Quicker than Arden could blink, Joe twisted his torso and flung his shovel. The spade slashed through the air and lodged in J. Parker’s neck.
Arden didn’t have time to think. It was like something possessed her body and caused her to run out of the ditch and attack the second officer.
Time slowed.
Red ribbons flowed out of the first officer’s neck as he tumbled backward. The second officer, though aiming at Arden, was too busy screaming at his brother that he didn’t see Arden jump on him.
The two of them slammed into the dirt.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The officer’s gun discharged three times as he hit the ground.
Arden felt the bullets zip by her side, but none pierced her.
She raised the shade’s point above her head and brought it down on the man’s face. One hit, two hits, three hits, four, and then Arden stopped counting.
She heard a roar as she shut her eyes. It took a moment to realize that the shout was coming from her own mouth.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a man with no face. She quickly scrambled off the body, leaving the blood-stained spade behind. She got about two yards away before losing her small lunch near a tree.
Dry heaving, she rested her palm on the trunk. She noticed the crimson stain all up and down her dirty forearm.
Horrified, she turned back to Joe. He stood over the two bodies. He opened and closed his right fist like he was squeezing a stress ball. He showed no emotion.
Arden sank down to her knees and sobbed. “Oh, God,” she repeated over and over again.
She pulled her knees close and trembled.
Joe stepped over the officers and hovered next to her.
He looked down at his feet and frowned. After a moment, he spoke softly, “Help me bury them.”
He turned back to the dead cops.
Arden didn’t move. She didn’t know what to do. She’d never killed anyone. People would look for them. Death would’ve been easier. It had to be. But, yet, somehow, some way, she was still breathing. Was this God’s plan or was she just dodging judgement day? Arden didn’t have the answers. That only made her cry more. Soon, no more tears flowed. Her head throbbed. It hurt to clench her eyes shut.
She found enough courage to unroll from her ball. Ahead of her, Joe had already put the first body in the grave. The second one was still lying out in the dirt. Joe grabbed his ankles.
Seeing his struggle, Arden found her feet again and floated over to him. She grabbed the man’s wrists. They lifted the man a few feet off the ground and swung him into the hole. His body tumbled over his brother’s.
Silent, the two of them mindlessly grabbed their spades and started burying the bodies. Arden noticed that Joe had left out the guns. When the bodies were concealed, Joe gave Arden one of the pistols and clipped the other to his belt.
Joe sniffled and said. “We can’t take the cop car. They’ll track us.”
“What then?” Arden asked aimlessly.
With heavy-lidded eyes, Joe glanced around.
The morning birds sang.
Joe said. “Pick a direction.”
Arden’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s this or we turn ourselves in,” Joe said. “Which story do you think they’ll believe? The one about the two rogue P.I.s who stumbled upon a cult and were ambushed by corrupt police officers, or the one about psychos that murdered officers in cold blood?”
Arden wanted to argue, but she knew he was right.
She compromised. “East.”
The two of them set off that way.
Tired, broken, bloody, they hiked through the woods without direction or a plan. Arden kept her eyes on the sunrise, hoping and praying for something to happen.
Time dragged on.
Arden fought to keep her eyes open.
Her legs were jelly.
The world felt surreal.
She wondered if she really died down in that hole and this was all some post-death fantasy.
She lost her balance and landed face first in a bed of ferns.
Joe scooped her up. He was too tired to carry her, so the two of them leaned on one another until they saw the house in the distance.
Next to it was a small garden and fenced in chicken coop.
The house looked empty. They traded looks.
Hope.
Reinvigorated, they hurried to the porch of the house, hoping that they could bust in and get some water.
As they neared, the front door opened...
2
The Pit
The world stopped.
With one arm around each other, Arden and Joe froze. Dirt and dried blood tarnished their sweaty bodies.
The woman standing at the cabin’s threshold eyed them. She was in her late fifties and wore overalls stained with paint. Her grey wiry hair sat in a loose bun on top of her head. Old laugh lines creased around her chapped lips. She wore no makeup on her leathery face. Her sapphire eyes shined with youth and wisdom. A chipped wedding ring hung her on her finger. The snub nose revolver she held by her side sunk down her left shoulder. Her finger stayed off the trigger.
Neither party spoke.
Breathless tension held in the air.
It was only a matter of who would draw their weapon first.
Arden noticed that the revolver was a single-action with a cocked hammer. The woman would only have time to blast one of them before the other took her out.
Would it be worth the risk? They had no quarrels against this woman. Killing two bad men was enough. Arden wasn’t going to add this woman to her list.
Arden slowly reached for her gun.
The old woman eyed her, but didn’t raise her weapon.
Cautiously, Arden unclipped the pistol and tossed it on the soft grass.
“What are you doing?” Joe whispered.
Arden raised her hands and knelt down.
The woman kept eyeing her.
Arden spoke up. “You’re not going believe anything I’m about to tell you, but all I ask is that you hear me out. Is that fair?”
Joe spoke through his teeth. “Arden. Think about this.”
The woman kept silent.
Arden started from the moment Charles and Gracie Gales hired them to find Scarlet. She didn’t remember much of what she said or how she said it, but soon she was all caught up and confessing that she had just killed two police officers.
Arden realized that the whole time she spoke, she hadn’t looked at the woman. When she finally did, the woman seemed unfazed.
“Well?” Arden asked with a cracked voice.
“Well, what?” the woman replied.
“Will you help us?” Arden asked desperately.
The woman eyed them. “Y’all are some stupid criminals.”
“I’d prefer the word honest,” Joe added.
Arden begged her with her eyes.
“Wait here,” the woman returned inside.
Joe glared at Arden. “Are you crazy?”
“Did you want me to lie to her?”
“I want you to use your brain,” Joe said. “She’s going to call the police.”
“So what are you going to do?”
A certain darkness fell over Joe’s face. “Whatever it takes to get home to my family.”
“That’s not who we are, Joe,” Arden said sternly.
Joe didn’t reply.
Dogs barked in the distance.
The two of them listened closely.
They heard voices.
“Canine unit,” Arden said.
Joe cursed.
Arden wondered if these cops were corrupt too. Her pulse pounded as she waited to find out.
The homeowner returned to the porch with a key in her hand. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself. She cocked her head to the side. She heard the dogs as well. It was hard to gauge their distance.
Make a choice, woman, Arden thought.
Her fate was in God�
�s hands now.
The woman hurried down the step and hung a left around the house.
Arden and Joe stayed put as they watched the woman move across the yard. Without looking back, she said. “Come on, will you?”
Hesitating, Arden and Joe hurried to catch up with her. The woman moved past her vegetable garden and to a small pile of plywood. She quickly moved it aside, revealing a metal hatch.
She used the key she held to unlock it and yanked it open. Below was a ladder that descended into darkness.
The dogs’ barking and people’s shouting grew louder.
“Are you in or out?” the woman asked.
“Why are you helping us?” Joe replied.
“Just choose,” the woman demanded.
Not wasting time, Arden started climbing down. Joe followed.
“Find the lantern,” the woman said and sealed the hatch.
Darkness immediately enveloped Arden and Joe.
Arden cautiously stepped down from the final rung and found the solid concrete floor.
She blindly groped in the darkness. Her dirt-crusted fingers found the wall. She felt along it until she found a corner. With her eyes closed or open, it made no difference. She reached out until her hand knocked something over. She got down on all fours and felt the floor until she discovered the cylindrical shape of the lantern. She rotated it in her dirty palms until she found the switch and flipped it on.
She winced at the bright light. She squinted and surveyed the area. Before her was a bunker with an arched ceiling. There was a kitchen area, shelves packed with MREs, a small lounging area, and a second room with a few cots inside.
Joe finished his descent. His tired eyes scanned the underground vault. “Maybe there is a God after all.”
He stepped ahead and got a bottled water from the shelf. He stopped himself from opening it and tossed it to Arden.
She was delayed in catching it. The bottle bounced and rolled to a stop at the bottom of the ladder. Arden walked that way and bent down to get it. When she had her hand around it, she looked up at the sealed hatch. Though she couldn’t hear the outside world, she envisioned the police and dogs lurking around up top. If that hatch opened, it would be over for her.
She screwed the cap off the bottle and downed it in a single go. She tossed the water bottle aside and turned back to Joe. He had already killed two bottles and was starting on his third.
Arden dragged her numb feet over to him. She grabbed another bottle. Instead of drinking it, she poured it down her face. Mud and blood puddled around her feet. She noticed some Army washing toilettes nearby. She grabbed the box and tore it open, spilling out some of the contents. She grabbed one, removed the packaging, and rubbed it over her face and neck. After burning through the pads to clean her arms and face, she crashed on the couch.
She shut her eyes, promising Joe she would just rest for a moment.
She saw blankness all around her.
Light appeared in the distance.
In the bowels of a dark tunnel, she shielded her eyes from the light and kept going forward. The moment she passed into the light, she felt a warmth that she’d never experienced. Her body became weightless. She glanced around and saw different young men and women. She recognized some of them as the people she’d helped save, while others were strangers. They looked so calm and content. Arden glanced up and saw another figure in all white.
She took his hands and they slowly danced. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was terrifying and wonderful. She was home. Soon darkness encroached on her surroundings.
Arden knew it was coming for her. She kept dancing as the people she had rescued faded away. Soon it was just her and the man. He whispered to her. “Live.”
Darkness flooded in.
Arden opened her eyes, looking up at the curved ceiling above her. A sudden coughing spell overtook her. She rolled over in the cot and hacked away. Sniffling, she noticed her clean hands. Fresh band-aids padded her busted knuckles. She looked down at herself, seeing that she was wearing a clean t-shirt and sweats. She smelled fresh.
She glanced around, noticing that she was surrounded by a rippled green curtain. She rolled to her back for a moment, collected herself, and then sat up. Her feet touched down on the icy concrete floor. She shuddered. She forced herself to stand but only got an inch before losing her balance. She stayed seated on the cot, noticing it was a simple thin mattress on a frame. The frame was a few feet off the ground and was held to the wall by taut chains mounted into the cement wall. There were no EKG monitors or other medical equipment.
Arden tucked her hair behind her ear and yawned. She tried to stand again. This time, she got up without her knees buckling. She grabbed the curtain. Its rings screeched against the metal bar as she pulled it open.
The room was roughly twelve by sixteen feet.
Across from her was another curtain forming a half circle around a cot.
To her left was a sealed metal door with a fogged glass window. A third cot with an open curtain was on the back wall. No one slept in that one.
There were caged lights systematically mounted on the walls.
She reached over to the curtain in front of her and carefully dragged it to the side.
Joe rested on the thin mattress. A pair of grey sweats covered his legs. Apart from that, he wasn’t dressed. His bulky arms were crossed over his hairy chest. His eyes were closed and a frown was on his stoic face.
Arden took a step back and closed the curtain.
She tiptoed to the door and tried to steal a look through the fogged glass. Blobs of wall lights were visible, but there didn’t seem to be any movement.
Arden opened the door and stepped through.
Arden walked through the bunker, grimacing as the cold concrete aggravated her sore feet. A 1950s jukebox and wood box TV faced the living room’s couch. The furniture design reflected that of a nuclear family. Framed posters of Casablanca, King Kong, and other classic movies decorated the walls.
She found the bathroom. It contained a single toilet and bathtub/shower hybrid. Arden turned the shower dial. The water didn’t work. She examined herself in the mirror.
Purple bruises painted her neck. Dark circles underlined her bloodshot eyes. Her freckled face had a sickly pale hue and her red hair was a mess. She examined the taut muscles on her arms, earned from years in the gym and practicing kickboxing. Her body was lean and rippled like a washboard. There were scars across her skin from the many fights she had been in as a child. Each one reminded her of the various orphanages she had attended. Some were from fighting other kids. Some were from the “hands-on” caretakers. She remembered how her sister and her would run, hide, and fight. Thinking of Patricia brought back old pain. She could hardly wash the image of her ghastly cadaver from her mind. The men who killed her were still out there. Arden’s soul didn’t want revenge, but her flesh cried out for it. Six years had passed since Patricia’s murder. Arden still had trouble letting go.
Hunger created invisible shapes in her stomach. She searched the supply shelves and grabbed a chocolate bar from amidst the nonperishable items. Taking a bite out of the hard candy, she made her way to the ladder. She craned her neck back to the sealed hatch and climbed the rungs until she reached the turn dial. She twisted it until she was red in the face, but it didn’t budge. She tried again, feeling the blister reopen on her palms. The sharp stinging feeling didn’t stop her from trying. Nevertheless, the dial wouldn’t turn.
She descended back into the shelter and made her way to Joe’s cot. She pulled back the curtain and shook his shoulder.
His eyes shot open. Before Arden could blink, he had his hands around her neck. His thick fingers pressed into her bruises.
She fought to push words out of her crushed windpipe. “Joe.”
The realization of his actions flushed over his stoic face, and he quickly released her. “Sorry.”
He rubbed his bear-like hand down his face and sat up.
A
rden coughed, feeling phlegm rise from the depths of her throat. She quickly swallowed it. Feeling disgusting, Arden said, “We’re locked in.”
Joe looked around with tired, half-closed eyes. “I know.”
Arden was taken back by the response. “Uh, shouldn’t we find a way out?”
“And be hounded by the police? I’ll stay put,” Joe replied.
“I thought you were the one who wanted to get out of here in the first place?”
Joe gave her a deadpan look. “I don’t want to be here either, but it is what it is. Mrs. Keller will come down when the dust settles.”
Arden tried to process the information. “How long have we been down here?”
“Two days,” Joe replied.
Arden felt lightheaded.
Joe stood up and stretched. “Mrs. Keller kept us hidden from the police and gave us clean clothes. I’m surprised you don’t remember changing.”
“I hardly remember anything,” Arden replied. It was a miracle the woman trusted them. “Did Mrs. Keller say anything about the news?”
Joe smirked in frustration. “You can ask her. She doesn’t have Wi-Fi or cable.”
Arden’s head throbbed. “When will she be back?”
“Tonight. After dark.” Joe said. He nodded at the wall clock. It read 9:23 am.
Arden sank down on Joe’s cot. She felt the walls of the bunker closing in around her.
Joe noticed her discontentment. He said, “Hey.”
Arden looked up at him.
“We’ll make it through this,” Joe replied.
“When did you become the optimist?” Arden replied.
A sorrowful grin briefly appeared on Joe’s face. “What other choice do I have?”
He walked out.
Fears flooded Arden’s mind. What if Mrs. Keller was in with the people who took Scarlet? What if something happened to Mrs. Keller, and Arden had to spend the rest of her life trapped in here? Those things were in God’s hands, Arden concluded. She knew she’d go insane if she kept stressing about it.
She joined Joe in the main room and took a seat on the couch. Joe ate dried fruit rations from a package.
The two of them didn’t say much as they shared the small meal.
The AC clicked on. Its arctic chill carried the dusty sent into the bunker.
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 22
