The Hypnotist

FORTY-EIGHT

“Help me with this,” Lucian shouted. With his shoulder ripped up, he was handicapped, so O’Hara, Jeffries, Richmond and Sellers wedged their fingers under the outer lip of the stone marker and, on the count of three, made an effort to lift it.

It didn’t budge.

“Let’s try it again,” O’Hara said, and started the count.

On three they tried and failed again.

“We need something to slip under there and get some leverage,” Richmond said.

“Good idea,” Jeffries said. “I’ll just jog over to the hardware store.”

Lucian pointed to the hole in the wall. “Inside. The body is on top of some kind of wooden platform. If we can get in there we can use pieces of that as a wedge.”

“What the fuck is a body doing in there anyway?” Jeffries asked. “What is this place?”

“I told you we’re inside some sick museum. Dioramas and all,” O’Hara said.

For the next few minutes the four men-with Lucian looking on-struck the wall with rocks, breaking off and loosening large chunks of it, widening the opening. They split their fingernails and scraped their skin, but kept at it, yanking and wrenching and pulling away handfuls of debris until the hole was big enough for the smallest of them-Sellers-to climb through.

Despite the prohibition against disturbing a crime scene, this situation was serious enough to forget about procedure. Pushing the skeleton off the platform where it rested, he broke the wooden gurney apart and handed the planks, one by one, to Richmond and then climbed back through the oculus.

O’Hara placed one end of the first plank under the lip of the lion stone. “Ready?”

Richmond, Sellers and Jeffries said they were.

“On the count of three. One…two…” On three O’Hara stepped down on the plank. A loud, creaking sound echoed in the chamber as the wood snapped in half. The stone hadn’t budged.

“Let’s go again,” Lucian shouted.

O’Hara grabbed the second of four planks.

“One, two and…” Lucian counted. “Three.”

O’Hara stepped down.

“You’ve got it,” Richmond shouted as he and the other two agents moved their hands under the stone and lifted.

“It’s slipping!” Sellers shouted.

The men let go. The stone fell and crashed back on the ground.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Sellers yelled. “Almost lost my fingers on that one.”

“Let’s try it again,” Lucian ordered.

The plank groaned as O’Hara bore down. The agents got their fingers underneath the opening, grabbed hold of the lip and this time lifted the stone up and rolled it out of the way, exposing a forty-inch hole in the ground. Shining the flashlight down, Lucian saw an iron staircase descending even deeper into the earth.

“How the hell did you know that was here?” Richmond asked.

Up until that moment, Lucian hadn’t understood it himself, but now, peering into the escape hatch, he laughed. His memory had nothing to do with the distant past he’d been traveling to in his mind. Nothing to do with the hypnosis sessions. “Didn’t any of you see that movie? The Act of Vanishing?”

“What are you talking about?” Richmond asked.

“We’re on a movie set. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. This place-this whole complex-it’s all part of Shabaz’s studio. That wasn’t a real earthquake. It was a special effects earthquake like the one they used in the movie.”

“And in the movie-if you’re right and I hope to God you are-does this lead anywhere?” Richmond asked.

“Yes.”

“I can hear a but. Where did it lead?”

Lucian put his foot on the first rung of the rusted-out ladder that descended down into more darkness. His shoulder throbbed, but he ignored it.

“Where did it lead?” Richmond insisted.

“It was just a movie, Matt.”

“Except you’re about to go down there, wherever there was.”

“It led to hell, okay? Ironic enough for you? Still willing to risk it?”

“When there’s a will…” Richmond said with a grin, and proceeded to follow his partner deeper down into their very real nightmare.