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She tried a few of them, and finally found one that slid into the lock.
“Wow,” said Doug. “You’re going to bump it.”
“Shh,” Mia said, watching closely.
Lozen closed her eyes and jiggled the key around in the lock, then at just the right moment she reached out to Doug.
“Your mallet, please, sir.”
He handed it over.
Lozen wiggled the key in the lock back and forth for a moment, listening carefully, then hit it hard with the rubberized mallet, making a blunt popping sound.
The door swung open.
“I can’t believe I actually did it,” she said, and Saber squeezed her shoulder.
“I’m not surprised at all.”
They began, very slowly, turning on their flashlights as they went, to descend the stairs.
The first thing Saber noticed as she made her way into the damp basement was the smell of death. The musk of decomposition, sweet and rancid, rose to meet them, and she covered her mouthand nose with the bandanna she’d worn, tugging it up to blunt the sharpness of the odor.
“Fuck,” Lozen said, and they crept all the more slowly down the stairs.
The crackle of the walkie talkies startled all of them, and Elijah’s disembodied voice in the darkness sounded eerie.
“How’s it going in there?”
Saber picked up her walkie talkie.
“Fine,” she whispered. “We’re going into the basement. It’s a little creepy. Smells like a dead body.”
“Huh,” Elijah said. “Be careful. All clear out here.”
Saber breathed out and almost gagged on the intake, the smell felt toxic.
As they entered the basement, they shone their lights around the dirty concrete floor. The first animal Saber saw made her gasp and almost stumble back. It was a dog, dead and curled into a fetal position, with blood that looked like a black stain smeared underneath it, as though it had been dragged.
“Look for a light,” Lozen said, and her voice was steel, though Saber knew she must be terrified.
“Whathappeneddown here,” Doug said, stepping in front of all of them, shining his light around.
“Found it,” Mia said, and a flickering, yellow light illuminated the room, along with a disconcerting electric buzzing noise.
The room was mostly bare, with a few stacked outdoor chairs, a large, decrepit trunk that looked like it had been hauled off the Titanic, and six dead, scattered animals in various states of decomposition. The dog, for instance, looked freshly killed, while a cat lay, curled and almost mummified, in one corner, so deflated it looked like skin wrapped on bone.
“What the fuck, what the fuck,”Lozen started saying, and there was a definite tremor in her voice.
Saber looked at Mia who was holding a charm of bundled twigs and leaves and mouthing something to herself, eyes shut tight, speaking rapidly, praying.
“We have to open the trunk,” Doug said, and Lozen shook her head no.
All of her bravery was dissolving into terror. Saber took her hand and felt it shaking.
“We can do this,” Saber said, and Lozen shook her headno, no, no.
Mia spoke, her voice trance-like.
