A Haunting In Wisconsin
Page 21
Through the wood and down the well: he went a hundred feet before reaching water and then plunged through it, feeling nothing. A bend in the route led him back upward, and he emerged from the water into the junction. He stopped, standing in the small cave, waiting for Angela to arrive. He walked to a small wooden barrel filled with small glass tubes the size of a roll of Life Savers. He picked out two, and clipped one to his shirt. It began to glow. When Angela arrived he tossed the other to her.
What is this? she asked.
Pin it to you, like I’ve done. It’ll give us some light in there.
Didn’t need this before, she said.
That’s because Portsmouth has enough light for the rushers, he replied. Where we’re going, we’ll need it.
He watched as she pinned the glasslight to her chest, and it sparked to life, emitting a soft glow.
Then Derick turned to face seven tunnels, roughly cut into the rock.
Each of these tunnels leads to a different place in the Dark River, he said.
Angela pointed to the tunnel on the far right. That’s the one we took before, with my friends, she said.
That’s the way to Portsmouth. We’re not headed there. Follow me.
He led her to the second tunnel from the left and went inside. They moved through the ample passageway, and after several feet Derick felt the sensation of being pulled. He stopped trying to control his movement, and allowed himself to be sucked forward, accelerating to a speed that made his mind falter. His eyes closed.
When he opened them, Derick immediately felt the pressure of the darkness around him. He’d been here countless times, but the contrast between the real world and the Dark River always gave him pause, the animal part of his brain immediately filling with fear and dread. It pressed in from all sides, an unrelenting night that never ended. He held his hand to his nose, pinching it closed, ready for the smell that was about to hit him; the same smell he’d experienced as a cop when called to a house where the resident hadn’t answered the phone in days. He remembered it as a stink that sank into your clothes and didn’t go away until you washed them repeatedly. He knew the smell would pass after a few minutes, but he hated it just the same, and knew if he kept his nostrils pinched together he could spare himself the worst of it.
They were standing next to a lamp post. A single glasslight, like the ones they wore, dangled from a wooden crossbeam on the post, dimly lighting the road under their feet. There were no other buildings around, and their combined lights cast just far enough to expose the dirt on the sides of the road. On the lamp post was a sign reading “Roarke.”
“Where are we?” Angela asked, looking around. Everything was dark, including the sky. No stars, no moon. Just blackness, except for an orange glow, far in the distance over the horizon. It wasn’t enough light to help them see anything around them, beyond the range of their glasslights.
“If you hadn’t deduced it from the sign, this is Roarke,” Derick said, the sound muffled by the darkness, as though he was speaking in a padded room. “And that,” he added, pointing at the orange glow, “is a firestorm.”
“Firestorm?” she asked, her tone giving away her fear.
“Giant pillars of fire that descend from the sky. They touch the ground and burn up anything in their path, like a tornado made of flames. If you see one start to form overhead, run like hell.”
“Really?”
“Not kidding.”
They began walking down the road, Derick in the lead. He heard Angela moaning behind him.
“Don’t do that,” he said, not turning.
“Just one, let me get it out of my system,” she said, her voice shaking as she spoke, as though she was trying to talk through an orgasm.
“It’s a distraction,” he replied, stopping and turning to look at her. “And it draws the flies.”
“But if feels soooo good,” she said, her entire body shaking in front of him, her eyes rolled back in her head.
He tried to be patient. This is why so many people become trapped here, he thought as he watched her writhing in ecstasy. It wasn’t a normal orgasm. They weren’t in their physical bodies. It was some kind of mental pleasure the Dark River was famous for, called a ‘rush’. He’d tried it when he first discovered the place, and knew how damn good it felt — twice as good as the best orgasm he’d ever had with his physical body. He wasn’t above indulging, and knew all he’d have to do was just stop and think about it for a moment and he’d go over the edge and into a mind-blowing bliss that would be extremely intense for a half minute, then trail into several more minutes of euphoria. The first time he’d come to the Dark River, he’d done it at least fifty times, all right in a row. Since then he’d seen the people in Portsmouth, lying on the ground at the portal entrance, shaking and quivering continuously as they rushed over and over, unable to stop themselves, losing track of time and the infection setting in. He’d seen the ones who’d become taken over by the maggots, mindlessly rushing themselves into oblivion. He instinctively knew to moderate his own rushing if he wanted to return to the real world. He also knew the Dark River was utter destruction for anyone with an addictive personality disorder.
Angela stopped quivering and opened her eyes.
“Done?” he asked.
“For now,” she replied. “Listen, don’t get all high and mighty with me if I decide to do it again.”
He’d already begun to walk down the road, pressing into the darkness. An occasional sound from the right or left kept him on full alert. He knew turning to look for the source of the sound would be fruitless; the dark swallowed up everything off the path. And he knew that to leave the path was foolish in the extreme. The paths were relatively safe, but the unknowns lying just off them were not. He’d encountered some of those unknowns over the years, and he had no desire to meet them again.
This has been a complimentary sample of The Dark River: A
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The Dark River: A