(Continued from last week)

I climbed down from the tree and grabbed ahold of the lock.

“It’s locked onto some kind of board, you idiot,” Evelina said in her Russian accent with a Texas twang. She sounds drunk when she talks. And she’s mean, too.

I swept the dirt away with my black Adidas.

“It’s not a board. It’s a door.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Well don’t just stand there looking like Forest Gump. Open it up!”

“It’s fucking locked, E.” And with that I gave an exaggerated tug on the lock. A dull click snapped through the air and I flew backward onto my ass. Evelina began snorting like a deranged pig.

“Are you ok, Kat?” she asked, swinging down from the tree and helping me to my feet. My ass wasn’t as sore as my ego.

“Damn thing broke apart on me.” I tossed the lock into the grass. Evelina reached down and grabbed a metal handle sticking out of the door. She pulled hard, her muscles in her back straining tight in the dawning light. The door opened and a pool of darkness spilled out from the square hole.

I got on my hands and knees, peering into the black abyss, my eyes straining with the effort.

“Let’s find out where it goes!” Evelina was lowering herself into the hole before she finished her sentence.

“E, if you get us raped by a serial killer, I’ll kill you!” I shouted down into the hole.

“That makes no sense, Kat,” came her voice from the dark.” It’s a tunnel!”

I wasn’t going to let my best friend ghost hunt without me. I dangled from the lip of the door before dropping down, my feet hitting packed earth.

We took the tunnel together, guided by light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. They gave off a yellow, dusty glow. The tunnel smelled of earth and beef jerky.

The tunnel moved steadily downward, twisting and turning, the soft light guiding us onward. For the first time since I’d met Evelina in the second grade, she didn’t utter a word.

Ahead of us, we heard a sound like a man moaning, followed by scraped metal. The light pushed out of the darkness with a dull ache.

We slowed, listening intently. I could smell Evelina’s skin, sweating out the cucumber water she’d been drinking early that morning.

“Can I lick your skin?” I asked. Evelina stopped in tracks.

“Can you not be creepy while we’re walking through a dimly lit underground tunnel toward certain death, please?” She turned her back toward me and kept moving.

“Sorry, I’m just thirsty,” I said, hugging her close.

We crept to the end of the tunnel and peaked around the corner. A man stood naked, flashing us with foul smelling and rotting flesh. His neck was collared by a thick metal ring attached to a chain into the wall. His skin was sliding off his face, his teeth chipped and exposed.

A door to our right, inside the room, suddenly opened and the two of us jumped backward into the tunnel. A priest appeared, a large golden cross in one hand, his other slinging holy water from a bottle, chanting in tongues. The zombie groaned loudly and attempted to grab the priest, his penis flaccid and decayed, looking more like a headless, bloodied duck.

(To be continued)