Page 93 of Jig's Last Dance

“From Iris,” I say, opening the door.

“Iris from school? Wait, where are you going?”

I don’t answer, and she follows with a disapproving frown, but I can’t leave without knowing if this place means something.

I walk to the edge of the water and look around, a shiver crawling up my spine. It’s so empty here. Bad things could happen, and no one would know.

Maybe this is one of John’s secret torture places? Excellent and I’m standing here like a total idiot.

Turning back toward the car and the sea of buildings, I search over the landscape, but there’s nothing. Not a car, not a person, not even a fucking dog.

Shawn steps up to my back, and I turn my head to speak when out of the corner of my eye, I spot something sparkling beyond a tree.

Raising the flashlight on my phone, I approach it, brushing past a beautiful old tree, where a shack comes into view. Stepping through the brush, I pass around an old machine that I can’t identify before the tiny shack is before me.

It’s too small for anything of substance to have taken place there. Maybe somewhere for mariners of times past to wait before loading their boats and moving on?

“I don’t like this,” Shawn hisses as I push the door open. The squeal that follows makes me flinch, but inside is another dead end.

It’s empty save for a bed that hasn’t been used since Eisenhower. A small sink rests against the opposite wall. Beyond that, it’s filled with dust. Shawn sneezes behind me, and I sigh, leaning against the door.

But it gives way under my weight, and I fall to my knees, holding out my hands to catch my weight. My phone tumbles from my hand, creating a strobe light against the walls.

“Fuck,” I mumble, sitting up and rubbing my stinging palms against my dress. Shawn grabs my phone and shines it on the floor.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mumble.

“What’s that?” She points at the floor and I crawl forward.

It looks like a loop or old tool of some kind, but when I go to pick it up, it doesn’t move. It’s a latch on the floor.

“Huh,” I say, wiping the dust away.

Shawn’s quiet behind me as I stare at the latch with a pulse in my chest before I grab it. I can’t afford to leave any stone unturned, even if I don’t like what I find.

“Alice,” Shawn says, but it’s too late.

Staring back at me from the tiny crawl space is a mummified body. The mouth is open in a soundless cry, the eye sockets dark and black. Hair surrounds the desiccated face, stringy and blonde. I assume it was a woman based on the length of the hair, but that’s the only clue I get because there’s nothing left for me to determine the sex.

Despite the fact that I can see the features of their face, the skin is like dried meat, the chest cavity is concave, and there’s nothing between the legs.

Falling back on my ass, I mewl, the strange sound echoing in my ears.

“Fuck,” Shawn says behind me before she turns and retches.

Absently, I listen to the awful sound, feeling sick myself, before turning away from the poor soul that was left like garbage in a fucking crawl space. What the hell?

“We should go,” I whisper, my stomach roiling.

Shawn murmurs her agreement, and I pull the trapdoor up, but before I drop it over the remains, I pause on something inside. Resting below the gnarled excuse for a finger is a necklace, and I reach toward it with my heart in my throat.

“What?” Shawn says as I pick up the bone, no longer attached to the hand, and the jewelry dislodges.

Whose is it? The poor soul trapped for eternity below this disgusting floor?

“Fuck,” I rasp, dropping the finger and standing.