The Scarlets (3 page)

C
al hated the basement.

“How often do you guys come down here?” he whispered. It seemed important to whisper, as if the shadows lurking beyond the scope of the professor’s flashlight could spread and come to life.

“It’s a delicate process, beginning to catalog and sort the contents of Brookline,” Professor Reyes explained from up ahead. The narrow walls pressed in around them until the group reached a second door—this one with a glass window that looked into a lobby area. She used the keys to unlock this door, too. “I only feel comfortable taking a handful of qualified students down here.”

He didn’t miss or appreciate the slight emphasis on the word
qualified
. It sounded like she was smelling dog shit as she said it.

“Where’d you dig up this freshman?” Devon Kurtwilder asked. He was directly ahead, and Cal nearly ran into him again as they all waited for her to unlock the lobby door and go through.

“Second-year,” Cal corrected, irritable.

So much for making the best of tonight.

“Mr. Erickson is . . . a special case. For now he can just observe and pick up some of the preservation techniques we use,” Professor Reyes explained. “An eager mind is always welcome.”

“Pft.
Erickson
.” Devon swung around, glaring at him with dark-green eyes. “Now I get it.”

Cal didn’t bother defending himself. His throat tightened up—from the dust, he decided, and not from humiliation. The door opened with a sudden, cold scrape, and Cal jumped. Professor Reyes held the door open for the two girls and Devon, but she stopped Cal, holding him by the elbow of his checked shirt.

“You’ll have to forgive Devon,” she said in a whisper, but her eyes and her tone never softened. “He, Maria, and Colleen have completed several grueling prerequisites to get down here and work on the preservation firsthand. You can understand if they’re a bit . . . touchy.”

“I get it,” Cal said, taking his arm back. “And I can’t blame them. Hey, if it improves morale, I’m more than happy to zip right back up those stairs and—”

“Nice try. Let’s get moving; we’re wasting time.”

The other students waited in the lobby, their flashlights bouncing off the dusty surfaces of desks, low side tables, and abandoned chairs. It looked like a volcano had erupted, leaving everything covered in a thick layer of gray powder. Cal’s nose itched and his eyes burned from the stale air.

“Maria and Colleen usually work together, so you can join Devon in room three.”

Room 3. That sounded simple enough. Cal flashed his new partner a quick smile, but Devon had already turned down the corridor leading away from the lobby. Cal hurried to follow, suddenly afraid of being left without the light.

“And Devon?” The professor’s needling voice echoed down the hall toward them. “Be gentle with him, and remind him of the rules, please.”

Room 3 was small, little more than a cell, with a hanging metal lamp that had long since burst its bulb. The one high window was so grimy it didn’t seem possible that any light could have made it in even in the daytime. Bars striped the glass, and the dirt from above had eroded, trickling against the window and gathering there in uneven mounds. It was impossible to forget that they were in a basement—he could feel the subterranean cold seeping through the worn soles of his shoes, chilling him completely.

“So,” Devon said absently, kneeling next to an ancient, rusted cot. “The rules . . .”

“Sorry you had to get the tagalong,” Cal replied. He let his eyes trail across the filthy walls and floor and then back to Devon’s hunched shoulders.

The other student rummaged in a leather messenger bag, pulling out a notebook, camera, and a few pens, as well as a pair of white felt gloves. “Just don’t touch anything, all right? That’s rule number one for you.”

Devon had a thick New York accent, though time away from home had rubbed off the rougher edges of it. Cal said nothing, watching him scribble something on his legal notepad. Then Devon grabbed the flashlight and stood, turning in time to reveal Professor Reyes just outside the door. She knelt, setting up a battery-run light on a little pair of yellow plastic stilts. It looked like what construction workers might use at night.

The lamp came on and Cal threw up his hand, covering his eyes from the harsh glare.

“Happy hunting,” Professor Reyes said, her eyes lingering on Cal before she disappeared again.

Happy hunting.
Like anything could be happy in this room.

“She was talking to me,” Devon said. He had moved closer to the cot, carefully peeling up the rotting blanket on it with his gloved fingers. “You’re just here to observe for now.”

“Thanks, I sort of picked up on that.” Cal crossed his arms, absorbing the withering look the other boy tossed over his shoulder.

“Oh, good. A smart-ass. Can you at least take notes?”

“What do you want me to write?” Cal asked, taking out his own notebook and pen.

7:05 p.m.
, he jotted down.
Stuck in dank cell with sexy dickhead. FML.

“I’ll let you know when I find something,” Devon muttered. Then he fell silent, absorbed in his work. Cal liked him a lot better that way. Tall, blond, with those dark-green eyes and lantern jaw . . . Not that it mattered. It was obvious Cal wasn’t even a blip on the edge of Devon’s radar. For the second time that evening he felt the invisible barrier rise; always on the outside looking in, just watching. Just an observer.

Well, screw that.

Cal turned to his right, wandering away from Devon’s careful inspection of the cot. The room wasn’t any less unsettling for the light of the work lamp. That lamp bleached the color out of things, turning the brown walls to a faded-photograph gray. How was this considered psychology stuff and not archaeology? What were they even hoping to turn up? A small table leaned against the wall opposite the cot, but there was nothing on it. This room was empty—couldn’t they see that?

Then Cal noticed something the work lamp had illuminated. He checked to see that Devon wasn’t watching, then approached the wall. The thing that had caught Cal’s eye was behind the little table, and he had to crouch to see it, squinting past one spindly leg.

It was writing—one cramped line of uneven text, scratched or carved into the concrete.

Ghosts, ghosts in the shadows, ghosts in the light, and now I am become one too

Cal stared at it for a long moment, hardly noticing that his hand had lifted pen to notepad and begun copying the words. His pen moved across the paper almost of its own accord. Then he felt a sudden cold breath against his left ear and, just as quickly, the absence of cold, of heat, of any temperature whatsoever, as if the air surrounding him had been sucked away.

He felt something. There. Just there next to his ear and slightly behind . . . Like someone was leaning over his shoulder, watching him write. His hand trembled, making a mess of the last word—
too
—the final
o
trailing off as if the letter itself had collapsed into a gasp.

“Hello?”

Cal froze. It was a little boy’s voice, soft and curious. He craned his head to the left, and for a brief flicker he saw the boy’s face, hovering beside him. Young—nine or ten—and his face was kind, but something was wrong with his head. It was lumpy, misshapen, as if he’d been in an accident.

“Are you here to help? Or are you like them, too?”

Cal shifted away from the face, the voice. It wasn’t just his hand that had lost feeling now but his entire body. Cal jerked toward the door, his back hitting the wall. He had to get away. But the instant he moved, the pale little face vanished, and the scant warmth of the room returned. The light shone brighter, and Devon . . . Devon was staring at him.

“Did you say something?” Cal whispered. The face . . . The
thing
. . . It was gone, wasn’t it? Or it had never been there to begin with. He searched the room, but there was nothing out of place.

“What’s up? Did you touch something?” Devon stood, rounding on him. “I told you not to touch anything!”

“I didn’t!” Cal inched toward the door, nearly tripping over the lamp. “I heard . . . You
really
didn’t say anything? It’s not cool to mess with me, man. It’s creepy down here!”

“Professor!” Sighing, Devon tucked his hands against his waist and shook his head. “The newbie is spooked. You better get him out of here before he has a meltdown!”

That was just fine with him. Cal showed himself the door, plunging out into the corridor. It wasn’t any better out here. He couldn’t remember what it was like to take in a breath and not taste sour air. At least he could feel his hands again, and his feet, though he couldn’t banish the feeling that that little boy was somewhere nearby, watching him. Watching him struggle to shove his notebook and pen away. Watching him struggle down the hall toward Professor Reyes, who bustled up to him with her brow furrowed.

“Is this some stunt of yours to get out early?” she asked, drawing up too close for his liking. “I am trying to help you, Cal. I am trying to be patient and work with your father—”

“It’s not a stunt,” Cal said. Didn’t he look pale to her? He
felt
pale. “I heard something. I
saw
someone.”

Her brow relaxed and she took his arm, gently, leading him back toward the lobby. “You do look pretty shaken. All right, you can be dismissed early tonight. Get some air, Cal. It can be intense down here. I’ll just need to search your bag first.”

“Fine. Take it.” He pushed the bag at her.
Whatever gets me out of here fastest.

Cal watched her rifle through the bag, look over his open notebook, pause, and then put it back. She closed the clasp on the bag and handed it back across to him.

Down the hall, he heard a commotion as a door snapped open. He turned, seeing the faint glow of a flashlight come nearer, bouncing along the corridor. It was one of the girls. She skidded up to them, out of breath, pushing a feathery fall of brown hair out of her eyes.

“Professor,” she said, glancing nervously at Cal and then back to Professor Reyes. “In the office . . . You should come look.”

The professor’s beetle-black eyes glittered up at Cal in the semidarkness of the corridor, and then she was waving him along. “You’re free to go, Cal. Breathe. See your friends. Get your head together, because I expect you back tomorrow night.”

By the time he had taken his next step, she was already vanishing down the hall.

H
e tried everything he could think of to get to sleep.

Micah didn’t return to their room that night, and so Cal left his desk lamp on until long after midnight. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the boy’s face hovering there in front of him. When he turned on his side, his spine ached; when he turned on his back, his neck hurt. . . . What was wrong with him? He didn’t believe in ghosts or hauntings or any of that crap. But he had seen something. He’d
heard
something. If he didn’t believe that, then he didn’t believe himself.

Cal rolled out of bed and stalked to the fridge, rummaging around until he found a travel-size bottle of vodka in the back. He downed it in one, sputtering and wiping at his mouth, then tossed the empty bottle into a Chinese takeout bag near the sink. Recycling. Close enough.

Back in bed, he didn’t feel any more clearheaded. He closed his eyes.
No.
The boy was back, watching him, not menacing but
curious
. Curious was somehow worse.

Cal’s pulse refused to slow down. He remembered this feeling from finals week last semester, when he was under so much pressure and stress that he’d stopped sleeping altogether. He would lie in bed and put his hand over his chest, and he would feel his heart racing out of control, unable to shut himself down, unable to turn off his brain. He felt that again now—that terrifying sense that he wasn’t in control of his body or his mind.

He sat up, deciding to use his nervous energy to read and take notes. But he couldn’t focus. Finally, he gave up and fished Fallon’s comic book out of his bag. He stared at the pages until his next memory was of dreaming.