'For Christ sake George,' Andrew shouted, 'Leave it alone, you're going to make us all deaf!'
'Just a second,' he said. The humming was now a screech and all of their eyes were watering. Thomas put his fingers in his ears but it did little to stop the noise getting through.
'GEORGE!' Andrew screamed again and then the sound abruptly stopped. George's hand was still on the lamp, but the buzzing had completely gone. There came a faint whirring sound followed by a loud hollow CLICK and then the entire wall at the far end of the room slid slowly to the side with an almost human sounding sigh. Behind it there were four more steps leading down to a dimly lit corridor.
'That was different,' said George and headed through.
The passage sloped downwards at a gentle incline for about twenty metres before sharply curving to the right. Andrew noted that the passageway had none of the finesse of the billiard room, the walls were rugged and the floor pitted with holes. What light there was came from smaller and less effective versions of the blue lamps. They followed the curve and the hallway opened on a second dimly lit box room.
To say it wasn't the great discovery they were expecting would be the understatement of the century.
13
The room was oblong shaped with a ceiling so low they had to duck to enter. Two metal framed canvas beds ran along either side of the room with solid looking trunks shoved underneath. Littered on the ground were a dozen glass vials; some broken but others still intact with their intricate glass stoppers laying nearby. If all this wasn't odd enough, at the far end of the room was what looked like a full length mirror mounted on the earthen wall.
'This is getting ridiculous,' said Andrew, 'Where the hell are they!' He kicked one of the vials which flew into the face of the mirror. Rather than a brittle chink, it clanked against the surface as if it was metal. For a split second the tiny blue lights along the passageway and the few mounted in the room itself, brightened. 'What the fuck,' he said.
George was examining the beds. 'He brought them here,' he said, 'Both of them.'
'How can you know?' said Karen.
'Well, unless Mr Hatton has grown long blond hair in the last forty eight hours, at least one of our missing ladies was here.' He plucked something from the head of one of the beds and held it up. Despite the gloomy light, they could all make out a long golden hair. 'And my guess,' he continued, 'Is that those little bottles had something in it to subdue them. Probably best to leave well alone.'
Karen retrieved a plastic evidence bag from her pocket and carefully slipped one of the undamaged vials in. When she held it up to the light, she noted a residue of a blue liquid inside.
Whilst Andrew checked out the trunks, Thomas stood near the mirror examining the markings that ran down one side. His first thought was hieroglyphics, but on closer examination they were too simplistic for that; each indented mark only having two or three strokes. He tapped the 'glass' and again it gave off a metallic clunk followed by a gentle hum that made the rooms lights pulse. 'Whatever powers those lights,' he said, 'Is definitely on the same circuit as this thing.' He tried again, only this time he held his hand on the mirror's surface for longer.
Much like the billiard room, his touch made the hum rise in volume and the lights intensify their brightness. The longer he kept his hand there, the more unbearable the sound became. Karen approached him and through squinting eyes, slapped his hand away.
'Please stop that,' she said, 'Any longer and I think I'll throw up.'
'Actually,' said Andrew, 'I think we're meant to touch it.' In his hands he held four sets of ancient looking headphone's. They were the type of protectors you would see fighter pilots wearing in World War 2 movies. George, coming from the armoured division, knew them very well.
'What else is in those trunks?' asked Thomas.
'Not much else, just a bunch of notebooks.' They each took a pair of headphones, put them on and instantly all external sound was muffled. George motioned for Thomas to try the mirror again and they all braced themselves.
At first the ear protectors worked perfectly. The lights brightened at his touch, but the sound was reduced to a faint hum. However, the longer he kept his hand there, more and more the sound crept through. Karen was readying herself to slap his hand away again when the noise abated and a tiny image - no bigger than a fist - began to materialize on the mirror's surface. Thomas' first instinct was to withdraw his hand, but George stepped up and held it in place; concentration set deep on his face.
The image began to swirl and grow bigger until it filled the entire surface of the mirror. It continued to swirl and then snapped into perfect clarity revealing a red sandy landscape dotted with craggy rocks of the same colour. This baked land was bathed in sunshine beneath a perfectly blue sky. Thomas withdrew his hand and looked at the other three. Each of them were fixed with the same expression; open mouthed awe.
Andrew removed his headphones. 'What am I looking at here?' he said, 'Is this a picture of Mars?'
'It's no picture,' said George.
'Then what?'
George touched the pictures surface. Instead of the cold metallic he was expecting, the image was warm and fluid. It rippled slightly beneath his touch and when he pushed his hand further in, it disappeared from sight.
'George!' said Karen, 'Don't do that. You've no idea what that stuff is.'
He slowly brought his hand out and it came back undamaged. Andrew and Thomas joined him and performed the same act. Thomas thrust his arm through up to its elbow and it came back equally untouched.
'What is it with boys,' she said, 'Always poking their fingers in places they shouldn't.'
Andrew laughed. 'I've never had any complaints,' he said, 'What is this thing George? I've never felt anything like it.'
George was experimenting with the mirror. He pushed a booted foot through and that came back seemingly untouched. He tried the headphones and they too came back fine. There didn't seem to be any difference in the temperatures and whatever was on the other side of that strange oily layer had pretty much the same atmosphere as the room they were in. He scratched his head and turned to Andrew. 'I've no idea,' he said, eyes wide with excitement. 'Isn't it marvellous!' He leant in as if to put his head through. There was the faint sound of a hum and then Thomas was pulling him back.
'George! No!' he screamed, just as the liquid screen snapped back to solid again. As if to prove how close he actually was, a tiny wisp of white hair floated to the floor; sheared off from the screen closing.
'Ok, new rule,' said Andrew, 'No one puts anything else through that thing.'
'Jesus Christ,' said Karen, 'Are you out of your mind? You could have lost your head!'
George was sat sprawled on the floor laughing. 'Pardon the pun,' he said. 'But that was a close shave,' He held out a hand to Thomas which he shook. 'Thank you young man. I believe I owe you one.'
Thomas smiled and turned to the mirror. 'Why did it shut?' he said, 'Does it not want us touching it?'
'Quite the opposite, I think,' said George, 'I think we need to go through it.'
'Are you crazy?' said Karen, 'I'm not letting any of you near that thing. We've nearly had one decapitation. I'm not willing to risk anything else happening.'
'I've got to agree with Karen here,' said Andrew, 'We've no idea when that thing is going to snap shut.'
'But we do,' said Thomas, 'It started humming right before it closed. It needs human contact to open it. As long as it has that, then it should remain open indefinitely. It only closed because I wasn't touching it anymore.'
'You don't know that!' said Andrew, 'It's too risky.'
George put his headphones on and placed his palm on the mirror. The high pitched humming started almost immediately and the others covered their ears too. The humming stopped and the red earth image appeared much quicker than before as if some residue was still in the system. George pointed with his other hand. 'Look,' he said, pointing through the mirror, 'I think it's a risk we have to take.'
They followed his gaze and saw what looked like footprints scuffed in the red dirt on the other side of the screen.
'Shit,' said Andrew and sunk back onto one of the beds.
There was silence as the four of them grasped the magnitude of the situation. George removed his hand from the mirror and the image stayed shimmering before them. He sat next to Andrew and watched as Thomas and Karen followed suit on the second bed. The mirror emitted a sharp hum, the lights brightened and the screen snapped shut.
Andrew sighed and stared at his hands.'We can't all go,' he said, 'Someone has to stay behind and keep that thing open.'
'Agreed,' said George.
'You're not seriously considering this?' said Karen.
'Karen, look at the evidence,' said Andrew, 'No matter how fucked up this all seems, that's where we need to go.'
'I want to go,' said Thomas.
Karen stared at him. 'There's no way I'm ever going to allow that. This is my investigation, so I go. No arguments.'
'Unfortunately she's right,' said George. 'You can't go Thomas. You've got your little brother to think of. It should be Karen and myself.'
'Hold on there old-timer,' said Andrew, 'No offence, but we don't know what it's going to like over there. I may not be a prime specimen, but if the shit hits the fan Karen doesn't want to be looking over her shoulder.'
George thought about protesting, but reluctantly conceded the point. 'I'll have you know,' he said teasingly, 'That I used to hold the 400 metres record in my battalion.'
'Yeah but life used to be a lot slower in the 1800's.'
George shot him a look and smiled. 'Charming.'
'If we're talking about fitness, then it should be me,' said Thomas.
'No,' said George, 'We can debate this all day, but the logical choice is Karen and Andrew.'
Andrew stood up, 'And we should go now, before we change our minds. Has anyone got a watch?'
'I've got my phone,' said Thomas, 'What do you need?'
'I need you to set a ten minute timer. I've got no idea what this thing looks like from the other side, but I'm hoping it's pretty similar to this. Every ten minutes, you open that screen and give us a way back. Is that a plan?'
George and Thomas nodded in agreement. Karen turned to Andrew, 'You sure about this?'
'No,' he said, 'But aren't you interested to see what's behind door number nine?'
'Not really,' she said, flatly.
'What are we supposed to do?' asked Thomas, 'Just sit and wait.'
'No, you can read through those notebooks. See if there's anything in there about this magic door,' he turned to Karen, 'Ready?'
'Do I have a choice?'
'There's always choices,' he said, 'either bad ones, or very bad ones.' He smiled and nodded to George who placed his hand on the screen. This time the hum only lasted a few seconds before the red landscape appeared. Andrew took Karen's hand, held his breath and stepped through. Moments later, still holding his hand, Karen followed.
Part 2
Hot Winds
1
The days were hard, but the nights were far, far worse. The unforgiving landscape was harsh and scorched by the perpetual baking sun, and every afternoon before sunset a burning wind would sweep through. If you were unlucky enough to be caught in it, it would strip the skin from your bones. This was something he’d learnt the hard way and still had the angry scars on his face to prove it.
Yet he had survived.
In the early years he used to keep a count of the months he’d been stranded. The cave in which he spent most of his days was covered in tally marks too many to count. In recent years he had given up the counting, resigned to the fact that he would live out the rest of his days in this hell of a place he had come to call home.
Despite all this, he had still survived.
He could just about make out his hut in the distance. In his younger days it would stand out crystal clear on the horizon, but nowadays it was more of a milky blur. It wasn't exact, but he guessed the distance from cave to hut was three miles. A distance that used to take him less than an hour to cross. Now it was closer to two, including the frequent rest stops he had to take on the way. He convinced himself the daily pilgrimages kept him sane, but in truth, they were now more out of habit than necessity.
There was a deep well just outside the hut that, despite the unrelenting sun, provided an endless supply of cool water. It also provided just enough water to irrigate the sorry excuse for a vegetable patch that lay on the leeward side of his abode. He could grow nothing more than corn, wheat, potatoes and a green rooted plant that looked like cabbage but tasted like vomit. There was the tatty remains of a lemon tree that blossomed every two or three years providing a bitter fruit. But not this year. This year had been hard. If it wasn't for the coarse flour he made from the wheat and turned into dry bread, or the infrequent scurrying rodents he sometimes caught making their way from the foothills, he would have been eating only dried corn and roots all year. He'd suffered worse, but the older he got the harder it became.
Many times he thought of ending it. He'd pictured half a dozen ways he could do it too. The well was an option. It was deep and if he were to fall in he would surely drown or at the very least break his neck. He thought of walking out into the wind after dark, the unbearable heat would strip his skin in less than an hour. One of his more cruder ways was to impale himself on any number of rusty tools he used for the vegetables.
But no, the means and desire to kill himself were there, in fact on four very clear occasions he had tried. But each time the other had stopped him. The other. His silent companion. If he were to put an estimate on it, he reckoned the other had been dormant now for over twenty years. In the early days he (or it) had been very active; full of rage and hatred. But not recently.
Well, not until a week ago, anyway.
Years before, it was he (or it) that had made them set out beyond the foothills on a foolish expedition. They had walked for so long the hut and the dusty plain it sat on disappeared from view. But they went too far. So determined was the other to get away from this god-forsaken place, they left no time to return. They were exposed to the burning wind for one terrible night of torture. He tried to bury himself in the loose earth as much as he could, but the wind tore at anything exposed. The pain was unbearable. The scars took weeks to heal and the next morning he barely managed to stumble his way back to the hut. From that point on, he vowed to play by the rules; never to be outside once darkness fell.
To his credit, the other hadn't argued.
So he was trapped to spend his years living a sorry existence in a sun-bleached nowhere. For some reason the other wouldn't let him die. The other who had been so silent for so many years. The other who had only started to stir when, the previous week, two strangers passed through.
The only people either of them had seen for eighty years.
With his eyes the way they were, he was lucky he even saw them. As usual, he had spent the day in the cave looking out over the dusty plain towards the hut. Not only was it the coolest place to spend his time (the hut could get stifling) it was also the place he was instinctively drawn to. He had no reason to suspect why, but there was something about this cave that made him return; day after day. Something in his memory, that drew him there.
He was in the midst of one of these waking dreams when he first felt the other stir. It wasn't as if the other was suddenly there front and centre, but he sensed something. Sensed an awakening. He felt a sharpening of his own mind too. Everything on high alert. It would do no good however, because if the other decided to take over, he wouldn't even have the ability to blink. It had been a long time, but he hadn't forgotten the sensation of being sent away to the back of his mind whilst the other did his thing.
It was this heightened awareness that enabled him to spot the travellers. At first he thought they were just eddies in the dust, but as they drew nearer he could make out their human form. They came out of the desert lands to t
he south. Years before he had tentatively explored this area. Had in fact walked for half a day, but all there was for miles in every direction was hard, baked land. He was astonished anyone could travel from that direction without falling victim to the nightly winds.
They neared his hut and he could tell that one was a male and one was female. They both wore long black capes that almost reached the ground and the male was carrying a large sack that bulged at the bottom. Both the man and the woman had jet black hair and pale white faces. In such a sun bleached wilderness, he wondered how they had remained so untouched by the sun.
He watched them enter the hut and for a short while they were lost from sight. Then the male came out and lowered what must have been water skins into the well. When he was done, the female joined him and together they continued on their journey.
Directly towards him.
Despite the heat, the travellers made incredibly light work of the distance from hut to cave. The nearer they got the more the other stirred. At any time he expected him to come forward and take over, but he didn't. He could sense he was fully alert, but he could also sense something else; he could sense fear. Not fearful of the girl, in fact quite the contrary; he could feel the rage and lust bubbling beneath the surface for her. It was the male he feared. Feared him because on some level he was like him. Not exactly the same, but definitely built from the same DNA. He also got the feeling that similar as they were, the other viewed this traveller as an inferior; a simpler yet far more primeval version of himself.
As the black clad figures moved closer, he slipped from the cave. Returning to the hut at this point was not an option as he would be exposing himself to the newcomers. He saw no reason to be fearful of them himself, but on this occasion he was willing to trust the others judgement. Leaving the cave, he edged up the cliff face the cave was etched in. He knew the going would be loose underfoot and had to take extra care so as not to slip, or worse still, start a landslip and give his position away. Looking back he saw the travellers had already reached the foothills and had started their climb. He scrambled along for a further five minutes and when he looked back again, it was clear the travellers weren't searching for him. They were heading directly for the cave he’d just left.
Meadowbank: A dark fantasy thriller (The Shael Chronicles Book 2) Page 7
