AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The tunnel turns left, then right, following the line of the walls. I can’t believe I never noticed how thick the walls were in this part of the house. There are a lot of shelves, cupboards, and storage on this floor that disguise the tunnel’s path. It’s cleverly designed, even if it does feel like a set piece from a horror film.
After about thirty paces, Eli stops. “There’s a ladder leading down,” he says. “I need you to hold the gun.”
He presses the weapon into my palm as he swings out over an empty space where the passage passes into the floor below. I keep the gun trained into the dark hole as Eli descends. When he reaches the ground, he thrusts up a hand and I give him the weapon, then follow him down.
We walk along another short passage, then descend another two ladders. The temperature drops. The hairs on my arms stand on end. Here, the walls are rough, hewn from the bedrock itself. I wonder if this section of the tunnel is structurally sound, if we’re just one wrong step away from being crushed by falling stones.
“It smells strange down here.” Eli’s fingers reach for mine, squeezing tight. He speaks in a whisper. He’s thinking about cave-ins, too.
It does smell odd, kind of sickly sweet. The smell gets stronger as we walk deeper into the cave. We walk and walk and walk. There’s no way to tell how far we’ve moved away from the house, but I feel certain we’ve no longer beneath the Malloy property.
“This is the kind of tunnel you build if you know you might need to make a quick escape,” I whisper as we turn yet another corner. The smell is stronger here, hanging in the damp air like something living. “Legitimate businessmen don’t build secret escape routes from their homes.”
“I think it’s firmly established that there was nothing legitimate about Howard Malloy,” Eli says. “Do you think the family used this to make their escape four years ago?”
I shrug, a pointless gesture since Eli walks ahead of me, shining his phone’s flashlight into the gloom. “Who knows? Maybe they assumed new identities and are living it up on some tropical island. But according to George, someone drove the Malloy’s car out of the house. If it wasn’t them, who was it?”
The tunnel widens out, and we emerge into an underground chamber. I breathe a sigh of relief to see the hewn-stone walls propped up with steel supports. High on the wall opposite us is the entrance to another, smaller tunnel. There’s no way to reach it from where we stand – supposedly, our intruder used a rope or ladder to enter through that tunnel, and pulled it up after they fled. The cloying smell hangs thick in the air.
Eli’s phone beam shines on two long wooden boxes in the center of the room. I swallow as the shapes resolve into long boxes, with dark stained surfaces and ornate brass handles. I know exactly what they are—
Coffins.
Two coffins just hanging out in a secret tunnel beneath Malloy Manor.
What.
The.
Actual.
Fuck?
“I’d recognize this design anywhere.” Eli bends down in front of one, wiping his finger over the filthy brass plating. “Walter Hart originals. They’re DIY kits. One of Dad’s clever ideas – flatpack funerals. All the gravitas and grandeur for half the price.”
“I guess that explains how they got down here.” I can’t imagine how someone could get two coffins down the narrow tunnel and around all the tight corners into this room, but it would make sense if they were assembled here – as much sense as any of this made. Why are they here in the first place? “You know we’re going to have to open them, right?”
Eli staggers to his feet. “I feel like we’re at the point in the horror film where the audience is screaming at us to turn back. So yes, sure. Let’s take a look.”
I move along the side of the first coffin, my finger tracking the dusty edge. It may be the remnants of absinthe in my system, but I fancy I see tendrils of inky black miasma curling from beneath the lid. I want nothing more than to run from this room and never, ever return.
But Claudia August ain’t afraid of ghosts.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the smell is – the lingering of decay, of organic remains returning to the earth. There’s no ventilation down here. That smell will hang around long after these coffins become ashes and dust.
“At the same time?” Eli raises an eyebrow. I nod. His fingers curl around the handle. “Three, two, one…”
I heave up my lid and shine my phone’s flashlight into the gloom.
I see… exactly what I expect to see. A mostly decomposed human body – bits of flesh and other gross stuff clinging to a skeletal frame. The silk coffin lining is stained with all manner of dark liquids and secretions. A lone rat scurries through the eye socket. Broken bones reveal the story of violent death.
Eli’s coffin contains a larger skeleton with the tattered remains of a black suit still clinging to the shoulders. More broken bones. The skull has been staved in.
Two bodies, both brutally murdered. My eye catches a glint of metal on the finger of the larger skeleton. I pinch my nose and bend down to inspect it. It’s an ancient signet ring carved with an elaborate M, in the same font as the one carved into the gates, or the stamp adorning the stationery in my office.
M for Malloy.
We’ve found the final resting place of Howard and Ainsley Malloy.
