Momiji's leg tapped, and no longer able to contain his anxiety, he let the tears that had begun to well in his eyes slip down his cheeks. He didn't even have enough strength to wipe them away.
Chapter Thirty-Four- Momiji's Pov
Hatori's eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. I was sure that mine looked no better. It had been a long day and night, and then another half day, of just staring straight ahead of us at the road, anxiety acting like caffeine in our bodies. All the others had passed out in the back of the elongated car, with Shigure cuddled into Ayame's lap happily. Under other circumstances I would've made sure I took a picture, and would've taken great joy out of doing so. But the only thing I could think about was how close we were to the coordinates; the small blue dot that was us on the GPS was steadily nearing the red dot that was our destination.
We were passing through a heavily forested area of the Japanese mountains. We had lost sight of the signature signs of civilization long ago, no longer did houses line the roadside, nor was there anything to suggest there had once been any living being that passed through this mountain road except for the single set of car tracks that we were following. I was certain that they belonged to Ichi's stepfather, and even more sure did I become when we took the very same turn that the tracks did, leaving us in front of a tall and broken down house, the car tracks ending with a rickety Toyota with a chipped blue paint job.
I glanced at Hatori, and then at the GPS. We had arrived.
As we came to a halt the others woke up, so used to the constant thrum of the motor and the bumps in the road that once that ceased they were jolted from their sleep.
"Everyone get out." Hatori said, before he led the way, jumping out of the car.
I was second, following close behind the doctor. I paid no attention to who was behind me; I was too focused on the black door that led into the house, still slightly ajar. If there was any doubt that someone was inside the house, the door and the car made an all too compelling case to argue against. Or at least, that was all I had needed to cause me to start to run, Hatori joining in, bursting through the door.
The inside was dark, and you could still smell the musty scent that came with the inside area not being disturbed for a while, even though the entryway had been aired out due to the door being open. I saw cobwebs decorating neglected corners, spiders watching the new additions to their home as they waited for the unlucky bugs that had wandered in through the opened door to wander into their sticky webs.
"Where would they be?" Kagura questioned, as we reached a dead end in the dusty kitchen.
Shigure glanced around at the dishes still piled high in the sink, unwashed and gathering both dust and mold, no doubt remembering the state of his own kitchen before Toru had joined them. "If this is anything like the crime movies that I've watched, they'll be either in the basement or the attic."
I saw Hatori roll his eyes. "Even though that sentence has many problems within it, you could be right. Kagura, Ritsu, Ayame, and Rin, you all go and check the attic. The rest of you, come with me to the basement."
After a minute of searching and opening rickety and hole plagued doors, we managed to find the rickety and hole plagued door that led down rickety and hole plagued stairs, and down into a grimy and dust clogged basement. If it wasn't for the one lonely and flickering light bulb that clung to the spider and web infested ceiling, we would have been completely overcome with the darkness. There were no windows that were perched at the top of the wall, peering out of the earth like a burrowing rodent, like there were in the Sohma house basement. There was only darkness.
I glanced at the people with me; Shigure, Hatori, and Haru, they all seemed just as nervous as I was. Not of the basement of course, but of the implications that the basement could give. There were two main possibilities. Either Ichi was indeed in the basement, or she wasn't. If the case was the later, then that would be more time wasted before we could get to her. If it wasn't, then that meant we would have to deal with an injured, no doubt badly, Ichi. Either option was not optimal, and sadly realistic.
Our pace had slowed, as to lower our chance of being detected early on, if we still had a chance to not be after the racket we had caused upstairs.
I couldn't decide whether it was a disappointment or a blessing that the basement didn't hold Ichi or anyone else. It was a normal abandoned basement, boxes piled up high against the walls, mouse droppings covering the floor, and pieces of dead flies left over from the spiders' feasts. There was nothing unusual, nothing that could put Ichi here.
"Alright, the attic it is then." Hatori sighed. We turned, and began to walk up the creaking stairs.
Except for Shigure. "Hey, guys, I found something."
I froze on the fourth step. I didn't want to look back, I could tell from the certain dread that seemed to drip from his voice that whatever Shigure had found wasn't good.
Hatori turned, and after summoning enough courage, I did as well.
Haru was peering over Shigure's shoulder, peering down at the floor.
A trail of crimson twisted through the groves in the cement floor of the basement, lightening in its color because of the loose pieces of gray stone that filtered into the liquid, but it was still unmistakable. It was blood, not very much, but enough to follow the path that someone had taken, or in this case, had been dragged down, as the drag marks still marred the dusty surface of the floor, only disrupted by the footprints that too walked along the path of blood.
Only problem, the footprints and blood ended at the wall, or really, went through the wall.
"A trap door?" Hatori questioned.
"Maybe this is like your movies." Haru muttered to Shigure.
Shigure grinned. "If that is so, then the trigger will be somewhere in reach, and it will be something sneaky, a candle, a book, a, a" He paused to look around. There wasn't much, a couple boxes, a rusty spoon laying on the floor accompanied by a matching fork, shards of pottery no doubt from a plate dropped along with the utensils, the drawstring to the soul light bulb in the basement, and the skeleton of what appeared to be a mouse. "Maybe a fork?" He picked it up, but got no reaction except a sudden puff of dust that floated off the silver utensil.
"Wait, didn't we turn the light on with the switch at the top of the stairs?" Haru pointed out.
He was right. I myself had fumbled around in the darkness at the top of the stairs, feeling the grimy wall next to me until I located the small switch. I was pretty sure I had gotten bitten by a surprised and grumpy spider that I had disturbed in the process of doing so.
The answer was obvious, and all of us came to the same conclusion. "Light string." We said simultaneously.
Sure enough, as soon as Hatori reached up and pulled on the string, the wall shifted, and a door opened to a long hallway.
"That was impressive." I said. The others nodded in agreement.
Remembering our objective, we took off down the tunnel, to the door at the end where we could see a sliver of light seeping out of the bottom. Someone was there.