He wondered about the Lurker as he tramped along. Probably an escaped experiment, a genetic mutation of some kind. A horrible thought but probably to be expected with this kind of sinister operation. Liam would be wary. The creature might be perfectly harmless, a poor shuffling creature rejected and shunned by the evil scientists, left to forage in the darkness for food. And hopefully there was just one rather than dozens.
So many gas lamps, he thought again. Spaced twenty feet apart and hanging on both sides of the tunnel, Liam had assumed there to be an automated mechanism to light them all, like a continuous gas feed and a simple sparker. Instead, each lamp was a simple flame, like that of a candle only without the candle! He didn’t know exactly how they worked, but he knew nobody in their right mind would light them individually. Not this many. Madison certainly wouldn’t have. Maybe one every so often, but not every twenty feet and on both sides of the tunnel.
Gandalf the wizard lit them. It’s the only explanation. A magic wand or something.
He tripped on something hard, a large, random, twisted bit of metal, obviously from a substantial structure but certainly not part of the house. He found another piece moments later, sticking up out of the dirt, and then another soon after, although this piece was a thin, buckled sheet about his height. There could be many more buried pieces for all he knew, because the dirt was much deeper now.
His mind was so full of rambling thoughts of conspiracies and buried alien spaceships that it took him a while to notice a square of glowing white light ahead.
Relieved but also apprehensive, he broke into a jog. He saw bushes and ferns overhanging the end of the tunnel, moving gently in the breeze. It looked like daylight out there, but it couldn’t be. Not real daylight, anyway. He’d been heading downhill the whole time, and besides, it wasn’t morning yet. He’d walked for a long time, but not that long. It couldn’t be past midnight.
Never mind that, he told himself. I’m out!
He squinted as he rushed down the last few yards. The glaring light made it impossible to see clearly. He tripped and crawled, his hands grasping clumps of soil, thick weeds and roots, and then he was out, warmth flooding over him as he emerged into blinding daylight.
Something weird happened. His stomach lurched, and the ground seemed to tilt under his feet. He stumbled and fell into the ferns.
Liam got up on his knees and shielded his eyes, blinking rapidly. At first he kept his gaze low, panning from side to side. How can this be? he wondered, seeing thick vegetation, lots of ugly bushes, a few trees here and there. I’m outside! I’m back on the surface!
As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he looked farther and spotted rooftops—ordinary houses, although rather quaint and old, made of stone with chimneys and slate roofs. Not exactly what he’d expected, but okay. He didn’t recognize the neighborhood at all. Maybe Edensville? No, it was nothing like Edensville. It was nothing like anywhere he’d been before.
Why is it daytime? Did I lose time somewhere along the way?
He again felt a lurch of dizziness, a touch of vertigo, as his gaze moved higher. He was seeking the horizon, only there wasn’t one. The countryside just kept on going, up and up, higher and higher, like the world had been inverted and he was inside a giant bowl whose inhabitants were clinging to the inner surface. No, not a bowl but a sphere, miles across, surrounding him. Liam gasped, seeing a tiny group of houses high above his head in the hazy distance, defying gravity, hanging upside down as the world curved around and around . . .
Then he fainted.
Chapter 7
Ant stayed well clear of the emergency services. Flashing blue lights lit up the trees, and the lawn was filled with fire trucks, police cars, an ambulance, and a few other people called in because of their so-called expertise in such things as sinkholes.
The Mackenzies and the Parkers, along with little Cody, had been ushered next door to Madison’s house to sit out the rescue and keep out of the way. But the two dads couldn’t be still, and they’d stomped back out to the disaster zone and split up to independently demand action.
It had been an unbearable four or five hours since the event, and Ant hadn’t seen much progress. Seeing the incident live on the 11 PM local news, his own parents called and ordered him to come home and explain what was happening, and he did so with great reluctance . . . and then returned to the disaster zone afterward, prepared to wait out the rescue no matter how long it took.
There was barely room to steer the limousine past the crowd and parked vehicles in the lane. When Ant stepped out and pushed through the crowd to the yellow CAUTION tape, he had a sudden moment of déjà vu and paused with a jolt of shock. He felt a prickly sensation on the back of his neck and stood perfectly still, knowing he was being watched—by a future version of himself!
He remembered the moment well. He’d used the echo wand to visit the future, and he’d seen this—himself stepping out of the limo and approaching the yellow tape to gaze with amazement at the massive hole in the ground where Liam’s house had once stood. From here it actually did look like a laser bolt from space had incinerated it, absolutely nothing left but a hole in the ground.
He felt the presence lift and risked a glance behind. He saw nothing untoward, but others in the crowd seemed perturbed, glancing around as if they’d gotten a chill down their spine.
At first, the police didn’t let him pass under the CAUTION tape. But when Barton stepped up behind him, they recognized him from earlier and allowed the two of them through. Ant found that annoying. So it was okay for a ‘responsible adult’ to re-enter but not a kid? He tried not to scowl at the officers as he passed them.
Ant sought out Liam’s dad and hung close, overhearing conversations with one of the experts. “Why aren’t you lowering people down on ropes?” Mr. Mackenzie demanded.
“Because we need to set up a hoist,” the gnarly, unshaven man said patiently. “The top of the shaft is undercut in places, so we can’t just lower ropes over the unstable edge, because even the weight of a rescue worker will cause the rope to cut into the rim and dislodge more rock and dirt, and that could be dangerous for anyone below. Plus the severed water pipe drenched the walls of the shaft, making it soft and wet in places.”
“So use a hoist!”
“We have a small, portable crank drum with us, but we need something bigger to span the gap. Also, it comes with a nine-hundred-foot rope, but we estimate this shaft to be much deeper.”
“So when are you going in?”
“When the bigger hoist is here, and when we can ascertain that the—”
“Why not use a helicopter?” Liam’s dad persisted, waving his arms about. “It’s clear above. Lower someone down on a rope. Heck, lower me down on a rope.”
“A helicopter, sir? This shaft is well over two thousand feet! That’s about half a mile. It’s four times the height of Ellison’s Cave not far from here, the deepest known cave pit in the United States. This may be part of that cave system, but we’re not sure. Or maybe it’s an old mine; some of those run really deep, but usually not this wide, and anyway, we can’t find a record of it. Look, I know it’s hard to wait, but believe me, safety is paramount. If rescue workers are hurt on the way down, or we cause the shaft walls to collapse, then the situation could quickly escalate into something much, much worse—”
“So how long?”
The expert shrugged. “Rescue operations like this can take twenty-four hours, sometimes days. This shaft seems to be absolutely vertical, which will certainly speed things up. But it’s also incredibly deep and wide. Once the equipment is here . . .”
Ant couldn’t get over what the man had said about the shaft being half a mile deep. Who would even want to descend such a vast distance on a thin rope? How long would it take on a motorized winch?
He had faith in the rescue services, but it worried him how unnatural and extraordinary this shaft was. Whatever the explanation, it had drawn a lot of interest. More and more experts were being calle
d in, and everyone seemed extremely cautious about how to proceed. This rescue wouldn’t be over anytime soon, especially since it was already midnight and they were waiting on more equipment.
Barton approached. “Let’s go for a ride, Master Anthony.”
“What? We just got here! I’m not going home again.”
“No, not home. I want to find something. And I need to tell you about Caleb.”
Caleb? His long-lost son? The one he hasn’t seen in over twenty years?
Barton had mentioned the boy just last weekend, but he hadn’t made a whole lot of sense. For one thing, he still thought Caleb was eight years old—not figuratively but literally. That didn’t make any sense unless time travel was involved. Also, Barton had once lived in this same house with his wife and son long before Liam’s family had come along, and he’d insisted on keeping a close eye on the house over the years, fearful his son would ‘show up again’ one day. The story was rather kooky at best.
Intrigued, Ant allowed himself to be led back to the limousine, much to the satisfaction of the police. Reporters pounced on them at once, looking for new information, but Barton warded them off and opened the door for Ant to climb inside—not the rear door as usual, but the front passenger door.
When they were safely cruising up the lane toward the highway, Ant looked sideways at his driver. “So where are we going?”
The man’s expression gave nothing away. “It’s a short drive, so let me start at the beginning and tell you as fast as I can. You’ll find this very difficult to believe.”
“Ha!” Ant scoffed. “I’ve seen quite a lot of incredible stuff lately. I doubt you’ll surprise me.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
Something in his voice set Ant’s nerves on edge. He fell silent and waited while Barton collected his thoughts. They were already turning right on the highway by the time he began.
“My name used to be Hugh. Hugh Ratcliff. I was happily married to Rose until Caleb came along. Then things became . . . strained. He was just four when Rose left us. She couldn’t bear it any longer. She loved him but was absolutely terrified of him. As far as she was concerned, he needed to be institutionalized. It wasn’t that he was crazy, simply that he was a four-year-old wielding immense power. He could cause enormous damage just by thinking about it, and his short temper didn’t help matters. I understood her concern, but I guess he was a daddy’s boy and responded to me better. I managed him quite well most of the time.
“We had a dog once. That stupid mutt barked once too often, and Caleb thought it would be helpful if he sealed up the dog’s mouth to keep him quiet. He did so, but he also sealed up the nostrils. I don’t mean he used tape or anything mundane like that. I mean he made the mouth and nose vanish. They just weren’t there anymore. Instead, the dog’s muzzle was smooth and featureless, nothing but short hair, no openings at all. Needless to say, he died a minute later.
“Now, that doesn’t mean Caleb was mean. He was just . . . young. He bawled his eyes out when he realized what he’d done, and he tried to recreate the dog, but it didn’t work. The imitation looked the same, but it didn’t act the same. It made some dog noises as you might expect, and it ate food and slept and wagged its tail, but it was clearly not the same dog, nor any other dog. It lacked something. It had no soul. And it was repetitive, like it had been programmed to follow a basic routine. Nothing but a lifeless mechanical toy.”
Ant already regretted scoffing at Barton’s definition of ‘difficult to believe.’ He almost stopped him and proclaimed the driver’s story as wacky, but he bit his tongue and held off. After all, Madison writing herself sleep messages was hard to believe. So were wormholes. And his best friend turning into a robot for a day was a doozy!
“So Rose left us. She couldn’t take the stress anymore, and she knew I would never forgive her if she quietly turned Caleb over to the authorities so they could poke and prod at him. I believe to this day that a boy who can create things out of thin air would certainly be coerced into producing weapons. In fact, Caleb wouldn’t need to create weapons. He could destroy an army just by thinking about it.”
Barton gave Ant a sideways look and smiled before returning his gaze to the road.
“This was when Caleb was four,” he went on. “That was twenty-seven years ago. Rose left, and I raised Caleb alone for the next four years. We lived in the very same house Liam lives in—or did live in before it fell into the ground. I couldn’t work a job like most people simply because I couldn’t leave Caleb alone with strangers. I homeschooled him and earned a living selling duplicates.”
“Duplicates?” Ant repeated, feeling weak.
“He was able to create copies of objects. TVs, for instance. We had one in every room just because it suited him. Exact copies down to every last detail . . . except on the inside. Because what Caleb couldn’t see didn’t seem to matter. The outside of the TV was exquisitely perfect in every way, but the inside was blank. I opened one up and found nothing but a hazy blackness. It was unfinished, yet it worked perfectly. If Caleb wanted it to work, it simply worked, with or without electricity. It didn’t even need a satellite dish or receiver. He expected cartoons to play, and play they did.
“So I sold TVs on a regular basis, fetching a few hundred dollars for each. I had quite a few contacts who never asked questions.” He looked a little sheepish at this, and he sighed. “I told you I wasn’t a good man.”
Right, Ant thought. You got my previous driver fired by stashing alcohol in the trunk of the limo, and then you stepped in and took his job. And all because I’m Liam’s best friend and you wanted to keep an eye on his house.
Ant said nothing, though. As far as he was concerned, his driver had a mysterious past but was at heart a good person.
“I guess selling duplicates conjured from thin air wasn’t exactly stealing,” Barton said. “Not in the traditional sense, anyway. I sold all kinds of things. I once took Caleb to a jewelry store and let him hold an actual diamond. It was a very risky day out, but well worth it. After that, Caleb could make his own diamonds—absolutely perfect replicas. I sold one or two.”
Ant would have imagined duplicated diamonds to be a fast-track solution to immense wealth. “Why just a couple?”
“They attracted too much attention. TVs were safer. I made enough money to survive comfortably while staying under the radar. However, the IRS caught up with me by the time Caleb was eight. I avoided the audits, and we had to disappear in a hurry when the police eventually came knocking.”
Barton took a left turn along a twisty lane. Ant had been out this way once or twice. It had to be nearly ten miles of countryside before hitting the outskirts of Edensville, an even sleepier town than Brockridge. Where were they headed?
“You disappeared?” Ant pressed. He’d gleaned this much from a previous conversation with his driver. “Where to?”
With a faint smile of remembrance, Barton sighed and said, “We went underground.”
Chapter 8
When his head stopped spinning, Liam opened his eyes. Then wished he hadn’t.
Far above, where the sky should be, he saw forests and hills hanging upside down, stretching in all directions, wrapping around the inside of a colossal sphere several miles across. It made him dizzy to look, yet he was scared not to. When he craned his neck and stared directly upward, he felt as though he were in freefall, plummeting to his death. Yet he felt the reassuring ground under his knees and groping hands.
He shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun, then realized it couldn’t possibly be the sun and spent the next minute trying to figure out what the blinding light was. It hung at a point dead center of the sphere and appeared to be about the size of the sun, and just as dazzling. And hot, too; he felt its rays on his skin and saw the shadows it cast on the soil beneath him. The ball of fire looked like the sun, only it wasn’t the sun. It couldn’t be. The real sun was over a hundred times bigger than the Earth and about ninety million miles distant. This
ball of fire couldn’t be much more than a mile away and had no business floating in midair like that. It was big and hot, and incredibly bright, but not a sun. Not a real one.
Liam found himself breathing hard and dripping with sweat, yet his hands were icy cold. He remained in the dirt surrounded by bushes, afraid to move. A constant breeze moved the leaves and ruffled his hair. The breeze was cool and strong and came from the tunnel he’d stumbled out of. The entrance to the tunnel was dark and ominous, a ten-foot-square shaft leading straight down even though he’d just walked along it and stepped out. Nothing made sense, but right now Liam needed to keep it within his sight.
Tons of dirt and rock had recently spilled from the tunnel and scattered across the immediate area. The contents of the shaft, he thought. Even so, it didn’t seem realistic somehow. It was what he called ‘movie logic’—a detail added for realism but with only a token effort made by the set designers, not fully researched or given the attention it deserved. It was fake-looking.
Buried in the dirt were two twisted bicycles, one larger than the other. They seemed completely out of place. Unable to fathom their significance, he dismissed them from his already confused mind.
He focused instead on the nearby village with its stone-walled houses and slate-tile roofs. It looked like something from the TV, a quaint little English place with cobbled roads and stone walls. A small village, hardly more than a main street with a couple of alleys leading off. There was no sign of life. Beyond the village, endless fields began the gradual climb up the inside of the sphere, continuing up and up. Liam again felt his gaze drawn to the miniature sun and hurriedly returned his attention to the village.
The main road angled out past the houses on the far side and cut through the fields. Liam followed its long, winding path up and around the sphere, and once again had to shield his eyes against the sun as his gaze reached the halfway point directly opposite. He skipped past the glare and picked up the road again as it meandered onward, finally heading back down the curve on the other side. He saw that it came within a hundred feet of where he was sitting, then arrived back at the village and rejoined itself. A single, continuous road that literally circled the world.
The Lurkers Below Page 4
