“No. It was just shit.”
Chapter 33:
Underground
As he crawled through the tunnel holding the oil lamp awkwardly out in front of him, Dale's elbows and knees sank into the sodden earth where narrow furrows had been worn. The tunnel must have transported a lot of human traffic over the years. From the era of the monks through Isaac Williams and his wreckers, and now to the present day. He paused to take a breather, trying to ignore the dampness seeping into his clothes, and tested the wall with a hand. The sides of the cavity were uniform and fashioned almost smooth, the earth compacted so much that it was almost stone-like. Wooden support splints had been placed every few metres, making the tunnel look like a miniature mine shaft. A few metres in, he encountered the first junction where it split into two paths of roughly equal dimensions.
Which way?
They had anticipated such an eventuality, and covered all the bases. Nobody wanted Dale to get lost, least of all him. There were concerns that the vibrations made by too much verbal communication could cause a cave-in, so a length of string they found discarded in the sub-cellar was tied around Dale's right ankle and now trailed behind him. That way, if anything did happen Lucy and Rolly would at least know where he was. It was agreed that if he made a turn he would tug sharply on the string once for left and twice for right, and if he ran into any kind of trouble he would tug repeatedly. Lucy held the spool, paying out the string and waiting for a signal. When the string ran out, she was to tug on it. That would be Dale's cue to come back. This was, after all, just a reconnaissance exercise.
He paused to think. He didn't think he'd travelled very far. He was probably still somewhere beneath the house. He couldn't be certain but judging by where he thought he was, the left path would lead to the sea and the right in the direction of the fields. He remembered reading somewhere that when confronted with this kind of dilemma, most of the time right-handed people chose the right-handed option and vice versa, simply because the dominant part of their brain told them to. Dale didn't want to be governed by anything, not even his own brain, so he checked the string was still secure around his ankle and gave a single sharp tug before continuing down the left tunnel. It wasn't until later that he realised the significance of taking the left path.
No sooner had he negotiated the turn, a sudden wave of claustrophobia hit him, robbing him of his breath, his orientation and his composure in one fell swoop. He stopped and rolled on to his side, breathing hard and fighting to regain control. It felt like he was suffocating. Drowning. He remembered the dream he'd had, and became convinced it was a premonition. The walls were closing in around him. Then he became aware of sounds. Grunts, voices, faraway moans. They seemed to fade in and out of clarity and rise and fall in volume.
That doesn't mean anything, the logical part of his brain protested. You're in a tunnel, sound carries. What you can hear is probably coming from two miles away.
No. Something had changed. He felt different. Nervously, he contorted his body and shone the oil-lamp behind him. As far as the limited light would enable him to see, he was still alone. As he turned, back his arm dragged against the wall and dislodged a chunk of mud which dropped to the floor with a soft thud. His heart skipped a beat.
It's falling apart!
He stared at the patch wall the chunk of mud had fallen from, and something caught his eye. Where the layered mud was flaking off, a smooth surface was visible beneath. He brushed some more dried mud away with his hand. Was that wooden panelling? Some kind of structural support? He tapped at the wood with a knuckle. It sounded hollow. There must be a cavity behind. Another tunnel? Surely not.
He would need to prise off the cover and take a look, and wondered how much string was left on the spool Lucy was holding. It couldn't be much. Luckily, there appeared to be some kind of through-draft, so ventilation wasn't a problem. Carefully removing the wooden covering, he leaned it against the sloping wall of the tunnel and shone the oil-lamp into the newly-created hole. A thick mass of musty air rushed out to meet him, making him gag. Evidently, this was one section of the elaborate subterranean excavation that hadn't been exposed to the open air for some time.
The light of the oil lamp revealed a stone-lined floor, walls, and a low, but neatly rendered ceiling. It was a tiny enclosed space, hidden deep underground and accessible only via the secret passageway. Dale gave a few excited tugs on the line attached to his ankle to let the others know he had found something, and crawled through the opening into the secret room beyond.
It was easily big enough to stand up in, and he took full advantage after spending so long crouching by treating himself to a luxurious stretch. The oil lamp sent the massed shadows scurrying away to regroup in forgotten corners. It was then, as he held the lamp above his head, that he noticed the markings that adorned every surface of the room. In some areas there was such a concentration that they interconnected or overlapped, new markings all-but obscuring the old. Most of them appeared to be painted or chalked, while others seemed to be etched deep into the stone. As he peered at them more closely, Dale realized that the cryptic writings were similar in nature to those that had been scrawled in his notebook. Some figures could be letters, while others were clearly defined symbols. There were also jagged crosses and a few things that looked like hieroglyphs or Oriental characters. Some looked familiar, one being a large five-pointed pentagram painted high on one wall.
“Jesus, this is like a Slipknot video,” he muttered.
The hidden room was bigger than it appeared from the outside, measuring at around three metres from wall to wall and a little over two metres from floor to sloping ceiling. The dimensions seemed kind of out of whack to him, like he had stepped through the looking glass, and the whole room had a decidedly odd, unbalanced feel. It was completely empty, except for what looked like an old blacksmith's anvil in one corner. He went over for a closer look, and saw that the object wasn't an anvil at all, but a large altar fashioned out of what appeared to be opaque marble with iron ringlets embedded into each side. He was no expert, but to him it looked as though those iron ringlets were designed to support ropes or chains. What kind of ritual would require such restraints?
The kind involving an unwilling participant.
Just then, he heard another noise. Earth being dislodged. Then a scurrying, and the strain of muffled voices getting closer. His eyes fixed on the narrow opening in the wall that, he now realized, represented the only means of escape. To all intents and purposes, he had trapped himself. Staring nervously at the marble altar that now seemed to fill half the room, he fleetingly imagined himself fastened there, struggling to free himself, all the while knowing it was futile.
Something out in the darkness whispered his name. Dale took a step back into the room, away from the opening. Then he felt something on his ankle, fingers? He rammed a fist into his mouth to cover a scream, and looked down to see the string tied around his ankle being pulled taught. The other end reached out of the opening into the passage beyond where some unseen force was tugging on it.
“Dale?”
His name again. The voice sounded strange and distant, yet familiar. He began to swoon. This was it. Whatever they had disturbed here at Sker, whatever supernatural entity they had angered, was about to exact its terrible revenge.
Movement outside now. Right outside. His back was against the far wall and he was glad of it, otherwise he was pretty sure he would slump to the floor in a heap. He scanned the room for a weapon of some kind, anything he could use to defend himself. But there was nothing except the altar itself. He braced himself for attack, determined that if he was going to die he at least wanted to face his assailant head on.
Suddenly the string went limp, and a face appeared framed in the mini-doorway.
Lucy!
“Ah, there you are!” she said. “You had us worried there for a minute.”
She climbed through the entrance bum-first, once inside looking around the room wide-eyes. Rolly
was immediately behind her, though he took considerably longer to squeeze his withered frame through the tight opening than his nubile young predecessor. When he regained his feet he looked around and exclaimed, “The markings! This is it, the vortex! We found it!”
“How can you be sure?” Dale asked.
“Look at the ceiling.”
Dale did so. The same array of weird symbols covering the walls and ceiling also covered the ceiling, but there the symbols seemed to be arranged in concentric patterns creating a weird spiral effect.
“This room itself must be the portal. The epicentre. And look there...” he nodded at the altar. “That must be where the sacrifices took place.”
Lucy gazed around at the walls. “Damn it. Man, I should have brought my camera. This is some pretty cool stuff. Would have made a great double-page montage.”
“The flash wouldn't work,” Dale reminded her. “All the power got drained, remember?” Turning to Rolly, he said, “So what do we do now? If this is the vortex, how do we close it?”
“Just because I know what's happening, it doesn't mean I know how to deal with it. I have as much idea about this as you do.”
Lucy bit her lip while while Dale stayed in the corner doing his level best not to exasperate the situation. Finally she said, “Why don't we just paint over everything. Obliterate it. Make it all go away. Maybe the symbols are what makes the vortex work. No symbols, no vortex. Right? The workmen left tonnes of paint behind, and its not like anybody is going to complain about the colour scheme, is it?”
The old man shrugged. “Why not? It's certainly worth a shot.”
Chapter 34:
Facing Evil
Lucy remembered where she had seen some tins of paint on the fourth floor and went back to tell Machen, Ruth and Izzy to go and get them. They must be getting anxious by now anyway, this would give them something to do. On her return she, Dale and Old Rolly endured an anxious wait of their own as the instructions were carried out. Deep in the inner sanctum of Sker House, the din of thunder and lightning outside was little more than a constant muffled drone. A breeze blew through the cellar from the exposed tunnel entrance. “Where do you think the other part of that tunnel goes?” Lucy asked. “I thought I could smell the sea.”
Dale didn't surprise her often, but right then he did. “You wanna go on a little excursion and see if we can find out?”
Anything was better than standing here feeling awkward, so she flashed her most wicked smile and said, “Sure, let's go.”
“Wait a minute you two, are you sure its a good idea to split up like this?” Old Rolly protested. “Haven't either of you ever seen a horror film? All the young, good-looking, stupid people peel off by themselves, usually to go off and have sex somewhere, then get horribly slaughtered one-by-one.”
Lucy didn't know which sleight to be more angry about, the assumption that she would have sex with Dale in a tunnel or being called stupid. Luckily for him, Rolly had also managed to drop something in there about being young and good-looking too, so she figured it was about even. She was the first back into the tunnel, plucking the oil-lamp out of Dale's grasp as she passed. Dale was close behind, and she heard Old Rolly call after them, “I'll stay here and keep and eye on things then, shall I?”
“I'm sure it'll be fine,” Dale said. “This room's been undisturbed for hundreds of years. Just keep that candle lit.”
“Oh, that I will. And you be careful, lad. And you keep that string tied to your foot, just in case.”
“Don't worry. We'll be back before you know it.”
They crawled steadily through the tunnel, periodically tapping the walls around them in search of other hidden chambers. They tried not to talk too much. The tunnel was well ventilated, but that situation could change. Plus, it didn't matter how well ventilated the tunnel was there were still psychological hurdles to overcome. At times the tunnel grew so narrow grew narrower it seemed to be trying to form an earth-clad cocoon around them.
After a while, Dale surprised Lucy for the second time in minutes by exposing his sensitive side. Something he usually only did when he was drunk. “You know,” he said, “Even though I've been away for so long I still miss Wales. Sometimes, I hear the Hiraeth.”
“You hear the what?”
“Hiraeth. There's no direct English translation, but it means something like 'the Calling'. It's like homesickness I guess, but a bit different. It's more intense, kinda like a yearning.”
“I thought you didn't speak Welsh.”
“I don't. I speak Wenglish. Welsh English. Mostly English, but spoken in a funny accent and with a few Welsh words thrown in.”
Lucy found herself moving faster, her feet kicking up clods of loose earth in her wake. The tunnel seemed to go on forever. She hoped Dale could keep up. Suddenly, she encountered a wall of darkness that not even the light from the oil-lamp could not penetrate. She stopped, unsure of how to proceed.
“What's up?” said Dale from somewhere behind her. “Why have we stopped?”
“There's something here. Blocking the way.”
“Maybe whoever was digging this thing didn't finish it, and this was as far as they got,” Dale suggested, reasonably enough. “Either that, or the tunnel's caved in.”
The mention of the words 'cave-in' struck fear into her. Tentatively, she reached out into the blackness. There was no resistance. Instead, her hand disappeared, swallowed by the darkness. The sensation was like holding your hand under a running tap. The numbing cold seeped through her skin, chilling her to the bone. With a sharp cry she pulled her hand back and wiped it on her t-shirt. It was dry, but there was a sense of repulsion, like she was somehow tainted.
She scooted back a few inches to put some distance between her and the dark mass, which was now undulating like a cloud. As she watched, it appeared to be solidifying before her eyes. She could make out the blurred contours of a flailing arm, then shoulders and a head. The head had two protrusions sprouting out of it. Like horns.
Oh God.
She wanted to scream, but was frozen in place, transfixed.
“Lucy? What's going on?”
“It's moving,” she whimpered.
“What is?” Behind her, Dale's breathless voice rose a few octaves.
Don't panic, Lucy told herself. Not now, not here. With Dale behind and that thing in front, there was nowhere to go. She would die down here, gasping for air underground. The seething mass was now twisting and swirling before her, billowing like black smoke. As she watched, a face took shape and loomed out at her. It was the face of a man, bearded, with thin, sharp features and deep-set eyes with a dull red hue. It was like the embodiment of evil.
Isaac Williams.
Upon seeing the face, Lucy wasn't scared anymore. In a flash, her fear was gone and replaced with a blind rage. Inexplicable, all-consuming fury, coursing through her veins like caustic acid. She didn't know why she was angry, or where she should direct it, just that she had to release it somehow. She wanted to destroy, inflict pain on everything around her. She lashed out, and her foot connected with something solid. Dale cried out. “Lucy, what the hell are you doing?”
As suddenly as it had descended, the rage left her and the swirling black mass evaporated. The face disappeared. “I... I don't know,” she stammered.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing. It's gone.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“No. I want to get the hell out of this tunnel.”
She ploughed forward with a renewed sense of urgency as fresh air rushed into the cavity and the sounds of wind and rain grew louder. Mixed in so effectively that it all merged together into the same white noise were the unmistakeable sounds of crashing waves and churning breakwater. A few metres on, the tunnel opened out onto a narrow ledge cut into the cliff-face. Lucy cautiously crawled out, bracing herself against the wind as it tried to blow her from her perch. Far below, tumultuous white-tipped waves churned and smashed against jagged spike
s of rock, and a thick bank of mist rolled inexorably toward the shoreline.
“What was that?” Dale asked, crawling out to join her. “You kicked me in the face!”
Lucy saw his nose was bleeding. The blood, cascading down the front of his hoody, looked black. Guilt washed over her. “Sorry about that. For a moment I... I couldn't control myself.”
Dale's injury was apparently forgotten as he surveyed their surroundings. “Wow. Check this out. So the tunnel does lead to the sea. This would explain the mysterious disappearance of the builder. He must have come out this way and legged it. But why would he do that?”
“Maybe something happened to him in the tunnel,” Lucy said. “And he didn't want anything more to do with the house.”
Dale looked pensive. “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, Let's report back to the others.”
“Okay. But I'm not going back in that tunnel.”
“I agree. Which leaves... this ledge. There must be a way down the cliffs.”
The ledge was cut into the rock face at a jagged angle. At this point it was around two feet wide, but the far edge was gradually crumbling into the sea and it wouldn't be totally unexpected if the width diminished further along. It was precarious, but compared with going back in the tunnel, the ledge posed an acceptable risk. Lucy pushed her back against the slippery wet stone and edged her way along as the ledge morphed into a steep, winding path leading down the cliff face.
“Try not to look down,” Dale said from behind her.
“Thanks for the advice,” Lucy replied. “That's only been in every film ever made where people are on top of something high. I thought you would come up with something better than that.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“And you know what?”
“What?”
“They always look down.” Lucy realised that it was easier to move when they talked. It took their minds off the perilous descent. She searched for something else to say. “So... Are you glad you came back to Wales or what?”
Sker House Page 24
