Page 99 of Descent

Fuck luck. I’ve only ever had shit-out-of-luck as my gold standard.

Farmlands ghost by in the morning haze.

“Peaceful,” I whisper, checking to make sure Dom is still snoring softly in the back.

Ero nods. “Quiet too.”

“I always imagined retiring somewhere like this. Near the coast, but not beachy.”

He starts to smile, to agree or elaborate when a frown pinches his brows. “Cirs…”

A tip of his chin points out a wooden gate up ahead. Beyond it, fields roll over hills. Trees run in strips south in long swaths, breaking the land up into blocks. My first instinct is to laugh. “You want to see if it’s for sa?—”

The words and the humor die on my lips as Ero slows down.

Not just because of the barely visible Keep Out and No Trespassing signs. The English words are certainly out of place.But the fading blue paint on the posts jabs at my perception, making me flinch.

I’m out of the car before he puts it in park.

Tugging aside more of the crawling vines, I tip over a rusted, dented mailbox. A strobe light of memories flashes before my eyes. The same mailbox, freshly painted. Where the rusted holes gape in silent outcry, I see letters.

“Ero…?” I gasp, reaching back for him as he edges up to join me.

“Dalca. It used to say Dalca.”

With barely a backward glance to check on Dom, we hop the rotting crossbeams of the gate. My hand finds Ero’s, twining fingers. Past the first hill, we see a glint of windows. White paint, accented in pale green.

One minute we’re standing a hundred yards away, staring at the haunting profile of the house. The next, we’re at the door. Dirt and leaves speckle the porch, a wide, tiled affair stretching out from the archway of the entry. A blackened, empty fountain crouches to our left, a stone railing lining the drive back around the side of the house to our right.

“This feels?—”

“—familiar.”

“The photos. In the box under the bed in Greece,” I mutter, unconsciously reaching for the handle at the front door. “We were standing right here.”

“Smiling.”

“With Theo.”

“Holding Eva.” Ero’s voice trembles, his hand falling atop mine.

Our eyes meet, brimming with horror. With grief.

“We—”

“It was real.”

“No. No it can’t be.” I shoulder the door open, dust and debris scattering across the hallway. Stale air breathes back on me, sepulchral. As if I opened a long-sealed mausoleum.

The remaining furniture litters the living area, the dining room, scattered about haphazardly. Like someone moved out in a hurry. Or no one bothered to finish moving the items away.

Because the occupants were gone.

Because we were removed and reprogrammed.

“Cirs.” Ero’s subdued tone turns my attention to where he’s staring. “Wiring. For a camera.”

A one-eighty shows me more, some of the devices still mounted in corners, the crown molding concealing the equipment cracked and torn down in sections. Naturally, we follow the lines back to a hub, a splitter box mounted beside a door in the hall, a stark outline echoing the frame that once hid the breaker board.

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