I followed her eyes to the mock cemetery in the distance. I could see the fabricated tombstones and the main crypt where I had first entered the cavern. My beach towel remained just where I’d hung it on the Roman column above the door.
In the low-lying fog the first dim ray of sunlight broke through, and I could see shapes for the first time. Row upon row of figures—a greater number than I could estimate-- stood before us though trying as I might, I couldn’t focus on the faces, as each one was cast in shadow. The first ray of dawn struck their faces strangely, almost as if light itself refused to touch them.
Are these real people? I asked myself. Not one fit the traditional definition. They were all humanoid. All held of the semblance of humanity, yet something was off-center about every one of them. Most obviously was their height. All six or seven feet tall. All masculine in appearance. All muscular to the point of freakishness. Their physical perfection beyond the capability of any advanced muscle-enhancing pharmaceuticals.
If not for their appearance, one other aspect gave away their unearthly origins. Any large group of people gathered together would create ambient noise, even with their mouths shut. Yet these creatures were completely silent.
No shuffling of feet. No clearing of throats. No coughing. Not even the hitching of air through lungs. Nothing but eerie silence.
Then a thought occurred to me. Uncle Hank and Tracy had talked about the two hundred who had fallen at the beginning of time. Heavenly creatures. Cast out because of their betrayal of the Creator.
In that moment, I felt a fear that penetrated straight through to the marrow of my bones. I knew then what it felt like to be a small animal caught in an open space in the presence of predators.
Claudia clutched my arm in both of hers like a vise, her body quivering uncontrollably. I could feel her hot fearful breath in my ear. “What are they?”
They were the Unforgiven. The wretched. Rejected by even the Sun above them.
My hand instinctively reached into the pocket of my jacket and found my uncle’s Bible where I had safely stowed it. Something occurred to me. “This is wrong. They shouldn’t be here outside. That could only mean…”
I turned back to the hole, the dark substance pooling around it, and lowered my foot inside, steeling myself against the cold, clammy sensation that enveloped me.
Claudia seized my arms, trying to restrain me. “What are you doing?”
“Claudia, we’re not outside. It’s another illusion. We’re still inside the cavern,” I told her, pulling firmly out of her hand. “Trust me. I’ll be back for you.” Before she could protest, I took a deep breath and plunged fully into the foul-smelling murk.
I held my breath, not having enough faith in my theory to risk drowning. Instead, I listened. For a moment, all I heard was the beating of my heart in my ears, then slowly I detected something beyond that. It was the hallow drone of wind through a long chamber, something I had grown so used to since I’d been down in the cavern that I had simply tuned it out.
My confidence growing, I opened my eyes. The darkness was so complete that for a moment I was confused as to my orientation.
Was I descending steps or climbing up, I wondered?
Lips pressed tightly together, I hummed and immediately heard the sound echo around me. “Hello!” I called into the darkness. A sense of déjà vu swept over me as I recalled the dream I’d had of calling for Claudia inside the House. The echo of my own voice returned to me. Then I heard a second sound, muffled, as if from a great distance, coming from below me.
Carefully, I bent my knees and stretched my arms out to their full length, feeling the stone steps below me.
Or were they above me?
I eased forward and suddenly, the steps abruptly ended and I felt another hand grasp mine. So unexpected was the feeling of another warm hand in the cold passage, that I instinctively pulled back in surprise.
“Paul,” a wavering masculine voice called to me as if sent through a pipe half filled with sludge, and suddenly, I saw a circle of distorted blue light--like viewing the sky from the bottom of a swimming pool—and the dark silhouette of a head and shoulders that I knew belonged to my father. The figure reached down and a strong hand searched for a handhold around my wrist.
Then I remembered Claudia and I pulled away again.
“Wait for Claudia!” I screamed with all energy I could muster and then behind me, as if she were standing only a few feet away, I heard Claudia’s voice again, call clearly to me: “Paul!”
I reached out and found her hand awaiting mine in the darkness and for a moment, flashed back to our bike trip to the cemetery. In the emptiness of the void, we connected again and she pulled me up and out.
I emerged from the hole completely disoriented. The sky above me was crimson and the heat of flames scorched my skin. Two female figures huddled together protectively beside the hole, Claudia and a young girl I’d never seen before.
All around us, huge winged creatures--clearly not birds--tore through the air, completely obscuring the sky. The high grass and the foundation of the House were completely engulfed in flames, thick black smoke curled up into the sky where a blood red moon hung.
The End of the World.
Wordlessly, I took Claudia by the hand and firmly pulled her down beside me into the ooze. She pulled away and pointed at the girl clutched at her side, a girl who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old. Together we began to help her down. But the moment, she set foot into the black tar-like substance, the winged creatures flocking around us were driven into a mad frenzy, flying in tighter and tighter circles, creating in their wake a vortex of heat and black smoke in the sky above us.
The girl began to scream, though the sounds were completely drowned out by the low-pitched growls of the creatures crowding the air around us.
Claudia pushed the hysterical girl forcefully down into the muck and turned to me. She gave me one last fleeting kiss and plunged into the pit.
Turning my back to the wall of flames, I bowed forward to follow her. I watched in confusion as clouds of red bloomed within the ooze. The muck slowly changed to a deep crimson, smelling strongly of copper.
Something seized me from behind, and plucked me from the pit like I was weightless. I fell face down into the withered brown grass and slowly lifted my head.
A single gargantuan figure stood above me. From its back, a pair of bat wings unfurled, ten feet wide and covered with a purplish membrane of something approximating skin. The flying forms drew so close around me that they seemed to suck the very air from my lungs. I could see the hole in the sky widening, and within was a pulsing channel lined with veins, glowing with a dark energy.
The throat, my mind screamed. It wants to swallow my soul.
It was then that I felt something in the pocket of my jacket pressing against my ribs and remembered then what Uncle Hank had asked me to do. I could hear his voice coaxing me: “Remember it, if you get into trouble.”
Rising to my knees and drawing the holy text from my pocket like an unsheathed weapon, I lifted my head to the heavens and cried at the top of my lungs, “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.”
The creatures swarming around me turned their grim eyes to me in barely contained hate. The tight formation loosened around me, and I could see patches of sky again. Before my eyes, the moon itself shuddered and broke apart into two gigantic pieces. The pieces were consumed by the vortex with a clap of thunder akin to a sonic boom. The stars seemed to rain from the sky.
Trying to control my trembling arms, I lifted the book into my eye line, blocking the horrific sight of the world coming to an end. “Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil!” I vaguely realized that I was speaking the words in Latin, a language I had no knowledge of. “May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.”
I knew then that something was helping me. Something powerful. I continued undaunted, my voice rising with the sudden burst of passion I felt.
&
nbsp; Extending the Bible above me with one hand and lifting the crucifix from my chest with the other, I shouted the Latin words forth: “And do you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
At that moment a flood of morning sunlight burst through the clouds. The creatures touched by the light wheeled every which way, shielding their faces and wailing in pain.
“Amen!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Blinded by the sunlight, I dropped to my knees and began to feel along the ground for the hole I sent Claudia down. Two large hands took my wrists and tossed me firmly several feet into the stone pit. I looked up.
It was one of the creatures. Yet this one was different, perfect though not in the same way as the Fallen Ones disintegrating around me in the sunlight. Instead of being a caricature of a human being of a single sex, its gender was impossible to identify. Rather, the creature was “complete.” Its body radiated a celestial white light. The chill that had surrounded me since first entering the cavern dissipated. I felt warmth so comforting it was like a freshly drawn bath enveloping me.
It turned its eyes on me, its formidable masculine nature unyielding and protective. Its lips found my ear and sang in a smooth baritone voice: “Thank you for being my surrogate warrior here on this plane.”
Then in the next moment, I sensed the female nature of it—the maternal, the sensual--and shuddered, its presence almost overpowering to me as it sang in a melodious soprano voice: “Give my love to Henry, son of Franklyn for remembering the apples one last time.”
Chapter 42 Saturday, October 31st, (7:45am)
Two sets of hands pulled me up into the most beautiful sunrise I have ever experienced until that morning and since. My father held me at arm’s length by my shoulders then turned me to face, to my great surprise, my mother, who flung herself at me, tears in her eyes, patting my body as if checking for broken bones. Once satisfied, she planted kiss after kiss over my face and hugged me fiercely.
Just like in the hallucination we’d just experienced, I stood in the dew-covered grass below the foundation of the house. At my heels was the large cave opening through which we had just evacuated.
“We tried to go back in but some… force was blocking the way,” I heard Claudia say. She lay in the grass, cradling the teenage girl whose face was obscured by a blanket. She seemed to be gently rocking her. I’d never before seen her appear so maternal.
At a distance from the rest of us, Hank and Tracy sat side by side a few yards away. Both looked like ten miles of bad road. Tracy was busy enjoying a cigarette like it was the first one she’d had in years. My uncle was sipping something from a leather flask, and since he’d always been a Jack Daniels man, I had a good idea what.
I had lived to see another sunrise in this world, and I found myself surrounded by the people I loved most in the world.
I stepped discreetly over to my father as Mom started over to Claudia. “How are you feeling, Dad?”
He gave me a look of impatience. “I’m fine. Why?”
“I know it was your heart. Don’t try and play it off,” I hissed, casting a side-long glance at my mother.
He laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “I’ll live.”
I turned and stood in his path, giving him a look of immovable stubbornness I’m sure he was used to seeing from his wife and not his son.
“Ok, I’ll see the doctor about this, Paul,” he reassured me weakly, giving me a smile that was half irritated and half impressed. “I promise.”
“This is her. The voice I heard calling me,” Claudia explained to me as we gathered around the girl.
“Where did you find her?” Dad asked.
The girl gazed up at us, her eyes staring in dazed confusion at the world around her.
“Where am I? Where did the house go?”
The cigarette dropped from Tracy’s frozen fingers. She slowly rose to her feet, eyes widening. Claudia grabbed my hand, almost unconscious of the act. We watched as Tracy stumbled dazedly over to the girl, who gazed up at her, recognition slowly seating itself within her eyes. The teenager looked one way then another, as if trying to orient herself or to make sense of something, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out into Claudia’s arms.
“Hank, you still have those smelling salts,” Dad asked.
“Who is she?” My uncle rose and handed Dad a small bottle, his eyes studying the girl at his feet. “Jack, who is she?” my uncle repeated, this time an urgent edge to his voice.
“Courtney Noble,” Tracy Tatum stated flatly. “The girl I thought died in the house fire in ‘83. The girl whose name I’ve been using since that day.” Then she turned to Uncle Hank and fixed him with compassionate eyes. “She’s your daughter.”
My uncle just stared at Tracy. Slowly, he began to shake his head as if to clear it, then grabbed a handful of his brother’s sleeve in his hand, steadying himself. “Dear God, we’re still down in the cave, aren’t we?” he moaned plaintively. “This is another twisted illusion.”
Tracy stared at the girl with a look that had transformed in the course of a few seconds from horror to slowly dawning wonder. “It’s incredible! She hasn’t aged a day in twenty-one years. It’s as if no time has passed for her.” Her glistening eyes found my uncle’s, then the bough broke and tears began to flow. “Hank, this is my fault. I never should have taken her to this damned place. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
My uncle shook his head more emphatically with every word she spoke, until finally muttering: “Not possible. It defies reason.” His knees dropped out beneath him and my father caught him by his arms.
“I thought I was the one that had trouble seeing the intangible,” my Dad murmured under his breath as he helped his brother to his feet.
Claudia tucked the blanket beneath the head of the girl we knew as Courtney Noble and stepped away with the rest of us to give my uncle his privacy--though Tracy remained beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Hank simply studied the unconscious face of the girl lying in the grass, his own expressionless. At some point, he began to quietly sob in Tracy’s arms.
“Look, Jack,” Sheriff Brannigan’s voice came from behind us. That was when I first noticed BeBe Brannigan and Deputy Nick in their street clothes instead of uniforms. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but if you’re going to do what we talked about, you better goddamn do it before the locals start showing up asking questions.” He and Nick started over with Dad to the two trucks parked beneath the apple trees behind the house. “Lord knows how I let myself be dragged into this,” he complained under his breath.
Chapter 43 Saturday, October 31st, (8:13am)
Sheriff Brannigan watched with a stoic expression as Dad carefully wired the explosives just inside the perimeter of the hole. He cast a look back at me where I stood just over his shoulder and gave me one of his frowns. Just as he was about to protest, BeBe said, “I’m giving you a helluva lot of latitude here, Jack.”
“Believe me, when I tell you that if this weren’t necessary, I wouldn’t involve you or Nick,” he replied. “I’ve never been more convinced that a thing is necessary in my whole career as a law officer. I’d stake my name on it.”
After a moment, BeBe gave my father a single nod. “Good enough for me.”
When Mom wandered over to check on our progress, I read my father’s look without a word and headed her off. “Dad wants us to go wait over by the trucks with your uncle. He says that these explosives are volatile stuff and a little unpredictable.”
Claudia and Tracy were already over at the trucks with Uncle Hank. Tracy and my uncle sat inside the cab, lying between them was the fourteen year old girl that I was not yet capable of calling my cousin. After what I’d just been through, I would never be able to take anything at face value again. Perhaps that’s what had always made my father such a good investigator and my uncle such an astute judge of ch
aracter, I realized.
It was then that I spotted my own car parked in the distance behind the others. “I saw the keys inside, so I just brought her up the fire road,” Deputy Nick said from behind the truck parked next to us. He removed a wooden box and a spool of what appeared to be grey wire from inside the compartment in the back of the truck.
“C’mon, kid. Learning new ways to blow something up might come in handy later in life,” Nick said congenially, tipping me a wink.
I joined Deputy Nick at the crypt that doubled as an elevator. When I saw the hanging towel and the apples on the ground just where I’d left them, I laughed out loud. “God, it feels like a lifetime since I did this,” I told Nick, explaining the circumstances and how I had gone after Claudia into the cavern on my own.
The Deputy gave me a wide-eyed look and smiled.
From behind, I heard Claudia’s voice. “You did that for me?” When I turned, I found her standing before me, beaming. Nick turned his back to us and suddenly found something else to capture his attention.
She’d never know the almost overpowering terror I’d felt in those moments before my descent. I was no fool, of course. I wasn’t about to let a moment like this pass without basking in the light I saw in her eyes. My girlfriend’s eyes. A warm feeling rushed through me. For the first time since this had all begun, I was thinking of the future again.
She leaned forward and gave me a long lingering kiss, cut short by a quickly spreading blush on her cheeks and the appearance of Mom and Tracy.
Clearing my throat awkwardly, I found the key still in its hole and unlocked the gate for Deputy Nick. “Did you guys have any trouble finding all this?” I asked Tracy.
“Actually, it was me who spotted it,” Tracy replied. “Up until that point, Jack was running around in that house’s foundation like a maniac, trying to find some trace of you two.”
Ignoring the glare he was receiving from my mother, Nick handed me one end of the grey wire on the spool and began to step backwards down the steps that led down into the interior of the crypt, letting it unroll. “Hey, I can just imagine how worried he must have been. You, only sixteen and going into this place on your own. Hell, I’m nearly thirty and I’m getting the heebie-jeebies right now.”
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