Tricks & Treats: A Romance Anthology (17 page)

“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 keep 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 78
th
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.”

He takes a moment to reply. “I don’t need it.”

My throat tightens. My shoulders tense. And then, without me even realizing why, they relax. I blow out the candle. “Okay. If we’re going, let’s go.” I think I hear him smile. Can a smile be heard? He finds my hand in the darkness and we venture forward.

“A step up,” he whispers, just before the toe of my shoe hits rock. He wasn’t joking. He knows these tunnels. Again my pulse starts racing, along with my mind. Why does he know these tunnels, and know them so well? Does being an actor at the Citadel require this kind of knowledge? Are we even under the Citadel any longer? Likely not. Likely we’re under the city, the downtown core. Will we go even deeper?

My brother told me once that the network of abandoned tunnels below the city was rumoured to go all the way under the harbour to Georges Island. But that was only a rumour, and construction in recent years would have blown any possibility of those tunnels existing to smithereens.

We walk in near silence, only the sound of our breath and feet, and the distant rush of cars above breaking the intense nothingness. Time seems undefinable—has it been ten minutes, twenty, two? And distance—all at once it feels as if we’ve walked for miles and barely the length of a room. We move slowly, that much I know.

“What’s—?” My voice catches. Ahead of us is something. Not light exactly. Not a shape. But less darkness. Less
nothing
. Benjamin squeezes my hand but stays silent as we continue on, the blackness becoming less and less black, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, a hint of yellow mingles with it. Light. Soft. Muted. But light.