The Hunt Club

He had to slow to a near crawl, each step now an eternity. Clearing the first rise, he came out into the relative ope

Juhle was right. The foreground was littered with tools and equipment. Without the night-vision goggles, Hunt stood no chance at all of getting to the barn, much less inside it, without making a racket. Even with them, though, he would be picking over the ground by inches.

In the eerie green glow, he took a step and then another, trying to keep one eye on the obstacles ahead and the other on the barn, for any sign of light from within. Between each step, he would stop and wait, listening. He heard no sound.

It was a large, two-story, three-sided structure, built into the westernmost wall of the promontory. He'd made it through the no-man's-land out front, and now directly in front of him, the door to the barn hung halfway open. If she were behind it, waiting for him…

He could not let himself think about that.

He listened. He listened.

He drew his gun.

Stepping through the opening into the barn, he ducked and whirled around. Something moved in the periphery of his vision, and he jerked back to see a large green-glowing rat scurrying into a pile of straw and out of sight. Taking a shaken breath, he turned again, all the way around now. Six stalls lined the side wall, a partially open tack room stood in the corner off the back door.

And then he saw it.

In the promontory wall, another door to apparently another cave. Of course, he thought. How had it never occurred to him before? If there were new caves, then it stood to reason there must have been old caves.

Or at least one old cave, now abandoned, unvisited, locked up.

He crossed to the door, which was in fact not locked up like the others, but stood a few inches ajar. A faint cold breeze emanated from within, and Hunt pulled the massive door-it was at least four inches thick-a few more inches toward him.

He stepped inside.

Even with the night-vision goggles, it was difficult to see-the glasses didn't shed any light of their own, only magnified the ambient light that was present, and here in the cave there wasn't much to magnify. He put his hand to the wall and took another tentative, silent step, and another. After about thirty steps, the cave bent to the left slightly, then sharply back to the right. He had to negotiate several old wine barrels that lay on their sides against the walls of the cave. Hunt continued pushing himself forward until he could go no farther.

The night goggles were useless this far in. There was no light left to magnify. Hunt lifted the goggles and turned on his flashlight, surprised to encounter another door completely blocking his way, seemingly built into the stone walls of the cave. Behind him, in the vast echoing darkness, an unmistakable creak resounded in the confines of the cave. He barely had time to begin to turn when the creak was followed by a muted and terrifying percussion.

It could have been nothing other than what it was-the door to the cave slamming shut.

Though it wasn't loud, it was the first sound Andrea Parisi had heard since the solid door had closed behind her however many days ago. She was lying on her back on the stone just inside the door-in fact her side was pressed up against the door. She was nearly paralyzed by hunger and thirst, and at first, she imagined that she'd dreamed the sound in her present altered state. Most of what was left of her mind had come to believe that she was not really there anymore. None of this was real, and even if it was, it could not go on for much longer. Perhaps she was already dead.

But there had been a definite sound. Close enough for her to hear it.

She tried to turn herself to the side, to face the door and call out, but her muscles wouldn't obey her to let her move at all, and her throat was so dry, it couldn't be coaxed into sound.

But if there had been a sound, that meant that someone might be out there. She might still be saved, still have a life before her.

She had to try again.

She tried to concentrate, fought to draw air into her dry and empty chest.

This time the sound, when it came from her, had no form. No words. An inchoate moan that dissipated almost as it sounded in her chill grave and left her exhausted, her throat burning.

And yet she gathered the last bit of reserve she could muster and threw it out again into the darkness that had become her world and her hell.

And there it was again! Without question, another sound through the door, and someone knocking on it. And her name!

Andrea.

From the bottom of a deep well, someone was calling her name.

Hunt had no time to give in to the terror that threatened to consume him. After all, he told himself, Craig, Juhle, and Tamara were close by, just outside on the property. But they all were waiting for his instructions and would be unlikely to move in after he had specifically instructed them to let Carol alone and let her lead them to Andrea.

Which she had done.

Even Juhle, he realized, would be reluctant to move at this point. Juhle did not know that Andrea was locked behind the second door in this cave-only Hunt knew that-and without knowing about Andrea, Juhle had no more cause to arrest Carol Manion than he'd had earlier in the day. To say nothing of the fact that Juhle had moved himself completely out of bounds by coming onto her property. He was, in fact, trespassing. If anyone co

Hunt had made his way back to the door at the cave's opening inside the barn to verify that the noise was what it had sounded like. Yes, that door to the outside was closed now. Locked, solid, immovable.

But then he'd returned to where he'd been, and through that second door had heard Andrea's strangled cry. Pounding at the unyielding door, he called out to answer her, but the sound seemed to be swallowed up by its own echo.

And after the one response, nothing.

He shone his flashlight again over the wood of the door. The faintness of the sound from the inside could only mean that the door was extremely thick. It was also framed with heavy beams, which in turn were set into seamless concrete, built into the cave walls.

Hunt sank to the floor and pounded over and over at the door, but the sound didn't carry at all. It was as if the door itself were made of solid rock. "Andrea!" he called again. "Andrea, can you hear me?"

Deafening silence.

"We're getting you out of here," he whispered.

The words themselves seemed to galvanize him. Getting to his feet, he held a hand up over his head, feeling for movement in the air. When he'd been standing out in the barn at the cave's entrance, he'd felt a distinct breeze coming from within the cavern. This could only mean that air was getting into the cave from the outside, from another way in.

Again he tried the door to the very i