Sickened, I added more hot water to the tub, but I still couldn't chase the cold from my soul. Making me even colder was my uneasy conviction that I hadn't learned everything I could have out there. I was sure there was something darker. God help me, I didn't want to, but I knew I had to go back.

11

I walked along the lane to the ruin. The time was a little after ten the next morning. My night had been fitful, sleep coming only toward dawn. My nervousness grew as I stepped closer. I removed my pistol from a fanny pack that I'd bought. Clutching the weapon helped to keep my scraped hands from shaking. The thought of the snakes made bile rise into my mouth.

I paused where I had the previous day. From the lane, I couldn't see the spot where I'd fallen into the chamber. It was as if the earth had sealed itself. But I had a general idea of where the tunnel and the chamber were, and I plotted a direction that avoided them.

I studied the long grass for quite a while, on guard against the slightest ripple. Finally I aimed the pistol and took one cautious step after another. Weeds scraped against my pants. The poison ivy seemed harder to avoid.

I took a wide arc around the back of the house, approaching a group of trees behind the house. The previous night, I'd imagined the design problems that Orval had needed to solve. Insulate the prison chamber. Get heating ducts leading into it. But what about ventilation? One of the ducts would have taken air from the furnace in the house. The other duct would have returned air to the furnace. A closed system.

That would have been adequate if the chamber had been merely a storage room. But if I was right and the chamber had been a cell, the system would have needed to be modified so that carbon dioxide and other poisonous gases didn't accumulate and kill the prisoner. To prevent that from happening, there would have had to be another duct into the chamber, powered with a fan, to bring in fresh air. The logical place for that duct would have been just below the ceiling, but the snakes had prevented me from noticing the duct if it was there.

The outlet would have had to project above the ground. Otherwise, it would have gotten clogged with dirt. But how had Orval disguised it? The area behind the house was flat. After the fire, the townspeople would have swarmed around the wreckage, hoping to find survivors. They hadn't stumbled over the vent. If they had, they'd have wondered about its purpose and eventually have discovered the underground chamber. So where in hell had Orval hidden the outlet so that nobody had found it back then?

The trees were the obvious answer. Between fallen logs, or inside a stump. Ready with the pistol, I continued through the weeds and long grass. The sun was hot on my head, but that wasn't the reason I sweated. Each time a breeze moved blades of grass, I tightened my finger on the trigger.

I reached the trees, where the grass was welcomely shorter as I crisscrossed the area. Whenever I nudged a log, my muscles cramped in anticipation of finding a coiled snake. I picked up a stick (making sure that it was in fact a stick), then poked through leaves that had collected in hollow stumps. I found nothing unusual.

But the outlet had to be in the area. I turned in a slow circle, surveying the trees. Damn it, where would Orval have hidden the outlet? Ventilation ducts became inefficient the longer they extended. The outlet had to be somewhere among the charred logs and stumps. Everything else in the area was flat.

No, I realized with a chill. Not everything. The graveyard. On my left, about fifty feet from the chamber, it looked so bleak that it discouraged me from going near it. A perfect place to…

I stepped from the trees, entering the long grass, and the first rattle took my breath away. I stumbled back, saw the snake under a bush, and blew its head off. The reflex and the accuracy with which I shot surprised me. Hours and hours of practice no doubt explained my reaction. But for over a year, hate and anger had been swelling in me. More than anything, I wanted to kill something. No sooner had I shot the first snake than a second one buzzed. I blew its head apart. A third coiled. A fourth. A fifth. I shot each of them, furious that the snakes seemed to be trying to stop me. My shots rang in my ears. The sharp stench of cordite floated around me. Relentlessly, I shifted through the grass. A sixth. A seventh. An eighth. Pieces of snakes flew. Blood sprayed through the grass. Yet more kept rattling, and it seemed that it wasn't my pistol but my raging thoughts that shot them, so directly and instantly did their heads explode the moment I fixed my gaze on them.

The last empty cartridge flipped to the ground. The slide on the pistol stayed back. As I'd done hundreds of times in class, I pushed the button that dropped the empty magazine. I drew a full one from my fanny pack, slammed it into the pistol's grip, pushed the lever that freed the slide, and aimed this way and that, eager for more targets.

None presented itself. Either I'd frightened the rest away or they were hiding, waiting. Let them try, I thought in a fury as I picked up the empty magazine and proceeded more relentlessly through the grass. Reaching the graveyard's low stone wall, I climbed over. Brambles and poison ivy awaited me. The place was too foul even for snakes.

The piles of stones in front of each grave made my nerves tighten as I stepped forward. Glancing behind me, I thought I detected a slight furrow in the ground, where earth seemed to have settled. It was so minor that I never would have paid attention to it if I hadn't been looking for it. Faint, it ran from where I'd fallen into the chamber. It went under the graveyard's wall. Even less noticeable, it led to the grave nearest the underground chamber.

A short grave. A child's grave. Angry, I knelt. I pulled away the pile of stones at the head of the grave. For a moment, I couldn't move. The stones had concealed an eight-inch-wide duct sticking up. The duct had a baffle on it so that rain would pour off and not get into the ventilation system.

I was right: The chamber had been a cell. I remembered the long, flat object that the snakes had piled onto to avoid the rising water. Over the years, the object had so deteriorated that, in the shadows, I hadn't been able to identify it. But now I knew what it was. The remains of a mattress. It had been the only object in the room. There hadn't even been a toilet. Had Lester been forced to relieve himself in a pot, contending with the stench until his captors took it away? Their son? The horror of it mounted as I stared at the child's grave that they'd desecrated to hide their sin.

12

Reverend Benedict was where I had met him the previous day, kneeling, trimming roses in the church's garden. His white hair glinted in the sunlight.

"Mr. Denning." He stood with effort, shook my hand, and frowned at the scratches on it. "You've injured yourself."

"I took a fall."

He pointed toward my chin, where my beard stubble couldn't hide a bruise. "Evidently a bad one."

"Not as bad as it could have been."

"At the Dant place?"

I nodded.

"Did you find anything to help you locate your family?"

"I'm still trying to make sense of it." I told him what I'd discovered.

The wrinkles in his forehead deepened. "Orval and Eunice held their only son prisoner? Why?"

"Maybe they thought the Devil was in him. I have a feeling a lot of things happened out there that we'll never understand, Reverend." My head pounded. "How did Lester escape from the underground room? When the fire broke out, did Orval and Eunice risk their lives to go down to the basement and free him? Did the parents somehow get trapped? In spite of how they'd treated him, did Lester try but fail to save them, as he claimed?"