Dead Waters - Anton Strout [88]
Connor’s face lit up. “Deal,” he said. “One throw, on three. One, two, three!”
I threw out my right hand, flat as could be. I looked at Connor’s hand, two fingers held apart in a V formation.
“Scissors,” I said. “Son of a bitch.”
“Sorry, kid,” Connor said. He clicked his fingers against my hand like he was actually cutting it.
I looked down into the hole before pulling out my flashlight. “I thought for sure you were going to throw rock.”
“Not when I knew you were going to throw down paper,” he said.
“You got lucky,” I said. “You didn’t know I was going to throw paper.”
“I did too,” he said. “You are such a paper. You’re such a paper it hurts.”
I was going to ask what Connor even meant by that, but seeing the look on the Inspectre’s face shut me down. Instead, I turned my flashlight on the opening itself. An iron-rung ladder was built into the side of a stone chimney leading down to the sound of churning water far below. Without another word, I lowered myself down to the floor, slid over the edge of the trapdoor, and grabbed onto the top rung. Once I was certain I had a good grip and wasn’t about to fall to my death, I began my descent, the tiny flashlight gripped in my right palm leaving my fingers free to hold on to the rungs.
“If at any moment you feel compelled to lower a basket with lotion in it,” I said, making my way down the wet ladder set in the stone, “feel compelled to also drop dead.”
“Don’t make me get the hose, kid,” Connor said and waved at me.
The Inspectre shushed him, and I turned my attention back to my descent. The well was deeper than I had imagined, but soon enough I got to the bottom of the ladder where it met the water. It rolled and splashed up the sides of the shaft, leaving me to think it must lead out to the river surrounding the island we were on.
“Anything, my boy?” the Inspectre called down.
I snaked my arm through one of the rungs and used my now-free hand to move the light around. The walls were covered with a mix of dark green slime, white foam, blood, and bits of decaying organic material I feared was human flesh.
“This isn’t a well,” I said. “I think it’s a feeding pit.”
“Feeding pit?” the Inspectre called out, puzzlement in his voice. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, passing my light over the churning water. “Maybe that creepy green woman. Maybe Mason Redfield unearthed her from a tomb and he was taking care of her, like a twisted pet of some kind, and she eventually turned on him.” My light caught something dark and solid bobbing in the churn of tiny waves. “Hold on a second. I see something.”
I stuck my legs through part of the ladder, and stretched myself out over the water, reaching out. My only thought was, Please don’t let it be a head. My fingers caught a bit of it for a second before it bobbed away. It was cloth, but it had some thickness to it. I leaned out a little farther and grabbed again, this time finding purchase. The electric shock of my psychometry flashed on the bag and I was whisked away into the past before I could control it or stop it from happening. The vision was dark with the sound of water all around. I couldn’t see, but I was sure I was at the bottom of the pit. I pressed my mind around to figure out who I was, and in a heartbeat I knew. George, the blondhaired Hispanic punk kid who palled around with the other disciples of Mason Redfield. His mind was a confused mix, overrun by pain from having been bled out, then tossed down here. Weak and enfeebled, he struggled to get hold of the ladder but his body had not the strength. He slipped below the surface of the water as something cold and slimy wrapped around his body, crushing in. He panicked at the sensation and I did, too, forcing my mind’s eye to pull itself back out of the vision.
Thankfully, my one arm was still locked in the ladder and I gasped a shocked breath from the surprise of the vision. My arm ached as I pulled the bag over to me, thankful that the water still bore much of the weight of the floating object until I could get a better grip.