Page 310 of Marcello

Huh.

I walked as far as I could until I hit a right turn in the tunnel.

I held the lighter close to the ground again.

The footsteps were all jumbled up at the wall…

But they didn’t keep going off to the right.

So whoever had come here had stopped here.

Not only that, but there were crumbs of mortar all over the floor…

Like somebody had chipped away at the shit holding the stones together.

The air also smelled like piss and shit.

Which wasn’t that weird, because the rest of the house smelled like piss.

But it was weird, because nobody was supposed to be back here.

Was the smell coming from the rest of the house?

Or did it smell that way for another reason?

I stood up and used the Zippo to look at the stones.

Looked like a normal wall.

I ran my finger in the gap between two stones…

And bits of crumbly mortar fell out on the ground.

Huh.

I held my lighter higher –

And saw a rectangular hole up by the ceiling.

What was weird was, there were cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and corners…

Except in that hole.

Like they’d all gotten cleaned out.

Huh.

The hole was so small, there was no way I could fit through it…

So I was going to have to bash my way through the wall.

I took a long pull on my joint…

Then turned around and went back to get my sledgehammer.

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Giulietta