get that and an extension cord.
Before I go, I try one last time, leaning into the hole as far as I dare.
My flashlight beam catches on those boot buttons again. I strain to remember Teddy’s boots in the vision. Had he—?
Something hits me between the shoulder blades, sharp and fast and hard. My hands shoot out, dropping the flashlight as I instinctively grab for the edge. My fingers slide over wood, and then I’m clawing, madly clawing as I fall headfirst down the shaft.
34
I slam into the bottom. Pain explodes through me, and my first thought is: I am dead. I’ve hit the stone foundation headfirst, and I am dead.
I’m lying on my side, pain coursing through my head, my shoulder, my hip. I managed to twist as I fell, and I’m not sure what part hit first. Everything hurts, but I can move. I am alive.
I try to push up on one arm and—pain rips through it. Fresh panic sparks. I’ve fallen fifteen feet onto stone. I’ve broken my neck or snapped my spine, something that means I can’t rise. I’ll never rise again. I’m trapped here in the walls of Thorne Manor, paralyzed—
My arm quivers and screams with pain, but my foot strikes the wall with a dull thud. I focus on moving my foot, and it hits the wall with another thud. I fall back to the floor, exhaling in relief.
In the event of spinal injury, do not move the victim. I’ve read that countless times, yet I have no idea why it’s so dangerous to move. Books never explain that part, and I barely passed high school biology.
But if I don’t move, I’ll be trapped here, pinned between these walls, my damned phone left in the kitchen—
Take a deep breath . . .
Pain sears through me as I inhale.
I pause and focus. Is it sharp pain, as if a lung is pierced? Another careful breath. No. It’s the duller pain of injured muscles.
Relax and focus.
Do not panic.
Do not go into shock.
Is it possible to go into shock from a fall? Again, I have no idea. Just one more thing to worry about, one more specter looming over me.
Specter . . .
Had an intruder snuck up behind me? That makes more sense than “a ghost pushed me,” but I would have heard footsteps. I would have felt the heat of living flesh through my thin shirt.
Does it matter who pushed me? Not right now.
I need to stand. If my spine is injured, surely my body will send a warning shot of pain to tell me to stay still.
I’ll take it slow. Put my hand down, brace myself and lift—
A twinge of pain as my wrist snaps back, my hand half-resting on a rounded stone. I brush that aside, and it clatters across the ground, a hollow sound that prickles the hair on my neck. Beneath me, I feel more rocks and sticks, and I reach down to touch one. My fingers run over a sharp broken end and down the smooth sides.
I go still, my heart pounding. I tentatively find the “stone” again and run my hands along to discover it’s the bulbous end of a bone. An arm bone shorter than my forearm.
The bone of a half-grown child.
I hunt for my flashlight, flinching each time I touch bone. When my hand slides over a smooth globe, my breath hitches. My fingers find the eye sockets, the missing jaw, extinguishing any doubt of what it is.
I reverently set the skull aside and keep feeling for my flashlight. I find it lying atop half-rotted fabric. When I flick the switch, nothing happens. I smack it against my hand . . . and it blinks on.
The beam illuminates bones and clothing. The remains of a nine-year-old boy.
Hands trembling, I force myself to examine the bones, searching for some sign of how Teddy died. There’s a depression in the skull, and several of the vertebrae have separated. The last might mean nothing—no tissue connects them, and my fall could have jolted them apart. That skull depression isn’t as damning as it seems, either. It could indicate a blow to the head, or it could simply be from the fall. Either way, Teddy didn’t die slowly, trapped in here, alone and afraid. I can banish that horror from my mind. His body was dumped here.
Harold led Teddy upstairs, murdered him and dumped his body in the hole.
Why? I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter. No one will stand trial for