Chapter 11 - THE DEAD SHERIFF

The footsteps came closer.

“Mara?”

The voice sounded patient.

Ezra killed the lantern.

Darkness swallowed them.

Caleb began laughing softly.

Mara whispered, “Why would it use him?”

“Because Cole came looking for me after Ruth disappeared.”

“What happened?”

“I warned him.”

“And?”

“He went into the lower chamber.”

The footsteps stopped outside their hiding place.

A flashlight beam crossed the tunnel.

Then a man stepped into view.

Brown sheriff’s jacket.

Gray mustache.

Badge.

Mara had seen photographs of Cole in the town hall.

He looked exactly the same.

Exactly the same.

“Mara,” he said gently. “You’re safe now.”

Ezra shook his head violently.

The sheriff looked at him.

“You should’ve stayed buried.”

Ezra made a sound like a wounded animal.

Mara raised the iron poker.

Cole smiled.

“You think iron matters forever?”

His jaw opened slightly too wide.

Black filaments moved behind his teeth.

Mara swung.

Cole dodged with impossible speed.

He hit her hard enough to send her against the wall.

Caleb screamed from the floor.

Ezra lunged with the lantern.

Cole grabbed him.

“Run!”

Mara grabbed Caleb’s rope.

She dragged him toward the lower tunnel.

Behind her, Ezra shouted.

Then silence.

Mara stopped.

“Ezra!”

A voice answered.

“Mara, keep going.”

Ezra.

She almost turned.

Then the voice repeated with perfect calm.

“Keep going.”

Too calm.

Mara knew.

Ezra was gone.

She dragged Caleb faster.

The tunnel sloped downward.

The air grew warmer.

A low vibration filled the stone.

Caleb whispered, “You feel that?”

“Yes.”

“The heart.”

The tunnel opened into a vast cavern.

Black water filled most of it.

In the center rose a column of pale stone covered in thousands of thin moving fibers.

They entered cracks in the walls like roots.

Mara stared.

“That’s alive.”

Caleb’s body went rigid.

The ropes snapped against his wrists.

He looked at the pulsing mass.

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Then smiled.

“Home.”