Book Five, Chapter 81: The Tomb

~Riley~

“That’s a slightly less scandalous version than what I read in the journal,” I said after listening to Kimberly’s story about Clara Withers.

When I had read about it, it was a hush-hush murder situation. But the way Kimberly’s story went, it was almost a tragedy of parents willing to do anything to help their daughter—anything other than letting her be a werewolf.

“Unfortunately, this does nothing to resolve the question of why the werewolf curse seems to have changed in the last 200 years or so,” Andrew said.

I shrugged. “That part might get cut,” I said.

Andrew nodded.

We were Off-Screen until we got to the stairs, right after Antoine said, “I’ll stand guard out here. If you need help, scream.”

“You’re not coming?” Kimberly asked.

Antoine thought for a moment and then said, “Look, guys, I just need a break. I was in the woods all night, and I’m not sure I can be at 100% On-Screen.”

“Do we need to use your nightmare trope?” Kimberly asked. “We have time.”

Antoine shook his head. “I just need a breather.”

Kimberly acted all concerned and hugged Antoine. Andrew looked wary, like for the first time he might have been second-guessing advocating for Antoine.

Personally, I didn’t mind. At least he was finally being open about it. Usually, I was the last one to find out when he was having trouble.

“We’ll be down there. Just gotta walk around in circles for a while, and then I’ll show them around the crypt,” I said. “No big deal.”

“Thanks, Riley,” he said, brandishing his gun like he was on guard. “I’ll make sure nothing comes down after you.”

For some reason, I didn’t feel any safer. Maybe I was more worried about whether Carousel was going to keep the tunnels empty like they had been the night before.

After a few steps down the stairs into the basement, we were On-Screen.

“What exactly did you see?” Kimberly asked, not missing a beat.

“I swear it was some sort of crypt,” I said.

“A crypt?” Kimberly repeated. “Like a place where Clara Withers might have found her final resting place?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said.

We had picked up flashlights and lamps from the fort. We had much better lighting than I’d had the night before. As I had told Antoine, I mostly spent time leading Kimberly and Andrew around in circles just to make sure Carousel got as much footage as it needed.

The crypt wasn’t too awfully far away. In fact, it was a little too conveniently close.

Once I knew the family had been digging down there and had my little connection about there being no cemetery, my high Savvy helped beef up my exploration where my low plot armor would have let me down. It also didn’t hurt that Lila had been alive back then, and her Bad Luck Magnet gave me a nudge in the right direction—or so I assumed.

Eventually, I led them directly to the hole I had crawled through into the crypt.

“Have you been inside yet?” Andrew asked.

“Of course, I haven’t,” I lied. “I’m not going in there alone.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“It’s not the dead we need to worry about here,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “It’s the werewolves. One of which is lying inside a tomb in there.”

Of course, I had been in there before and knew that Clara Withers’ tomb was empty.

Kimberly was the first inside, followed by me and Andrew.

Kimberly was very anxious to see what was going to happen. I just wanted to know where the story was going once our characters discovered that the coffin Clara had been buried in—allegedly—was empty.

We took some time to get familiar with the area. The crypt looked like something you might have found in your average cemetery, but it had a very low ceiling and everything carved out of the stone of the earth we were standing in. There were dozens of individual cubbyholes where different members of the Withers family’s coffins were held in eternity.

Some of the members had special areas—individual tombs that were a lot like the fancy cemetery houses in New Orleans. What were those things called? Mausoleums.

Except, of course, they were underground and covered in cobwebs. Somehow, the spiders had survived down here where nothing else had. I was half expecting a pit of snakes to be next.

“Ebenezer Withers,” Andrew read off one of the inscriptions.

“I read about him,” I said. “He was a real miser.”

Andrew looked like he would say something, but he didn’t get the chance.