Page 35 of Earth-Bound

I was just about to suggest we move it again when there was a crashing, splintering sound from downstairs. Terrund and I looked at each other in shock and then, without a word, shot out of the room and down the stairs.

We found Randall and Broadmire in the kitchen and there was a door to the side of the room, hanging off its hinges where Broadmire had just kicked it in. I’d tried to open it before but it had been either locked or jammed. I’d asked Broadmire if there were any pants through there and he’d said no, so I’d left it. Not my concern.

The door swung slowly back and forth, a couple of broken chunks hanging down and scraping across the tiled floor. I peered through the door into the darkness.

“Is that a basement?” I asked.

“Looks like it.”

Randall sounded amused as he said, “What do you mean ‘looks like it’? Don’t you know?”

Broadmire shrugged his shoulders. “No.”

“You mean you didn’t come in and explore the house when you bought it?”

“Nope. I didn’t come in at all. Wasn’t interested in the house. Only came in to put the plants in the windows.”

Randall smirked at his boyfriend and slipped his hand into Broadmire’s. “Do you want to go down and see what’s there?”

He nodded and they moved through the doorway and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. The water hadn’t been turned off but the electricity had.

Randall pulled out his phone and switched it to torch mode, playing a beam of bright white light across the concrete stairs down. I got out my phone, too, and did the same, and then looked over to Terrund.

“Do you have a phone?”

He tilted his head quizzically and his eyes dropped to my hand. “That’s a phone?” he asked.

From just inside the door, Randall gave a forced laugh. “Ha ha, he doesn’t mean that. He doesn’t have his phone with him. Can you use yours?”

“Yes, sure.” I held it out in front of me and Terrund moved closer so we could both share the light, and followed Broadmire and Randall down into the basement. Broadmire went first and kept Randall just behind him, as though shielding him in case there was something nasty lurking down there.

I felt Terrund shiver where his arm was pressing against mine. For the first time, I wondered how warm those fancy-dress clothes of his were. I was wearing the same things I did every day – an old pair of jeans and a green polo shirt and even I felt the temperature drop as we descended.

“What the—?”

Randall shone the beam of light over the room. It was large and there was a huge open space in the middle. The only thing there was in the very centre; a table covered in a black cloth. On it were candlesticks with half-melted candles in, with wax dripping down the sides, a silver tray with some old, dried sprigs on, and what looked like a silver dagger. It was creepy as hell.

We all moved forward cautiously. The whole place was covered in dust and cobwebs so we left trailing footsteps as we moved into the room.

The others went straight for that table, set up like a devil-worshiping alter or something. I wanted to take a quick look around the edges, just to see what was there.

I wished I hadn’t. There were things I’d rather not have seen. Rabbit’s feet and what might have been dried intestines hung in rows, a fox’s head was stuffed and mounted, and a magpie hung upside down, splayed out like an inverted crucifix. I hated it. I didn’t want to look any more, but I just couldn’t leave that poor, dead bird hanging there.

“Oh, poor darlin’,” I said, not even realising I was about to speak. I took my phone in my left hand and reached my right out to unhook the magpie from the nail it was dangling from.

“No!”

I heard the shout from behind me and it startled me. I just had time to glance over my shoulder when Terrund barrelled into me. He clamped his arms around mine and pinned them to my sides. The light from my phone vanished as it was pinned to my side, pointing at the ground.

I was too startled to do anything. I didn’t fight or try to shake him off, but that might have been because I’d spent all morning wishing to feel his arms around me again. I’d just been wishing it was in different circumstances and that it felt like a caress and not as though I was being wrestled away from a bear.

“Hmm, Terrund?”

He was pressed close against me, his breath playing across my cheek. “Don’t touch it.”

“I can’t just leave it hanging there.”

“You have to.”

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