Black Fall

by Andrew Mayne

  One that’s very out of place up here.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The Bush

  Had it been hidden out in the open, disguised as an electrical transformer for an underground power line or a pipeline, I’d have been less suspicious, maybe even just noting it down on my map to be checked later. But when the whirring sound leads me to a bush—a large and unusually round bush that on closer inspection resembles a fake Christmas tree, complete with humming and blowing air through metal branches—I get a teensy bit curious.

  I’m immediately grateful I didn’t have access to a helicopter, because I would have flown right over this.

  Of course, I don’t know what “this” is. But it sure as hell looks like something somebody doesn’t want to be found. Through the metal and plastic, I spot a cylinder about two feet across, with a metal grate over the opening.

  I drag the fake shrub away and uncover the rest. It’s a tube going into the earth like a pipe from Super Mario Bros. Silverback wanders over to this new discovery, sniffs the fake shrub, then turns his attention elsewhere.

  The metal grill is held in place by a padlock. I scoff at the puny thing and, before I even consider the legal ramifications, I have it open and toss it aside. Silverback inspects this as well, then dismisses it before shooting me a glance that tells me the next thing I send his way better be edible.

  I peer into the pipe and see only darkness. But the upward draft blowing my hair tells me something’s down there. It’s clean air, not the noxious exhaust of a machine.

  This is something. This could be it.

  Whatever “it” is.

  To no great surprise, my cell phone has zero bars. Calling this in means over an hour of trekking back to where I started. It could be nighttime before anyone gets here. And if we need to get warrants to inspect the property, hell, it could be days.

  I look at my useless phone and get a sudden burst of inspiration. With the rope from the saddlebag, I’m able to make a tiny harness for it. Camera and light turned on, I lower the device into the hole.

  Silverback watches me intently, trying to comprehend what the crazy woman is doing now.

  “Take notes, kid,” I tell him.

  After about twenty feet, I feel the line go slack as the phone touches solid ground.

  A dormant childhood fear surfaces as I remember a nightmare I had after watching the movie Tremors with my dad. I quickly reel in the line lest I attract a Graboid.

  There’s a sickening feeling in my stomach when the line suddenly slackens again. Damn it! From deep below I hear my phone hitting the floor and what may be my screen cracking.

  “Oh shit,” I growl.

  The self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Girl Escape Artist just lost her phone because she couldn’t tie a proper knot. I’d instinctively made a false knot, designed to easily come undone.

  Silverback, convinced I have nothing useful to teach him, turns his head to sniff at some weeds.

  “I’m good at getting out of knots, not into them,” I protest aloud, as I squat down with my back to the tube. Crap.

  That is my government-issue phone—the one that has my business card laminated to the back of it. The business card that says FBI in huge letters.

  Damn it. Of all the stupid things. If someone is down there, the element of surprise is gone if they find it.

  Now isn’t the time to sit here cursing myself out.

  I have to act.

  I have to get my phone.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Rescue Op

  I tie a dozen knots in the rope, spaced about two feet apart. Although I can do more chin-ups than most men, I’m not going to try to pull myself up with a bare grip. I double-check them to make sure I didn’t pull a Tricky Jessica again and accidentally make magic knots. Dying at the bottom of a well because I fooled myself would be too humiliating a way to go.

  I toy with the idea of tying the rope off to Silverback, but decide that wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do given his penchant for wandering, not to mention whether or not he’d even decide to pull me back up. I can very easily see myself reach the bottom of the well only to have the rope vanish when he finds a particularly tasty patch of grass to munch on. And to be honest, given the disdainful looks he’s been giving me and the hole, I’m not sure if he’s fully on board with this plan. To him, this is yet one more silly thing monkeys do.

  Silverback may not be game, but the U-shaped staple the grate was locked to is nice and thick, welded into the metal tube. It provides a firm place to tie the end of the rope.

  “Okay, pal. You first,” I say to Silverback as I dust the dirt off my hands. He blinks at me.

  I get a thought. “Actually . . .”

  I take a business card from my wallet and write out a short note.

  EMERGENCY!!!

  If you find this horse, call the number on this card! I’m stuck in an underground vent at Triple Star Construction!

  I think that gets right to the point.

  Using my spare hair tie, I wrap the card around the pommel. “Alright, boy. If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, go get help.”

  Silverback stares at me blankly.

  I give the tube an anxious look and attempt to bury my anxiety.

  “And get me a grande latte . . . um, and a cowboy . . . blue eyes, independently wealthy, not too rustic. Preferably educated in an out-of state-school. Maybe working finance or a hard science.”

  I pat Silverback on the flank, which he interprets as a signal to start walking.

  I chase after him and grab the reins. “Wait! Hold up. Not yet.”

  Silverback stops and gives me another of his looks: Seriously, lady?

  “Okay. Wait here for now. I’ll be right back.”

  I wait to make sure he doesn’t trot off. Obediently, he stays put and observes me as I stick my foot over the edge of the pipe and begin my descent.

  He does a tiny two-step backward at the thought I might be asking him to follow me down, even thought that would be a physical impossibility. Given how narrow the tube has suddenly become, I’m not sure if I’m going to have an easy time of it either.

  Gripping the knots with my fists and feet, I lower myself down. The butt of the shotgun, which is slung over my shoulder, scrapes the metal side as I descend and I cringe.

  Silverback trots over to the mouth of the shaft and looks down at me. I think, although this could be wishful on my part, he actually has a look of worry on his long face.

  Horses are quite brilliant when they just have a narrow set of things to consider. Watching a crazy human climb into a mysterious hole in the ground is outside of their set of experiences.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be okay. I’ve gone down tighter passages. Someday I’ll tell you about the time a Jarrett Pedestal refused to widen for me.”

  His head is a black silhouette against the shrinking blue sky. His dark eyes reflect flecks of light as he stares down, confused and potentially concerned.

  I look up at him and smile with false reassurance.

  “I’ll be okay. We’ll ride again soon. Don’t forget the cowboy. Um, maybe one with a tow hitch?”

  I decide to stop talking when I get lower into the tube, afraid my voice might carry.

  As I descend, the updraft maintains its steady flow, bringing with it the distant sound of machinery. I try not to think about my last experience going underground.

  Less than a year ago, a corrupt Mexican cop tried to kill me by throwing me to the jagged bottom of a cave. But I got the better of him. I sent that asshole to the hospital—and, when his superiors found out he’d screwed up, his eventual demise. I’ve now nearly died in Mexico three times. Once, when I was a teenager performing an underwater escape on live television. Then with the cave. And last, but not least, the ambush at the grocery store.

  I remind myself this isn’t Mexico. Technically, this isn’t even a cave. Or is it?

  All I can see beyond my feet is a black void.

/>   Anything could be down there.

  Hell, I could be lowering myself feetfirst into a giant juice blender. Or maybe a feral rat breeding experiment.

  I mentally cycle through the possibilities.

  This could even be some kind of government installation that has nothing to do with the Red Chain. Maybe they’re weaponizing Ebola down there.

  Delightful.

  But if this is a government facility, private security would have stopped Silverback and me from getting so close. It would be designated with some banal name, like US Department of Geology and Paper Products. Something designed to induce a yawn and encourage you to take your curiosity elsewhere.

  My biggest mistake—I realize as I reach the end of the shaft—was not looking for another entrance. Assuredly, somewhere around the hilltop, maybe in an arroyo on the other side, a gravel road must lead to some kind of opening. Maybe a metal building up against the rock face, or a sloping driveway that leads down here.

  Nice to think of this now. Brilliant, Jessica!

  No. I decide if there is another entrance like that, I can count on it being under surveillance. They’ll want to know who’s knocking on their front door.

  This air vent could be watched too, but I didn’t spot any high masts on which a camera could be mounted. That’s not saying there couldn’t be a rock cam, or a rubber lizard with a sensor built into his head. But this entrance is probably the least guarded. Assuming there are even guards?

  I reach the end of the pipe and my feet swing into free space. It’s still totally dark. I avoided using my flashlight for my climb down because this is supposed to be a stealth job.

  Below me I see a faint rectangular glow, which I recognize as my iPhone, its flashlight facing downward.

  I release the rope, and my shoes immediately touch the ground. I crouch down low and listen for a moment before turning off the video recorder on my phone, which now has captured eight minutes of black.

  I only hear the whirring of a distant air handler.

  Moving slowly, hand on the butt of my pistol, I grip my phone to turn the light on the chamber, ready for any movement. Spinning it around for a quick look reveals that I’m in a long tunnel, the farthest ends of which are in darkness.

  I shut off the light and slip the phone back into my pocket.

  Silverback’s head is just a tiny shadow in the circle of light far above me. I’m deep down in whatever this is.

  The sensible thing now is to climb back up the rope.

  “Just give me another minute or two before you get that cowboy,” I whisper, before doing the opposite.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Secret Cinema

  The corridor stretches to infinity in either direction. I decide to move toward the source of the flowing air, because it makes about as much sense as any other plan. The walls of the tunnel are cinder block, and they have that new-construction concrete smell that can linger in an enclosed space for years.

  It takes me back to when I was thirteen and my classmate Fiona Schnell’s older sister got a job working at a big Cineplex in Calabasas. One night after we came to see an X-Men movie, she took us on a little tour.

  “Want to see something cool?” she’d asked, pulling a large set of keys from her pocket.

  We walked around the outside of the building. I remember the heat coming off the walls after they’d baked in the sun all day. Halfway down the impossibly long wall of the theater, we stopped at a metal door.

  “This place was supposed to have twenty-four theaters. They only opened with sixteen,” she told us.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I could tell from her tone this was something cool, if not downright spooky. She opened the door and ushered us into a dark space. Cutting through the pitch black, the light from the entrance revealed a dirt floor.

  I was struck by how much cooler the interior was.

  With a loud thunk, the door slammed shut and we were in total darkness.

  “This is freaky,” Fiona whispered.

  “Check this out,” said her sister as she turned on her flashlight.

  The beam shot across the cavernous interior, barely illuminating the far wall.

  “This is what a movie theater is like before they build the separate screens.” Her light passed back and forth, revealing a vast football-field-size chamber with high ceilings and boundaries that seemed to go on forever.

  It was spooky. It was surreal.

  I felt like we were on an alien planet.

  This massive empty space, with a half-man-made, half-dirt floor, was inside a movie theater I’d visited dozens of times without having any idea it existed.

  It was almost like stepping into another dimension.

  Being in this tunnel feels like that. Above me are parched desert, rusty hills, and hopefully a patient horse. The question on my mind is how forgotten a place this is.

  As I walk toward the end of the corridor, the whirring grows louder. Cold air blows past my ankles and I catch two vents, as tall as me, in either wall.

  This must be some kind of outflow chamber.

  Just past the vents is a metal door, not unlike the one that led to the empty cinema. The lock is a small tumbler, but it isn’t latched so I don’t need to use my picks.

  Carefully, moving the handle just a millimeter at a time, I slowly open the door. Giving myself enough room to slide through, I step inside the next darkened chamber after listening to make sure it was empty.

  Although my flashlight is turned off, this corridor feels different than the last one. The sound behaves differently. Besides the whirring having diminished, there’s also less of an echo as I walk, even though the floors and wall are concrete.

  When I reach the end, only about ten meters from the entrance, I notice the reason. Instead of a metal door, this side of the corridor has a thick black curtain.

  I reach out and feel the texture. Heavy, like a theatrical curtain, the material is slightly coarse and woven from thick fibers. Like a bathroom towel, it absorbs much of the echo.

  I stand still and listen before pulling the drape back and stepping inside the next room. My light is still off, so I wait again to make sure I’m alone. As an added precaution, I step away from the doorway in the event I’m being observed.

  My unease is only increasing. I should have left as soon as I retrieved my phone. The churning pit of my stomach tells me I shouldn’t be here. I feel as if I’ve ventured too deep into a predator’s cave, and realize it might still be home.

  This room feels different from the first two corridors.

  I can still hear my clumsy feet shuffling as the sound bounces around, but the reverb has a different quality to it. Each scrape triggers my flight reflex. I should turn around.

  I take out my light again, keeping my other hand on the butt of my pistol.

  The acoustics of the room remind me of a . . .

  I flick on the light when I’m certain no one else is here.

  A church.

  It’s a large chamber, about twenty meters across and forty long. What gives it that church-like feeling is its very high ceiling, and the hundred or so mats lying on the floor in a grid. At the far end is an elevated platform.

  Other than the mats, the only objects are ten wrought iron candle stands spaced around the perimeter. There aren’t even pews.

  The lack of ostentation chills me. This is exactly the kind of place I’d expect members of the Red Chain to gather.

  Back at the farmhouse, they eschewed the relative niceties for a fire pit and mattresses on the floor. I’d expect the way they worship isn’t much different.

  This isn’t a fun church with a born-again rocker strumming an electric guitar between sermons. They take their beliefs, whatever they may be, very seriously—more seriously than creature comforts.

  I step up onto the small stage and scan my light across the floor.

  From the entrance, I’d noticed a dark spot. Up close I can see it more clearly.

 
; The foul copper scent tells me what it is before my eyes do.

  Black, with a hint of maroon, it’s a dried pool of blood.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Advocate

  The front of the church, or whatever they call this chamber, is a disturbing place to find a bloodstain. I can tell from the different shades that the blood is in layers, and some are much older than others. The most recent additions are lighter, almost glossy. They could have happened just days ago.

  I move my hand away from my pistol and swing my shotgun around to my hip as a precaution. In the darkness, with potential assailants coming at me from any direction, I don’t want to waste time aiming.

  Technically, I’m trespassing.

  Technically, this is fucked up.

  My first thought is that I’m standing over a spot where they murdered people in some kind of ritual. But there is no drain and the puddle just isn’t large enough to account for an adult bleeding out from an artery.

  Then what?

  Was this some kind of crazy blood brother ritual where they sliced their palms and slapped hands?

  No.

  I study the stain for the telltale patterns that can reveal how the wounds were made.

  Something else about the dark stains stands out as I look closer; the flecks of blood radiate away from the center. It’s a spray pattern, but not the kind that occurs when you slice a major vein, or stab someone.

  I think about the stained floor of the workshop where my dad painted his props. I’d sometimes help him out, whether he wanted it or not. My clumsy strokes would send paint flying, splattering everything around in a fine mist.

  I don’t think someone was painting with blood. But they were doing something similar.