Born on the 4th of July

you all right?”
“I’m fine; I’m fine. Adam! The back door is open!”
Adam stepped around Corby, glancing at Josh who nodded. Then he drew his gun from a holster beneath his jacket and headed up the path.
“Dad!” Josh said nervously.
Adam wasn’t, nor had he ever been, a field agent.
Corby ran after him.
Adam turned the door handle and stood for a minute. “Dearborn! Are you in there? We’re coming in!”
There was no answer. He stepped in. The back had been—and still was—a small kitchen. A wall separated it from the main office area, sharing a small hearth with it.
There was no one in the kitchen.
Corby streaked past Adam to head out to the office area. The desk was there; the room was just as it had been, except . . .
It was empty.
There was a door to the side. Corby ran to it.
“Corby!” Adam chastised, coming quickly to his side, and then pushing Corby behind him.
Adam did know how to hold a gun, and Corby had heard his father tell his mother Adam was, in truth, a damned fine shot.
Adam pushed the door open.
The room had been, Corby knew, a bedroom for the resident priest. Now, it was full of boxes, some containing, he noted, tissues, other cleaning supplies, and still others, coffee and tea.
There was a small closet in the room and Adam walked to it, threw open the door, and looked in.
No one.
“He came here; we know that he came here. The car is right outside,” Josh noted.
“Well, he’s not here now. As soon as Jon gets here, we’ll head back to the mausoleum. Jon will have equipment that will help us. He’ll find the tunnels—and he’ll seek out any heat, if there is anyone down in those tunnels.”
Adam started back out, looking grim and angry. Josh followed his father and Corby followed Josh.
But he hesitated when they came to the back. Looking at the floor, he saw something.
He stooped down and as he did so, he noted something that he hadn’t seen before.
There was another door; it didn’t have a knob. It was barely visible, painted the same opaque color as the walls, decorated with some of the same brick that ran around an artistic ledge that otherwise held kitchenware.
“Adam!” he shouted.
Adam joined him again, Josh looking over his shoulder.
“A door,” Corby said.
“Door—oh!”
Adam, his gun at the ready, opened the door.
Darkness greeted them.
The door led down to a basement.
And to the tunnels beyond?
Corby closed his eyes, remembering he maps. And the stories about the kindly priest who had believed all men should be free and who had used his home as a stop for the Underground Railroad—and way across the cemetery and graveyard all way to the farmhouse far beyond.
“Yes!” he cried. “Adam, I’m an idiot! We must get down there!”
“It’s a basement,” Josh said, puzzled.
“A basement that leads to tunnels!” Corby said.
“You’re sure?” Adam asked.
“Absolutely,” Corby said. He sighed; Josh and Adam were staring at him. “Everyone said to think like my mother. I did. I looked all this up while you were making phone calls, Adam. The priest here at the time was really . . . well, a Christian! He wanted to help. He was the one who got the Rosser family to be part of the tunnel escape, too. There is an entrance from that tomb, but I know we’ll find an entrance down in this basement!”
“All right; let’s go,” Josh said.
“We need light,” Adam murmured. He took out his phone for light and found the steps that led downward.
“Flashlights, you could make torches, something,” Josh murmured.
“I have a phone, too—” Corby said.
But as he spoke, the darkness was suddenly flooded with light.
Adam looked at them both dryly. “A switch—and electricity,” he said.
“But the tunnels—” Josh murmured.
“We have decent flashlights in the phones these days; we’ll be fine,” Adam assured him.
“Well, I know I’ll be fine!” Josh said. “I’m already dead.”
“Josh!” Adam said.
“Sorry, sorry—I just don’t want you this way, too!” Josh said.
“We’ll be fine,” Corby said with determination. “Let’s go—”
“A car!” Josh interrupted. “There’s a car out front,” he said.
Adam came back up the few stairs he’d travelled down and headed out of the house and around to the front.
Corby ran after him.
It was a truck with machinery in the back. And the man who emerged from the driver’s side of the cab was Jon Dickson.
“Now, there we have a pair of shoulders if we need them,” Adam said. “Jon!”
“I have what you asked me to get—” Jon began.
“Nope—just need you now,” Adam said. “We’re going on a walk.”
“A long, creepy walk through a bunch of dead people,” Corby said cheerfully. “C’mon, please! Let’s go. My mom is down there somewhere, and another lady, and please!”
He turned and started hurrying back, pulling out his phone for his flashlight, and to call his father to let Jackson know he’d found a way down.
Luckily, Jon Dickson was a Krewe agent.
He didn’t need explanations.
He just followed along with Adam and Josh.
Once in the basement, it didn’t take much to find the entrance to the tunnels. A large wooden bookcase covered the entrance, but Jon’s shoulders came in handy.
He moved it easily.
They started into the tunnels.
Corby remembered to call Jackson . . .
Jackson didn’t answer. He realized the call wasn’t going through.
Darn! No, they were in a tunnel now!
He should go back, but . . .
No. They’d meet up with Jackson. Maybe he was already in the tunnels, too, and maybe that was why the call didn’t go through.
He knew one thing. They had to keep moving. It was a long and elaborate tunnel system, but somewhere in it, they had to find his mother.
Quickly.
Because Charlie Dearborn had disappeared.
So had Merissa Hatfield.
And they were certainly going after their victims, ready to spirit them away, and if they weren’t all stopped soon . . .
They might disappear into a darker void forever.

Chapter 5
Angela lay perfectly