“What the F do you mean, ’a portal into Hell?’“ Conner said.
“Come on.” Flower stood up. “We’ll show you.”
Almira grabbed her jacket, and the two young women were out the door and down the front steps before Conner and Ricky could even stand.
In the car, Almira gave instructions, corrected by Flower, who was further corrected by Almira.
“Make up your minds!” Ricky Martin said, sweat beads smearing across his forehead as he wiped it with the back of his hand. “Before I crash this thing.”
“Up ahead, there.” Almira pointed to an anonymous-looking bit of shrubbery along the side of the interstate. “Pull over.”
Ricky did as told, though hesitantly. “You need to take a piss or something?”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Ricky Martin, with no sense of what the target was, had overshot the specific patch of the woods that Almira and Flower had in mind. Almira jumped out of the car a second before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. Flower was the next out, shadowed by Conner. Almira and Flower ran back about twenty yards and stopped. The brush was parted slightly—not so that a trail was visible, but it was the only break in the overgrown weeds and bushes in the whole stretch.
“What is it?” Ricky asked, catching up. He’d grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and was shining it in everyone’s eyes.
Flower protected her eyes with her hand “Cut it out, you idiot.”.
“How did you know this was the spot?” Conner asked.
Almira took his hand and walked him away from the bush to the curb, about ten feet away. “Look.” Small rocks and pebbles formed a stack against the curb, marking a path such as rock hikers might use.
“You saw that from the car, as we drove by?”
“Flower and I knew the spot. Just a bit after the overpass. Just needed to concentrate. Unlike you guys, we knew what we were looking for.”
The two walked back to Ricky and Flower at the brush. Flower stood with arms crossed, staring at the ground. Ricky was shining the flashlight into the night sky.
“I wonder if you could get a flashlight beam that could reach an airplane. That’d be way cool.”
Conner pushed Ricky’s hand down, moving the dome of light to the ground. “Put that away, will you? Before somebody sees us.”
“Okay, okay.” Ricky snapped the light off and jammed it into his jacket pocket.
For a moment, there was silence as each of the four waited for someone else to say something. Conner was the first to speak.
“Okay, so what do we do now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you mean ’nothing?’“
“We wait,” Flower said.
“This is dumb,” Ricky Martin said, loud enough to be heard in the houses behind the highway, but meant to be an aside for Conner only.
“You can go wait in the car,” Almira said, her lips pursed and her eyes fiery. “You don’t have to be part of this. I mean, if you’re scared.”
“Yeah, right, like I’m scared. That’s B.S.” Ricky smiled awkwardly at Conner, snapping his head at the girls as if to say, ’Can you believe this dumb shit?’ Ricky jumped up and down in place, like a boxer.
The wind picked up then—a small breeze at first, then a steady, but low-speed, wind.
“Sshh.” Almira held up her hand. “I think it’s starting.”
She waved her hand toward the break in the bushes.
The bushes were parting, slowly, almost imperceptibly. They parted, not in keeping with the wind, but with a motion all their own.
“Here we go,” Almira breathed. “Oh, God . . . ”
She grabbed Flower’s hand. The two girls took a deep breath.
The bushes finished parting suddenly, leaving a human-sized—or more accurately, a door-sized—opening.
“This is it. Follow us if you want to see Hell for yourself. Otherwise, just wait here; we’ll need a ride home.”
The two women, still holding hands, jumped into the void between the bushes and disappeared. Not a sound accompanied them on their journey. Just a deadly, foreboding silence.
The guys looked at the spot where the girls had just been standing, looked at each other, then looked back at the bushes and the shadows.
“We can’t leave them in there . . . ”
“This is a joke, right?” Ricky Martin said, swallowing hard.
“I don’t know. Let’s take a look. I bet they’re just on the other side of the bushes, trying not to laugh.”
“Right! Come on, let’s go,” Ricky Martin said, chuckling bravely.
He stepped into the gap between the bushed, calling the girls’ names with a mocking tone as he entered. The sound of his voice ended abruptly.
“Ricky?” Conner said. “Ricky? Quit screwing around.” He stepped with certain hesitation toward the bushes. “I know you’re all in this together. I know you’re all just screwing with me. Jeez, I swear, this isn’t funny. I’m going to be so—”
Then he was gone. His voice, his being, everything.
Only the faint glow of the moon shining on the car parked in the grass by the side of the highway would tell anyone that someone had been here. Four teenagers, out for a little fun, a little excitement.
A cloud passed over the moon, then even the car was in darkness. As if the scene had been erased completely. And forever.
The next afternoon, over on Salem Street behind the high school, the team was practicing. Not a scrimmage yet, more working on skills, speed, patterns, and strength. Jayden Ewing was a defensive tackle. One of the biggest players on the field, and by far the hugest guy in his high school class, Jayden was a bit out of shape. He still had pretty good wind, but he’d gained too much weight over the summer.
Part of it was deliberate. He wanted to bulk up, add more weight, so that he’d be tougher, stronger, and heavier. Able to drop other players at will. He could always to that, to a degree. As long as the other player was a bit smaller and not as strong.
But Jayden had had trouble taking down players of significance. Stronger players, bigger players. They could still evade him, get away even after he had a piece of them. He wasn’t going to accept that this season. If he wanted you to go down, you were going down. Jayden wanted to be the best. The little bit of extra weight would come off soon enough. Especially if the practices stayed as tough as they’d been this past week. He’d lifted all summer, but he was suffering now, really sucking air. He felt overheated; his face was hot and most likely quite red.
It was a beautiful and temperate fall day, about sixty-eight degrees, with mostly blue skies. A shadow floated over the field. Jayden looked up to see what kind of bird it was. They had cranes fly by all the time from the wetlands to the south. Sometimes geese would throw shadows, sometimes it would be vultures. Once he’d even seen an eagle, a huge, magnificent bird of prey. But today there was no bird, nothing in the sky at all. Just the sun behind his back and a few clouds to the east, white and puffy like little lambs and not throwing any shadows on the field at all.
Jayden looked back down at the ground. The shadow was there all right. A plane maybe?
He looked back up. Nope. Back down.
The shadow was definitely moving. A giant shadow, moving toward him, covering his cleats at first, then all of him swam in the huge, shadowy circle.
Heart failure, they would call it. Brought on by a sudden irregular heartbeat, they would say. Seems Jayden had been born with an enlarged heart.
A shame, for someone so young, so athletic. With so much promise.
CHAPTER FOUR
Clearly, You Have Never Seen A Single Horror Movie
How did it come to be that four suburban teenagers would end up in the bowels of Hades? At least, that’s where they thought they were. But that was not the case.
Where they were, was where Death lived. The House of Death. A black, infinite space between the Earth and Heaven or Hell. Like another stratosphere. A
blank space immeasurable by scientific instruments and incomprehensible to the minds of mankind.
Death’s labyrinth.
“Can you see anything?”
“Flower?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Ricky?”
“No, it’s me, Conner. I can’t see a goddamn thing.”
“This isn’t like church describes Hell,” Ricky Martin said. “There’s no flames at all. Not even really all that hot. I can handle it.” Ricky Martin did not intend his voice to crack when he spoke that last sentence.
“Flower, it’s freezing—wherever we are,” Conner said. “Like the cold’s inside me. And how can you see where you’re going?”
”Guys, the last time me and Flower were down here, it took about ten minutes for the darkness to ease up. It’s still dark as hell, but your eyes adjust. A little bit, anyway.”
“She’s right. Ten minutes is about right,” Flower said. “I suggest we all just, kinda, wait. Stay together. Almira?”
“Yeah?”
“Give me your hand, okay?”
“Sure.”
“That’s better.”
“What do you mean?”
“It feels better, safer, to hold your hand.”
“I’m not holding your hand yet,” Almira said. “I’m still waving it around trying to find you.”
“I’ve seen this scene. Hell House?”
“Ricky?” Almira said. “You playing around?”
“Just having a little fun,” he said, letting Flower’s hand drop.
“Very funny,” Flower said. “There you are, Almira.”
“Seriously, still not me.”
“Cut it out,” Flower said.
“I’m not there yet, Flower, really. Ricky?”
“No kidding around. Not me, this time. For realz.”
“Conner?”
“Will you all stop with the games already?”
“It’s not you?” Flower tried to shake her hand free of the grip of whoever it was that was holding it. “Jeezuz godd!”
Flower started to jump, shaking her hand like it had just been stung.
“Fergodsakes, somebody help me.”
“Don’t panic, Flower. Stay calm. We’ll find you. We’re only a few feet away now— ”
Flower forced herself to be quiet, though she made a small involuntary whimper just the same.
The shadow in the shadows grunted as loud as a wild boar in heat.
“What the FUCK was that?” Conner said. “Fuck—when did you say we could start seeing things?”
There was silence, then Almira spoke, in a shaky voice. “Five more minutes, maybe. But you don’t really see anything all that well,” she whispered. “More like walking around a strange house in the dark without your contacts in.”
“Yeah, I get it. Basically nothing but blurry shapes and shadows then,” Conner said.
“Exactly.”
The ink within the inkwell snarled again.
“We need to be able to see!” Ricky Martin shouted. “But I don’t care. I vote for running in the opposite direction from whatever is making that noise!”
“Agreed.”
The four stumbled in what they perceived was the correct direction. The place didn’t seem to have walls or a ceiling, so there was nothing to trace with their hands through the blackness. Nothing to guide them by way of passages or openings. As they ran, they couldn’t even be sure that there was even a floor beneath their feet.
The Shadow thing followed with ease, like a bloodhound in the pitch-black night. Trotting after the four, sniffing, tracking, toying with the teenagers. It passed them in a few seconds, stopped, turned, and reared itself up to its full height. What the four couldn’t see was that the shadow thing was now almost fifteen feet tall, and stretching like Plasticman both higher and wider.
The four, blind as eyeless beggars, stumbled right through and past the shadow thing, continuing to run and cry and shout as they did.
The shadow turned again and pursued, replaying the stopping, the stretching a second time. With the same results.
“Did you feel something?”
“Like what, Almira?”
“A coldness, a painful coldness.”
“I figured we were just going deeper into wherever it is we are, deeper into the cold,” Conner said.
“I don’t know. It didn’t last. Just so briefly.”
“Almira’s right. I felt it, too,” Flower said. “Like running through a sheet of ice made from air.”
“That’s a weird way to put it, but yeah,” Almira said.
“Yeah, I guess I felt it, too. Ricky?” Conner said.
“Yeah, me too. I just thought it was my courage leaving my body along with my pee . . . ”
Conner was silent for a minute, trying to unhear what Ricky Martin had just said.
“Okay. Let’s keep going,” Conner said at last. “Slower. I don’t think that thing, whatever it was, is still after us. We may have unknowingly taken a left when it took a right.”
“Yeah! We zigged, it zagged,” Ricky said.
“Something like that. Hey, I can see!” Ricky said. “I mean, not really see, but I mean it’s not pitch dark anymore. More like very, very, very dark gray.”
The other chimed in, claiming they could see but not really as well.
For another minute or two, they walked on, taking careful steps until they felt the cold again. The icy chill.
“There!” Almira said. “Do you all feel that?”
The other three had no time to answer. The Shadow thing growled like a giant bear. It slapped at the four as if to attack them, destroy them. But the four felt nothing, and were unaware that the attack was even underway.
The all stood, using their ears more than at any other time in their lives, listening to the silence, trying to “see” with their ears, while squinting into the deepest, darkest fog they’d ever experienced.
Then, they could hear nothing more. The air felt different.
It was warmer now, and the threat somehow seemed to be gone.
In fact, the shadow thing had moved on, in frustration. The thing that could kill with ease, whenever it wanted, could not kill these intruders.
It tried. Mightily. Again and again. But it was like attacking the air itself.
Eventually, the Shadow had sulked off. Slid away, becoming one with the darkness.
It seems that on this side of the divide, in this black place, the Shadows had no power over the living. Because nothing living should ever find itself inside the realm of the Dead.
The shadow would just have to find them again in the land of the living instead. If they ever returned there.
The Boeing 737 passenger flight from Denver to Atlanta was experiencing unusual turbulence just as it was clearing the Rockies. The plane shook with a special anger.
Passenger were panicked, despite the words of reassurance from the pilot over the public address system.
The second engine on the left wing was malfunctioning, adding to the torment of riding through a thunderstorm on the “red-eye.”
“Please, everyone, remain calm.” The pilot’s voice cracked and sparked through the speakers as if that system in the plane were somehow damaged, too. “It’s only turbulence related to the storm,” he continued. “We’ll be through the worst part in about fifteen or twenty minutes. No reason for worry. I’ve piloted through dozens of storms like this, some a lot worse.”
Babies wailed. Some otherwise brave men called out in voices that cracked, too, for more gin, more whiskey, and more beer. Women gripped their armrests with astonishing strength and many joined the call for alcohol.
Lights pinged bright over seat after seat after seat.
A flight attendant stood up, grabbed the phone near her seat, and tried to address the situation.
“Folks, please. We are not allowed to leave our seats under these circumstances. FAA regulations.”
This was met with loud jeers and a few nasty words.
&nb
sp; “Let’s remain civil. As soon as we pass through the worst of it—ten or twenty minutes at most, I’m sure—Ashley and I will be around with drinks.”
She switched off the intercom and hung the phone back up, as the passengers restated their unhappiness with the situation in general and with no drink service in particular.
A bolt of lightning only a few hundred yards to the left, followed almost simultaneously by a shuddering crack of thunder, changed the general focus of the conversation. Now, instead of complaining about lack of service, most of the passengers were simply screaming. Some lengthy, some short, some high-pitched, and some manly-sounding. All from both sexes.
The Boeing 737 felt as if it were rocking like a rowboat on an anchor, after this last encounter with the weather.
As the people on the plane tried to ride out the moment with prayer, panic, and penance, a shadow emerged from under the plane where the bags are stored. It floated, unnoticed, millimeters above the industrial carpet, gliding to the front of the plane. The shadow climbed the front wall of the cabin right as the plane lost its lights, both interior and exterior.
The captain was quick to get on the speaker.
“This is not necessarily bad,” he said. “It’s a minor power failure of the lighting system only. We still have full controls, a full dashboard, and all engines and landing gear. And, of course, oxygen. No reason to panic. Again, I repeat, no rea—” The captain cut out unexpectedly as additional systems, including the loud speaker, lost power.
Screaming and crying reached a crescendo at that point, as if the captain himself had been lost, and not just access to his somewhat-comforting messages.
In the new darkness, broken here and there by flashes of lightening, the Shadow thing moved down one row and up the other. Its black, wraith-like presence touched everyone in the cabin, including the flight attendants.
Next, the Shadow thing made its way into the cockpit and settled on the pilot and co-pilot as a bolt of lightning took out engine number three. Two engines out. Two hundred and twenty-two passengers in serious trouble.
Before long, the third engine failed, whether because of the weather, material defect, mechanical mistakes, or an act of God. But with only one engine, the only direction this plane could fly was straight down. A nose dive straight to Hell.
SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago Page 3
