Page 111 of Play With Me

I narrow my eyes. “Because this is the mystery we’ve been trying to solve since quite literally the day we met.”

“Right,” he says. “Better stop kissing me then, horndog.”

I laugh, shoving him. Then I pick my camera back up. But I hesitate before hitting record again. “Jude,” I say, my breath hitching. “What if we can’t get inside?”

“We’ll get inside,” Jude says confidently.

He walks over to the side of the house, and I hit record, following him. I’m zooming in on his face when he turns to me and grins. “See?”

I go over to see what he’s looking at.

There’s the slope of a cellar door there, layered over in snow.

Both of us get down on our knees and sweep the snow from the surface, revealing a latch and a lock attached to a rusted bar spanning the width of the door. I keep filming with one hand while I grasp the lock with my other. This one holds.

“Shit,” I whisper.

But Jude’s unbothered, and it only takes me a moment to see why: he lifts the metal bar clean off the door, taking the lock with it. The hinges were completely corroded.

My heart dances in my chest. We’re going inside.

The door opens up into a root cellar. Like an actual root cellar: dirt floor and dirt walls, with roots protruding from both. It smells like damp decay, and is only about five feet in height, so both of us are hunched over—Jude more so than me.

I don’t know about Jude, but my heart is thundering in my chest.

“It’s like a horror movie down here,” I squeak. Luckily, I’ll be cutting out all this audio when I edit this footage later.

Jude reaches for my free hand. “This was your idea, Shotgun Annie.”

His voice is strained. Jude’s not a fan of horror movies.

Our only light is Jude’s phone flashlight, sweeping left and right. I follow it with my camera, telling him to go slow. There are mostly only crates down here, and ancient jars filled with black sludge.

I shiver, and I’m just starting to think there’s no way to get upstairs from here when I spot a glint up above: a latch on the ceiling, directly over Jude’s hunched shoulders.

“There!” I whisper, pointing up.

Jude has to twist his body to see, but I hear him mutter, “Thank Christ,” as he reaches up and twists it open. The trap door swings easily up, and a moment later, Jude’s upper half is gone up the opening.

“Holy shit!” he exclaims.

I lower the camera as he hoists himself up.

A moment later, I’m by myself in the basement, and suddenly, I’m terrified. “Jude!” I exclaim.

Nothing.

I don’t have a light, and the only source of it now is the faint light filtering down from the hole.

“Jude!” I cry again, my voice pitched high.

I rush to the hole, and the moment I stick my head up, Jude’s hands are under my arms, hoisting me up onto the floor.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs when we’re both up.

I lean into his chest, ashamed of how terrified I got for a minute there.

Then I look around.