Black Fall

by Andrew Mayne

  I take a few steps to the side of the stage and face the empty room. On impulse, I squat into a kneeling position, almost as if I’m in prayer.

  Glancing over my shoulder on the concrete wall, I spot more drops of blood. If I . . .

  I move my arm up, and over my shoulder. That’s it!

  When I stand up to examine the back wall, I notice that the black thing I’d initially thought was an electrical cable is actually a whip.

  Not a long one. The short kind you’d use on yourself.

  Ugh.

  These people were into self-flagellation. That’s their thing. The blood splatter is what you’d see if you knelt down here and whipped yourself.

  Lots of extreme religious movements use this technique, but that doesn’t make it any less shocking or disturbing and I’m not familiar with anywhere the one decoration in the entire church is a bloody leather whip.

  Who decides which members get up here and whip themselves? Is it a punishment or a reward?

  Our Jane Doe, Heather Dryl, didn’t have any visible trauma to her back. Not recent, at least.

  Maybe this is a special thing. Maybe it is just for the men. Even just the priests, if they have them.

  What happens to your sense of identity when you kneel here naked and draw your own blood in front of others? I’m reminded that a cult isn’t just a group of people who share different beliefs. They think differently. How do you get a nice, if misguided, girl like Heather Dryl to show up on my doorstep with a kidnapped infant and a murderous look in her eyes? Make her spend some time in this hellhole degrading herself physically and mentally. That’s how. The combination of pain and psychological conditioning literally can rewire your brain.

  I go to the opposite end of the chamber from where I entered. A small breeze is blowing under a black curtain. I spend a minute next to the curtain, listening to detect any movement on the other side.

  More silence.

  I switch off my flashlight and walk beyond the curtain, then wait again before turning it on. So far, I’ve just been going in a straight line, but this hall leads to a junction. Between the entrance where I’m standing and the intersection, there are several doors.

  I go to the first one and slowly open it, making sure it doesn’t squeak. On the other side are dozens of sleeping mats in a bare concrete room. At the foot of each mat is a pile of books. At the head is a snuffed-out candle.

  The books are about exciting topics like botany and mathematical theorems. It’s the kind of salacious reading selection you’d expect from a bunch of medieval monks. Math and plants may be the only acceptable topics around here, similar to what I found at the farmhouse.

  I don’t know what creeps me out more, the bloodstain in the church or their idea of an exciting night of reading in bed.

  At the other end of the hallway beyond the intersection there’s another room just like that one, also littered with mats and books. Girl and boy dorms?

  I kneel down to pick up a copy of a book on mountain flowers. Tucked into the middle of the black-and-white pages, behind a scrap of paper, is a pressed purple Perry’s Bellflower. Stashed away like a porn magazine, I wonder if this was a private pleasure. Late at night when all the candles were put out, did the occupant of this mat open their book so they could take in the forbidden scent?

  I don’t know if I want to run into him or her down here to find out. As it is, I’m pushing my luck.

  What started out as a stunt has led me foolishly deep into the bowels of this place. A place where I shouldn’t be. Every instinct is telling me to get out quickly. I decide it’s time to back my curiosity off and make my retreat.

  I step into the corridor. As a precaution, I kill my light. Just running my hand along the wall to guide me, I retrace my steps.

  Suddenly, my skin begins to prickle. I get the feeling I’m not alone.

  A gust of wind chills my cheeks and I hear a sound I’m never going to forget—footsteps running toward me in the darkness.

  Small footsteps.

  Chapter Fifty

  Strangers in the Dark

  My body freezes. I turn toward the sound, which I think is coming from somewhere behind me. My right finger slides over the trigger to the shotgun.

  The steps get louder as they grow closer. Closely paced and light, I can’t tell if they belong to an animal—or to something else. My imagination goes to wild places in the dark. Stories of secret government experiments and strange creatures from conspiracy theories fill my mind.

  I tell myself this is just crazy talk, but I’ve already been inside one secret government facility that bordered on science fiction. Now I’m not sure where to draw the line. It takes every ounce of effort for me not to fire into the dark at whatever’s running toward me. My skin is flushed, and all my animal instincts are telling me to fire or flee. I’d call out, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself.

  As the sound comes straight toward me, I remember my flashlight. Right hand still firmly gripping the shotgun, I use my left to retrieve it.

  The moment my fingers touch the switch, the footsteps stop. I can feel my heart beating in my chest as I listen. Something bumps into my arm, and I nearly drop the light as my right finger almost squeezes the trigger.

  I recover and spin around quickly, but the beam only catches the empty far wall as the footsteps fade down the corridor.

  What was that? Who was that?

  Leave. It’s time to leave. The voice in the back of my head is screaming at me to get the hell out of here.

  But I can’t.

  I won’t. I’m so close. There’s too much at stake.

  I have to know.

  I chase the steps to the junction and down into the corridor.

  This could be a trap. It has to be.

  A metal door appears in the middle of the hall. I swing it open, light blazing, shotgun aimed forward, only to find rows and rows of canned food. The shadows from my light dance around menacingly as I frantically search the pantry. There are a hundred places to hide, but I didn’t hear the door open and shut. I assume whatever it was didn’t go in here.

  I go back to the hallway. In a horror movie, I’d be yelling at myself to go the other way.

  But I’m an FBI agent. I’m the one who chases after scary shadows.

  I think for a moment about Aileen and the goat she tasered, and take a deep breath. Whoever is down here with me is probably just as scared as I am.

  Yeah, right.

  That’s why they ran toward me.

  And past me, I remind myself. If they wanted to hurt me . . .

  The corridor leads to another, and then another, each one a long, musty tunnel of cinder blocks with a concrete ceiling and no light switch to be found. I start to lose track of which way I came.

  I take another turn, and begin to fear I’m getting lost down here. These tunnels don’t seem to be built in any orderly fashion.

  Oh shit! What if this is a goddamn maze?

  Maybe not an intentional one, but this is the haphazard layout of an ant colony.

  E. E. Holmes, our nation’s first truly prolific serial killer, built himself a murder house on an entire city block complete with a labyrinth and abattoir for human victims.

  I don’t think this structure is meant for that. At least, I hope not. I’ve been in bunkers that made about as much sense before. Of course, if the footsteps are intended to lead me deeper . . .

  I clench the shotgun tightly. If a minotaur is waiting for me, I hope he likes buckshot.

  I reach a metal door at the end of the passage, and I’m fairly certain the footsteps ran toward it.

  Beyond thoughts of caution at this point, I grip the knob and fling the door wide open. My light catches row after row of tables and plastic chairs, those funky candelabras everywhere. This must be their dining room. I search back and forth with my light, but can’t find anything lurking in the shadows.

  I kneel down and flash the light under the tables. Nothing peers back at m
e.

  I stand up, decide to hold my ground.

  “I’m an FBI agent, come out with your hands up!” I say, with all the confidence I can fake.

  No response.

  “I’m armed and I need you to identify yourself for your safety!”

  Nothing.

  I jerk my light to a corner where I think I see a flicker of movement.

  There are only the shadows of tables and chairs.

  The furniture strikes me as odd: cheap plastic lawn chairs and card tables. For a sophisticated secret underground facility, they seem rather . . . temporary. And the pantry isn’t all that big considering the number of people who are—or were supposed to be—down here implied by the quantity of mats. This doesn’t feel so much like an underground bunker awaiting the apocalypse as it does a hideout.

  I go toward a door at the opposite end of the room, keeping careful watch from the corners of my eyes. As I get closer to the wall, the back of my neck prickles. I sense something observing me and I whirl around, shining the light on a cluster of tables.

  Nothing.

  I reach the door and grab the knob.

  That’s when I hear plastic scraping across concrete.

  I spin and walk to the source of the sound. I’m beyond terrified, but I have no alternative. Cowering isn’t an option. I stride back across the dining room kicking over the flimsy tables, ruining any possible hiding place.

  I give the edge of the last card table a powerful kick, sending it high into the air where it crashes against the wall. My finger is already digging into the trigger of the shotgun, which is ready to blast at whoever or whatever has led me on this chase.

  Underneath where the table had stood, I see the shadow I’ve been chasing.

  Oh, god.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Elijah

  Two eyes peer out at me from the unkempt face of a frightened little boy. His hands are held high in the air, and he’s frozen at the sight of the shotgun and the blinding light in his face.

  A moment ago I was about to pull the trigger on him in the dark. I can feel the blood drain from my cheeks as I realize how close I came to firing out of fear. I lower the barrel and carefully retract my hand from the trigger, afraid that I might slip.

  “Who are you?” I ask, letting the shotgun fall back on the strap, but not letting the light waver.

  “E-E-Elijah,” he stutters, terrified.

  The child looks like he’s about to piss himself, but I’m not going to let the Red Chain use another kid to get me to lower my defenses. I keep my attention on the shadows, wary of being blindsided.

  Maybe seven or eight, he’s got dirt on his face and stains on his white T-shirt and pants.

  “Are you alone down here?” I ask.

  “Y-y-yes,” he replies.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “They . . . they . . . they left.”

  Crouched on his knees, hands still raised, the boy is trembling.

  My pulse begins to slow down. I’m still on guard, but no longer in a panic state. My police training takes over.

  “Turn around, Elijah.”

  He slowly gets to his feet. “Are . . . are you going to shoot me?” His question has a note of resignation to it.

  “No! I’m here to help. I just have to make sure you don’t have a weapon.”

  “Oh.” He lifts up the hem of his shirt and spins around, revealing a too-prominent rib cage.

  I wouldn’t put strapping a bomb to a child past the Red Chain, but he’s not hiding anything.

  I pick up a chair I knocked over and set it upright.

  “Have a seat.”

  He pulls himself into the plastic chair, his feet dangling over the cliff-like edge. It’s easy to forget what it’s like to be a small person in a big person’s world.

  Elijah is still scared witless. So am I.

  I decide on a bit of a compromise. I take a seat with my back to the wall and set my light on a table to my left, facing away from us. This way, anyone entering the room will be blinded. It also gives Elijah a chance to see my face. As his eyes adjust, he studies me. His attention lingers on the shotgun that’s sitting across my lap, aimed at the entrance.

  “What’s your name?” he asks, slightly less frightened of me.

  “Jessica.”

  “Are you going to take me there?”

  I keep an eye on the entrance, trying to figure out how I’m supposed to proceed. “Where is that?” I ask.

  “Where they all went. I was supposed to go, but ’cause my mommy wasn’t here they said I couldn’t ’cause there would be nobody to take care of me.”

  I pull a clean tissue from my hip pouch and wipe away the crusted peanut butter and jelly at the corners of his mouth. “Did you find any bread for that?”

  He shakes his little head. “I made a hand sandwich.”

  “A ham sandwich?”

  “No.” He holds out his palms, which are smeared with peanut butter and jelly. “A hand sandwich. That’s when you put all the things you want in your hand.”

  The innocent answer makes me grin. “Oh, I get it.” I take out another tissue and start to scrape away the grime. “Is it okay if I see if there’s a little boy hidden under all this?”

  He stoically remains still as I scrub away. I use hand sanitizer to get the more stubborn spots.

  “Elijah, where’s your mommy?” I ask after he’s slightly cleaner.

  He gives me a shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “I don’t have a watch.”

  “Was it days?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” he answers hopefully.

  I realize that down here he might not be fully aware of time passing. The poor thing. “How many times have you slept since you last saw her?”

  His eyes go up and to the side as he tries to make the calculation, before raising his hands and opening and closing them several times. At least fifteen times. Maybe two weeks.

  “When did the people leave here?”

  He opens and closes his index finger five times. That could be five days or less, given his nap schedule.

  “You’ve been all alone here? Nobody to look after you?” I ask.

  He nods his head.

  I’m still wary that this could be a trick. “Are you sure?”

  He nods with more certainty.

  I ball up the tissues I’d cleaned his face with, and pass them into my other hand. “Elijah, blow a puff of air at my hand.”

  He exhales and I unclench my fist, revealing that the tissue has vanished.

  His eyes widen. Not just like an amazed child’s, but real wide, almost shock.

  “Are . . . are you a seraphim?” he stutters.

  “You mean an angel?”

  “Yes?” His mouth is also wide open.

  “Do you always tell the truth to angels?”

  He furiously nods.

  “Is there anybody else here? Did anyone else tell you to say you were alone?”

  It’s a dirty trick to play on a child, but I have to do it.

  Elijah shakes his head so intensely I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself.

  “No, Elijah. I’m not an angel. I’m just a girl.” I reach behind his ear and produce the ball of tissue. “A girl who does magic.”

  “Like God?” He stares at the ball as if it were a heavenly revelation.

  “No. Tricks. Like you see magicians do on TV.”

  “I’m not supposed to watch TV.”

  “Oh. What about movies?”

  He stares at me, confounded.

  “No movies? No cartoons? Do you go to school?”

  “I go to church school,” he replies.

  “With other children?”

  “Yes, with Sara, Ezekiel, and Joshua.”

  This poor sheltered kid. Three friends? “Where are they?”

  “They left with the others.”

  “But not you?”

  “No. They wouldn’t let
me go because my mommy didn’t come back.”

  She didn’t return.

  I get a chill down my spine and hesitantly ask, “Elijah, what’s your mommy’s name?”

  “Rebecca.”

  I relax in a wave of relief.

  Then Elijah continues: “But she used to be called Heather. Mommy’s name used to be Heather Dryl.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Undercover

  In undercover seminars they train you how not to let your reactions show on your face. You focus on the plant in the corner of the room, a coffee mug, the funny joke you heard the other day. Don’t react. Don’t process. Store it all up and think about it later.

  Elijah has just told me his mother is the crazy woman who showed up on my doorstep and attempted to kill me, not to mention the baby she’d abducted. The same woman I saw days later, on an autopsy table.

  All her life, gone. Her last expression, a painful mix of confusion and terror.

  He has her eyes.

  “Do you know my mommy?” Elijah asks.

  Try not to react.

  Try not to wince.

  Try not to turn your head away, or contort your face in pain.

  I can’t lie to the child. I can’t tell him the truth.

  I stand up. “Let’s take a look around here.”

  With my back toward Elijah, I sling the shotgun on my shoulder and pick up the flashlight, moving the beam away from me. He can’t see me right now.

  He can’t see my face.

  Tiny fingers clasp my left hand tightly. “Could you help me find her?”

  My heart is ripped out of my chest. I feebly hold on to his hand, trying to be strong. “We’ll see, Elijah. We’ll see.”

  It’s like he’s a ghost, sent to torment me because of my role in this series of awful events. I may have saved the little girl who was stolen from her hospital cradle by Elijah’s mom, but in so doing I orphaned this child who was abandoned in the dark.

  What monsters would do this? What evil fucks would hurt children like this?

  Do I have to ask?

  We live in a world where terrorists proudly strap suicide vests to little boys. A world where warlords put AK-47s in the hands of kids who haven’t even reached puberty. A world where parents let their children die instead of getting life-saving medical treatment, because that goes against their belief in a God who, like a narcissistic tween demanding you hit “like” on every Instagram post, needs to be loved above anyone else.