"I hope you're right. There's damn little room to move in there with a train going through." Jake grimaced and studied the sky. “It's not going to get much brighter. Not with all this rain."
"It won't matter. Monica will have no choice but to rest soon,” Michael said, studying the tunnel. “Are you certain Monica's inside, Nikki? No one else?"
She wondered if he could sense something that she could not. The locket pulsed in her hand, and heat washed over her skin. Heat and hunger. Monica's, not Jasper's.
"Oh yes,” she replied softly. “I'm certain."
Jake switched on the flashlight and walked towards the tunnel, becoming one with the gloom. An odd prickle ran across the back of her neck.
"It's not too late to turn back, Nikki."
Yes, it is. She gripped the barrel of the flashlight tighter and walked forward. Michael kept close, and she felt safer for it. Yet instinct warned it wasn't going to be enough to save her. She ignored the quick thrust of foreboding and watched the beam from Jake's flashlight dance across the darkness. Her own paled by comparison, barely piecing the gloom on either side. Maybe she should have stopped and bought some new batteries.
Their footsteps echoed though the silence. Would Monica hear them and flee? Would she even care?
The tunnel swung to the right, and the darkness fully encased them. Past escapades returned to haunt her, and she swung the light to the left. There had been a break in the wall near here, somewhere. She'd fled into it once in the face of an oncoming train.
Jake stopped so abruptly she almost ran into him.
"Hole in the wall,” he said, shifting his grip on the stake he held. “Wait here. I'll check it out." Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she watched him disappear. Though she couldn't sense anyone in the hole, it was better to be sure.
Michael stood behind her, as silent and still as the darkness around them. Yet he reminded her of a coiled spring. He sensed danger ahead, like her.
Jake returned. “Nothing,” he said, sounding oddly relieved. “Only rubbish."
"Monica's still ahead.” She swept the light across the darkness surrounding them. She'd heard no sound, yet she had a sudden sense of movement. The forces of evil gathered out there in the darkness.
"How far ahead?” Jake's question jostled harshly against the silence.