Free Blood Brothers by Richie Tankersley Cusick Page B

and being buried alive—people searching, calling my name—the musky smell of dogs—and a gunshot . . .
    Lucy kept staring at the footprints.
    She tried to tell herself that she and Jared had made them, as they’d moved about the cellar. She tried to tell herself she was just imagining shoe soles and animal feet etched there in the dust, just like people could interpret cloud formations in a million different ways. After all, if something really had been in here, how could she not have heard? No person or animal could have been that quiet.
    Going more cautiously now, she followed the tracks all the way back to the row of shelves. She held the lantern close to the locked door, then lowered it toward the concrete.
    She was right.
    The footprints had definitely started here.
    They went in both directions and vanished beneath the door.
    She reached out for the doorknob. She pressed her ear against the door and listened.
    And something listened back.
    With a sudden, horrible certainty, Lucy felt it—a presence poised there on the other side of that door, something listening just like she was listening.
    In one instant she stumbled back; in the next, she twisted the knob and pushed with all her strength, stifling a scream as the door burst open.
    The threshold was empty.
    There were no footprints on the other side.
    Only a long, narrow passageway with a low ceiling and walls of crumbling brick, and what looked like a staircase rising from the shadows at the opposite end. The floor was hard-packed earth, and the dust of many years blanketed its smooth, unbroken surface.
    No footprints . . .
    No presence . . .
    Nothing.
    Lucy shut her eyes and sagged against the wall.
    Nothing . . . nothing at all.
    And yet someone had opened this door.
    And someone had walked to the bed in the corner.
    And as she and Jared slept in each other’s arms . . . someone had watched.

13
    She had to see where the passageway would take her.
    Leaving the lantern behind, Lucy armed herself with the backpack and extra flashlight and followed the dingy corridor to its end. She had a feeling this was only one small part of the cellar, and the last thing she wanted to do was lose her way. She convinced herself there was no one watching from the closed doors and heavily banked shadows on either side—that the faint whispering was only wind seeping through cracks in the foundation. When she finally reached the staircase, she was so shaky with relief, she could barely make it up the steps.
    The door at the top was unlocked. As Lucy inched it open, she found herself at the back of a closet, surrounded by spiderwebs, mouse droppings, and dead roaches. She felt too grateful to be disgusted. Holding the flashlight toward the floor, she tiptoed out onto a narrow landing, then paused to listen. The building was dark and silent; Mrs. Dempsey had obviously finished her work. Lucy had no trouble sneaking through a series of rooms and hallways until she finally came to a threshold and saw the church altar a short distance beyond.
    The church altar, with Matt right beside it.
    Snapping off the flashlight, Lucy drew back against the wall. Thank God she’d kept the beam angled downward; she didn’t think he’d seen it. But had he heard her? She counted off seconds while she waited, but he obviously wasn’t coming to investigate. Her stomach tightened as she tried to think.
    Surely Matt couldn’t have been in the cellar just now. Sneaking and spying and listening at doors. He would have said something, he would have offered to help. And he certainly wouldn’t have had a dog with him.
    What a crazy idea . . .
    She chanced another look through the doorway. Candles burned on the altar, casting bizarre shapes along the walls and vaulted ceiling. Matt’s face was lowered, angled slightly to the right. He seemed to be studying a small object in his hands, though Lucy couldn’t tell what it was. After a while he placed it on the