by Dale Mayer
She stood at the bottom, trembling, hating this window back into the darkness of her past. She looked over at Grayse, who studied her carefully. “You look at me like I should know something about this.”
He nodded. “I would think you should.”
Rowan landed beside her. He turned to face Grayse, his voice echoing oddly in the darkness. “We should have brought some flashlights.”
“We have our phones,” Grayse said. He turned his on again and shone it around where they stood. All she could see were just four walls and a dirty but concreted basement.
“Similar to a bomb shelter but I haven’t seen any like this,” Grayse said. “Although this one was a decent living space at one point.”
Phoenix took two steps forward, catching sight of something behind them. “Are any books or shelves or journals here?”
“We can take a look,” Grayse said. “Do you realize other things are down here?”
Rowan stepped forward. “What do you mean?”
Slowly Grayse turned his phone’s flashlight away, shining in the direction behind him. On the ground, in front of them, were several corpses. Now long dead.
Phoenix cried out and ran forward, and Rowan caught her.
“Take it easy,” he said. “Let’s approach slowly.” He held her close to his body, and they approached the bodies on the ground. More odd-looking symbols covered their clothing, and they lay spread-eagle on the ground.
She stared down at an adult and what appeared to be several children.
“It’s probably Uncle. He stayed here …” Another memory clicked into place. “With the boys …” She turned to look around, search the darkness. “After a certain age, they came down here.”
“These do appear to be male children,” Rowan said. “At least from what I can see.”
“How can you tell?” Grayse asked.
“It’s not easy at this age,” he said. “There’s two, who look like young teens. Their pelvises are a different shape. They’re all so tall. I wonder if all the men from the cult were kept here.”
“As prisoners?”
“Considering three of them have stakes through their chests,” Grayse said, his voice harsh, “I’ll suggest maybe they were sacrifices.”
*
Rowan couldn’t understand what he was looking at. “I count seven bodies in all.”
“Yes, of various ages. A couple small ones,” Grayse said, crouching beside them. He used his phone’s flashlight to check as much as he could, then took several steps past the corpses to look deeper into the shelter. “Quite a bit of space is back here too.”
“Did they survive the police raid?” Rowan wondered out loud. “Or where they killed first?”
Phoenix stared at the bodies, an odd look on her face.
Rowan knew memories were flashing back. Although she had enough really horrible ones, maybe these were even worse. “Do you know anything about this?”
She gave a strangled sound in the back of her throat and turned away with wild eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “How can I possibly know?”
“So they were already dead?” Rowan asked Grayse.
“Most likely drugged,” Grayse said from farther in the darkness. “Maybe they knew about the raid and killed these people first. This would be an honorable death.”
“Why these stabbed victims?” Rowan wondered out loud. “What does any of this have to do with that letter Phoenix has?”
“This might help,” Grayse said. He walked back toward them, holding a stack of books. “These are old, like very old.” He stacked them on the ground. “We need to check out more stuff back here.”
Rowan held out a hand to Phoenix. She willingly placed her hand in his, and he tucked her up close. It seemed to be a habit lately. But this was an awakening that she had never expected to deal with. He whispered, “It’ll be okay. You survived this. That’s what you have to remember.”
“But they didn’t,” she said as she walked by the corpses, casting a glance down. “They have been here all this time, in the darkness. Nobody knew. Nobody had any idea what happened to these people.”
“Come on. Let’s go see the rest of the bunker,” Rowan said. “We’ll have to phone the cops because these bodies need to be removed and identified.”
She gave him the briefest of nods.
Clinging tightly to his hand, they navigated the uneven ground back to the area where Grayse stood. As they got there, he could feel a coldness he wasn’t expecting. “Am I smelling water?”
“It looks like a well is here.” Grayse turned his flashlight so they could see where they were walking, and sure enough there was a small well. He lifted a bucket and shone the flashlight down. They could see the glistening water below. He dipped a finger into the bucket and nodded. “It’s sweet too. Depending on food, they could live down here quite a long time.”
“Except for the darkness,” Phoenix said, her voice dreamy as she slid back into a childhood memory. “They came out at night.”
“Why?” Rowan asked, pushing her memories gently.
Her gaze turned inward. “Something was wrong with them,” she said. “They preferred to come out at night. Their eyes hurt them in the daytime.”
“If they stayed down here all the time,” he said. “They would have to come out at nighttime because their eyes couldn’t handle the sunlight.”
“There was something else,” she said. “They were being fed something. I can’t remember who or what, but there was talk about them. I think that was my father again. He thought they were special for a different reason.”
“Your father was obviously very special himself,” Rowan said, barely holding back his anger. “He made a lot of people suffer for no reason.”
“Isn’t this interesting,” Grayse called back to them from the darkness ahead. “I’m at the end of the space in here. There are bunks and what looks like sleeping chambers.”
They hurried along to see that, although small, the chamber itself had a surprisingly coordinated and organized space for living. It was pretty scary to think somebody could live down here for so long. It wasn’t the life Rowan himself would want. He loved fresh air, nature and freedom. This would get claustrophobic and confining in no time. But the books, these people living in such darkness needed those.
He held up a notepad, still sitting here, covered in dust. “A note is here. Police are coming. It’s time for the end. Phoenix will rise, and we will all live again.”
He heard Phoenix gasp, and, too late, he turned to see she had crumpled to her knees, tears now running down her face.
He bent down, wrapped her up in his arms and held her close. “What is it, Phoenix? What does that mean?”
“Father killed them all,” she cried. “I remember now. He killed them all because he thought I would resurrect them. They burned the house to the ground with me in it, knowing I’d live and could start this all over again in a newer, better world. One just for them.”
Chapter 22
Phoenix sat, her knees pressed against her chest, as her father’s words played through her mind. “It’s hard to even explain,” she said, “but something about it not being possible for me to die, like that letter. I would live forever.” She gave a broken laugh. “As if he knew.”
“But maybe, in his own crazy mind, he thought you were the answer. You were the future.”
“He definitely thought that,” she said, “because I could heal. And I think that’s why he thought I’d never die. But he said this world was so corrupt that they needed to find a way to live without society. The people who lived down here in the bomb shelter lived here by choice. They were slowly adapting their eyes and would only go out at nighttime when people weren’t around. They became more isolated every day.”
She got up and shook out her arms and her legs. “I have been down here several times. My father brought me down to meet the others. He kept telling them how I was the Chosen One.”
“And how did they trea
t you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember very much. More a case of them just sitting there and staring at me in wonder.”
“But why would he want to burn down the house and take everyone with him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I only remember the police coming.”
“Yes,” Grayse said. “I was with the police. I also watched you in the middle of the fire. We had just gotten several of the bodies out when somebody warned the place would blow. A series of minor explosions followed, and the place was fully engulfed in flames.”
“I don’t remember that,” she said. “I do remember fire, but it’s as if I’m a long way away, watching as something burned to the ground.”
“You weren’t that far away,” he said, his voice harsh. He crouched in front of her. “You were right here in the middle of it. I watched you walk out of the fire.”
Rowan stared at him. “Was she on fire?”
“She was surrounded by fire,” he said. “As if she was a part of the flames herself. I know most of the cops were screaming to get her help, but she didn’t need any help. She just kept walking, and, as she separated herself from the fire, the flames burned down around her. And, like a Phoenix, she rose from the ashes.”
She gave a broken laugh. “It’s all just crazy. You know that, right? I mean, I’m covered in scars, and I was heavily burned, so that must have been me getting caught up in whatever fire was burning at the time. And I don’t remember that.”
“Do you remember the state you were in when you were rescued?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, not sure she liked where he was going with this.
“The burn unit is for people badly burned,” Grayse said. “The officials definitely discussed the fact you didn’t need to be there. You were doing so well. Even though you were hurt, you weren’t badly burned. Somehow you had come through the fire without needing intensive care.”
“But I was in the hospital for a long time,” she exclaimed. “Are you sure you aren’t thinking of somebody else?”
“You were in the hospital,” Grayse said, “but not for a long time. Just for a little bit. That was more because they needed to see how badly injured you had been over your lifetime. Then they kept you out of wonder. Don’t kid yourself. You were never in any burn unit. Nobody understood. Nobody said anything, but they had all seen it, the same as I had. You walked right out of that fire completely unscathed.”
“But my body is covered in burns,” she cried out.
“True,” Grayse agreed, “but they were most likely from before the big fire.”
“From your father, weren’t they?” Rowan interjected. “Inflicted on you in preparation, you said. Teaching you. Training you to become what he expected you were born to be.”
She stood up to him. “So? What? His training worked? He burned down the house around me, and I’m still alive, so I’m supposed to be thankful?”
“No. Of course not,” Rowan said. “That’s not what I said at all. Obviously there’s nothing to be thankful for, other than you survived. But you did come out of that fire relatively unscathed.”
“According to Grayse, yes,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I have to necessarily believe him.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Grayse said. “Did you see her file?” He looked over at Rowan.
Rowan nodded.
She turned her gaze on him. “Did it mention a fire?”
“It did,” he said. “Lots of mentions about the fact the house was burning, and you didn’t appear to be hurt from it.”
“Does it say I walked through the fire and came outside?” She didn’t know why she was being so persistent. “It just seems so far from what’s possible,” she said.
“Really? Given everything else you know about your father?”
She groaned. “Okay. Maybe. It’s one thing to find a way to heal from everything my father did to me with flames from his fingertips burning me, but it’s another thing entirely to believe I walked out of a burning house in my condition as you describe it.”
“Maybe,” Rowan said. “But there really is a bottom line to all this. You’re alive, and they’re not. That’s definitely something to consider.”
*
Hours later Rowan got them out of there, removing as many of the books as possible. They had her sitting in the front seat of the rented SUV, while he and Grayse read through the journals they had found.
She had been offered a journal to go through and laughed. “Why? I lived it. I don’t need to read it.”
Rowan understood that. Given that the reading was extremely brutal, he was grateful nothing inside her wanted to rehash that same torturous past.
The journals were daily records of everything these people did. The group of males, led by John’s brother, Jenan, had decided, for whatever reason, they had the ability to live without sunlight and were becoming special visionaries of the future.
Maybe they’d had some internet or intercom system whereby one brother told the other when there was a problem. Rowan didn’t understand the stakes at all. It was so long ago that nothing was left of facial expressions, since all the skin was gone, leaving just skulls. With time and age, they had turned mostly to dust.
“I wonder if they killed the children after they realized the fire above had died, and they would miss the journey.”
“I’m thinking something like that,” Grayse said. “I don’t know why the stakes. And not everyone was staked.”
“Stakes are often used to drive out evil,” Rowan said. “Maybe that’s a lot of it. And maybe the rest died by poison willingly.”
“Maybe,” Grayse said. “Pretty sad if it is. When you think about it, an awful lot of lives were taken here that didn’t need to be.”
They heard vehicles approaching. Grayse walked around to the end of his rental SUV and waited. Two cop cars pulled up. He spoke to the first man as if he knew him well and then brought them around. He introduced them as Bruce and Jason, two cops he had worked with on the case way back when. The other pair of cops hung back, listening. All the cops were looking at her sideways.
Then they traipsed back to the bomb shelter. Rowan stood at the top, along with one of the cops and with Phoenix.
She hadn’t said a word yet. When the three cops and Grayse had gone down into the shelter and came back up, their faces were grim.
Bruce said, “How is it that we didn’t know this was here back then?”
Grayse nodded toward Phoenix. “Her memories brought us back here.”
Bruce walked over. He was an aging man with a touch of gray hair and a portly belly. He stood in front of her, his gaze hard but clear. “You’re the child who escaped?”
She looked him directly in the eye, then nodded.
“Were you ever in this shelter?”
She nodded.
“Did you see these men killed?”
She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I remember they were part of the same group but different.”
Grayse stepped in and explained about the journals and what they had read so far.
Bruce snorted. “The whole lot of them were crazy-ass nutcases,” he declared. “Nobody else survived, just the one child. Even then, as far as I understand, she was in the middle of the fire.” He cast a sideways glance at Phoenix and whispered, “Are you sure this is her?”
Grayse nodded gently. “Oh, it’s her,” he said. “And she’s had a pretty rough go of it so far.”
“I imagine,” he said. “And if she’s normal in any way …”
Grayse chuckled. “She’s pretty overwhelmed by the ugly memories now resurfacing, but she’s definitely normal.”
Phoenix sighed. “I’m normal, more or less. I went through hell growing up. I was tortured repeatedly because supposedly I was the Chosen One.”
“Of everything that we’ve learned so far,” Bruce said, “you were the one. You were the only one who survived.”
“Can you confirm that?”
Rowan asked suddenly. “Can you confirm all the bodies that came out of here were dead?”
Phoenix studied Bruce’s face as he nodded. “Without question and I don’t think anybody else could have gotten off the property.”
Rowan pointed to the bomb shelter. “Except for the group who lived down here. For all you know, there could have been another group who lived in the damn trees.”
Bruce let out another snort and said, “Given this evidence, then, yeah, maybe somebody escaped. But let me say that we didn’t take anybody alive out of here, except for her. Everybody else was dead.”
“Good enough,” Rowan said. He slid an arm around Phoenix’s shoulders. “Better?”
“Sure,” she replied. “I can see this place burned to the ground. And what’s left still makes my stomach churn.”
“That’s because we didn’t eat,” Grayse said. “And now we can’t until the police say they are done with us.” He turned to look at the nearest cop and asked, “Did you ever look at who owns the property?”
“Phoenix owns it,” the detective said. “It’s registered in her name.”
Phoenix shuddered.
“Has been registered to her since when?” Rowan asked.
“Since the house burned down,” the cop said. “Yeah, I know, very curious timing.”
“I don’t want this place,” Phoenix cried out in horror. “I have no wish to have anything to do with it. It’s the place of my nightmares.”
“Maybe you’ll sell it then,” the cop said. “I know a shopping mall development is looking to come out this direction. Needs a lot of acreage. They were doing a feasibility report.”
“You could probably sell it to them,” Rowan stated.
Phoenix shook her head. “I don’t know. That sounds terrible too.”
“Maybe, but it’s an answer.” He turned to the detective again. “Do you know who did the transferring on the title?” Rowan asked, apparently stuck on the legalities of the issue.