by Mike Duran
“Me?” The question startled her. “I’m … yeah.” She nodded haltingly.
Farner peered at her. “The way you were staring at me. It reminded me of … of …” He shook his head and returned to the paperwork. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
Tamra stood gaping. Then she said, “Mr. Farner? It reminded you of what?”
He stopped and looked up. However, now she detected a hint of defensiveness. “It’s nothing. I apologize.”
People are changing, Nams had said. They’re not themselves.
“Okay,” she drawled. “I’m, uh, taking lunch.”
Jonas Farner issued a slight approving smile and returned to his work.
She puzzled over the exchange. Then Tamra exited the hardware store.
Her scooter was chained to the gas meter in the alley, and she unlocked it. The afternoon heat had been replaced by a chill. In the shadow of the Sierras, temperatures could plummet quickly. An arid, ninety-plus-degree day could reach the low forties quickly. Fingers of clouds burnished by the sunset traced the dusky sky, and on the breeze was more evidence of summer’s demise. She spotted an evening star twinkling over a brooding granite peak.
As much as Tamra cherished the scenery and the slow-paced, small-town atmosphere, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had missed something. Twenty-five years old, minimal education, living with her brother, and raising three dogs from the animal shelter while working in the local hardware store. It wasn’t exactly the stuff of reality television. To top it off, she had no love interests. And living in Endurance, the prospects of change on any of those fronts seemed distant. When her best friend Junie came up from SoCal every summer, she’d casually refer to Endurance as “the city that time forgot” and chide Tamra about not doing something more with her life. Tamra always conceded a chuckle, but, down deep, she knew there was truth to Junie’s observation.
However relevant Tamra’s disappointments were, they had been eclipsed by something far more troubling.
The Madness of Endurance was the stuff of childhood, and, indeed, growing up as a child in these parts elevated the story to mythic proportions. Adults would mention the mass suicide with a whisper, while kids vowed to explore the dreaded site and threatened their enemies with an overnight stay. Somewhere along the way rose the legend of the ninth gate of hell. “If there are nine circles,” Junie speculated, “Then there must be nine gates.” While never giving credence to such fables, Tamra could not help but feel spooked by the legends.
She strapped her backpack with a bungee, started the scooter, and drove into the mouth of the alley. Then she flipped on her headlight and turned southbound on 395. She navigated into the slow side of traffic whenever possible. Locals were rarely in a hurry. Which is why the scooter suited her just fine. She could go almost a month on one tank of gas, except when the rodeo came to town and she worked a concession stand the entire week.
The fire station, a stucco structure with an old bell tower, marked the official outskirts of the city. The streets bore the names of early settlers, like Johansson and Ware, before changing to minerals. The Vermont was just past Ore on Pyrite, where she turned.
A long and narrow street straddled by a collection of ranch properties on one side and old commercial buildings on the other, Pyrite wound its way up into the distant foothills. Porch lights had come on, and the aromas of dinner crossed her path. Across the street stood a boarded TV repair shop, Miller’s Pawn, and then the Vermont. However, there was no bookstore in sight. Could Nams have been wrong?
She puttered down the street, looking from side to side. About halfway down a Chihuahua rushed the fence near a wooden table of breads and jellies. Tamra instinctively swerved to avoid the animal, even though it had not escaped its yard. That’s when she noticed the house next door. It was a plain white wooden structure with a long patio and a porch swing. A mid-sized truck with mud splashes and a roll bar was parked under the carport. Off to the side of the property sat a smaller house with a sign reading Book Swap tilting above an open door.
She pulled to the opposite curb and sat there with her scooter idling.
A white picket fence and a quaint garden surrounded the building. A light glowed through a laced curtain. Her first reaction was one of nostalgia. Book Swap hearkened back to an age when schoolhouses were actual houses and neighborhoods were educational enclaves. Perhaps at one time Book Swap served as a neighborhood library. Which meant Zephaniah Walker was probably some type of oddball antiquarian. Her second thought was to wonder if a hole in the wall like this could possibly have an obscure book called Mystery Spots and Magic Landscapes.
Then again, perhaps this was the exact type of store to find it.
She turned off the scooter and pocketed the keys. Removing her helmet, she hung it on the handlebar, unzipped the side pouch on her backpack, and located the sticky note. Then she crossed the street to the front gate.
The Chihuahua next door snuffled about the fence line, attempting to intimidate in the way only a dog ten inches tall could. Tamra stood with her hand on the gate, studying the property. Where exactly had Nams sent her?
She pushed the gate open and ducked under the dried arbor. A dirt footpath branched toward Book Swap. She followed it, her gaze moving from the darkened house to the cottage. She passed through the gate of a white wooden fence. A breeze rattled the leaves overhead. The door creaked on its hinges.
Tamra approached the doorway as another gust of dry wind coughed behind her and the door yawned open. Someone inside gasped, and several books thudded to the ground behind the figure. A lanky man stood terrified.
And something was wrong with his face.
Chapter 15
Fergus slung the backpack over his shoulder and left by way of the Back Nine, purposely avoiding Easy Dolan’s apartment along the way. Fergus climbed the concrete steps, pushed the door open, and slipped into the cool evening air.
A faint trail wound its way through the Yard, past rusty storage bins, grounds equipment, discarded gas engines, and a wood chipper. A tractor, which doubled as a snowplow during especially fierce winters, sat like a decrepit dinosaur guarding a large water tank. Two halogen lamps perched over a sagging rock wall buzzed to life in the dusk. Fergus dreaded the path ahead of him. Yet the touch of the cold steel pistol under his shirt temporarily bolstered his confidence.
Fergus hurried through the Yard, scanning the ground as he went. But there was no sign of the journal. He ducked under the heavy chain barrier and trudged upward along the trail. The smell of manure signaled his approach to the grounds shed. Several mounds of compost and bark lay moldering under tarps, and against a large corrugated structure leaned tillers and shovels. Fergus reached the tottering stone archway and hunched over, panting.
The oxygen was thinning. At this rate he would hyperventilate before he reached the Rift, but there was no time to waste. Night was setting, and the Shadowfolk would soon spring to life. Fergus resumed his torrid pace.
The wooden sign announced his entrance into Camp Poverty. It lay under a grove of twisted sycamores, an ancient rock structure entombed in sediment and overgrown nettle. Warnings of toxic chemicals and dangerous conditions peeked between scrub and composting leaves. He’d found Roth here once. Yet Fergus did not linger. Camp Poverty gave him the creeps.
The trail narrowed, congesting with brush, until he reached the chain-link fence that cordoned the property. Sweat dampened his cheeks and forehead. Overhead the mountain loomed, its soft, cool silence hovering like a ghostly shroud. Fergus unlocked the gate and hiked up the rocky berm until he reached the mule road.
This broad, flat road traced the foothills for miles. Down below, Marvale’s roof peeked above the canopy of foliage, and its lights winked through the thickets. The soft chirring of insects was interrupted only by a jay skittering through a nearby pine. He studied the road for any evidence of the journal. Ahead, the trail disappeared in shadowy twilight. Occasionally Fergus would encounter a hiker or fly fisherman along th
e way. But the trail was empty.
Otta’s Rift lay approximately two-thirds of a mile from this spot. Fergus began the trek. Folds of canyon came and went as he studied the road for any sign of the spellbook. As the gloaming thickened around him, faint stars appeared overhead. He had to hurry.
Soon he spotted the scraggly birch grove and the werevane that served as his trail marker. Fergus left the road at that point and picked his way upward through blighted birch, rabbitbrush, and boulders, trying to retrace his normal route. At the hill’s crest the barbed-wire fence stretched, cordoning the canyon from intruders. A sign speckled with buckshot warned against trespassing. But there was no one here to enforce those restrictions.
Besides, Otta’s Rift needed protection from no one.
He reached the crest of the hill and looked into the gorge. A scree slope, one hundred feet of shale and rock shard, descended before him. A trail had been beaten hard, forming a series of switchbacks. At its base lay a gray meadow surrounded by sparse copse and diseased trees, now in deep shadow. Thick wooden joists framed the mine entrance, its mouth blackened long ago by some hellacious blast. From here he could barely make out the symbol spray-painted across jagged rock. It was the number nine.
He wondered why they hadn’t blown this place up long ago.
Fergus located the spot where the barbed wire lay in a tangled knot. As he stepped over it, something caught his pant leg, and he tumbled forward. Shale rattled down the scree slope. He sprung to his feet and yanked the pistol from his pants. There was nothing behind him. Of course. The Rift did that to people. It set them on edge. Made them crazy.
He must steel his mind against the tricksters. Surely they knew he was coming.
Fergus inched his way down the scree slope, gun in hand. A cloud of dust rose as he navigated the loose expanse of rock, the echo of which sounded in the narrow gorge. Finally he reached the trail and followed it to level ground. There was no evidence of the journal.
The mine entrance loomed like a black gouge in the granite face. Fergus dabbed sweat from his forehead. He slipped off his backpack and removed the flashlight. Flicking it on, he aimed it at the mine entrance. This was where it happened—the Madness of Endurance. He stood for a moment, allowing the flashlight beam to meander along the parched earth. An entire town committed suicide on this spot, burned themselves to death. The stench from that inferno still lingered. He could only imagine the tortured souls that haunted this place. He shook himself, slipped the backpack on, and stepped toward the Rift.
A dead pine, its uppermost branches charred by lightning, overshadowed the entrance like an ancient, arthritic sentry. The rock face towered above him. Long ago a vertical split had marred its face. Farther down the wall water trickled into stagnant pools. He swept a cloud of mosquitoes from his face and stared back into the mine. Cool air lapped at his ankles like an invisible shoreline demarcating an underground ocean.
Did he dare enter?
A series of crude stepping-stones, interspersed with lichen and matted buckwheat, descended into the mine. Picking his way down these hewn steps, Fergus reached the bottom and stood at the mouth of Otta’s Rift.
Wind wheezed through the gnarled tree branches above him. And that’s when he heard it—a whisper, rising from the bowels of the cavern, followed by a fully formed word.
Fergie. Ferrgggiiiieeee …
The blood curdled in his veins.
It’s me, Fergie. Lemme oot.
The voice glided on the breeze like a raven’s feather. Bringing back memories. And pain.
Plink.
She hung herself with an extension cord on the balcony, overlooking a white-capped sea.
Plink.
“Mum,” Fergus whimpered. “That you?”
Chapter 16
Before he realized it, Fergus was in the mouth of the mine. Shale broke free, creating a mini-landslide at his feet. He steadied himself as the clatter of rock echoed in the shaft. Dust wafted up the tunnel as the breeze swept past, carrying the stench of mold and the distant squeal of bats.
Yet the voice of his mother was gone, replaced by the susurration of subterranean air. She had been dead over a decade. Despite all the tears, all the pleading, she hadn’t crossed over. So why now?
The fetch were toying with him. He should have known.
Fergus shook himself from the illusion and aimed the flashlight into the descending dark. Remains of track and railroad ties shone beneath the loose rock. Graffiti marred the blackened walls with epithets and mysterious glyphs. Tentacles of roots curled claw-like from the cave roof, and broken glass glinted in charcoal mounds. There was no sign of the journal.
His nerves grated like a blade on whetstone.
Then he heard something down below. Carried on the breeze was a soft patter of water droplets and with it, a shuffling sound. His flesh prickled with fear.
“Mum?” He worked his sweaty fingers along the pistol grip. “That you?”
His words died on the dank air.
Fergus tilted his head, straining to hear. Someone was down there—he could feel them. His pulse surged in his temples. The fetch were near. He could not surrender to them—never again! Yet he had to investigate.
With the flashlight in one hand and the pistol in the other, Fergus inched forward. Between the loose rock and the pitch black, descending the shaft was slow going. At the fifty-foot mark, the shale gave way to solid earth. The mine narrowed, intersecting several smaller tunnels. Down these adjoining tunnels he once spotted frame heads and pulleys, indicating that vertical shafts had been bored. Who knew what riches the miners had chased down these rancid corridors? A low moan issued from unseen granite chimneys. With it came the shrill bickering of bats jockeying for roof space somewhere below, stirring in preparation for the evening’s aeronautics. As Fergus descended, the portal of twilight closed behind him, and the claustrophobia settled in.
Short, rapid breaths. The darkness was closing in, the shadow of the rune hovering in his brain. Breathe, Fergie! In the Rift a person could easily lose control of his most basic functions. Once Pops soiled himself. But that was before they learned the secrets of the mine.
Fergus crept forward. The flashlight beam trembled across dead roots and moldy crevices. Seventy-five feet deep. Eighty. The tunnel narrowed, and he had to duck to keep from hitting his head. One hundred feet. The track was no longer visible. He was having a hard time breathing again. A werevane tinkled ahead, telling him he was almost there.
The shaft abruptly opened into a sunken chamber. It was here that the legends began.
Fergus stepped onto a granite balcony, a precipice overlooking the chamber, and stared into this ancient subterranean hollow.
Stray fingers of twilight descended from granite flumes, casting a grayish hue upon the chamber. It rose fifteen, maybe twenty feet in height. At its center, braced against the smooth rock face, stood a dolmen, a crude megalith comprised of two vertical granite slabs supporting a third. Moss clung to the dolmen, as did dark smatterings of dried blood. Between the megalithic arch, framed therein, an ink-black aperture pierced the rock wall. A fissure, perhaps the height of a man, radiating ineffable darkness.
This was the gateway, the window between worlds.
“Mum?” His voice died in the dead air. “You down there?”
Only the soft patter of water answered him.
Fergus laid the flashlight down, aiming its beam at a nearby hurricane lamp. Then he wriggled the backpack off and retrieved some matches. As he struck one to life, he paused. Wedged into a cleft sat a bundle of dynamite. Pops had put it there for safekeeping: enough explosives to take down half the mountainside. Fergus’s fingers trembled as he held the flickering match. The fuse was dangerously close. He could put an end to it all. No more bad dreams. No more regrets. No more monsters in his brain. The match’s orange glow seemed to stoke his death wish.
“Ghaww!” Fergus dropped the match, his fingers blistering in fiery pain.
Pay atten
tion, Fergie!
He hurriedly lit the lantern, capped it, and snatched his pistol. Then he spun toward the chamber. The glow of the lantern revealed images on the walls, glimpses of lithe figures and gangly humanoid sketches. Petroglyphs from some bygone era.
A shuffle of movement.
Fergus forced a dry swallow and stretched the lantern forth.
“Mum! It’s m–me. Fergie.”
There was no response.
The lantern sent shadows pitching around the perimeter of the chamber, wild arcing shapes.
Another sound. This time a dry sloughing.
Fergus gasped.
Could it be? He crept forward and teetered on the rock mezzanine, his gun hand trembling almost uncontrollably. Fergus extended the lantern. Makeshift steps had been carved helter-skelter into the stone, a black antediluvian stairwell. At its base was the dolmen.
They said it was a sacred site, that the miners had awakened something ancient in the roots of the mountain. Pops said it possessed properties.
Water trickled along the jagged rocks forming a pool nearby. A frail, otherworldly luminescence emanated from the crystalline spring, splashing fractals of light about the chamber like lunatic shadow puppets. Before the pool a shadowy figure knelt, staring into the water. Its body was the color of midnight, and its contours roiled like thunderclouds. Frail wings draped its sides.
“Mum?” The word slipped past his lips.
The figure straightened. Its wings arched in defense.
Fergus sucked air through his teeth and aimed the pistol in the direction of the fetch. It turned—its motions fluid, inhuman; shadowy limbs unfolding and refolding into itself—and looked up at him. Its eyes were without pupils and glowed fiery amber. The face, however, was human. It was a face he had seen many times before.
