Free Dead Man's Rain by Frank Tuttle

end of a long, cold tunnel. They shuffled and they moaned as they walked, and just as I realized I was moaning softly with them, Petey reached up and bit my hand.
    I jumped and pulled the sagging Jefrey up so that his knees no longer dragged on the floor.
    “In here,” said the widow. She let Jefrey go, fumbled with the latch and key. And then the door opened with a groan, and Jefrey and I fell inside.
    “What is this place?” I asked. “Is there another door?”
    “There they are!” shouted Elizabet, from down the hall. Someone answered, though who it was and what they said was lost to the thunder. “Wait, Mother!” she shouted. “There’s someone here I want you to meet!”
    The widow heaved the door shut. More clicks and throws sounded in the dark, and after a moment I heard a crossbar being dropped.
    Blows sounded on the door. “Oh, do come out, Mother,” shouted Elizabet from the other side. “Don’t be an old bore! Isn’t Daddy waiting for you, just outside? Haven’t you seen him, calling for you?”
    The widow didn’t reply. I heard her fumble in the dark, open a drawer and lit a match.
    I looked about. The room was maybe ten-by-twenty, no windows, one door. The walls and floor were plain, smooth stone, bare and unadorned. The ceiling was of banded iron. The only door, the one the widow had just barred, was also fashioned of old banded iron.
    Chairs lined one wall. A dusty cask sat in a corner. I was betting it was dry and empty.
    “Safe,” chuckled the voices. I groaned and let myself sink to the floor.
    The pounding on the door ceased. “I’ll be back soon with the others, Mother,” said Elizabet. “I’ll bet Roger has a chisel in his bag. You’ll like Roger, Mother. He’s such a dear. I doubt he’ll even hurt you much, before he breaks your neck.”
    Then she laughed, and the room fell silent.
    I gasped. My arm throbbed and I imagined it was swelling and wondered if it would soon burst. The widow helped me up, tried to move me toward a chair.
    “Rest,” she said. “They’ll not be soon through that door.”
    “They don’t have to be,” I said. I turned, put my hands upon the cold, rusty iron. “They can take their time, chisel away the hinges. Might take two days.” I licked my lips. My mouth was so dry I could barely speak. “How long can we stay here?” I said. “How long will we last?”
    The widow opened her mouth and quickly shut it. I watched the realization sink in—the realization that we had neither escaped nor found safety.
    My head reeled, but I stood. “We’ve got to go,” I said. “Before she gets back. Let them think we’re in here.” I reached for the latch.
    The widow knocked my hand away. “No!” she cried, her voice loud in the small bare room. “No! We cannot. We cannot open the doors.”
    “I cannot,” came an answering cry, and now I knew the voice. “Do not ask that of me.”
    The widow whirled, and sobbed, and I knew she heard it too.
    The room flickered in the widow’s shaky candlelight, and Mama’s hex and my blood loss and shock rose up and conspired to show me another room, and another time. I saw Lord Merlat on his deathbed, saw the Lady Merlat—not yet the widow—kneeling at his side. “I cannot,” she cried over and over. “Do not ask that of me.”
    She clenched a dark bottle in her hand. Medicine. A certain amount brings ease. More than that—and perhaps the doctors even stressed this, as the wet fever raged—more than that brings peace.
    “I love you,” she sobbed, and this time her mouth moved silently with the phantom words from the hall. “I love you, but I cannot take your life away.”
    “My God,” I said. The room spun, and I was back with the widow and the doors of rusty iron. “You think that’s why he’s back? You think he came for you because you couldn’t kill him at the end?”
    She couldn’t meet my eyes. She looked away, the matches fell from her hand and she sank to her knees.
    “I cannot,” cried