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Will could hear panting, more mumbling. Fierro's revolver was in his hand. He wasn't sure how it had gotten there. The space was too tight for him to reach the flashlight, and it was falling down the back of his pants anyway. Will tried to make his knees bend, but his body would not comply. The panting was getting louder, and he realized it was coming from his own mouth. He looked up, seeing nothing but darkness. Sweat blurred his eyes. He held his breath, then dropped down in a squat.
No gun went off. His throat was not slit. Hooks were not jammed into his eyes. He felt a breeze from the shaft, or was that something in front of his face? Was someone standing in front of him? Had someone just brushed their hand in front of his face? He heard movement again, chattering.
"Don't move," Will managed. He held the gun in front of him, sweeping it back and forth like a pendulum in case someone was standing in front of him. With a shaking hand, he reached behind him for the flashlight. The panting was back, an embarrassing noise that echoed in the cave.
"Never . . . ," a man murmured.
Will's hand was slick with sweat, but it held steady to the grooved metal grip of the flashlight. He jammed his thumb into the button, turning on the light.
Rats scattered—three big, black rats with plump bellies and sharp claws. Two of them went straight for Will. Instinctively, he backed up, slamming into the ladder, his feet tangling in the rope. He covered his face with his arms, and felt sharp claws dig into his skin as the rats bolted up the ladder. Will panicked, realizing he'd dropped the flashlight, and he snatched it up quickly, scanning the cave, looking for other occupants.
Empty.
"Crap . . ." Will exhaled, slumping to the ground. Sweat poured into his eyes. His arms throbbed where the rats had ripped the skin. He had to fight the overwhelming urge to escape up after them.
He used the flashlight to take in his surroundings, sending roaches and other insects scrambling. There was no telling where the other rat had gone, and Will wasn't going to go looking for him. The main part of the cavern was sunken, about three feet down from where Will was sitting. Whoever had designed the structure knew what they were doing. The depressed area would give a home-field advantage.
Will slowly lowered himself down, keeping the light trained in front of him so there wouldn't be any more surprises. The space was bigger than he expected. It must have taken weeks to excavate the area, lifting out bucket after bucket of dirt, bringing down pieces of wood to keep the whole thing from caving in.
He guessed the main area was at least ten feet deep and six feet wide. The ceiling was about six feet overhead—tall enough for him to stand up if he kept stooped over, but he didn't trust his knees to lift him. The flashlight could not illuminate everything at once, so the space felt even more cramped than it was. Add to that the eeriness, the ungodly smells of Georgia clay mixed with blood and excrement, and everything started to feel smaller and darker.
Against one wall was a low bed that had been thrown together with what looked like recycled wood. A shelf overhead held supplies: water jugs, soup cans, implements of torture Will had only seen in books. The mattress was thin, bloodstained foam sticking out of the torn black cover. There were chunks of flesh on the surface, some of it already rotting. Maggots swirled like churning waters. Strands of rope were bunched up on the floor by the bed, enough to wrap around someone head to toe, almost like a mummy. Deep scratch marks clawed into the wood on the sides of the bed. There were sewing needles, fishing hooks, matches. Blood pooled onto the dirt floor, running underneath the bed frame like a slow leak in a faucet.
"Told . . . ," a voice began, only to be drowned by static. There was a small television/radio sitting on a white plastic chair at the back of the cavern. Will kept down in a crouch as he moved toward the chair. He looked at the buttons, pressing a few before he managed to turn off the radio, remembering too late that he should have had his gloves on.
He followed the cord of the television with his eyes, finding a large marine battery. The plug had been cut off the cord, the bare red and black wires attached to the terminals. There were other wires, their ends stripped down to the copper. They were blackened, and Will caught the familiar scent of an electrical burn.
"Hey, Gomez?" Fierro called. His voice was all raw nerves.
"It's empty," Will told him.
Fierro made a hesitating noise.
"I'm serious," Will told him. He went back to the opening, craning up to see the man. "It's empty."
"Christ." Fierro's head disappeared from view, but not before Will saw his hand shoot up in the sign of the cross.
Will was ready to do some praying himself if he didn't get out of here. He shone the light on the ladder, seeing where his own shoe prints had smeared into the bloody footprints on the rungs. Will looked down at his scuffed shoes, the dirt floor, finding more bloody footprints that he had smeared. He crammed his shoulders back into the shaft and put his foot on the rung, trying not to mess up anything else. Forensics wasn't going to be happy with him, but there was nothing he could do about it now except apologize.
Will froze. Anna's feet had been cut, but the cuts were more like the nasty scrapes you get from stepping on sharp objects—pine needles, burrs, thorny vines. That was why he had assumed she had walked in the woods. She wasn't bleeding enough to leave bloody footprints that were so pronounced he could see the ridges of the sole in the dirt. Will stood there with his hand above him, one foot on the ladder, debating.
He gave a bone-weary sigh, then crouched back down, skipping the light along every corner of the cave. The rope was bothering him, the way it had been wrapped around the bed. His mind flashed on the image of Anna tied down, the rope wrapped in a continuous loop over and under the bed, securing her body to the frame. He pulled one of the lengths out from under the bed. The end was cut clean through, as were the others. He glanced around. Where was the knife now?
Probably with that last stupid rat.
Will pulled back the mattress, gagging from the smell, trying not to think about what his bare hands were touching. He kept the back of his wrist pressed under his nose as he pulled away slats of wood that supported the mattress, hoping to God the rat didn't spring up and claw out his eyes. He made as much noise as he could, dropping the slats in a pile on the floor. He heard a squeaking sound behind him, and turned to find the rat crouched down in the corner, its beady eyes reflecting the light. Will had a piece of wood in his hand, and he thought about hurling it at the beast, but he was worried his aim wouldn't be good enough in the narrow space. He was also worried it would piss off the rat.
He laid the plank onto the pile, keeping a wary eye on the creature. Something else got his attention. There were scratch marks on the bottom of the bed slats—deep bloody gouges that didn't look like they were made by an animal. Will shone the light into the opening under the bed. The dirt was excavated about six inches below the floor, running the length and width of the bed. Will reached down and picked up a small length of rope. Like the other pieces, this had been cut, too. Unlike the other pieces, there was a knot intact.
Will pulled back the rest of the slats. There were four metal bolts underneath the bed, one at each corner. A piece of rope was tied through one bolt. Pink blood stained the cord. He felt the rope with his fingers. It was wet. Something sharp scraped his thumb. Will leaned in closer, straining to see what had scratched him. He picked at the cord with his fingernails, prying out the object so he could examine it more closely in the flashlight beam. Bile hit the back of his throat when he saw what he was holding.
