A knot forms in my stomach. What’s the legality here? If this Monsieur Crane says there are no theatrics, is that binding? We signed waivers this afternoon, but I barely skimmed the page of print. Was there a heart attack clause?
“There are forty of you,” continues Crane. “There will be eight lanterns, including mine. It is easy to get lost in the tunnels. Heed my voice, and heed the light.”
To the right, a yellow glow appears and brightens, grows. The light approaches, illuminating the kilted guard and a woman in a threadbare dress not from this century. They start passing out the lanterns. I push through the crowd toward the light but a hand on my arm stops me. I swivel toward it. “No way!” Whitney, again, is grinning. “We don’t want a light. We want to huddle beside some hunky guy with a light.”
I open my mouth to protest but stop as Whitney shakes her head, a look of determination on her face I know I can’t counter. Twenty years of friendship teaches you some things. Whitney’s smile falters. “You’re not actually scared, are you?”
I bite my lip.
“Babe, we’re going to hear some made up stories, explore a cool old building, then spend an hour mingling with twenty single guys before heading downtown.” She puts a hand to my shoulder, her eyes still twinkling behind a look of concern. “Nothing to be scared of.”
“I know.” I shrug. “But— “
“It’s going to be fun.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Crane has been talking, and the group moves toward him.
“It would have been better if they’d had some mingling first.” Whitney whispers as we shuffle toward a dark hollow. We make our way down steep and uneven steps. “I mean, how are we going to strike up conversation or—”
Whitney tumbles into the arms of one of those broad backed men. Superman, it looks like. She smiles like a damsel as his friend—Batman? —holds up a lantern. “You all right?” Lantern Guy asks.
Whitney nods and bounces her smile between the two men. “Definitely. I guess walking and talking is a hazard on this trip.”
“Just be careful.” Superman is sweet looking, definitely wholesome farm-boy material, complete with a dimple in his left cheek. “The ground is pretty uneven all around here.”
“Have you been on the tour before?”
“In the day.” Their muted chat continues, and I tune them out. Unless something goes wrong, Whitney will be occupied for the rest of the night, and I’m more interested in staying close to the guide than what Batman has to say. I squeeze ahead and stop when Crane stops, in some kind of foyer.
“To our left and right are prison barracks.” His voice reverberates in the darkness. A lantern holder beside me extends his light toward an entrance and I catch sight of small metal cots and small holes in the wall that probably call themselves windows. “Many men entered these rooms. Not all left…alive, that is.”
A girl to my right lets out a nervous little hum. The group splits, crouching through the doorways and exploring the rooms. Crane’s voice seems to follow me wherever I go, telling the tale of a prisoner who came to his demise in the very room I’m standing in. His voice comes closer. An arm sticks out beside me and I pivot. “This,” he says, “is where Lieutenant Daniels took his last breath.” He steps back, his lantern and body turned toward the group. I shuffle away from the bunk he indicated and wrap my arms around myself as he tells a newer tale—a woman, three years ago, on a tour much like this one, except during the day, saw a soldier enter the room then vanish. She didn’t know about the haunted tour. She didn’t know the Citadel was haunted at all, but wanted to know how this supposed staff member, an actor, she thought, had disappeared from the room, when she was standing in the only exit.
Crane lets out a little laugh. A creepy laugh. “At first I thought she was playing a trick. I told her perhaps she’d seen a ghost.” His voice lowers. “But she described the soldier in such detail. The uniform. None of our staff wear a costume like the one she described. But Lieutenant Daniels, his uniform would have fit the description to a tee.”
It’s not very convincing. So some lady claims she saw some ghost. For all I know, there never was a lady, let alone a ghost. Still, when Crane leads us away from those two rooms, my breath comes easier. We head through corridors, deeper and deeper into the fortress. The darkness grows.
At the next spot, Crane tells the tale of the Grey Lady, a woman in a white dress, forever mourning her suicidal lover and smelling of roses. I’ve heard this one before. A sad and unromantic tale. I scan the shadowed singles for Whitney. About ten people separate us. She’s clearly not listening to the tale either. Superman, however, looks to be ardently listening to her.
Such a stupid idea. Strangers finding love on a ghost tour. And yet…I survey the room. Most people are clearly with their friends, but a few men and women seem to be mingling. Whispering. Hands on elbows and upturned gazes. A man—not wearing a superhero costume, not in any discernible costume—smiles at me. I frown and draw my attention back to Crane as the group moves on. He tells tales of a haunted shed, a haunted well, shouts, wails, slamming doors, and thrown objects.
“Any fans of Mary Shelley?” Several people, me included, raise our hands. Crane wears that grin again. He must practice the thing. It’s scarier than my fakest smile, but in an entirely different way. “The author of Frankenstein?” More hands. Some laughter.
“And have any read her tale The Mortal Immortal?”
I raise my hand.
“Just one?”
His grin is less creepy this time. “Well, I won’t put this learned angel on the spot.”
“Fairy,” shouts Whitney from somewhere behind me.
“My apologies.” Crane, sounding like a gentleman, sounding like a man who loves his job, and is hella good at it, smiles at me. He gives a brief summary of a tale I already know. But this one has a local twist. Officer Benjamin Johnston, a soldier of the 78th Highlanders, was an avid reader of Shelley. An obsessed reader, some would say. He’d lost his four brothers by war, sickness, and accident, and became enamoured with the idea of eternal life. “Obsession can lead to mental degradation,” cautions Crane. “Johnston began to think the story was true, that he too could develop the elixir for eternal life, but, he asserted, eternal life meant nothing without eternal love—the very thing Shelley’s hero was trying to free himself of. The very reason the sad soul came to abhor life.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” questions a man dressed as a present. A tag on the box he’s wearing reads ‘To: Women, From: God.’
“Patience.” Crane explains the soldier’s efforts to create the Elixir—for life and love—and tells about Johnston’s love. A local girl. But she, like so many of the time, became deathly ill. The officer worked tirelessly to finish his creation to save them both, worked so hard he barely saw her in her dying days. When told she had only hours left he went to her, elixir in hand.
Crane’s voice lowers. “He put the vial to her lips and bid her swallow. One, two, three drops. He saved the last for himself then clasped her hand, sure the colour would grow on his beloved’s cheeks.”
Crane stops. Pauses. An expression of sadness clouds his features and he shrugs. “Her hand went cold. Her cheek went white. And Officer Johnston lost the last person in the world he loved.
“Obsession can do terrible things to the mind. Grief worse. O, for the peace of the grave! the deep silence of the iron-bound tomb!” Crane holds his light high in the cavernous space, displaying a dark smudge on the stone. “This particular section of the Citadel had been closed off for over a century. No one knew where the officer had blown his brains out until the room was reopened just a decade ago.”
A woman shudders. A man laughs. I stare at the dark stain, wondering. It’s at the right height—or at least what seems like the right height. But would blood last that long? Could it? And how would they know it’s his?
“Obviously an officer taking his life was an event the Regiment wanted to k
eep hush-hush. His burial was attended only by two of his fellow officers. Not even a priest.
“Rumour spread. Tales of an empty grave. Had death taken the distraught lover, or was it only the bloody mess and no body that signalled his demise?” Crane pivots, his voice echoing off the walls. “Not untethered eternal life perhaps, but immortality so long as he remained within these walls. Trapped within these walls.”
Silence descends in the darkness. Then an uneasy laugh. A groan.
“A curse, for spurning the gift of life he claimed to revere? Or had the burial occurred, only for the Officer to endure an unwanted resurrection?” Crane’s voice takes on a factual tone. “The regiment left just weeks after, but multiple sightings reported a young man in 78th Highlander attire roaming the grounds.
“Over a hundred years have passed, and yet our security cameras captured such a man several times. When the guards on staff went to explore, the halls, the rooms, the passages were empty. Each time they played back the tape, nothing but blackness filled the frame.” A lengthy, weighted pause. “A ghost, or an undying man. Who is to decide which fate is more terrifying?”
The lanterns flicker. All of them it seems, as a chill works its way through the corridor and around the room. We’re deep within the fortress. But there must be windows to explain this breeze. There have to be windows.
“Someone’s missing their little girl.” A woman’s voice rises above the whispers.
“What?” Crane holds his lantern high, this time in the direction of the voice.
“A little—” The voice cuts off. There is shuffling, more lights held out. “She was just here. She took my hand.”
“Who brings a kid to a singles night?” A man this time.
“What exactly—” Crane. Frightened?
“She was just here.” The woman again. “She took my hand. She smiled and—”
“I heard about this.” A different man this time. “Some little girl who comes on tours. Some ghost girl, who—”
“I felt it. She took my—”
People shuffle around. Whispers turn to raised voices. Crane’s sounds above them all. “People. Please. We don’t need stories. There’s no little girl.”
“There was.” The woman, her voice shrill. “I swear, she—”
A lantern falls and the light fizzles. Two more whoosh out.
“You said no theatrics.” Another woman, her voice an angry whine. “Jill, let’s get out of here.”
People push their way to the entrance. I’m jostled toward the wall and raise an arm to brace myself. In the light of one of the two lanterns left I see my hand smack against the dark stain. I whip my palm away.
“Calm down.” Crane’s voice is loud, annoyed. Angry? “We can’t control our guest’s theatrics. But there was no child.”
“I’m out of here!” The first woman? Another? People bump into me. Push me. The lantern that illuminated the wall fades in the distance.
“Head toward the hall. Calmly. Quietly.” Crane doesn’t sound calm or quiet.
A man screams. Then a woman. Feet stamp by; I’m knocked to the ground. I stand. Shouts surround me. Noise surrounds me. Dark surrounds me.
I start to run and fall once more. I’m catapulting through space. My head bangs against something cold and damp and solid.
I’m spread across the floor. My head throbs. My elbow. My knee.
Silence surrounds me.
“Whitney?” I stand cautiously, then walk with my arms held out in the direction of the entrance, of what I think is the entrance. Cold rock is against my palms. I scream. “Whitney!”
I drop my arms and stare at the nothingness in front of me, knowing it’s rock. A rock wall that is less than one foot before me, but that I can’t see. I close my eyes. Open them again. No change. I do this once, twice, three times. My breath comes in shallow gasps.
I’m in a dark, dank room. A room that, during the day, would probably have light streaming in somewhere. A window. A door. There is at least one door. So all I need to do is find it. And beyond that door is a hall, and down the hall another door, or stairs, or the sky.
I swallow and stretch my hands out again. Wall. Solid wall.
With both palms against the stone I shuffle to my left. I shuffle and shuffle and shuffle and shuffle. Reach a corner. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle. Corner. Shuffle.
This room is bigger than I realized. I stop. Listen. Silence. So much silence. Shuffle.
A scream tears through me, more powerful than I’ve ever experienced and I whip around toward the sensation of a hand on my shoulder. My arms flail uselessly, striking out at whatever, whoever, is just beyond my reach.
“Open your eyes.”
I freeze. The voice is young. Male. Accented. My eyes flash open and a gulp of a laugh escapes me. “I—”
“You’re scared and couldn’t see, and didn’t realize.” He’s smiling. He’s tall. Not giant tall, but a good five inches above me.
I laugh again. “Wow. I…” Another laugh. “…feel stupid.” I can barely see him in the dim light, but see enough to know he’s smiling. And handsome.
“It’s a scary place to find yourself alone. I didn’t mean to startle you. I should have spoken first.”
I shrug. “You got lost in the shuffle, too?”
“Lost in the shuffle.” Another grin. “I don’t know that I’d say that.”
My gaze falls to the light. Rather than a large lantern, he holds a candle. Just a candle. “Do you know the way out?”
This time his smile grows slowly, like a blossom opening to the sun. “I do. But are you in a rush?”
The flutter in my stomach should turn to a lump of fear. Some strange guy in a dark underground fortress is asking me if I’m in a rush? But the flutter continues, no fear attached. “People may be worried about us.”
“They may.” He raises the candle so it flickers between us. His eyes are green maybe, or blue? He hasn’t shaved in days, but it works. “Have you heard of the tunnels?”
“The supposed network throughout the city?”
“It’s not supposed.” Another smile.
I bite my lip and press against the wall. “No?”
“No.” He holds out his hand. I look to him. “And on Halloween, well, are you interested in an experience few ever get?”
I stare at the hand then back at him. “What kind of—”
“A gathering.”
I’m silent.
“A party, if that makes more sense to you.”
“There’s a party here. Why would you come on a tour just to—”
“I wasn’t on the tour.”
There’s the fear. Right there in the hollow under my chest. Like his smile, it blossoms.
He chuckles. “Don’t get frightened.”
“You work here or something?” I take in his costume—it makes sense. It’s a good costume. An authentic soldier of yore … or whatever time period the soldiers in the Citadel were from.
He nods. I think he nods. The movement is so slight and the room so dark, it’s hard to tell. “When you work here, you can get to know the tunnels intimately. I know the tunnels intimately.” He pauses. “It’s how I found out about the gathering.”
Part of me is screaming no. Part of me is telling me to actually scream, then grab this guy’s candle and use it to find the exit, find Whitney, find my way home to bed.
I take his hand. It’s cool and solid.
“This, fair fairy, will be a night you never forget.”
He blows out the candle. I gasp and try to yank my hand from his but he holds it tight. “Trust me.” He whispers. “I know the way.”
He steps through the darkness and I follow him. What else can I do?
We descend deeper into the earth, though the ground slants so subtly, it’s only the growing cold and damp that lets me know.
“Watch your step,” he cautions, “and your head.”
I raise my free hand, searching for a wall to brace myself against, and feel the
ceiling at the tips of my fingers. I stumble as we take the first step, then shuffle my feet along until we reach the second. They’re wide—several feet between each fall, and every one shocks me.
“Relax.” His voice laughs and a chill travels down my arms.
The ceiling lowers until we’re crouched down. Not a lot. But enough to feel closed in. Trapped. Suffocated.
“What’s your name?”
“My name?”
“No,” my voice is sharp, “some other guy who’s leading me into the centre of the earth.”
“Benjamin.” Benjamin. For some reason this makes my beating heart slow a little. Benjamin. He squeezes my hand. “It’s all right.”
What’s all right, exactly? The fact that he’s leading me who knows where, or that I’m alone with a strange man, or that the ceiling is closing in on us, or— “What’s that?” I freeze. The air has changed. The tightness. We’re in a large space. I reach my hand up and feel nothing, but hear weird groaning and whooshing and thumpthump, thumpthump. Soft, but growing louder as he urges me forward.
“Some of the tunnels are connected to, well, working tunnels. Sewers. Stuff like that.”
“We’re in—?”
“No. But we’re near to one.”
“Put on the light.”
“What?”
“Put on the light!” I snap. My heart is pounding again. I pull my hand from his.
“We don’t need a light.”
“Light it. Now.”
He sighs. I hear the scrape and sizzle of a match, and then a flame glows—welcoming, comforting. Yet all I see is us. His hand. His chest. I look up. His face staring down at me. The light seems bright, brighter than a candle ever has, yet around him there is only blackness. No ceiling. No walls. Barely a floor.
“The light doesn’t do much, does it?”
I shake my head.
“With it, your senses would be less. The darkness grows.”
My brow furrows, and that blossoming smile spreads across his face. We stare at each other. He’s waiting for something. I’m waiting for something, but I don’t know what. “Ever heard of a flash light? That would do more to kill the darkness.”
Tricks & Treats: A Romance Anthology Page 15
