Until... | Book 3 | Until The End

by Hamill, Ike

  “Let’s start with your guano theory,” Amber said.

  “And spiders,” Alan said. “We should be looking for spiders. It won’t prove anything, but if an abandoned mill isn’t full of spiders, then something weird is going on.”

  Seventeen: Alan

  He wasn’t sure if Amber was asleep or not. Her eyes were closed and she hadn’t said anything in twenty minutes. The car slowed to a stop at the side of the road and for a minute he looked at the structure in the distance. Part of one of the brick walls had collapsed. There was a tall chain link fence around the whole thing. He had been right about the snowmobile. It was completely unnecessary.

  Alan got out and closed the door as quietly as he could. At the trailer, he began to unpack the snowshoes.

  Amber got out and stretched while he was working. Alan tossed the keys to her as she approached.

  “Thanks for driving.”

  “No problem. How are your eyes?”

  “They feel great, actually.”

  She sat on the edge of the trailer and he handed her snowshoes.

  “I guess we’re walking?”

  “It’s right there,” Alan said, pointing.

  They ran through their inventory and Alan sent another message before they set off. Just down the road, they climbed the bank to a spot where the hill descended to the river. Walking along the edge, they found a place where the rusted fence had been torn away by limbs caught in a flood. Amber ducked under and held the fence up for Alan to follow her through.

  “There’s a place in New Hampshire up in the mountains,” Alan said as they walked towards the crumbling old mill. “Every October they transform a ski resort into an elaborate set of haunted houses. They do a great job.”

  “Oh yeah?” Amber asked.

  “It’s fantastic, but all that effort and it’s not nearly as creepy as just looking at this place.”

  Amber laughed.

  Downriver from them, the water entered into the substructure of the mill. Amber and Alan paused at the place where they saw it spilling from the arches under the foundation of the building. The windows were boarded up. A set of steel doors that looked newer than anything else had a big bar welded across the frame.

  “How are we getting in?” Amber asked.

  “Around the other side, I guess,” Alan said. “Where the wall was collapsed.”

  They had to circle the building to get to the spot that they had seen from the road. The snow was untrustworthy. Drifts had formed and frozen to cover gullies. The ice cracked under Alan and he slipped into a hole up to his waist. Laying flat, he managed to grab Amber’s hand and she helped to pull him out. They retreated to the edge of the fence, following it to make sure they stayed on stable ground.

  “Bolt cutters,” Alan said. “If we had just brought bolt cutters, we could have made short work of that fence.”

  “It won’t be so bad getting out,” Amber said. “We can follow our own tracks.”

  Finally, they were able to see a clear path to the crumbling wall. They worked their way over to it and leaned against the brick so they could remove their snowshoes. Amber put on a headlamp and handed one to Alan.

  “No risks,” he said.

  “No risks.”

  They climbed through the hole in the wall.

  # # #

  They swept the area with their lights. The floor was made of thick, sturdy timbers that were stained with water but didn’t flex at all when Alan tested his weight on them. Amber held a flashlight to supplement the light from her headlamp. In the first room, swallows had made nests up in the corners, where the beams met the walls. Amber bent to look at tracks in the mud on the floor.

  “Raccoon?” she asked.

  “I guess.”

  They found a doorway at the far side and headed towards it. Alan spotted the stairwell off to the right. He waved to Amber and they stayed closed to the wall as they crept that direction. In the center of the hall, the floor sagged. Where they walked, it didn’t even creak.

  The stairs were stacked stone. Moss grew on the walls and water dripped from above.

  “What do you think?” Alan asked.

  “Seems safe enough. Unless the whole place collapses, I guess.”

  Alan turned his headlamp to look back the way they had come. He reminded himself that they were there to gather information. His instincts told him that they wouldn’t find out anything from this building. He couldn’t tell if that was real or if he was just telling himself that because he wanted to get out of there.

  “We came,” he said. “Let’s see what’s down there.”

  Amber nodded.

  She led the way. The stone stairs were slick with mold and moss. They were descending into rot. Below them, he could hear the river coursing through the foundation of the mill.

  “You notice that there’s nothing here?” Alan asked.

  “Like what?”

  “No leftover trash, no grafitti, no footprints.”

  “It was fenced off.”

  “Not very well,” Alan said.

  “This isn’t a very well-populated area, is it?”

  “Still,” he said. “When I was a kid, we would have flocked to a place like this. Until very recently, kids were bored all of the time. I would think that in the seventies every kid within fifty miles would have come here to drink beer, smoke pot, and hold seances.”

  “Maybe it was better sealed up then,” Amber said. “That hole we came through could be fairly recent.”

  “I guess.”

  Amber reached the bottom of the stairs and looked down at her feet. The floor of this level was like cobblestone. She pointed her light at an arch that led into another big room. Alan focused on the corners where the walls met the ceilings and where beams supported the floor above. He was looking for any cobwebs or spiders. He saw none.

  Just ahead, water was dripping into a puddle, making a musical sound that echoed off the walls.

  Amber zipped up her outer layer. It felt ten degrees cooler than outside.

  “We should get some space between us. Cast different shadows,” Alan said. Amber nodded. She held her light out to the side and she and Alan headed in different directions. He followed one wall and she took to the other. They pointed their lights towards the center of the room.

  “Hold on,” she said.

  He froze.

  Amber gestured and pointed her light where she wanted him to go. After a second of studying the ceiling, she shook her head. “Nothing. Feels like something though, doesn’t it?”

  Alan stood still and forced himself to close his eyes. She was right. It felt like they weren’t alone. When he opened his eyes again, his heart was pounding. Alan whipped his light around, expected to see some sign of the things.

  Amber shook her head. “I don’t understand. I know they’re here, but they’re not.”

  “I think this is good enough,” Alan said. “This is evidence. We take this back and compare notes with Ricky’s research.”

  “No,” Amber said. “I want proof.”

  Alan pointed his light straight down to make sure he was walking on solid footing and he crossed the floor to get to her.

  “Amber, we both saw the one at the cabin. Now we’re feeling the presence here. That’s good enough.”

  She wasn’t listening. Her lights were trained on a spot at the far wall.

  The section of wall was made of horizontal planks of wood. Amber began to move towards it.

  Alan followed.

  When she reached the wall, Amber put her hand against the wood. Alan held his breath when she worked her fingers into the gap between two of the boards.

  “Hold this,” she said, handing him the flashlight.

  She used both hands to tug and the board popped free. She backed up as it sagged and then fell to the floor. The planks were covering a gap in the wall. Alan carefully moved closer and angled his light to see. There was another stair well behind there. Amber pulled away another board and he got
an even better look.

  “I can’t see where the steps end.”

  “We have to go down,” she said.

  # # #

  “No,” he said.

  The sound of the river rumbled up from below.

  “Just to be certain.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m going alone.”

  “Amber, be serious. You don’t get to make unilateral decisions like that. If you go down there and something happens, that gives me the burden of getting help. I won’t be put into that position against my will.”

  “You don’t get to make all the decisions either.”

  “Then convince me.”

  Amber took a step back from the wall and put her hands on her hips. She made a slow turn, casting her light around the room before she finally turned back to him.

  “Last night, we went out to a food truck,” she said. “There was nothing wrong, but we couldn’t do it. We were all terrified by our own shadows and we had to get out of there. I can’t live like that. I’ve spent too long trying to avoid this kind of conflict. I’m going to be done with it.”

  “I know,” he said. “I understand—I really do. But think about this from my perspective. The reason I’m out here is to try to secure a safer future for my family. If something happens to me here, I can’t do that. I’m not going to throw it all away just to face my fears.”

  “We’ve come this far. We both sense something, right? Just a look.”

  Amber pulled away a third board. The other stairs had been constructed of stone. These looked like they were carved right out of the bedrock. In the center of the stairway, the rock had been worn away by countless feet. The stairs farther down looked like they got narrower.

  Alan shook his head.

  “I will go first and we turn around when I say, no questions,” he said.

  “Deal.”

  Alan stepped over the lowest plank and paused at the top of the stairs. The light just barely reached the bottom. There was standing water down there.

  “This is such a bad idea.”

  Alan took the first step. The air was even colder, like they were descending into a freezer. Alan paused three steps down, thinking about calling it off. Amber wouldn’t be satisfied with that and he knew it. The notion that he was in control was just an illusion. All he could do was try to slow her down so she didn’t rush headfirst into danger, but she was determined.

  His light reached the landing at the bottom. On their left, a big arch led into the room that was below where they had just been standing. When he descended enough to see through that arch, he could see pillars every few feet, holding up the stones they had just walked across. Alan had no idea how that structure could possibly be sound. He shivered when he remembered walking across the center of that floor, moments before, and resolved that he wouldn’t do it again.

  He stopped at the bottom step and looked down at the standing water. It was several inches deep. His boots were waterproof, but he didn’t want to step into that water. The sound of the river was so loud that it was almost impossible to talk.

  Alan pointed his light through the arch up to the ceiling.

  He leaned close to Amber so he could say, “No spiders.”

  She nodded and pointed to the water on the floor. “And no way to see if there are any excretions.”

  He put his foot down into the icy water and made sure that the footing was solid before he committed his weight.

  Leaning in again he said, “One quick look then we’re out.”

  He was surprised when she nodded in agreement.

  Alan was almost to the arch when Amber’s hand landed on his shoulder and gripped tight.

  “Sorry,” she said into his ear. “Slipped.”

  The room was striped with shadows from their lights hitting the columns. It was impossible to see more than a dozen feet. There was equipment still down there—big pieces of metal were rusted enough that it was difficult to tell what shape they used to be. A ripple spread through the water and reflected off of the wall next to Alan. He froze as he considered what might have disturbed the water.

  Amber was crouching down and pointing her light upwards and at different angles, trying to get a better view. Between the columns and overhead beams, there were so many corners that it would take a year to investigate each one. Alan had the sense that they wouldn’t need to—he could feel the presence so strongly that it seemed like it should be plenty enough evidence.

  Amber shuffled forward. Alan was transfixed by the ripples that her feet sent out through the water. He thought about what might be out there in the shadows, below the surface of the water, feeling those ripples and zeroing in on her location.

  “Amber,” he said. She didn’t turn. She couldn’t hear him over the sound of the river.

  “Amber!” he called.

  She kept moving forward, studying the ceiling. Alan looked back to her boots. The water was deeper where she was and she didn’t seem too careful about making sure that the floor was solid before she took another step.

  “Amber!”

  She still didn’t hear.

  Alan flashed his light at her by cupping his hand in front of it. When she didn’t respond to that either, he went after her.

  # # #

  His hand landed on her shoulder and she whipped around, flashing her light right in his eyes. Alan squinted and raised his arm to block it out.

  “You startled me,” she said.

  “Look,” Alan said, pointing down. The water was well over the ankles of their boots and there was a current. He pointed firmly at the arch. “This is far enough.”

  Amber collected herself and nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. Even right next to him, he could barely hear her.

  He gestured for her to go first. Amber started off towards the arch and Alan stared down at the water. There was another ripple, and a swirl of sediment in the water that almost looked like fish or something were moving around under the surface. This ripple was coming from his side. He pointed his light in that direction and thought he saw something dip below the surface. Its disappearance was accompanied by another ripple.

  Alan took one step and stopped. Amber was halfway back to the arch and she was crouching so low that her butt was nearly in the water. Her lights were pointed straight up.

  Alan followed her gaze and saw it.

  His eyes went wide and he corrected himself in his head.

  “Not it,” he thought. “Them.”

  Just above Amber, the ceiling was tiled with shadows that didn’t quite make sense. It could have just been stains and the texture of the wood timbers, but he knew that wasn’t true. Alan began to swing his light towards himself. Amber’s lights followed his beam. They weren’t just over her—they were everywhere.

  Above the sound of the river, he heard something splash. There was a dark shape in the water only a dozen yards from him. Alan hunched down and moved quickly towards Amber and the exit. Splashing through the water, it looked like the things on the ceiling were moving. They were waking up from the disturbance of his presence. Amber was perfectly still, waiting for him to catch up. He waved frantically to get her moving, but she was frozen. He saw that she was looking past him and he knew that there must be something right behind him, gaining on him.

  Alan broke into a run.

  “Go!” he screamed.

  She was crouched down and in his way. Alan reached forward and practically lifted her to force her towards the arch. Broken from her trance, she turned and they splashed back through the arch way and up onto the steps.

  “Wait,” she said. “I want to…”

  “No! Up!”

  His scream drove her up the stairs and Alan was right at her back. He didn’t stop when they got to the top. Forgetting about his resolve to not trust the floor, Alan sprinted across the room, panting and passing Amber. She quickly caught up and they ran side by side up the next flight of stairs. This time, they were careful. They edged alon
g the wall, staying away from the stained boards that made up the floor of the ground level. Back through the empty rooms, where not even inebriated teenagers had dared to violate, they saw daylight through the hole in the wall.

  Alan knew that they would never make it. Somehow a hand would reach out of the depths of the deserted mill and drag them back down to that water. The colony was down there and the knowledge of it would never leave this place.

  His head was swimming—he was barely getting enough oxygen to keep running. Amber grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. They lurched and stumbled towards the exit and the blinding light. When they burst through the hole in the wall, out into the snow, he nearly forgot about the snowshoes until he was up to his waist in wet, half-melted snow.

  “Alan,” Amber said. She waved him back to the wall.

  Alan returned, hunched over and wheezing.

  The interior of the mill was black. His eyes had adjusted already to the light and he couldn’t see much inside that place. The light from his headlamp was swallowed by the void.

  Amber handed him a snowshoe and he fumbled at it with numb fingers.

  “How…” he started to ask. He spit out sour acid and coughed.

  “I don’t know,” Amber said, understanding the question he hadn’t been able to construct.

  Once he had his shoes on, Amber helped pull Alan to his feet. She led the way out.

  “Wait,” Alan said.

  Amber turned back.

  He pulled out his phone. It had no signal, but that wasn’t important to him.

  “Pictures,” he said.

  Eighteen: Ricky

  “I wish you hadn’t done that,” Ricky said.

  They had the porch of the Grill to themselves. Amber had ordered a side of onion rings as an appetizer and she squirted ketchup onto the plate before moving to the center of the table to share.

  “You keep saying that,” Alan said. “You’ve been doing your research and this was ours. Let’s put everything together and figure out how we’re going to move forward.”

  “We might have lost the element of surprise,” Ricky said.