I push forward, feeling my way up the exterior cement stairs, and step through the doorless doorway. Here, just inside the entrance, I pause again and slip into the Winter Wind.

  The path before me is littered with debris. I fear there might be an upturned nail that could hurt Betsie. Although I can see within the Winter Wind, I am not so sure how much my dog is seeing in the pure darkness of the room. Perhaps a little, perhaps a lot.

  In my mind’s eye, I study the floor before me as best as I can, noting the debris, but I do not see any upturned nails, or anything else that would cause alarm.

  With the path clear in my memory, I move forward again, over the uneven floor, littered with wood paneling and metal siding and two-by-fours. And one big slab of wood.

  Betsie stops. She’s trained to stop when she senses changes in elevation, such as curbs, and when confronted with obstacles. The piled, loose planks of wood might qualify as both. But I was also sensing something else from her. Some hesitancy. Nervousness. Trust me, I know my dog.

  I would have made cooing noises for her, gently coaxing her forward, if I could. Instead, I pause and kneel down and pat her head reassuringly. She turns and looks up at me, and I can almost see the questioning look in her eye—especially now that I know exactly what her furry mug looks like. I smile and nod and motion with my head to continue. We continue forward, but I suspect Betsie is doing so under protest.

  When I feel that I’m in the right spot, I kneel down and release Betsie’s harness. I remove a latex glove from a pocket and slip it over my right hand. Like at a crime scene. Next, I feel carefully over the floor—and I’m not liking what I’m touching. Rat turds, I’m sure. Lots of them. A mask would have been nice, now that I think about it. I power through, covering my tracheal tube with my shirt, although I doubt that does much.

  Better than nothing, I think.

  Now gripping the edge of the wooden slab, I give it a push. It moves, begrudgingly. After all, a lot of wood is piled on top of it.

  But I keep pushing and pushing, and push it all the way to the far side of the room, no doubt collecting more wood and rat turds in the process and likely making a helluva racket, too.

  Most important, I expose what is underneath.

  Now standing again, I slip into the Winter Wind to see exactly what I have here.

  ***

  The floor is shimmering.

  In fact, everything is shimmering. It’s the dust, I realize, floating and drifting in the air, alive and sparking with its own vibration of life, disturbed and displaced, much like the rats that have, I suspected, long fled the room in the presence of a canine.

  Just me and the ghosts.

  Almost immediately, through the sparkling, swirling, living dust—looking like so many fireflies—I see the glowing rectangle in the floor. Two glowing rectangles, side by side. Glowing, because they’re metal doors, in fact.

  I spy the handles in the center, and the seam in the middle, looking for all the world like twin cellar doors.

  My heart is racing. Maybe it’s my fear kicking in about possible hantavirus in here. I don’t think so. No, it’s racing because I had just found, for all intents and purposes, a hidden basement door beneath the Los Angeles Old Zoo.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  I wait for my heart to calm down, for my breathing to normalize. This could mean nothing. This could mean everything.

  When I have regained some control over myself, I reach forward—and almost immediately, the Winter Wind disappears. I still haven’t mastered movement within the Wind, but I am getting better at it. Darkness, yes, but I still have the memory of where I am and the floor layout before me.

  Next, on hands and knees, no doubt confusing the hell out of my poor dog, I feel my way to the handles. Once there, I take hold of one and stand back and pull on the door. How silently it opens, I don’t know. Does it creak like hell, waking the dead? I don’t know, but I suspect it makes some sound, certainly.

  Either way, I feel the rush of cool air immediately, up from wherever this opening leads. Perhaps to hell itself. Or perhaps just a small storage room. Perhaps, even now, a man is rushing at me, wielding a knife, but I don’t think so. In fact, I know so. Betsie is only mildly agitated. Anyone rushing me would, of course, be met halfway by Betsie.

  I carefully walk over to the far side, using my walking stick as a guide, and pull open the second wing of the double cellar door.

  More cool wind, and now something else.

  Yes, something indeed.

  Apparently, my sniffer is working after all. I smell something. Something foul. Not necessarily dead, but close to it.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Another snapshot.

  A long cement corridor, packed with old shelving and tools and tables and metal grates. The corridor heads in only one direction, away from the building and toward the zoo itself.

  I pull back and think about my next step. I think hard and long, and wonder what’s going on here. Mostly, I wonder who uses this tunnel and why, and how someone could conceal it again, once they were inside. I had seen the stairs leading down. Someone who is motivated enough could stand on the stairs and slide the massive wooden slab back over the floor again, lift it above their heads, keep it up with, say, one hand, while closing a metal flap. It would take some balance. The flap and slab, with some practice and luck, would fall together, concealing the opening again.

  Unless a second person conceals the metal doors again. Yes, a partner, I think. After all, someone had hunted down Jesse DeFranco, and I am beginning to think it wasn’t the good doctor.

  I don’t know, and, at the moment, I don’t much care.

  All I know is that there is a very good chance that my brother might be at the end of this tunnel. Crazy as it seems, and crazy as all of this is, my instincts tell me there’s something here, and there’s something going on now. Right now. Real people are disappearing. Real people are showing up on surveillance video at this park. Real people are showing up dead. At least one of them.

  He used to work here, I think. The bastard worked here and knows the layout and knows what’s here and has been planning this for a long, long time.

  I consider my options. I can call the police. Or, in my case, text the police. I could text Detective Hammer directly. Or text Rachel. Not a bad idea. Whether or not they would believe me, I don’t know. Would they come out here and help, I had no doubt they would. Except, of course, there was no way in hell I was going to get Rachel out here alone.

  And tell them what? I had found a hole in an abandoned building?

  No, but I can at least tell them where I am, should I never come up for air again. Grim thoughts, but safe thoughts, and so, I extract my phone.

  I go to contacts and type in Hammer’s name. I know how to work this phone. I use it blindly all the time. I don’t need to see. Once I bring up his info, I press the raised message button. I next type in where I am, and what I am doing, and hit send.

  He will, of course, think I’m crazy. And if he is sleeping, he won’t get this until morning. And if I have no reception here, he may never get the message. Still, if he’s awake and binge drinking—an old joke—then I might see him in 20 or 30 minutes. Maybe.

  Either way, I’m flying blind for the foreseeable future. Either way, I’m looking for my brother, come hell or high water. Or down the world’s creepiest underground tunnel.

  I’m really doing this.

  Next, I consider my dog. I don’t want to tie her up. I want her to have a fighting chance if, say, someone comes around. I decide to leave her here, untethered, in the building. More than likely she will stay here, waiting desperately for my return.

  I reach over and rub her furry face. Funny, how I always know where she is. Except she pulls away. She’s not in the mood for rubs. She wants out. I smile at her and ease down into the hole, my foot finding the first rung of the metal ladder, then the second and third.

  When I am at ground level, Betsie lowers her head to the floor, paws in front of her. I press my forehead to hers, then reach over and feel around until I find the interior handle to one of the metal doors. I lift the heavy door up, then pull it shut, sealing off one side. Next, I grope until I find the handle of the next metal flap. I push her big head out of the way, my message clear that she must move.

  Her saliva drips on me as she obeys and moves back from the flap. She does not want to be separated from me.

  When I know she is clear of the flap, I pull it down on top of me, sealing myself in what I imagine is complete darkness.

  What else is new?

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  I pause often for snapshots.

  As I do, I wonder if Betsie is whining above me. If so, I wonder if she can be heard. I imagine her waiting for me, by the opening, come hell or high water. Little did I know she would be tracking me from above, her keen ears alert for the smallest of sounds...

  But for now, I see nothing but an empty tunnel. A cold tunnel, too. A wispy wind slaps at my clothing, and I wonder where the hell the wind might be coming from. I suspect I will know soon enough.

  As I pause, I scan forward and backward. After all, other than a weak sense of smell, I have no other way of knowing if something is coming up from behind me or not. That is, until it’s right on top of me.

  I can see about twenty feet in either direction. And not just either direction, but through the walls, too, which reveal only dirt and rocks and slow moving energy. Very, very slow moving energy. And even here, in this place far removed from prying eyes, buried deep in the earth, in darkness, in suspended animation, alone and forgotten, are bright spots of energy. Insects, worms most likely.

  The stench seems to be growing stronger, even pushing through my damaged olfactory system. A stench that suggests death…and something else. I was either going to come across a dead deer, a mountain lion’s den, or I was going to find…what?

  I don’t know.

  In fact, I don’t have a fucking clue what I will find.

  No, I think, as I move forward in the darkness, feeling naked and exposed without Betsie by my side. I do know what I might find. Something out of a nightmare.

  Not the kind of thoughts you want while inching along a seemingly forgotten tunnel beneath the Old Los Angeles Zoo. I almost don’t know what to do with my right hand—the hand that holds Betsie. And so, I held it up before my face. I don’t think there is anything too low in the corridor, but I’ve hit my head in the past—on everything from low doorways, to low signs to tree branches—and I’ve learned to take precautions in unknown places. Granted, in the past, I didn’t have the benefit of taking snapshots of the route before me. Still, while I traveled in darkness, the snapshots were only just that—snapshots in time. I moved now through space and time—and I might have missed something. Something low. Something sharp. Something dark. Something waiting to reach out and snag me.

  Again, not the kind of thoughts you want, not here, not ever. I pause again, take a deep breath, calm myself, and slip into the Winter Wind. I survey the path ahead, verify there is nothing low-hanging or blocking my path, and continue forward, sweeping my walking stick to keep me straight and true, reaching my free hand up to protect my head—and walk another twenty feet—or what I think is twenty feet.

  Again I pause, slip into the world of blue-green vibration, survey the path before me—and behind me—continue forward again.

  The temperature is dropping. I am wearing only a light jacket and wish I had something heavier. I had not expected to be so cold. I should have been prepared.

  Off my game.

  A very big part of me tells me to turn around, especially now that the smell is growing stronger. Sweet, pungent, and rotten…all rolled into one.

  Had I not known better, I would have thought I was coming upon a hallway full of decaying mushrooms. Except, of course, I know better. I know exactly what I am smelling…and the closer I get, the surer I am.

  There is something dead down here. Something dead within a few weeks, perhaps. Dead and rotting.

  Most troubling, perhaps, is that my brother has been gone for about a week.

  Not him. It can’t be him.

  And I keep thinking this, as I shuffle deeper into the darkness.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  The wall and door emerge out of blue-green light, both shimmering, both blocking my path.

  I am maybe fifteen feet from them. I am still far enough away that the wall and door are hazy at best. The door looks old, and so does the door handle. And the longer I stand there and study the door, the more the surrounding shadows come into focus.

  Stacked to either side of the door are metal cages.

  The Winter Wind shows me that many of the cages contain living creatures within. Possums, I think. And maybe raccoons. Fat rats, too. Some are alive, pacing their cages. But many are dead, too. And not just dead, but partially consumed. Grotesquely consumed. I can see maggots crawling. I can see bones and entrails and dried-out skin. Yes, the picture is becoming clearer. The dead are in varying stages of decay, and many are in the same cages as the living.

  Most are pacing, overly stressed, malnourished, dehydrated, dying. Some are staring at me. There is a long hose nearby, dripping water. The cages have filthy bowls but not much else. A small possum is watching me from the corner of its cage. He’s chewing on something…his own tail, in fact.

  Sweet Jesus.

  Someone, I’m certain, has been coming in and out, perhaps even recently. Perhaps even tonight, judging by the dripping water.

  The stench comes to me now, stronger than ever, and I turn my head and fight a gag reflex. Even back in the day, even after coming across horrific murder scenes and viewing autopsies and death photos, I had to fight a gag reflex. My partners didn’t know it. I hid it well. But it was always there, and I was glad it was there. It made me feel human. It made me feel less robotic, like some of my partners and others on the force.

  I took in some air through the tracheal tube in my throat—air that I knew was rancid and putrid and fecal, and calmed myself. Or tried to.

  Once I was calm, I took one last, deep breath, and lifted my head—and all went black.

  I was out of the Winter Wind and moving forward again.

  Chapter Sixty

  I am close to the door.

  My walking stick has lightly struck a cage, and I pause again. I detect vibration all around me, movement—scratching, perhaps. In my mind’s eye, I imagine the critters pacing their cages, clawing the cages, smashing up against their cages. Either to get out or get my attention. Or eat off my face.

  I need to slip into the Winter Wind, but my mind is racing. The smells, the animals, the pain and horror of what I’ve already seen. How the hell can I calm down enough, to focus enough, to relax enough?

  I don’t know…but I needed to see what was beyond this door.

  Instead, I push forward, carefully working the walking stick between the cages until I hit something solid.

  The door.

  I’m shaking hard enough that I am having a hard time controlling my free hand enough to look for the door handle. Finally, I find it and try it. Locked, of course.

  Calm down, Lee. Deep breaths. You’ve been in some crazy situations before.

  But none this crazy, and none where I was at such a disadvantage.

  With my hand on the cold handle—a handle that seems to vibrate as well, although that could have been my imagination—I try to regulate my breathing, to control my thoughts, until I realize that neither are happening.

  I’m still sucking in air—and all too aware of the horror that’s immediately around me, even if I can’t see it or hear it.

  I can smell it. Sense it. Feel it.

  Worse, I am almost certain someone is coming up behind me. I’m not sure when the goosebumps came, but they’re here now, studding my skin and raising the hair on my arms and the back of my neck.

  No one’s behind you, I tell myself, over and over…but to no avail. Maybe there’s a side door I missed. Maybe the ruckus the animals are making—that I’m sure they’re making—have alerted someone. Maybe even now this someone could be coming up behind me, gun raised—or lead pipe raised, or knife raised…or, hell, fist raised.

  Calm, Lee. Deep breaths.

  Except I can’t control my breathing. I am having what must be close to a panic attack, although I’ve never had one before. Then again, I’d never been in a tunnel of horror before, either.

  Breathe, breathe, relax.

  It’s one reason why I have my hand on the doorknob. In the least, I will know if this door is opening.

  Breathe, relax, good.

  A dim blue-green flickering teases at my thoughts. I ignore the smells, the small vibrations around me, vibrations that seem to indicate the many confined animals, scratching and clawing.

  Breathe slowly, breathe deeply, good, good…

  Flickering, flashing, and I am in the Winter Wind.

  I shift my focus behind me. So fast that I disorient myself. Twenty feet of empty tunnel. I see only cages, crates, boxes. All glowing and amorphous in the blue-green, staticy energy.

  I pause, calming further. The anticipation of someone coming up behind had left me a nervous wreck. I continue holding the doorknob while scanning behind me. At the very least, there is no one twenty feet back.

  Good enough.

  I shift my focus again, this time to the door. In particular, what lies behind the door. Magically, the energy swirling and spitting around me pushes through the closed door, through the surrounding wall, and into something I am not fully expecting.

  No one could have expected this. Hell, even if I had been expecting this… there is just no way to be fully prepared for what I see.

  Chapter Sixty-one