Robin looked at it, thinking of how Amber described the games they used to play. He stepped forward, and suddenly a gust of wind flew out of the tunnel and whipped into his face, as though it had been waiting for him. He made his way down the canal side as far as he could, until he was almost sticking his head through the bars.

Stare into the black. See how long you last.

“One,” Robin muttered under his breath.

There was nothing. Beyond the bars was an abyss. It wasn’t like he saw the beginnings of the tunnel and it faded away. As soon as the tunnel mouth started, the world was gone.

“Two.”

It was as if he could step inside and be erased. Fall into eternity.

“Three.”

But as he looked more, shapes started to manifest. They had no real form, no real tangibility. It was like looking into an ever-changing lava lamp. Looking into thought.

“Four.”

He was seeing what the mind saw when presented with absolutely nothing.

“Five.”

And then there was something else. Something to grasp on to. Something that felt fathomable. An oblong shape coming through the dark.

“Six.”

The more he looked, the more he saw, and he didn’t know if he was regarding it or it was regarding him. Something long and gaunt.

“Seven.”

And hairy.

Robin snapped his eyes away, stepping back from the tunnel and turning away. His breath came in thick gasps and he suppressed a yelp. He held his head in his hands and told himself to pull himself together. It was what the game did. That’s why the children played it. With the absence of stimuli, the mind invents.

But for a moment there, he too was a child standing in front of a hellhole, goaded on by the bullies. Staring into the tunnel.

And it scared the hell out of him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Robin barreled through the front door of The Hamlet, having run most of the way. He didn’t know why he’d come back here—he guessed he just needed to see somewhere familiar, somewhere the closest to home that he currently had.

The pub was quiet. There was one man, who looked scruffy and drunk, seated in the window seat, but he was the only patron and then he remembered why.

It was Tuesday night. The vigil at the church.

As if on cue, Amber came out of a door behind the bar, said goodbye to the barman and made her way toward the door. She looked up to see Robin. “Robin, are you coming to the vigil?”

He was apprehensive about it. After all, Claypath was gunning for him. But it could be useful. So he said, “Yes.”

“I’ll show you where the church is.” Amber smiled.

Outside, Amber led Robin into the heart of the town and turned left at the clock tower.

“How’s the investigation going?” Amber said.