Eximere by Michael Richan

Author:Michael Richan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Dantull
Published: 2014-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

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Steven, Roy, and Eliza met in the kitchen ten minutes later.

“So what are we looking for?” Eliza said, studying a wooden panel in a corner of the kitchen.

“If it’s like the other one,” Steven said, “the panel will recede when pushed straight back, then slide to the left or right.”

“There are two pantries that I’ve seen,” Roy said, examining one of them. It was filled with canned food and bags of flour and sugar in plastic containers. “I can’t see anything in here that would do it.”

“Where’s the other one?” Eliza asked.

“Back through to the room that has the outside door,” Roy answered.

Eliza and Roy made their way to the other room, with Steven following. There were two doors in the room with the large butcher block, aside from the door outside and the way into the larger kitchen. Steven opened one of them, finding a small bathroom. He examined the walls of it while Eliza and Roy tried the other door. After a few minutes he heard Eliza calling for him.

He joined them. The pantry was large, and the shelves were bare. A second door was open at the back of the pantry that Roy stood next to.

“At first I thought this pantry was it,” Roy said. “But it’s actually inside this closet. Look!” he said, pointing inside.

Steven stepped into the closet, which was large enough to hold four or five people comfortably. There were a couple of mops and rolling buckets, and chemical cleaners on shelves. In the back of the room Steven noticed an open space near the floor behind a metal rack.

“The entire section of wainscoting fell in when I pushed hard enough,” Roy said.

“We’ll have to rearrange this closet,” Steven said. “Move this rack out of the way.”

“Let’s do it without making too much noise,” Eliza said.

“If we move it over to here,” Roy said, “it’ll still look normal. If the others come snooping, there’ll be no reason to suspect anything.”

“We’ll just have to make sure that wainscoting goes back into place,” Steven said, grabbing the side of the rack and waiting for Roy to grab the other. After a few minutes of lifting while trying to be as quiet as possible, they had access to the empty space Roy created, which was about three feet square. Light from the room didn’t shine well enough into the space to be able to see anything. Steven turned on his flashlight and poked his head into the space.

“Ladder, going down,” he said, his head inside the hole.

“Great,” Eliza said, a little sarcastically. “But at least we’re on to something, finally.”

“I say we do it now,” Roy said. “Leave a note telling the others we’ve gone back into town.”

Steven pulled his head back out of the hole and looked at Eliza. She nodded.

“Agreed,” Steven said.

“I’ll take care of the note,” Eliza said, leaving the room and returning to the dining room.

“I’ll start down,” Steven said, “and see what we’re dealing with in here.”

“Look for that section of wainscoting,” Roy said.

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