Page 200 of Love at First Fright

I really felt like I was in a horror film now.

More spiders probably waited for me in that tunnel. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe, drawn to the darkness and the damp.

But I’d come this far.

I took a breath.

And descended into the dark.

twenty-nine

Charlie

The tunnel devoured me whole.

My phone torch carved a pitiful wedge of light through the absolute dark. Stone walls pressed close on either side—close enough to touch both at once if I stretched out my arms. The ceiling hung low, forcing me to hunch forward as I descended the uneven steps.

Webs brushed my face. I flinched but kept moving.

The air grew colder with each step. Damp. Heavy.

My foot slipped on moss. I caught myself against the wall, palm scraping rough stone.

Keep going. Bat needs you.

What exactly I was going to do to save the day if I ever reached them remained to be seen. It wasn’t lost on me that my useless self was charging into danger completely empty‑handed, without any semblance of a plan.

This was almost certainly suicide.

But Lily’s face kept flashing through my mind. Five years old and gap-toothed, telling her nursery teacher that her Uncle Charlie could do anything. Seven years old and making me a wonky, rainbow-beaded bracelet, alongside demands for me to wear it every day. The way she looked at me when I picked her up from Emily’s—like I’d personally hung every star in the sky.

I couldn’t be the uncle who gave up. Who stayed safe while someone I lo—

While people needed help.

Lily thought I was brave. Clever. Someone who fixed things.

Maybe I could be that person. Just this once.

The tunnel ended abruptly. A dead end? No… a ladder. A wooden, crooked ladder.

Phone between my teeth, I climbed, praying the rotten wood would support me.

Up, up, up.

My head broke through into open air—well, relatively open. A cramped space, maybe ten feet square.

I hauled myself up the last few rungs and—

Cold.

The temperature plummeted so fast my breath misted. Ice crawled across my skin, sinking deeper than the rain had. My lungs seized. The air felt thick. Wrong. Like trying to breathe through cotton wool.

I pushed forward and hit resistance.

Not a wall. Not anything physical. But something that pushed back against my chest, my face, my hands. Like a soap bubble stretched too thin, trembling on the edge of breaking.

My phone screen flickered. The torch dimmed, then flared bright again.