable to hold him up. It took him three tries before he could grasp the handle with sufficient strength to turn it.

The door opened into darkness, the indirect candlelight revealing only faint shapes: apple barrels; boxes half full of rotting turnips and carrots; wooden shelving holding swing-top bale jars, many exploded, their dark and putrid contents sprayed across the undersides of the shelves above and dribbling down in congealed ropes.

The root cellar.

Felder heard his sobbing grow louder. It almost seemed like someone else was crying. Again, Dukchuk prodded him forward. But this time, Felder couldn’t—or wouldn’t—move. Instead, his hand slipped into his pocket, closed instinctively over the small envelope.

“Constance,” he murmured. In this moment of supreme crisis, he realized all of a sudden—although he probably should have known it long before—that he was hopelessly in love with her. Maybe he had known it before—maybe he just hadn’t consciously admitted it to himself. That’s what this was all about. And now it was over. She would never know he’d found her lock of hair—nor would she ever know the price he’d had to pay for it.

Dukchuk prodded him again. And again, Felder remained where he stood, unable to move, on the threshold of the root cellar.

A vicious blow landed on his right shoulder, and Felder cried out, staggering forward. Another blow from the club caught him on the inside of the knee, and he crumpled to the ground, his head colliding with the earthen floor.