The Coming | The House of Voices #2

Eleven - Deli

Deli

October:

It started raining just a few minutes after we’d fallen asleep and continued to pour well into the next day. Pushing a bit of hair off my forehead, I frowned at the drop of water that fell at my feet. There were so many cracks and leaks in the abandoned shop we’d decided to hole ourselves up in, not to mention the gaping hole in the ceiling.

Huddled up, still asleep in his little corner, Parish shivered. He was the direct path of the spray from the hole in the ceiling and was probably feeling the cold.

I stood up and shrugged out of my borrowed jacket, tip-toeing over to him and draping it carefully over his body to shield him from the spray. The jacket wasn’t big enough to cover him completely, but the double layers were warm enough that he stopped shivering.

Satisfied, I stepped away and squinted out through the hole. Trying to determine the time was impossible in this weather. The sky was too gray for me to make out anything. I didn’t know how long we’d slept or if it was a good time for us to move on… nothing. If only I’d thought to bring a watch.

A sharp gust of wind sent raindrops pelting at my face. Stifling a yelp, I stepped back and glared at the hole. I needed to cover it up. A quick look around the room told me that I had absolutely nothing to help me with that. With a sigh, I decided to try and poke around the shop while Parish snoozed. Maybe see if I could get into any of the closets, even though I had a feeling that they were all locked and empty.

I walked over to the front of the shop and hopped over the desk that separated the cashier from the rest of the store. The windows were all boarded up and dusty, no one had been here in ages. I spotted a door in the corner of the shop just behind the cash register and, after hopping back over the counter, tried to open it. No luck. The knob just jiggled under my grasp but didn’t unlock the door. I huffed and abandoned the door, moving further into the shop.

The place where Parish and I had made ourselves comfortable in last night seemed to be the shop’s storage room, judging by the metal racks that stood in the front section of room. They were stacked with forgotten, dust covered boxes and other knickknacks that I definitely wasn’t planning on touching.

The shop ended with the wall Parish was huddled up against. No more rooms or closets that offered anymore exploring. Huffing, I started to walk back to Parish, considering waking him up so that we could talk about our next move. I was just passing the broken stool where we’d dropped our dirty t-shirts last night when something in the far corner caught my eye.

Curious, I walked over to what looked like a protrusion in the wall and ran my fingers across the edges. Was it… was it a secret passage? Deciding to test my theory, I knocked my knuckles against the “wall”. Hollow, nice. I took a step back and observed the hollow section, it was vertical and rectangular, reaching just above my head. Pushing the corners gently I tried to push it in, like I would a door. Nothing happened. On a whim, I pressed my fingers to the jutting out edges and pushed to the side, trying not to cry out in happiness when the rectangle moved to reveal a dark passage that reminded me a lot of the wine cellar at Pablo’s, one of my father’s good friend’s restaurants.

The passage was too dark for me to explore without a flashlight, and the one we had happened to be in the backpack that Parish was sleeping on. I closed the passage door, promising myself that I’d explore later, and went back to where Parish was sleeping.

“Wakey, wakey,” I squatted down, shaking him gently by the shoulder. He just grunted and rolled over, almost smacking me when his arm flapped over to the outside. “Parish,” I tried again, shaking a little harder, “wake up.”