Descending: A Gina Harwood Novel (The Gina Harwood Series Book 2)

by Indi Martin

  “To the graveyard?” ventured Morgan.

  “I don’t know how to build a bone compass,” countered Gina. “Do you?”

  “I can guess it at least requires bone,” he replied. “And we can wake her up once the digging’s done.”

  Chaz considered this. “I’ll call in for the cemetery to be emptied, just in case,” he said. “Don’t want people to think we’re graverobbers.”

  “Well, we kind of are,” replied Gina, uncomfortable with the idea. “But I guess it makes sense to get it done quickly. Let’s go.”

  35

  “I can’t take much more of this,” whispered Nathan. His legs were drawn up and his dark-circled, wide eyes reminded Chris of a raccoon.

  Shaken, Chris agreed. They had only stopped for a fill-up and to buy a bunch of snack food inside. Nathan pumped the gas, refusing to go near people if he could help it, while Chris grabbed a small basket and filled it with every conceivable form of food - from junk food like chips and jerky, to loaves of bread and cans of soup, whatever the small convenience store had in stock. He didn’t care what it was, but wanted to limit their contact with people going forward. It hadn’t gone well so far.

  Screams of anguish and terror had made Chris run outside, basket still in hand. He had found Nathan, weeping, in the driver’s seat begging him to hurry and get in the car. Behind him, a man was walking out toward the traffic, ablaze in flames. “I couldn’t stop him,” Nathan had sobbed. “He just poured the gasoline over himself and…”

  Nathan had driven them down the highway, but stopped at the first rest area, parking well away from any other cars or big rigs. He had sat on a picnic table in the chilly wind and refused to budge. He still hadn’t moved from his spot.

  “Chips?” asked Chris, offering him the bag of Doritos.

  “You didn’t even pay for those,” accused Nathan.

  “Sorry, a dude was on fire,” replied Chris, but he flinched at the callousness in the words. He looked at the chip in his fingers and dropped it back into the bag, folding the open top closed with a sigh.

  “People keep getting hurt, Chris,” said Nathan.

  “I know.”

  “It’s our fault.”

  “I know.”

  “We have to turn ourselves in.”

  Chris let out a ragged breath. “But we haven’t DONE anything,” he wailed. “We haven’t done a single thing to anyone!”

  Nathan shrugged and buried his head in his knees. “Doesn’t matter,” he answered.

  “What if we could get away from people? We could go camp somewhere for a while, wait til this all passes over,” offered Chris.

  “What if it doesn’t ever pass over?”

  “Then we drive the van off of a cliff.”

  Nathan raised his head and looked at his friend. “Really?”

  Chris was disturbed at the glimmer of hope in Nathan’s eyes. “No, not really. We figure something else out.”

  “It’s too cold to camp.”

  “Not if we drive south,” answered Chris, flummoxed at Nathan’s apparent apathy as to whether he lived or died. “We drive south for the winter. Like snowbirds.”

  Nathan chuckled mirthlessly. “Sure, okay. Snowbirds.”

  “Ready?”

  “I don’t want to go the way we came,” insisted Nathan. “Nowhere near.”

  Chris considered this. “Okay, no problem,” he said, mentally calculating how much money they’d need in gas for the extra miles. “Sure. Let’s go.”

  Nathan dragged himself off of the bench and back toward the van, shuffling his feet, head down. Chris mused that he looked like a man walking to his own execution, but didn’t like the images that bubbled up from his subconscious to accompany the thought. Pushing them away, he walked beside his friend and tried to concentrate on the next leg of their journey.

  36

  “Should be this one over here,” called Chaz, turning a plot map of the graveyard this way and that. “I think…” He walked over two graves and found the headstone he was searching for: Harold Locke. “Got him! Over here!”

  “Great,” cheered Morgan, dropping a pile of shovels wrapped in a blanket onto the cold ground with a loud clang. “Let’s start digging.”

  “Seriously? I thought you were carrying those as a joke,” retorted Gina, walking over to inspect the headstone. “They dig graves with machines nowadays, you know.”

  “I know,” replied Morgan. “But the machines can only do so much. Then we have to do the rest.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” mumbled Gina.

  “Okay, let me get the guy over here,” said Chaz excitedly. “I’ve already made the calls, so he knows he’s to dig down to the casket and then vacate the premises.”

  “You’re very resourceful,” commented Gina. “Where did you learn how to do all this? You’ve called in the favors all day.”

  “It’s kind of my job,” boasted Chaz.

  “At twenty-two?” asked Morgan. “That’s awfully young to be tied at the hip to Unit 12.”

  Chaz glanced at him sidelong and ran towards the approaching machine, waving his hands in the air. “Touchy subject?” commented Gina.

  “Apparently.”

  The three of them watched as the machine operator made quick work of the grave, digging a nicely geometric hole about five feet deep. He worked in silence, with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. After his work was done, he deftly lit the cigarette and gave them a faux-salute before driving his machine back toward the sheds near the entrance. His time with them had been silent except for the sounds of the machine.

  “Did you include instructions for him not to talk to us?” asked Gina, nonplussed.

  “Nope, but I don’t think people usually like exhumings,” replied Chaz. “Who gets to wake up Charlie?”

  Morgan sighed and walked to the rover, carefully opening the back passenger door. “Hey, Charlie? You alright?”

  Charlie mumbled something and opened her eyes, looking angry to have to do so.

  “Harold Locke, we’re about to get to his casket. We need you.”

  “Ugh, I can’t think of anything worse to wake to,” she muttered. “Wake up, it’s time to get knee-deep in rotten human flesh.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’d be surprised if there were any flesh left,” offered Morgan.

  “Not helpful,” she replied, sitting up and holding her head.

  “Headache?”

  “Always.” Charlie waved him away and unwrapped the blanket, standing on unsteady feet outside the vehicle. “Lead on,” she ordered.

  Morgan walked to the hole and jumped in, motioning for Gina to toss him a shovel. To his credit, Chaz only hesitated a moment before grabbing his own shovel and joining Morgan in the grave. They shoveled aside dirt, quickly uncovering the simple, old casket. Shoving the point of the shovel under the lid, Morgan pried the lid up as Chaz pulled it from the other side.

  “Make room,” commanded Charlie, still rubbing her temples.

  Chaz and Morgan climbed out of the hole, each happy to be out of it. Charlie carefully lowered herself into the grave and extracted a small case from her jacket, containing a pair of needle nose pliers and a small bone saw. “This should only take a moment,” she said.

  “Gina! Get back!” Morgan’s hand flew to his sidearm and he grabbed Gina’s arm, roughly pulling her toward and then behind him. Shocked, Gina turned to see what had captured his attention, and she felt her knees threaten to give way. The beasts from her dream were here, circling them, phasing in and out of reality - no, maybe there was just one, flitting from one space to another, she couldn’t tell. Seeing them with conscious eyes was so much worse than in her dreams. Morgan fired one, two shots at the beast, but neither shot seemed to penetrate the pallid, sallow flesh, and it almost seemed to smile at him, it’s slimy snout sniffing the air over long, narrow fangs. “What is it?” yelled Morgan, a touch of panic to his voice.

  Gina found herself unab
le to answer, to speak, the mongrel’s eyes locked onto hers. Flick, a second, and it was gone. “Behind you!” screamed Chaz, cowering behind the headstone. Gina whipped her head around to see the creature, the hound, less than five feet from her. It’s hollow pants sounded like a low chuckle, and her hair stood on end. She commanded her legs to run, but the beast had her paralyzed somehow, its gaze locked on hers. She felt her knees give way, scraping against the earth as she fell to the ground, her fingers twitching with the need to reach for her firearm.

  Her view was obscured as Morgan stepped over her, between her prone body and the beast. He fired three more shots at near point-blank range, the gunshots ripping through the air and momentarily deafening Gina.

  “I’m almost done!” called Charlie, unable to see what was happening, but the force in her voice made it clear that the gunshots hadn’t escaped her notice.

  The awful maw widened to show rows of razor-sharp teeth, and a long proboscis-like tongue whipped out from within, undulating from side to side. The beast’s eyes drew up to meet Morgan’s, and Gina heard him take a sharp intake of breath, before his gun clattered to the ground next to her. In a heartbeat, she realized she had use of her limbs again, but her hand was already moving past her holstered gun and to her pocket. Instinctively, she reached for the talisman, which felt hot to the touch.

  With a snarl that sounded like fabric ripping, the beast’s tongue whipped up and wrapped around Morgan’s neck. His body instantly dropped to the ground.

  Gina threw the amulet at the beast with all the force she could muster, noting as it flew that it was glowing the same deep blue as it had in her dreams. It collided with the hound’s shank and the beast screamed, a fainting ululation that stopped all of them from breathing for a moment as the sound rippled through the night. The talisman exploded in pieces of fiery blue, and the beast seemed to draw in on itself, its scream warping into a fading howl of terror and pain as it blinked out of existence.

  “What the HELL was that THING?!” screamed Chaz, pulling his hair and staring wild-eyed at where the beast had stood.

  “Morgan,” whispered Gina, crawling to his body and turning him over. His eyes stared lifelessly past her at the night sky. “MORGAN!” she yelled, checking for a pulse. It was there, but it was very faint, and extremely slow. “Chaz, call an ambulance!” she cried out, as she rose to her knees and placed her hands on his chest.

  Blinking, Chaz mechanically fished out his cell phone and dialed 911.

  “What happened?” asked a bewildered Charlie Parker, covered in dirt after having scrabbled up the grave walls. Her case stuck out of her jacket pocket, presumably with the bone needle she was after inside, but Gina couldn’t care less.

  “Help him,” she begged, continuing her chest compressions. She didn’t know if Charlie could do anything, but she was willing to beg, if that’s what it took. She looked up into Charlie’s face, her eyes intense and panicked. “Don’t let him die.”

  Charlie kneeled next to Morgan and took over the chest compressions from Gina. Gina rubbed the palms of her hands, barely feeling the pain that throbbed in them. She touched his cheek softly, dismayed at its coldness.

  One will fall, she heard Esther Locke’s words in her head. Only you can save him, after he saves you.

  “What does it MEAN?” she hissed, letting her hand fall away from Morgan’s lifeless face.

  He will go to the place of dreaming.

  Gina’s eyes snapped up to the rover, and the world sparkled in clarity before her eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” she said, ignoring Charlie’s sputtering questions. She leapt to her feet and rushed Chaz, nearly knocking him over, fishing around in his pocket for the rover keys without asking. His indignant words washed over her like rain, and she sprinted for the SUV, keys in hand. “KEEP HIM ALIVE!” she yelled at Charlie. Leaping into the driver’s seat, she cranked the key and gunned the engine, squealing out of the graveyard.

  She knew where she had to go, and what she had to do.

  37

  “Victor!” Gina burst through the office door, breathing heavily from her flat-out sprint into the compound.

  The silver-eyed man stood ready, his white lab coat draped over his chair and the sleeves of his sharp grey shirt rolled to his elbows. He nodded sharply. “It has happened?” he asked, though there was little question to his tone.

  “You knew?” she spat. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Esther Locke warned you,” he replied. “I just was uncertain of when, or how, or whom. Though I assumed it would be Mr. Morgan. It seemed to be his character to do so.”

  “Take me under,” she commanded, uncaring of the harshness in her tone. She noticed that he had pulled in a chaise lounge and blankets, and her eyebrows shot up. “You are prepared,” she observed.

  “You are not,” sighed Victor. “And while I can help guide you to your sleep, I know very little of where you are going. I cannot help you beyond that door.”

  “I don’t care,” she replied, laying down on the lounge and drawing the blanket up around her. It was comfortable, but adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, and she hoped that Victor would be able to help her descend quickly.

  “You may die, Ms. Gina. This is no ordinary dream.”

  “Then I die,” she answered flippantly.

  “Please do try not to,” he crooned, rolling his chair forward. Her vision blurred and her eyelids sank, Victor’s silver eyes filling her mind’s vision. “I would be most upset.”

  ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼

  Gina woke with a start in her recliner, still feeling the heavy tingle of adrenaline coursing through her limbs, and stared at the hole in her apartment wall. “Fast work, Victor,” she commented, doubting that he could hear her. She stood, and her body felt light and lithe, the agility of dreaming. She did not wait for her tormentors to drive her towards the portal, though she doubted they would make an appearance anymore anyway; she crossed the living room with purposed stride, clambering through the hole and onto the staircase below. Trusting her memory, she ran down the stairway, several steps at a time, half-floating and half-falling in the way one can only do in dreams.

  The ancient men awaited her at the massive stone door, their cowled hoods rising in unison to look at her. Their wizened faces were as impassive as the stone they stood before, but their eyes gleamed coldly.

  “I will pass,” she stated categorically.

  The one who had introduced himself as Nasht raised a hand, in which glowed the blue talisman, identical to the one that had been destroyed in the battle with the shadow beast. “You are not ready,” he said, his baritone voice tinged with a hint of sadness.

  “And I don’t care. Open the door.”

  “What we do, we do for your protection,” rumbled the other. Gina met his eyes and locked her jaw. “You are not ready.”

  “Open. The Goddamn. Door,” she hissed.

  “Why do you wish to enter?” asked Nasht.

  “To save a friend,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Is your life worth his?” asked the nameless one.

  Gina didn’t even bother asking how they knew that her friend was a man. “Yes,” she answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because he gave his for mine,” she answered.

  Both men gestured in unison and the stone rumbled, sending clouds of iridescent dust spinning in all directions as the seemingly immovable gate opened inward. “Thank you,” she said as she began to walk forward.

  The unnamed guardian grabbed her arm in a flash, so quickly that she hadn’t seen him move. His skin was cold and hard, like marble. “You will die, Gina Harwood,” he informed her coldly, his eyes glittering dangerously.

  The two men lie, as most men do.

  “Yes,” she agreed, shaking his hand off of her and striding forward through the gate. “But not today.”

  FIN

  To Be Continued in

  Book Three of the Gina Harwood Series

 
;