Chapter 6 - 114 Lillian Street
The rain had eased from a heavy deluge into a thick, gray drizzle by the time my blue hatchback turned onto Lillian Street.
The neighborhood was a pocket of old East Nashville that hadn't yet been completely swallowed by the tall, narrow modern tall-skinny houses popping up on every corner. The trees were old oaks whose roots buckled the cracked concrete sidewalks, and the houses were small, wood-frame bungalows built in the late 1940s.
Number 114 sat at the end of a dead-end street, right where the pavement crumbled into a gravel driveway leading to an abandoned spur of the CSX railroad line.
It was a small, white-painted house with a green tin roof. The porch railings were sagging, covered in thick strands of wild honeysuckle that hadn't yet leafed out for the spring. Across the front door, a bright orange piece of paper was slapped against the wood: POSTED – NO TRESPASSING – PROPERTY OF LILLIAN STREET HOLDINGS.
I pulled my car up to the curb. Clara was in the passenger seat, holding the photograph in her lap, her knuckles white. Elliot sat in the back seat, his chin resting directly between our bucket seats, his dark eyes fixed on the front porch through the rain-streaked windshield.
"This is where she died," Clara whispered, looking at the overgrown front lawn.
"We shouldn't be here," I said, looking around the quiet street. "The property is posted. If the landlord or the city catches us..."
Before I could finish my sentence, Elliot let out a sharp, single bark from the back seat.
It wasn't a bark of excitement; it was a command.
He squeezed his head further between the seats, his nose nudging my right elbow, pushing it toward the door lock.
"He knows why we're here," Clara said, her voice trembling.
We stepped out into the damp, cold air. Elliot leaped out of the back door the moment I opened it. He didn't run around sniffing the grass or looking for a spot to relieve himself. He walked straight up the cracked concrete walkway, climbed the three wooden steps to the porch, and stood in front of the front door.
The front door was locked with a heavy brass deadbolt, and a padlocked chain had been wrapped around the wrought-iron security gate over the screen door.
"We can't get in," I said, following him up the steps. "It's locked down tight."
Elliot didn't look at the front door. He turned left, walked along the edge of the porch, and pushed his way through the overgrown honeysuckle vines toward the side of the house.
Clara and I followed him, ducking under the wet, dripping branches.
The side of the house led to a small, screened-in utility porch where an old washing machine sat covered in rust. The screen door was hanging off its top hinge, swaying gently in the cold spring wind.
Elliot pushed past the swinging door and stood before a low wooden hatch built into the whitewashed brick foundation of the house—the old coal chute that led into the crawlspace beneath the floorboards.
The wooden latch on the chute was rotted. Elliot shoved his snout into the crack, lifted his head with a sudden, powerful jerk, and the rotten wood snapped with a sharp CRACK.
The chute fell open, revealing a dark, square opening that smelled of damp earth, old pine wood, and dry rot.
Elliot didn't hesitate. He dropped his front legs into the dark hole and vanished into the darkness beneath the house.
"Elliot!" Clara cried out, dropping to her knees on the wet porch boards. "Elliot, come back!"
From deep within the dark belly of the house came the sound of heavy paws scrambling across dry dirt, followed by the metallic scrapings of his collar against copper water pipes.
Then, silence.
"We have to go in," Clara said, reaching for the edges of the chute opening.
"Clara, wait—it's three feet high under there! It's mud and black widows!" I pleaded.
"My sister was trapped in this house for seven years, Hannah," Clara said, her eyes burning with a fierce, sudden anger. "I'm not leaving her dog in the dark."
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Before I could stop her, Clara wriggled her legs into the opening and disappeared beneath the floorboards.
I looked back toward the street. The quiet neighborhood was empty save for my blue car idling at the curb. I took a deep breath, muttered a prayer, grabbed the small LED flashlight off my keychain, and crawled into the hole behind her.
