The Void

by Kivak, Albert

“Twenty minutes, tops, sir.”

  “Be ready. I want that thing down in the hole as soon as it’s operational.”

  “Yes, sir,” Grimshaw said, but Clifton wasn’t listening. He was already striding towards the edge of the hole, shoulders hunched and collar tight against his neck as the spiders continued to fall.

  IV

  “Something’s wrong,” Morgan whispered, staring into the dark.

  He had already sent six spiders down into the hole, but whatever was down there was still moving. He frowned and looked into its black depths. All around the street, people were panicking as the men in suits ushered them out of their houses. He thought he heard his mother calling to him, but he couldn't answer. Not yet. He had to concentrate. He took the jar, the big one that he had been saving for a day like this and held it up, the murky glass diffusing the mid-morning sun. Inside, the enormous goliath bird-eating spider waited, watching Morgan as he readied to send it into the hole.

  Morgan closed his eyes and whispered the words – the words that he knew but didn’t know why— and then leaned over the hole and was about to drop the jar when a voice startled him from behind.

  “What are you doing there, son?”

  Morgan turned, frowning as he sensed whatever was in the hole growing restless.

  “Nothing,” Morgan said, lowering his eyes and clutching the jar to his chest.

  “What you got there?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, mister.”

  “I’m not a stranger. My name is Clifton. I’m here to help you.”

  “You can’t help,” Morgan said as he flicked his eyes towards the hole.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Clifton replied, smiling warmly at Morgan. “You see, I work for the president of the United States. It’s my job to fix problems like this.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Morgan said, and Clifton saw the first flickers of fear in the boy’s eyes. “They’ll get everyone, eventually.”

  Clifton felt his heart rate increase, and it wasn’t because of the screaming people or the spiders which still fell from the sky, it was because of this enigmatic child. “What do you mean, son? Who are they?”

  Morgan didn’t answer, and he didn’t have to. He shifted his eyes towards the hole, then back to Clifton.

  “Someone down there? In the hole? Is that what you mean?”

  “They’ll get us all eventually. You know that, don’t you?” Morgan said.

  Clifton wasn’t sure if it was the resigned way in which Morgan said it or the haunted look in the boy’s eyes, but Clifton felt a ripple of fear surge through him which he hadn’t experienced since his last tour of Iraq. The ground shifted slightly as the hole widened even further. Clifton saw that the heel of the boy’s shoe was now hanging over the sinkhole.

  “Why don’t you come away from the edge of the hole there, son?” Clifton said, trying to ignore the wet, slithering sounds coming from inside.

  “I’m fine,” Morgan said irritably. “They can’t hurt me.”

  “Who can’t? Come on kid, talk to me.”

  Morgan looked Clifton in the eye then, and he wasn’t a child. His eyes were deep and serious, and the five words that he uttered, Clifton believed entirely.

  “You’re all going to die.”

  Clifton stammered, caught without words for the first time in as long as he could remember, and was struggling with how to respond when the man jogged across the lawn from the house bordering the hole.

  “What’s going on here?” Embry said as he nodded at Morgan, and then shifted his gaze to Clifton.

  “I’m just trying to get this child to safety,” Clifton shot back, glaring at the man who had interrupted them.

  “Looked more like an interrogation to me,” Embry said, flinching as a spider floated past his face.

  “I was asking him some questions. I’m with the government.”

  “And that gives you the right to harass kids?”

  “Are you the child’s father?”

  Embry glanced at Morgan, who pleaded with his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Embry said. “He’s my kid. Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m in charge of this situation,” Clifton said, feeling his cheeks flush with anger.

  Embry looked at the chaos around them, then coolly back to Clifton.

  “Looks to me like you ain’t in charge of shit, buddy. You might want to concentrate on finding out why the earth is swallowing the street and why it’s raining spiders before you start harassing little kids.”

  A deep rumble emitted from the hole, and a deep pungent smell billowed out. Clifton retched, and almost vomited, but when he looked up, neither Morgan or Embry had reacted.

  “You don’t smell that?”

  Embry and Morgan shared a quick glance, and then both wrinkled their noses, too.

  “Yeah, who couldn’t?” Embry said, waving a hand in front of his face.

  They’re lying.

  Clifton knew liars. He knew how to read people, and he was starting to suspect that whatever was going on here on Maple Street, this man and kid were pivotal to it. Another rumble from the hole stopped Clifton mid-thought, and he could almost swear he heard a grunt or even… a growl

  Impossible.

  But even so, he was uncomfortable with the situation, and that icy daggers of fear danced down his spine again.

  “Look, I’m not here to argue with you. Get the kid away from the hole and get yourself indoors.”

  “Whatever you say, chief,” Embry said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Come on kid, let’s get inside.”

  Morgan nodded and walked towards Embry, then paused, and turned back to the hole. As both Embry and Clifton watched, Morgan held the jar out over the hole and dropped it. They all waited to hear the sound of it landing, but nothing came. Morgan said nothing; he walked to Embry and stood beside him.

  “That should stop them for now,” Morgan whispered, then before Clifton could ask any more questions, Embry ushered him into the house. Clifton stood and looked up at the sky.

  The rain of spiders had stopped.

  “Who the hell are you, kid?” Clifton muttered to himself as he began to walk back to the command center. Despite his hopes, the headache that he had hoped to avoid was now a raging Tsunami in his head, and it was laced with questions to which he had no answers.

  V

  Resembling a large dragonfly, the S3257-X was the very latest in military designed drones. Small and compact with a carbon fiber body, the drone was both lightweight and incredibly durable. The nine-inch long unit was equipped with an array of data recording equipment, including two high-definition front facing cameras, audio recording facilities as well as sensors to accurately record outside temperature, air pressure, and wind speed. It was also equipped with the very latest night vision and infrared cameras, and with its multi-directional fins, it could be maneuvered with pinpoint accuracy. Combined with its lightweight Lithium-ion batteries, it could fly without issue for up to twenty-three hours. Clifton was impressed.

  “And you say you can control this accurately from here?” he said, pointing to Grimshaw’s laptop.

  “Yes, sir. It’s like flying a miniature helicopter. By using these controllers and watching the feed on screen, we can see in real time as the drone explores the hole.”

  “Well, let’s see if you’re right, Mr. Grimshaw. Proceed when ready.”

  Grimshaw nodded and activated the drone. Like a model helicopter, it whirred into life and lifted off the ground, hovering at the lip of the sinkhole. Clifton watched as Grimshaw popped on his headphones and settled down at the controls.

  “Okay,” Clifton said. “Send it down.”

  Grimshaw licked his lips, and maneuvered the drone over the edge, and started to descend.

  Clifton watched, mesmerized by the images on screen and almost forgetting that he was above ground and not on board the drone as it moved down the hole.

  “Fifteen feet,” Grimshaw said. “Temp
erature is surface minus two.”

  They watched as the dirt and exposed sewer pipes gave way to the smooth inner surface of the tunnel, which in turn grew dark as the drone left daylight behind.

  “Sixty-two feet. Temperature surface minus five. Switching to exterior lights.” As he said it, Grimshaw pressed a button on his laptop, and the dirt walls were illuminated with light from the twin high power spotlights on the drone's underbelly.

  “How damn deep does this thing go?” Clifton muttered, not expecting an answer.

  “I can sonar ping down the hole to see if anything bounces back,” Grimshaw said as he continued to carefully maneuver the drone.

  “You can do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go ahead and do it.”

  Grimshaw pressed another button on the laptop.

  “Ping released.”

  They waited.

  “No response from ping,” Grimshaw said, a note of fear in his voice.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I can’t detect any bottom to this hole.”

  They watched as the descent continued. One hundred feet. Then two. Grimshaw had been quiet for some time, and Clifton didn’t like the waxy look his complexion had taken on.

  “Talk to me, Grimshaw. What’s happening?”

  “Temperature has increased. Now surface plus seven.”

  “Plus seven? That would make it almost fifty degrees down there,” Clifton said, cracking his knuckles nervously.

  “There’s something else.”

  “What is it, Grimshaw?”

  “I’m hearing… noises, sir.”

  “What kind of noises?” Clifton asked as replays of those slithering sounds he thought he heard at the holes edge came back to him.

  “It… it sounds like voices.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Grimshaw. Nobody could fall in there and survive. You have faulty equipment, that’s all.”

  Grimshaw shot a quick glare at Clifton and unplugged the headphone jack from the computer. Immediately, Clifton could hear it. A female voice, moaning, crying for help.

  “Someone’s alive down there. I don’t know how, but they are.”

  “That’s impossible, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “We still don’t have a reading for a bottom to this thing. Those voices are floating in the air.”

  Clifton opened his mouth to say more, then realized he couldn’t think of a single worthwhile comment. The image on screen began to flicker, and break up intermittently.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Some kind of interference I—”

  They both saw it. A flicker of movement, a dark shape on the very periphery of the screen, and then the feed became static.

  “Grimshaw, get the feed back online. Do it now!” Clifton barked as Grimshaw fiddled with the controls.

  “I can’t.”

  “I thought you were the expert with these things. Get me a damn visual.”

  “It’s gone,” Grimshaw said, his skin pale.

  “I can see that. I want you to get it back.”

  “Not the feed,” Grimshaw said, turning towards Clifton. “The drone. It’s gone. Something destroyed it.”

  Clifton straightened and chewed his lip as he soaked in the information.

  “What are we going to do next, sir?” Grimshaw asked.

  “I need to make a phone call,” Clifton said as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. He waited until the line connected.

  “This is Clifton. Get me the President. We have a situation on our hands.”

  chapter seven

  After the sinkhole took the Partridge’s house, it stopped growing. Local government officials blockaded the area as a red-zone, restricting it as dangerous. Those who wished to stay could stay but at their own risk. Down the block and across the other side of the hole, Meredith stepped into the shower. She realized two things. Morgan would probably have to transfer to a new school, a problem compounded by the fact that she couldn’t afford leave due to her financial situation. Besides, this was her town. She had lived here for fifteen years so she knew the neighborhood. She was a part of the block.

  She grabbed a sponge and lathered her back and face. She scrubbed down to her crotch and wished all the hurt away under a jet of water. She sighed. After the incident at Morgan’s school, the teachers had held a staff meeting. They sent a round of invitations to all the parents of the kids who attended their school to discuss the evils of bullying. It was a staff meeting being held in the auditorium in three calendar days and Meredith was invited to voice her opinions on the matter, as if her opinions actually mattered.

  Her thoughts turned to Morgan, more specifically, what could be wrong with him. The past few nights she had spotted him in going in and out of the basement, humming an eerie tune. Since her son’s expulsion, she was trying to find any avenue to enlist him back to the school properties with no such luck. They were terrified of him.

  She asked herself if they might be right, and if there was something off about him. She had started to dream, awful terror inducing experiences in which cold fingers touched her, or heavy footsteps walked on floorboards upstairs. She thought she heard them when awake too, and yet whenever she would pluck up the courage to investigate, there was nothing there. For a time, she thought it was Morgan playing tricks on her. One night, she waited for the sounds to begin and raced upstairs, hoping to catch her son in the act, yet the hallway was empty and when she opened her son’s bedroom door he was sound asleep, snoring lightly. There were other dreams too.

  In one, she had received a packaged in a mail. The handwritten note said it was a present. She unwrapped it, slicing off the ribbons with scissors. The ribbons were made of wires looped around like bent paperclips. When she opened the box, the bomb went off, exploding in her face. She felt burning sensation crawl up her neck and cheeks as the blast seared her skin off. She ran out the house engulfed in flames. She was greeted by a horse and carriage. They were all black. Inside the stagecoach, a man in funeral attire appeared.

  As he grinned at her, she realized with sickening trepidation that is was her ex-husband who had taken his own life. A complete skeleton rode the carriage and gazed at her with a grin. His charred remains looked upon her, lower mandible unhinged and dropping open, revealing gleaming white teeth.

  An inhuman shriek cut through her like nails on a chalkboard, which was always the moment she sprang awake, twisting in her bed sheets. She looked around and settled down, heart thumping. She looked down at her legs and inhaled sharply. Across her skin, three deep marks slowly rose to the surface. They looked like scratch marks and drew blood that didn’t trickle.

  As she rinsed her hair, she tried to forget the nightmares which plagued her and instead turned her attention to matters closer to home, namely her fiancé.

  For the past week, she had barred him from seeing her. She needed the space and time away, a little breather, a little bit of time to think about what she really wanted. The simple, undeniable fact was that Donald Sheridan was becoming overbearing. He had taken control of almost every aspect of her life without her realizing it. When he needed help monetarily, she provided him the service, always lending out money to support him during the tough times. She wore what he suggested. She ate what he recommended. She slept with him when he wanted to sleep with her, even letting him do the dirty, painful things she didn’t even like. She even did her hair the way he wanted: long and with a ponytail. She ultimately helped him with the paperwork for his job search, typing out his minimal, stunted resume to a grandiose tribute. He had plentiful of work experience, she fibbed.

  Was it all worth it, though? It didn’t seem so.

  Maybe, Morgan was right about him Almost from the start he had voiced his disapproval about Don, and had pleaded with her not to have him over. She dismissed it at the time as the regular behavior of a child who was clinging protectively to his mother in a desperate attempt t
o keep her attention firmly on him. Guilt ran through her as cold as the shower water was hot, and she wondered if perhaps her son, as young as he was, had been right all along. Certainly, it was something which he deserved to be a part of as far as any decision about the future went. She would have a talk with Morgan, later today, after her shower.

  She shut off the valves and the sprinkle trickled to a dribble. The last drops of water dashed her feet while she stepped out of the stall. She stopped in her tracks, eyes bulging out of their sockets. She gaped at the mirror that had steamed over. But she wasn’t looking at her opaque reflection, but the words scrawled on it. It was written in big block letters, all capitalized, which said: PRAY TO YOUR GOD.

  II

  Jealousy inflamed Hanna’s thoughts. Whenever she saw her husband and that freakish child together, she kept dreaming about her own. They named him Gus, and he was a good boy. Then the horrible accident occurred in the corner of Liam’s and Maple Street as he waited for his school bus.

  She didn’t know the details about why the driver hadn’t seen the cluster of people standing there, but the truck had gone out of control and barreled into them. Her child was one of them and just like that, his life was extinguished. She supposed, she could thank God he died quick and painless, but the fact an all mighty generous God could take a child so early away from her—that was no God. He was cruel and unjust.

  The marriage became worse. Embry, who had all but quit for their firstborn, took up smoking again. She hated it. They tried conceiving again, but the thought of their second child being taken away scared her so bad, she deliberately made sure she couldn’t anymore. She had her tubes tied. Her husband never knew, so whenever he talked about having another baby (or tried inseminating one, implanting his seed) he was sure he would have one. But to his chagrin, the outcome never produced the desired effects because Hanna never told him the truth.

  Eventually, Embry started drinking again, just as she feared. She spent most of her time with her sister and mother, in the apartment down the street. They told her to work at it. If something’s broken, you have to try and fix it. Don’t give up. Embry’s a good guy, just lost.