Page 95 of 5 Golden Flings

Great. Maybe she wasn’t as cut out to be Indiana Jones as she’d hoped. If there were lots of spiders, she might just leave Colby to it. No, she couldn’t do that to her dad, but she’d certainly be tempted.

About halfway down the stairs she heard Colby breathe, “Wow,” causing her to pause.

“What is it?”

“Definitely not what I expected.” He turned the flashlight back to her to illuminate the stairs that the upstairs candlelightcouldn’t reach. As she stepped onto an old stone-bed floor, he laid his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s stay close so we can see a little easier. Plus, I don’t want you wandering off.”

Without moving, he slowly scanned the beam of light across the room around them. The walls appeared to also be stone with some kind of dirt packed between them. One far corner had water dripping down the wall, with dark stains indicating it had been leaking for a while.

As he moved the circle of light to the left, Brynn gasped. It took her a moment to realize that the eyes she was seeing were in a deer head mounted to the wall. Huge, intricate antlers reach high to meet the low ceiling.

Another deer head was farther along that wall.

“What’s that?” she asked, curling her freezing fingertips into fists in an attempt to warm them.

Between them was something low and long. “Wait just a minute,” Colby said as she started to move. “Let’s make sure its safe first.”

She knew he was right but impatience was starting to shake her out of her shock. Still, she let him scan the rest of the room, finding a few floor candelabras decorated with antlers and some old pews stacked in one corner.

“So, the furniture makes sense. Probably left over from the old church?” he said. “Though I know hunting trophies are common here in the South, I’ve never seen any in a church.”

“Maybe someone else added them?” Brynn said, though the thought made her uneasy. Why would someone hang those in an abandoned basement? What would they even mean anyway? It wasn’t like this was some kind of hang out—though she guessed maybe Maria’s kids could have found it as teenagers and used it for a secret space for things kids didn’t want their parents to know about?

Maybe that accounted for the uneasy feelings and increasing breathlessness she was feeling.

“This is...odd,” Colby said, his voice also seeming unsteady.

“What is it?”

They slowly approached the pieces between the two deer heads. “This is maybe a lectern?” he said. “Isn’t that what those things are called at the front of the church?”

“Yes, or a podium, though this is very old-school.” The wood was heavy and dark. A simplistic style with a tall base and slanted top where the preacher could set his Bible and notes during his sermon.

“But this is more like an altar?”

As the light swept slowly over the waist-high table with matching wood bottom and marble top, Brynn choked. Near the far end was a distinct red stain in a wide pool and splatter pattern. “Is that blood?” she whispered.

“I—I don’t know,” Colby admitted.

He stepped up onto the raised area that wasn’t quite tall enough to be a true stage. Brynn stayed to the side as he explored behind the furniture, watching the light sweep back and forth as she fought back nausea.

What had her father actually seen?

Suddenly Colby paused behind the podium, the light shining underneath it. After a moment he raised his gaze to hers.

“I think we found it.”

CHAPTER 12

Colby eyedthe trunk tucked snugly into the lectern. He couldn’t imagine any old-timey preacher who would stand in this cavern of a space and speak to a congregation from behind this piece. No, this wasn’t for a congregation.

This space was for evil.

He could definitely feel it, even as Brynn came to stand beside him. The shadows of the room pressed closer, as if to keep them from seeing the truth of what had happened here.

Colby wasn’t ready to admit that the table—altar—whatever it was had given him the heebie-jeebies, but it seriously had. He’d seen plenty of blood in his time. Fresh blood, dried blood, old blood. He knew what it was without a doubt. Everything inside of him screamed to get Brynn out of here.

She bent down for a better look. His body automatically followed. She reached with one of her fingers and traced the initials on the lock. “Sadie Asher. This was my mother’s.”

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