“What’s all this nonsense?” Michael whispered.
“That’s the map we used to draw out the one in your backpack. But back then we didn’t know it was a map. We drew it, brought it home, and figured it out later when we’d explored the tunnels further and made the connections.” Finn walked over and stood by Michael’s side. The flashlights jumped from one area of the map to another.
“It doesn’t look like a map to me,” Michael said.
“It is. We’ll use it to find Art.” Finn turned to Rebecca. “And your mom and Ray.”
“So what’s that thing in the middle?” Michael pointed to the animal.
“We never found out. Maybe it represents one of their gods or an animal that lived long ago. We’ve seen a lot of strange things down here, but nothing like that.”
Rebecca peered over Michael’s shoulder. “What are all those lines?”
“Tunnels or caves,” Finn said. “Art, Ray, and I followed some of them for maybe a hundred feet in, but the bessies always attacked us before we could get any farther. It’ll be dangerous, I can tell you. We’re going here.” Finn pinpointed one box off to the side of the large rectangle. “I’m not saying Art, Ray, or your mom are there, but that’s the place we should check first. Those bessies always dragged bodies down that hallway.” Finn ran his finger across one line.
Finn froze and raised his hand as something rustled at the top of the stairs behind them. He pulled his pistol from the holster hanging from his waist and spun around.
“Get behind me,” Finn hissed. “Stay down.”
Rebecca grabbed Michael’s arm and yanked him backward. He stumbled and hunched down beside Rebecca with Finn in a battle stance in front. Their flashlights flooded the doorway at the bottom of the stairs in a circle of light. The metal on Finn’s pistol gleamed as footsteps echoed down the stairway.
20
“Finn?” Michael whispered.
“Stay back.” Finn stood like a statue.
Michael reached his hand back toward the wall and his fingers met cold stone. Rebecca grabbed at his backpack and pulled him toward her in the darkness. A flurry of footsteps spilled down the stairway from where they had entered and echoed out into the surrounding temple. The room lit up with shafts of light.
“Finn,” a man’s voice called out at the bottom of the stairs behind the stone wall. “Put your weapons down.”
“We came here to get Art, Ray, and Audrey,” Finn answered, not lowering his pistol. “We don’t care about anything else.”
“You should have asked me before coming here,” Pastor John answered. “I’m coming around the corner now. We can talk about this.”
Pastor John appeared from around the stone doorway followed by Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend and four temple guards pointing rifles at them. Joey stood behind one guard.
“Joey!” Rebecca stepped forward.
“Don’t make a move!” one guard said.
“Rebecca?” Joey said. “What are you doing down here? You shouldn’t be here.”
“Quiet! Lower your pistol, Finn,” Pastor John said. “You and I both know there’s no way out for you.”
Finn didn’t lower his pistol. Two of the guards moved off to the sides and around to the back.
“What makes you think they’re down here?” Pastor John asked.
“They’re here.”
“Artie, Ray, Audrey! Please come out now!” Pastor John shouted and cupped his hand up to his ear and then shrugged.
Joey’s eyes opened wide and his mouth opened.
“That’s not funny,” Rebecca said.
“Can’t we help Rebecca find her mom?” Joey said.
The guard standing next to Joey thrust out his hand and knocked Joey in the side of his stomach. “Don’t you disrespect Pastor John!”
Joey curled forward and covered his stomach. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“We’ll find them,” Finn said.
“Put down your weapon, and we’ll talk about this.” Pastor John inched toward Finn. “I promise you can look for them. You don’t have a choice, do you?”
Two guards behind Michael and Rebecca moved in and ripped off their backpacks. They raised their hands above their head and crowded in closer to Finn. He lowered his pistol, and a guard snatched it from his hand. A moment later another guard pulled away his backpack and the rifle bag too.
“Where are the items you stole from me?” Pastor John asked him.
“We stole nothing from you,” Finn said.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Pastor John strolled over to a rope that led to the stone wheel covering the well. The rope wound through a mechanical pulley system up near the ceiling and then down through a series of wheels connected to a wooden crank against the wall. Pastor John gripped one of the wooden handles, which jutted out like a ship’s steering wheel.
He gestured for two guards, and they hurried over, taking the wooden crank from him. He grabbed Finn’s pistol from the guard who had taken it and held it against Finn’s forehead.
“Where are the artifacts you and Artie stole from my church?” he demanded.
“We want to rescue Art, Ray, and Audrey. That’s it. You have no right–”
“Bring him over to the pit,” Pastor John yelled.
Two guards rushed in and grabbed at his arms, and Finn spun sideways, knocking a pistol out of the hand of one of the guards. The pistol fired as it hit the floor, and Finn dropped to retrieve it. A second shot fired and Finn tumbled over onto his side, groaning like a hungry bear. Blood seeped through his pants and ran down his leg, pooling on the ground around his boots. The guard retrieved his pistol and shoved it into Finn’s face.
Rebecca screamed, and the guards pushed her and Michael back out of the way, one of them waving a rifle back and forth between them.
“Joey!” Rebecca yelled. “Help us!”
“Pastor John–” Joey started.
Joey’s dad swung the butt of his rifle back and slammed it into Joey’s chest. Joey staggered back, and then collapsed to the ground. The dirt puffed up around him, and he wheezed in a harsh breath.
Joey’s dad and another guard grabbed Finn under each shoulder and dragged him across the floor. The blood from his wound marked a trail along the way and down the two steps to the edge of the well. He thumped his head on the side of the well as they dropped him. The two guards hurried off to the side near the crank as if they had practiced this scene many times.
“Open the pit,” Pastor John commanded, and the two guards strained as the crank rotated and the covering over the well rose into the air.
Within moments a black arm slithered out, down the side of the well, and tapped the tooth-lined side of its flesh around in the dark like a blind man searching for his glasses. The arm snaked across the floor toward Finn.
Finn twisted himself around and got himself up onto one knee like a football player ready for the play, but the black arm snaked around his leg and yanked his foot back, throwing him forward onto his face. The guards dragged him across the ground toward the well as another arm crept out and enveloped his chest, forcing him up the side of the well. He gasped for breath and growled between clenched teeth.
“Finn!” Michael broke free from the guard’s grasp for a moment and managed to grab his backpack off the ground, but the guard thrust him back down, slamming him to the stone floor. Finn spit gravel and dust from his mouth as he sat up and stared wide-eyed as the bessie consumed him, dragging his backpack into the pit with him.
Pastor John recited a Bible verse, “Whoever digs a pit shall fall into it. Whoever rolls a stone, it will come back on him,” as Finn’s boots slipped over the edge. The creature’s arm continued to scour the area surrounding the well, expanding outward toward them until the guards rushed to lower the lid, and then it was quiet again. Rebecca screamed.
“Do you see what happens to those who don’t follow God’s word?” Pastor John said.
Rebecca hunched forward,
crying into her hands, and Michael put his arm around her.
“I’m sorry, Rebecca,” Joey said from behind them.
“Don’t you say another word!” his dad yelled.
A rifle thumped against Joey, and he fought for his breath again.
Pastor John led Rebecca and Michael up the stairs, which they had so stealthily descended earlier with Finn. The weight of their backpacks was gone, but so was their sense of purpose. When they entered the light of the church basement, Rebecca looked into Michael’s eyes, and he forced a reassuring smile for a moment. He hesitated at the top of the stairs. He could make a run for it back down the stone staircase. Rebecca would follow him. He couldn’t walk out of there without his grandfather, Ray, Audrey, or Finn. No doubt they would shoot two kids without hesitation. He plodded forward.
Several fold-up tables leaned in a stack against the wall in the corner. The walls were bare except for construction paper cut outs children had proudly taped up, which reminded Michael of attending Sunday school as a child. ‘God loves you’ one drawing read, with the child’s name Melissa scribbled below a picture of a lamb. ‘Jesus loves you’ was posted from Franklin. Near the ceiling, a paper banner announced ‘Jesus loves the little children.’
They went through the kitchen and up a set of stairs to a door with metal bars on the outside leading out into the back yard of the church. The door crashed shut behind them. Sunlight touched their faces for a moment until the oak trees surrounding the church property threw them into the shade. The black garage, the one they had passed on their way in, was now hidden within a circle of the orchard’s apple trees as the sun rose above them. The windowless walls and splotchy-painted black siding reminded him of a Wild West jail from the old black and white TV shows his dad would sometimes watch. Black metal bars, similar to the ones over the church’s windows, covered the thick wooden door to the black house.
“Maggie?” Rebecca said. Maggie stood in the church’s shadow accompanied by her mother and a security guard. “Did you tell them, Maggie?”
“I rebuke you in the name of God!” Maggie yelled. “Rebecca, please come back to the temple!”
“Help me find my mom. They know where she is.”
“I told you Pastor John wouldn’t like this. Your mom was a nonbeliever.”
Joey stood near the entrance to the black garage as his dad unlocked the door and threw their backpacks against the side.
“What do you got in there?” Joey’s dad asked. “Rocks?”
Joey’s dad pushed Michael and Rebecca inside. Joey glanced at her as they passed, but she stared at the ground. He tried to follow them, but his dad held him back.
Joey’s dad led them over to a smaller room at the back of the garage, like a jail within a jail. The smell of urine was strong in the air. Michael winced. The small amount of fresh air flowing in through the open door ended too soon when the door slammed shut, and within minutes his shirt was damp with sweat. Light from the outside entered through a small glass window covered with black metal bars. Even the glass was painted black, giving the room a sense of permanent midnight. A small barred opening in the center of the solid wooden door allowed them a view of the outside world. The smell of urine grew as Joey’s dad opened the cell door.
“Welcome home,” he said with a push. Michael spotted the source of the smell. A toilet in the corner that had been stained worse than any public toilet he had ever seen. He met eyes with the other guard standing by the door as it slammed shut, and he watched both of them through the small opening in the door as they sat down on folding chairs facing them from across the room.
Pastor John entered a moment later and approached the front of their cell with his arms folded over his chest.
“What are you kids up to?” he asked like a disappointed parent. “Do you think this is a joke?”
“You know what we want.” Rebecca scowled.
“Well, they’re not here,” Pastor John replied.
“Finn said they’re here,” Michael said.
Pastor John’s eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. “Finn was ignorant and arrogant, and look where it got him.” He shook his head. “You’ll end up getting yourselves killed, you know that right?”
They didn’t answer.
“You don’t want to end up like Finn, do you?”
“What have you done with my grandfather?” Michael shouted.
“Pastor John,” Rebecca said calmer now, “will you please tell me where my mom is?”
Pastor John leaned in toward the hole and grinned. “I don’t know where your mom is at. If the phantom took her away, then that’s God’s will. Audrey was a troublemaker, just like you, and look what happened to her. Do you want that to happen to you too? It’s a good thing you’re in that cell. We need to keep you safe here from the phantoms for a while. Shadows surround this town. Repent now. If you’re not careful, evil will consume you forever.”
Pastor John turned to Joey’s dad. “Keep them safe here.”
Joey’s dad stared at Michael and Rebecca through the opening in the door. “Yes, Pastor John.”
The door slammed behind Pastor John as he left, and Michael heard lawnmowers in the distance. Joey’s dad cleared his throat, stretched back in his folding chair and pulled out a book from a bag on the floor at his side. He switched on a small lamp sitting on a wooden table beside the chair.
“Rebecca, you and that kid with you are the first ones I’ve seen step out of that temple alive,” Joey’s dad said. “Pastor John must like you. You’re blessed by God.”
Rebecca pulled Michael away from the door and whispered into Michael’s ear. “I know how we can get out of here.”
21
“Every minute in here is one minute less searching for my mom.” Rebecca stood with her arms over her chest.
“I want to get out of here and go home,” Michael said.
Rebecca’s eyes widened and her mouth gaped open. “How could you want to go home? Don’t you want to help Artie anymore?”
“I only make things worse, Rebecca. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t come here.”
“Yeah, things are messed up, and we need to do something about it. So you’re giving up?”
Michael stared at a brown stain faded into the concrete floor below them. The putrid smell of the toilet mixed with the hot room made his blood boil. Was he trying to save his grandpa like a superhero? That was crazy. His limbs weakened, and he sagged forward. A hopeless weight spread through him. What was the point of trying anymore? The way into that tunnel to save his grandfather was now closed, and the person leading them was now gone too.
“Okay,” Michael said. “What’s your plan?”
“All right,” she said, “let’s get out of here.” She leaned into him closely. The puffs of her breath tickled his ear as she whispered and it brought a childlike smile to his face. “That’s Joey’s dad out there, Mr. Lynch. He was my bus driver when I was a kid. I had dinner at his house lots of times when I was dating Joey. He’ll let us out for sure.”
Michael glanced out at Joey’s dad as he flipped a page of his book. “He’s got a gun, you know.”
“I got this.” Rebecca put her mouth to the hole in the door. Michael stood behind her, watching Joey’s dad read his book with one leg folded over the other. “Hey there, Mr. Lynch,” she said, “I’m very sorry for all the trouble I caused. We just want to go home now. Can you please help us?”
“No chance,” Mr. Lynch said. “Sinners got to pay for their evil ways.”
“Can you please get a Bible for us while we’re waiting in here?”
“No,” he said. “If you had read your Bible before this happened you wouldn’t be in there.”
“You were always nice to me. Can you please help us? Please?”
“No,” Mr. Lynch yelled. “Shut up.”
“We can still save my mom–”
Mr. Lynch slammed his book to the floor, drew his pistol, and fired it toward the door. A hole appeared
in the door above Rebecca’s head. Light from the guard’s area leaked into the cell. Michael yanked her back toward him, and they both hunkered down in the corner opposite from the toilet.
“For the wages of sin is death! Audrey made her choice, and she’s burning in hell. Say another word, and I’ll send you to hell right now!”
Rebecca wrapped her arms around Michael’s chest, and he turned so his back faced the door. Her fingernails clawed at his shirt as her body trembled. His heartbeat pounded in his face. Her tears dripped onto his shirt, and he stroked her back.
“That didn’t go as planned.” She sniffled and gripped him tighter. Her hair tickled his lips as she pressed against him, and the scent of her shampoo almost took his mind out of the cell.
The garage’s outer door creaked open and someone spoke to Mr. Lynch. Footsteps shuffled across the floor, and then it slammed shut again. Moments later, a voice whispered through the small window in the door.
“Rebecca?”
Rebecca glanced over at the door, and then turned her head away.
Joey’s silhouette appeared in the window. Michael sneered and shook his head.
“What,” Rebecca said without moving.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Joey said, “but you got to do what I say. Okay?”
Rebecca turned to Michael. “Okay?”
“What the hell does he want us to do?”
“Come with me,” Joey said.
“I’m not going with him.” Michael folded his arms over his chest.
“How can I trust you now?” Rebecca asked Joey.
Shadows Rising Page 16