We Sold Our Souls

by Grady Hendrix

  A flashlight beam nailed her in the face. Kris flinched away.

  “You little faker,” Miranda purred in the darkness behind the blinding light. “You’re going to regret—”

  That was all it took for Kris to take aim. Her guitar gave her three extra feet of reach. She jabbed it forward and glass shattered and the flashlight went out. There wasn’t room in the hall to swing her guitar to the side, so Kris brought it straight up, then down, onto something soft.

  In the dark, she saw a doubled-over shadow, blacker than the air around it, and Kris brought her guitar down on it again. The shadow dropped to the floor and didn’t move. Kris gave it a kick, just to be sure.

  She felt along the wall until she found the spot where she remembered there had once been the blue door. She braced her legs and gripped her guitar by the neck, one hand near its body, the other close to its head. The wall was smooth and perfect and solid. For a moment she hesitated—Bill had said that they filled the basement in. Then she remembered that they were all liars, and she brought the edge of her axe down.

  She swung her guitar twice, three times, four. Its body punched ovals in the dry wall, and then the wall began to break, and fold, and cave in. Kris’s wasted muscles screamed as she bashed away at it. The cold leeched the strength from her arms and thighs, her calves cramped. Her palms blistered and tore, her shoulders vibrated down to the marrow with every blow.

  But finally, the edge of a door emerged. Kris turned on the light from Miranda’s cell phone, and through the clotted dust and rubble, she saw the edge of the old ’70s doorframe. She turned off the phone and kept swinging.

  She grabbed the drywall with cramped hands, and tore it out in sheets, dropping it to pile up in the hall. Kris stood on the pile and kicked the wall, she slashed at it with her guitar, she punched through it, and finally, she saw it: the Blue Door.

  Kris didn’t feel foggy. She felt hungry and sharp like she’d finally remembered the name of that song, finally dislodged that piece of food between her teeth, finally completed the puzzle.

  In the light of the phone, the paint was so faded the door was barely blue anymore. They’d taken off the key plate and the knob and walled it up, but it was still here, buried behind the Witch House walls, waiting. She braced herself and jammed her guitar forward. The body bashed into the blue door and its hinges gave way, and with a massive, tearing crash it sheared off and crashed down the dark stairs.

  Her guitar’s center of gravity suddenly shifted and the neck split with a tearing crack, separating from the body. It was twisted and ruined, barely held together by three strings. But it had done its job. It had helped Kris escape, first Gurner, then her long sleep, and now Well in the Woods. She kissed it, getting plaster dust in her mouth, and laid it in the rubble. Then Kris went through the door and down the stairs. They were dark and stained, and they led underground, into the basement, back where it all began.

  HOWARD PEARS: Rights issues keep Suzy and I from playing you a recording of Dürt Würk’s Troglodyte, but because of its place in heavy metal history, we need to describe it to our listeners.

  SUZY BAUM: It’s this very mystery that has made it such a legendary recording. But those who’ve heard it reveal the truth behind the legend—it’s not very good. The production quality is lacking, the musical technique is somewhat lackluster, and the lyrics can best be described as juvenile.

  HOWARD PEARS: And yet this recording exerts a unique fascination, holding your attention despite the very problems that Suzy describes. Its internal mythology indicates more than it states, implies more than it explains, and obscures more than it reveals.

  SUZY BAUM: There’s a constant sense that there is always some bigger picture just out of sight, hidden behind yet another curtain, that what we are hearing is only the tip of the iceberg.

  —BBC Radio 3, “The Story of Music in One Hundred Pieces”

  June 14, 2019

  it by Miranda’s cell phone, the basement was smaller and dirtier than Kris remembered—a bare, concrete cube. Rust streaked the low white wall around the mouth of the well where the plywood cap still rested. She only had a minute before someone showed up and saw the smashed hole in the wall, the torn drywall filling the hall, her shattered guitar. They would be here soon.

  Kris limped to the well. The cap was a big sheet of blue plywood braced by two-by-fours, and someone had drilled eyebolts into each of its four sides. Chains hung down to four rings embedded in the concrete. Four open padlocks lay in the filth on the floor. With effort, Kris shoved the lid aside, just a crack, and exposed the dark shaft. The cold smell of graveyard dirt blasted up out of the well and hit her square in the face as she leaned over the mouth, the phone’s harsh light showing the grubby cylinder of the well’s interior. Rusty rebar rungs ran down into the gloom. Kris flipped one leg over the lip of the well, found the rebar with her foot, and brought her other leg over. She scraped her stomach on the concrete edge of the well, her back on the plywood, and then she pulled the cover back in place over her head and descended into the well.

  Her arms shook with exhaustion. She had to force her torn palms to grab each rebar rung, but she kept going. The rungs bruised the bottoms of her feet through the flimsy soles of her soaking-wet shoes. By the time her feet touched the concrete bottom, she was so deep in the earth that all sound had been sucked away except for the quiet, hollow rumble of air rising through the well. Kris lit Miranda’s phone and saw there was only sixteen percent left on its battery. By the base of the well, a glossy clay pipe about three feet wide jutted from the wall, facing another just like it on the opposite wall. These must have been what carried the water from the underground river and drained it away again.

  Above her, shouts echoed down the well. They were already in the basement. Kris’s heart sped up, her breath tightened. She had to hide, but there was nowhere to go. The pipes were too small. There was no way she could fit. The plywood above her scraped a bit, then dropped back into place, punching her in both eardrums. There was rattling noise, and scraps of flashlight flickered on the underside of the plywood cap. They were going to look down the well.

  She had no choice. Kris squatted, and stuck her head into one of the pipes. It was clear, except for a line of soil along the bottom. Above her, the plywood cover gave a longer scrape. Kris turned off Miranda’s phone and slid it into her pants, raised her arms over her head, and forced herself to slide into the pipe, just as the plywood cap was dragged to one side and crashed to the floor.

  Kris rocked her hips from side to side, hands extended in front of her like a diver, dragging herself by her raw palms. The balls of her feet pushed her forward, then left the well floor, and she slithered ahead until she was completely inside the pipe. She stopped—just out of sight, she hoped. She wanted to look back, but when she tried to turn her head it hit the solid side of the pipe.

  All she had to do was stay put, and stay calm. Against her will, she started to pant. She would have to get that under control. Suddenly, there was a hollow crash, then metal rattled, twice, three times, four. They’d put the cap back on and locked the chains. Kris thrashed for a minute, but couldn’t get any leverage to move backward, and her heart beat so hard it thumped against the pipe. Another boom, then another. They were stacking something heavy on top of the cap. Then silence. They’d sealed her in.

  Kris tried to reverse out of the pipe, but her butt couldn’t rise up high enough to inchworm back. She was stuck.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she moaned.

  She wanted to scream and stretch and thrash but the pipe clamped tight around her. This was going to be her coffin. Down where the worms squirmed. It was the next song on Troglodyte, and she tried to focus on its lyrics, tried to replay them in her head to distract herself from her rising panic.

  Black Iron Mountain is cold, cold, cold

  It started like a sea shanty.

  B
lack Iron Mountain is cold, cold, cold

  The language they speak is old, old, old

  And their lies are made out of gold

  Kris repeated it to herself. She couldn’t look up because there was no room to raise her head before it hit the ceiling of the pipe. Her shoulders rested against either side of the pipe. She wiggled her hips, and dragged herself by her palms, and pushed with her toes, and slid forward an inch. She did it again.

  Black Iron Mountain is cold, cold, cold

  And again.

  The language they speak is old, old, old

  And again.

  And their lies are made out of gold

  And again.

  Kris shivered in the freezing dark. She imagined rain falling far above her, and then heard Bill’s dry drum solo that kicked off the first verse of “Down Where the Worms Squirm.”

  Welcome to my dark places

  Coffins pickling in the dark

  Surrounded by blind faces

  Their minds bear his evil mark

  Inch forward. Inch forward. Inch forward.

  All I know is what they tell me

  A cat screams inside my brain

  And miles above my coffin

  Iron skies spit iron rain

  Troglodyte was still right. It was raining and she was trapped inside a coffin. But she couldn’t die yet because there were four songs left to go. Then Kris’s fingers struck a solid wall. She couldn’t lift her head to see, so she pushed, she scraped, she pressed, and discovered that the pipe ended.

  Instinctively, Kris tried to back up and her shoulders wedged solidly in the pipe. There was no give. In the darkness, something brushed against the sole of her right shoe, and Kris tried to jerk her leg away but only succeeded in jamming her knee under herself, shoving her butt tight against the top of the pipe. She was a cork in a bottle.

  The chorus came blasting into her brain.

  Down where the worms squirm

  Down where the blood churns

  Down where the pain burns

  In my dark places

  Buried with the worms

  She was buried with the worms. That’s all. It was only a song. She was only an actor in a video. She took three breaths, not too deep, then imagined her right leg muscles relaxing, and slowly stretched that leg out behind her, cautiously, ready to yank it back if something touched it again. She spread her arms apart, laying the side of her face on the dirt at the bottom of the pipe, and felt the walls. Her right arm ran up the smooth, hard curve of the pipe, but her left found air: the pipe didn’t end, it took a forty-five-degree turn.

  Kris got stuck making the turn, crumpling her lungs into a position where they couldn’t expand, and her body stopped bending. She made herself focus on the words:

  Black Iron Mountain is cold, cold, cold

  The language they speak is old, old, old

  And their lies are made of gold

  She could go two minutes without air; this was going to be okay. She forced herself to relax. Her shoulders and the base of her neck came unstuck and she slid forward again. She stretched to full length and began the next verse of “Down Where the Worms Squirm” as she rocked forward, inching down the pipe.

  Iron rain is falling

  On the bodies of the slain

  The Blind King keeps calling

  Trapped inside a coffin made of pain

  A hollow moan echoed down the pipe from up ahead and Kris froze. It sustained, unchanging, and she made herself inch forward again. The moan turned into a howl and Kris felt cold air blowing on her hands, and suddenly, her hands couldn’t feel floor anymore. The pipe opened into space. Kris pulled herself out, walking her hands forward on rough ground, gasping with relief. Her feet fell out of the pipe and she squatted, pulled out Miranda’s phone, and turned on the flashlight. She was in a rocky wasteland, a small cave, where water once flowed. The river must have been sealed further up. Across the cave, a jagged tunnel of rocks headed downhill beneath a low ceiling, but she could just make it if she hunched over at her waist.

  Kris pulled herself over the loose rocks, inching downhill. The phone was at nine percent battery but she had to keep it on to watch where she put her feet so she wouldn’t twist an ankle.

  Everything you said you wanted

  Rots and falls apart

  In the kingdom of the Blind King

  He eats your aching heart

  At first it was hard to tell that the roof was getting lower, but now the rocks she climbed over were only two feet from the dirt ceiling. Lacy roots hung down like dead hair. Now the ceiling was one foot away, and she crawled over the rocks on her belly like a lizard, phone in one hand.

  The battery was at seven percent. She wondered if she’d made the wrong decision, if she should have chosen the other tunnel, or taken her chances with Bill. Maybe by the time she discovered it was a dead end, it would be too late. The walls were getting tighter, slowly bending toward each another like a funnel.

  Down where the worms squirm

  Down where the blood churns

  Down where the pain burns

  In my dark places

  Buried with the worms

  The phone was at six percent when she came to the point where she had to decide: headfirst or feetfirst. After this, she’d be crawling through a rock tube too narrow to turn around in. She went with headfirst, diving into the heart of the mountain, arms outstretched in front of her. Dirt rained down where her back brushed the ceiling, rough rocks tore her hands, her elbows and knees bled. The mountain closed its fist, squeezing her tight.

  Finally, she stopped crawling. Before her, the ceiling and floor sandwiched together until they were barely two fists high. She couldn’t turn around. The phone was at four percent. She took a look at the lay of the land and realized this flat gap went on for a while. She shut off the phone and stuck it in her pants. In the cold darkness, she felt the weight of the entire mountain pressing down on her. Kris turned her skull sideways and it barely fit. She lay flat on her stomach and starfished, spreading her arms and legs out as much as possible, and slid forward, walking her whole body on her chest, fingers, toes, and the side of her face. She inched forward, inched forward again, her left ear filling with dirt, and then the rock slammed shut and snapped her between its jaws. Stuck.

  The top of the cave pressed down on her back. The floor pressed up on her chest. Her lungs couldn’t fully inflate. She couldn’t even open her mouth to wet her chapped lips.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Through the darkness his worms swarm

  Black water flooding their black caves

  This rage I’m feeling is a cold storm

  Drowning all his slaves

  Kris couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. She thought they were closed. She pulled a small breath low into her belly, feeling her stomach press against the rock floor and her shoulder blades press against the ceiling. She took another breath. Then another. She waited, she felt her blood flow slower, her muscles relax.

  Let the sky come down

  Wash everything away

  Worms scream underground

  I no longer feel afraid

  She could bend her right arm some, but her left arm was stuck, wedged tight by her body weight. She swung her right arm slowly back and forth from her shoulder, like a windshield wiper. Her fingertips walked the rock in front of her. There was a gap there, a crack in the rock through which warm air blew. If it was wide enough, and not a fatal inch too low, she might make it.

  Constricting her muscles, Kris slithered forward and the ceiling bent her left ear backward. She wrapped her right palm over the lip of the gap. She tried to get her left arm into it and her elbow felt like it was going to pop out of its socket and then, with a lurch, it was in. Bo
th hands on the lip, she pulled. The rock took skin off her back, stomach, and the tops of her thighs, but she slid into the hole up to her waist, and then toppled forward into space, bruising both knees, landing hands first in mud. The stench of animal musk made her eyes water. She stood in mud up to her knees. She’d lost one of her shoes and her right foot was bare in the hot muck. Instantly she felt her pants leg moving. Shoving her hand into her pants, Kris pulled out the phone and turned it on, and wished she hadn’t.

  She stood in another small cave, and the floor was covered in bat shit up to her knees, giving off eye-searing waves of ammonia. Its surface seethed with a glistening black carpet of bugs. Rocks raised their sharp heads above the guano like icebergs. Kris forced herself to look up. Four inches above her head, the ceiling rustled with a swaying carpet of soft-bodied bats. One woke and turned its blind eyes toward her, mouth open in a silent scream, showing tiny white teeth like needles. Kris brushed bugs from her legs. Their chitinous hooks nipped at her palms. She made herself turn off the phone and put it in her pants again. With a shock, Kris found that even with the phone off, she could still make out the dim outline of the cave. There was light up ahead.

  She sloshed forward and prayed the light wasn’t coming from a hole too high to reach. Beneath her, beetles crunched, pinched their way up the backs of her knees, her thighs, clung to her waistband, her belly. Her feet were warm in the guano and rocks shredded their skin. She bounced her kneecap off a rock and fell forward, putting her arms out, and went up to her shoulders in bat shit. A centipede clung to her chin. She pushed herself up, and felt the top of her head brush several bats and send them swaying. One of their soft, hot bodies dropped onto her shoulder, and she slapped it away. It squished under her hand, and its sharp teeth tore into the ball of her thumb like a razor blade, and hung there for a moment as she shook her arm frantically. Then it was gone. Warm velvet and leather slapped past her face. Kris fought the urge to scream. She slogged forward faster.