Fallen

“One of them must have forgotten,” the other woman murmured. “We’ll let Ms. Wykes know.”

“Don’t,” the other woman whispered. “I mean . . . don’t they have it rough enough as it is?”

The other woman didn’t answer but Kandace heard the click of a lock being turned and then the door was pulled closed, shutting out the light. Kandace blew out a slow breath. The stairwell was dark, dank. It smelled like mildew and dirt. It must lead to some sort of a basement storage area. There had to be a back way out, right? A window? Even a small one? Something . . .

God, I’m screwed. She needed to get out of there as quickly as possible and pray to God her absence hadn’t been noticed.

She stepped down into a wide-open space, the floor concrete, the walls open rafters, a dim light coming from somewhere beyond and barely illuminating the space enough so that she could see where she was stepping.

Boxes and random pieces of furniture littered the area. Several beds, their springs rusty, were piled near the wall, with a few pieces of luggage in front of them. Kandace stepped toward the suitcases and backpacks, attempting to spot her own. She turned away. What did it matter anyway? Other than the drugs, which she assumed had been flushed the day she’d arrived—and what a shame because she sure could use to get high right about now—the only thing she’d brought were clothes and toiletries, and those would be useless here at Lilith House.

Kandace scurried between two piles of rotting boxes, heading farther into the recesses of the basement, toward that seemingly faraway muted glow of light.

An eerie snickering sound came from the darkness to her right where the light didn’t reach and she whirled toward it, her pulse jumping. For a moment she simply stood there frozen, her heart thumping as she stared into the pitch-black. Something shifted and Kandace jerked backward as it came rushing at her from out of the gloom. A skull. White bones. The scream on her lips ended in an expelled whoosh of air as she hurled herself backward, tripping and falling onto a pile of boxes and refuse, raising her hands in defense as the thing hurtled toward her, attacking.

A flood of adrenaline threw Kandace into fight mode, and she shoved the thing away with her arms and kicked at it with her legs, panting with terror as she crawled quickly from beneath it and jumped to her feet, whirling back around, prepared to fight it off again. Instead . . . she blinked, still panting, but leaning closer, a small hysterical laugh rising in her throat. She leaned forward and grabbed the thing, pulling it upright.

It was a fully intact anatomical skeleton like the ones used in classrooms, standing on a pair of rickety wheels. “Holy shit,” she muttered, pushing it away from her. It rolled backward toward the gloomy corner. “Holy shit,” she repeated.

She didn’t think anyone could have heard her scuffling about with the skeleton in this below-ground space that must be well insulated and was hopefully far enough away from the others in the house. Still, she needed to get out of there. And she wanted to get out of there. Despite that she now knew the skeleton was nothing but an old teaching tool, she still felt shaken and anxious. As rattled as the bones that had just sprung from the gloom and fallen over her.

With an intake of musty air, she turned back toward that light. She made it across the large room, glancing behind her every few steps, and when she rounded another tall pile of storage boxes, she saw that a single bulb hung from the rafters of what was a sort of hallway off the main open area with rooms on either side. More storage? And at the end of the hallway, she saw a wooden door with a thin sliver of daylight showing beneath. Relief filtered through her. Sunshine. A way out.

As she tiptoed quietly past an open door, the light reached inside the room to reveal three desks all in a row, and a chalkboard at the front. It looked like a classroom—the desks small and childlike—but for who?

A loud rustling sound made Kandace halt abruptly as she sucked in a startled breath. The sound had come from the room just past the small classroom. Slowly, tentatively, she stepped forward, soundless on the concrete floor. She heard more rustling and the squeak of what sounded like bedsprings. Her eyes rose to that door at the end of the hall. Should she make a mad dash for it? No, that might catch the attention of whomever was inside the room just ahead of her, whereas if she peeked inside and saw that the person making the noises was turned away, or occupied with some task or another, she could quietly sneak by.