Underground

by Craig Spector

  And then his fascination became horror as he saw the bodies in the flames.

  Oh my God, Seth gasped. They’re still moving…

  There were hundreds of them trapped within the barn, writhing and twisting as the fire consumed them. Men, women, children: still alive, eternally dying, caught in the grip of an inferno. His senses scrambled, he could smell their suffering and taste their terror. He could not move, could not turn or look away.

  Seth watched as their screams melded with the smoke roiling upward. It became a cloud, began to swirl. All around him, leaves and twigs and tiny stones tumbled into its center and swept up into the gathering mass. A funnel began to appear. Corkscrewing inward.

  Moving inexorably toward him.

  Seth instinctively ran and dove for cover behind Justin’s car as the whirlwind gained strength, a swirling vortex like a tornado tearing through the manor's drive. As the howl of the wind reached its peak, he suddenly heard the thunder of horses and looked up to see ghostly riders flitting in and out of the vortex, wraith-like, eyes glowing red. The ghost riders thundered past him, and the whole mad vision disappeared, swirling, into the night sky.

  He stood, stunned. Fuck me, he gasped, then turned to see Simon standing way too close. Even in the shadows, Seth could see that something was very wrong with Simon’s face.

  Hey, bro, Simon said. Like the show?

  Before Seth could say a word, Simon stabbed him once, then twice in the chest.

  Justin carried Mia up the stairs, looking for a place where she could feel safe. The walls looked skewed now, the mirrors yielding funhouse refractions, distorted and grotesque. As he made his way down the hallways, the walls seemed to expand and contract, bowing out toward him, then sucking back. Like they were breathing. He knew it wasn’t real, that the walls were still walls, mere wood and plaster and paint. It didn’t matter.

  Justin? Mia murmured. Her voice was a thin wisp. I’m s-scared…

  You’re okay, Justin whispered. You’re okay…

  He found an open door leading to the master bedroom. A large canopy bed dominated the dimly lit interior; Justin laid Mia down gently on the musty covers.

  Just then, they heard Amy screaming. Mia looked at him, her pupils huge and black.

  Go, she said.

  Justin looked at her, heartbroken and torn. He nodded and promised he would be right back. At the door he paused. Mia looked at him.

  I love you, she said.

  Justin nodded, not realizing it was the last time he would hear her say those words.

  Justin found Amy huddled on the stairs, shaking, her eyes wild, hands clutching at her ears.

  The women, Amy said. In the attic… they’re screaming…

  She looked at Justin: it was clear that he couldn’t hear it.

  They’re screaming, she said again and again

  C’mon, Justin said, helping her up. We’re getting out of here.

  Back in the master bedroom Mia rose on unsteady legs, moving toward the door.

  Justin? She called out. Justin?

  Someone appeared in the doorway: not Justin but Simon, eyes showing bloodshot white, flesh dangling in bloody streamers from his skull. The bloody knife hung dripping in his hand.

  Mia screamed and fell back as Simon began to hack and slash and slice, his gruesome choreography reflected over and over in the mirrors that filled every wall. Blood and screams filled the air, spattered the glass, as the knife flashed up and down, back and forth. As his arm came up to deliver the killing blow, Justin ran in, howling in rage and hammering Simon with every ounce of strength he possessed. Simon spun, overwhelmed by the sheer brute force of the impact. The knife slashed, catching Justin in the face. The others appeared in the doorway, aghast and horrified.

  In the tumult, Simon lost his grip on the girl. Mia wrenched away, off balance, and pitched headlong into one of the mirrors…

  …and they watched in horror as Mia fell toward the mirror, saw the glass ripple and go dark a split second before impact, saw dark hands come out to snatch her and pull her through.

  Simon screamed and attempted to follow. But it was too late; the portal had already closed. The possessed boy went headlong into an unforgiving surface, impaling himself on a hundred jagged shattering shards. The Great Night fled, leaving Simon to die, choking on his own blood. Leaving the others as shaken witnesses to the impossible.

  And leaving Justin, blinded by loss and pain, crawling through the wreckage, searching for his lost love.

  14

  They never convinced the authorities of what had happened. The Custis family clamped down hard on the burgeoning scandal, sparing no expense to spin it into a Just Say No cautionary tale for wayward youth. The manor was closed, and after a suitable period of lying low, vast amounts of Custis money were quietly spent restoring and reclaiming it, and rewriting its history.

  The mystery of Mia and what happened to her was central, and only deepened as their manic explanations strained all pretense of reality: pushed to the frayed edge of explanation, and despite the fevered protestations of her parents, Mia was officially labeled ‘missing’, the case left open but unresolved. Rumors raged and alternate explanations abounded: maybe a runaway, maybe brain-damaged and lost, maybe a secretly freaky little good girl gone bad. A reward for information on her whereabouts was established but never claimed. The story, lacking in a plausibly satisfying ending, eventually dried up, and the good intentions of concerned community moved on to other things. And the machineries of reason set about to assigning blame.

  Josh spent years bouncing in and out of private psychiatric care, kept drugged and off balance for so long that sometimes he almost believed he was crazy. And, of course, in certain respects he was; by then, the damage had taken its toll. But that still didn't change the facts. He knew what they'd seen. For Josh, the veil had been parted forever. And he was determined to learn what it meant.

  Amy too spent time in and out of psych wards and drug rehabs, as well as diving into every metaphysical study she could get her hands on. Like Josh, she was way beyond denial; she knew exactly what she'd seen… or, more specifically, heard.

  Because she still heard them: the voices of the dead. That night had torn open her spirit somehow, left her unable to screen out their desperate cries or ignore the terrible desolation of their plight. She heard them as she walked down the street, stood in line at the grocery store, lay alone in her room at night. It was like a door had been pried open in the back of her mind, letting the voices come pouring in.

  Seth took years to fully recover. The wounds he had suffered had punctured a lung and damaged his spleen beyond repair; surgery saved his life but effectively ended any thoughts of playing pro ball, and the agonizing struggle to regain control of his mind and body proved a constant reminder of what he had lost. And sometimes late at night, when all was quiet and he closed his eyes to sleep, he saw flames flitting into tormented neon sky, bodies writhing and crying out in voices seared by the unholy pyre, and heard the thunder of horses whipped by ghostly riders. He worked graveyard shifts and kept vampire hours, sleeping fitfully, and only when the sun was up. And prayed to God one day it would stop.

  Of them all, Caroline alone flat-out refused to admit she'd seen anything or remembered anything at all. Nine months later, she had a more indelible reminder: a baby girl. She told no one who the father was, not even Josh… especially not Josh. She spent the better part of the next twenty years drifting through bad relationships with even badder men, raising her daughter single-handedly and fiercely striving for some semblance of the normal life that she hoped could save her from what she'd seen, and what she could never hope to unsee.

  And Justin…

  As with all good cautionary tales for wayward youth, it was decided that someone had to pay… at least, someone still breathing. Justin took the rap in the manslaughter case of Simon Baxter, and for conspiring with him to provide the drugs. The charges put him squarely in the grip of a system whose job it
was to grind him down to a nub, and he took it seemingly without a fight. The loss of Mia had completely pulled his plug, disconnecting him from his heart; it was as if his spark had gone out somehow. He took his punishment stoically, without complaint — it paled in the end to the infinitely greater damnation he visited upon himself.

  But in the end the question lingered: what actually happened? They had only fractured images and nightmares: of ghostly riders at war in a whirlwind, of the screams of lost and tortured souls. Of blood and suffering. All of their lives had been shattered, both inside and out.

  And for twenty years, they had been unable to face the truth.

  Until it was forced upon them.

  15

  The freshly reunited Underground was understandably upset when, in the midst of their grieving reminiscence, Josh informed them that Justin wasn't exactly dead.

  “If he's not dead”, Seth stepped in, “then who's in the goddamned box?”

  Before Josh could answer, Seth stormed to the front of the church. He wrenched open the lid and stared, aghast. Caroline and Amy followed behind him, reached the coffin, and peered over the rim.

  “Oh God,” they gasped. The others followed and stared, stunned. Justin's severed hand lay on the satin lining. As they watched, the fingers clutched weakly.

  “I'm sorry I had to do it this way,” Josh said from behind them. “But you wouldn't have come if I told you the truth. You had to see it for yourselves.”

  “This is bullshit!” Seth roared, and whirled to confront him. Josh stood his ground, unwavering.

  “I wish it was,” Josh said. “But it's time to face what we know, what no one else has ever believed… what we haven’t wanted to believe ourselves.”

  “Meaning what?” Seth demanded.

  Suddenly the woman at Josh’s side spoke. “Meaning, Justin is still alive. He’s just crossed over.”

  Caroline looked at her skeptically. “And you are…?”

  “My name is Joya Hayes,” she said, “and I’m here to help you.”

  “We don’t need your help,” Caroline said caustically.

  “Yes, you do.” Joya stepped up, her gaze pinning Caroline, piercing and sharp. “The place you all stumbled upon that night is a nightmare, but it’s not a dream,” she told them. “It exists in a realm between this world and the next. It has no name, but we call it Underworld. And your friend is there.”

  Silence reigned as the impossibility of it all sank in. “It’s true,” Josh added. “Justin went over, but something went wrong. And now we have to get them out.”

  It was Zoe who finally spoke, her eyes blazing with a light that suggested that, danger and strangeness and all, this was the most exciting thing she'd ever seen.

  “You said ‘them,’” she noted. “Who else is there?”

  Josh looked at them all. And then began to explain.

  PART TWO

  MIDDLE PASSAGE

  16

  Just south of Tidewater, Virginia — outside the tourist-ridden, overbuilt environs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and the smaller, cozier confines of Stillson Beach — lay some three hundred square miles of pine scrub and peat bog originally surveyed by the young George Washington and aptly christened the Great Dismal Swamp.

  At the heart of the swamp, where the sea crept in to feed the dark waters of Lake Drummond, the terrain was particularly inhospitable, eerie and bleak. It was home to copperheads, mosquitoes, and countless creeping or buzzing things. The Indians who first hunted the tidal plains gave it a wide berth. Most who ventured into its depths never came back; those who did were invariably half-mad, babbling stories of dead souls blind and suffering in the still black pools and quicksandlike bogs.

  It was a brooding and powerful place, but for centuries it was kept in check by its relative isolation, sustaining itself by feeding upon the natural world or gobbling the occasional hunting party.

  And then the white man came.

  The settlers heard the legends, but for the most part they considered them ignorant native superstition. It was the New World, after all, and land was land. It was all up for grabs… and ultimately ripe for the likes of ruthless and greedy colonial hustlers like Silas Custis.

  Custis was an instinctive opportunist. He began his career as a factor from London, who as a young man found himself employment on the Gold Coast at the main base at Cape Coast Castle, which operated under the charter of the governor, a nephew of the Duke of York. Their principal stock in trade was human flesh: African slaves, to build the New World.

  Custis was long on ambition and short on scruples, but in marked contrast to the majority of his ilk, he was not uneducated or void of foresight, was not careless, prodigal, or addicted to strong drink and driven by an attraction to debauchery with native women. Rather, quite the opposite: Silas was sanctimonious, stern, and vain, coldly charming yet quietly desperate for status and tirelessly obsessive in pursuit of his goals. He studied well the workings of the factory on the cape: cosseting the wealthy caboceers and corpulent Governor’s Council, currying the favor of the sundry merchants, scribes, artificers and soldiers who manned the vast hive complex of iron and wood and stone. And though his salary of seventy-five pounds per annum sounded tolerable, even princely, for a young man by Leadenhall Street standards, the Cracka scrip issued by the General Office was worthless outside the domain of the Company, and the limitations to ambition filled him with a profound determination to rise above his station.

  Silas thus resolved to become not merely proficient but expert in all facets of his chosen trade. He studied the optimum timing of a cargo, which depended as much on chance as good planning and heavily upon the various fanciful humours of the Negroes, whose survival would make great demands upon one voyage for a commodity — stewed yams for cargo taken from the Bight of Biafra, or plantains for the Congolese or Angolans — which might then be roundly rejected on the very next voyage. He learned the peculiarities of the flow of trade on voyages, and that the windward and leeward sides of the coast were as much opposite in their demands as in their distance — that iron bars not at all desired at the Leeward Coast were much in demand at Windward, along with crystals, corals, molasses, and brass-mounted cutlasses; that brass pans from Rio Sesthos fetched high mark in Apollonia, while Callabar seemed always to have need of cowrie shells, copper, and tobacco; and of course, the near-universal appetite for arms, gunpowder, tallow, wool and cotton of all denominations, and of course rum and good English spirits to lubricate the frayed nerves of empire.

  Silas became skilled in the multitudinous corruptions that infused and infected every aspect of the circuit: shipping watered rum, faulty iron bars, and aged flintlocks that often as not blew up in the hands of the African traders who acquired them, while guarding against their own tendency to pay back in gold dust diluted with copper and brass filings in return. His skill and ruthless attention to the fattened purses of his betters eventually earned him favor in the eyes of the Governor General, who came to rely upon Custis and eventually appointed him chief administrator.

  But Silas learned to profit from the facilitation of trade not merely for the sake of his masters: he paid bribes in silver and took kickbacks in gold, quietly amassing the means of his ascension. In time, his contacts spanned both sides of the Atlantic: on the Gold, Slave, Grain, and Ivory coasts, from Fort James at the Gambia River through Fernando Po and Old Calabar down to Cabinda at the mouth of the treacherous Congo; to the bustling docks of London, Bristol, and Liverpool; to the cane plantations of Jamaica and the Leeward Islands of the British West Indies; and of course, to the burgeoning American colonies, where Silas’s keen instinct told him his future invariably lay.

  Business boomed. Too well, in fact. By the mid-seventeen hundreds the colonial slave trade had burgeoned beyond all expectation, with over sixty thousand souls a year flooding into Virginia and the Carolinas alone, one hundred thousand or more to the colonies as a whole. But with this flood of commerce came problems: as demand outstri
pped supply, his associates were increasingly hard pressed to find adequate — much less suitable — stock. Silas was expert at the sorting — he knew that those of the Gold Coast, Gambia, and the Windward points were most highly prized, the Fanti, Ashanti, and Coromantees being cleanest of limb and judged more docible than others, the irony being that they were also more apt to revenge and murder the instruments of their slavery, given half a chance, and were more clever in their machinations.

  Conversely, he knew that from the Leeward side and on into the interior the quality shifted steadily for the worse: the Ibibio and Efiks from eastern Nigeria being gentle but prone to melancholy, and hence to suicide when their fate became too much for them, and an Angolan Negro was considered a veritable proverb for worthlessness, except as compared perhaps to a Hottentot. He knew of the tendency of Whydah slaves toward smallpox and afflictions of the eye, whereas Windward cargo fell more heavily prey to influenza and venereal taint, most often courtesy of their European enslavers.

  But as time passed, too many of the cargo were simply too proud, too wild, or too unwilling to submit. They were difficult and expensive to handle. They corrupted the others and gnawed relentlessly at profits. Indeed, apart from the inevitable spoilage of the Middle Passage, many of their captive cargo seemed to actually prefer death, even one lost in roiling waves and feasted on by seagoing scavengers, to the life of bondage and misery that awaited them. Worse yet was the ever-present threat of death wish and fixed melancholy suddenly exploding outward in mutiny or outright and violent revolt, the distinct possibility of which extended throughout the journey and long beyond the arrival of cargo to market, and never really went away.

  As a matter of business, this quickly became intolerable. Prices ratcheted inexorably upward, until by 1756 a single African man of good limb and docile disposition fetched the bartered equivalent of one hundred and fifteen gallons of rum, with a woman of breedable age a comparative bargain at ninety-five.