Passage Graves

by Madyson Rush

  “Is there any light?”

  “No—I mean, only the open capstone on the ceiling they put in a few years ago and the torches we brought in with us.” Scott pointed to the students’ flashlights.

  “What do you hear?”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  The student with the nose ring made a fart noise with his mouth. A few of the girls squeaked in disgust.

  David waited until they were quiet and then turned back to Scott. “Close your eyes.”

  Scott obeyed.

  “Keep them closed.” David pulled a small drum from his backpack and tapped it lightly. “What do you hear?”

  Scott smiled. “A drum.”

  Carefully studying the walls, David moved near Scott’s left shoulder. “How about now?”

  After a moment, Scott opened his eyes, blinking in disbelief that David was still drumming. “I can’t hear it!” he exclaimed.

  David moved again, this time to the right, maintaining the rhythm as he eyed the walls and stopped at a precise area within the chamber. “What about now?”

  Scott grabbed his ears. “It hurts.”

  “That’s low frequency sound propagating off the walls,” David spoke over the distortion. He nodded for the class to look at the acoustic monitors. The stylus arrow fluctuated around 120 dB and the frequency counter’s digital display read 10 Hz. A few students held their stomachs, sensing the vibrations.

  “The human ear can detect sounds between 20 and 16,000 Hz. What you’re feeling is subsonic noise, the interaction of sound waves from the drum and the drum’s noise reflecting off the walls. In some places, equal proportions of sound collide and create standing waves or nodes—that means you won’t hear the drum at all. In other places, resonances detach from their source and move around the chamber. The drum noise can seem like it is coming from really far away or like it’s originating inside your head. That’s amplified resonance. These are antinodes or sweet spots. Believe it or not, this drum can also be heard inside Camster Long, another passage grave 650 feet away from us, even though it can’t be heard in the open air between the two cairns.”

  David smiled. For once, his students were listening. He stopped drumming. “This is science! Acoustic architecture!”

  Scott lowered to his knees, still holding his stomach.

  “There is nothing supernatural about these ruins,” David said. “No mysticism. No space travel. Definitely no aliens.” He laughed. “Think about it. You’re at some ceremony centuries ago, inside a dark chamber with a rhythmic, pulsing beat. Put all these things together.”

  Sixteen blank stares. At least they were interested blank stares.

  “Come on,” he said. “You just witnessed how powerful sound can be. Add fifty more people and purple mushrooms.”

  “Brilliant!” the student with a nose ring shouted.

  David nodded at him. “Science just shed light on the dirty habits of a few prehistoric potheads.”

  The class erupted with applause. A few of students would leave the University of Aberdeen with an appreciation for science, even if it was based on prehistoric rock’n’roll and hallucinogens.

  Scott let out an agonizing moan. A trickle of blood fell from his nose.

  David set down the drum.

  One of the girls offered tissue from her purse, and David pressed it against Scott’s nose. “Sorry Scott. Give it some pressure,” he said.

  Scott hunched sideways and vomited on David’s shoes.

  Everyone backed away in disgust.

  David kept one hand against Scott’s nose and waved to the student with the nose ring. “Take him outside, okay? Fresh air should help.” He handed Scott the tissue and patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, man.”

  The student led Scott down the tunnel.

  David kicked vomit off his boots. He looked up at the class, surprised to see they were intently interested. Their boring American teacher was suddenly cool. A modern Indiana Jones.

  “Professor Hyden, look.” A girl pointed at the frequency counter.

  The digital readout fluctuated between 5 and 10 Hz but everyone was quiet.

  David tapped the plastic cover. The counter continued to rise and fall.

  “Must be broken,” he said. He unplugged the machine from its power source. The readout faded then disappeared.

  Some of the students tittered nervously.

  “Let’s call it a day,” David said shoving equipment into his backpack. “I’ll see everyone next Thursday at the University.” He zipped up the bag, keeping out the broken frequency counter. “Hey!” he yelled after the students. “Reread the chapter, and this time, try to actually learn something.”

  The students groaned as they shuffled one-by-one down the passageway.

  David pulled the backpack over one shoulder and looked at the frequency counter. It didn’t make sense. The reading had displayed subsonic noise after he’d stopped playing the drum. Even a residual echo couldn’t account for the measurements they saw. He reexamined the counter, unzipped the bag, plugging it back into the battery and flipping on the power switch. It was silent, but the digital readout continued to bounce at subsonic levels.

  “What the hell?” He turned the device over. The metal tag affixed to the bottom said manufactured in the U.S.S.R.

  “Thing is older than the ruins.”

  He threw everything into the bag and exited the chamber, careful not to touch the walls. Ducking under the shaft opening, he continued to his Jeep. The sun was almost set. It colored the fields a dark hazy orange. The last few students waved goodbye as they pulled out of the parking lot onto the empty highway back to Aberdeen.

  David tossed the pack into the back of his Jeep and smiled at Darwin who sat in the passenger seat.

  “Professor Hyden?” Scott’s nose bulged with tissue. The bloody cotton protruded from both nostrils and fanned over his mouth, blowing up and down as he spoke. “Are you going to Maeshowe for the weekend?” His arms were full with archeology textbooks bursting with torn scraps of paper that bookmarked hundreds of pages.

  “You feeling better?” David asked.

  Scott shrugged, still looking dizzy. “I get nosebleeds. Mum says I don’t eat enough meat, but more likely it’s due to a Vitamin K deficiency because I have an aversion to green vegetables.”

  “Who doesn’t?” David forced an uncomfortable smile. People weren’t his thing.

  “Are you going out to Maeshowe again this weekend?” Scott asked again. “I saw a documentary about Maeshowe. William Shatner narrates and they interview an archeologist from Cambridge named Dr. Brenton Hyden. Do you know him?”

  David looked down at his watch. The sun was lowering below the horizon, and he still had to catch the last ferry to the Orkney Islands.

  Scott didn’t pause. “I couldn’t help notice you both share the same surname. The other Dr. Hyden is trying to prove Maeshowe is aligned toward fixed stars and—”

  “There’re no aliens, Scott.”

  Scott looked down at his feet. “I know…I just hoped you might know if—”

  “There’s no mystical power either. It was just a bunch of ancient nomads worshipping a fictitious star god…like William Shatner.”

  Scott laughed uncomfortably as David climbed into his Jeep and started the engine.

  Dejected, Scott started toward his car, a pastel pink Robin Reliant that boasted more testosterone than its owner.

  David watched Scott in the rearview mirror. Images of his own discomfited youth came to mind. “Scott!” he called to the kid as he backed out of the parking space. “How ‘bout I take a few pictures of the more unusual petroglyphs while I’m at Maeshowe and bring you back some prints?”

  Scott’s jaw dropped. He pushed his glasses up the ridge of his nose.

  For the first time since David had known him, the kid was speechless.

  “Have a good weekend, Scott.” David waved as he pulled onto the highway. “You’ve got too much time. Find yourself a girlfri
end!”

  Scott beamed. “You too, Professor!” His face turned red. “I mean about the weekend.”

  David smiled.

  The engine accelerated with a roar. Photographs were a great idea. Hell, what if he brought back more than a few snapshots? Imagine Scott’s reaction if he came back with an Orkney Island “intergalactic” pebble? He planned to find him something.

  This was going to be a great weekend.

  Chapter 4

  FRIDAY 10:30 p.m.

  London, England

  “Your eulogy was thoughtful,” Chancellor Javan broke the silence. “I’ll never understand why Brenton favored David.” He exhaled through his nose with a tiresome grunt, then slid his dress shirt sleeve up over his elbow to scratch a single, blatant imperfection, a scar that circled his right wrist, continued up his arm, disappeared under his clothing and then reappeared glistening along his neck until it stopped at a stub of tissue that was his missing ear.

  Ian stared at the limo floor. The questions he wanted to ask about his father’s death hadn’t congealed on his tongue.

  The car turned off the highway, and the rain thickened to a cloudy drizzle, making the tinted windows glow with an abstraction of street lights. They passed Trafalgar and turned onto Parliament Square. Construction barriers lined the torn up pavement, reducing the road to a single lane.

  “Where are we going?” Ian asked. After Brenton’s internment, Javan insisted on a private meeting.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” Javan answered cryptically.

  Ian frowned. There wasn’t anyone within Javan’s inner circle he would appreciate knowing.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about,” Javan laughed with a careless staccato. His porcelain veneers looked pointy in the dim light. He turned to the driver. “All the way to the steps if you can, Dettorio.”

  They stopped for a moment beneath the large archway of Derby Gate. Motorized blockades lowered beneath the pavement, allowing the limo to trespass down the narrow, private lane. On either side of the car, majestic Italianate buildings boasted of Britain’s monarchy. Pillars and arches carved into statues of grim-faced and domineering nobles towered overhead, each capable of making the proudest of men feel insignificant.

  The limo parked along the curb. Javan exited without a word. Dettorio met him at the door with an umbrella, and the two walked to the edge of the steps overlooking St. James Park and shared a brief discussion. Dettorio came back to the car and opened the door for Ian.

  Ian reached for his cane. His hands were trembling, and he could barely grasp it.

  Why had he agreed to this?

  He felt his breast pocket for the picture sent from his father. Perhaps this was the only way to know the truth. Brenton deserved justice, and the police, even Lang, were tight-lipped about the investigation. Javan, on the other hand, was willing to talk.

  Leaning into his cane, Ian exited the car and followed the men down the steps. At the foot of the steps, they turned into an entrance that was tucked inconspicuously under the stairs. Piles of sandbags were stacked along the entrance to keep rainwater from flooding inside the subfloors of the Ministry’s Treasury.

  Ian recognized their location. “The War Rooms?”

  It was a museum, a public attraction of Churchill’s headquarters during World War II and a surprising choice for a meeting place. Protected by reinforced concrete, the claustrophobic bunker could withstand topside nuclear annihilation.

  Javan waved a clearance card over the door sensor. There was an audible click as the bolt unlocked. Dettorio held open the door.

  “After you,” Javan offered.

  Ian stepped inside, and Javan followed. They waited a moment as Dettorio locked the door and returned to the car, and then Javan turned to Ian with a sly smile. “Just this way.”

  Ian followed him down a long corridor, passing the reception counter for museum guests. Only a few shapes were discernible in the darkness. They descended a maze of corridors. Staged rooms protected by Plexiglas were filled with WWII memorabilia. Mannequins in authentic military garb were positioned into reenactments depicting what the bunker might have looked like during war era. Some models were frozen over typewriters, others sat at conference tables looking over strategic maps of Europe.

  “I need you to understand something, Ian,” Javan said, without looking back. “I’m here to help you. I know you are confused about what happened to your father, but you need to trust me.”

  Ian struggled to keep up, his body was crippled with arthritis. They entered a storage area and stopped at the center of the room. Javan met Ian’s eyes, picking his words carefully.

  “I’m certain this is what your father would want.” He ducked under the metal pipes hanging from the ceiling and crouched beside a bolted trapdoor.

  Ian followed him. “I don’t understand. Where are we going?”

  With a boyish grin, Javan pulled a skeleton key from his pocket and twisted open the lock. “It’s a bit old fashioned, but I’ve never been one for the modern world.” He lifted the trapdoor, revealing a steep staircase that ran almost perpendicular to the floor. It was a narrow chute made even more claustrophobic by the large brick walls on every side. The bottom of the stairs was lost in darkness.

  “No way,” Ian said flatly.

  Each cement step measured at most one foot across and five inches wide. Gaping holes separated each step. Making it down such a steep incline with a cane was impossible.

  The wrinkles along Javan’s pitted face softened. “I’m here to help you.”

  Ian gripped his cane. He would do it alone. He descended into darkness, his crippled legs and rickety frame a shivering wasteland of gnarled bone. Javan followed close behind, steadying Ian by the shoulders. It was an eternity of stairs. When they finally reached bottom—at least 40 feet down—there was nothing but a metal door.

  “What’s this?” Ian said, trying to regain his breath.

  Javan squeezed past him and unlocked the door. The door swung open, revealing yet another dark corridor. Pendant lights hung from wires every few strides along the concrete ceiling. Steel doors lined both sides of the hall. About a hundred feet away, four men dressed in fatigues, ballistic vests, and combat helmets stood beside a vault door with reinforced, high-security steel girders.

  Ian’s mouth turned to sandpaper.

  “Your father died trying to protect something.” Javan held firmly to Ian’s shoulders and directed him toward the vault. They faced the door. “If you want to know his killer,” he said, “you need to understand why he was murdered.”

  It took all four of the guards to release the lock and force open the hatch. Once open, three of the men stood back, clutching handguns.

  Ian cowered behind Javan. “What’s inside?”

  “This was the last man to see your father alive.” Javan nudged Ian forward. “He won’t hurt you. It’s me he wants.”

  Ian stepped hesitantly over the metal door frame. The room was pitch black. The hall light only illuminated a few feet in front of his eyes. He stretched out his arms and felt his way to the back of the cell. When he reached the end of the room, he turned around in confusion. “There’s no one—”

  Snake-like eyes peered up at him from the floor. At the opposite corner, the eyes rose up off the floor, floating slits of iridescent green. An unbearable smell hit his nose.

  “Shoot him,” Javan said from the entrance.

  An explosion of gunfire sent Ian sprawling into the wall. Bullets sliced through the air, ricocheting off mortar in a deafening roar. The ammunition met its target with a dozen split-second thuds. The eyes stopped glowing, and the dark shape slumped to the floor.

  Gun smoke clogged Ian’s lungs.

  A pale light flickered on overhead.

  Javan stepped into the room. He stopped for a moment beside the dark shape, which was nothing more than the thin, naked corpse of an old man. Annoyed by the stench, he rubbed at his nose and ran his other hand stolidly across the b
ack wall, fingering the slugs embedded in the granite.

  Ian gasped for air, disoriented and lying face down on the cement. He stared over at the corpse. Thousands of miniscule sores riddled the man’s gray, necrotic skin, glistening under fluorescent light. He had obviously been tortured. Lines of puffy and then puckered skin alternated across his body, winding around his entire frame beginning at the bottom of his neck, extending down to the wrists and stopping at his hands, and then running horizontally along the length of his torso, hips, and legs, to stop again at the ankles. Something prickly had imprinted itself upon his ashen flesh, leaving a million swollen pinholes. At every dimpled puncture, bile percolated from each wound, creating a coat of slimy excrement that dripped onto the floor. Bullet holes exposed the man’s ribs, but something was missing…

  Ian’s eyes widened with shock. “There’s no blood!”

  “Immortals do not bleed,” Javan said.

  The odor of rotting flesh overwhelmed the smell of gun smoke. It was so pungent, Ian couldn’t process what Javan said. “I don’t understand.”

  “This man chooses to bear these wounds. Pain empowers him. His sores are self-inflicted. They have allowed him to be a ruler within Abaddon for thousands of years.”

  Ian sat up too quickly. Dizzy, he propped his weak frame against the wall. This was impossible. Javan was messing with him.

  “What is damnation but to live forever with one’s sins,” Javan insisted.

  “The man is dead,” Ian said.

  As if on cue, the captive blinked. Silver capillaries pulsed beneath his translucent flesh, began awakening across his body. Ian could see the fluid moving, activating organs and limbs. The man’s fingers began to twitch. Life spread over him like some perverse resurrection without healing or renewal. This was simply the regeneration of the grotesque. The white sclera surrounding his black irises began to exude an otherworldly glow again.

  Unable to look away, Ian felt his brain disconnect from his body. He tried to blink, but he suddenly had no control. His muscles were non-responsive. There was something even more unusual about the decrepit old man, somehow he could break into Ian’s mind and control Ian’s thoughts. A flash of light burst over Ian’s vision. The cell, Javan, and the guards disappeared. There was only the captive.