Michael nodded.
“I’ll go first,” Joey said, crawling down toward the hole. His machete clanged against the stone wall as he slipped out of sight and squeezed past the corpses.
23
“Michael,” Rebecca whispered, “maybe you should get out your map.”
Michael set his backpack down, reached in to the bottom, and pulled out the map. Rebecca held a flashlight over his shoulder as they studied the lines that zigzagged across its surface.
“Can you tell where we are?” Rebecca asked.
“Not really,” Michael said. Some squares contained a symbol like rays shooting out from a setting sun. Another larger square showed a cross, and off to the side a bunch of circles filled in a smaller square. “I’m kind of disoriented.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Joey said.
“We need to find the temple,” Rebecca said, pointing at the smaller square above the larger one. “Then maybe the map will make more sense.”
“Do you know where the temple is?” Rebecca asked Joey.
“I can’t make any sense of that,” he said, waving his hand over the map like brushing away a fly. “Let’s find your mom and get out of here.”
Michael glanced one last time at the map before folding it and stuffing it into his backpack. His fingers brushed against the cold metal ribs of the medallion. Michael pulled it out and studied it. A cross like the one on the map bordered the stone. He returned it to his backpack and zipped it up.
They moved forward, all three wielding machetes and flashlights, and the dirt walls and ceiling closed in on them again. They bent forward and dropped to their hands and knees to proceed. Their backpacks knocked clumps of dirt from the ceiling.
Michael followed Joey who crowded in behind Rebecca.
“Just wide enough for us to get through,” Joey said.
A chill crawled down Michael’s back. Maybe those phantoms had dragged his grandfather through this same tunnel.
“Room up ahead,” Joey whispered.
Michael sighed and shined the flashlight around Joey past Rebecca. His pulse pounded in his ears. Collapsed stones lined the edge of the hole. Beyond there was a wider darkness.
They squeezed out of the hole and stood up, their footsteps and rustling backpacks echoing around them. The stone walls surrounding them were similar to those inside the temple, the same color and texture, except the walls here were devoid of the symbols and graphics. They all stood silent. Michael gripped his machete and scanned the walls and ceiling. The passageway ended to their right, but to their left it turned a corner. They crept toward the corner and held their machetes high as Joey pushed in front of Rebecca and poked his head around the corner, lighting up the way.
“What’s that smell?” Rebecca whispered.
They rounded the corner into a wider room where a section of the ground off to the side had disappeared. Michael cautiously approached the edge and spotted a pool of black liquid at the bottom of the shaft about twenty feet below him. The light reflected off the surface like a black mirror.
Rebecca walked up beside him, but stayed an arm’s length away from the edge. Her hand clutched the back of his jacket as she peered over the edge. “I’m scared of heights.”
Michael was silent.
“Is that oil?” Her voice echoed around them as if they were in an enclosed swimming pool.
“It looks like the same black crap Pastor John uses,” Michael said. “The same smell anyway.”
Michael stared at the pool, and his grandmother flashed through his mind. No guards could stop him this time. He would take the substance to her and be the healer. His grandfather would proudly stand at his side. He would be the savior of both his grandmother and grandfather. Nobody could stop him. He took the metal canteen from his backpack and poured out the remaining water. It splashed onto his shoes and trickled over the edge of the shaft.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca asked him.
“I need to get some of that for Grandma Mary.” He dug out the rope from his backpack and tied it around the hook on the side of the canteen.
“We don’t have time,” Joey said.
“We shouldn’t stop,” Rebecca agreed.
Michael dropped onto the ground with his arms and head hanging over the edge. He wrapped the open end of the rope around his arm and lowered the canteen into the tranquil darkness.
“Shine a flashlight down there for me,” he said.
Rebecca inched toward the edge beside him and extended her flashlight, aiming it straight down. The canteen wavered on the rope below until it touched the surface of the black pond. Ripples fanned out and broke the mirror illusion.
“It’s not sinking in.” He dragged the rope back and forth, the canteen skimming across the surface. The liquid splashed with each change of direction until the canteen swallowed some of the substance, then it gurgled and drown.
A familiar clicking sound echoed in the distance.
“I heard something,” Rebecca whispered.
“Michael,” Joey hissed. “Hurry.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
The rope pulled tighter as the canteen filled and the gurgling stopped. Michael reeled it back in like a prize fish on a hook. Rebecca reached down and pulled up on the excess rope. The canteen rose, the aluminum shell clanked against the stones at the side of the pit. Some liquid splashed back down into the pond as it dangled back and forth.
“Easy-peasy,” Michael said.
As the canteen rose higher, the line stopped swinging, and the rope tightened like a guitar string. It slipped through his fingers and he tightened his grip. The rope tore across his skin as it crept downward.
“What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked.
“I need help.” Michael struggled with the rope. “It’s too heavy. Pull it up.”
Rebecca pulled on the rope behind Michael, and Joey angled his flashlight down into the black pond as the clicking intensified behind them. Michael shifted his body closer to the edge and struggled for every inch of progress. He pulled harder on the rope and slid forward. His body knocked into his flashlight, sending the light rolling across the wall of the shaft. In the shadows below, the outline of the canteen appeared, but not the rope. Instead, tentacles flailed in the dark.
Michael’s eyes flared wide open and his heart smashed against his chest. He strained his jaw shut and pulled with all his strength. His body slipped closer to the edge.
“Let go, man,” Joey said.
Michael pitched one hand over his head into his backpack. His knuckles knocked against the wooden handle of his machete as his body slipped forward again. Rebecca lunged forward and grabbed onto his legs. His chest now dangled over the edge and sank down into the pit.
“Let it go!” Rebecca wrapped herself around his legs.
Joey heaved him backward, and Michael’s belt cut into his stomach. For a moment he loosened his grip on the rope. His heart sank as it tore through his fingers and the canteen splashed into the pond again. The rope tightened around his arm and slipped further from his grasp, digging into his palms as it burned across his raw skin. He might never get another chance. He wouldn’t let go, not for anything. He would get the black water for Grandma Mary or die trying.
Shadows swirled around him as a long black arm snaked across the side of his face. The creature’s icy cold skin stretched and constricted like an accordion as it moved upward. It squeezed and pushed against his shoulder, and then wrapped itself around the rope and formed a grip on his arm. Its grasp yanked and whipped him from side to side, and the chipped stones along the edge of the shaft dug into his thighs. His chin slammed into the shaft wall as he stared upside down into a chaos of swirling shadows.
“Drop it,” Rebecca yelled.
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s got my arm.”
Rebecca and Joey lost their grip on his legs as he swung from side to side again until he shot forward over the edge, held up now only by Joey’s painful grip tightening around
his ankles. Rebecca lit up the tentacle, slashing at it with her machete. The blade clanged against the wall of the pit near his waist when she missed. One arm whipped past him and up toward her.
The teeth along the tentacle’s underside sliced across Michael’s wrists and pain shot up his arms. He was being ripped apart. The muscles in his chest were on fire. He dug his fingernails into the beast’s limb, and they sank into its flesh like Play-Doh. The rope spun, twisting his arm around so that his hand almost faced backwards, farther than he ever thought possible. His arm went numb, and he no longer felt connected to his body.
Shadows rose below him, and a hissing sound enveloped his ears. Creeping branches of cold meat slithered around his wrists and up his forearms. Another arm swung across and pounded against his face, its throbbing and pulsing flesh pushed against his cheek as it climbed up his chest and across his pants behind him. Rebecca shrieked, and her machete clanked against the stone floor. Her panicked breathing, frantic and rapid, echoed around the room. The creature shook, and one of its severed limbs plummeted past his face into the black water where it splashed and sank below the surface. It retreated down across his body, pulling in its severed limb as it convulsed and slapped against his spine. It slithered off of his back and lowered itself below the edge of the wall beside him. It hissed like a steam train, and then plunged into the pond. The goop splashed up across his face, arms, and head.
His hands came alive, tingling with pain, as the fluid flowed back down his arms across his wrists and dripped down his fingertips onto the rope. The monster released the rope and scaled the wall straight up toward him.
“Get up here, man.” Joey heaved as Michael rose.
Michael struggled to reel in the canteen until he clutched it with both hands. He capped it just as a tentacle burst out from the side and hooked him around an ankle. It spun him around and dragged him over the edge of the shaft. He faced Joey and Rebecca as he dangled from the rope. The tentacle yanked him down further, and he climbed up as they pulled on the rope, but it wouldn’t let go. It was a tug of war with him stuck in the middle. His chest scraped against the wall of the pit, and his hips slammed into the stone outcroppings as he swayed back and forth like a pendulum. The rope slipped through his hands as he struggled to maintain his grasp. His heart throbbed in his ears. He slid backward, down again into the darkness.
Above him, Rebecca held the rope with one hand and swung the machete with the other. Out of sight, Joey groaned in pain. Rebecca’s machete whooshed only inches from his face in the darkness. She stretched down and sliced across the creature’s arms like cutting vines in a jungle. From the faint light of the flashlight resting on the ground above him he watched the teeth on the quivering limb retract and extend again as it attempted to better grasp him. Within a flashlight’s flicker its beak spread apart, revealing hundreds of shards of teeth and a hellish tongue, like the devil’s serpent as it darted in and out in a silent scream. Two eyes the size of dinner plates lay flat against the side of the head. Its beak, like a menacing crow, widened and cracked shut.
Michael dug the tips of his shoes into the stone gaps in the wall, searching for footing, but they slipped off the oily surface.
Joey hoisted the rope upward, the dark monsters rising toward them. Rebecca hacked off a large section of a limb, the machete clanking into the stone after severing through its flesh. The creature hissed and backed away, dropping out of sight below the edge.
Michael rose until his hands almost touched the top of the shaft, but the rope slipped through his fingers, soaked from his sweat, until he grasped another dry section. He wouldn’t make it. The edge of the pit was out of reach, and Joey now panted and groaned louder. The rope stopped rising. Tentacles snaked up beside him toward Rebecca and Joey.
He was endangering their lives now too. The muscles in his arms burned as he held onto the rope. He couldn’t hold on any longer. No, he wouldn’t make it. It was best he let go and accept his fate. He would drown or be eaten and endure whatever nightmare in hell awaited him. Rebecca and Joey were struggling so hard to save him. If he didn’t let go, the bessies would kill them too. Nobody would know he gave up, and he could drop into the darkness and be done with it. It wouldn’t be so difficult. Another limb circled his chest and squeezed the air from his lungs. He slipped further.
“Hang on, Michael,” Joey called down. “We got you, man.”
“Pull the rope,” Rebecca screamed.
“Don’t let go,” Joey yelled at him.
Rebecca leaned over the edge of the pit and swung the machete like a baseball player who was throwing several balls at the same time. The creature hissed each time she sliced into an arm and its blood rained out. Michael slid further, and the rope rose again a few more inches. It burned through his fingers as he inched down and his nails clawed at the canteen’s cloth container.
Joey hoisted him up, and then lunged forward to the edge of the pit and grabbed Michael’s wrist. The rope dropped and Rebecca screamed. Joey’s fingers dug into Michael’s forearm as if a wild animal had caught him in its teeth. The pain shot up his arm and swallowed his sight in complete darkness for a moment.
“Michael,” Joey said, “I need you to pull up.”
“Climb up, Michael,” Rebecca insisted.
Desperation filled Joey’s voice. “I can’t hold on any more.”
Michael pulled up on Joey’s arm as a burst of air flooded his lungs. The limb around his chest loosened and Rebecca stepped away.
Michael lifted himself.
“More!” Joey hollered.
A moment later, something thumped against the creature’s torso and it let out a piercing screech. A booming splash echoed off the pond and the arm around his chest slinked away.
Michael rose in Joey’s grasp until his head and chest lay against the ground, the canteen’s rope strung around his upper arm. In a final thrust, he twisted himself around as Joey pulled him away from the edge.
Rebecca shuffled to the pit with a stone the size of a skull and hurled it into the darkness. The liquid boomed as the rock crashed against the surface below.
Joey let out a moan when Michael lay on the floor.
Michael crawled forward and reeled in the rope. His fingers tingled as he scrambled to untie it from the canteen.
All three gasped for air. Rebecca and Joey hunched forward.
Michael held the canteen in his hands, the weight of it pushing down against his aching fingers. The slimy substance clung to the container, still dripping off the bottom, and oozed between his fingers. He stuffed it into his backpack along with the rope. Before he zipped it up, a subtle glow of red light erupted from the bottom of his bag. He must have left one of the flashlights on.
He picked up his machete and flashlight off the ground.
“Are you okay, man?” Joey asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I am now. Thank you.”
Rebecca and Joey limped ahead of him further into the tunnel. Behind them, the creature clicked and hissed as it stalked them from the shadows.
An arched stone doorway loomed ahead.
24
Within the archway ahead, a thick wooden door framed in rusted metal strips blocked their path. The top and bottom of the door was fixed into stone grooves running off to one side. An oversized metal ring hung down in place of a door handle. He yanked it, but the door didn’t budge. He had no energy left.
“Give me a hand,” he said.
Joey and Rebecca crowded in next to him and grabbed a section of the door.
“On three,” he said. “One, two… three.”
Metal scraped against stone as they heaved the door to the side far enough for them to squeeze through.
Michael went through first. The tunnel continued on the other side as far as he could see. Joey and Rebecca hurried through, and they followed the same routine to close the door. Metal squealed again, but the door stopped short of a complete seal.
“They knew how to build things back then, didn�
�t they?” Joey said.
A gap not much larger than a finger ran along the edge. The ancient door provided a barrier from the bessies coming up behind them. Maybe it was enough to stop them, but Michael wanted to be sure. Two metal rings attached to the door, each matching the one on the other side, hanging down and aligning with similar rings drilled into the stone wall. Michael tossed his backpack on the ground and dug out his rope again. Still damp from the black liquid, he strung the rope through the rings several times until it was tight and then tied it off with a knot.
“Do you think that will be enough?” Rebecca asked.
“We’ll know in a few minutes,” Michael said.
They scanned the small stone room around them. On the opposite wall, the hallway extended again into darkness. Cracks zigzagged across the ceiling and small piles of stones littered the ground as if a small earthquake had shaken them down long ago. Patches of cloth and broken stacks of wood lay against the walls. Useful weapons or undiscovered treasures might be somewhere in the debris, but there wasn’t time to look.
Something struck the door, and the wood cracked behind them. They spun around as a tentacle slinked through the gap, scraping the teeth running along its arm across the edge of the wood. Joey thrust forward with his machete, slicing off the tip. The severed chunk spun to the ground and writhed. Hisses burst through the door opening, and the severed limb retracted.
“Keep moving,” Michael said.
As they crossed the room toward the corridor, the beast crashed against the door behind them, rattling the metal rings. A thin cloud of dust puffed off the ceiling.
The corridor ahead wasn’t as endless as he’d imagined, and it soon opened out again into an area about the size of a small bedroom. Two open doorways heading left and right mirrored each other at the far end. Michael spun his backpack to the floor and crouched in front of it, digging to the bottom until he found the map. He unfolded it as he stood up. They huddled together and studied it, comparing the doorways in their location to the lines on the map.
Shadows Rising Page 18