Catacomb Read Online Free PDF Page B

at Abby, who was one step shy of batting her eyelashes.
    “Well, it doesn’t seem like Uncle Steve is too concerned about when we get there,” Jordan said. “Heck, the only person who misses me is my guild leader, Elanora, who keeps texting wanting to know when I’ll be back for the raids. . . . All right, fine.”
    “Awesome, thank you,” Dan said, no longer even the least bit sleepy. This was a break. This was a clue. He had given up thinking he would find anything new on his father and now this. . . . “It must have meant something to my parents, right? Why else would they have a postcard of some dinky old school? I want to see this place in person.”
    “Uh-oh—looks like there’s one small problem.” Abby grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck and reading farther down the page. “They’ve started demolishing the building this summer. There might not be much of it left to see.”
    “Then I guess Jordan better step on it.”
    The school stood empty and watchful, a chain-link fence doing little to keep out the vandals that had ransacked the place. The vacant windows were streaked with bird droppings and graffiti. It was hard to imagine the place had ever been filled with students.
    A wide brick staircase led up to the main entrance, and a tumble of broken furniture and junk formed a landslide down to the street level. All three of them leaned against the car, staring up at the school.
    Dan held up the postcard, comparing the school in its prime to its now-dilapidated state.
    “I can see why they’re going to demolish it,” Abby said softly. “I’m just glad we managed to get here with daylight to burn.”
    “It doesn’t look safe to go inside.” Jordan stared down the block, studying the various approaches to the doors. No matter what route they took, it would involve trespassing. “I’m not sure where we’d even begin.”
    But now Jordan was back in problem-solving mode. He pushed away from the car and drifted up the sidewalk. “Maybe there’s a caretaker we can talk to. I’d really rather not go exploring and get shanked by hobos.”
    Up the hill, standing on the overgrown, weed-choked walkway, was a tall man, dressed in a rugged canvas jacket and jeans. “Like him,” Dan said, picking his way over to a gap in the fence.
    “Like who?” Jordan asked.
    “Hey!” Dan shouted. The man seemed not to hear him, continuing across the school’s littered courtyard and then disappearing around a corner. “Hey, do you take care of this place?”
    Dan ran to keep up, stumbling over tumbled stones and the broken-up desks and chairs mounded in a sharp, nail-studded obstacle course that led all the way to the boarded-up door. Dan glimpsed the man again, this time slipping around the left corner of the school. The man wasn’t running, and Dan easily caught up, flying around the corner and colliding with the stranger.
    Or he would have collided with him, if he hadn’t skidded right through him. Dan froze, feeling a cold wave of fright shiver down to his toes, a cold that persisted as the man backtrackedand passed one more time through Dan’s physical form. Keeping pace with the vision, Dan looked up into the man’s face, seeing traces of his own nose, mouth, chin. . . . Was it possible? Was he really looking at . . .
    “Dad?”
    Dan really didn’t want this to be his father. In all his previous visions, he’d only ever seen people who were already dead.
    Not that he’d really held out hope of finding Marcus alive, but to have it confirmed like this nearly paralyzed him with terror all over again. Still, he followed as the ghostly man led him to a maintenance door around the back of the building. His father passed right through, leaving Dan to duck and weave through a few poorly nailed boards covering the doorway.
    His shirt snagged on one of the jagged edges of the four-by-fours, but he ignored it, hurrying to follow his father deeper into the school. Marcus’s clothes were out of fashion, or at