A Ghost of Fire

by Sam Whittaker

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  After five minutes I sat up and insisted I was fine. Trent relented from his examination and helped me to my feet. Jan did not look convinced but I didn’t care what she thought. Everyone was looking at me waiting to see what would happen. I wasn’t about to fall over and have another vision, I was sure of that.

  “Are we waiting for something?” I asked. “Let’s get this show on the road.” I started to move forward but Derek put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Oh, what is it now?” I asked.

  “Not so fast there kid,” he said. He looked our little group over. “Just as I thought; you’re not ready yet.”

  I sighed. “This isn’t going to take long, is it? I mean we’ve got a bad guy to stop.”

  “Easy, kid. I just have a few things to give you. It won’t take long. It’s even on the way.” He beckoned for us to follow him and then he walked around the corner towards the elevator. The rest of us were mobilized to trail the old man a few seconds later. When we got to the elevator I saw four shovels leaned against the opposite wall and four flashlights sat on the floor.

  A quick burst of math confirmed a suspicion which had grown in me since we walked into the building and were confronted by Jan, Derek and the officer. I said, “I take it this means you guys are not coming with us.” A few pregnant heartbeats followed the question.

  “No,” Jan finally said. “We cannot come. I’m sorry and I’m torn because part of me wants to be down there with you. I know how important this is and what is at stake. The world cannot take Jonas Pine back from the dead especially with power he is gaining.” She meant every word of it. That did little to curb the irritation I felt, however. Why would more people to help be a bad thing, I wondered?

  “Why can’t you come,” I pressed.

  “Because it’s not our job, son, it’s yours,” Derek answered for her.

  “I won’t buy that without a good explanation,” Vox said. He had regained his normal cocky attitude, I noticed. The lawyer had approached the bench and would not relent until he was satisfied his argument was accepted. I believed he could go toe-to-toe with Jan any day which was a substantial achievement considering the confidence and authority she projected. Vox, however, ate confidence and authority for breakfast.

  “My job,” Jan said without the slightest hint of intimidation, “was to find and select Mr. Nicholas for this job.”

  “Mine was to test Steve to make sure he was the right choice and to get the key into Steve’s hands,” Derek added.

  “And I’m the one who told Steve to get the key to Susan.” The officer said.

  “We have all done our jobs and now it is your turn to do yours,” Jan said in summation. I saw the point now and nodded my head in understanding, though I didn’t like it. “But don’t worry, Steve, you are not on your own. You have these others you have drawn to yourself. This is more than when you first came to Spectra, isn’t it? When you first came to us you were alone and so unsure of yourself. Look how far you’ve come in such a short time.”

  I looked at the others I had brought with me. She was right, I had come a long way and each of them had too. I was heartened to see the resolve on each of their faces. My heart turned anxious, however, when I realized how far we had yet to go in an even shorter amount of time and considered what the ultimate cost could be.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” I said. I stepped forward and Derek handed me a shovel and a flashlight. Each of the others in turn did the same. With the supplies I had bought from the gas station, the things Derek had given to us and the resolve in our spirits we were ready to descend into hell.

  I removed the key from my pocket and all eyes were drawn to it. It was so ordinary. It was the sort of thing you’d find tucked away in a corner of some consignment shop gathering dust on a shelf. For all intents and purposes it should have been no more than that. Yet it had been endowed with greater purpose. I thought then that the key and I shared something in common. I remembered something I had been told and had believed long ago. The most ordinary things and people are the raw materials for extraordinary ones.

  I nodded to Vox and he pressed the button to call the elevator. The doors slid apart. I stepped in first and the rest filed in slowly. As the other three stood in the hall we watched as the doors slid closed concealing us from safety.

  I located the control panel and the special place for the key. I inserted it but did not turn it. I looked at everyone and said, “Are we ready?” They all nodded. I turned the key and pushed the button by the slot. The elevator began to descend. The display above the panel of buttons which indicated the floor one could reasonably expect to walk out onto if the doors were open went blank when we moved passed the basement. There was a loud clunk sound of metal meeting metal and the elevator box shook briefly as we came to a stop.

  The doors slid open again to reveal an old earthen tunnel with ancient wooden supports. It appeared as though sometime within the most recent decades, however, someone had been down there to reinforce the walls of the tunnel even further with more modern methods.

  “Welcome to the sub-basement level,” Vox said. “Women’s apparel, perfume and tortured demonic ghosts for your convenience.”

  “Knock it off,” I said. “This is no time to be snarky.”

  “Snarky is how I deal with stress, thank you very much.” I let it go because I didn’t want to start a petty bickering match when such a distraction might end up costing someone his or her life.

  Instead of responding I removed the key, placed it in my pocket again, and stepped into the dark of the tunnel. There was no source of light save for those in the elevator leaving a wall of black not far into the tunnel. I flicked my flash light on and shone the light into the dark. The darkness was so great it easily consumed the single beam of light. I moved it slowly from left to right. Dust motes floated in and out of the beam and strands of cobwebs which swayed lazily reflected the light.

  My flashlight was soon joined by the others’ lights as they walked out of the elevator. I ventured forward a few tentative steps. I listened intently for any clue that someone else might be down there with us. The only noise was the sound of the dirt shifting under my shoes. I looked back at the expectant group and motioned with my head in the direction of the deep interior of the tunnel. They slowly started to take their first steps into the hole.

  The progress came at a snail’s pace as none of us was prepared to charge in. We were only a few meters in when the doors of the elevator slid closed and I heard the box begin to ascend again. With the doors closed the light diminished more than any of us expected. The dark crept uncomfortably close, threatening to overtake all the hope and bravery we had stored up for that hour.

  Suddenly a man’s low laughter issued from somewhere farther down the tunnel. Vox could take it no longer.

  In a panicked voice he said, “I’ve got to get out of here.” I heard his fast retreat to the elevator and turned pointing my flashlight in the direction of the sound. I saw Vox’s back retreat in the minimal light. He reached the elevator, hit the button to go back up and pounded on the doors demanding for them to open. Trent ran after him.

  “Stop, stop it,” Trent called. When he reached the panicked lawyer Vox shoved him away and continued his one-sided shouting match with the metal doors. Katie and I went back to try to calm him down and like Trent received shoves for our trouble. I decided something a bit more drastic was called for.

  I grabbed the man by the shoulders and threw him against an adjoining wall. I slapped him across the face to maintain the shock of the moment. Then I put my hands on his shoulders and pinned him against the wall. When I was sure I had his full attention I said as calmly as possible, “Stop, you’re not helping. Just settle down.”

  “You can’t make me stay,” he retorted.

  Before I replied I took a few breaths. “No,” I said, “I can’t. You’ve got to decide yourself what you’re going to do. But if you don’t stay then whatever i
t is you’re supposed to do with us down here won’t happen and that could be very, very bad. You can run from this now, Stuart, but you can’t run forever. There’s no telling how far this thing will chase you or any one of us.” I looked at him in the near total dark and a terrible sense of foreboding came over me. He only stared back at me at first. Then he raised his forearms between mine and pushed them outward to get my hands off his shoulders. Without saying anything he walked over to the elevator and pressed the button again.

  My shoulders slumped in defeat. I had hoped I could persuade him to stay but the fear in him clearly asserted more power over him than I thought it could. The rest of us just watched the back of him as he waited for the doors to open. He would not turn to look at any of us. He pushed the button again in frustration.

  “Come on,” Vox urged. Nothing happened. The expected sound of the elevator mechanics made no appearance. Vox pushed the button about six times in quick succession. Still, there was no activity to encourage him. He screamed at the contraption then kicked the doors which made a metallic reverberating noise echo through the tunnel. “Come on, where are you?”

  The short laugh from down the way came again. Vox whirled around and shouted, “Shut up! Just shut up! Leave me alone!” There was no response and no more laughter. The only answer the lawyer received was dead silence.

  Katie walked up to the elevator door and Vox moved aside. She pushed the button and waited but again nothing happened. She turned around to address the group. “It looks like we’re stuck down here for now,” She said to all of us. Then she looked directly at Vox and said, “Come on, let’s get going. We’re safer if we stay together.”

  “Are you sure about that,” he asked. “How do you know?”

  She did not answer him, perhaps because she had no answer or perhaps because she didn’t know if she believed it herself. She walked into the gaping throat of the dark with a shovel in one hand and her flashlight in the other. Trent and I followed suit. Vox swore under his breath and joined us.

  “Glad you decided to join us,” Trent said to him genuinely.

  “And let you guys leave me by myself in the dark,” He asked. “Haven’t you guys ever seen a horror movie? That’s a disaster waiting to happen.” I would like to believe he chose to come because he knew it was the right thing to do. All rationalizations aside I can’t say I would have argued the point differently.

  From that point on no one talked until we reached the next obstacle. It was hard to tell how much time had gone by. The passage of time felt strange down there, sort of displaced like in one of my dreams except the typical slowness I felt in those experiences was absent. It was like we walked in a different age. As we hiked we passed side tunnels leading off in different routes.

  “Why don’t we take any of these different paths,” Trent asked.

  “Because they’re the wrong ones,” I said. Before anyone had a chance to ask I added, “I was down here a few times in my dream experiences. We probably could make it where we’re going via one of these other ways but I don’t know that for sure and it would take us longer. It’s a straight shot this way.”

  “Where are we going?” Katie asked.

  I hesitated before I said, “His room. We’re going to the little chamber Pine kept as head quarters for whatever dirty little operation he was running in the town.”

  However long it took us we came to a dead end. But it was not that the people responsible for making the tunnel had stopped. It was a cave-in. Though settled for some time the dirt in front of us was looser than the stuff which formed the walls and it slanted into the tunnel.

  I didn’t give a chance for anyone to complain about the blockage in our way. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Two of us will dig for some time while the other two hold flashlights for the diggers. When the diggers start to get tired we’ll rotate. Sound fair?” I started shoveling the stuff off to the side and soon Trent was doing the same while Katie and Vox held the lights for us.

  There were two rotations before anyone broke through to the other side. When Trent’s shovel first pierced the other side there was a renewed sense of confidence among us. Even Vox perked up. On the final digging rotation there was enough of a path through the dirt for one person to walk through. Trent asked if it would be wiser to make the opening wider in case we needed to runback.

  I thought about it but then said, “No, besides if we have to run where would we run to, a dead end? I don’t think there’s going to be any running. We’re in it now. There’s no going back.” Trent accepted the answer while Vox cleared the last bit of earth away. I volunteered to go through the opening first and received no objections. I stopped in the middle of the new opening.

  “What is it?” Vox asked. “Do you see something?”

  “No,” I said. “I feel something.” I passed through to other side and stood against the wall. “Whoever’s next just stand in the doorway for a second and tell me if you feel anything.”

  Katie moved forward and paused there. “Yes,” she said surprised. “I feel a draft.”

  “A what?” Vox asked hopefully.

  “A draft,” she repeated. “I feel the air moving a little.”

  I said, “Good I’m not the only one. If there’s a draft then the air has to be coming from somewhere outside, which means there’s some other way out.”

  Trent said, “I wonder where it’s coming from?”

  “We’ll have to figure that out later,” Katie said. She moved through the opening and then Trent came and finally Vox passed through it. We made sure we had all of our gear with us and then continued down the way.

  It wasn’t long before we came to a wider area, a chamber. Flashlights scanned in all directions. In the little light we saw a rickety old table missing one of its legs. An old lantern perched atop its rough hewn surface. The item in the room which drew my attention was the steamer trunk.

  “This is it,” I said. “This is his old spot.”

  There were a few heartbeats of silence and then Vox said, “Great. So, what do we do now? Hold hands and sing happy songs?”

  “No,” I said keeping the irritation out of my voice. “Now we see what’s inside.” I was certain I knew exactly what was inside. I had seen the vision of Susan where she blasted Pine into the thing and closed the lid on him. I knew when I opened the thing I would see his dusty remains. I pulled the key out of my pocket again and said, “Someone put your light on the lock.”

  Trent angled his flashlight so the beam hit the key hole. I put the key in and turned it. At first it would not turn. I didn’t want to give too much force and break the key off in the lock so I eased the application of strength gently onto it. There was a satisfying click at last.

  “Alright,” I said to no one in particular. “Here we go.” I placed the heels of my palms on the lid of the big trunk and pushed up. The rusty hinges made an awful protest but obeyed the command of force. I aimed my flashlight inside the trunk. “Uh oh,” I said.

  “What did you just say?” demanded Vox. “Did you just say ‘uh oh’?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said. An overwhelming sinking feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  They all looked inside.

  “It’s empty,” I replied as he and the others looked. The only things we could see about the trunk were the scratches made from human finger nails on the inside and the fact that the back had been broken open. “He’s not in there. He’s supposed to be in there!”

  “If he’s not in there, then where is he?” Vox demanded, his voice becoming angrier and more panicked.

  “Looking for something, sonny?” We all froze in terror. At some point we had all heard that voice. It was Pine’s. It was accompanied by the laugh we heard in the tunnel.

  We looked in the direction of the noise, shining our flashlights. The beams of light revealed a fully upright skeleton wearing decaying clothes. Around the skeleton was the apparition of Jonas Pine.
The visible skull behind Pine’s transparent face accentuated the demonic grin he wore. The form began to walk toward us.

  The flashlights soon became secondary light as a growing orange glow emanated from the thing coming toward us. In the new light we could see smoke rising from the form. Heat radiated from it also. He held the broken off leg of the table in the room and hefted it like a club. The end of the table leg burst into flames and he swung it back and forth.

  “Alright,” he said, “who wants it first?” He pointed the fiery club at each of us in turn. The move was meant to intimidate us. It made me angry.

  “Hey Stuart,” I said over my shoulder to the lawyer, “take the cap off the gas can, if you would be so kind.” I heard the sound of the cap unscrewing as Vox feverishly worked at the task. For once there was no smart remark or complaint. The skeletal form cocked its head to the side as it considered this new development. He opened his mouth and hissed a threat. Smoke trickled out of the side of his mouth.

  “If you want a fight,” I said to the thing, “you’ve got one on your hands. There are four of us and only one of you. We’re more than happy to oblige.”

  He laughed again then said, “Oh he’s a smart one isn’t it? Thinks he’s better than me, does he?” The laugh disappeared completely and the ghostly visage of his face became rage. “Come to me, sonny. I’ll knock your teeth out and you can count ’em for me. I’ll educate you, boy. I’ll teach you some respect for the dead.”