Page 31 of Oddly Fine

“Roger that,” Beckett responded automatically, then cut the connection.

“Can’t they just—break down the wall?” Suzy complained as she grew increasingly alarmed.

Beckett thought she had good reason to be worried. The dust had settled, but it smelled like mold and death in the confined space, which did nothing to ease his sense of impending doom.

He placed the radio back in his pocket and bent down to examine the lower part of the wall. He traced around the large section following the seam. It was rectangular—about two feet by three feet—so it was just big enough for a body to fit through.

“The tunnels are certainly unstable. They’re probably worried that breaking down a wall would create a domino effect and collapse the whole structure,” Jimmy said, noticeably wincing with pain, which was most likely from the fractured ribs.

Beckett knew the feeling all too well.

“They can’t dig, but we can,” Beckett said as he stepped back from the wall and turned to the two thieves.

“What?” Suzy looked at him blankly.

“That hole you dug, how’d you do it?” Beckett asked them, ignoring her question.

“Pickaxe and a handsaw,” Jimmy replied.

“Where are they?”

“In the bag with the money. Didn’t want to leave evidence behind,” Jimmy answered without hesitation as he looked at him questioningly.

Beckett clapped his hands in excitement as the two idiots stared at him like he’d lost his damned mind. Maybe he had. It was entirely possible. Last time he’d gotten stuck in a place similar to this, he’d very nearly lost it for good.

But Beckett was doing his damnedest not to think about that right now—besides, he was getting them the fuck out of this mess. Thanks to Jimmy, the criminal mastermind, he had access to the right tools to execute his plan.

He moved around the tunnel, avoiding stepping on any unstable wall fragments, and finally located what he’d been looking for. The duffel bag with the money was still setting next to the wall where he’d dropped it earlier. He clambered over the rubble to get to it and unzipped it quickly. Pulling out the pickaxe and handsaw, he rushed back to the place in the wall where’d he found the seams, buzzing with energy born of desperation. He felt as if he was running out of time and couldn’t move fast enough.

“What the hell are you doing?” Suzy asked, as she watched him bend down and press the handsaw to the seam. “You can’t just dig a hole! You’ll kill us!”

“I’m not digging a hole,” Beckett said, as he paused to admire the first cut he’d made with the handsaw. “I’m digging a coffin—an entirely different thing.”

“What?” Suzy asked in a shrill, panic-stricken voice.

Beckett didn’t waste his time answering her as he focused on cutting evenly along the seam, watching the frail rock crumble away from the blade until he’d cut all the way around. At first nothing happened. The rock panel remained in place, as if supported by the corpse nestled inside, but when he hit it with his elbow, the panel fell to the ground with a satisfying thud. Beckett bent down to look at what had been hidden behind the stonework and grinned maniacally. A solid panel of wood was now exposed which was old, but still in one piece.

“What—what’s behind there?” Jimmy asked, his voice shaking with nerves, just like Suzy’s.

“What’d you think, genius—the tunnels lead into a crypt,” he replied sarcastically. Carefully, he aimed the pickaxe at the middle of the wooden panel, striking dead center. The panel gave way, the wood so old that it fell apart on contact. Although he planned to use the pickaxe to slide the coffin out of the wall, it was simply too old, and began to disintegrate. When he pulled hard on it, half of the coffin came flying out of the wall, crashing to the floor in a tangled mess of wood, fabric and—

“Are those bones?” Suzy screamed, and yeah—so, maybe Beckett should have told them to stand back before he pulled the coffin out. Too late now, since skeletal remains had exploded all over the floor with bone fragments scattering in every direction—including a few landing in Suzy’s lap. She attempted to get up, but with her hands behind her back, it wasn’t quite as easy as she’d expected, and she ended up falling and tripping over a pile of the old bones in her panic to get away from them.

“Oh, God! Oh, God! No! No!” And then she let out a wail that would rival that of any newborn.

Beckett mentally blocked out her horrified squeals as he peered inside the space built to hold coffins. Unfortunately, part of the wooden coffin had retained pieces of its occupant while remaining stuck in the wall.

Fuck.

“What are you—”

Clearly Jimmy had questions. But Beckett was positive that Jimmy would not enjoy hearing any of the answers, so he didn’t bother responding to him either. Instead, he pulled off his t-shirt, and fashioned it like a mask over his nose and mouth.

“For the dust?” Jimmy surmised as he watched Beckett.

“Nah—for the dead guy juices,” Beckett replied grimly, as he prepared himself for the task ahead. With one final deep breath, he picked up the handsaw and crawled into the small space. It was easy at first. The space had been made to accommodate a body—albeit a dead one. But as he came to the section that still held part of the coffin and corpse, his progress slowed considerably. He tried not to think about what he was doing as he slowly crawled his way up a dead priest’s remains. He concentrated on the rock surface ahead instead. His belt loop suddenly got caught on something pointy, and he had to stop while he reached down to unhook his belt loop from—

“Ah tabarnak! You know, when people ask for a hand, this isn’t what they have in mind!” Beckett complained loudly, inwardly addressing it to whichever creator was currently watching him and laughing their ass off, as he pulled a hand bone from his waistband. He blindly tossed it behind him, hoping it wouldn’t land directly on his leg, and kept inching forward.