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GRACE: They’re notfromthe road. It doesn’t want them here. It wants people to walk it. That’s what a road needs.Travelers, going from point A to point B. The trouble is, this road’s got no point A. No point B. You kill a person by stopping their heart. You kill a road by stopping its purpose.

Her voice rasps and rattles as she whispers, the words slushing into each other. Trina looks back at Mel and the camera, mouth pursed a little, uncertain.

MEL: Okay. Well. We need to find our friend.

GRACE: Right. Six of you. Two by two by two. That’s the way through. Here’s the thing—as long as you follow the rules, the road’s not that dangerous. Breaking the rules hurts it. It’s like a cut. A cut can get infected. Bacteria. Parasites. They want to feed. Break the rules, and you let them in. Let them in, and they can hurt you.

MEL: Solid advice. But again, we need to find our friend. Sara. And Becca—she was here, too.

Grace gives her a flat, unreadable look.

GRACE: Becca? No. No, I don’t know anyone named Becca. No one in here. Listen, you won’t find your friend. Safer to go. We have the numbers. Two and two and two.

JEREMY: She has a point. We have to be smart about this.

Grace grunts again, this time amused.

GRACE: Smart? You’ve been careless. Let the beast get your scent. You think the gates will protect you, but the beast strides between. Step one inch out of line and it’ll find you in a blink. Cut you to ribbons.

Jeremy swallows, eyes wide.

ANTHONY: Look, we’re not leaving without Sara. Right?

MEL: Right.

They look at Trina. It takes her a moment to realize they’re waiting for her to speak. She looks up from the book. There is something strange about the light against her eyes.

TRINA: What? Right. Sara. No, we can’t leave without Sara.

Grace is silent for several seconds, then she nods.

GRACE: Right. Loyalty. That’s good, that’s a good thing. All right. We’ll look for her. Don’t worry, I’ve been here a long time. I know the tricks. You’re safe with me.

Mel drops back from Grace. She mutters under her breath.

MEL: Yeah, I definitely feel safe...

ANTHONY: Just stick close to each other. We’ll be fine.

He doesn’t sound convinced.

19

BECCA LEADS MEthrough what feels like an endless sequence of corridors before we find the room she’s looking for. The smell reaches me first. Decay and rot, but not the unpleasant, sour stink of putrefying flesh. It’s earthy. Wood and leaves collapsing into soil; wet, dark places traced over with the delicate script of beetle tracks and lacy roots. The smell does not belong to these walls, but it seeps from behind a door like any other. The door hangs open a crack. Something has been stuffed into the frame to keep it from closing.

“Good,” Becca whispers. She braces the fingertips of one hand against the door. “The house tries to shut it. Move it. When it can. I try to keep track of it.” She pushes the door open lightly. It swings inward with a not-quite silence like a bow settling against the strings of a violin. The body lies in the middle of the floor.

I met Zachary once, and I have looked at his picture a hundred times and more, but still I wouldn’t recognize him if I didn’t know he died here. All that is left of his face is one eye, a bare inch of cheekbone, a stretch of brow I could cover with one cupped hand. The rest is covered in roots, thin milk-white things that weave a net over him. A quintet of bell-capped mushroomsgrow elegantly from the roof of his mouth. Thick, flat plates of fungus sprout in layers like ridges down his neck, shoulder, ribs. His torso is a constellation of tiny white mushrooms, flecked here and there at the extremities—hips, collarbone— but clustering closer and closer together, framing the wound that lays him open above the navel.

From the body, the roots and fungi spread and splay, spilling to the walls, up them. A chandelier of gilled mushrooms and twining stalks hangs above us—off-white, bone-white, shot through with veins of scarlet and blue.

You would think my shock would be used up by now, but I stand with my knuckles crushing my lips to my teeth, holding back a moan. “How long?” I ask. I feel like I am dredging my voice up my throat. “How long has he been—”

“Dead?” she asks. “A while. It was early. I don’t think we were in here more than a day or two. She said that it was the spider. It killed him. But...”

“Who?” I ask. “Who else was here?”

“Grace,” she says. She worries at her bottom lip with her teeth. “We met her here, in the house. She was the last survivor in her group. She couldn’t get out of the mansion on her own. The only exit is through the darkness. She said she’d help us, but then...”