Party Summer (12 page)

Cari gasped aloud, then felt her breath catch in her throat.

“Where there are cobwebs there are bound to be spiders,” Eric said, shining the flashlight up at the webs.

“And if there are spiders,” Jan added, “there has to be a way for them to get in here. I'll bet I'm right. I'll bet this tunnel leads to the beach.”

Sure enough, enormous, pale spiders, the size of grapes, hovered just above their heads. The spiders swayed to and fro, as if blown by an invisible air current. As they swayed, their slender legs curled and uncurled in the light of the flashlights, as if beckoning to the four intruders.

With Jan in the lead, the four friends began to run past them. They continued to follow the twisting tunnel until they came to a wooden doorway, set into the plaster wall.

It was open a few inches, pitch black inside.

“Anybody home?”

Jan knocked on the door.

The sound of the knock echoed eerily down the empty passageway.

“Anybody in there?” Jan called again.

“What are you waiting for?” Cari asked impatiently. She stepped in front of Jan and impulsively pushed the door open.

It creaked noisily, as if in protest.

Cari peered into the room behind the doorway. “I don't believe this!”

It was a small room, just big enough for the four of them to squeeze in, bare except for a small wooden table with benches in the center. The walls were dark, red in the light of the flashlights, as if blood had dripped down them.

“Oh!” Eric cried as the light from his flashlight fell on an object on top of the table.

It was a skull, a human skull.

“Let's get out of here,” Craig said, sounding genuinely scared.

Jan bravely reached out and lifted the skull off the table. “It's real,” she said.

“Hope it isn't someone we know,” Eric cracked.

Jan replaced the skull. “Hey—my fingers. Look.” She held out her hand for the others to see. Eric shone his light onto it.

“What's that sticky stuff?” he asked.

“It's protoplasm. Left by a ghost,” Jan said, and she couldn't keep a triumphant smile from crossing her face.

“You mean—?” For the first time, Eric had lost his skepticism.

“Maybe now you'll all believe me,” Jan said, examining her sticky fingers. “This is a well-known supernatural phenomenon. A ghost has materialized in this room. Recently.”

The skull suddenly rolled backward on the tabletop, the sunken eyes staring up at them.

“I'm outta here!” Eric yelled.

The other three were already heading for the door.

Once out in the dark tunnel, they didn't stop. They began running, the light from their flashlights darting wildly over the walls and floor.

They didn't stop running until they reached the door leading to the dining room. Breathing hard, Cari eagerly reached for the door and pushed.

It didn't move.

“Hey!”

She pushed again—harder.

Again the door didn't budge.

“It's stuck or something,” she told the others.

“Let me try,” Eric said.

Cari stepped back. Eric had no more success than she had had.

“Weird,” he said, concerned.

He tried again. Then Craig moved beside him and they both pushed against the door.

“It's been jammed shut or something,” Eric said, looking very alarmed in the harsh yellow light from the flashlight. “We're trapped in here.”

“L
et us out!” Cari screamed. She began pounding on the solid wood door with both fists. “Somebody—can you hear me? Let us out!”

Eric moved quickly to help, pounding on the door with his fists.

“Let us out! Let us out!” all four of them chanted.

They stopped to listen.

Silence greeted them from the other side of the door.

No one was out there.

“Did someone lock us in?” Jan asked suddenly, her voice unsteady, frightened.

Eric turned away from the door. “There's got to be another way out of here,” he said. “Let's go back and follow the tunnel till we find it.”

“No,” Cari said, her fear speaking for her.

“Cari, we don't really have a choice,” Eric said softly. “We can't get out this door. There's got to be another way out. Let's go find it.”

Cari was outvoted three to one, so she reluctantly agreed. Huddling together, walking quickly behind the sweep of the flashlights, they turned away from the door and walked back through the narrow tunnel.

This time, when they reached the part where the tunnel divided in two, they took the passageway to the left.

“What was that?” Cari cried, feeling something scamper over her feet.

Or had she just imagined it?

Cari felt herself gripped with panic. She realized she was gasping for air. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest, it hurt.

“Stop!” she cried.

Startled by the panic in her voice, the other three stopped. They drew close together. Craig and Eric kept the flashlights aimed at the ceiling so that light reflected down on them. In the dim light, Cari could see the same panic, the same fear,
her
panic,
her
fear, reflected on the shadowy faces of her friends.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'll force myself to calm down. We'll find a way out of here. I know we will.”

Eric put an arm around her shoulders. They walked quickly, the light darting at their feet.

Again, the passageway divided.

“Let's go this way,” Jan said, heading right.

They turned into another tunnel, then into another
that seemed to follow a wide curve. Water dripped from the ceiling.
Ping ping ping
against the concrete floor.

They made another choice, this time to the left, then turned into a passageway filled with spiders and spiderwebs.

“It doesn't seem to be leading us anywhere,” Cari said dispiritedly.

“There should be an opening or a doorway or something,” Craig said, his voice a frightened whisper.

“I think we've been here already,” Jan said, her dark eyes wide with fright. “I remember that weird crack in the wall. I think maybe we're walking in circles.”

“We're lost,” Eric said glumly, lowering his flashlight in despair.

“Lost forever,” Craig muttered to himself.

“Maybe this whole thing is a trap,” Jan said.

“That's it, Jan. Look on the bright side,” Eric cracked bitterly.

“Maybe it isn't a trap,” Jan said. “But it's as good as a trap. These tunnels all look alike, and just keep winding forever. We'll
never
find our way out.”.

“W
e have no choice. We have to keep walking till we find a way out,” Cari said, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to warm herself from the cool dampness of the passageway. “We'll find it eventually.”

Who blocked the dining-room door? Who locked us in? she wondered. Who could it have been?

There's no time to think about that now, she scolded herself.

They turned a corner and entered another long branch of the tunnel that sloped sharply up.

Have we been here before? Cari wondered.

She couldn't tell.

She could feel her panic start to rise, choking her. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She was suddenly aware of every breath she took and had the feeling that if she didn't concentrate on every breath, she would stop breathing.

“It must be lunchtime,” Craig said in the shadowy, shifting light from his flashlight. “Martin will be looking for us.”

“Maybe he could deliver our lunch to us here,” Eric said.

“You're not funny,” Cari muttered.

“Just trying to keep it light,” Eric said.

As he said this, the tunnel suddenly brightened. Two narrow slits of daylight appeared in front of them.

“Yaay!” Eric cried. All four of them began running toward the bright light.

Cari quickly saw that it was a small hatch doorway. She was the first one to push the door open and scramble out of the tunnel. Blinking in the intense daylight, she had to cup a hand over her eyes to look around.

“We're on the beach!” Jan cried happily. “I was right!”

The tunnel opening was dug into one of the steep dunes along the bay beach. The opening faced away, at an angle that couldn't be seen by sunbathers on the beach.

“Doesn't the fresh air smell great!” Cari exclaimed.

“I was never so happy to see real sunlight,” Craig said, stretching luxuriously, turning his face up to the sun.

“We can't stand out here sunbathing,” Eric said. “We'd better get back to the hotel.”

Laughing and joking, they made their way up the beach, crossed the terrace beside the deserted
swimming pool, and reentered through the sliding glass dining-room doors.

The laughing stopped when they stepped into the dining room and up to the tunnel entrance.

“The scaffold … look!” Craig said.

They didn't need to have it pointed out to them. The others were all staring at it already.

The scaffolding, they saw immediately, had been moved. It had been pushed in front of the doorway.

This was why the door wouldn't open.

Someone had deliberately trapped them inside the tunnel.

The four of them spent the afternoon at the beach trying to relax, but they were unable to put the tunnel and the fact that someone had deliberately blocked their exit out of their minds.

Who had it been? Edward? Martin?

“We've got to tell Simon everything at dinner tonight,” Cari said. They all agreed.

Unfortunately, Simon did not appear at dinner. As Cari set her chowder bowl to one side and passed the tray of crabmeat salad to Eric, seated at the dining-room table beside her, Edward limped noisily into the room.

He was leaning on his hunting rifle, as before, using it as a cane. His face was red, angry red, ringed by his long white hair, which was unruly and unbrushed. He was wearing the same safari jacket Cari had seen him in during their first encounter. It was open, revealing a pale yellow sport shirt underneath with two buttons missing.

“Uh … Edward, I don't think you've met my friends,” Can said awkwardly, feeling her face redden.

Edward stared at her as if he didn't know her either. Cari introduced Jan, Eric, and Craig.

He scowled at them in greeting and muttered something that Cari couldn't hear. Then, setting the rifle down on the floor beside him, he took Simon's usual seat at the head of the table and began to slurp up his bowl of clam chowder noisily, rapidly, without glancing up once.

All conversation stopped. Everyone just stared at Edward, who finished his chowder in less than a minute and, still scowling angrily, pulled his salad plate closer and began gobbling up chunks of salad.

“Is … is Simon coming to dinner?” Cari finally managed to ask, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Edward chewed for a while, staring at her the whole time. “No,” he said finally. “Simon isn't here.” He shoved another forkful of salad into his mouth.

“He left the hotel?” Cari asked.

Edward nodded and chewed noisily.

How can he be such a slob, Cari thought, while his brother is so neat, so elegant?

Edward seemed to be the opposite of Simon in every way. Simon was so outgoing, so jolly, so friendly and warm. Edward seemed cold, angry … depressed.

“Simon went to the mainland,” Edward said in his gruff voice. “Provincetown.” He grunted something else that Cari couldn't hear.

“To check on my aunt?” Jan asked eagerly.

Edward squinted his one good eye at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Yeah. Your aunt.”

He returned to his dinner. After he finished his salad, Martin served him a plate of roast chicken and mashed potatoes, a different dinner from everyone else's. Edward finished the meal in silence, as did everyone else.