At the bottom of the steps, Elliot and Evajean reversed their order. “I can’t go in there,” she said. “What we need to find, it’s down there, but, Elliot, you’re going to have to look for it, okay?” She was nervous, talking fast. “I’m going to go back upstairs, okay? I’m sorry– The tunnels, I keep thinking of them. I thought I’d be okay–upstairs, when everything was funny, I thought I’d be okay, but I can’t–”

Elliot put his hand on her shoulder. “Go back up. It’s fine. I’ll look around.”

She smiled and shrugged. “It’s the tunnels– I keep seeing that girl. I tried, you know? I’m sorry.”

“Go,” Elliot said. “I’ll find it and then we’ll get out of here. Why don’t you go back and get Hope and start gathering things?”

“Okay,” she said, and headed back up the steps.

In truth, Elliot was terrified, and angry at her for this sudden change in attitude. Anything could be down here and he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for. The only thing that kept him from going back up with her–or at least insisting she remained here–was the guilt he’d felt as coming down the stairs and a reenforced need to stick it to their situation, and whatever had caused it.

“I’m going outside,” Evajean called down to him. “Okay?”

“Go,” Elliot said again, and meant it a little more now. You can do this.

At first, the basement was entirely dark except for the faint light spilling from the open door to the kitchen. But then, from off to his right, he thought he saw a flash. Could that be it? A reflection from another of those books, maybe? He started walking in that direction, thankful that the basement seemed empty and uncluttered.

However, as he shuffled closer to the corner from which the light had come, he found himself stepping through loose dirt, his feet occasionally kicking small stones. He felt around, checking against abandoned furniture or other obstacles that might accompany the increasing mess.

The dirt and rock soon became thick enough to slope upwards slightly and, when his outstretched hands felt the edges of broken cinder block, Elliot realized he was climbing over the refuse from the digging of a tunnel. The glow might very well have been the arc of a severed wire or an abandoned lamp still lit from the tunnel’s excavation. What the hell is this? he thought.

He pushed his head into the tunnel. The air had a smell of dust and loam and, just barely, he could feel its movement across his face. Where did this go? The way out? The way through the barrier?

Buoyed by the craziness of what he was doing, and the feeling of bravery it took, Elliot called into the tunnel. “Hello? Is anyone back there?” He’d forgotten about Evajean upstairs, his body flushed with a sense of rightness, maybe the same sensation Evajean had had when she’d first guided them to the basement. That sense of purpose. He was intoxicated.

He heard something. Faint, yes, and definitely not words, but a reply to his call nonetheless. A moan from deep in the tunnel, a call weakened by pain, perhaps, and exhaustion.

“Yes?” Elliot shouted. “Who’s there?”

The noise came again, louder by the smallest increment, but strong enough to make him sure. He crawled forward with careful haste, his hands waving when each wasn’t the bearer of his weight, feeling at the tunnel’s rough walls, seeking jagged rocks, sharp metal, and any other unseen dangers. Elliot had no idea how great his progress actually was, had no sense of distance is the excavation, but he kept moving.

Some distance later, the light returned, muted and indistinct, but pulsing rhythmically. Elliot looked back, trying to get a sense of how far he’d come, but the blackness of the basement matched perfectly that of the tunnel. How much further did he have to go?

Then the tunnel opened and Elliot stood up in a room dug from dirt and rock, though one side bore the convex arc of a concrete sewer main. The pulsing light was heavier, the illumination enough for him to see by, and it seemed to come from a raised stone platform at the opposite end of the chamber. Elliot walked toward it, curiosity sweeping subtly in and momentary clouding any remaining self-preservation instinct he had–any that was left after this newfound grip of external purpose.

It was a well. The wooden cover lay broken on the other side. Elliot looked down the depth of shaft, trying to pick out the source of the light. And then he saw them. Near one of the pieces of the cover, having tumbled off when it fell, was a pair of glasses, silver with fat lenses of different colors. They twinkled as he bent down to look. Was this what Evajean wanted? He put them in his pocket.

The glow was harsher now, the rhythm still steady. The pit was silent and then, softly, even comfortingly if in a different context, laughter percolated upward. Confusingly inaudible at first and then louder, the laughter broke into mad giggling. Elliot backed away, tripped over a stone, and fell. He caught himself on his palms, drawing blood, and kicked away from the sound. There was more than one voice in it. Dozens of overlapping children–he was sure they were children–mocking him with sick mirth.

And then he heard something else, something rising behind the laughter, the sound of an unimagined form climbing out of the well. Elliot scrambled to the tunnel mouth and dove forward, crawling as fast as could in the direction of the basement, paying no heed to protruding dangers in his path. Several time along the way he skinned himself, catching his clothes, and had to stop briefly to get free. He could hear whatever it was–whatever they were–coming after him. There was a wet smack as it breached the top of the well and slid over onto the floor of the chamber. Seconds later, a sticky sliding and scraping came from behind him in the tunnel. The moaning reached him then, the same call that had guided him to this place.

Elliot coughed heavily as he crawled. The tunnel was filling with dust. Up ahead, he thought he could make out the hole and could see a minor rise in the level of light that meant the basement was close. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth, trying not to think about the new smells the the dust brought, the odors of age and enclosure–and rot.

At last he pulled himself from the tunnel and ran toward the basement steps. Halfway across the room, he slipped, falling backwards, bouncing his head off the cement floor. Cursing, he rolled over to pick himself up. As he did, light poured from the mouth of the tunnel and a great wave of fifth burst forth, filling the basement, flooding around his knees. With it came the children, all of them no older than toddlers, their faces smeared, their hair matted and patchy, stalking haphazardly from the tunnel.

Elliot crouched, unable to force his muscles into flight, as the children fanned out and looked back, waiting for something else to make its way through the tunnel and into the cellar. When it finally did, when it squeezed out onto the floor, Elliot shook and called out noiselessly, demanding himself to move, to get out of here, to not think about what was in front of him.

The thumping, moaning, crying thing slid and rolled across the floor toward him, its adolescent caretakers, hands pressed firmly into its flesh, giggling furiously and tromping along beside like pallbearers.

Elliot tried to scream but the filth was too thick, flooding into his mouth and reducing him to a fit of convulsive retching. He pulled his legs up under him, trying to get to his feet, and, coughing grime, scrambled upright.

He smashed a shin in his ascent of the stairs but then was back in the kitchen, turning the corner to the exit, not bothering to look behind him at whatever it was that followed. Broken pieces of plates and bent silverware flew past him, thrown by more of the babies he caught glimpses of, leaning out from cabinets and behind door frames. They all laughed, their child fat shaking.

Elliot ran, stumbling and off balance, out the back door and along the Elliot path to the gate. Behind him, the children called from the doorway, shouting and laughing as they hurled the pumice rocks that lined the planter boxes.

Evajean was there, in the backyard, holding Hope, her face slack with terror at what was behind him. “Run!” he screamed at her. “Run!”

She did and he followed and, as they sprinted through the yard and into the wheat, Elliot realized he had left the rifle somewhere inside. That didn’t matter now and he only ran. And behind them, growing fainter, was the laughter.