The Shattered Seam (Seam Stalkers Book 1)

by Kathleen Groger

  I didn’t have to worry about blood or bugs or birds. Didn’t have to worry about shadows choking me. Didn’t have to worry about my uncle being dragged away by ghosts. Didn’t have to worry about dying.

  But Brett needed me. If what took Eric had pulled Brett into the mausoleum, I had to save him. I didn’t know how to be a hero. I didn’t know how to fix what had gone wrong. I’d failed Chauncey. Failed Eric. I couldn’t fail Brett.

  Nana wouldn’t have second-guessed going into the tomb. She’d always put others first. I needed to be more like her. I spun the charred bracelet. I needed to ignore how utterly, totally, completely freaked out I was. I needed to figure out how to defeat the spirits from beyond.

  And save everyone.

  I ran toward the building, jumped the two steps, and stopped. The entire structure was made from gray stone. Wiry hedges grew on either side of the entrance. Three glass windows spanned the length of the door. I peered inside, looking for Brett, but didn’t see him. I pulled the door open.

  “Brett? What are you doing? Come back outside,” I yelled into the darkness. The mausoleum had to be about the size of a two-car garage. “Let’s stay in the light and figure out how to get free of the maze.”

  Brett didn’t answer me. I sighed, pulled out my flashlight, and clicked it on. I ignored the dried blood covering my hand. If I didn’t, I would totally freak out and not be able to keep going. I shined the light inside. Six black marble tombs, three on each side, lined the inside. The tombs themselves reached about six feet high. Four glass skylights let a small amount of light into the mausoleum.

  “Brett, answer me,” I pleaded, a whine in my voice.

  “Help me. They’re pulling me deeper.” His voice was filled with despair and desperation.

  “Who is? Are you hurt? What’s going on?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I shined my light around the space. A bloody handprint decorated the first tomb. Crap, Brett was bleeding. Maybe he wacked his head and that’s why he was acting strangely. I searched for anything to jam in the door to keep it from closing behind me, but there was nothing. I turned and wedged my flashlight in between the door and the stone floor.

  “Sam.”

  I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The temperature immediately cooled, and shivers tingled across my skin. The air smelled damp and moldy, and there was a spicy scent I couldn’t place. Like pepper mixed with dry leaves.

  My flashlight’s beam across the floor and the skylights didn’t provide enough light to take away the shadows. I reached in my pocket and took out the four-inch glow stick Daniel had given me. The only time I had ever used one was years ago when Dad hung one around my neck on Halloween as I trick or treated. I cracked the stick, and a greenish glow made the mausoleum that much scarier.

  “Brett, where are you?”

  I stepped forward, stood between the first two tombs, and scanned down the aisle on either side. The glow stick’s faint light bounced off paintings of people and demons covering the walls. It reminded me of a funhouse version of the insides of the pyramids in Egypt.

  Darkness suddenly surrounded me. I glanced up. The skylights were covered. I spun around. The outside light faded until it disappeared. I ran back to the door. The wiry hedges had shifted and blocked any path to escape. The hedge wall grew several feet from the steps and seemed to grow up over the top of the building.

  I had to be imagining it. I went forward and stuck my hand into the green wall of vines, hoping to push through. It was no use. They were thick as a brick wall. The branches and thorns cut at my already bloody skin. I pulled back. The hedges shifted and crept closer to me. One long branch slithered up the steps and across the stone floor. I ducked back into the doorway. The branch curled around my boot. My breath caught and I yanked my foot free. Another branch crept inside.

  I bent down and tugged at my flashlight. I couldn’t believe I was trying to shut the door. Trying to lock myself inside the mausoleum.

  “Brett, can you help me?” My words echoed around the stone building and went unanswered.

  The branches creeping inside multiplied. I had to get the damn thing shut. I kicked at the flashlight, and after the third blow, it finally broke free. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and tugged on the door. The branches dug into my arms and wrapped around my boots, climbing up my ankles.

  “Come on, you bitch.” The hedges had latched onto the metal cross bar and refused to let me close it. Again and again I tried.

  With one last yank, I managed to get it to move. As it closed, the branches released me and shot back out under the doorway. I leaned against the one glass window and exhaled. I grabbed the flashlight. Pieces of it clanged against the stone floor. It was busted.

  A tap on the glass startled me. I jerked back and stared at one of the faceless statues from the clearing looking back at me. What was happening? The statues couldn’t move, could they?

  My mouth went dry, and I went deeper into the mausoleum.

  “Brett?” I reached the middle two tombs, and the name on the plaque made my heart almost stop. It said Randall Smead. Covering my mouth to keep from screaming, I spun around and held the glow stick at the tomb across the way. It read Eric York.

  No. No. No.

  “Not real. Not real.” I whispered the words as I searched for Brett in the next aisle. Then I faced the last tomb on my left. When I read Samantha Drake on this plaque, my hands shook so much, I dropped the glow stick. I stumbled back until I hit the other marble tomb.

  The door rattled. The floor of the mausoleum shook. The hedges broke through the door windows. Glass shattered and rained from the skylights. Branches and vines fell and started covering the walls and the floor.

  Avoiding the glass and branches, I scrambled to my feet and swiped the glow stick. I was trapped. I ran to the back wall of the building. The coat of arms with the lions standing on the clock covered the center of the wall. The greenish glow from the light highlighted the time on the clock face. 2:13.

  Branches shot across the floor at me. I turned to the right and almost fell into an opening in the floor. A broken stone slab had been shoved to the side, exposing the hole. I bent down and held the glow stick in front of me. The light reflected off a set of stone stairs.

  A burning sensation started at my breastbone and spread across the rest of my chest. I glanced back. The branches kept filling the building. I didn’t have a choice. I had to go down.

  I climbed into the opening and went down the slick steps. My boots slipped, and I crashed to the bottom. The sound of branches creeping into the hole made me jump up. The glow stick reflected off the two-by-two blocks that made up the walls and the floor. Puddles of dark water stood here and there. Tunnels spread out to my left, my right, forward, and back.

  It was another goddamn maze.

  Except this one was underground, and probably had a lake of water around it. The fact that the walls looked really old made me feel a tad less worried about the water crashing through. This had to be part of the original prison camp.

  “Brett? Where are you?”

  A wall of icy air sliced through me, leaving me gasping for air. My legs shook. Panic tightened my chest, making breathing a chore.

  Who was I kidding? I’d gotten lost in the maze, and I was going to get lost in the dark tunnels. I was going to die underground.

  No more negative thoughts. Negative thoughts wouldn’t help.

  I could do this. I was strong. I was fierce.

  No, I wasn’t. I was trapped in a cage designed by a madman. I searched the tunnel for a weapon, but there wasn’t anything there. Just the two-by-two stone blocks. Then I remembered the part in Novak’s journal about him using stones from the haunted castle in the Czech Republic and Eric saying the stones might have evil entities attached to them.

  The tunnel twisted and turned, then it split. I had to decide again. Since my plan to go in the same direction in the maze had failed, I went left. I continued to call for Brett, but
he didn’t answer. I hoped he found the way out and was sitting on his ass in the castle, drinking another bottle of vodka.

  The left tunnel snaked around in a series of S-curves. I was about to turn back when the tunnel opened up to a chamber lit with an ethereal blue light. The area was about the size of a classroom at school. Wooden crates, stacked to the low ceiling, lined the walls. The crates had to be three feet deep, leaving only about a six-foot path down the middle. The sound of dripping water surrounded me. I had no idea if Novak or Mother Nature created this, but either way, the place reminded me of the last scene of that old movie where they hid the Ark of the Covenant in a warehouse.

  I gazed up at the ceiling of the cavern. Stalactites hung in a dizzying array of beauty. Blue light, coming from someplace I couldn’t see, highlighted how the mineral formations varied in color from pinks to corals to grays and to purplish-blue. My racing heart slowed to match the hypnotic rhythm of the dripping water.

  One of the crates sat alone in the center of the cavern. I walked to it, pushed on the lid, then sat down and exhaled. I breathed in a deep, calming breath. The air seemed to warm, and the scent of fall at Nana’s house wrapped around me like a blanket. A vanilla-apple-cinnamon blanket of love. A feeling of peace I hadn’t felt since arriving on the island almost lulled me to sleep.

  I shook off the sensation, stood, stretched, and surveyed the crates to keep myself alert. I walked to the closest stack. The one on top looked old. Really old, as if it had been stuck in the underground cavern for a hundred years. Common sense said to ignore it, but there might be something inside I could use as a weapon.

  I stuck the glow stick under my arm and pulled at the lid. The nails holding it in place squeaked, then gave way. I slid the top to the side and shined the light into the nest of packing shavings. When I moved aside the material, it gave off a funky scent of dry leaves and neglect.

  I pulled out a glass jar filled with corn and removed another jar of what might be pickles. I gave the rest of the crate a quick search and saw only jars of old food in that crate and the next two I opened. No weapons.

  I moved away from the crates and brushed the stone wall. Flashes of men dressed in torn uniforms filled the chamber. The men were beaten and bloody and broken.

  Their mouths hung open in silent screams. Their bellies were ripped apart, and their guts spilled out between their fingers.

  I gagged. I was going to be sick. I pushed myself flat against the wall.

  The wounded soldiers came closer. Their insides dripped out and dropped to the ground.

  26

  I tried to scream or throw up, but only managed to sob. I tightened my grip on the glow stick and swung at the closest wounded man. It went through him.

  I swallowed hard, forcing the burning bile down, then I reached out. My hand went through him. Iciness cut across my skin.

  I didn’t touch the scarred, torn cheek of the man. I didn’t touch his tattered, blood-stained uniform.

  The soldiers had to be a vision, like the blood and the woman.

  I moved away from the wall. The soldiers disappeared.

  I touched the stone wall again; the soldiers returned. I yanked my hand away. They disappeared again.

  Holy hell. The images were attached to the stones. What Eric had said about entities clinging to limestone was real. Was everything real? Or was I seeing part reality and part of Marisol’s Seam? The line between medium and psychotic seemed blurry and totally crossable. I looked at my hands. The blood was gone. The visions seemed crazy. Maybe I really was schizophrenic. I picked up the jar of corn.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The sound came from the crates. The tapping multiplied as I heard it from the crates in front of me, from the ones to my right and left and from the jar in my hands. I didn’t want to look, but I had to.

  A black bird flapped inside it, pecking at the glass. His glossy eyes rolled and stared at me. The bird pecked again. The glass split, cracks running across it like veins.

  I dropped the jar, and it smashed into tiny pieces. The bird squawked and took flight.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Crack. Crack. Crack.

  The crate on top of the pile closest to me fell and broke open. Jars filled with pecking birds rolled out.

  Something yanked my hair. A chain of fear wrapped around my chest. I screamed and reached up. My fingers grazed smooth feathers.

  I screamed. The bird ripped out a hunk of my hair and flapped away. The chain cinched tighter. The piles of crates crashed and smashed, releasing cracked jar after cracked jar. They were breaking free. Free to attack.

  The pile of fallen crates blocked the way I’d come. My only other option was forward. I ran down the tunnel. Rounding a sharp curve, I spotted a charred door. More birds squawked. The rustle of wings came closer.

  I prayed the door was unlocked and stretched to grab the handle.

  Pain stabbed across the back of my left thigh, like I had been jabbed with a needle. I cried out, reached back, and pulled, tearing the bird’s beak from my thigh. My blood spattered on the stone walls. Dizziness spun me around. I had a bird in my hands. I tossed the vile thing. It made a high-pitched gurgling noise and tried to fly, but its wing was broken.

  The tapping, cracking, squawking, flapping sounds grew louder.

  I pushed the door open, crashed through without any thought to what was on the other side, then slammed it shut, ignoring the stinging pain in my thigh.

  Rhat-a-tat-tat.

  The sound exploded like rapid-fire gun shots. Black shards poked through the door: bird beaks.

  I held up the glow stick, but it didn’t give much light to the long dark tunnel. I needed to bar the door before the birds punched through, but there was nothing, just the stone walls.

  I ran down the damp tunnel, my boots thwacking water with each step. I reached a bend in the tunnel and skidded to a stop. A body wearing a blue shirt blocked part of the path. No.

  I couldn’t go back, had to go forward.

  My stomach rolled. The now permanent lump in my throat grew in size. The urge to throw up made my cheeks tingle.

  I walked one foot in front of the other, gripping the glow stick tighter.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered the words, but they echoed off the walls like a shout.

  I squatted and rolled him over. I covered my mouth and stumbled back, not noticing the cold and wet creeping into my skin.

  Brett’s beaten and bloody body didn’t move. His right eye was missing. Torn optical nerves hung from the socket. His lips had been ripped off by something sharp, leaving a bloody gash around his teeth.

  Forcing myself closer, I pressed trembling fingers to his clammy neck. No pulse. I yanked my hand back. A flashlight stuck out of his pocket.

  The birds cried out, and wings flapped behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut, took the flashlight, and jumped over Brett. If I didn’t move, I was going to end up just like him. I turned on the light and ran.

  I tore down the curving tunnel. It expanded in size to about fifteen feet wide. The dirt floor of the tunnel turned black in front of me and shimmered with a faint light. I slid to a stop, with only inches to spare.

  There was a lake of water on the floor. About twenty feet ahead, stone steps led to another door. It was just water. I could walk through it. And if it was too deep, I could always swim.

  I searched the ground for anything I could toss in the water to test its depth. I spotted something against the wall and reached down to pick up the piece of fabric. A dirty yellow dress for a doll. My stomach rolled at the thought of a child being down here.

  A screech echoed through the tunnel. I had to hurry.

  I threw the glow stick into the middle of the giant puddle. It splashed, then resurfaced, held up between two white finger bones.

  I dropped to the ground, hugged my knees, and kept the flashlight pointed toward the bones. They stayed still for a minute, then slipped back into the black water, the green glow fading away. Tears filled my
eyes.

  Whispering female voices filled the air around me. I could only understand a few words, but they were enough to freak me out. “Murder … power … witch … one of us.”

  If I went back, the birds would shred me to pieces. Going forward meant wading into bone-filled water. No one would ever know where to find me. I was going to die alone, sitting by the water.

  Something pinged in my brain.

  Sitting by the water. What about the water? That meant something. What? I’d heard the phrase “sitting by the water” recently. Where?

  Think.

  The music box’s melody slipped into my brain.

  Amelia. Her song. Her paper.

  I took the blue sheet from my pocket and shined the flashlight at the lines and angles.

  She’d said I would need this. I smoothed the paper out on my knees and stared at it, trying to determine its meaning.

  The voices grew louder, and I swore I heard them say, “Amelia.”

  I traced the lines with my index finger. Straight, curve, two lines spread apart, then together, curve, turn, spread again, together again … Oh. My. God.

  It was a map. A map of the tunnels.

  I shook off questions about Amelia and figured out where I was. The map showed a darkened circle with a slash through it in front of my position: the water. And on the other side of the circle was a rectangle: the door.

  No other signs of an exit. I was still screwed. I traced the line again. The one along the left edge of the circle was darker than the one on the right.

  I grabbed the map, stood, and rushed to the water’s edge. I spotted a section of stone that descended into the water. These stones were different. They were white and much smaller than the ones that had given me the vision of the soldiers.

  But there was nothing here. No path, no ladder, no escape.

  Amelia had given me the map. She’d said I’d need it. I focused the beam where the water lapped the wall. Where? Where? There. A narrow ledge. That had to be the way to reach the door. I stuffed the paper back in my pocket and wished Amelia was here so I could kiss her.