The cellar was worse than Penelope had even imagined. As she hurried down the too-narrow stairs, she noticed that not only was it dark and damp, it was slimy, too. The steps were slick with some kind of growth, and as her foot hit the last step, it slipped in the muck. She fell, hitting the dirt floor hard. Her still-lit phone flew out of her hand, spiralling out across the room.

Penelope gasped for air as she tried to right herself. The dirt floor was damp and soft, sticking to the knees of her jeans and heels of her hands as she struggled to push herself up. The fall winded her and the room was so dark, lit only by the distant feeble light from her now-dirt caked phone, that she felt lost.

Liam snatched up her phone and then rushed back to help her. "C'mon, we gotta hide!" he hissed as he pulled her up and then tugged her along with him. Penelope let him lead her blind as she continued to gasp for air.

His eyes must be better than mine, she thought, if he can see his way in this dark.

Liam stopped dragging her and pushed her down to the ground again. Her back hit a stone wall and she curled up into a ball against it. Liam crouched down next to her, pressing against her side.

"Stay quiet," he whispered, settling in close to her.

Penelope was still too winded to speak so she just nodded, hoping Liam's sharp eyes could see it in the dark.

They huddled together, waiting. The cellar was quiet, the only sound the distant droning of flies.

It seemed like forever, but eventually, Penelope's eyes adjusted to the dark and her breath returned to normal. As she took her first big breath, she got her first whiff of the cellar and it made her nearly gag. The place smelled strongly of mould and... and something rotten. It was a deep smell, one that reminded her of long-dead roadkill that had sat out on the side of the highway for too long. She didn't want to think too much about why it smelled like that, though the buzzing flies now made sense. Instead, she focussed on her new surroundings; the wall of wooden crates that Liam had hidden them behind, the dirt floor beneath her, the floorboards of the bunkhouse that made up the ceiling. The stranger's steps echoed overhead, dust raining down on them from between the boards as they walked...

From the sounds of it, the stranger had now made it into the back room. Penelope's gaze fixed on the stairs, waiting to see if they'd come down here, looking for her and Liam.

The steps led to the top of the stairs and then just... stopped.

Liam grabbed Penelope's hand and squeezed it tight. For a moment, all was still. Even the flies stopped their buzzing.

Then the stranger went back the way they came.

Liam and Penelope exhaled in unison.

As they listened to the retreat of the stranger's footsteps, Liam rose up to peer over the edge of the crates. He unearthed Penelope's phone and cast its light around the room. The light flashed across stacks of old boxes and crates, the soft dirt floor, and the dark stone walls, shining with dampness... But not the farthest wall. The phone's light didn't quite reach that corner, so dark that it was a void...

"What the hell are you doing?" Penelope hissed, pulling Liam back down next to her.

Liam fell back next to her. "I wanted to see if there was another way out. But it doesn't seem like it. Looks like we're gonna have to make a break for the stairs..."

"W-What?" Penelope squeaked.

"What did you think we were gonna do?" Liam replied with a low voice. "Make this our new home?"

"No, we could wait until the coast is clear," Penelope urged. "They've gotta leave at some point. And then we can go back up there and free Daevon and the others."

When Liam didn't respond, Penelope's heart sank. In his silence, she could hear the stranger's footsteps overhead as they made their way back to the main room of the bunkhouse. Their return triggered a flurry of more footsteps—Daevon and the others shuffling around in fear. There was some muffled speaking...

"We are going back to free Daevon, right?"

"With what, Penelope?" Liam breathed. "You got bolt cutters hidden in your hoodie pocket?"

Penelope couldn't believe what she was hearing. "We can't just abandon them here! We'll figure something out! Once that guy leaves—"

"And what if he doesn't leave? What if the psycho lives here or something, like some crazy serial-killing hermit?"

"We don't know that—"

"He had them in chains, Penelope," Liam hissed, "He locked them up in some weird building out in the middle of nowhere. And this cellar stinks like death. What do you think he's going to do with them?"

"Then all the more reason to get them out now!"

Liam shook his head. "And get ourselves caught in the process?"

"No—w-well—" she sputtered, but she didn't have a good response.

"The best thing we can do for them," Liam answered before she could find her words, "is get out and get help as fast as we can. And that means making a break for it."

Penelope bit into her lip, angry at herself for not having a better solution. But Liam was right; their best chance—for themselves and for Daevon and the others—was to get out and get help.

Liam took her continued silence as agreement. "Alright, here's the plan. We're going to get up those stairs. We're gonna open the nearest window, then I'm going to help you out first, and follow after. Then we run back to the car and get the hell out of here."

Penelope nodded. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was what they had.

"Good," Liam said. "Now take your phone. You'll need it." He handed it back to her. She wiped it off on her hoodie before stuffing it back into her pocket.

Upstairs, the muffled speaking had turned into shouting, and Penelope could now make out one clear voice: Xander. "You better start answering our questions, motherfucker! Starting with, what the fuck are we doing here?!" they heard him shout, his booming voice barely muffled by the floorboards.

"Good, they're distracted," Liam said. "It's now or never!"

Before Penelope had a chance to object, Liam was hauling her to her feet and yanking her out from behind the wall of wooden crates.

Xander's voice rang out again. "Do you know who I am?!"

More arguing followed, then, suddenly a sharp smack.

Penelope and Liam froze in place, halfway to the stairs.

Suddenly, there was a massive thud overhead, sending another rain of dust through the floorboards. More frantic shuffling, more shouting, but all the voices overlapping made it impossible to make out anything they said. Then, just as suddenly, things went quiet. And, after a moment, a single set of footsteps crossed the floor overhead, followed by a heavy dragging...

"Shit!" Liam muttered. "They're coming back!" He yanked Penelope back the way they came, pushing her back behind the wooden crates. This time Penelope was right at the edge with a clear view of the room.

They listened to the footsteps and the dragging as it made its way across the bunkhouse and through to the back room. Once again, the steps paused at the top of the steps that led down to the cellar...

Penelope held her breath, waiting for their descent...

Instead, something flew down the stairs, bouncing off every step and landing in a pile at the bottom with a thud. It took her a moment to realize that it was a person—someone had been violently thrown down the hard stone stairs. As they lay there, perfectly still and lifeless, Penelope's heart stuttered. Despite the dark, she tried her best to peer through the shadows to figure out who it was, and if they were still alive.

Please don't be Daevon, she chanted in her head, please don't be Daevon...

But then the pile began to move. They pushed themselves up, turning their face up towards the top of the stairs. The little light that remained illuminated their features.

It was Xander, and there was a splash of red near the corner of his mouth where his lip was split and beginning to swell up.

"Fuck you!" he shouted up the stairs. "That all you got, you freak?"

There was a low, deep laugh—a man's laugh—and the stranger finally descended the steps for himself. With the light behind them, it was hard to make out more than the fact that he was tall and wearing a dark utility jacket, his face hidden in the shadow of its hood. As he reached the second-to-last step, he kicked out, slamming his foot into Xander's face.

Xander reeled back with a sharp cry. The stranger made it the rest of the way down, then bent to pick up the length of the chain that bound Xander. With it, he dragged Xander forward, through the room, as Xander groaned quietly.

Penelope shrank back against the cold wall as they passed. She knew that in this dark it was unlikely that they'd notice Liam and her—as long as they kept quiet—but there was this feeling she couldn't shake as if there was someone watching them. But as she peered around into the empty dark, she felt dumb for thinking it. It was like when she was a kid, racing up the basement stairs after turning off the light, sure that something was right on her heels. Just as scary, but just as silly. There were much more real things to worry about...

She watched from around the edge of the crates as the pair made their way to the far side of the room—the darkest side.

The stranger stopped and dropped Xander's chains. Xander was still too dazed from the kick to move, so the stranger took his time digging something out of the pocket of his coat. He fiddled with it for a moment then suddenly the space lit up from the faint light of a folding camp lantern.

Despite being much closer than her cell phone flashlight had been, the lantern still didn't have much effect on the darkness in that corner, like the shadows here were particularly stubborn. But it was enough to see that there was a long row of bars, set into the floor and reaching up to the boarded ceiling above to make some kind of cell. The stranger stepped forward and unlocked the door to it, pulling it open with a loud creak.

What the...? Penelope thought. It was hard to tell, but she thought she had seen movement beyond the bars. She leaned forward, straining her eyes. The weak light of the lantern wasn't doing much,...

Shivers broke out across her skin. There, in the shadows, was a hand. It was splayed out against the floor, the attached wrist disappearing into the darkness. Even in the dark, Penelope could tell the hand was thin and pale. Thin and pale and still.

Her mind raced.

Was that... a body? she thought. A dead body?

She fought another gag, her throat burning as bile rose into her mouth. She clapped her hand to her face and forced herself to swallow it back, burning her throat a second time as it went down again.

She had never seen a dead body before, except for her mother's. But her mother had been taken care of, laid out lovingly as if she were sleeping. This was different. This must be why the cellar smelled so rotten. Her stomach lurched again, threatening her with more bile.

What is this place? she wondered, panicked. Here they were, hunting the stupid Raven, and instead they had stumbled upon the den of a killer.

Then, as she watched frozen in horror, the hand twitched.

Whoever was down here, they were still alive.

That was almost worse.

Penelope ground her teeth together so hard that Liam heard it, snapping his head around to look at her.

"What is it?" he breathed.

Penelope pointed frantically at the bars. Liam leaned forward but by then the hand was gone, disappearing back into the darkness like it hadn't even been here.

Where...? But her attention was pulled back to the stranger as he perched the lantern atop one of the old, mouldy crates and stooped down in front of Xander.

Xander was still punch-drunk, only now trying to pull himself up into a sitting position. The stranger leaned forward and slapped him hard across the face. That woke him up. Xander blinked into the darkness like he had forgotten where he was. Judging by the look on his face, he had just freshly realized that this was real and not some nightmare.

"Now," the stranger said, his voice low and gravelly. "I'd bet you're feeling much more agreeable, now, aren't you?"

Xander glared at the stranger but stayed quiet.

The stranger seemed to think this was satisfactory, so he continued. "Now, I'll ask you again. Who was just here?"

Penelope went stiff. The stranger knew they were here.

"And I'll tell you again," Xander said. "No one."

Penelope's mouth dropped open. She hadn't expected it, but Xander was protecting them. She knew that it had to be out of self-interest—they could get help if they got out of here—but, still, she was touched. This couldn't have been easy to keep his mouth shut while facing more abuse.

"Great," Liam muttered next to her. "Now I gotta give this guy a little respect."

The stranger just sighed at Xander's response. "That's a fucking lie and you know it," he said. "I heard them run out of here. How did they find this place?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Xander said, perfectly aloof.

"Fine," the stranger said, almost with a growl. "Maybe you don't know. That's fine. I'll find them."

"Good luck," Xander said, smirking. "Are we done here?"

"Not quite," the stranger said, straightening up. "I want to know how you found this place."

Xander's smirk slid off his face. "We already told you."

"Then tell me again," the stranger snarled. He raised his hand like was going to hit him again.

"A-Alright! Alright," Xander said, holding his shackled hands up. "W-We were filming at that logging camp, in the woods, when these fuckin' birds attacked us. We all ran off to escape them. Once I was free of the birds, I realized we had gotten separated. I spent forever stumbling around, calling for them, but nothing. And then, one second I was in one place and lost and the next..." His eyes tightened like the memory was hard to recall, "We were all together again, stepping into that clearing." He nodded his head to the side, motioning in the direction of the same clearing outside, the one that Penelope and Liam had come across before they spotted the bunkhouse.

A chill shot through Penelope's veins. That sounded way too much like what had happened to her during the search. Only Xander and the rest had successfully crossed the river... without even knowing it.

The stranger leaned closer to Xander. "And then?"

Xander averted his gaze like he didn't want to meet the stranger's eye. "W-We went inside."

"Why?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Xander said. "We told you all this!"

The stranger grabbed the collar of Xander's shirt and slammed him against the crate. "Tell. Me. Again."

"I don't know why, okay? I-It was like we were in some kind of trance," Xander said, his voice shaking. Penelope wasn't sure if it was the stranger that scared him or the memory. "We all just walked in, through the building and down to the basement..." His eyes fluttered closed. "I don't remember anything else."

"Try," the stranger said.

"I can't try!" Xander snapped back. "There's nothing there! It's just blank! Probably because of all the punches to the head!"

"Try," the stranger said again, his voice low and lethal. He pointed to the open door of the cell. "Or I'll throw you in there."

To Xander's credit, his responding scoff was pretty convincing. "Oooh, a creepy cell? Big fuckin' whoop. I've been to the most haunted places in the country—hell, the world! I've been in much worse."

The stranger didn't sound impressed. "I truly doubt that."

"Sure, bud," Xander snapped. "Anyway, who cares? Even if you throw me in there, I won't be staying for long. Maybe whoever was here is already alerting the authorities. They'll be here soon and we'll be found."

"Maybe so," the stranger said. "But they won't find you."

He stood then, dragging Xander with him, and grabbed his electric lantern off the top of the nearby crate. He swung it forward, throwing a burst of light into the darkest corner of the room. It passed quickly, but it was enough.

Xander screamed and tried to scramble away from what he had seen, but the stranger held tight to his collar and kept him in place.

Penelope wanted to scream, too, but instead, she pressed her knuckles against her teeth, biting down so hard she tasted blood.

It had only been for a second, but she had seen it.

The lantern's light had flashed across the farthest corner, lighting up the wetness on the dank stone walls, the rusted bars of the cage, the dense network of spiderwebs... But there was no light in the world that could touch the thing that lurked beyond the bars.

It was a huge, hulking shadow, both so wide and tall that it touched each edge of its cell, forced to hunch and curl into that tiny space. It was blacker than black, a void that swallowed all light and shade into a blank, flat nothing. It shuddered, its edges jagged, in the second that the light fell on it.

"What the fuck is that?!" Xander screamed, still trying to escape, to no avail.

"This," the stranger said, "is why you're here, is it not?"

"What?" Xander sputtered.

Penelope's thoughts were moving in slow motion. She was sure of what she had seen, but she was struggling to make sense of it. Even the stranger's words took a moment to register.

This is why you're here...

Then, does that mean... Is that... Is that the...

"Doesn't it make you feel better?" the stranger asked, pushing Xander closer to the cage.

"What?" Xander squeaked, his voice going into a strange high pitch. "Why the fuck would this make me feel better?"

"Because, if something like this exists," the stranger said, "then why shouldn't life after death?"

And he shoved Xander forward, through the open door.

Xander staggered, trying to catch himself, but it was too late. The darkness quickly swallowed him up.