Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall) (8 page)

Then she disappeared into her office again, telling Reed to leave at four.

When Reed had finished her work, her resolve about no more snooping began to dwindle. Why had she taken this job, anyway? To get close to a famous author, to learn the tricks of the writing trade, to find out how McCoy dug into the “dark side” of characters. None of that was happening. She was just a glorified errand-person, answering letters and the telephone—when it worked. If Carl and the other assistants had quit, it probably had nothing to do with the sinister rumors. They’d probably left from sheer boredom.

And here, sitting on either side of her, were drawers crammed full of fascinating notes and rough drafts and maybe letters from McCoy’s publisher with information about the publishing process itself.

A treasure trove of information, within easy reach.

Unlocked.

If she wasn’t going to learn anything, this job was a waste of time. She could be on campus having fun instead of sitting in this cold, gloomy room pecking away at an ancient typewriter. And if she wasn’t going to learn anything, why should she care if McCoy caught her snooping and fired her?

McCoy was safely in her office. The cover was on the bird cage, so Poe couldn’t spy on her and shriek an alert, which Reed didn’t doubt for a second he would do. And in the past two days, the author hadn’t emerged from her office once, not even for a few minutes.

Slowly, carefully, Reed placed her fingers around the brass handle on the bottom left desk drawer and slowly, carefully, pulled it open.

A soft breath of disappointment slid from between her lips.

The drawer was empty.

The manuscripts had been removed.

McCoy had been telling the truth when she’d said she didn’t trust anyone.

Closing that drawer, Reed opened all of the other drawers, slowly, quietly, one at a time. It took her only a few seconds to realize that nothing in them was of any importance. Old letters, all addressed in longhand, probably from friends or fans. No journals or diaries that might have told Reed something about the author and how she worked. Newspaper clippings, some old, some new, faded matchbook covers, parcel post labels, outdated calendars with no jottings on them … there was nothing in any of the drawers that seemed the least bit interesting to Reed.

She closed the top right drawer and leaned back in her chair, disappointment etched across her face.

The fan club members were counting on her to bring back information about the author and how she worked. They would all rather have been in her place, but since that wasn’t possible, they expected her to fill them in on the details of a writer’s life.

Ha. She had no information to
give
them. Except what she’d already said. “Victoria McCoy disappears inside her office, puts her headphones on so she can listen to horror-movie music without disturbing anyone else in the house, and doesn’t come back out.”

Well, that would certainly thrill everyone. Especially Jude. He’d say, “That’s it? That’s all you can find out? What good are you?”

Aimlessly, Reed thrust out her leg and toed open the bottom left-hand drawer again. There was a small jumble of looseleaf pages and index cards and notepaper left in its depths. No manuscripts, but … might as well check it out.

A grocery list … milk, eggs, squash, tomatoes … two index cards with what looked like possible titles of books scribbled across the top two lines … a thank-you note from someone named Marjorie, and a medium-sized white envelope, its flap closed but not glued shut.

Reed picked up the envelope, flipped it open. Inside was a small, folded sheet of lined notebook paper. Aware that she was invading someone’s privacy but past the point of caring, Reed unfolded the sheet.

In an uneven scrawl, in pencil, someone had written,
Now that I know the truth, I’m afraid I will never leave this place alive.

There was no signature, no way of knowing who had penned the words.

Reed swallowed hard. What a horrible thing! To know in advance that you were going to die because of something you learned. Sounded like one of McCoy’s books …

She sat up straighter in her chair, her eyes bright with interest. Of course! McCoy must have jotted this down. A germ of an idea? The tiniest beginning of one of her books? Or had it been an ending?

Either way, it was
something.
McCoy probably carried one of those small spiral notebooks around with her, the kind you could flip open in a hurry, and jotted down ideas as they came to her, in the grocery store, out in the woods, in her office, at night when she awakened from a deep sleep.

Which book was it from? Reed strained to recall which McCoy plot had been centered around someone being afraid they’d never leave a place because they knew too much. Not
The Wheelchair
or
Cat’s Play.
Maybe
Pitfall?
The blackmailing captive in that book had certainly known too much.

That could be it.

Or it could even be an idea that had been discarded.

That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, though. Reed wanted to believe that an entire novel had sprung from the piece of paper she was holding in her hand.

She’d take it to the next meeting, see what everyone else thought about what she’d found. No one was going to miss a tiny little piece of paper that had been lying in the bottom of a desk drawer for who knew how long. She slipped it into her jeans pocket and closed the drawer.

Although it was only three forty-five, she decided to leave. If she was going to be sitting around, she’d rather be sitting around in her room. McCoy wouldn’t even know she’d gone.

But she’d barely set foot outside the house when her spine began to tingle. It wasn’t dark yet, but the pine trees were so tall, they blocked out the light. It might as well have been night. Maybe she should have waited for Link, after all.

Telling herself she was being silly, that there was nothing in the pine grove that hadn’t been there earlier that day, Reed took a deep breath and left the safety of the house.

It was cold, very cold. The sky overhead was slate-gray and the air smelled of more snow to come. Reed glanced up nervously, scanning the tops of the pine trees for any sign of black, flapping wings, even though Poe had been sleeping in his cage when she left. Something didn’t feel right, but she had no idea what it was. Maybe it was just that this was the first time she’d walked back from the house alone.

Her mother would say, “It’s from reading too many McCoy novels.”

Reed smiled to herself and took another step forward.

And the ground opened up beneath her and there was nothing but air under her feet and she was falling, falling …

R
EED FELL, FEET FIRST,
down a long, dark shaft so narrow that her arms, flailing wildly, slammed against the walls as she fell. Too breathless with shock to scream, she let out only a series of small, terrified gasps. Her hands grasped outward for something to clutch, something to stop her dizzying descent. But there was nothing. Nothing but air.

When she landed, every last breath was knocked out of her. Her legs slammed into the ground first. Pain shot up her body from her feet to the top of her head, and she cried out. Her body folded in upon itself like an accordion, crumpling into a heap at the bottom of the hole.

Reed had no idea how long she lay there, stunned and aching. When she finally roused herself, her eyes met nothing but darkness. She was surrounded by damp, icy cold. She tilted her head upward, groaning in pain with the effort, and saw that the light at the mouth of the shaft was not as far away as she’d expected. Still, although she hadn’t fallen so very far, after all, it seemed like miles. And if there wasn’t a way out, it might as well
be
miles.

But, of course, there had to be a way out.

Where
was
she? Why had the ground gone out from underneath her like that? She’d walked along exactly the same path she’d taken before from the house. Had the hole always been there? If it had, why hadn’t she stumbled across it sooner? And why hadn’t Rain warned her about it?

Something soft and furry scuttled across her right hand. She screamed and jumped to her feet, shaking the thing off, and then screamed again as lightning bolts of pain zigzagged up her legs.

But I’m not dead, she told herself, bending to gingerly check her legs. The bones seemed intact. I’m not dead. I hurt all over, and I hate this place, and I don’t know how I’m going to get out, but I’m not dead.

But she couldn’t stay here. It was so cold, she could freeze to death in no time at all.

She had to get a grip. When the dizziness left her, she would have to climb back out.

But when she put her hands out, some time later, to search the walls of her dank, dark pit, her fingers touched only smooth, cold cement. Nothing to grip. Nothing to dig her fingers into to haul herself up to the surface.

Reed forced herself to stay calm, deliberately evening out her breathing to keep from panicking. There could be a ladder. There
had
to be a ladder. There had to be some way she could climb out of this awful dark hole in the ground.

This pit.

There was no ladder.

And although she tried again and again, placing her palms flat against the wall in an effort to gain some traction, each time her hands slid free. The cement walls of her pit were so smooth, they might as well have been buttered.

Her legs ached unbearably. And it was so very cold.

Giving up, letting tears of frustration and fear slide down her cheeks, Reed sank to the ground hopelessly.

How long did it take to freeze to death?

“Reed?”

When she heard her name called the first time, Reed was sure she had imagined it. She wanted out of this awful place so badly, she was hearing things.

But it came again. Link’s voice. “Reed, are you down there?”

She pulled herself to her feet. “Yes! Yes, I am! Get me out, please!”

“Are you okay?”

She could see his face then, peering over the edge of the pit. “Yes, I think so. Just get me out. Hurry!”

“I’ll have to go get a rope.”

“No, wait!”

“At McCoy’s. Hang on!”

When his face disappeared, Reed felt sick. Someone had been there, and now no one was. She was alone again.

But she knew he’d had no choice. He couldn’t get her out without a rope.

When Link returned, Rain was with him. He leaned over the edge of the pit, his face white with fear. “Reed? Reed, are you okay?”

“I
told
you she’s okay,” Link said impatiently, “now help me with this rope. We’ve got to get her out of there.”

It seemed to take forever. They dropped a rope for Reed to tie around her waist. Then, when it was secure, they hauled her up. The shaft was so narrow, Reed kept banging against the cement walls. She tried to help by pushing with her hands against the cement, scraping the skin off her palms.

Finally, she was close enough to the lip of the hole to pull herself up over the edge. She lay there, panting heavily, thinking that the ground had never, ever felt so good to anyone.

“This is really irresponsible!” Link fumed, helping Reed to her feet. “She could have been killed! What’s the matter with you people, anyway? Don’t you know how dangerous an open well is?”

“I don’t understand this,” Rain said slowly, his eyes searching the surrounding area. “This is the old well for our property. But it’s been covered ever since we moved in. What happened to the lid?”

Although Link briefly helped in the search, they didn’t find the lid.

“I can’t believe this,” Rain muttered. “I never thought … are you sure you’re okay, Reed?”

Reed nodded, too exhausted to think about where the well cover might have gone. Her legs ached and her back hurt and her head throbbed.

Link wanted to take her to the infirmary, but she declined. “I hurt all over, but I can tell nothing’s broken. Just bruised and battered. I need a couple of aspirin and my own bed, that’s all.”

“You’d better find that cover and get it back on,” Link warned Rain, “before someone else falls in there, and isn’t as lucky as Reed was.”

Reed didn’t feel the least bit lucky. But she knew he was right. If he hadn’t come looking for her, if it had begun snowing and the snow had fallen fast and furiously, as it sometimes did, if … She shuddered. Better not to think about “if.”

“I’d been looking all over for you,” Link told her as he helped her along the path to campus. “Didn’t you hear me yelling?”

“Not until you got to the well. How did you know I was down there?”

“Your pack. It was on the ground, and then I saw the hole and—” he squeezed Reed’s arm, “I thought for sure you were dead. Did you leave work early? Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“I don’t know,” Reed answered honestly. “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” Link said, his voice grim.

Although Victoria McCoy phoned later that day, while Reed was resting in her room, to express her horror over the incident and to offer Reed a few days off, Reed didn’t take her up on the offer.

“No permanent damage,” she said, knowing even as she said it that she would have more than one nightmare about her stay in the well. “I don’t need any time off, but thanks, anyway.”

“We’ve already replaced the cover,” the author assured her. “I can’t imagine what became of the old one. I’m so glad you weren’t seriously injured.”

Tell my
legs
that, Reed thought, reaching for the bottle of aspirin on her nightstand.

But she knew how lucky she’d been. She could remember, now that she was safe, that one horrible, fleeting moment during her descent down that well shaft, when the thought that she might not survive the fall had occurred to her.

A horrible feeling, knowing that you might be dying and being completely helpless to do anything to stop it.

Nothing she had ever read in McCoy’s books had prepared her for that feeling.

You left that part out, McCoy, she thought as exhaustion overtook her. You shouldn’t have left that part out.

The next day she was sore and stiff, but she went to classes and then on to McCoy’s, carefully avoiding the spot where the old well was located. When she came back out at four o’clock, Link, true to his word, was waiting for her at the edge of the grove.