Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2)

by Luis de Agustin

  “Very clear, Mr. Hain.”

  “Where are we headed next?” Russell asked.

  “A route for the next day or so was just sent,” Hain said. “I hope it doesn’t kill you—yet ha-ha-ha.”

  “Why do I think he’s not kidding,” Sammy said.

  “The route will lead you to the bell stones. Have a ring-a-ding good time. Bye, Gus.”

  “Bell stones . . . ,” Sammy muttered skeptically.

  “Very well,” Gus said, looking at the GPS. “We continue east and . . . it looks like he’s noted a village near, to leave the mounts.”

  “Gonna miss Ol’ Washing Machine,” Sammy said, patting his horse.

  The unfolding day’s late summer sun, roused stitch work of wild-flowers across the meandering meadows the yulen walked. Beechnut stands and elm dotted the hills, birds skittered along the sky. Leeda inhaled the clean air, and watching far cloud patterns, wondered if the storm would come their way.

  Nathan walked ahead over the countryside that bled its colors. Behind, Shawn enthused searching the earth’s fresh scents. Every pleasing step took him further into the tranquility of friendship he’d never known. Close behind, bearing this labor as I can, Sammy thought, Sammy glided compliant steps over the wild grasses. Bringing up the rear, Gus watched Russell’s downcast head, and calculated Russell’s point in late season. The enormous energy he’d expended in the cave was clearly responsible for his accelerated decline. Passing an orchard of ripening apples, he knew men might be near but that unfortunately it was still too soon for Russell’s calling. He hoped the things Russell voiced by the campfire were ravings of a tired mind. If they were not, he worried how much more forceful Russell would become after his taking, when he would be renewed with strength and vigor.

  He certainly was an old yulen, as Russell said. But to become superior to men as Russell proposed, if that was what the raving young yulen wanted, that was wrong for any yulen to seek. To strike men and vanquish them was not what he or the others had joined. It was not what he’d given every coin of his capital. His current fortune may not have been as hard earned as the others theirs; however, surrendering his inheritance from Claus his last lover, still meant he became vulnerable to the world, the world of men. Money in itself did not matter to him or his. It was not losing the money that mattered. To yulen, money was only a means to an end. It permitted survival. It bought ways to gain them their greatest need. It greased the palms of authority. It paid for the sudden escapes they often needed, and gave them a stake to resettle and begin a new life wherever they ended up.

  He certainly was an old yulen, he kept thinking, but at least the others of the party were of the same mind. Sure, Nathan was a rebel, but not much more than he for seeking answers to the mysteries of their lives, afflictions, and beginnings. Prolong life. No one wanted to die, not men or women or yulen. And no one wanted to suffer at the hands of others.

  A useful answer to help prolong his life was all he sought from The Book. It was all he wanted to come of it; lengthened life by being able to defend himself. The added dignity from such an act was a bonus. It was just and justifiable, and he could excuse it, but then an inconvenient contradiction seeped into his logic: what he sought, defied yulen nature. He shuddered. His logic failed. Your logic fails, his chilled body said. Had he been completely swept away by Nathan’s words and passion? Had his own susceptibility to believe what he himself had wanted and sought years ago, corrupted him? He’d wanted to regain or prolong the spring. He’d wanted to be as when young, ready to battle, unafraid, not yet settled into accepting the proscribed nature of things. Was he no different from Russell? No. He expelled the thought. What he sought did not upset yulenness. Nature’s balance would be maintained. His quest’s fulfillment would be acceptable to nature.

  He had agreed to the journey, and he would stay and see the trial through. He wanted it and trusted in Nathan. The Book of Yulen, its goodness, would prove him right, he assured himself. His desire and his decision would be proven just. Nathan wanted what he himself wanted, he reassured himself, and Nathan would not betray the ideal of all nature that was their race, the perfection of all Creation. “Gustav . . . ,” he heard his name called. “Gustav!” He raised his head and saw that he’d separated from the group. They stood waving from a hillcrest. He waved back. He deeply inhaled the crisp air to clear his head, and picked up his pace plying the path the others laid down.

  X

  “It ends here,” Gus said, looking up from his GPS screen. He and the five yulen looked around standing on a silent hilltop higher than the surrounding green hills, no village or townsfolk visible. “Wait,” Gus said. “Message from Hain.”

  “Does he say we should now jump off the side of the mountain?” Sammy said.

  “No,” Gus said, tending to the message. “It says we have arrived at The Bell Stones. He writes each word with a capital.”

  “Oh goody, so not the plain ol’ bell stones,” Sammy quipped.

  Scanning the area, they spotted a nearby mound about half a tennis court in size piled with smooth gray boulders. Next to it, two log poles stood sticking up from the ground, a third pole resting across their tops.

  “We are to remove the stones,” Gus said.

  “Remove the stones,” Sammy said. “Those little stones the size of—washing machines.”

  Sammy’s estimation wasn’t far off, the others assessed.

  “Remove the stones?” Nathan asked concerned.

  “There seems to be a lack of understanding here,” Gus said. “Yes, remove them and place them aside.”

  “Okay,” Nathan said, “then let’s get to it.”

  They walked to the several feet high mound, and watched astounded as Nathan attempted to move a large boulder off a layer of equally big stones below. “We’re going to have to come up with a plan,” he said, desisting.

  “Why don’t we try to push one boulder together?” Shawn said, eagerly going to push the one Nathan tried. “Come on.”

  “Okay, all together then,” Nathan said. “Come on.”

  All leaning into the stone, they pushed it off the one below, and it rolled onto the grass.

  “See. See,” Shawn smiled broadly. “Together we can do it easy.”

  “Easily,” Sammy said. “And how do we lift the ones under the surface, in the pit?”

  “We’ll do the first layer and,” Nathan said smiling, “a messenger from the mountain gods will tell us how to get the next layer out. What do you say?”

  “I say you have rocks in our head but let’s go,” Sammy said, rolling up his sleeves, and the others laughing and joining him to push against the next boulder.

  Over the course of only two hours, they pushed the heavy but rounded stones of the top layer onto the surrounding grass. They then stood looking at the layer of similar gray stones resting a foot below ground level, Russell sitting worn out against one.

  “Can’t you summon one of those mountain rescue helicopters on the phone, Gus?” Sammy said. “The ones that drop a cable to desperate campers, and lift them and stranded boulders to chaise lounges?”

  “I suppose I could, Sammy, but I think it would be in clear violation of our instructions.”

  “It was a joke, Gus, on me, ha-ha.”

  “You know, we’re looking at this as a team of oxen, and not as a team of intelligent beings,” Leeda said.

  “Okay, Leeda,” Nathan turned to her.

  “Give me a leaver long enough and I shall move the world,” she said.

  “Okay. Archimedes,” Sammy said.

  “A lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world,” Gus said, completing the famous quotation by Archimedes.

  “Cool. We’re all very learned,” Sammy said.

  “But Gus is right!” Nathan said brightening, as Leeda folded her arms and shook a grinning face.

  “So? . . . okay,” Sammy said.

  “That split log across the poles,” Leeda said, her chin point
ing to the long split log resting on the vertical poles beside the pit.

  “The split log!” Nathan said, going to it.

  “Yeah Ace, brilliant. I can see it. Brilliant, dude!” Russell said, Leeda shaking her smiling face.

  With the guys following, Nathan walked to the poles.

  Leeda watched them, and then figured that the poles might be a sort of spiritual gate to the stone mound, and in fact, the mound itself something more. “Wait! Maybe we shouldn’t touch them. Capital letters you said, Gus.”

  “Leeda,” Russell called back. “My name’s got capital letters. Does that get me any respect?”

  “Wait,” Gus said. “You know, Leeda might be right. This could be a marker, milestone or something.”

  “So, what are you saying, Gus?” Nathan said. “We don’t complete the test?”

  “No!” cried Russell. “See what you’re doing, Leeda!”

  “Okay-okay,” said Nathan. “Vote. Those in favor of moving the stones—”

  “We can always roll them back,” Shawn said.

  “Those in favor of continuing the task, raise their hand.”

  He and the others except Leeda raised a hand.

  “Opposed?”

  “I vote for the mountain god idea,” Leeda called, good humored.

  “Motion to continue passed. Shawn, knock the cross pole down,” Nathan said.

  By early evening, a brilliant sun low on the horizon, the crew maneuvered the last stone of the mound’s second layer. Pushing down on one end of the rounded-bottom split log resting on a stone, they slowly rotated the levered pole carrying a stone on its opposite end. When they removed their applied pressure off their end, the stone rolled off the flat side of the pole and onto the grass. “How are you holding up, Russell,” Nathan asked him, Russell breathing quick shallow breaths, his eye sockets dark, his lips blistered.

  “I’m okay, Ace. Let’s keep going.”

  “We’re done.”

  “Done?” Russell lifted his relieved head off the lever, and saw the pit emptied of the oval boulders. “What are those like boxes there?” he asked about the pit’s ground laid out with long crates covered with a layer of loose dirt. Before anyone could answer, the pole they’d used as a lever and that Shawn was lifting from the pit, slipped from his hands. It struck a stone, and the sound was like a bell ringing, a deep, resonant clang like from a tubular bell.

  “Wow,” Russell said.

  “Ohhh . . . ,” Leeda expelled pleasantly. “Do that again, Shawn.”

  “It just slipped from my hands.”

  “Do it again anyway,” she said.

  Shawn lifted the long pole, let it drop, and again when it hit, a deep vibrating gong sound filled and echoed through the valley. “Ohhh . . . so nice,” Leeda said on opening her eyes. “Again, Shawn,” she said. “Come, Nathan. Give me your hand. Feel it together.”

  “I felt it.”

  “Leeda, I’ll put my hand on your belly,” Sammy said.

  “No, only Nathan. Again, Shawn.”

  “Last time, Shawn,” Nathan said.

  “We’re entitled to a little reward don’t you think, Nathan?” she said. “After all our work excavating?”

  The log hit against a stone again. The sound’s depths vibrated through Leeda, the others less so, and out again along the glens, dales, and gullies.

  “Ohhh . . . Nathan . . . ,” Leeda breathed close eyed, and then the sound of lightning struck.

  They turned to the sky but it was clear. Again, the lightening sounded, and they looked skyward.

  “Oh my God,” Sammy said. It’s not lightening!”

  They had only a second to look elsewhere for the source before the blast sounded again.

  “Gunfire!” Sammy called. “Somebody’s shooting at us!”

  “Behind the stones!” Nathan called. “No, into the pit!”

  As several more rounds hit the rocks, they jumped into the pit, some of their feet crashing through wooden slats.

  The shots kept on, more frequently and hitting closer. “It’s buckshot!” Nathan called out.

  “And coming closer,” Gus said crouching, shot flying over their heads.

  “Where the hell are we!” Sammy called, his feet having crashed through a crate’s splintered cover.

  Buckshot ringing off the wall of stones encircling them, Shawn reached into where his own feet broke through the slats, and he lifted out a tattered clothed human ulna, its wrist bone and dried fingers dangling.

  “We exposed a cemetery or burial ground!” Gus responded.

  “And the native sons aren’t coming to thank us,” Sammy said.

  More shots rang off the boulders.

  “We’ve desecrated their burial grounds, Nathan!” Gus continued.

  “I don’t think we can stay here,” Shawn said.

  “Standing knee-deep in their mommies’ navels, Shawn, I dare say not,” Sammy said, head down.

  “There, over there!” Nathan said, raising his head and almost having it blown away. “Over there, that hut. Some sort of shepherd’s hut.”

  “Was that there before?”

  “Yeah, yes!” Nathan answered. “Let’s just get over there and out of their burial grounds. We can reason with them better from in there. Get ready to go. Ready? Ready? Go!” They jumped to the grass, and clawing along it, scampered toward a hut about a hundred feet away. Shots kept firing, and Nathan, looking back, sighted the tips of hunting rifles coming up behind the boulders. The firing stopped, but then came anguished shouts from men by the pit.

  Shawn arrived first at the earthen hut and pushed in the slat door. He held it as the others raced inside, and as Nathan, the last, tumbled in and Shawn flung the door closed, a hail of shot pelted the door.

  Spread on the hay scattered floor or leaning against coarse shaggy walls, they caught their breaths. Outside, the men shot angry words in German.

  “They want us to come out,” Gus said listening. “They say to come out and take our medicine—like men.”

  “I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t think they’re talking cough syrup,” Sammy said.

  “What is this place?” Shawn said, looking around at the empty, windowless hut, its walls covered with circular earth and hay paddies packed against one another in a polka dot pattern. “And boy, does it smell.”

  “It’s a dung drying hut,” Leeda said. “I lived in Ghana, and they, like many parts of the world, use cow manure for fuel.”

  “Come out!” the men shouted in German.

  “I saw this in Africa, Canada too,” Nathan said.

  “Yeah Ace?” Russell said, exhausted.

  “Yeah. I lived in a cozy Ontario farming community three years, gentleman cattle raiser.”

  “Wow, Ace. But what is it?”

  “They’re cow dung patties mixed with straw set against the wall to dry. In remote places like this they burn them for fuel.”

  “Oh,” Leeda said.

  “Wow, Ace.”

  A volley of pellets hit the hut, some making it through the front wall.

  “I don’t think they’re going to go easy on us,” Gus said, the men screaming bitterly. “They say we destroyed their burial ground and desecrated their ancestors.”

  “That handle on the floor,” Nathan said, and Shawn crawled to a recessed metal handle and opened a hinged trapdoor. “I’ll check,” he said, jumping in and immediately starting to cough sharply, the others covering their mouths.

  Another round of pellets hit the hut, bits of dung patties flying off on them.

  “Impossible to breathe in there,” Shawn said, pulling himself back into the hut from the opening in the floor, the trapdoor dropping. “But anyway there’s no underground exit, just a tiny room.”

  “It’s the manure pit,” Nathan coughed, his eyes tearing like the rest. “Hydrogen sulfide from manure decomposition, and heavier than air is why it’s so concentrated down there.”

  “They’re giving us two minutes to come out, or blasting us aw
ay,” Gus said, after another volley punched holes in the walls.

  “Methane gas in here too, flammable, highly explosive,” Nathan said, covering his mouth.

  “They’re counting,” Gas said, “And coming nearer.”

  “Hurry,” Nathan said, “can’t let the gas escape.”

  “Why?” Sammy said. “Do we like choking on it so much?”

  “Shawn, can you pop an opening in this wall?” Nathan said, pointing to the rear patty covered wall.

  “Sure thing, Nathan,” Shawn said, readying and then throwing his shoulder, body following, through the patties and wallboards.

  “Let’s go!” said Nathan. “Shawn, find some small smooth stones.”

  “One minute left,” Gus said, the men’s voices near.

  “Go-go-go!” Nathan said, everyone crawling through the opening. “Stay down, keep going, and take cover!”

  “Here, Nathan,” Shawn said, handing him two fist sized stones.

  “Go, go, and stay down,” Nathan told Shawn outside the hut, while twisting a handful of straw and then striking the stones against each other over the sheaf.

  “Last chance,” the men called, almost at the hut.

  With a lucky spark the straw lit, and reaching into the hut Nathan threw the trapdoor open, the gas fumes hitting him in the face.

  “Time!”

  Volleys of gun blasts smashed the front wall. Nathan ran holding the flaming straw, twisted around, and threw the bundle through the hole into the hut. Managing another few steps, he leapt ahead to the ground as the hut exploded behind him.

  The others, hit by gobs of manure and knocked down by the blast, saw only thick gray smoke behind, and Shawn and Gus ran into it after Nathan.

  “Nathan . . . ,” Russell said wearily, as Leeda, Sammy, and he anxiously watched the billowing smoke. They waited and watched, and then as if emerging from fog, figures of Shawn and Gus materialized hurrying with Nathan straddled between them. “Go, go, go,” Gus said to them. They jumped up, saw Nathan coughing, but alright, and together fled through the smoke encircled cover.