Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - BOOCarz

* * *
The basement was a meandering complex of rooms
so lightless I may as well have explored them
blindfolded. I descended the creaking stairs and
stood at the bottom for a while, hoping my eyes would
eventually adjust, but it was the kind of dark there was
no adjusting to. I was also hoping I’d get used to the
smell—a strange, acrid stink like the supply closet in
a chemistry classroom—but no such luck. So I
shuffled in, with my shirt collar pulled up over my nose
and my hands held out in front of me, and hoped for
the best.
I tripped and nearly fell. Something made of glass
went skidding away across the floor. The smell only
seemed to get worse. I began to imagine things
lurking in the dark ahead of me. Forget monsters and
ghosts—what if there was another hole in the floor?
They’d never find my body.
Then I realized, in a minor stroke of genius, that by
dialing up a menu screen on the cellphone I kept in my
pocket (despite being ten miles from the nearest bar
of reception), I could make a weak flashlight. I held it
out, aiming the screen away from me. It barely
penetrated the darkness, so I pointed it at the floor.
Cracked flagstone and mouse turds. I aimed it to the
side; a faint gleam reflected back.
I took a step closer and swept my phone around.
Out of the darkness emerged a wall of shelves lined
with glass jars. They were all shapes and sizes,
mottled with dust and filled with gelatinous-looking
things suspended in cloudy fluid. I thought of the
kitchen and the exploded jars of fruits and vegetables
I’d found there. Maybe the temperature was more
stable down here, and that’s why these had survived.
But then I got closer still, and looked a little harder,
and realized they weren’t fruits and vegetables at all,