My heart pounded as we walked up the cobblestone path and I couldn’t stop myself from peering over my shoulder every few steps as if Sterling’s people might appear out of the shadows with guns. Mitch had said that we’d be safe for now though which did make me feel better but the fact that he’d made us pack the car up again and that I’d seen him slipping a gun into his holster didn’t help.

It was just a precaution, apparently. But he had said you could never be too sure. The Sterlings are like bedbugs, Mitch had said, popping up wherever they’re wanted least and being irritating as hell.

Mitch carefully hitched his bag a little higher on his shoulder and I winced at the muffled clanking that came from inside. We’d wrapped everything in towels to try and prevent them from making as much noise as possible but it still felt deafening in the night air.

“See anyone?” Mitch asked under his breath as we entered the Kirkyard.

“No,” I breathed back, scanning the dark graveyard intently.

The lamps were sparse, bathing some parts of the space in light but the edges were cloaked in shadows. Even so, I was pretty sure we were alone.

“Do they not lock the gates or anything to stop people from coming in at night?” I muttered, my eyes sweeping our surroundings.

“Nah, they’re pretty relaxed about that kind of thing here. As long as we don’t make too much noise, we should be fine.”

My steps faltered and I needed to rush to catch up.

“Aren’t we going to smash down a wall?” I asked.

Mitch snorted softly.

“Such an inelegant solution,” he muttered. “We’re going to sort out the weeds, pry the plaster off and go from there.”

I nodded slightly, my hair falling in front of my face, the colour startling me for a moment before I remember it was a wig. It felt a unnatural, the shade too dark for my skin, but Mitch has insisted that it wasn’t that bad.

It felt it.

My own hair had been plaited tightly, Mitch’s work, and was bundled up under the scratchy wig. It was horrifically warm too. The hot air felt muggy and too humid. My hands were sweating inside my two pairs of plastic gloves and I was really regretting wearing the hoody that Mitch had suggested.

I understood the purpose of the precautions, of course I did. The wig was to cover my own hair so that firstly, people didn’t recognise me and secondly, so that I didn’t leave any evidence there, same with the gloves, but it felt excessive. Surely, one pair was enough.

At first, it had been fun and exciting but with each step, it became more and more obvious how illegal our actions were. I had to keep reminding myself that it was just a dream. Nothing bad could happen.

But, as we sauntered quickly but casually towards our target, it felt like something terrible was waiting to happen. My heart fluttered in my chest and my hands trembled. Sterling’s people could appear at any moment and pounce. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t even have a gun!

Not that I knew how to use one but still, it might make me feel better just to have one!

It wouldn’t, not really. It was just more pressure and the thought of holding something in my hands that could easily end someone’s life was… terrifying.

“When we reach the mausoleum,” Mitch muttered under his breath, pulling the collar of his leather jacket slightly higher against an imagined chill, “I want you to go inside and hide against the wall next to the door whilst I get everything set up, understood?”

“Yes,” I breathed back.

He nodded ever so slightly, his black hair (also a wig) bouncing with the movement.

He’d already told me what to do back at the hotel. I was meant to hide out of sight whilst he went to find the big sheet of plywood he said he’d seen propped in the doorway of another mausoleum. I couldn’t recall seeing it but he’d been certain. Apparently, it was fairly normal for them some of them to be blocked off like that which sounded pretty weird to me. Surely, they needed more than just some wood to keep people from going inside. Mitch had said that it wasn’t even attached to anything, just propped in the doorway. That’s wouldn’t stop anyone!

We started along the path towards our goal, my heart racing in my ears, and I glanced around once more. The graveyard was empty, silent apart from the wisps of music that snaked out of the surrounding buildings.

I clenched my hands into my fists, staring back at the approaching structure.

This is what I wanted. I made up the entire world just so that I could become a treasure hunter, I couldn’t chicken out now.

I darted into the stone building, throwing myself against the wall and waiting for someone to spot me. But, nothing happened. No voices shouted that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be, Sterling’s people weren’t already waiting for me there. The world was silent apart from the steady pace of Mitch’s footsteps pacing away from me.

I didn’t dare move, my eyes fixed on the duffle bag that Mitch had tucked just inside the door, as I heard footsteps approach. My hands clenched into fists, even though I knew it was most likely just Mitch, and a sigh slipped out of my mouth when he finally appeared in the doorway.

What would I have done if it were someone else? I’d never even punched anyone, not really! I mean, I’d been to karate classes when I was a kid but this felt far too real. I’d never punched anyone without gloves on!

“You okay, kid?” he breathed as he struggled to prop the weathered sheet of wood into position before hissing in pain and snatching one hand back. “Lousy piece of crap. A damn splinter.”

I stepped forwards, my legs finally working.

“Can I help?” I whispered.

He shook his head, managing to balance the sheet in a way that blocked us from view.

“There we go,” he said before looking down at his palm and picking at it. “Got the little bugger!”

He grinned at me before turning towards the wall.

I followed him towards it, squinting in the low light.

“This is going to be a bit of a nightmare,” Mitch warned me, glancing up at the metal bars above us. “This damn place don’t have a roof, which was probably on purpose so that people could watch over this place from the houses around here, but it also means we can’t use any kind of torch. Good job the sky is pretty clear. We should be able to make do with just the moon.”

I glanced up at the visible sky distrustingly.

Mitch might have said that it was pretty clear but the clouds floating lazily across it made me worried.

“Okay, kid. Do you want to be the one to hold the weeds back or do you want to chisel away the plaster?”

I glanced at the thick vines that curtained the back wall. Holding them back sounded a little boring but I’d only ever used a chisel a couple of times in school and that never went well for me. The table mirror we’d been forced to make in Woodwork was forever wonky and lopsided.

My dad still displayed it proudly, of course, but I’d heard my mom telling him to just bin it.

“I’ll hold the weeds,” I decided.

“You sure?” Mitch asked, carefully unzipping his bag and retrieving the chisel. “This is way more fun.”

I shook my head, not wanting to say anything more.

“Alright, I’ll try real hard not to stab you in the hand.”

Mitch grinned at me before walking towards the wall and pulling the leather sheath off the chisel.

I rushed to follow him, trying not to think about whether or not I’d be able to feel pain in this fantasy, and gathered as many of the weeds as I could in my hands. I pulled them gently to the side, standing back against the wall so that Mitch had more space to work.

Carefully, he slid the tip of the chisel under the loose edge, putting one hand against the plaster to catch it as he slowly levered it off. The small but sharp crack made me jump and my head whipped towards the doorway.

“It’s okay,” Mitch whispered quietly as he lowered the hand-sized slab to the floor before straightening and sliding the tool back into place.

The process was painfully slow and made my skin crawl, not just because of the bugs that repeatedly landed on my hands and arms. It took everything in me not to shake them off, push Mitch out the way and grab the folded pickaxe that I knew was in his bag. That would have done the job in minutes.

More than once we had to pause as a cloud drifted in front of the moon, plunging the mausoleum into near total darkness, and each time I wanted to scream. We were taking too long.

“There it is,” Mitch breathed, talking for the first time in a while.

I leaned forwards, trying to see around him just as another cloud went in front of the moon.

“What is it?” I whispered, not willing to wait to find out.

“I don’t know yet but I’ve done this enough to know that we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

I glanced up at the hazy moon.

“Do we have to wait for the moon to come back out or can you keep going?” I asked impatiently.

Mitch chuckled under his breath.

“That ain’t a good idea. Anything could be in this thing and I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a trap.”

I edged slightly further away, my back bumping against the rough stone bricks.

“What kind of trap?”

“Eh, could be anything. I’m not entirely sure about the age because, obviously, this thing was created in the… probably seventeenth century? I reckon it was repaired after some time in the eighteenth or nineteenth, maybe later, so this thing could have been put in anytime in those centuries or maybe after so…” he paused, seeming to be thinking hard. “It could be anything from a simple spring-gun or some kind of explosive but, of course, the plastering on this thing was pretty crappy so it’s possible that whatever was inside it has rusted to the point of no return.”

“Does that happen often?” I asked as the cloud finally moved out of the way and I could see the wall again.

Mitch had managed to remove most of the plaster and I could just about see the corner of a hole behind it but the rest was still covered.

“Eh, quite often. A lot of the things I work with are a minimum of a couple hundred years old, normally a few centuries or older. They didn’t always have the time or material to make sure everything got sealed off from the elements and you know how rain causes metals to rust and wood to bloat and… Ah, there we go.”

Mitch was silent for a moment as he pried more plaster away from the hole, revealing a small, varnished dark wood box that was jammed into the space.

“Just a little more and we’ll be able to start working on the traps. God, there was this hellish one we accidentally triggered on Suakin Island about ten, fifteen years back. It was meant to shoot wooden spears at anyone who triggered it but it had been destroyed by rain over the years and the spears pretty much crumbled into splinters which then were baked by the sun and honestly, I think they did more damage than the spears would have.”

My mouth fell open.

“What happened?” I gasped.

“Well, I noticed the holes in the wall about half a second before they fired so I was able to get in front of the kid and turn my back so it wasn’t too bad. I don’t think Zaq enjoyed picking a hundred odd shards of wood out my back though. So much for the Port of Good Hope. That Ptolemy was either an idiot or had a great sense of irony because that place was nothing but a pain. Ah ha! This should do it!”

There was another soft crack and a puff of dust erupted outwards, catching in my lungs. I hugged the vines as tightly as I could with one hand and bought the other to my mouth to smother the cough that was threatening to escape.

“Sorry, kid!” Mitch whispered with a grimace. “Should have warned you to hold your breath. I’ll remember next time!”

My eyes watered as my chest strained with the effort to hold back a cough. Panic at the thought of coughing or sneezing and drawing attention to us was almost strong enough for me to leave the fantasy but I knew all that awaited me in the real world was my empty bedroom. I swallowed the cough down and blinked a few times to clear my vision before focusing on the wooden box.

“Ah, look at this thing. I bet you that’s a release switch underneath there,” Mitch said, leaning closer. “See under the box?”

He moved back slightly so that I could see.

There was a crumbling small sheet of wood that had been stained white. It would have blended into the bottom of the brick if it hadn’t been so worn and rain damaged.

“Yeah?” I said.

“So, the way release switches work is there’s a mechanism under there that activates when a weight is taken off it. I assume this one activated a while ago though because normally they use metal springs and the likes so it should be entirely corroded. Hopefully.”

I paused at the uncertainty in his tone.

“Hopefully? What do release switches normally do when they are triggered?” I asked.

“Ah, I assume this one was designed to injure whoever steals whatever is in the box so… we’ll find out. Step back and hold your breath.”

I did as he instructed, moving as far back as I could whilst still holding the vines out of the way, and squeezed my lips together tightly.

He gently nudged the edge of the wooden base with his chisel.

I waited anxiously for something dramatic to happen.

“Huh,” he said quietly.

“What?” I asked quickly.

He cocked his head and leaned in again.

“I reckon it’s triggered already. See how it’s slightly higher at the front?” He pointed with the chisel. “That means something isn’t right. We’ll need to squish it down just a bit to be able to get the box out. It’s jammed in there, see?”

I squinted at the box.

It did appear to be jammed into the brick-shaped hole but Mitch was right. If the base came down a little, he’d be able to get it out.

He stepped away from the wall and turned towards me.

“Alright. What I’m going to do is lift the front edge a little more and shine a light in there. Nothing too bright but enough to just get a peek at what’s happening. I want you to move back as far as possible and hold your breath again, okay?”

I nodded.

“I might need you to grab tools from the bag whilst I’d doing this. If you’re not sure what I mean by anything, just ask,” he said with an easy smile as he walked towards his bag and crouched down in front of it.

I nodded again but worry spread through me. He was so relaxed, too relaxed really. If I were talking about traps and bombs and other stuff that could kill me, I would not be so relaxed about it.

I watched as he slipped the chisel back into its sheath and started rooting around in the bag. He pulled out a couple of knives, sliding them out of their leather covers to check something before finally settling on one that was entirely flat from the tip to the end of the handle.

He grinned at it widely before moving back toward the wall.

“Okay, ready?” he asked, waiting for me to nod before slowly sliding the blade under the box.

My body froze and tension thrummed within me as Mitch slowly started to press down until the box moved away from the roof of the hole. The shiny, slightly tacky looking coating on the box was covered in dust and lightly dented from where it had been resting against the brick for so long but apart from that, it didn’t look damaged.

“Ah, fuck. I need another tool. Can you have a look in the bag? You’re looking for something that kinda looks like if tweezers and pliers had a baby that was a giant,” Mitch said, looking back at me.

I hurried towards the bag, his instructions playing over in my head as panic gripped me. What if I took too long or gave him the wrong thing and everything exploded and he died?

What if I died? I mean, I’d been told or had heard somewhere that if I died in a dream, I could die in real life but this wasn’t exactly a dream. Sure, I was in bed and resting in real life but I was in control. I had to survive… right?

My hands closed around rubber handles and I pulled the tool out. It looked like tweezers but longer and wider with wooden grips. The tips were angled slightly and opened as my hands tightened on the handles.

“Is this it?” I hissed turning towards him.

“You got ‘em! Bring them here!”

I did as he asked, holding them out to him before realising that one of his hands was holding the knife and I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to use the tweezer thing single handed.

“Hold them for just a second, okay?” he asked as he reached into his pocket for a small flashlight.

He held it in his mouth and twisted the base causing it to tick softly before pulling it back out and pointing it towards the hole.

The light was dim, barely even there, but in the dark night, it was blinding. He lifted the knife slightly, pushing the top of the box back up into the top of the hole again.

“Hmm,” he muttered softly. “That looks like it’s rusted through. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

He flicked the flashlight off again and shoved it back into his pocket.

Even with his reassurances, I was worried but I knew I had to trust him. It was either that or leaving and I didn’t want to do that. I had nowhere else to go, not really.

“Okay, kid,” he started, looking up at me again. “Do you want to hold the knife or get the box out?”

I stared wide-eyed at him.

Both sounded terrifying. If I slipped holding the knife, the trap could explode, even though Mitch seemed pretty sure that it was safe, but if I slipped or my hand shook when I using the tool, I could set it off anyway. But, that’s why I was here in this fantasy. I wanted to do something scary and fun.

“The knife,” I decided.

Surely it was easier to just hold a knife still?

“Good call.”

He cocked his head towards it, changing his grip so he was supporting it with just two fingers and making space for me total hold.

I slipped my hand around the strangely shaped knife, the flat edges feeling weird in my palm.

“When I start to move the box,” he started, taking the tool from me, “the weight is going to change on the knife so you’ll need to keep an eye on it and readjust when needed. If you’re not sure or need me to help, just say and I will.”

I nodded, not taking my eyes off the knife as my heart started to speed up.

Mitch slowly began to slip the tips of the tweezers into place before loosening his grip so that the tool gripped the box.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded again, too scared to speak.

Painfully slowly, he started to pull. The box gradually moved forwards, the weight coming off the back of the knife as it did. I felt like I couldn’t breathe as Mitch gently wrapped his fingers around the box and abandoned the tool.

Whatever coating the box had on it made things more difficult. It was tacky, almost gummy. It kept catching on the knife and every time, my heart leapt into my throat.

“So close,” Mitch promised. “Just a little bit… ah!”

He grinned triumphantly as the box slid free.

“What about this?” I asked as he set the box softly on the floor behind us.

“Don’t worry, I got it,” he said with a smile, reaching out for the knife.

A bang sounded so loudly that I opened my eyes and sat up, staring around my room in terror as my heart galloped.

“What the fuck?” my mom screamed from downstairs.