Chapter 8
Last night, when I dragged Marcus down into the subfloor, the draft had been running inward, sucked into the cellar by the furnace intake.
Now, with the heating system crippled and the exterior temperature plunging, the heat differential had inverted. The damp, warm air trapped beneath the floorboards was rising, pushing outward through those rusted foundation grates like smoke from an unbaffled kiln.
And drifting out with it was the smell.
The smell of Marcus’s opened flesh.
I spun on my heels and bolted down the darkened hallway to face the dark beneath the floorboards.
The lock clicked into the brass strike plate with the finality of a guillotine blade.
I stood in the vestibule, pressing my back flat against the cold mahogany, my chest heaving against ribs that felt cracked from the inside out. My breath came in thin, ragged whistles that burned all the way down to my diaphragm.
Outside, the mountain was supposed to be empty.
It wasn't.
Through the narrow leaded glass sidelight, I saw them. Hank’s bloodhounds hadn’t stayed in the ravine.
Down in the hemlock hollow, the wind had abruptly sheered, curling back up the granite ridge like a draft through a cracked chimney. The lead hound—a massive, ninety-pound redbone with sagging jowls and eyes like wet marbles—had thrown his muzzle skyward, caught the air current, and let out a sound that turned my marrow to slush.
A long, hollow, baying howl.
*Awooooo-oo-oo.*
The second dog took up the cry immediately, a frantic, frantic yelping that tore through the pines.
Through the trees, I saw Hank’s fluorescent orange hunting vest jerk violently forward as the dogs hit the leashes, nearly pulling the old man off his feet. He stumbled into the brambles, shouting, fighting for footing on the glazed pine needles.
“Miller!” Hank’s voice carried through the fog, raw and echoing off the foundation stones. “Miller, get up here! They ain't heading down the wash—they’re throwing back toward the north grade! They got a hard line!”
Deputy Miller’s heavy Carhartt frame appeared at the edge of the gravel drive, jogging with that heavy, awkward, gun-belt-laden gait. “What do you mean, north grade? Clara said he went down the timber cut!”
“The wind’s carrying it!” Hank yelled back, his arms straining against the twin leather straps. “They’re pulling toward the house, Miller! They’re tracking right to the crawlspace skirt!”
A scream of pure animal terror threatened to tear out of my throat, but I caught it behind clamped teeth, tasting copper and bile.
The crawlspace skirt.
The north side of my foundation was built of rough-cut river stone and concrete blocks, interrupted every ten feet by rectangular crawlspace ventilation grates—corroded steel mesh designed to keep out raccoons and vent the damp mountain air from the earth below the subfloor.
Last night, when I dragged Marcus down into the subfloor, the draft had been running inward, sucked into the cellar by the furnace intake.
Now, with the heating system crippled and the exterior temperature plunging, the heat differential had inverted. The damp, warm air trapped beneath the floorboards was rising, pushing outward through those rusted foundation grates like smoke from an unbaffled kiln.
And drifting out with it was the smell.
The smell of Marcus’s opened flesh.
I spun on my heels and bolted down the darkened hallway.
The house felt like a hollowed-out skull. Every step I took on the bare oak echoed like a rifle shot. I tore past the coat rack, ignoring the sharp twinge in my chemical-scalded hands, and barreled into the pantry.
The three-foot square hatch in the pine subfloor sat wide open, its dark rectangular maw yawning into the black earth beneath.
A wave of air washed up out of the hole, hitting me full in the face.
It was warm. Sickeningly, horrifically warm.
It smelled of wet red clay, scorched electrical wiring, damp hemlock mold, and something sweet and thick—the cloying, unwashed rot of punctured muscle tissue and pooled venous blood.
Outside, the dogs were coming up the grade.
*Clack-clack-clack.* The sound of their claws scrabbling frantically over the shale ledge on the north perimeter.
“Hold ’em, Hank! Don't let ’em foul the perimeter!” Miller was shouting, his voice closer now—maybe forty yards from the stone skirt of the master bedroom.
I didn't have thirty seconds.
I grabbed the heavy magnetic work lantern from the pantry shelf, flicked it onto its lowest beam, and clamped the rubber handle between my teeth.
I swung my legs over the lip of the subfloor hatch and dropped into the dark.
My bare heels hit the cold clay with a soft, wet *thwack*.
The clearance was barely three and a half feet. The ceiling was a jagged grid of rough-sawn pine floor joists, hung with thick festoons of filthy cobwebs and yellow fiberglass insulation that sagged like decaying quilts. Rusted cast-iron plumbing pipes crisscrossed the low ceiling, sweating icy beads of condensation that dripped onto the back of my neck.
I went down on my knees, ignoring the sharp shards of shale and gravel grinding into my kneecaps through the thin fabric of my sweatpants.
I took the lantern from my mouth, keeping the dim yellow beam angled down at the damp earth.
The ground told the entire story.
From the foot of the pantry ladder, a wide, plowed trench carved through the reddish dirt. It was four feet wide, littered with torn insulation and dead leaves that had been dragged in on work boots.
Along the sides of the trench, dark, glistening clots of half-dried blood stood out against the gray dust like drops of motor oil on fresh concrete.
I crawled forward, my back brushing against the rough underside of the subfloor.
*Where had I left him?*
My memory of the blackout was a fractured, strobe-lit hell: the kitchen slider shattering inward under the gale, Marcus lunging through the darkness like an enraged bear, choking, spitting, his hands clawing at my throat with insane, suffocating strength. I remembered the kitchen shears in my fist—the desperate, blind fury with which I had struck out, driving the cold steel into whatever gave way beneath my weight.
I remembered the wet, bubbling sound. The whistle of ruptured tissue. The dead, crushing weight when his body had collapsed against mine, his logging boots kicking against the pantry floorboards in their final, spasming agony.
And then... the crawlspace.
I remembered dragging him by the shoulders of his heavy blue flannel, his dead heels bumping down the ladder rungs, the sheer, primal adrenaline that had allowed me to haul two hundred pounds of dead flesh into the crawlway.
I had dragged him back toward the furnace. Back toward the main galvanized air return trunk line that ran down the center spine of the foundation.
*Tump.*
Above my head, outside the foundation, something heavy hit the stone.
It was a dog’s paw.
Through the rusted wire mesh of the ventilation grate eight feet to my left, I heard it: the wet, snuffling vacuum of a hound’s nose pressed directly against the wire screen.
*Snuff. Snuff. Whuff.*
The sound was so close I could hear the dog’s wet tongue licking the rust off the iron.
Then, the dog went berserk.
