by Mike Duran
Then Zeph remembered Mila, her vacant stare, her mockery, her sulfurous breath, and the emotion welled inside him like a poison spring.
He stood, hastened to the door, and opened it.
The sun had yet to rise, but its presence had turned the horizon a gray pall. The chickens wandered the dewy yard in search of grubs. Mila’s house was dark. Maybe it was all a dream. Perhaps the last few days were just part of a psychological breakdown. That’s what happened when you lived alone for so long—fact and fiction blurred. Even Robinson Crusoe feared he would go mad on the desolate island. In this case, however, Zeph wondered if insanity would be a welcome option.
Despite being a modified realist, Zeph knew it was all real. The dark angels. The petroglyphs at Meridian. Little Weaver. The Rift. And now Mila Rios. This wasn’t a dream. It was reality catching up with him.
Once again he was the object of wonder. All eyes were upon him. It was the destiny he always feared.
Something brushed Zeph’s feet. He yelped and slammed into the door. Images of reptilian angels with tortured features snapped into his brain.
Jamie looked up at him, shivering.
Zeph scooped up the animal.
“Hey, little guy.” He stroked the dog while peering at Mila’s house. It was silhouetted against a hazy dawn, looking as dreary as Bates Motel. Although even Norman Bates and his mother could not compare to the evil that lurked inside Mila’s house. Two days ago he would have scoffed at the notion. Now he was on the other side of the looking glass.
You need to get out more, Zeph. That’s what Mila had told him yesterday. You stay locked up in that house too much.
Mila was right—the other Mila, the one with emotions and compassion and humanity. Staying locked up in his house hadn’t prevented anything. Destiny had found him, and now everyone was being steamrolled by his silence.
Just like Mila.
Zeph patted Jamie, and the dog licked his hand.
Little Weaver would come for him soon. It was almost sunrise. Together, they would hike to the Rift. Was there still evidence of the mass suicide up there? And what did a dimensional portal look like? Perhaps the Indian had discovered a formula in the pages of Annie’s journal. If not, at least Weaver could spin him a tale to humor him. Meanwhile one of the best people Zeph Walker knew had been swapped by something inhuman. Rage and regret gripped him.
He’d already dragged too many people down. They were in danger because of him. Tamra. Annie. And now Little Weaver. He could not afford more collateral damage.
If there truly was a gateway to hell in those foothills, a portal into some infernal realm, and if he could do something about it, then Zeph had to take the chance.
And he had to take it alone.
Zeph hurried into the house and grabbed his down vest. Then he set out a bowl of water for Jamie. As the horizon paled to overcast skies, Zeph got in his truck and drove toward town. He stopped at the convenience store, found Lacroix’s business card, and used the pay phone next to the ice machine. He left a voicemail for the detective.
“I realize you’re off the case. But you should know something. My neighbor, the lady with the cactus jelly—something’s buried in her backyard. I think you need to check it out.”
Chapter 47
Crusoe believed the storm was providential, punishment for his sins. Shipwrecks didn’t happen by accident, so why should his? No, it was judgment for his sins. As Zeph drove north along the 395, blinking back tears, watching the sky go from iron gray to ash, he wondered whether or not the events around him were, like Robinson Crusoe’s, the result of his own transgression.
If so, Zeph was determined not to see anyone else drown.
In the distance the Black Pass rose like an incision in the pallid sky. He didn’t need a GPS to navigate his way to Otta’s Rift. Everyone around here knew the general location, even if they’d never visited the legendary site. Like most, Zeph’s conceptions of the ninth gate of hell were built around rumors and innuendo. He had seen the documentaries and the fanciful tabloid pieces. But in spite of his love for this land and his familiarity with its features, visiting the Rift had never been high on his bucket list.
Eight miles past the turnoff for Marvale, a sheep road named Dawson’s Rut cut a beeline across flatland into a ridge of manzanita and ragged groves of gray pines. The dusty road gave way to rutted clay before he passed a water tower and arrived at Silo’s Bridge. Zeph allowed the truck to idle there. The fishing was good here, mostly native trout. He looked past the cool mountain stream into the ridge. Just beyond it, in the crook of a sparsely timbered bluff, were the remnants of Silverton.
Zeph sat there, staring up into the lonely hills, listening to the cadence of the brook. They called it Miner’s Meadow. Dilapidated shanties strangled by tumbleweeds and rubbish were all that remained of Silverton, the community that had sprung up around Otta’s Rift. Silverton remained one of several authentic ghost towns across the basin. But the legends about the Madness of Endurance had prevented the place from becoming a vibrant tourist destination.
Up ahead Dawson’s Rut joined the fire road. That road traveled the foothills for miles. He had traveled it many times and knew it would take him past Otta’s Rift. Zeph crossed the bridge and turned south on the fire road, heading back in the direction of Marvale. The truck sidled along the trail, leaving a fog of dust in its wake. Zeph stared past the tree line to the ridge. Was there a trailhead, a distinguishing feature that identified the spot? He sunk into himself, letting his mind roam.
If he could walk by faith, maybe he could also drive by faith.
The truck rumbled along, Zeph glancing from the dirt road into the distant mountains. But there was no sign of Otta’s Rift. Perhaps this was a bad idea. Maybe he should have waited for Little Weaver. His valiant plan to march into Otta’s Rift and save the world had hit a snag—before he had even arrived. Zeph knew his way around Endurance; he’d hiked the trails and fished most of the creeks and streams. He also knew that if he dared venturing into the mountains recklessly, he could find himself wandering the foothills for days.
A scraggly thicket of birch rose on both sides of the fire road, littering the area with dead leaves. Suddenly a figure bolted from the brush, and he slammed on the brakes. A doe stood panting in the middle of the road, staring at him. Zeph’s heart pounded as he met the gaze of the startled animal.
As the fog of dust caught up and drifted by, directly behind the scared creature, he noticed something hanging from a nearby tree.
Zeph peered at the object, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
The doe hurried off into the stand of birch, but Zeph remained fixated on the strange object. It looked so familiar. He pulled the truck as far off the road as possible, got out, and locked the door.
The sky was formless, a sea of gray that seemed to cast a malaise about this place. Dawn had revealed a vast canopy of gloom. The trees dripped moisture and the earth was still. Zeph slowly approached the tree, crackling dead leaves as he went. Its limbs were stripped of foliage, and it bent haggard, as if some great weight had laden the birch. Approximately ten feet up hung a curious object. He crept forward. At first Zeph thought it was a dreamcatcher, the handmade charms used by some Native Americans to protect sleeping children from nightmares. By the looks of it, this object might be intended to have the reverse effect—to invite night terrors.
It consisted of the traditional willow hoop, but from it hung several bones and the dried carcasses of small animals.
He had seen things like this before. Once, in Liberty, his mother had taken him to the home of a woman whose daughter they believed was possessed. Outside their house Zeph recalled seeing such a talisman. It gave him the creeps back then, as it did now.
He stared through the trees here. The ground was matted with leaves, as if the area was diseased. Past this matchstick forest, over the berm, fog shrouded the foothills. Could this be the place?
A breeze rose, and the bank of fog
rolled over the berm like a spectral tide, drawing rock and brush into its cloak.
Plink.
It was a dry, hollow sound. Zeph looked around, trying to identify its source.
Plink. Pa-plink.
It came from overhead. He looked up to see the bone chimes dangling in the breeze, emitting an odd, hollow tinkling among the cancerous forest.
Cold creeps scampered across his flesh. This was it! He knew it. However, something else, something equally as sure, kept him unmoved. Zeph knew that if he crossed this point, he was passing into a realm unlike any he had ever experienced. This was sacred ground. Or rather, un-sacred ground. How many generations of mystics and thrill-seekers had invested this area with its own unique ambience? And if there was any truth to Weaver’s claims about this befouled place, Zeph could be stepping into a war zone beyond his imagining.
Nevertheless, he could not turn back, not after what had happened to his dear friend, Mila. Emotion swelled inside him at the thought, but he swallowed it and reset his resolve.
God, help me.
It was closest thing to a prayer that he could manage. And perhaps it was also the most genuine. With those words Zeph stepped off the road, under the bone chimes, and into the dead wood.
The smell of fall’s approach was thick. As he went, he churned decaying leaves underfoot, awakening the stench of mold and rot. Zeph picked his way through the blighted birch. There were no birds or animals, nothing but a dead silence. He looked for more signs of strange paraphernalia but found none. The thicket cleared, and the rocky berm rose before him. Fog hovered like a spectral curtain, and behind it towered steep granite walls.
He picked his way through the scrub to the base of the berm, inhaled deeply, and trudged upward. At its crest he stopped and stood panting. The fog drifted by, clearing enough to reveal a barbed-wire fence sagging across a dark ravine. Several signs riddled with buckshot warned against trespassing. Zeph stepped toward the fence, peering into the misty canyon below.
Could this be it? He strained forward, looking for any evidence of Otta’s Rift. As he did, the murk parted just enough to make out a dark gap at the base of the mountain. A mine entrance.
Otta’s Rift—the ninth gate of hell.
The revelation begat an eerie repose inside him. Do you find your destiny, or does your destiny find you? Zeph settled back, gazing into the gloomy gorge.
For a moment he thought about destiny, about what brought him here. He thought about Tamra Lane, who had a soft spot for strays and a cute patch of freckles across her nose. He thought about Annie and the remnant, watching him all these years, wanting him to play the prophet. He thought about Little Weaver, the guardian of the gateway, protecting him from the demon spawn.
And Zeph thought about the day he stood at his mother’s grave and denounced the Telling.
Something struck out from the brush behind him, and he spun about.
Several blackbirds barreled from the trees below, screeching past him before plunging into the foggy ravine. His heart raced, and a wave of fear washed over him, drowning the frail resolve Zeph had mustered. Who was he fooling? He couldn’t just wander into some prehistoric cave and expect ages of incantations and evil to snap to attention at his command.
The breeze swept by like invisible fingers, stretching the mist into phantasmal shapes. It carried a voice.
He cocked his head, straining to hear the wisp of words.
Fallow and fruitless.
Were these words in his head, or was someone calling from the gorge?
Be thou withered, O son of silence.
Zeph straightened. Terror spiked his body to the dewy earth.
How could he forget that voice? He hadn’t heard it in ten years, but he would never forget it. And her prophecy—it had draped him like an emotional anvil.
See, I have touched thy lips …
Zeph found himself touching the scar on his face. Rage welled inside him, followed by regret. The voice, though repulsive, had a hypnotic allure. It was coming from the Rift.
Nearby a section of the fence hung limp. Below it a trail switch-backed through a scree slope to the floor of the ravine. He wandered to the open section of fence. Snippets of weathered fabric clung to the barbed wire there. Before he realized it, Zeph had slung his legs over the sagging wire and teetered at the edge of the scree slope.
Fruitless and mute. A deep, throaty chuckle. Fruitless and mute.
He stumbled forward into the gorge, following the trail as it descended into the fog. Others had come this way. Cigarette butts and empty whisky bottles scattered the rocky path. Along the way he stopped to wipe sweat from his brow and study the mine entrance. The number nine had been spray-painted on the rock. A withered tree stood sentinel, spectral and brooding. A thin spine of rail protruded from the dark entryway. Yet there was no one there. Perhaps the voice was just an illusion, some psychological echo seeking to finally escape his tortured mind.
Finally he reached level ground and stood sweating in the damp coolness.
A barren swath of earth spread between him and the mine. Gray and blasted. Cursed ground if ever there was. He’d seen it in the documentaries and the tabloids. This is where it happened—the Madness of Endurance. How many had died here, set themselves afire before these god-awful ruins? He could see the ghoulish pile in his mind’s eye. Women and children, a smoldering heap, cauterized in their own agony.
Zeph gasped. He had stopped breathing for a moment.
What sort of devilry possessed this place?
He hurried forward, remaining focused on the mine entrance. Broken glass shown dully in the gravel, and a crude lean-to made of gray wood rose nearby. A single barren pine stood before the charred entry to the mine. Runes and glyphs notched the surrounding rock.
The stench of herbs and spoiled meat lingered.
Zeph slowed. Then stopped. Perhaps twenty-five feet away. In living color.
The ninth gate of hell.
Zeph swayed, dreamily. Then caught himself. At least he was still breathing. He slowly approached, peering into the dark aperture. A magnetic vortex. Isn’t that what Weaver called it? A portal into the Third Column.
Inside the mine the haze coiled, coagulated, thickened. And seemed to take shape.
Someone was in there. They’d been expecting him.
And who better than Pearl?
“You …” Zeph said.
You aren’t a prophet, the phantom hissed. The blade proved it.
Sadness. So much of it inside him. Her words seemed to reawaken the venom of bitterness. Zeph swayed back, overtaken by a great darkness looming on the periphery of his mind.
You’re the son of silence. Sickly glowing eyes peered at him from deep inside the mineshaft. And now you’ve gone and killed someone.
Mila.
What a fool to think he could stand before the gate of hell! He could barely stand before his own mirror without regret and rage oozing forth. Zeph tried to run, but his legs would not work. His body felt leaden. Voices, so many of them, called from the Rift, pining for freedom. That dark breeding place, that cell, that tomb of regret and waste. It was calling him. The others were expecting him.
Zeph doubled over, gripping his skull.
He had let them down—all of them. Annie and Tam and Little Weaver. They were wrong to have trusted him. God had no choice but to remove the Telling and abandon him in this defiled place. Zeph had renounced heaven, and this was its echo.
He crumbled to the wet earth.
Plink.
Death. So much death lay here. He could smell it in the moss and the mold.
Plink.
How many souls had died on this spot, driven to madness by hell and their own pain? Well, one more wouldn’t matter.
Plink.
Fallow and fruitless, barren but for the sorrow he had brought. Indeed, he had become the son of silence, just as his stepmother had prophesied.
Plink.
He opened his eyes enough to see a sh
adow descending upon him. A great winged thing with phosphorescent eyes. The darkness roared toward him, a wall of hate. Pearl cackled from inside it.
And Zeph descended into shadow.
Chapter 48
I’ll be fine.” Annie unlocked the door to her apartment and turned to Tamra. “I’m just going to pack a few things. Call me when you’re ready. I’ll take the tram down, and you can pick me up in the parking lot.”
“Okay. That’s it.” Tamra’s words were stern and cautionary. “I don’t want you going anywhere else. Or talking to anyone. Even if it is daylight, we have to be careful.”
Annie did not like being talked down to. But her granddaughter was right. Nevertheless, Annie Lane had other plans.
“Nams?” Tamra peered at her with suspicion. “That’s it, okay?”
Annie knew better than to lie to her granddaughter. Perhaps she should be thankful for that. Tamra was not gullible, nor was she afraid to challenge what she considered deceptive. Annie derived a certain satisfaction from knowing that her Tamra was not naïve or easily snookered. That’s the kind of woman who could make it in this world. No, she couldn’t lie to Tamra.
Misdirection, however, was another story.
“I want you to check on him,” Annie said.
Tamra stopped chewing her gum and gaped. “Huh?”
“Zeph—I’m worried about him.”
“I thought you were gonna let this go? I mean, what more can we do … besides go to the police? The evidence was right there. Either he’s gonna do what Weaver said or he’s not. Nams—this is what you wanted, isn’t it? He got the book, he went to Meridian—he knows about everything.”
Annie looked away.
“Look,” Tamra said. “Little Weaver’s gonna pick him up, and they’re going up there. It’s out of our hands at this point.”
“He’s been running and hiding for years,” Annie said. “Old habits are hard to break.”
