by Eddie Austin
“You feel it now?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the tunnel was farther away, or maybe your abilities are becoming more manifest?”
“I don’t know,” God, the weight of this feeling! “I’m not usually in a hurry to get anywhere out here, maybe I misjudged.”
He nods, shading his eyes, a concerned look crosses his face, “Are you ok?”
This question bothers me on some primal level, probably because I will have to answer it. I mutter through clenched teeth:
“Yes.”
Lie to him and to yourself.
“Let’s go, then, we have maybe three hours of daylight left. Please tell me you brought a lamp or flashlight?”
“Yes, the headlamp you left behind in my gear. It still works.”
“Good. Is this all looking familiar to you?”
He gestures back toward the way we are heading, down the sunken path. I nod.
“Yes, maybe a mile or so,” my voice now more substantial as I get used to the new sensations, “you want me to lead?”
Bryce steps aside, and I walk in front now, passing his retraced steps and seeing no others. I wonder if I have made him nervous, shadowing him, high as a kite and swinging a Zulu war club.
There is no trust left in the world.
Moments later, or an eternity, depending on your level of sobriety, I see a familiar boulder ahead and stop to take a sip of water. Bryce joins me, and looking at his face and feeling sensations of proximity in my mind, I know my next words are pointless, but I say them anyway.
“It’s just ahead, past that bend.”
Bryce stops, and looks at the slope to the left of us as if looking through it. He turns and looks back at me.
“Should we walk out on the pan? It might be good to get on top of where this thing is coming from, you know, before we head underground.”
“What do you make of it?” I ask. “It feels like it will be back a ways in that tunnel, but I can’t say how far. It feels…spread out.”
“Right, if I had to guess, I would say a few hundred yards, but I don’t think I could point to it. I feel like a compass needle at the north pole.”
“Or the Bermuda Triangle?”
“Well?” He asks.
I don’t feel like chasing some phantom intuition across the desert, especially if we’re both so discombobulated. My panic has settled around me and I’m wearing it like a strait-jacket…dammit! I’m still functional for the moment, but I can’t tell Bryce about this. I want to just get it over with.
“Let’s go check the tunnel. I don’t think we’ll learn anything up here.”
“Fine. You lead on.”
Before I do, I open my pack and pull out the headlamp, check it, and put it on. A thought occurs to me.
“Bryce, we can stash our packs behind this boulder and get them when we come back out. We might be dealing with anything in there, and it will be close quarters. No sense in giving them extra hand holds…”
“That seems logical. Hang on.”
I walk over to the rock and lean behind it, dropping my pack in the niche there, between it and the wall. I retain my Glock and the knobkerrie. I hear Bryce working the zipper on his pack, and when I turn, he has his headlamp on and is holding an MP-5 before him, strap over his shoulder. He checks the clip and clicks the light affixed to the fore grip, on then off. He passes me his pack and then the rifle, both of which I secret behind the boulder.
“Geez, Bryce,” as I admire the new weapon, “what the fuck else is in that pack?”
He smiles. “One of the perks of running the show I guess. This takes .45 auto, so we can share ammo. You ready?”
“Yes.” I am.
I lead the way around the bend and take in the sights. The entrance is ahead on the left, but the area looks different from the last time I was there. First off, the body of the zombie is missing. Not just the body, but the stones I dropped on it as well. No greasy patch, no clothing. It reminds me of an ant hill, grasshopper today, gone tomorrow.
Something else. Footprints leading into the tunnel from the right. One set, fresh looking. I crouch down and check them out. No hint of dragging or of a confused step. I give Bryce a look.
“He’s already here.”
Bryce is walking over to the entrance of the tunnel now casting his eyes left and right before turning to me. “What is this place?” He sounds incredulous. How can anything surprise anybody anymore?
I shrug, “I’ve already told you my theory.”
He turns back and starts to inspect the cement on the left side of the tunnel wall, just inside. After a moment, he calls me over. He is looking at a light rectangular patch on the wall, maybe eight by eleven inches, with rusty screw holes at each corner. He runs a hand across it and it’s my turn to look confused. He speaks softly, and I feel the urge to be quiet also.
“There was a sign or plaque here. It’s been removed.”
I nod, not knowing what to say. He continues, “This makes no sense to build a tunnel out here in the desert. There’s nothing around for miles, and even so, why here, opening into this wash?”
A thought occurs to me. “What if it was here before the arroyo and was buried? The runoff might have uncovered it. See back there? That small section of light? The roof collapsed back there, and you can see the rusted re-bar. This has been here for a long while.”
“I’m stumped. Maybe we’ll find some clue inside. How far back did you go?”
“Not far. I didn’t have a light, and it gets dark back there.”
“Alright. Let’s check it out.”
I click on my headlamp. I hear Bryce doing the same behind me, and then the light on the MP-5, brighter, and like a spotlight casts leg shadows in front of me. It bursts to life.
I pause at the spot where I had seen the zombie that first time out here. The tunnel looks the same. Peering up through the rectangular hole in the ceiling, I take one last look at the fading light of the blue sky, and walk forward. I’m not sure which way to go so I make a point of following that fresh set of footprints.
They are closer together than our own, as if the person that made them was taking hesitant steps, and I realize that the prophet must have been down here without a flashlight, feeling his way along the wall. I follow, noting the line that appears every ten feet or so, on the wall, running top to bottom like a seam, marking off segments of concrete. Occasionally, there is a bit of wire sticking out from the wall, bare and rusty, with a line of rust colored stain running down to the floor.
The footprints lead to an intersection; like a four way stop. I hear Bryce scratching behind me and see that he is cutting an arrow into the cement with his knife at eye level, pointing back the way we’ve come.
I follow the tracks in a circle, imagining our quarry down here, feeling the wall run out and searching for the path. They run in a circle, then, continue straight ahead. I whisper to Bryce, “Keep following him?”
He nods, face illuminated by the lamp and yellow glow of light beam on sand beneath our feet. I continue, flashing my light down the side corridors as we pass. The light goes for quite a ways, but I see no end to it.
We continue to walk, and I catch myself counting the seams in the wall as we walk. I count to one hundred, and we come to another intersection. Again, the footsteps circle the open space before choosing the path in front.
Bryce whispers in my ear, “This is going on forever. We should be there by now, wherever ‘there’ is. Don’t you think?”
I do.
Beneath me, above me, all around. It is a constant pressure now, similar to the sensation one feels when free diving in a body of water deeper than a dozen feet. It’s uncomfortable.
I whisper back, “What do we do?”
“Follow those tracks.”
I start to count the segments again, but I notice something else now. The tunnel is slowly sloping down at a low grade, but still noticeable; we are headed deeper into the earth. We pass a hundred segmen
ts, but no intersection this time. Somewhere after two hundred, I stop counting, for the wall runs out.
Chapter 28
I stop, and Bryce almost runs into my back. The tunnel has opened up into a great space underground. I look up, and Bryce sweeps his MP-5’s light across the walls. It is a cave, but it looks to be manmade, as if it were chiseled from bedrock with rough instruments. Looking back, on the opposite wall of the tunnel, there are two more light patches, from whence signs were removed. One long rectangle about the size of a one-way sign, and another below it, the same size as the one at the entrance.
I take a step into the openness of the cave and look all around before us. My light reflects off of a still, shiny surface. A dark pool, still like glass, stretching out beyond the range of my light. I start to call to Bryce, for him to shine his light on it, when he speaks.
“Kyle!” A whispered exclamation.
I look over, startled by Bryce’s voice. The beam of his flashlight rests on a still form, prostrate before a sharp rock at the edge of the pool.
It’s the prophet.
I pause for a moment, grip tightening on my club. The form lies still. Not breathing.
We walk over to it, both afraid to take our beams away lest the image before us disappear. Standing over him now, we can see the cause of his death.
Glistening in the light, rock still wet with blood-coating it, we can make out the remains of his ruined skull, face down in the sand. His hands still reach out, fingers clutching the sides of the sharpened granite mini-Matterhorn, stiffly. His brain matter and fluid essence spreads out before him, spilling to the edge of the pool.
I pause to take a deep breath that I realize I have been holding. Bryce must have been doing the same, for I hear him gasp before speaking matter-of-factly, “He smashed his own brains out.”
“I wonder how long that took?”
“Why?”
Bryce sounds horrified and horribly confused. I realize that his question is for the body before us, and not for me. I don’t know what to say. My mind is numb.
He continues, filling the quiet around us with his quickening voice. “None of this makes any sense. This—“He gestures at the prophet’s body, “Or this!” He sweeps his arm at the expanse of glassy fluid before us. I realize that he is yelling now. “God DAMN it!”
He sprays a quick burst of automatic fire into the still obsidian surface about five feet in front of us. Ripples spread out across the pool disappearing into the darkness.
“Bryce!”
He stops.
“What the fuck!” I yell, looking about us nervously.
I’m starting to back away from the edge of the pool. Bryce is breathing heavily, and I see that his face is flushed. He’s looking down at the Prophet or the pool, I can’t tell. Ripples continue to spread. Ripples return to us, larger. Tiny lapping waves…
“Bryce.”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
He seems calm now, perhaps with fear. I feel my own rising waves of panic which only increase as I take one last look at the pool, my pitiful blue beam sparkling on the surface, now disturbed.
A pair of feet break the surface, shockingly pale-white in comparison to the darkness surrounding them. I pause, confusion settling over me, as more feet appear below the first, then legs, all human, the pool of fluid recedes for the tumbling mass, growing in size as it reaches shore. My mind reels for any comparison or frame of reference. A dried dandelion? Only the seeds are people, a mass of people, connected by their heads, rolling at us like a pale, ball lightning of flesh and skin.
Bryce is frozen, but I pull at his shoulder, and he turns. We run. I hear his MP-5 clatter to the ground, and I realize that I’ve abandoned my knobkerrie as well, hardly hearing the clatter of wood in the panic of flight.
I hear the thing, limbs slapping against one another, as it rolls toward us from behind. I hear another sound and realize that we are both screaming as we run. I don’t even think to pull my Glock out to get off a few shots. Terror rules.
My legs are on fire, tight muscles threatening to quit. My chest heaves and I feel a stitch coming on in my ribs, but I don’t stop running. I don’t hear Bryce, I don’t hear the thing. I hear only the pounding of blood in my ears.
Lifetimes pass, and I only realize that I have left the tunnel when I encounter the slope of the arroyo and fresh air. The sun is down, and the sand is still warm from the day’s long light, but I feel the chill of adrenaline. I make it up and over and I don’t stop running until my legs give out and red flashes before my eyes. Blackness.
⃰ ⃰ ⃰
Something stings my nose, and the fit of sneezing that wracks my body brings me to consciousness. I am staring now through bleary eyes at a confusing landscape. The left hemisphere of vision is grey flatness stretching to forever. A vertical horizon blazing to life with the brilliance of the newly risen sun, wreathed in gold and blue. The right, the sky, and I lay there on my side, perfectly still, regarding the dawn.
The salty dust which stung my nose and woke me swirls around my arm, deadened numb from being slept on, and collects in drifts around my fingers. I do a mental status check. I am alive. I am whole.
What happened?
Visions of images came to me slowly. The dimly lit tunnel, the cavern. Following the prophet’s footsteps to the sight of his self-sacrifice to some dark subterranean reservoir. The look of terror on Bryce’s face when that “thing” surfaced from the water. Running.
I make a tentative effort to move and decide that it can wait. My legs feel locked in a permanent Charlie horse, my back is twisted, my neck spasming lightly, and my arm is asleep. I steel my nerve and push myself up with my good arm.
I cry out. Dust, blown over me in the night, runs off of my clothes, and puffs from my hair and beard into a choking cloud. I stand.
My arm hangs limp. I try flapping it against my body in a vain attempt to wake up fully. I feel a tingling sensation return to it and an uncomfortable electric twinge as my brain regains control of it. I hurt, but I am alive.
Where’s Bryce?
I remember him charging along behind me the night before, but I’m uncertain if he made it out. I was caught up in self-preservation mode at the time, and can’t account for anyone else’s whereabouts.
I turn in a wide circle.
Whereabouts am I?
I can see the hills --far off forms in the distance, but there is no sign of Bryce. I start to walk slowly toward the distant landmarks and feel at my side with my newly awakened arm. I still have my Glock. I pull it from its holster and thumb the clip release. It drops into the palm of my other hand, and I place it in my pocket. Still walking, I pull back the slide and grab the spinning .45 round out of the air.
It’s a little dusty, but I can see that the barrel is clear of obstruction, and mechanically, it seems fine. I thumb the round back into the clip, seat it, and chamber the first round; back into the holster.
My feet had dug deep prints into the pan the night before as I ran. I track my erratic course across the flat landscape. In time, I come to the edge of the arroyo. I approach it slowly and peek over the edge quickly before taking a longer look. No signs of violence or of the thing, or of Bryce.
Walking down into the wide, water cut path, I can see many prints in the sand, but nothing that makes sense to me. I begin walking back around the bend to the boulder and our supplies. I am starting to get very thirsty.
My pack is where I left it the day before. Bryce’s gun and pack are missing. I feel a sense of relief that perhaps he is alright. I pull my Glock out and aim it down the arroyo towards the entrance to the tunnel and pull the trigger. The report echoes about me then fades. I wait.
After a moment, I hear the faint pop of a rifle round coming from the direction of the hills. A smile plays across my face, and I start walking toward the sound, retracing yesterday’s course.
Later.
We see each other at about the same time and call out greetings
. His face reminds me of gallows and bog-men, and I wonder about my own appearance.
“Kyle! I’m glad to see you made it! I thought maybe that thing got you.” As often is the case with this man, his voice is incongruously cheerful to his circumstance. I croak my reply.
“I was wondering the same. What happened to you?”
“I ran until I couldn’t move another inch. You?”
“The same. We must have gone in opposite directions. What about the zombie… uh, thing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it couldn’t travel far from the pool, or maybe we out-paced it and it got confused, or maybe it just didn’t care as long as we were gone?”
I take a sip of water as we walk, screwing the cap back on and thinking about the previous night before I speak. “What the hell was it?”
Bryce takes a moment before answering, “I don’t know. I don’t want to guess. I have come to one conclusion.” He licks his lips. “We need to destroy it, and whatever else is down there.”
“Ok.” My throat is less scratchy and I feel more alive now.
“Ok?”
“You bet your ass. Whatever’s down that tunnel, it’s obviously where the zombies are headed. I don’t care what it is anymore, or how it’s calling to them. I just want it gone. You tell me how, and I’m there.”
If Bryce is surprised by my enthusiasm, he hides it well. Damn his optimism!, like Stockholm Syndrome Nightmares, it’s affecting me. We walk on for a time, sipping at water, and once I feel my thirst diminish, I pull out some of the dried venison and offer him some. He takes it and thanks me.
Then, he speaks, “I’m going to give it some thought and see what we have in town as far as explosives are concerned. And whatever we do, I want to do it soon,” he speaks around a mouthful of jerky, “I have a feeling that the longer we leave that place as it is, drawing them in, the more powerful the force will become, and who the hell knows what it’ll spit out next. So, soon.”
“Agreed.”
Eventually , the path ends, and we arrive at the toes of the hills. My legs protest mightily as we climb, and I can tell from Bryce’s pained expression, that he isn’t doing much better. It occurs to me that I can no longer feel the presence of the cavern, out in the desert. It is a great tension lifting from my shoulders. Bryce seems to notice my relief.
