Thieving Fear Read Free

bordering a dimmer field. 'Throwing your voice now?' she suggested before realising how he could. No wonder it was so harsh and indistinct if he was using a cheap microphone. Of course he must have hidden a receiver somewhere in the grass.
    It was almost at her feet. By the time it finished dragging out her name again she was within inches of it. The voice sounded more congested than ever, so that she wondered if soil had got into the receiver. Her T-shirt rode up her thighs as she crouched, having distinguished a gap in the turf where Rory had cut into it to hide the receiver. She dug her fingers into the overgrown gap and lifted the large square of turf.
    More than turf rose to meet her. As she teetered on her heels, Charlotte only just kept hold of the metal object she'd found. She straightened up and did her best to bring it with her, but it was embedded in earth or turf or some more solid item. She stooped to tug at it with both hands, and almost toppled into blackness. She wasn't holding a receiver. It was the handle of a trapdoor.
    She let go as she stumbled backwards, and the trapdoor fell open with a thud. A smell of earth seeped out of the blackness as she tried to see what she'd opened up. The sky seemed to blacken and sag with her concentration, but she could see nothing beyond the square outline without standing over the hole. She planted her feet on either side of a corner opposite the trapdoor and peered down.
    The hole was full of blackness. She thought there might be steps, except that the dim slope looked too featureless, more like a heap of earth. She was able to discern two handfuls of pebbles separated by a slightly larger pair of stones some way below ground level, but she was distracted from examining them once she observed that the handle was on top of the supine trapdoor. It had been on the inside, and so the door must have been partly open when she'd groped underneath. As she pondered this she heard her name.
    The voice sounded close to falling to bits. She could almost have imagined that it or his breath was catching on the substance of the speaker's throat. If she meant to retrieve Rory's device she would have to climb into the hole. She might have left the receiver to rot if the slow thick crumbling voice had given her a chance to think or feel. It was intoning her name without a pause, and growing so loud that she couldn't understand why it hadn't roused Ellen or Hugh. The vibration was shifting the earth where the receiver was buried, a few inches lower down the slope than the collection of pebbles. It was even dislodging the earth around the larger pair, which appeared to swell up from the dimness.
    Charlotte peered at them as she gripped the stony edge of the hole in order to descend and took hold of the handle of the trapdoor. She was taking her first step into the dark when she noticed that the stones weren't just moving but widening. They were eyes, watching her without a hint of a blink. The smaller pebbles were stirring too, poking up to reveal they were fingertips. The discoloured hands were reaching to help her down or drag her into the earth.
    As she recoiled the ground seemed to give beneath her. She was terrified that it was spilling into the hole until she realised her bare feet had lost their purchase on the grass. One skidded over the edge and met a bunch of cold objects that responded by writhing eagerly. She kicked out and flung herself away from the hole, almost sprawling on her back. She was thrusting her hands under the trapdoor to lever it up when the voice repeated her name.
    The thud of the trapdoor laid it to rest, but its clogged yet mocking tone suggested she hadn't escaped. The panic that she'd barely managed to suppress overwhelmed her, and she backed away so fast her ankles knocked together. She no longer knew where the trapdoor was. She had no idea where she was going except backwards until, with a swiftness that snatched all her breath, the common vanished together