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"This is a nightmare."
"It was for her," Jack said.
And suddenly, the gut-wrenching, bone-numbing fear she had been feeling vanished replaced by a wave
of grief as it hit her that this scary, smelly, partially decomposed body had been a person. A woman, or
even a girl. Brought down here, chained up and&
"Oh, God, there are more," Jack said.
She opened her eyes and saw the light moving around the floor, illuminating another corpse, and then
another, and another. "Sweet Jesus," she whispered. Tears were welling in her eyes. "It's over, I promise
you. God, no wonder you can't rest. No wonder. I promise you, all of this is coming to light. Now."
No.
The word was spoken, she heard it, and yet it felt as if it were not a word at all, but a feeling. A
powerful emotion. She heard the trapdoor slam down, behind and above them.
"The spirits of this place aren't ready to let us leave," Jack whispered.
"Maybe they never will be," Kiley said.
Jack touched her shoulders. "Don't think that way."
"How can I not? God, Jack, we could be trapped down here. We could die the same horrible way they
did." Pulling away from him, she started back along the tunnel, hurrying through the darkness to the
stairway, and seeing just what she had expected to see. The closed door at the top. She went up, pushed
at it, but nothing.
Jack was behind her, his arms around her, and she turned into them, let him hold her. Eventually she
calmed enough to sink onto a step, and he handed her the flashlight and tried to open the door himself,
but it was no use.
Sighing, he sank down beside her. "It's going to be all right. Chris knows we're here, he knows we were
planning to dig."
"You think anyone will find us if these ghosts don't want them to?"
He sighed. "I think they do want us to be found. Just as they wanted to be found themselves. We just
have to wait until they're ready."
"Why the delay? What could they hope to gain?"
He pulled her closer, held her beside him. They sat there on the second step from the bottom, the
terrible stench of death permeating the air. And slowly, Kiley realized that Jack was shivering. At first it
was just a mild ripple, but then it seemed to grow until his entire body vibrated with it. Kiley pulled free of
his embrace to look at him. She lifted the flashlight and he shielded his eyes, averted his face.
"What is it, Jack? What's wrong?"
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"I don't& know."
Kiley swallowed hard. He'd been shaking earlier, during the séance, too. Just like this. No, not this bad.
"What should I do?"
The shaking stopped suddenly, and Jack went very still. His head fell forward, and the rest of his body
tried to follow. Kiley gripped his shoulders and kept him from toppling to the floor. She eased him
backward instead, lowering his head carefully until it rested on a stair, wishing for a pillow. "Jack? Jack,
can you hear me?"
His eyes flashed open then. So suddenly, with such an unnatural look in them that she jerked away from
him.
Blinking, calming herself, she leaned closer again. "Jack?"
She was dizzy as she studied his face. He wasn't responding, but at least he'd stopped shaking. God, she
had to sit down. She sank onto the step again, let her head fall forward. If she could just rest her eyes for
a moment.
But when she lifted her head again she wasn't in the basement anymore. She was upstairs, running herself
a hot bath, alone again, and sad at being always so alone.
Her husband was always going on business trips, and he must think she was pretty stupid if he thought
she didn't realize something more than business was going on. She felt tears hot on her cheeks and
glanced into the mirror.
The face of a beautiful woman looked back at her. Buttery blond hair, piercing, sad eyes. "He doesn't
love me anymore," Sharon Miller whispered through Kiley's lips. "He never touches me. Something's
terribly wrong. There's a coldness in his eyes that wasn't there before."
She turned at the sound of an engine in the driveway. Phil was home early. He would expect her to be
asleep, not up weeping. But she had to confront him, now, tonight, before she lost her courage.
She padded downstairs in her nightgown. Only he didn't come inside. Why wasn't he coming inside?
She moved to the window to peer out at his car in the driveway, and then she noticed that the hatchway
door was open. "What is he doing in the cellar?" she asked herself.
Turning from the window,Sharon went down into the basement. There was a trapdoor in the floor. One
she never knew was there. Oh, God, she could hear a woman crying. Distant, echoing.
Sharon's heart was beating fast. Somewhere deep inside, Kiley was begging her not to go down there.
But she went. She knew she was Kiley, not Sharon, and she knew this was something like being trapped
in someone else's nightmare. But she couldn't wake up and she couldn't make it stop.
Turning, she walked the length of the tunnel, ending in the room of horror, where the young wife of long
ago had no doubt ended up. And then Kiley saw them, throughSharon 's eyes, or was itSharon reliving it
through Kiley's? Women, beautiful young women, chained to the walls. They were dirty, their hair in
tangles. They were naked. One hung limply, dead or close to it, but the others were alive and terrified.
And her husband, the man she had loved, was forcing the new one to her knees, fastening the chains
around her wrists, hitting her when she whimpered and pleaded. "God, what is this?"
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Jack no, not Jack Phil spun around and saw her there.
"Help me," the girl he'd been chaining up begged. "Please, get out and help me!"
Sharonturned to run, but Phil was too fast for her. He caught her before she made it out, flung her to the
floor.
She was frightened. God, she had never been frightened like this. She couldn't believe this was her
husband.
He bent over her, clutched her head between his palms. "You have to understand,Sharon . I have needs.
Dirty, secret needs. You're too fine a woman for me. I could never use you the way I can these filthy
sluts."
"Phillip, they're girls! They're only girls!"
"Whores. I pick them up in the city, bring them here to satisfy my needs. No one misses them, Sharon.
It's just as well I take them out of the world."
"You& kill them?"
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